Читать книгу At The Sheikh's Command - Kate Walker - Страница 8

THE huge gilt clock in the foyer of the Europa hotel was striking the half hour as Abbie made her way to the reception desk.

She was exactly half an hour late—deliberately so. She had fully intended that Malik should have to wait for her. Or at least she had once she had finally decided that she was coming here tonight. Because the confidence of that first decision hadn’t lasted. She had barely got inside the house, closing the kitchen door and leaning back against it, before the doubts had assailed her.

How could she have ever been so stupid? she had asked herself. What was she thinking of, planning to go to him—to take him up on his invitation?

His invitation to seduction.

No, it hadn’t been an invitation. It was an order—a command from a man used to giving commands to everyone every day. Giving them and having people jump to obey them as soon as he spoke. He probably didn’t even have to ask most of the time, just click his fingers and he would be obeyed.

And was she going to jump to do his bidding too?

Not on her life!

No, she told herself as she made her way through to the hall again. His Royal High and Mightiness the Arrogant Sheikh Malik bin Rashid Al’Qaim could snap his fingers all he liked. She wasn’t going to be at his beck and call just because…

Just because he was the most devastatingly attractive, the most shockingly sexy man she had ever met in her life.

Her footsteps slowed, turned, drawn by some invisible force, some powerful magnetism, taking her towards the library in spite of the resistance she tried to impose on them. The door was tightly shut, the sounds of the voices inside the room muffled, their words impossible to make out. But she knew when Malik was speaking She had only heard a few hundred words from that erotic voice but already it seemed to be imprinted on her mind so that she recognised it instantly.

And wanted to hear it again.

And again.

She wanted to hear it tell her to call him ‘Just Malik’. To hear him say that she was beautiful, that he wanted her… She wanted to hear that glorious voice whisper to her in the darkness, giving her words of love, of caring, of hunger.

Tonight. Come to me tonight…and we can finish what we started.

Oh, dear God, she just wanted to listen to that voice all night—every night—for the rest of her life.

But was that enough to base her future on? Surely she was totally unwise—crazy!—to go to him.

But, oh! How she wanted to.

‘Can I help you, madam?’

The receptionist’s question broke into her thoughts and dragged her back to the present. To the moment she had been worrying about from the point she had set out on this wild assignation.

‘Come to me,’ Malik had said, and he’d told her the name of the hotel, but he hadn’t given her any further information than that. She had never visited someone so important, someone royal before. Surely there would be security checks at the very least.

‘My name is Abbie…’ she began hesitantly and was intensely relieved to see the woman’s face break into a smile.

‘Of course. We are expecting you. Would you please come this way?’

A few moments later, whizzing upwards in the express lift that went only to Malik’s suite, Abbie couldn’t believe how easy it had been. She had merely given her name and everyone had jumped into action, informing the penthouse suite that she was here, checking her identity, escorting her to the lift. There she had been handed over to the care of a tall, dark and deeply polite security guard who now stood, strong legs planted firmly on the floor, deep-set eyes alert and watchful, on the opposite side of the lift.

Just at that moment it slowed to a halt and the doors slid open silently. Her companion gave a small bow.

‘After you, madam,’ he said as he stood back to allow her to precede him.

This must be what it was like all the time if you were a sheikh, Abbie reflected as she stepped out on to thick, soft pile carpeting in a rich royal blue. To have people whose only job was to follow your instructions, to do as they were told, to do as you asked. Once again Sheikh Malik had snapped his fingers and everyone had jumped to do his bidding.

If she had been nervous before, then now her stomach felt as if a million desperate butterflies were beating frantic wings against her ribcage, sending waves of unease up into her throat. She struggled for breath as she headed into the small foyer where a smooth, pale wooden door barred her way. Another security guard stood beside it, firmly at attention, arms by his sides, the smooth fitting of his tailored jacket very slightly marred by an ominous-looking bulge at his waistband.

Abbie swallowed hard at just the thought of being this close to a gun, forcing herself to smile nervously into the guard’s dark, set face. But her attempt at a polite greeting was ignored as, with another of those small, stiff bows, he reached to open the door and hold it for her.

