“I despise you.”

He uncoiled his body like a lazy cat and came toward her.

“Liking me isn’t a prerequisite for the night we’re about to spend together.”

“We aren’t,” she said quickly, even though she knew he was baiting her, that he was really just referring to the time she’d be with him at the party. “There’s no way I’d spend the night with—”

He bent and brushed his mouth over hers. That was all he did; the kiss was little more than a whisper of flesh to flesh, but the intake of her breath more than proved she was lying.

She knew it. He knew it. And she hated him for it.

“The Sheik,” she said, her eyes cool.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The Sheik, starring Rudolph Valentino. It’s an old movie. Be sure to rent the video sometime.”

Nick laughed. He held out his arm. She tossed her head. “Take it,” he said softly, “unless you’d rather I lift you into my arms and carry you.”

Dear Reader,

Your response to THE BARONS has been overwhelming! Thank you for welcoming this family into your hearts.

You’ve told me how very real Gage, Travis, Slade and Caitlin have become to you. They’re just as real to me. My characters always seem to become flesh and blood as I write about them, but I have to admit that the Barons, and the Texas ranch that’s home to Jonas and his wife, Marta, have taken on a special meaning. So many people pass through the Barons’ lives…. I can almost hear them asking me to tell you their stories.

Welcome, then, to Mistress of the Sheikh. Amanda Benning is one of Jonas Baron’s stepdaughters. She’s happy with her independence—until gorgeous, sexy Sheikh Nicholas al Rashid thinks she’s his birthday gift. Sparks fly when a man worshiped as the Lion of the Desert comes up against a beautiful, hot-tempered woman who thinks lions are just big pussycats in disguise.

And if you haven’t read any of the other BARONS books, don’t worry. You can enjoy Mistress of the Sheikh on its own.

With love and best wishes,

Sandra Marton loves to hear from her readers. Write to her (SASE) at P.O. Box 295, Storrs, Connecticut 06268, U.S.A.

Mistress of the Sheikh
Sandra Marton

MILLS & BOON

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CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

SHEIKH Nicholas al Rashid, Lion of the Desert, Lord of the Realm and Sublime Heir to the Imperial Throne of Quidar, stepped out of his tent and onto the burning sands, holding a woman in his arms.

The sheikh was dressed in a gold-trimmed white burnoose; his silver-gray eyes stared straight ahead, blazing with savage passion. The woman, her arms looped around his neck, gazed up at him, her face alight with an unspoken plea.

What’s the matter, Nick? she’d been saying.

There’s a camera pointed straight at us, Nick had answered. That’s what’s the matter.

But nobody seeing this cover on Gossip magazine would believe anything so simple, Nick thought grimly.

His eyes dropped to the banner beneath the picture. If words could damn a man, these surely did.

Sheikh Nicholas al Rashid, the caption said, in letters that looked ten feet tall, carrying off his latest conquest, the beautiful Deanna Burgess. Oh, to be abducted by this gorgeous, magnificent desert savage…

“Son of a bitch,” Nick muttered.

The little man standing on the opposite side of the sparely furnished, elegant room nodded. “Yes, my lord.”

“No-good, lying, cheating, sneaky bastards!”

“Absolutely,” the little man said, nodding again.

Nick looked up, his eyes narrowed.

“Calling me a ‘desert savage,’ as if I were some kind of beast. Is that what they think I am? An uncultured, vicious animal?”

“No, sire.” The little man clasped his hands together. “Surely not.”

“No one calls me that and gets away with it.”

But someone had, once. Nick frowned. A woman or, more accurately, a girl. The memory surfaced, wavering like a mirage from the hot sand.

Nothing but a savage, she’d said….

The image faded, and Nick frowned. “That photo was taken at the festival. It was Id al Baranda, Quidar’s national holiday, for God’s sake!” He stepped out from behind his massive beechwood desk and paced to the wall of windows that gave way onto one of New York City’s paved canyons. “That’s why I was wearing a robe, because it is the custom.”

Abdul bobbed his head in agreement.

“And the tent,” Nick said through his teeth. “The damned tent belonged to the caterer.”

“I know, my lord.”

“It was where the food was set up, dammit!”

“Yes, sire.”

Nick stalked back to his desk and snatched up the magazine. “Look at this. Just look at it!”

Abdul took a cautious step forward, rose up on the balls of his feet and peered at the photo. “Lord Rashid?”

“They’ve taken the ocean out of the picture. It looks as if the tent was pitched in the middle of the desert!”

“Yes, my lord. I see.”

Nick dragged his hand through his hair. “Miss Burgess cut her foot.” His voice tightened. “That was why I was carrying her.”

“Lord Rashid.” Abdul licked his lips. “There is no need to explain.”

“I was carrying her into the tent, not out. So I could treat the—” Nick stopped in midsentence and drew a ragged breath deep into his lungs. “I will not let this anger me.”

“I am so glad, my lord.”

“I will not!”

“Excellent, sire.”

“There’s no point to it.” Nick put the magazine on his desk, tucked his hands into the pockets of his trousers and threw his secretary a chilling smile. “Isn’t that right, Abdul?”

The little man nodded. “Absolutely.”

“If these idiots wish to poke their noses into my life, so be it.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“If people wish to read such drivel, let them.”

Abdul nodded. “Exactly.”

“After all, what does it matter to me if I am called an uncultured savage?” Nick’s smile tightened until his face resembled a mask. “Never mind my law degree or my expertise in finance.”

“Lord Rashid,” Abdul said carefully, “sire—”

“Never mind that I represent an ancient and honorable and highly cultured people.”

“Excellency, please. You’re getting yourself upset. And, as you just said, there is no point in—”

“The fool who wrote this should be drawn and quartered.”

Abdul nodded, his head bobbing up and down like a balloon on a string. “Yes, my lord.”

“Better still, staked out, naked, in the heat of the desert sun, smeared with honey so as to draw the full attention of the fire ants.”

Abdul bowed low as he backed toward the door. “I shall see to it at once.”

“Abdul.” Nick took a deep breath.

“My Lord?”

“You are to do nothing.”

“Nothing? But, Excellency—”

“Trust me,” the sheikh said with a faint smile. “The part of me that is American warns me that my fellow countrymen are probably squeamish about drawing and quartering.”

“In that case, I shall ask for a retraction.”

“You are not to call the magazine at all.”

“No?”

“No. It would serve no purpose except to bring further unwanted attention to myself, and to Quidar.”

Abdul inclined his head. “As you command, Lord Rashid.”

Nick reached out, turned the copy of Gossip toward him, handling it as gingerly as he would a poisonous spider.

“Phone the florist. Have him send six dozen red roses to Miss Burgess.”

“Yes, sire.”

“I want the flowers delivered immediately.”

“Of course.”

“Along with a card. Say…” Nick frowned. “Say that she has my apologies that we made the cover of a national magazine.”

“Oh, I’m sure Miss Burgess is most unhappy to find her photo on that cover,” Abdul said smoothly, so smoothly that Nick looked at him. The little man flushed. “It is most unfortunate that either of you should have been placed in such a position, my lord. I am glad you are taking this so calmly.”

“I am calm, aren’t I?” Nick said. “Very calm. I have counted twice to ten, once in Quidaran and once in English, and—and…” His gaze fell to the cover again. “Very calm,” he murmured, and then he grabbed the magazine from the desk and flung it against the wall. “Lying sons of camel traders,” he roared, and kicked the thing across the room the second it slid to the floor. “Oh, what I’d like to do to the bastards who invade my life and print such lies.”

