Taken by the Sheikh Read Online Free PDF Page B

and the incongruous shoes.
    “Yes, I can see you are wearing nothing,” he finally agreed. “They suit you very well, these non-existent clothes. You’re a pleasant diversion from Yasmina’s torture.”
    Laurel seethed, but managed somehow to hold her tongue and not react to his taunting. Right now she needed his flying skills more than she needed to defend her own pride.
    Yasmina heard her name spoken and gave Rafiq a fond pat on the cheek. He threw a few soft words in her direction and then returned his attention to Laurel.
    “Well you can’t go travelling if you’ve nothing to wear, can you Miss Kiwi? The International Aviation Federation forbids it on grounds that pilots may be distracted and rendered unsafe to fly.”
    “What!?” Her eyes blazed at his insolence.
    His own much darker ones stared her down. Surely he had his tongue tucked into his cheek and was trying to annoy her?
    “And anyway, this pilot is hungry. He needs feeding and resting before he’s fit to fly again.” He turned his attention back to Yasmina, leaving Laurel stunned and silent.
     
    “What have you cooked for us?” 
    “Lamb stew with cumin and tomatoes, My Lord Rafiq. Ripe apricots to follow with your coffee.”
    She gave his forehead a final close inspection and appeared as pleased as she was ever going to be.
    “She has made us lamb stew, my old nurse and nanny. We can’t just fly off and disappoint her.” He grinned at Laurel’s outraged expression. “We’ll eat and then we’ll see.”
    “We’ll eat and then we’ll fly. ”
    “Perhaps.” His eyes continued to roam around her body, stopping now at her small hands with their pearly pink nails, next on her pale throat which had so drawn him as she gulped at the orange juice after their frantic march across the swirling sand, then down to the crossover neckline of the robe where her breasts were pushed together by her arms holding the fabric tight.
    She was not sport for the likes of Nazim and Fayez. He knew all too well what her fate would have been if he’d not intervened; she’d been disposable the moment the recordings were complete.
    And he would have had to let them have her because so much time and planning had gone into the mission, and so many other lives were at risk because of it. The scene his mind insisted on summoning curdled his blood. She was a pretty thing—soft and young, feisty but unsophisticated. She wouldn’t have stood a chance.
    “I can’t eat dinner wearing only this,” she objected, glaring down at the fabric.
    Rafiq dragged his brain back from rape and murder to the tiny problem of the see-through robe.
    “Yasmina has very few clothes, and she would be embarrassed for you to borrow any of them.”
    “But...this isn’t decent.”
    “Poor Miss Kiwi. I held you underneath me this afternoon for many minutes so I’m well-acquainted with your body. Why should you be worried after that?”
    “You’re disgusting!”
    “I’m realistic. There are no other ladies’ garments in the lodge. Although...”
    He pushed back the chair, unfolded to his full height, and placed the hand-towel on the table-top.
    He enjoyed her disbelieving stare as he pulled his shirt from the waistband of his trousers. He slipped the topmost button undone, then moved down to the next, and the next. His eyes sent her a mischievous challenge as he progressed downwards. As he’d hoped, Laurel found it impossible to look away. She swallowed.
    He saw the small convulsive movement, and something gave a kick deep in his gut. So he was turning her on a little? Not as much as her compact curves in that transparent confection were affecting him!
    He drew the unbuttoned shirt-fronts apart and stopped, his torso still shadowed by the fabric, but now on display for her from neck to navel.
     
    Laurel swallowed again and cleared her throat. Surely he was made of milk chocolate, smoothly molded and glossy? The lamplight shone on his hard-muscled dark-nippled chest and the warm