‘Th-thank you!’

Her legs seeming to have only the strength of cotton wool, Abbie stumbled into the room, her personal security guard following close behind her. From behind, she heard the man say something in Arabic, obviously announcing her. As she blinked to clear eyes that had blurred with tension, she saw Malik’s tall, elegant figure uncoil smoothly from the soft black leather-covered settee set in the middle of the huge luxurious room.

‘You came!’ he said, the impact of that rich honeyed voice hitting her senses hard all over again. ‘Welcome!’

Had he really questioned that she would appear? Privately, Abbie took the liberty of doubting that he had thought any such thing. Men like Malik never even considered that there was any likelihood that they would not be obeyed, and obeyed without question.

But then she remembered the stunning news that her father had given her over dinner. The news that had totally changed her mind when it had been set against coming here at all.

She had decided that she was going to be sensible. That she couldn’t take the risk of doing as Malik had asked, no matter how much her foolish heart had pleaded with her. And then her father had said that he had something to discuss with her.

‘It’s Andy, isn’t it?’ she’d said apprehensively, seeing the way his face was set into lines of strain, his blue eyes shadowed with concern.

‘The Sheikh has told you something—what has he said? Will they let him go?’

‘There is a chance,’ James Cavanaugh had responded. ‘But it’s going to be difficult.’

‘However difficult it is, you have to do it!’ Abbie had declared. ‘You have to. You can’t leave him there in that jail, locked up for…’

Her words had faltered nervously, dying on her lips as her father shook his head, his expression sombre.

‘Why are you looking at me like that?’ she’d asked. ‘What does he want? What is it you’re not saying?’

‘It isn’t a question of my doing something,’ her father had told her solemnly. ‘The only person who can help your brother is you. You’re the one who has it in your power to help him, but I don’t know if you can possibly agree to what’s been asked…’

‘Come and sit down…’

Malik was moving towards her, his hand outstretched. Without even really knowing that she was doing it, Abbie pushed her own hands into the pockets of the blue-and-white dress she wore, putting them securely out of reach. If he was to touch her, she didn’t know what her reaction would be. Just being in the room with him was bad enough.

She had told herself that she hadn’t been thinking straight. That she had been so desperately on edge all day—all week!—worrying about her brother, fearful of the moment that the all-powerful sheikh would arrive, dreading the thought of the demands he might make to free Andy. She must have exaggerated the stunning impact this man had had on her.

She had to have exaggerated it. No man could have launched such an assault on her senses, driven her so out of her mind that it had left her shaking with reaction long after she had left him.

But Malik had. And she hadn’t overstated a thing! Even now, when he was still several metres away from her, she could feel her senses start to react, like a flower unfurling in the sun, turning towards the heat and the light, drawn irresistibly to what it needed most.

Her heartbeat had already quickened and her pulse was throbbing. The clean masculine scent of his body was in her nostrils, making her quiver in response.

At some point he had changed his clothes and now here, in the privacy of this huge suite, he was surprisingly casually dressed in jeans and a clinging T-shirt, black as his hair and eyes. And seeing him like that seemed to dispel the thought that he was a sheikh, a prince, the ruler of his desert country. Instead he was just a man. A devastatingly attractive man. An incredibly, hotly sexy man.

And a man who had made it plain how much he wanted her.

‘Abbie?’

He had reached her side and his hand touching her shoulder to draw her attention startled her into new awareness. The heat of his hand seemed to burn through the material of her dress, scorching the skin beneath so much that she didn’t know whether she most wanted to lean into it or pull away sharply.

Hot colour flared in her cheeks and she swallowed hard to relieve the uncomfortable pressure in her throat.

‘Thank you…’

There was a sense of release in walking away from him. Release from the heated tension that had tightened every muscle, release from the stinging sensitivity to everything about him. But as soon as she moved she knew that she wanted it back again, longed for him to come close once more.

It wasn’t easy; it wasn’t comfortable. It didn’t feel safe or relaxing. The truth was that it knotted her nerves tight with tension and uncertainty. It made her stomach twist just to think of it—but at the same time it was thrilling and exciting. It was the most wonderful thing that had happened to her. It brought her alive in a fizzing, crackling way. So alive that it was as if she had only been sleepwalking through her life before.