“Excellency.” Abdul’s voice was barely a whisper. “Excellency, it is all my fault.”

The sheikh gave a harsh laugh. “Did you point a camera at me, Abdul?”

“No. No, of course—”

“Did you sell the photo to the highest bidder?” Nick swung around, his eyes hot. “Did you write a caption that makes it sound as if I’m a bad reincarnation of Rudolph Valentino?”

Abdul gave a nervous laugh. “Certainly not.”

“For all I know, it wasn’t even a reporter. It could have been someone I think of as a friend.” Nick shoved both hands through his black-as-midnight hair. “If I ever get my hands on one of the scum-sucking dung beetles who grow fat by invading the privacy of others—”

Abdul dropped to his knees on the silk carpet and knotted his hands imploringly beneath his chin. “It is my fault, nevertheless. I should not have permitted your eyes to see such an abomination. I should have hidden it from you.”

“Get up,” Nick said sharply.

“I should never have let you see it. Never!”

“Abdul,” Nick said more gently, “stand up.”

“Oh, my lord…”

Nick sighed, bent down and lifted the little man to his feet.

“You did the right thing. I needed to see this piece of filth before the party tonight. Someone is sure to spring it on me just to see my reaction.”

“No one would have the courage, sire.”

“Trust me, Abdul. Someone will.” A smile softened Nick’s hard mouth. “My sweet little sister, if no one else. We both know how she loves to tease.”

Abdul smiled, too. “Ah. Yes, yes, she does.”

“So, it’s a good thing you showed me the cover. I’d much rather be prepared.”

“That was my belief, sire. But perhaps I erred. Perhaps I should not—”

“What would you have done instead, hmm?” Nick grinned. “Bought up all the copies from all the newsstands in Manhattan?”

Abdul nodded vigorously. “Precisely. I should have purchased all the copies, burned them—”

“Abdul.” Nick put his arm around the man’s shoulders and walked him toward the door. “You took the proper action. And I am grateful.”

“You are?”

“Just imagine the headlines if I’d had this temper tantrum in public.” Nick lifted his hand and wrote an imaginary sentence in the air. “Savage Sheikh Shows Savage Side,” he said dramatically.

The little man gave him a thin smile.

“Now imagine what would happen if somebody manages to get a picture of me slicing into the cake at the party tonight.”

“The caterer will surely do the slicing, sire.”

Nick sighed. “Yes, I’m sure he will. The point is, anything is possible. Can you just see what the sleaze sheets would do with a picture of me with a knife in my hand?”

“In the old days,” Abdul said sternly, “you could have had their heads!”

The sheikh smiled. “These are not those days,” he said gently. “We are in the twenty-first century, remember?”

“You still have that power, Lord Rashid.”

“It is not a power I shall ever exercise, Abdul.”

“So you have said, Excellency.” The man paused at the door to Nick’s office. “But your father can tell you that the power to spare a man his life, or take it from him, is the best way of assuring that all who deal with you will do so with honor and respect.”

A quick, satisfying picture flashed through Nick’s mind. He imagined all the media people, and especially all the so-called friends who’d ever made money by selling him out, crowded into the long-unused dungeon beneath the palace back home, every last one of them pleading for mercy as the royal executioner sharpened his ax.

“It’s a sweet thought,” he admitted after a minute. “But that is no longer our way.”

“Perhaps it should be,” Abdul said, and sighed. “At any rate, my lord, there will be no unwanted guests lying in wait for you this evening.”

“No?”

“No. Only those with invitations will be admitted by your bodyguards. And I sent out the invitations myself.”

Nick nodded. “Two hundred and fifty of my nearest and dearest friends,” he said, and smiled wryly. “That’s fine.”

His secretary nodded. “Will that be all, Lord Rashid?”

“Yes, Abdul. Thank you.”

“You are welcome, sire.”

Nick watched as the old man bowed low and backed out of the room. Don’t, he wanted to tell him. You’re old enough to be my grandfather, but he knew what Abdul’s reply would be.

“It is the custom,” he would say.

And he was right.

Nick sighed, walked to his desk and sat down in the ornately carved chair behind it.

Everything was “the custom”. The way he was addressed. The way Quidarans, and even many Americans, bowed in his presence. He didn’t mind it so much from his countrymen; it made him uncomfortable, all that head-bobbing and curtseying, but he understood it. It was a sign of respect.

It was, he supposed, such a sign for some Americans, too.

But for others, he sensed, it was an acknowledgment that they saw him as a different species. Something exotic. An Arab, who dressed in flowing robes. A primitive creature, who lived in a tent.

An uncultured savage, who took his women when, where and how he wanted them.

He rose to his feet and walked across the room to the windows, his mouth set in a grim line, his eyes steely.

He had worn desert robes perhaps half a dozen times in his life, and then only to please his father. He’d slept in a tent more times than that, but only because he loved the sigh of the night wind and the sight of the stars against the blackness of a sky that can only be found in the vastness of the desert.

As for women…Custom permitted him to take any that pleased him to his bed. But he’d never taken a woman who hadn’t wanted to be taken. Never forced one into his bed or held one captive in a harem.

A smile tilted across Nick’s mouth.

Humility was a virtue, much lauded by his father’s people, and he was properly modest about most things, but why lie to himself about women? For that matter, why would he need a harem?

The truth was that women had always been there. They tumbled into his bed without any effort at all on his part, even in his university days at Yale when his real identity hadn’t been known to what seemed like half the civilized world.

They’d even been there in the years before that.

Nick’s smile grew.

He thought back to that summer he’d spent in L.A. with his late mother. She was an actress; it had seemed as if half the women who lived in Beverly Hills were actresses, starting with the stunning brunette next door, who’d at first taken him for the pool boy—and taken him, too, for rides far wilder than any he’d ever experienced on the backs of his father’s purebred Arabians.

There’d always been women.

Nick’s smile dimmed.

It was true, though, that some of the ones who were drawn to him now were interested more in what they might gain from being seen with him than anything else.

He knew that there were women who wanted to bask in the spotlight so mercilessly trained on him, that there were others who thought a night in his arms might lead to a lifetime at his side. There were even women who hoped to enter his private world so they could sell their stories to the scandal sheets.

His eyes went flat and cold.

Only a foolish man would involve himself with such women, and he was not a—

The phone rang. Nick snatched it from the desk.

“Yes?”

“If you’re going to be here in time to shower and shave and change into a tux,” his half sister’s voice said with teasing petulance, “you’d better get a move on, Your Gorgeousness.”

Nick smiled and hitched a hip onto the edge of the desk.

“Watch what you say to me, little sister. Otherwise, I’ll have your head on the chopping block. Abdul says it’s an ideal punishment for those who don’t show me the proper respect.”

“The only thing that’s going to be cut tonight is my birthday cake. It’s not every day a girl turns twenty-five.”

“You forget. It’s my birthday, too.”

“Oh, I know, I know. Isn’t it lovely, sharing a father and a birthday? But you’re not as excited as I am.”

Nick laughed. “That’s because I’m over the hill. After all, I’m thirty-four.”

“Seriously, Nick, you will be here on time, won’t you?”

“Absolutely.”

“Not early, though.” Dawn laughed softly. “Otherwise, you’ll expect me to change what I’m wearing.”

Nick’s brows lifted. “Will I?”

“Uh-huh.”

“Meaning what you have on is too short, too low, too tight—”

“This is the twenty-first century, Your Handsomeness.”

“Not when you’re on Quidaran turf, it isn’t. And stop calling me stuff like that.”

