The Sheik's Safety Read Online Free Page A

day.
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    S AEED KEPT HIS EYES on the desert, constantly scanning the horizon, unsure when or from where the next ambush would come, knowing only that they weren’t done with him yet.
    The woman in front of him had made a valiant effort of staying upright when they’d first mounted, but was now sagging farther back in the saddle, losingher strength rapidly. Her back touched his chest and she jerked forward, but soon was slipping again.
    He let go of the rein with his left hand to pull her fully against him, leaving his arm around her waist to hold her in place, unsure how much longer she could do it on her own. “Rest.”
    â€œI’m fine,” she said, but didn’t pull away.
    She felt frail in his arms, but he knew better. She had survived several days in the open desert, taken out an armed assassin with a knife from forty meters. Helpless she was not.
    And yet, despite knowing she was probably part of whatever band of thieves had robbed his tribe, he could not quench the surge of protective feelings inside him. Probably because she was a woman, in his arms.
    It had been a while since he’d held anyone. Although her head was covered with her makeshift headdress once again, it would be some time before he would forget her face and the way she had looked at him. Her eyes shone like jewels—black onyx with freckles of gold.
    She felt soft in all the right places, all sinuous muscle in others. Her shapely behind wedged between his thighs moved against him slightly to the rhythm of the horse, bringing thoughts to his mind the likes of which he had been too busy to think for far too long.
    He brought his focus back to more pressing issues. “Where are the rest of your people?”
    She stiffened. “I don’t remember anyone.”
    Hard to say if she was lying or not. He would have expected a foreign woman who found herself in the desert in the middle of a gunfight with no idea of how she’d gotten there to be a little more frazzled. Maybe she was in shock, too numb for hysterics. No. Not shock. She had thrown that knife with precision, good and steady. And she appeared fine, save her weakness from exposure and lack of food and water. And of course lack of memory—if she wasn’t faking that.
    With his attackers dead, once again she was the only possible source of information he had. As much as she wanted to reach Tihrin, he could not let her go until he found out for whom she worked and what her purpose was here.
    She shivered in his arms.
    â€œHere.” He slipped off his kaffiyeh, wrapped it around her head, neck and shoulders as best as he could. “Before today you don’t remember anything?” He tried again.
    Her response came slower than before. “Nothing. I think maybe I got lost.”
    He chewed on that for a while.
    She wasn’t an assassin. She could have let that man shoot him or, for that matter, she could have buried that knife in his chest just as easily as she’d done in the attacker’s back. But if she wasn’t in leaguewith the assassins, chances were she was in league with the thieves. Her proximity to the cave when he had found her certainly pointed in that direction.
    She had come to steal from him, then had a fallout with her partners in crime who’d left her in the desert for dead. If that was the case, she could hardly reveal her identity to anyone. But with time, if she came to trust him… For a suitable reward she might be willing to give up those who had betrayed her.
    But not anytime soon. She was completely limp in his arms. He tightened his hold on her to make sure she wouldn’t slip out of the saddle now that she was out again.
    The wadi they rode in deepened, until he could no longer see out. He didn’t mind. If someone drove across the sand at a distance they wouldn’t see him, but he would be able to hear the noise of their motor. And they were close to camp now. That, too, made him more