Sheik's Revenge Read online

  “Damn you,” she said. “I don’t want to talk about my family, my past, and you keep hammering me and telling me that you’re doing whatever it is you’re doing because you have this blood honor and you love your family, and you love children, but you—”

  He silenced her with a kiss.

  She stiffened for a moment, then softened under him.

  Omair felt a rush of warmth go through his body as she opened her mouth hungrily to him. He could feel the dampness of her tears, taste the salt of them on her lips, feel the desperation in her body. Kissing her, he edged her back into the cave.

  Her hand moved up his torso, touching his bandage. Then she stilled suddenly, stepping back. Her eyes were luminous, her lips plumped with his kiss, her nose pink and her breathing was fast and light.

  She stared at him for several long beats, something strange entering her eyes—a hollowness, a yearning, an edginess. It simmered into the air between them.

  “I was an army brat,” she said quietly. “I was born on a base, christened on a base, and we moved from base to base for my entire childhood. It wasn’t easy to make friends.” She paused, rubbed her face. “You’re right, my father was military. He was a decorated war hero. But he also suffered from PTSD, for which he never sought help. Instead he turned to alcohol and he abused my mother.” Her jaw hardened. “And she let him do it. She let him hurt me, too.”

  The sudden aggression in her voice was laced with pain and frustration and it tore at Omair’s heart.

  “And then my mother just gave up and died. She took a handful of pills on my twelfth birthday, of all days, right after she’d given me my first ever bouquet of flowers. White roses.” Her voice went thick. “Those white flowers you left on my pillow…” She shook her head as she struggled to tamp emotion down. “They just took me right back. You have no idea.”

  “Faith—” He reached for her, but she held up her hand.

  “I need to tell you now. I need to get it out. I blame my father for my mother’s death. He killed her, and she allowed it to happen. He stole any hope I’d ever had of a childhood, and she allowed that to happen, too. I hate them both for it. I…I vowed never to be weak like my mother, to never let a man get the better of me. I ran away after she died.” Faith shrugged. And Omair sensed she’d been trying to shrug this off her entire life. But it was a part of her—it had shaped her into the woman she’d become.

  “Long story short, when I was eighteen I joined the U.S. Army where I found a family of sorts, people who respected me for my skill. I excelled as a sniper. I was better than the men.” She smiled wryly. “Then I went private.”

  His body tensed—he’d been right. She’d been with the American military.

  “Why private?” he said.

  “I…I wanted to travel.” And Omair knew instantly she was lying now. He could hear it in her voice, read it in her eyes. This last bit didn’t fit, but he let it go, for now, because the rest was brutally honest and he could see her struggling to tell it.

  “I never took a job I didn’t believe in, Omair,” she added. Then she swallowed. “I believed my Algiers assignment was right, too.”

  His gut tightened at her use of his real name. It made this thing blossoming between them feel real and it sent a heady rush through his body.

  “I honestly thought you were Faroud bin Ali.” She moistened her lips. “And when you put doubt in my mind, I could no longer follow through, even when I had the chance.”

  He knew this was true, or he’d be dead right now. He reached out, drew her toward him, and she didn’t resist. Instead she leaned into him. Heat pooled low in his belly.

  “I’m so sorry, Faith,” he whispered into her hair, inhaling her scent. “To hear this about your past, your family, is painful when I have something so rich with mine. I cannot imagine not having that bond.”

  She closed her eyes as his hand moved down her back.

  “My name is Faith Sinclair,” she murmured quietly against his torso. “I can’t see much harm in telling you that now.”

  Omair stilled inside, his pulse quickening.

  “My father was Colonel Russ Sinclair. He died two years ago from alcohol poisoning. My mother’s name was Melissa. You can check it out.”

  She pulled her robe up over her head and began unbuttoning her shirt, her eyes dark and mysterious, her lids heavy.

  Omair’s heart began to thud.