“A,” Dawn said, ticking her answers off on her fingers, “this isn’t Quidaran turf. It’s a penthouse on Fifth Avenue.”

“It’s Quidaran turf,” Nick said. Dawn smiled; she could hear the laughter in his voice. “The moment I step on it anyway. What’s B?”

“B, if Gossip can call you ‘Your Handsomeness’, so can I.” She giggled. “Have you seen the article yet?”

“I’ve seen the cover,” Nick said tersely. “That was enough.”

“Well, the article says that you and Deanna—”

“Never mind that. You just make sure you’re decently dressed.”

“I am decently dressed, for New York.”

Nick sighed. “Behave yourself, or I’ll have you sent home.”

“Me? Behave myself?” Dawn snorted and switched the portable phone to her other ear as she strolled through her brother’s massive living room and out the glass doors to the terrace. “I’m not the one dating Miss Hunter.”

“Hunter? But Deanna’s name is—”

“Hunter of a titled husband. Hunter of the spotlight. Hunter of wealth and glamour—”

“She’s not like that,” Nick said quickly.

“Why isn’t she?”

“Dawn. I am not going to discuss this with you.”

“You don’t have to. I know the reason. You have this silly idea that because Deanna has her own money and an old family name, she’s—what’s the right word—trustworthy.”

Nick sighed. “Sweetheart,” he said gently, “I appreciate your concern. But—”

“But you want me to mind my own business.”

“Something like that, yes.”

His sister rolled her eyes at the blond woman who stood with her back against the terrace wall. “Men can be clueless,” she hissed.

Amanda Benning did her best to smile. “Have you told him yet?”

“No. No, not—”

“Dawn?” Nick’s voice came through the phone. “Who are you talking to?”

Dawn made a face at Amanda. “One of the caterer’s assistants,” she said briskly. “She wanted to know where to put the cold hors d’oeuvres. And speaking of knowing, aren’t you curious about what I got you for your birthday?”

“Sure. But if you told me, it wouldn’t be a surprise. And birthday presents are supposed to be surprises.”

“Ah. Well, I already know what my gift is.”

“You do?”

“Uh-huh.” Dawn grinned. “That shiny new Jaguar in the garage downstairs.”

Nick groaned. “There’s no keeping anything from you.”

“Nope, there isn’t. Now, you want to take a stab at what I’m giving you?”

“Well, there was that time you gave me a doll,” Nick said dryly, “the one you wanted for yourself.”

“I was seven!” Dawn grinned at Amanda. “Definitely clueless,” she whispered.

“What?”

“I said, you’re clueless, Nicky. About how to decorate this mansion of yours.”

“It’s not a mansion. It’s an apartment. And I told you, I don’t have time for such things. That’s why I bought the place furnished.”

“Furnished?” Dawn made a face at Amanda, who smiled. “How somebody could take a ten-million-dollar penthouse and make it look like a high-priced bordello is beyond me.”

“If you have any idea what a bordello looks like, high-priced or low, I’ll definitely send you home,” Nick said, trying to sound affronted but not succeeding.

“You don’t, either, dearest brother, or you’d never have the time or energy to bed all the females the tabloids link you with.”

“Dawn—”

“I know, I know. You’re not going to discuss such things with me.” Dawn plucked a bit of lint from her skirt. “You know, Nicky, I’m not the baby you think I am.”

“Maybe not. But it won’t hurt if you let me go on living with an illusion.”

His sister laughed. “When you see what I’ve bought you, that illusion will be shattered forever.”

“We’ll see about that.” Nick’s voice hummed with amusement.

Dawn grinned, covered the mouthpiece of the phone and looked at Amanda. “My brother doesn’t believe you’re going to shatter his illusions.”

Amanda thumbed a strand of pale golden hair behind her ear. “Well, I’ll just have to prove him wrong,” she said, and told herself it was just plain ridiculous for an intelligent, well-educated, twenty-five-year-old woman to stand there with her knees knocking together at the prospect of being the birthday gift for a sheikh.

CHAPTER TWO

AMANDA swallowed nervously as Dawn put down the phone.

“Well,” Dawn said, “that’s that.” She smiled. “I’ve laid the groundwork.”

“Uh-huh.” Amanda smiled, too, although her lips felt as if they were sticking to her teeth. “For disaster.”

“Don’t be silly. Oh, Nicky will probably balk when he realizes I’ve asked you to redo the penthouse. He’ll growl a little, threaten murder and mayhem…” Dawn’s brows lifted when she saw the expression on Amanda’s face. “I’m joking!”

“Yeah, well, I’m not so sure about that.” Amanda clasped her arms and shivered despite the heat of the midsummer afternoon. “I’ve gone toe-to-toe with your brother before, remember?”

Dawn made a face. “That was completely different. You were, what, nineteen?”

“Eighteen.”

“Well.”

“Well, what?”

“Well, that’s my point,” Dawn said impatiently. “You didn’t go toe-to-toe with him. He had the advantage from the start. You were just a kid.”

“I was your college roommate.” Amanda caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “Otherwise known as The American Female With No Morals.”

Dawn grinned. “Did he really call you that?”

“It may sound funny now, but if you’d been there—”

“I know how you must have felt,” Dawn said, her smile fading. “After he hauled me out of the Dean’s office, I thought he was going to have me shipped home and locked in the women’s quarters for the rest of my life.”

“If your brother remembers me from that night—”

“If he does, I’ll tell him he’s wrong. Oh, stop worrying. He won’t remember. It was the middle of the night. You didn’t have a drop of makeup on, your hair was long then and probably hanging in your face. Look, if it all goes bad and Nicky gets angry at anybody for this, it’ll be me.”

“I know. But still…”

Still, Amanda thought uneasily, she’d never forgotten her first, her only, meeting with Nicholas al Rashid.

Dawn had talked about him. And Amanda had read about him. The tabloids loved the sheikh: his incredible looks, his money, his power…his women.

Back then, Amanda didn’t usually read that kind of thing. Her literary aspirations were just that. Literary. She’d been an English major, writing and reading poetry nobody but other English majors understood, although she’d been starting to think about changing her major to architectural design.

Whichever, the tabloids were too smarmy to catch her interest. And yet she found herself reaching for those awful newspapers at the supermarket checkout whenever she saw a photo of Dawn’s brother on the front page.

Well, why wouldn’t she? The man was obviously full of himself. It was like driving past an automobile accident; you didn’t want to look but you just couldn’t keep from doing it.

Dawn thought he was wonderful. “Nicky’s a sweetheart,” she always said. “I can’t wait until you meet him.”

And, without warning, Amanda did.

It was the week before finals of their freshman year. Dawn was going to a frat party. She’d tried to convince Amanda to go, too, but Amanda had an exam in Renaissance design the next morning so she begged off, stayed in the dorm room they shared while Dawn partied.

Unfortunately, Dawn had one beer too many. She ended up sneaking into the bell tower at two in the morning along with half a dozen of the frat brothers, and they’d all decided it would be cool to play the carillon.

The campus police didn’t agree. They brought Dawn and the boys down, hustled them into the security office and phoned their respective families.

Amanda was blissfully unaware of any of it. She’d crawled into bed, pulled the blanket over her head and fallen into exhausted sleep just past midnight.

A few hours later, she awoke to the pounding of a fist on the door of her dorm room. She sprang up in bed, heart pounding as hard as the fist, switched on the bedside lamp and pushed the hair out of her eyes.

“Who’s there?”

“Open this door,” a male voice demanded.

Visions conjured up from every horror movie she’d ever seen raced through her head. Her eyes flashed to the door, and her heartbeat went from fast to supersonic. She hadn’t locked it, not with Dawn out—

“Open the door!”