And on top of that it made her feel so completely, gloriously feminine. She had never felt so much of a woman as she had in the few short hours she had known this man and he had made his desire for her so obvious.

And more than his desire, if what her father had told her was right.

‘Can I get you a drink?’

Malik stood beside her as she sank down into the soft comfort of the leather-covered settee, his height and strength so much more imposing from this lower position.

‘Please…’

She had to find some way of speaking in more than monosyllables! Abbie reproved herself. But simply being in this man’s presence seemed to have tied her tongue into knots and scrambled her brain so that she couldn’t think straight.

‘Wine? Or mineral water—or something stronger?’

‘Mineral water, please.’

She would do well to keep a clear head and not muddle her thoughts even further with alcohol.

Or perhaps some alcohol would relax her.

‘No—wine, please—red. Anything, really. I don’t mind. Whatever you’ve got will be fine.’

Well, at least she was talking in sentences of a sort, but now there was the risk of her tongue running away with her. Clamping her lips shut, Abbie tried again for control, only to find that any hope of it eluded her as she saw the small, almost unconscious hand gesture that Malik made, the automatic inclination of his head towards a dresser on which a selection of bottles and glasses stood.

And the immediate move into action that was the result.

She had barely even noticed the man who had been standing at the far side of the room. He had been so still and silent that he had almost blended in with his surroundings, his navy blue shirt and jacket toning with the dark velvet of the ceiling to floor curtains. But now he moved forward, a result of Malik’s brief, almost imperceptible summons.

Silent and smooth, he moved to the tray of drinks, opening bottles and pouring without another word needing to be said, then handing them to his prince with a bow.

This was what it would be like all day every day for Malik, Abbie thought on a wave of shock. This was what he was used to, what was normal to him. He was accustomed to be waited on hand and foot, his slightest whim attended to, almost before he had even realised it.

And this would be her life too if…

No, she couldn’t think of that now! It would destroy the little composure she had managed to gather together.

But of course it was totally impossible that she could not think of it! It was all that had been spinning round and round in her thoughts ever since the moment that her father had told her the conditions that had been offered to enable Andy’s release.

‘The Sheikh of Barakhara needs a wife. He has chosen you to be that wife. If you say yes, then he will drop all charges against Andy and free him as soon as it can possibly be managed.’

Her father had believed that she couldn’t possibly agree to the demands he was making. He had assumed that she would refuse to have anything to do with the idea. That she would declare she would rather die or face prison herself. But then, of course, her father had no idea that she had ever met the Sheikh—met Malik in person.

And he had definitely no suspicion at all of the effect that Malik had had on her.

Something had happened in the time they had been apart, Malik told himself as he took the two glasses—one of wine and one of water—from Ahmed and carried them over to the coffee table before which Abbie was sitting. She had changed—or at least her mood was very different from the sparky, vibrant young woman he had met earlier that day.

There was a stiffness about the way that she held herself, a wariness in those enormous eyes and she looked as skittish as one of his thoroughbred Arabian mares, as if she might turn and run from him at the slightest suggestion of anything that might spook her. As he put the glasses down her eyes flicked up to his face, very quickly, and then away again, twice as fast. And her ‘Thank you,’ was so faint as to be almost inaudible.

Well, he knew how to handle an uncertain woman. He was almost as much of an expert in it as he was in soothing a nervous horse. It needed patience, consideration, but the end result was worth it. He would get what he wanted in the end.

And what he wanted out of Abbie was a long night’s pleasure. She was to be his relaxation after a day from hell. From the way that she had responded to him earlier, he had anticipated that it would be a lot easier than it now seemed likely. But he could wait. He had all night.

But first he needed to work on the atmosphere a little—make things easier, more comfortable for both of them.

‘Leave us.’

A wave of his hand gestured towards the door, indicating that Ahmed and the security guard should leave. Abbie would relax much more if they were alone. The bodyguard would have to remain at the door but at least they would be spared his inhibiting presence in the room.