  She slid her shirt off her shoulders, reached behind her back and undid her sports bra. She let it drop to the cave floor as her breasts swelled free, rose-colored nipples tight with lust. She seated herself on a rock, and unlaced her boots, then she took her off her pants. She stood, naked, in front of him, the sandstorm screaming outside. Inside the cave the air felt hotter, thicker. She came toward him, her breasts rounded, her nipples pointing at him.

  Omair felt his head spin as all his blood headed south.

  She crouched down in front of him, unlaced his boots.

  “Sit,” she said.

  He did, and she removed his boots. She reached for his pants zipper, undid it and slid her hands inside, moaning softly with pleasure as she found him hard and ready. She helped him remove his pants, and without preamble, she straddled him, lowering herself ever so slowly down onto his erection, her eyes holding his.

  A groan began to build low inside his chest as he felt her sliding onto him like a tight, hot, glove.

  She pressed her breasts against his naked torso and began to move her hips.

  He clamped his good hand on her butt. “Wait,” he managed to say. “You haven’t asked me for my last name, now that you’ve told me yours.”

  But she pressed her mouth against his, rocking her hips rhythmically against his. “I don’t want to know,” she murmured against his lips. “I don’t want you to give me any reason to change my mind.”

  Chapter 10

  A quiver of unease shot through Omair at her words, but it was shut out by the sensation of her smooth, firm inner thighs rubbing against his skin, the feeling of her buttocks working against his groin, her body going slick with perspiration.

  Visions of their night in Tagua swirled through his mind as he yanked her naked body closer with his good arm. He took one of her nipples in his mouth, his tongue flicking, teeth scoring.

  She groaned in pleasure, her hands going around the back of his head, her fingers sinking into his hair as she arched against him.

  Faith wanted to exist only in the moment, to think about nothing else but this—no past, no future. She fisted her hands in his hair, opening her legs wider as she sank deeper onto him, her vision spiraling as she rocked against him. His range of movement was

  limited because of his arm, and her lust was fueled by a sense of control.

  She needed control. And she didn’t want to know who this man was, or where he came from. Because as soon as the storm cleared, she was going to take a camel and head straight for Morocco. Once she crossed that border she was going to disappear into the fabric of Africa.

  It was an easy continent to hide in, compared to others. She could work her way south, toward Angola, Botswana, maybe Namibia or South Africa, as far as she could possibly get from STRIKE’s last location on her.

  And the sense of promise that came with the idea was exhilarating. She threw back her head and bucked harder against him, her movements turning aggressive, her skin going slick against his, and a scream began to build inside her chest as the storm raged outside.

  He grabbed the back of her head, bringing her mouth back down to his, his tongue entering, tangling with hers. Every nerve in her body began to tingle, and her vision turned scarlet.

  He murmured in Arabic against her mouth, but though she couldn’t catch the words, the seductive sound made her move more urgently, the friction driving her wilder. His hand clamped suddenly to her hip, stopping her.

  Faith stilled, and looked into his eyes. His features were etched with aggressive lust, his eyes black and dangerous. Perspiration gle
amed on his muscular torso.

  “Don’t…move,” he whispered.

  A slow smile curved her lips and she thrust her hips into him.

  He dug his fingers into her buttocks, attempting to restrict her movement. “Don’t…”

  Omair was breathing hard, inside her to the hilt and she had all the control, and he wasn’t ready to come, not until he’d made sure she had. Call him too alpha. Call him power hungry, domineering…call it yet another battle of wills.

  She tried to thrust against him again, a wicked smile curving her lips, her eyelids swollen with lust. He could feel her inner muscles quivering against his arousal. His throat closed, his vision blurred and Omair clenched his jaw against the exquisite sensation, aroused to a point it was almost painful to hold back, and he wanted that delicious, painful sensation to last. He wanted to be with her, inside her, longer.

  “Don’t. Move,” he growled again.