Amanda scrambled from the bed, prayed her quaking knees would hold up long enough for her to fly across the room and throw the bolt—

The door burst open.

A thin, high shriek burst from her throat. A man dressed in jeans and a white T-shirt stood in the doorway, filling the space with his size, his rage, his very presence.

“I am Nicholas al Rashid,” he roared. “Where is my sister?”

It took a few seconds for the name to register. This broad-shouldered man in jeans, this guy with the silver eyes and the stubbled jaw, was Dawn’s brother?

She started to smile. He wasn’t a mad killer after all…but he might as well have been.

The sheikh strode across the room, grabbed her by the front of her oversize D is For Design T-shirt and hauled her toward him. “I asked you a question, woman,” Nicholas al Rashid said. “Where is my sister?”

To this day, it bothered Amanda that fear had nearly paralyzed her. She’d only been able to cower and stammer instead of bunching up her fist and slugging the bastard. A good right to the midsection was exactly what the tyrannical fool deserved.

But she was just eighteen, a girl who’d grown up in the sheltered world of exclusive boarding schools and summer camps. And the man standing over her was big, furious and terrifying.

So she’d swallowed a couple of times, trying to work up enough saliva so she could talk, and then she’d said that she didn’t know where Dawn was.

Obviously, that wasn’t the answer the sheikh wanted.

“You don’t know,” he said, his voice mocking hers. His hand tightened on her shirt and he hauled her even closer, close enough so she was nose to chest with him. “You don’t know?”

“Dawn is—she’s out.”

“She’s out,” he repeated with that same cold sarcasm that was meant, she knew, to reduce her to something with about as much size and power as a mouse.

It got to her then. That he’d broken into her room. That he was on her turf, not his. That he was behaving as if this little piece of America was, instead, his own desert kingdom.

“Yes,” she’d answered, lifting her chin as best she could, considering that his fist was wrapped in her shirt, forcing herself to meet his narrowed, silver eyes. “Yes, she’s out, and even if I knew where she was, I wouldn’t tell you, you—you two-bit dictator!”

She knew instantly she’d made a mistake. His face paled; a muscle knotted in his jaw and his mouth twisted in a way that made her blood run cold.

“What did you call me?” His voice was soft with the promise of malice.

“A two-bit dictator,” she said again, and waited for the world to end. When, instead, a thin smile curved his mouth, she went from angry to furious. “Does that amuse you, Mr. Rashid?”

“You will address me as Lord Rashid.” His smile tilted, so she could see the cruelty behind it. “And what amuses me is the realization that if we were in my country, I would have your tongue cut out for such insolence.”

A drop of sweat beaded on Amanda’s forehead. She had no doubt that he meant it but by then, she was beyond worrying about saying, or doing, the right thing. Never, not in all her life, had she despised anyone as she despised Nicholas al Rashid.

“This isn’t your country. It’s America. And I am an American citizen.”

“And you are a typical American female. You have no morals.”

“Oh, and you’d certainly know all about American females and morals, wouldn’t you?”

His eyes narrowed. “I take it that’s supposed to have some deep meaning.”

“Just let go of me,” Amanda said, grunting as she twisted against the hand still clutching her shirt. “Dammit, let go!”

He did. His fist opened, so quickly and unexpectedly that she stumbled backward. She stood staring at the man who’d invaded her room, her breasts heaving under the thin cotton shirt.

For the first time, he looked at her. Really looked at her. She could almost feel the touch of those silver eyes as they swept her from head to toe. He took in her sleep-tousled hair, her cotton shirt, the long length of her naked legs…

Amanda felt her face, then her body, start to burn under that arrogant scrutiny. She wanted to cover herself, put her arms over her breasts, but she sensed that to do so would give him even more of an advantage than he already had.

“Get out of my room,” she said, her voice trembling.

Instead, his eyes moved over her again, this time with almost agonizing slowness. “Just look at you,” he said very softly.

The words were coated with derision—derision, and something else. Amanda could hear it in his voice. She could read it in the way his eyes darkened. There was more to the message than the disparagement of American women and their morality. Despite her lack of experience, she knew that what he’d left unspoken was a statement of want and desire, raw and primitive and male.

It was three in the morning. She was alone in her room with a man twice her size, a man who wore his anger like a second skin…

A man more beautiful, and overwhelmingly masculine, than any she’d ever imagined or known in her entire life.

To her horror, she’d felt her body begin to quicken. A slow heat coiled low in her belly; her breasts lifted and her nipples began to harden so that she almost gasped at the feel of them thrusting against the thin cotton of her T-shirt.

He saw it, too.

His eyes went to her breasts, lingered, then lifted to her face. Amanda felt her heart leap into her throat as he took a step forward.

“Sire.”

He moved toward her, his eyes never leaving hers. The heat in her belly swept into her blood.

“Sire!”

Amanda blinked. A little man in a shiny black suit had come into the room. He scuttled toward the sheikh, laid his hand on the sheikh’s muscled forearm.

“My lord, I have located your sister.”

The sheikh turned to the man. “Where is she?”

The little man looked at his hand, lying against the sheikh’s tanned skin, and snatched it back. “Forgive me, sire. I did not mean to touch—”

“I asked you a question.”

Abdul dropped to his knees and lowered his head until his brow almost touched the floor. “She awaits your will, Lord Rashid, in the office of the Dean of Students.”

That had done it. The sight of the old man, kneeling in obeisance to a surly tyrant, the thought of Dawn, awaiting the bully’s will…

Amanda’s vision cleared.

“Get out,” she’d said fiercely, “before I have you thrown out. You’re nothing but a—a savage. And I pity Dawn, or any woman, who has anything to do with you.”

The sheikh’s mouth had twisted, the hard, handsome face taking on the look of a predator about to claim its prey.

“Sire,” the little man had whispered, and without another word, Nicholas al Rashid had spun on his heel and walked out of the room.

Amanda had never seen him again.

He’d taken Dawn out of school, enrolled her in a small women’s college. But the two of them had remained friends through Amanda’s change of careers, through her marriage and divorce.

Over the years, her encounter with the sheikh had faded from her memory.

Almost.

There were still times she awoke in the night with the feel of his eyes on her, the scent of him in her nostrils—

“Mandy,” Dawn said, “your face is like an open book.”

Amanda jerked her head up. Dawn grinned.

“You’re still mortified, thinking about how Nicky stormed into our room all those years ago, when he was trying to find me.”

Amanda cleared her throat. “Yes. Yes, I am. And you know, the more I think about this, the more convinced I am it’s not going to work.”

“What’s not going to work? I told you, he won’t remember you. And even if he does—”

“Dawn,” Amanda said, reaching for the purse she’d dropped on one of the glass-topped tables on the enormous terrace, “I appreciate what you’ve tried to do for me. Honestly, I do. But—”

“But you don’t need this job.”

“Of course I need it. But—”

“You don’t,” Dawn said, striking a pose, “because you’re going to make your name in New York by waving a magic wand. ‘Hocus-pocus, I now pronounce me the decorator of the decade.’”

“Come on, Dawn,” Amanda said with a little smile.

“Not that it matters, because you’ve found a way to pay your rent without working.”

Amanda laughed.

“Well, what, then? Have you changed your mind about taking money from your mother?”

“Taking it from my stepfather, you mean.” Amanda grimaced. “I don’t want Jonas Baron’s money. It comes with too many strings attached.”

“Taking alimony from that ex of yours, then.”

