Never Refuse a Sheikh by Jackie Ashenden

Author:Jackie Ashenden [Ashenden, Jackie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Bad Boys, Romance
ISBN: 9781942240693
Publisher: Tule Publishing
Published: 2015-06-05T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter Six

Safira smoothed the plain white linen of the dress she wore, grimacing reflexively at the tightness of it. Outside the windows of the air-conditioned limo she and Altair rode in, the streets of Shara teemed with people.

Her memories of the city were few, more impressions of heat and the glittering glass of office buildings, people crowding the sidewalks, and the constant noise of traffic. From that perspective it had not changed a bit. Except maybe the noise of traffic wasn’t as loud as the noise from the construction sites that popped up all around the city.

Rebuilding after the civil war, Altair had told her. Evidence of Al-Harah’s recovery.

As she peered out of the car window that recovery was certainly in evidence, and not only in the level of new building construction. There were busy-looking people everywhere: hawkers selling wares, office workers hurrying to their jobs, and quite a few tourists—always a good sign that unrest had died down. And more than that, the impression she got from the crowds was one of determination. As if they were putting their past behind them and looking to the future with hope.

This is his doing.

She glanced at the man sitting in silence beside her.

He was in a suit, a deep charcoal color, with a black shirt and a tie that echoed the amber color of his eyes. He looked as he always did: dark and powerful, enigmatic and reserved. Aloof. Remote.

What did his people think of him? Did they see him that way or did they love him as they’d loved her father?

Looking at Altair, she couldn’t imagine anyone actually loving him. Respecting him, most definitely, but there was nothing warm and approachable about him. He projected the kind of splendid isolation that kept people at a distance.

I am a king, Safira. And before that, a soldier. I am not used to considering other people’s feelings …

Did he think that kings should be aloof from their subjects? That soldiers should be hard? Or was it that he didn’t want anyone to get too close? And if it was the latter, why? What was he afraid of?

“See something interesting?” His smooth, deep voice whispered over her skin, and she tried not to shiver at the sound.

Already she was far too physically aware of him, an awareness that got deeper and deeper every time she saw him. The kiss he’d given her the day before in his office certainly hadn’t helped. All it had done was make her even hungrier for the passion she’d sensed in him. The passion that seemed buried so deeply it was like it didn’t exist, and yet sometimes was so close to the surface she could almost reach out and touch it.

Back in the desert, her isolation from the tribe hadn’t been her choice. But Altair’s certainly seemed to be his.

He was a man of contradictions and secrets. A man who was beginning to fascinate her intellectually and emotionally, as well as physically.

She didn’t know what had led him

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