  She did, a hard, fast kick of her hips, a salvo in sexual battle. And she laughed huskily as he bucked up into her. But he caught her off guard as he grabbed her shoulder and rolled them both down to the floor of the cave. Omair was careful to land on his good side, pinning her down under him. He heard her suck in her breath as she landed, and in a mock wrestle she opened her legs wider and aggressively clamped her ankles around his lower back, thrusting her hips upward as she did.

  He drove down hard into her, pinning her arms up above her head, his good hand holding both her wrists. Memories of Tagua raced through his mind like a disjointed slide show—the way she’d moved in her red dress, the sounds of the jungle outside, the man with snakeskin shoes entering the cantina, the feel of pleasure when he’d realized she was wearing a G-string under that tight red dress, the sensation of her riding naked on top of him, her breasts bouncing…her

  crying out, head thrown back, as she’d climaxed. It drove him harder, wilder.

  And as he thrust into her again she suddenly went still, then cried out, digging her nails into his back, arching her pelvis into him as muscular contractions ripped one after the other in waves through her body. Omair couldn’t hold back a second longer. With a powerful, final thrust, he released inside her. She held him tightly as waves of pleasure swept through his body and mind.

  Barely able to breathe, he collapsed onto her in hot, sated bliss, rolling carefully onto his good side. She kept her legs wrapped around him as he softened slowly inside her, and even when he had, she kept holding on to him, her breathing going slow and regular.

  “Are the rocks cutting into your back?” he asked, his voice thick and husky.

  She smiled slowly, and glanced up at him with eyes that looked like a lioness’s. “No pain, no gain,” she whispered as she gave a mocking little thrust of her pelvis, and Omair felt himself stir again as an aftershock rippled softly through her muscles.

  “Your shoulder okay?” she whispered, touching him gently, and the care he saw in her eyes cracked his heart. He couldn’t let this woman go. Not now.

  He knew her in a way others could not—he’d seen with his own eyes out in this desert what grit she was made of. And he believed he understood what drove her now. In an abstract way he could also understand her loyalty to the identity of her employers—he had to respect that even as he wanted the information.

  Faith was his equal in so many ways, his opposite in so many others, and suddenly Omair could see a life ahead with her in it. Faith was a woman who would understand his mission in life, and possibly even support him in it.

  Which was absurd.

  Because she didn’t know him. And she might not care for the plight of his country at all.

  A small coil of fear began to unfurl inside him—when had he actually started to want her in this way? What would she say when he told her who he really was?

  “My shoulder is fine,” he said, quietly. “Sex is a most excellent painkiller.”

  She laughed, and it warmed his heart.

  Tracing the backs of his fingertips along the swell of her breast, the valley of her waist, the rise of her hip, he said, “When was the last time you had a man in your life, Faith?”

  Something about her seemed to still.

  “Is this your way of asking if I do long-term relationships?”

  Omair swallowed. “No,” he said quietly. “I’m just curious.”

  She untangled her legs from him suddenly and edged up onto her elbow, the movement pushing her breasts together, deepening her cleavage. He felt himself stir yet again, and he inhaled deeply.

  “What about you, Omair? Strictly a one-night stand kind of guy, given your marriage to your mission—your ‘warrior duty’?”

  There was a sudden edginess, almost a bitterness to her voice now, and caution whispered through Omair.

  “It’s by necessity,” he said calmly. “But this time… You’re different, Faith. I’d like to get to know you better, much better.”

  She rolled onto her back, and stared in sullen silence up at the black cave roof.

  Omair’s heart sank and he cursed inwardly. He’d pushed her into a corner, and she’d shut down. He could literally feel her slipping from his grasp. He lay silently by her side in the saunalike darkness, listening to the weather, his eyes closed.

  They stayed like that as the hours passed into night, and started ticking toward dawn. Neither slept.

  When he heard the wind begin to die and saw the light was changing, he said finally, “Do you think that helicopter went down?”

  “I think I hit it where it counted,” she replied crisply. “It might have limped along for a few klicks and gone down in the next valley.” She sat up suddenly, reached for her sports bra, began putting it on, her mouth tight again.