“Even more strings,” Amanda said, and sighed. This was not a good idea. She could feel it in her bones—but only an idiot would walk away from an opportunity like this. “Okay,” she said before she could talk herself out of it again, “I’ll try.”

“Good girl.” Dawn looped her arm through Amanda’s. The women walked slowly from the terrace into the living room. “Mandy, you know this makes sense. Doing the interior design for Sheikh Nicholas al Rashid’s Fifth Avenue penthouse will splash your name everywhere it counts.”

“Still, even if your brother agrees—”

“He has to. You’re my birthday gift to him, remember?”

“Won’t he care that he’ll be my first client?”

“Your first New York client.”

“Well, yeah. But I didn’t really work when I lived in Dallas. You know how Paul felt about my having a career.”

“Once I tell Nick you designed for Jonas Baron, and for Tyler and Caitlin Kincaid, he’ll be sold.”

Amanda came to a dead stop. “Are you nuts? Me, decorate my stepfather’s house? Jonas would probably shoot anybody who tried to move a chair!”

“You did your mother’s sitting room, didn’t you?”

“Sure. But that was different. It was one room—”

“The room’s in the Baron house, right?”

“Dawn, come on. That’s hardly—”

“Well, what about the Kincaids?”

“All I did was rip out some of the froufrou, replace it with pieces Tyler had in his house in Atlanta and suggest a couple of new things. That’s hardly the same as redoing a fourteen-room penthouse.”

Dawn slapped her hands on her hips. “For heaven’s sake, Mandy, will you let me handle this? What do you want me to say? ‘Nick, this is Amanda. Remember her? The last time you met, you chewed her out for being a bad influence on me. Now she’s going to spend a big chunk of your money doing something you really don’t want done, and by the way, you’re her very first real client.”’

Amanda couldn’t help it. She laughed. “I guess it doesn’t sound like much of a recommendation.”

“No, it doesn’t. And I thought we both just agreed you need this job.”

“You’re right,” Amanda said glumly, “I do.”

“Darned right, you do. At least redo the suite Nicky lets me use whenever I’m in town. Did you ever see such awful kitsch?” Dawn gave Amanda a quick hug when she smiled. “That’s better. Just let me do the talking, okay?”

“Okay.”

Dawn quickened her pace as they started up the wide staircase that led to the second floor. “We’ll have to hurry. You put on that slinky red dress, fix your hair, spritz on some perfume and get ready to convince my brother he’d be crazy to turn up his regal nose at the chance to have this place done by the one, the only, the incredible Amanda Benning.”

“You ever think about going into PR?”

“You can put me on the payroll after the first time your name shows up in the—oh, damn! We never finished our tour. You haven’t seen Nick’s suite.”

“That’s all right.” Amanda patted the pocket of her silk trousers. “I’ll transfer my camera into my evening bag.”

“No, don’t do that.” Dawn shuddered dramatically as she opened the door to her rooms. “If Nick sees you taking pictures, he’ll figure you for a media spy and…” She grinned and sliced her hand across her throat. “How’s this? You shower first, get dressed, then grab a quick look. His rooms are at the other end of the hall.”

“I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Amanda said quickly. “What if the sheikh comes in while I’m poking around?”

“He won’t. Nicky promised he’d be on time, but he’s always late. He hates stuff like this. You know, public appearances, being the center of attention. The longer he can delay his entrance, the better he likes it.”

Amanda thought about the walking ego who’d shoved his way into her room, unasked and unannounced.

“I’ll bet,” she said, and softened the words with a smile. “But I’d still feel more comfortable if you were with me.”

“I promise I’ll join you just as soon as I turn myself into the gorgeous, desirable creature we both know I am. Okay?”

Amanda hesitated, told herself she was being an idiot, then nodded. “Okay.”

“Good.” Dawn kicked off her shoes. “In that case, the shower’s all yours.”

Twenty minutes later, Amanda paused outside the door to the sheikh’s rooms.

If anybody took her pulse right now, they’d probably enter the result in the record books. She could feel it galloping like a runaway horse, but why wouldn’t it?

It wasn’t every day she sneaked into a man’s bedroom to take pictures and make notes. Into the bedroom of a man who demanded people address him as “Lord”. A man to whom other men bowed.

Instinct told her to turn tail and run. Necessity told her to stop being a coward. She was wasting time, and there really wasn’t much to waste. Ten minutes, if Dawn was wrong and the sheikh showed up promptly.

She ran a nervous hand through the short, pale gold hair that framed her face, took the tiny digital camera from her evening purse and tapped at the door.

“Sheikh Rashid?”

There was no answer. The only sounds that carried through the vastness of the penthouse were snatches of baroque music from the quartet setting up in the library far below.

Amanda straightened her shoulders, opened the door and stepped inside the room.

It was clearly a man’s domain. Dawn had said her brother hadn’t changed any of the furnishings in the penthouse and Amanda could believe that—everywhere but here. This one room bore a stamp that she instantly knew was the sheikh’s.

She didn’t know why she would think it. Asked to describe a room Nicholas al Rashid would design for himself, she’d have come up with mahogany furniture. Dark crimson walls. Velvet drapes.

These walls were pale blue silk. The furniture was satin-finished rosewood, and the tall windows had been left unadorned to frame the view of Central Park. The carpet was Persian, she was sure, and old enough to date back to a century when that had been the name of the country in which it had been made.

A sleek portable computer sat open on a low table.

The room spoke of simplicity and elegance. It spoke, too, of a time older than memory that flowed into a time yet to come.

Amanda began taking photos. The room. The bed. The open windows and the view beyond. She worked quickly while images of the sheikh flashed through her mind. She could see him in this room, tall and leanly muscled, stiff with regal arrogance. He belonged here.

Then she saw the oil painting on the wall. She hesitated, then walked toward it, eyes lifted to the canvas.

The room was a sham. All the sophistication, the urbanity…a lie, all of it. This was the real man, the one she’d met that night, and never mind the jeans and T-shirt he’d worn then, and the nonsense about his half-American ancestry.

The painting was of Nicholas al Rashid dressed in desert robes of white trimmed with gold, seated on the back of a white horse that looked as wild as he did. One hand held the reins; the other lay on the pommel of the elaborate saddle.

And his eyes, those silver eyes, seemed to be staring straight at her.

Amanda took a step back.

She was wrong to have come here, wrong to have let Dawn convince her she could take this job, even if the sheikh permitted it.

Wrong, wrong, wrong—

“What in hell do you think you’re doing in my bedroom?”

The tiny camera fell from Amanda’s hand. She swung around, heart racing, and saw the Lion of the Desert, the Heir to the Imperial Throne of Quidar, standing in the doorway, just as he’d been doing that night in her dormitory room.

No jeans and T-shirt this time.

He wore a dark gray suit, a white-on-white shirt and a dark red tie. He was dressed the same as half the men in Manhattan—but it was easy to imagine him in his flowing robes and headdress, with the endless expanse of the desert behind him instead of the marble hall.

Maybe it had something to do with the way he stood, legs apart, hands planted on his hips, as if he owned the world. Maybe it was the look on his hard, handsome face that said he was emperor of the universe and she was nothing but an insignificant subject….

Get a grip, Amanda.

The man had caught her off guard that night, but it wouldn’t happen again. She wasn’t eighteen anymore, and she’d learned how to deal with hard men who thought they owned the world, men like her father, her stepfather, her ex-husband.

Whatever else they owned, they didn’t own her.

“Well? Are you deaf, woman? I asked you a question.”

Amanda bent down, retrieved her camera and tucked it into her beaded evening purse.

