that I haven’t paid you more attention.”
She laughed out loud even as she blushed. “I don’t even know you! The idea that I could need you—depend on you—is amusing, but untrue.”
“You speak boldly for a twenty-three-year-old girl.”
“Woman.” Her body crackled with tension and it was all she could do to keep her seat. “I’m a woman, and I’ve grown up with men like you, Sheikh Nuri. Unlike the models and actresses you meet, I don’t need your wealth, your notoriety, or your connections.”
“My mistress has a sharp tongue tonight.”
Her face flamed hotter, her fingers curled around the edge of her chair seat. “I’m not really your mistress. We both know that.”
Kalen’s eyebrows furrowed. He shot a curious glance around the elegant dining room fragrant with the centerpiece of white orchids and lilies. “Am I missing something, laeela? Are you not here, in my home? Are you not taken care of—every need and wish accommodated? Have I not offered you my complete protection?”
She went hot and cold, his word, the endearment laeela, once again burning her from the inside out. Laeela was such an intimate endearment from a Barakan man and Kalen wasn’t the sort of man to flirt lightly. He was serious.
Sheikh Nuri lazily watched Keira who sat tall and rigid across the table from him. Her long dark hair had been pinned back and her cheeks, so ashen last night, glowed hot-pink now.
A high-strung filly, he thought, she was young, sensitive, nervous.
He took a sip from his wine goblet, the robust red filling his mouth, warming his taste buds.
Keira merely fidgeted with her wine. She’d barely touched it.
He should touch her.
He studied her flushed face. Last night she’d been pale like porcelain, a creamy alabaster, but tonight she burned. She glowed. Her dark blue eyes shone, her cheeks flushed a hot feverish pink.
She needed a firm hand. She could use a calming hand.
How convenient. He had two.
“You don’t have to be afraid,” he said, speaking almost gently, reassuringly. “I will always treat you well.”
“I’m not afraid,” she answered tersely, and yet when she looked up at him she was all wide blue eyes and apprehension.
No, he thought, she wasn’t afraid. She was terrified.
She knew what could happen. She knew just as he did that the tension between them wasn’t the usual garden variety of interest. What simmered between them was deep, intense, a heat and interest dating back years…back to when she was just a schoolgirl.
“And you don’t have to worry about me,” she added, her voice strained, rough. She reached up to push away an inky tendril that had slipped free. “I’m fine.”
“Hamdullah,” he answered. Thanks be to God.
Tears scratched at Keira’s throat, the back of her eyes. Until yesterday she hadn’t thought she’d ever see him again and yet here she was, a day later, in his home, in his care. It was incredible, impossible, unfathomable. Just looking at him made everything collide and explode inside her, emotions hot and sharp like New Year’s fireworks.
Hamdullah. The word echoed in her head and she hurt. No one else made her feel so tense, so nervous, so desperate for more. No one else made her want to throw herself into a river of ice water. No one else…
Hamdullah.
“And you?” she asked formally, continuing the ritual greetings. “How are you?”
“Very well, Miss al-Issidri. Thank you.”
“But it’s Gordon, Sheikh Nuri, not al-Issidri. I’ve never used my father’s name.”
“You did until you were seven.”
“How did you know that?”
“I know things that would surprise even you.”
She regarded him warily. His eyes were gold, so gold, warmer than she remembered. There was so much about him familiar and even more that wasn’t. Was it age? Time? Experience?
Again she glanced at him, a surreptitious glance beneath heavy lashes, seeing again the broad forehead, his long, strong nose, the very square chin which had fascinated her endlessly as a teenager.
Was it possible she’d fallen in love with an image—a face—and not the man?
“Breathe,” he said, his gaze never leaving her face.
“I am.” But her voice came out too high and thin and she couldn’t look at him anymore.
He leaned across the table, an arm extending toward her, his right hand up, palm open. “Give me your hand.”
She looked at his hand, the broad palm, the skin lighter than the back of his hand, deep lines etched into the skin and she flashed back to last night, the way he’d touched her on her front porch. Kalen’s touch had been like an electrical storm. So hot and bright and fierce. He’d made her feel. And she’d felt absolutely everything.
“Your hand,” he repeated softly, commandingly.
She gave her head a half-shake. “Never.”
Her gaze slowly traveled up, from the crisp white collar of his shirt, over his bronze columned throat, past his full firm lips to his eyes which looked at her with mockery, challenge, even disdain. Pointedly she held his gaze. “You’re not safe.”
For a split second he remained expressionless and then his lips curved. His eyes creased. “That just might be the most intelligent thing I’ve heard you say.”
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