At The Sheikh's Command. Kate Walker

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СКАЧАТЬ he was going to have to work harder at winning her over than he had ever thought.

      The unwanted and uncomfortable thought suddenly hit him that if she knew the son—this Andy—so well, then maybe she was close to the daughter as well.

      That was a complication he could do without. He had seen no sign yet of the Gail that Jalil had talked about, but if she and this girl were friends…

      ‘No—he didn’t tell me,’ she managed now, stumbling over the words faintly and a raw colour washed those pale cheeks, betraying her embarrassment…

      And making her look damnably sexy. It might be mortification that had put the blush on her skin but it made her look as if she had just got out of bed after a long, passionate session of sexual indulgence. It might have been the way that she had bitten down hard on her lower lip that had made it so pink, with all the blood rushing to the surface, but in his mind he knew that her mouth would look like that when she had been kissed senseless, taken to ecstasy and beyond.

      ‘What’s your name?’ he demanded suddenly, his voice rough with the effort of trying to distract himself from the heated blood that seemed to be pooling low in his body, hardening and tightening so that it was a struggle to think straight—to think at all.

      ‘I’m Abbie,’ she told him, looking a little startled that he should ask.

      Not Gail, Malik thought on a rush of relief. Just for one uncomfortable moment he had wondered…

      ‘And what should I call you?’

      She’d pulled back some of her confidence now, some of the strength there had been in her in the moment of her arrival in the room. There was a definite edge of sarcasm to her tone on the question. One that tugged a smile at the corner of his mouth, one that was impossible to hold back.

      ‘You can call me Malik.’

      ‘Malik…’ Abbie’s tongue curled around the exotic sound of the word as if she were tasting it.

      It sounded rich and exotic, strong and firm—just right. Just like him.

      ‘Is that all?’

      Her voice was softly husky, dragged from a throat that was too dry, too tight, to speak naturally. She swallowed hard and slicked a moist pink tongue over suddenly parched lips, watching his black gaze drop just for a moment to follow the tiny revealing gesture. And when his eyes lifted again, burning straight into hers, she knew that she was lost. She had fallen into sensual slavery without knowing why or how it had happened. But she was in and tumbling head over heels into an endless chasm of awareness, one from which she already knew she had no hope of escape.

      Not that she wanted to. That smile had rocked her world. It had only been a small curl at the corners of his sexy mouth but it had made her shiver in instant reaction, heated pinpricks of awareness tormenting her sensitised skin.

      ‘Shouldn’t I add something else?’

      Her question brought those brilliant eyes swiftly back up to her face, locking with her own bemused gaze, holding it fixed.

      ‘Add something?’ he asked, the musical sound of his voice coiling round her senses like warmed silk. ‘Like what?’

      Like what? Abbie asked herself, scrabbling through the disorder of her thoughts, trying to find the original track they had been running on, the one she had meant them to follow.

      ‘Like—like sir,’ she managed hesitatingly.

      He was a sheikh, wasn’t he? A ruler. Of the royal house of Al’Qaim. Surely he must have some official title that she had to use.

      ‘Or—or Your Majesty—or…Highness—’

      The words broke off, her voice cracking as he moved suddenly, coming so very close. In spite of the heat, she found that she was once again shivering as if a cold draught had blown over her skin.

      Having looked into the dark depths of his eyes, she found she couldn’t look away again but was held frozen, mesmerised, captive. She couldn’t have moved away if she’d tried. But she didn’t try—couldn’t try—didn’t want to try.

      Instead she knew that the saving grace of all that anger was deserting her, evaporating in the warmth of that smile. And when she saw the faint golden glow of amusement that lit those amazing eyes then she was lost. All the resistance in her melted like ice before a fire.

      ‘Just Malik…’ he murmured. Somehow he had moved closer so that the heat of his breath on the words brushed along her cheek, stirring a tendril of hair at the lobe of her ear.

      She inhaled deeply, breathing in the scent of him, the warm musk of his skin, and let her breath out again on a sigh.

      ‘Malik…’ she said softly, her tongue savouring the exotic sound of his name. The frantic beat of her heart had slowed, become heavy, indolently sensual, and the honeyed warmth of arousal was uncoiling low down in her body, all that was most feminine in her reaching out to all that was masculine in him.

      ‘Malik…’ she said again, wanting to say so much more but not having the courage to do so.

      Touch me! she wanted to say. Let me feel the heat of your skin on mine, the strength of your hand, the stroke of your caress…

      But the words died on her lips; she couldn’t make her tongue form the words even though she felt as if they were screaming inside her head. She had never felt this way before in her life.

      No—the truth was that she had never known that it was possible to feel this way. To know this hunger, this desire for a man she had only just met. A man who made her heart thud, her pulse race, who made her aware of him in every part of her body so that her breasts stung and heat pooled in the most intimate spot between her thighs.

      She’d had boyfriends in the past, but no one—no one—had ever affected her like this.

      ‘You’re beautiful…’

      Malik moved slightly, coming even nearer, and once again the scent of his skin, the faintest hint of the perfume of cedar wood, reached out to surround her, tormenting her senses. She couldn’t take it any more. Couldn’t bear just to stand here and know he was so close—and yet not close enough.

      She had to touch.

      Throwing caution to the wind and giving in to the primal need that made her skin burn, her bones ache with need, she reached out a hand at last…

      And encountered his hand reaching for her at the same time.

      Their fingers met, touched, and it seemed to Abbie that sparks flew in the air, fizzing between them like fireworks. But then those long bronzed fingers tangled with hers, twisting together, holding tightly, drawing her closer to him with an irresistible strength. Abbie knew she had to give in to the need that swamped her, dark waves of sensuality breaking over her head as she almost fell against him and his mouth came down to claim hers.

      The kiss that Malik had been imagining since the moment he had first seen her was far more in reality than it had ever been in his mind. The soft feel of Abbie’s lips against his own was like setting a match to the tinderdry brushwood of the hunger that was just waiting to burst into flames, flaring savagely through the whole of his body, making СКАЧАТЬ