The Sheik Who Loved Me(3)

Then he saw it. A pale form among the debris. The symmetry of the shape was unmistakably human. And female. Kamilah’s mermaid!

He kicked his stallion into a gallop along the packed wet sand. The form remained motionless as he neared. David dismounted, crouched down beside her.

She lay among scattered debris, limp as the pieces of broken jellyfish that had washed up with her. David pressed his fingers against the cold skin of her neck, searching for a pulse. She was alive. Barely. He quickly assessed the scene.

She was naked from the waist up. Her wet hair was almost hip length, and it tangled like amber seaweed about her upper body. She had the most perfect breasts he’d ever seen. Small with dusky coral-tipped nipples scrunched tight. Torn green fabric swathed her legs.

He glanced up at the perilous, churning ocean, the waves thundering over the outlying razor-sharp reefs. It was an absolute miracle she hadn’t been sliced to ribbons.

He carefully moved the strands of hair from her face, looking for injury, and his breath caught. She was utterly exquisite. Her slanted eyes were closed, fringed with long amber lashes. Her honey-brown skin glistened with rain. But below the cosmetic appearance of a healthy tan, she was deathly pale. He could see why. A gaping gash split the skin on her temple. It had been washed bloodless by the sea.

He rolled her gently over toward him. There were more cuts, angry ones, down the left side of her torso. And a jagged wound on her left forearm, also bloodless from time in salt water. As he assessed her injuries, a rogue part of his brain noted she wore no wedding band, no engagement ring. A primal male awareness quickened the pace of his heart.

Thunder exploded above him and he winced. Lightning forked over the horizon. The wind shifted suddenly, thrashing in frenzied circles as if delirious at the prospect of even heavier weather. A solid wall of blackness begin to swell out over the water. It rose like a monstrous gray-toothed maw, filling the sky, sucking in everything in its path. And it began rushing in a towering, screaming wall toward the island. It was the brunt of the electrical sandstorm and it would hit any second. He had to risk moving her. Thank God Dr. Watson was still on the island. The foul weather had stopped him from flying out to Khartoum this morning.

David yanked the curved dagger from his waistband, slashed the fabric binding her legs. He ripped off his shirt, carefully slid his hands under the woman, winding the wet fabric around her. He then lifted her limp and unconscious form up onto his horse’s back, praying she didn’t have a back injury because this movement sure as hell would seal her fate if she did. But he had no choice. She would most certainly die out here if he tried to go for help first.

He mounted, gathered her in close to his naked chest and kicked his stallion forward. The horse bolted, stumbling wildly up the dune, eager for the shelter of home. David bent low over the woman, shielding her from the worst of the violent weather. His concentration was on speed, yet a part of him was acutely aware of the stinging sand and slashing rain on his bare back—and how the painful sensation contrasted with the soft feminine swell of the woman’s breasts, of her smooth wet skin against his naked chest.

And even as he raced for his palace, deep down in his heart, David Rashid he knew he was in trouble.





Chapter 1

Where was she? Her eyes flared open. Dim light sliced through to the back of her brain where it exploded in a burst of sharp pain. She scrunched her eyes shut tight again.

She could hear an unearthly sound, like wounded banshees or a screaming wind. She couldn’t make sense of it. She thought she could hear surf crashing far away. Like the drums of gods or rolling thunder. Or maybe it was just the dull thudding of her heart, the sound too loud inside her skull.

She tried to move her head, but it hurt. Everything hurt. Her whole body pounded with rhythmic pain as if her veins and vessels were too small and too fragile for the angry blood that was being thrust through them.

She tentatively tried to open her eyes again. Through her lashes she could make out shapes, shadows. Quivering. Firelight? Candles? An exotic scent stirred in warm currents of air. She couldn’t seem to find focus. It was all a blur, so very foreign.

A wedge of panic rammed into her heart.

Then she sensed a presence. Someone standing over her. Her heart stalled. With a bite of fresh urgency, she forced her eyes open wider, trying to pull the dark shadow that loomed over her into some kind of recognizable form.

It was a man, staring down at her. A severely beautiful man with dark skin, sharp, angled features, raven-black hair and piercing blue eyes. Eyes that bored right into her soul.

Danger!

Her chest constricted. Her heart hammered up into her throat. She knew that face from somewhere. It set every alarm bell clanging. She tried to swallow, to calm herself, to breathe. She concentrated on the man’s face, mentally cataloguing his features, desperately trying to find a match in her brain, to understand why he was supposed to represent a threat.