“I heard you,” she said politely. “It’s just that you startled me, Sheikh Rashid.” She took a breath, then held out her hand. “I’m Amanda Benning.”

“And?” he said, pointedly ignoring her outstretched hand.

“Didn’t your sister tell you about me?”

“No.”

No? Oh. Dawn? Dawn, where are you?

Amanda smiled politely. “Well, she, um, she invited me here tonight.”

“And that gives you the right to sneak into my bedroom?”

“I did not sneak,” she said, trying to hold the smile. “I was merely…” Merely what? Dawn was supposed to handle all this. It was her surprise.

“Yes?”

“I was, um, I was…” She hesitated. “I think it’s better if Dawn explains it.”

A chilly smile angled across his mouth. “I’d much rather hear your explanation, Ms. Benning.”

“Look, this is silly. I told you, your sister and I are friends. Why not simply ask her to—”

“My sister is young and impressionable. It would never occur to her that you’d use your so-called friendship for your own purposes.”

“I beg your pardon?”

The sheikh took a step forward. “Who sent you here?”

“Who sent me?” Amanda’s eyes narrowed. Nearly eight years had gone by, and he was as arrogant and overbearing as ever. Well, she wasn’t the naive child she’d been the last time they’d dealt with each other, and she wasn’t frightened of bullies. “No one sent me,” she said as she started past him. “And there’s not enough money in the world to convince me to—”

His hand closed on her wrist with just enough pressure to make her gasp.

“Give me the camera.”

She looked up at him. His eyes glittered like molten silver. She felt a lump of fear lodge just behind her breastbone, but she’d sooner have choked on the fear than let him know he’d been able to put it there.

“Let go of me,” she said quietly.

His grasp on her wrist tightened; he tugged her forward. Amanda stumbled on her high heels and threw out a hand to stop herself. Her palm flattened against his chest.

It was like touching a wall of steel. The cover photo from Gossip sprang into her head. Savage, the caption had called him, just as she had, that night.

“Or what?” His words were soft; his smile glittered. “You are in my home, Ms. Benning. To all intents and purposes, that means you stand on Quidaran soil. My word is law here.”

“That’s not true.”

“It is true if I say it is.”

Amanda stared at him in disbelief. “Mr. Rashid—”

“You will address me as Lord Rashid,” he said, and she saw the sudden memory spark to life in his eyes. “We’ve met before.”

“No,” Amanda said, too quickly. “No, we haven’t.”

“We have. Something about you is familiar.”

“I have that kind of face. You know. Familiar.”

Nick frowned. She didn’t. The pale hair. The eyes that weren’t brown or green but something more like gold. The elegant cheekbones, the full, almost pouty lower lip…

“Let go of my wrist, Sheikh Rashid.”

“When you give me your camera.”

“Forget it! It’s my cam—Hey. Hey, you can’t…”

He could, though Nick had to admit, it wasn’t easy. The woman was twisting like a wildcat, trying to break free and keep him from opening her purse at the same time, but he hung on to her with one hand while he dug out her camera with the other.

She was still complaining, her voice rising as he thumbed from image to image. What he saw made him crazy. Photos of his home. The terrace. The living room. The library. The bathrooms, for God’s sake.

And his bedroom.

She had done more than invade his privacy. She had stolen it and would sell it to the highest bidder. He had no doubt of that.

He looked up from the digital camera, his eyes cold as they assessed her.

She was a thief, but she was beautiful even in a city filled with beautiful women. She seemed so familiar…but if they’d met before, surely he’d remember. What man would forget such a face? Such fire in those eyes. Such promised sweetness in that lush mouth.

And yet, for all of that, she was a liar.

Nick looked down at the little camera in his hand.

Beautiful, and duplicitous.

She played dangerous games, this woman. Games that took her into a man’s bedroom and left her vulnerable to whatever punishment he might devise.

He lifted his head slowly, and his eyes met hers.

“Who paid you to take these pictures?”

“I can’t tell you.”

“Well, that’s progress. At least you admit you’re doing this for money.”

“I am. But it isn’t what you—”

“You came here in search of information. A story. Photos. Whatever you could find that was salable.” A muscle flexed in his jaw. “Do you know what the punishment in my country is for those who steal?”

“Steal?” Amanda gave an incredulous laugh. “I did not—”

“Theft is bad enough,” he said coldly. “Don’t compound it by lying.”

His eyes were flat with rage. Amanda’s heart thumped. Dealing with her father, her stepfather, even her ex, was nothing compared to dealing with a man who ruled a kingdom. She wasn’t one of his subjects, but she had the feeling this wasn’t exactly the time to point that out.

If Nick finds out, Dawn had said, he’ll be angry at me.

But Dawn was among the missing, the sheikh was blocking the doorway, and clearly, discretion was not the better part of valor.

“All right.” Amanda stood straighter, even though her heart was still trying to fight its way out of her chest. “I’ll tell you the truth.”

“An excellent decision, Ms. Benning.”

She licked her lips. “I’m—I’m your surprise.”

Nick frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

“My services. They’re your gift. What Dawn talked about, on the phone.”

His gift? Nick’s brows lifted. His little sister had a strange sense of humor, but how far would she go for a joke? It could be that Amanda Benning was willing to tell one gigantic whopper as a cover story.

“Indeed,” he purred.

Amanda didn’t like the tone in his voice.

“I’ll have you know that I’m much sought after.” Oh, Amanda, what a lie. “And expensive.” Well, why not? She would be, one day.

“Yes,” Nick said softly. “That, at least, must be the truth.”

And then, before she could take a breath, Nick reached for the blonde with the golden eyes and the endless legs, pulled her into his arms, and crushed her mouth under his.

CHAPTER THREE

IF THERE was one thing Nick understood, it was the art of diplomacy.

He was the heir to the throne of an ancient kingdom. He represented his people, his flag, his heritage. And he never forgot that.

It was his responsibility to behave in a way that gave the least offense to anyone, even when he was saying or doing something others might not like. He understood that obligation and accepted it.

But when the spotlight was off and Nick could be himself, the truth was that he often had trouble being diplomatic. There were instances when diplomacy was about as useful as offering condolences to a corpse. Sometimes, being polite could distract from the truth and confuse things.

He wanted no confusion in Amanda Benning’s mind when it came to him. She was sophisticated and beautiful, a woman who lived by her wits as well as her more obvious charms, but he was on to her game.

And he wanted to be sure she knew it.

That was the reason he’d taken her in his arms. He was very clear about the purpose, even as he gathered her close against him, bent her back over his arm and kissed her.

He’d caught her by surprise. He’d intended that. She gasped, which gave him the chance to slip his tongue between her lips. Then she began to fight him.

Good.

She’d planned everything so carefully. The tiny camera that he should never have noticed. The sexy dress. The soft scent of her perfume. The strappy black silk shoes with the high, take-me heels…

Seduction first, conveniently made simple by his foolish sister, whose penchant for silly jokes had finally gotten out of hand. And then, having bedded the Lion of the Desert, the Benning woman would sell her photographs and a breathless first-person account of what it was like to sleep with him.

Nick caught Amanda’s wrist as she struggled to shove a hand between them. What a fool Dawn had been to hire a woman like this and bring her into their midst. But he’d have been a greater fool not to at least taste her.

He wouldn’t take her to bed. He was too fastidious to take the leavings of other men, but he’d give her just enough of an encounter to remember. Kiss her with harsh demand. Cup her high, lush breasts with the easy certainty that spoke of royal possession.

