Never Resist a Sheikh (International Bad Boys) Read Online Free PDF Page B

then her implication would have angered him since kings did not stoop to banditry or blackmail. But he was not the kind of man his brother had been. And anger was just one of many emotions he’d excised from his heart.
    So all he said was, “I do not want money.”
    “Then what?” She probably hadn’t meant it to sound like a demand, but it came out as one. “Why me?”
    “You are not afraid to giveorders to a king, Miss Cartwright?” He said it softly, but injected the words with an edge. Enough to give her pause.
    A whisper of fear moved through her smoky eyes. But she didn’t look away. “I just w-want to know why you took me?”
    Her voice was softer this time, the stutter he’d heard before creeping back into it. Something about that tugged at him in a way he wasn’t used to, a way he foundvaguely unsettling. If she was afraid, that was good, wasn’t it? It would make her more biddable.
    Ignoring the feeling, he gazed at her instead.
    He was a soldier, words and speeches were not his forte. So how to explain to a woman who did not know the old ways? An American who would no doubt view his country’s customs as barbaric?
    There really was only one way to tell her.
    “I took you becauseI need a wife,” he said without inflection.
    She’d gone very still. “A what?”
    “I think you heard me.” He held her silvery gaze. “You, Miss Cartwright, are my bride prize.”

Chapter Three

    S he didn’t understand. Really didn’t understand. What was a bride prize? And why on earth did he think she was going to be his wife? Was he completely insane? Was she now the prisoner of a mad king?
    The fear that had been coiling icily in her gut now froze solid.
    By now, everyone would know she was missing, but they wouldn’t have any idea where she was. Hopefully Red Starwould be raising hell trying to find her, yet until they did, she’d be totally at the mercy of this…man.
    Though really, he wasn’t like any man she’d ever come into contact with. He was almost the polar opposite of the computer guys in her company with their T-shirts and button-downs and jeans. And completely unlike the powerful men in their bespoke suits and their Manhattan offices, too, mensuch as her father and his social circle.
    This sheikh was as much like them as a tiger was like a house cat.
    Not only was he built on a massive scale, he also radiated a sense of tightly leashed violence, danger almost vibrating in the air around him, a pressure like an approaching storm. It was unsettling and yet at the same time absolutely mesmerizing.
    She had no idea why.
    He stood in frontof her, his arms crossed, all that bare, bronze skin gleaming, and even though he was only wearing black pants and boots, he looked every inch the king he’d told her he was.
    Not that she knew what a king was supposed to look like, but there was no denying his aura of power. This was a man who knew what he wanted and would take it without a second thought.
    And apparently what he wanted was her.

    Felicity tried to ignore her fear, but it remained a cold hard lump in her gut. God, where was the anger that had overwhelmed her earlier? She could really use some of that now. Though in retrospect, poking him hadn’t been the best idea she’d ever had.
    Especially not when touching him apparently meant death.
    A weird flush of heat seemed to radiate through her at the thought, starting from thetip of the finger she’d jabbed against his chest, sweeping through her hand, over the wrist that his long, impossibly strong fingers had wrapped around, and up her arm.
    Men didn’t usually have such an effect on her, not that she’d ever poked one in the chest like that.
    Or been kidnapped by one.
    Good freaking point. Which made being affected by him not only wrong, but completely insane.
    Decidingto ignore the weird heat, she stuck her hands beneath her armpits to hide any rogue shakes. “Okay, so…I think you’re going to have to go over the wife and bride prize