moaned at the soft sweetness that diffused on her tongue. Heaven.
Her food tray had been removed that afternoon on her request when the smell of food had made her nauseous. She had refused dinner on principle—not the smartest thing, in hindsight.
She grabbed another banana and was stuffing it down the front of her shirt when a small noise came from behind one of the doors opposite her. She froze, nearly ran, but stopped herself. She needed to find a balcony, a way out.
She picked a door that was half-open, figuring she would make the least noise that way, and found herself in a large bedroom. The space was dominated by a sprawling bed, draped in black sheets, that didn’t look slept in. A handful of papers lay tossed on the nightstand, next to a book.
Then her gaze was drawn to the source of the noise she’d heard before. A bathroom off the bedroom, lights on, the water running. She was facing a full-size, gilded mirror on the bathroom wall that was angled away from her. The picture it presented made her mouth go dry and her feet freeze to the tile floor. She swallowed the chunk of fruit in her mouth with some trouble.
Karim stood in an open shower with black mosaic tile and one of those drenching, foot-wide showerheads, water sluicing down his tanned skin. He stood with his back to her, so she had an unobstructed view of the scars that ran down his back, breaking up the otherwise perfect lines of the most incredible male body she had ever seen. He had his hands up, bracing himself on the wall, his head hanging as if deep in thought, tension evident in his corded muscles.
Shadows stretched across his back. She couldn’t tell from this distance whether they were scars or some sort of tribal markings.
Another person might have looked vulnerable naked, but not the Dark Sheik. Strength radiated off him, and danger.
He reached to the side and turned off the water with one sinuous movement.
Okay, so Mr. I’m-Lord-of-All-I-Survey was sexy. Very.
She couldn’t care less. She was leaving. Now.
He wrapped a black towel around his waist then turned, his dark gaze finding hers unerringly in the mirror. He didn’t show surprise. Somehow he’d known she’d be there, staring.
How humiliating.
“Is there anything you wanted from me, Julia?” His voice was low and measured, full of innuendo and contempt.
She wanted to turn and run, but his gaze wouldn’t release her. When he strode closer, she backed away without looking where she was going, hoping she was backing out the door. Instead, in a few steps, her back bumped against the wall.
He was a short foot from her, looming dangerous in the semidarkness of the room, his wide shoulders outlined in the light that came from the bathroom. Drops of water glistened on his dark skin. He smelled like soap and sandalwood. He was the most erotic and intimidating sight she’d ever seen.
“Looking for a substitute sheik for your plan?” He put his right hand to the wall next to her head. His hand being higher than his shoulder, droplets of water ran backward, along his carved granite biceps.
Her heart jumped to her throat. He thought she’d come here to seduce him. She moved the other way, but that arm came down, too, and boxed her in. She didn’t feel panicked as much as mesmerized. Blinked her eyes. Snap out of it. How dare he?
“Don’t touch me.” She shoved with her free hand, indignation giving her strength. She tried not to notice the hard muscles of his warm—and still wet—chest under her fingers. Her limbs were shaky. From exhaustion, no doubt. She was likely still jet-lagged, too.
He didn’t budge a millimeter, but a dark eyebrow slid up his forehead. “Changed your mind? Scare you, do I?”
Maybe. Okay, more so with every passing moment. He was large and powerful and utterly overwhelming after a hellish day. She was well aware that he could kill her, and with his title and station in the country, there probably wouldn’t even be a questioning.
Tears threatened to fill her eyes. She gritted her teeth and held them back. This was not the time for a hormonal moment. “Go to hell.” She lifted her head and stuck her chin out. “You want to intimidate me? Congratulations, you succeeded. That’s what turns people like you on, isn’t it? Scared women.”
A muscle jumped in his face, just beneath the four-inch scar on the right side that started above the eye socket and ran straight down. And then she realized the eye didn’t move along with the other one. He was blind on that side. Not that his left eye wasn’t lethal enough on its own.
He took his time to look her over from her bare feet to the top of her head, returning to linger on her breasts, which had grown already during the pregnancy and were stupidly sensitive to smoldering looks from half-naked men. More misery to blame on hormones.
“The same things turn me on as any other healthy man, I suppose,” he said, his voice a notch lower than before.
The space between them was insanely small. Without warning, the adrenaline that had been pumping through her already was metamorphosing into primal heat, making her fingertips tingle.
He had masculine lips, what some old-fashioned novels might have defined as cruel. Heathcliff lips. Incredibly sexy. She got a little woozy from looking at them this close.
The sharp sense of desire was insane, but perhaps understandable, considering that her body was hormonally unbalanced and out of her control.
His voice was a soft whisper when he spoke. “Why are you here, Julia? Why are you in my bedroom in the middle of the night?” He lowered his head as if wanting to carefully listen to her response.
If he came any closer, he was going to feel the banana she’d hid down the front of her shirt.
Her pulse sped, and not just from the danger of being discovered as a fruit thief. “Looking for a glass of water,” she croaked out with effort. Her mouth did feel extraordinarily dry. She looked into his good eye.
His Heathcliff mouth tightened, but he didn’t back away an inch. “Excuses?” He examined her. “Interesting. You’re bold enough to come to me like this, yet you feel the need to come up with a pretext for seeking my bed.”
Outrage quickly overcame awakening desire. Of all the conceited—“You know what I’m doing?” she asked sharply, and ducked to the right from the circle of his arms. “I was trying to get out of this stupid place. You have no right to keep me here. This is kidnapping.” She darted toward the door.
If she thought the lack of sight in the right eye was a weakness, she was quickly disabused of the notion. He caught her easily.
“You will stay for as long as I see necessary,” he said. “If I catch you trying to run—I’ve given you some freedom, Julia. Freedom that can be taken away.”
What freedom? Her room? Meaning he could be keeping her closer to him? How close? His bed sprawled imposingly in her peripheral vision. She didn’t want to know. Or maybe he’d meant he had some dungeons in the basement. That would be more likely. Nothing would have surprised her at this point.
Fear spiked her pulse. “I was wrong,” she told him with all the contempt she felt. “You are nothing like your brother.”
“And