When she responded, not out of desire but because that was her job, he’d shove her from him, let her watch him grind her camera under his heel. After that, he’d call for Abdul and direct him to hustle the lady straight out the door.

Then he’d go in search of his sister. Dawn needed to be reminded how dangerous it was to consort with scum. A few months in Quidar, under the watchful eye of their father, would work wonders.

That was Nick’s plan anyway.

The kiss, the reality of it, changed everything.

Amanda had stopped struggling. That was good. She’d been paid to accept his kisses, welcome his hands as they caressed her pliant body…except, he suddenly realized, she wasn’t pliant.

She was rigid with what seemed to be fear.

Fear?

She’d cried out as his mouth covered hers. A nice touch, he’d thought coldly, that little intake of breath, that high, feminine cry. Righteous indignation didn’t go with the dress or the heels, certainly not with the face or the body, but he could see where she might try it, just to heighten the tension and his arousal before her ultimate surrender.

There were games men and women played, and a woman like this would know them all. Either Amanda Benning was an excellent actress or he’d started the game before she was ready.

Was she the kind who wanted to direct the performance and the pace? Or was her imagination running wild? Innocent maiden. Savage sheikh. The story wasn’t new. Nick had come across women who hungered for it and would accept nothing else, but he never obliged. It was a stereotype, a fantasy that offended him deeply, and he refused to play it out.

Sex between a man and a woman involved as much giving as taking or it brought neither of them pleasure.

But this was different.

He had neither wooed the Benning woman nor won her. She hadn’t seduced him with a smile, a glance, a touch. She was here because his sister had decided it would be amusing to give her to him as a gift.

In other words, none of the usual rules applied.

The woman was his. He could do as he wanted with her. And if what she thought he wanted was some rough sex, he could oblige. He could play along until it was time to toss her out.

A little rough treatment, maybe even a scare, was exactly what Amanda Benning deserved. She was a creature of no morals, willing to offer her body for information she could sell to the highest bidder.

Oh, yes. A little scare would do Amanda Benning just fine.

She was struggling in earnest now, not just trying to drag her mouth from his but fighting him, shoving her fists against his chest, doing her best to free herself from his arms.

Nick laughed against her mouth, spun her around, pressed her back against the silk-covered wall. He caught her wrists, entwined his fingers with hers and flattened her hands against the wall on either side of her.

She tried to scream. He caught her bottom lip in his teeth, moved closer, brushed his body against her.

God, she was so warm. Heat seemed to radiate from her skin. And she was soft. Her breasts. Her belly. Her mouth. Her hot, luscious mouth. He could taste it now, not only the fear but what lay beyond it, the sweet taste of the woman herself.

His body hardened, became steel. There was a roaring in his ears. Nick wanted to carry her to the bed, strip her of her clothes, bury himself deep inside her. Need for her sang in his blood, raced through every muscle.

The part of his brain that still functioned told him he was insane. He was kissing a woman his sister had bought as a joke, a woman with a bag filled with professional tricks. She was pretending she didn’t want him, and he was, what?

He was getting turned on.

It was just that she fitted his arms so well. That her hair felt so silken against his cheek. That she smelled sweet, the way he’d assumed she would taste. The way he wanted her to taste, he thought. The hell with it. She wanted to give a performance? All right. He would comply, but he was changing the rules.

He wasn’t going to take her. He was going to seduce her.

“Amanda,” he said softly.

Her lashes flew up. Her eyes met his.

“Don’t fight me,” he whispered, and kissed her. Gently. Tenderly. His mouth moved against hers, over and over; his teeth nipped lightly at her bottom lip. And, gradually, her mouth began to soften. She made a little sound, a whimper, and her body melted against his.

Nick groaned at the stunning sweetness of her surrender. He wanted to let go of her wrists and slide his hands down her spine, stroke the satin that was her skin, cup her bottom and lift her up into the urgency of his erection. When her hands tugged at his, seeking freedom, pleasure rocketed through him. He understood what she wanted, that she sought the freedom to touch him, explore him. It was what he wanted, too. He’d forgotten everything except that he was on fire for the woman in his arms.

He touched the tip of his tongue to the seam of her lips as he let go of her wrists and took her face in his hands. His palms cupped her cheeks; he tilted her head back so that her golden hair feathered like silk over the tips of his fingers, so that he could slant his mouth hungrily over hers—

—so that her knee could catch him right where he lived and drive every last breath of air from his lungs.

A strangled gasp of agony burst from his lips. Nick doubled over and clutched his groin.

“Amanda?” he croaked, and got his chin up just in time to see her coming at him again.

“You no-good bastard!”

He was hurting. The pain was gut-deep, but he fought it, jumped out of her path, caught her as she flew by and flung her on the bed. She landed hard, rolled to her side, sat up and almost got her feet on the floor, but by then he’d recovered enough to come down on top of her.

She called him a name he’d only heard a couple of times in his life and pummeled him with her fists.

“Get off me!”

It was like wrestling with a wildcat. She was small and slender but she moved fast, and it didn’t help that it still felt as if his scrotum was seeking shelter halfway up his belly.

Nick took a blow on his chin, another in the corner of his eye. He grabbed for her hands, captured them and pinned them high over her head.

“You little bitch,” he said, straddling her hips.

Amanda bucked like an unbroken mare, her hips arcing up, then down.

“Stop it.” He leaned toward her, his eyes hot with anger. “Damn you, woman, did you hear what I said? Stop!”

She didn’t. She bucked again, her body moving against his, her breasts heaving, her golden hair disheveled against the blue silk pillows. Her eyes were wild, the pupils huge and black and encircled by rims of gold. She was panting through parted lips; he could see the flash of her small white teeth, the pink of her tongue. Her excuse of a dress was ruined; one thin red silk strap hung off her shoulder, exposing the upper curve of a creamy breast. The skirt had ridden up her hips. He could see the strip of black lace that hid the feminine delta between her thighs.

And all at once, he felt fine. No more pain, just the realization that he was hard, swollen and aroused, separated from the woman beneath him by nothing but his trousers and that scrap of sexy lace.

The air in the room crackled with electricity.

He became still. She did, too. Her eyes met his, and for the first time, what he saw in them took his breath away.

“No,” she whispered, but his mouth was already coming down on hers.

She held back; he could feel her tremble.

“Yes,” he said softly, and kissed her again. “Amanda…”

She moaned. Her lashes fell to her cheeks and she opened her mouth to his. Her surrender was real. Her need was, too. He could feel it in the pliancy of her body, taste it in the silken heat of her kiss.

Nick let go of her hands and gathered her against him. She moaned again and dug her hands into his hair, clutching the dark curling strands with greedy fists.

Greedy. Yes, that was the way she felt. Greedy for his mouth, for his touch. For the feel of Nicholas al Rashid deep inside her.

It was crazy. She didn’t know this man, and what little she did know, she didn’t like. Moments ago, she’d been fighting him off….

Her breath caught as he rolled onto his side and took her with him. He stroked his hand down her spine, then up again. All the way up, so that his thumbs brushed lightly over her breasts.

“Tell me you want me,” he said.

His voice was as soft as velvet, as rough as gravel. His breath whispered against her throat as he licked the flesh where her neck joined her shoulder, and she moaned.

“Tell me,” he urged, and she did by seeking his mouth with hers.

Nick sat up, tore off his suit jacket and his tie. She heard the buttons on his shirt pop as he stripped it off. Then he came back down to her, cupped her breasts in his hands and took her mouth.

