In The Arms Of The Sheikh. Sophie Weston
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Oh yes, she had really been looking forward to that girls’ weekend. It would have been nice to take off her armour for once. She shifted unwarily and winced as her bruised heel complained.
She found he was looking at her oddly. Perceptively? That would never do. She didn’t want this man to recognise that uncharacteristic moment of weakness.
She drew herself to her full height and said crisply, ‘Thank you for showing me to my room. Now I would like to change.’
But he did not go. Indeed, he showed no sign that he even noticed he had been dismissed. ‘Are you hurt?’
She was startled. ‘What?’
‘You flinched.’
‘I didn’t.’
He didn’t contradict her. He just looked. Suddenly he was all male arrogance again.
Natasha responded to it, as she always did. Her eyes narrowed and her chin tilted dangerously. ‘What?’
He ignored her, frowning. ‘Now I think about it, you were limping in the orangery too.’
She glared. ‘Okay, maybe I was. So what?’
‘So how did you hurt yourself?’
‘Well, now, there’s a question. Could it be anything to do with being marched along an uneven path in the dark at light speed? Surely not!’
He frowned even harder. ‘Are you saying it’s my fault?’
Natasha gave a bark of laughter.
For a moment he looked furious. Then it was gone and he was the courteous butler again. ‘Then I must do what I can to help you.’
‘Why bother?’ said Natasha, blunt as always.
‘You are my guest.’
She bared her teeth at him in a smile that was ninety per cent challenge and ten per cent pure taunt. ‘I’m Izzy Dare’s guest.’
His eyes flickered. Annoyance, palpable as smoke, wafted off him.
Yes! Natasha chalked up a point to the female warrior. A small point, but worth having.
Content with her victory, she nodded to the door. ‘Now, if you’ll just go and help someone else, I’ll be down in a few minutes.’ The superior tone pleased her.
For the second time he failed to notice that she was dismissing him. Or not failed exactly. Ignored would be a better word.
Natasha drew herself to her full height. ‘Thank you—’
She got no further. He swung her neatly off her feet.
‘Put me down,’ said Natasha furiously, superior no longer.
He did. But not at all as she had intended.
He dropped her onto a stone seat with lion’s paws for arms and went down on one knee before her.
He picked up one foot and stared blankly at her ruined tights. ‘What on earth have you done?’
Natasha had not felt so grubby since she had scraped her knee in the playground and her mother had rebuked her. She glared. ‘Lost my shoes, didn’t I?’
She tried to take her foot back. She failed.
He inspected the foot narrowly.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ Natasha was trembling. With anger, she told herself. With anger.
Kazim rotated her ankle. He was quite gentle but very firm.
‘No bones broken,’ he decided.
Natasha was shaken. To disguise it—‘Are you a doctor as well?’ she said nastily.
He looked up then, a surprising glint of mischief in his eyes.
‘No, but I’ve taken enough physical risks to know the basics.’
She took the opportunity to retrieve her foot. ‘No bones broken,’ she said curtly. ‘You said it yourself. Now will you please…?’
He lifted her other foot.
She gasped and fell silent. There was not even a vestige of torn hose between their skins, this time. And his fingers were so warm she could feel the blood beating against her cold skin.
Natasha’s mouth dried. She forgot what she was going to say; almost forgot how to think. All she could do was sit there, breathless, looking down at his bent head, and wonder at how crisp and dark his hair was, how surprisingly broad his shoulders. How sensitive his hands…
Natasha sat bolt upright. She was horrified. That was the sort of thing you thought about a lover. Or didn’t, on the whole, at least in her recent experience. But not, never, a stranger.
I must be out of my mind.
‘Stop that,’ she rapped out.
He did not even look up. ‘You’re bleeding.’
‘What?’
She bent down to peer at the foot. Their faces were suddenly close. She caught a hint of seriously expensive cologne.
Her brows twitched together. Since when did butlers wear Amertage?
Oblivious, Kazim said, ‘Ah, there it is. You seem to have torn the skin. Hold still a moment.’
‘What? Why? Ouch!’
She recoiled at the sharp pain.
He held up a savage-looking rose thorn and offered it to her. ‘Big beast,’ he said with satisfaction.
‘Yes,’ agreed Natasha faintly.
He was still concentrating on the task in hand. ‘You need a bandage on this. I will have someone see to—’ He stopped dead.
Suddenly Natasha was desperate to be alone.
‘Don’t bother. I’ve got a plaster in my case. I’ll do it myself.’
He ignored that too, getting to his feet. ‘Then I’ll get it for you.’
Natasha flinched inwardly. She really, really didn’t want this man going through her things. She travelled so light that almost everything in the bag was deeply personal. The contents revealed altogether too much about her, from the severe cotton underwear to rainbow silk scarves; to say nothing of those ludicrous furry feet.
But she couldn’t say that, could she? It would just show him how exposed he made her feel—even invite him to probe further. So she watched helplessly as he went back into the bedroom and threw open the small case.
Trying to sound indifferent, she told the open bathroom door, ‘There’s a small first aid pack in there somewhere.’
He started emptying the case, putting her clothes in neat piles on the bed as he removed them.
‘Very efficient, travelling with your own medical kit.’
‘I am efficient.’
It made her stomach turn over, watching those long fingers among her silks and cashmere. And when he found the squashy pussy-cat slippers, he paused, staring as if he could not believe his eyes. He said nothing. But Natasha felt her face flame.
She looked round wildly for a distraction. She found it in Egyptiana.
‘Who on earth put this lot together? Egyptian Bathroom Productions Inc? It’s outrageous.’
He put the slippers down on the floor and chuckled.
It was a sexy sound. So sexy Natasha’s hair lifted gently on the back of her neck.
Even as she fought down her own instinctive response, it astonished her. Arrogance and sexiness did not go together in Natasha’s book. Not normally. This man seemed to be turning all her normal reactions on their head. Again and again and again.
‘It’s