To Touch a Sheikh Read Online Free PDF Page A

impossible.”
    â€œKamal hasn’t been ‘approached,’ he’s been breached, poor sap. I almost feel sorry for him. But he certainly deserves what he got—Aliyah, my questionnaire-completing half sister. But how fanciful of you both to lump me in the same species as him. Even if you placed me far higher on its evolutionary scale.”
    She made a cartoonish expression of soothing seriousness. “Don’t worry. To me, you’re a species of one.”
    The contrast between her overpowering beauty and that ridiculous look was so funny that he almost laughed.
    He pressed down hard on the urge, smirked. “How reassuring. Here’s hoping Aliyah isn’t dispensing more completed forms to ‘interested’ females. I already had one use knowledge of my specs to systematically eliminate me.”
    â€œYeah, Aliyah told me you came to hate the color green after…after…”
    He huffed his disbelief that she seemed so moved, recalling what had been done to him. “After it became associated with arsenic and an excruciating near-death in my mind? Nah, I always did. My mother dressed me in nothing but green till I was six, to go with my damn eyes. The moment she died I swore to never let that hue near me again. Then my loving ex-wannabe murderess started showering me with items in shades of it, looking as if she’d die if I didn’t accept them. Little knowing that my life was the one in danger, I swallowed my aversion, along with the poison.”
    Seemingly over her poignancy, she was back in teasing mode. “Great to know aversion is no longer a thing you swallow.”
    He gave her a scathing look, what she’d seen freezing heads of state. “ Aih, I prefer to swallow my opposition and chew out anyone foolhardy enough to approach me.”
    â€œOh, chew away.” She sighed as if he’d whispered some over-the-top endearment. “And speaking of chewing…” She twirled around, filled herself a plate of sliced fruits. “In case you’re wondering how I got Aliyah to disclose your classified info, we go way back, from the time when we both lived in the States. It was inevitable that we became best buddies, with both ofus being half-Arabian, half-American and belonging to royal families in neighboring kingdoms.”
    â€œYour country isn’t a kingdom. It’s a speck of an emirate with delusions of grandeur.”
    She hooted. “My father would have a fit if he heard his beloved Ossaylan described like that. But compared to the kingdoms surrounding it, that is what it is.” She bit into a plum slice, transmitting the mental image into his brain. Of her biting into his lips. Of his teeth sinking into her ripe ones. “I love how you smack out painful truths. So refreshing after the stifling decorum and protocol I have to bate my breath through.”
    â€œSo glad I’m acting as your social inhaler and royal oxygen mask.” He was rewarded—or rather, from the twisting ache in his gut, punished—by that melodic laugh of hers. “You don’t consider it your ‘beloved Ossaylan’?”
    â€œWith myself and my life divided between the U.S. and Ossaylan, I never attained the unbridled allegiance of a pure native of either. I do love a lot about Ossaylan, but I dislike a lot, too. It’s hard to know what to feel about the place that has seen your best and worst days.”
    â€œThe latter being your married days, of course.”
    She sighed, still smiling, but as if through—if it could be believed, and it sure couldn’t be—a mist of melancholy. “If you promise not to interrupt with alternate versions in which I’m a succubus, I’ll tell you the whole story.”
    â€œI’ll pass. I’m not into reruns. I know the whole story.”
    â€œTrust me, about this particular story, you know zip.”
    â€œTrust you? Farther than I can throw you, you