His skin was hot against hers. She made a little sound of need, nipped his bottom lip. “Yes,” she said, “yes, oh, yes…”

His knee was between her thighs. She lifted herself to it, against it; his thumbs rolled across her silk-covered nipples and she was caught up on a wave of heat, up and up and up. She cried out his name, shut her eyes, tossed her head from side to side.

“Look at you,” Nick whispered. “Just look at you.”

And as quickly as that, it was all over.

Amanda froze. Disgust, horror, anguish…a dozen different emotions raced through her, brought back by those simple, unforgotten words. They took her back seven years to that dormitory room, to the terrifying intruder named Nicholas al Rashid who’d branded her as immoral even as he’d looked at her and wanted her.

Bile rose in her throat. “Get off me,” she said.

The sheikh didn’t hear her. Couldn’t hear her. She looked up at him, hating what she saw, hating herself for being the cause. His silver eyes were blind with desire; the bones of his face were taut with it.

Nausea roiled in her belly. “Get—off!”

She struck out blindly, fists beating against his chest and shoulders. He blinked; his eyes opened slowly as if he were awakening from a dream.

“You—get—the—hell—off,” she said, panting, and struck him again.

He caught her flailing hands, pinioned them. “It’s too late to play that game.”

His voice was low and rough; the hands that held her were hard and cruel. She told herself not to panic. This was Dawn’s brother. He was arrogant, imperious and all-powerful…but he wasn’t crazy.

“Taking a woman against her will isn’t a game,” she said, and tried to keep the fear from her voice.

“Against her will?”

His eyes moved over her and she flushed at the slow, deliberate scrutiny. She knew how she must look. Her dress torn. The hem of her skirt at her thighs. Her lips bare of everything but the imprint of his.

A thin smile started at the corner of his mouth. “When a woman all but begs a man to take her, it’s hardly ‘against her will’.”

“I’d never beg a man for anything,” she said coldly. “And if you don’t let go and get off me, I’ll scream. There must be a hundred people downstairs by now. Every one of them will hear me.”

“You disappoint me.” The bastard didn’t just smile this time; he laughed. “You sneaked into my home—”

“I didn’t sneak into anything. Your sister invited me.”

“Did she tell you that once the party begins, no one will be permitted on this floor?”

Her heart thumped with fear. “They will, if they hear me screaming.”

“My men would not permit it.”

“The police don’t need your permission.”

“The police can’t do anything to help you. This is Quidaran soil.”

“It’s a penthouse on Fifth Avenue,” Amanda said, trying to free her hands, “not an embassy.”

“We have no embassy in your country. By the time our governments finish debating the point, it will be too late.”

“You’re not frightening me.”

It was a lie and they both knew it. She was terrified; Nick could see it in her eyes. Good. She’d deserved the lesson. She was immoral. She was a liar. A thief. She was for sale to any man who could afford her.

What did that make him, then, for still wanting her?

Nick let go of her hands, rolled off her and got to his feet. “Get out,” he said softly.

She sat up, moved to the edge of the bed, her eyes wary. She shot a glance at the door and he knew she was measuring her chances of reaching it. It made him feel rotten but, dammit, she wasn’t worth his pity. She wasn’t worth anything except, perhaps, the price his foolish sister had paid for her.

“Go on,” he said gruffly, and jerked his head toward the door. “Get out, before I change my mind.”

She rose from the bed. Smoothed down her skirt with hands that shook. Bent and picked up her purse, grabbed the camera and put it inside.

She stumbled backward as Nick came around the bed toward her.

“No,” she said sharply, but he ignored her, snatched the purse from her hands and opened the flap. “What are you doing?”

He looked up. He had to give her points for courage, he thought grudgingly. She’d lost one of her ridiculously high heels in their struggle. Her dress was a mess and her hair hung in her eyes.

Those unusual golden eyes.

He frowned, reached for a memory struggling to the surface of his mind….

“Give me my purse.”

She lunged for the small beaded bag. He whipped it out of her reach. She went after it, lifting up on her toes and batting at it with her hands.

“Dammit, give me that!”

Nick took out the camera and tossed the purse at her feet. “It’s all yours.”

“I want my camera.”

“I’m sure you do.”

Grinding the camera to dust under his heel would have been satisfying, but the carpet was soft and he knew he might end up looking like an ass if the damned thing didn’t break. Instead, he strolled into the bathroom.

“What are you…?”

Nick pressed a button on the camera, took out the tiny recording disk and dumped it into the toilet. He shut the lid, flushed, then dropped the camera on the marble floor. Now, he thought, now it would smash when he stepped on it.

It did.

Amanda Benning was scarlet with fury. “You—you bastard!”

“My parents would be upset to hear you call me that, Ms. Benning,” he said politely. He walked past her, pleased that the toilet hadn’t spit the disk back—it had been a definite possibility and it surely would have spoiled the drama of the moment.

A little more drama, and he’d send Amanda Benning packing.

He swung toward her and folded his arms over his chest. “Actually, addressing me in such a fashion could get you beheaded in my homeland.”

Amanda planted her hands on her hips. “It could get you sued in mine.”

He laughed. “You can’t sue me. I’m—”

“Believe me, I know who you are, Mr. Rashid.”

“Lord Rashid,” Nick said quickly, and scowled.

What was he saying? He didn’t care about his title. Everyone used it. It was the custom but occasionally someone forgot, and he never bothered correcting them. The only time he had was years ago. Dawn’s roommate…

The girl with the golden eyes. Strange that he should have remembered her after so long a time. Stranger still that he should have done so tonight.

“…and ninety-eight cents.”

He blinked, focused his eyes on Amanda Benning. She hadn’t moved an inch. She was still standing in front of him, chin lifted, eyes flashing. He felt a momentary pity that she was what she was. A woman as beautiful, as fiery as this, would be a true gift, especially in a man’s bed.

“Did you hear me, Lord Rashid?” Amanda folded her arms, tapped her foot. “You owe me $620.98. That includes the film.”

One dark, arched brow lifted. It made him look even more insolent. She was boring him, she thought, and fought back a tremor of rage.

“I beg your pardon?”

“The camera.” She marched past him, plucked her purse from the floor, dug inside it and pulled out a rumpled piece of paper. “The receipt. From Picture Perfect, on Madison Avenue.”

She held it out. Nick looked at it but didn’t touch it.

“An excellent place to buy electronic devices, or so I’ve been told.”

“I want my money.”

“What for?”

“I just told you. For the camera you destroyed.”

“Ah. That.”

“Yes. Yes, ‘Ah, that.’ You owe me six hundred and—”

Nick reached for the phone. “Abdul?” he said, never taking his eyes from her, “come to my rooms, please. Yes, now.” He put the telephone down, leaned back against the wall and tucked his hands into his trouser pockets. “Your escort is on the way, Miss Benning. Abdul will escort you down to the curb where the trash is usually left.”

Enough was enough. Amanda’s composure dissolved in a burst of temper. She gave a shriek and flew at him, but Nick caught her shoulders, held her at arm’s length.

“You rat,” she said, her breath hitching. “You—you skunk! You horrible, hideous savage—”

“What did you call me?”

“You heard me. You’re a skunk. A rat. A—”

“A savage.” He swung her around, pinned her to the wall. The memory, so long repressed, burst free. “Damn you,” he growled. “You’re Dawn’s roommate.”

“Her immoral, American roommate,” Amanda said, and showed her teeth. “How brilliant of you to have finally figured it out. But then, I never expected a baboon to have much of a brain.”

The door swung open. Dawn al Rashid stepped into the room. She stared at her shirtless brother, her red-faced best friend, and swallowed hard.

“Isn’t that nice?” she said carefully. “I see that you two have already met.”

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