  “What is it, Faith?” he said.

  Faith felt her throat tighten. His voice was so sensual, so caring, his black eyes so liquid beneath those long dark lashes. She couldn’t bear to look at him. She was powerless under his gaze.

  She’d grasped her one last time with him and wasn’t sorry about that. She’d needed the human connection, the physicality of making love with him again.

  But the longer she stayed in this cave with this man, the more he was going to mess with her mind—and she was terrified of her growing feelings for him.

  It could never work.

  Faith didn’t even know why she was thinking this way.

  She just wanted to get to Morocco now, get over that border, start a new life. Away from him, before he sucked her further into his aura.

  She yanked on her pants and shirt, and started lacing up her boots. “I can see moonlight,” she said. “It’ll be clearing soon. When it does I want to go find those camels and get moving.”

  “Did my questions make you uncomfortable?” he said, sitting up.

  “Wasn’t that why you kidnapped me—to make me uncomfortable?” she snapped.

  “No, it was because you tried to kill me and I still don’t know why.”

  Her irritation, her fear, her need for his affection mixed within her. “How can you say you’d like to spend time with me? I mean, you might know my name but you don’t know me.”

  “I think I know more about you, Faith, than most people do. I know what you’re made of—I’ve seen it in this desert, and in Colombia I watched you for many weeks. And you’ve told me what drives you.”

  She swallowed against the sharp ball of emotion swelling in her throat. Damn this man. Her eyes pricked with hot emotion and she struggled to tamp it all down before she could speak again.

  “If this is just another way to wheedle information out of me I—”

  “Faith.” The seriousness in his tone, the sudden glint in his eyes, stopped her.

  “Why have you stopped trying to learn more about me? Why do you no longer want to know my full name, or where I come from? Do you know already? Were you informed of my identity when you placed that call at the wadi—is that why you’re not asking?”

  “No. And I don’t want to know.” She yanked her laces
tight, and lurched to her feet, moving to stand at the cave entrance.

  “Why not?”

  She refused to look at him. “Things have changed—”

  “What has changed?”

  “It…it’s complicated, Omair. Now that I know I’ve been set up, I need to disappear, get a new name, start a new life. And I can’t take anything from my old one with me. If I know your name…” Her voice choked and she cursed herself.

  He got up, came and stood beside her. She could feel his warmth, sense his nakedness. With relief she saw the sky was almost fully clear, the dunes turning silver again under the light of the moon.

  “And you feel you have to disappear because these people will keep hunting you?”

  “Because of lots of things,” she said crisply.

  He reached for her hand, but she moved out of his grasp.

  “Faith—”

  “The answer is no, Omair, I don’t do long-term relationships.” She held her arms even more defensively over her stomach.

  “Why not?”

  She spun to face him, eyes glittering. “Speak for yourself—an assassin’s life is a lonely one by definition. Maybe that’s why I took the job in the first place—I don’t know how to build a relationship. I’ve never had practice. I never even had friends!”

  “You’re afraid of being rejected. Hurt,” he said quietly. “Like your father and mother rejected you as a child.”

  “Oh, that’s nonsense.”

  But he could see in her eyes it wasn’t, and it only deepened his compassion, his affection for her.

  “It’s about survival. I need to be able to walk away.” Emotion came dangerously close to the surface and her eyes gleamed. “Maybe I don’t want to know who you are because I liked Santiago, and I’d prefer to remember you as him.”

  “My name is Al Arif,” he said. “Sheik Omair Al Arif.”

  Faith froze.

  She stared at him, her entire world tilting dangerously on its axis.

  “You mean…” Images from the news eight weeks ago slammed through her brain—the Al Arif royal jet exploding at JFK, renowned neurosurgeon Dr. Tariq Al Arif dying, King Zakir Al Arif battling the resurgence of violence in his kingdom… Oh sweet hell.