The Sheikh's Sinful Seduction(5)

                English, he reminded with a mild curse at his own weakness. Was it genetic that he could be blindsided by lust for one, so much so that he couldn’t smile, let alone speak?

                He was only responding to her because he hadn’t been with any woman in over two months, he reasoned. It had nothing to do with a tainted streak in his makeup. He wasn’t like his father, who had fallen so hard for the wrong woman he’d gotten himself killed for it, leaving his bastard half-blood son to clean up the mess.

                “Fern, this is my brother, Zafir. She may call you that while we’re here, yes?” Amineh turned back and clasped his arm, then leaned her weight on him in a familiar way that yanked him back into awareness. “Be nice to her. She’s shy.”

                Fern. It was oddly suitable. His country favored names inspired by nature and something in her buttoned-down demeanor reminded him of those tightly curled fiddleheads he used to spy when tramping through his grandfather’s estate, searching for signs of spring and the end of the semester, when he could return to the warmth of home.

                “Of course,” he managed to respond, fine with the level of stiffness in his tone. He was in the throes of a very wrong-time, wrong-place reaction. The feeling annoyed him enough to reflect in his voice. Still, he heard himself say, “If I may call you Fern.” He would regardless, but he willed permission from her all the same. Cooperation.

                Capitulation.

                Damn. He really shouldn’t want her so badly that he was already finding ways to stake a claim. Like it was a given that he would have her. This was lust. Garden-variety. He was on vacation, relaxed. Horny. Of course he responded to an available woman. That’s all this was and he could resist it.

                Her lashes quivered and she nodded shakily, fingers playing together restlessly.

                Her discomfiture left him grimly pleased. He was vital and sexual and alpha. Asserting himself was second nature, but there was more at play here. Amineh might see only a blush, but Fern’s reaction was carnal and that held a special allure for him.

                “We’re very informal here,” Amineh chattered on. “We’ll cover up again when the Bedouins come through, but for now the oasis is ours. That’s why I love it. Oh, I’ve been looking forward to this.” She squeezed his arm again, then gave him a frown. “But you look grumpy. Why? We’re going to have fun. Act like kids again. Come on, Fern. Let’s walk up to the camp and get settled.”

                Fern began to gather her bags onto her shoulder.

                Zafir bit back an urging for her to leave them for the servants, but she was Ra’id’s employee, he reminded himself. Not an ambassador’s daughter. She knew her place better than he did.

                She packed like an ambassador’s daughter, he noted with a grimace, as he watched her try to heft a third bag onto her shoulder.

                He moved to take it.

                “I can come back for it,” she insisted, but he brushed past her attempts to keep it and reached to remove one of the others already bending her slender spine. His thumb grazed skin like duck down, punching a shot of hot need into his gut.

                What the hell? From barely touching her?

                The hair on his scalp stood on end with both alarm and excitement.

                She dipped her head, making it impossible for him to decipher whether she had reacted as intensely. But if he wasn’t mistaken, her nipples were standing up in sharp points. It couldn’t be from a chill in this heat.