Jane Porter - The Sheikh's Virgin

“But, Your Excellency, we have been sent to bring her home.”

Kalen Nuri was walking now, climbing the front steps with a grace that masked his strength. “You dare to take my woman from me?”

Deafening silence descended. All motion ceased, all talk stopped, even Keira went weak.

“Your woman?” The man holding Keira repeated.

“My woman.” Kalen’s voice thundered low and menacing like a roll of heavy thunder across the heavens.

The arms holding Keira loosened. She felt herself lowered, placed back on her feet. The moment the arms eased from around her Keira moved to Sheikh Nuri’s side.

Kalen extended an arm, but didn’t touch her. “Lalla al-Issidri is in my protection.”

“But we have been sent for her.” A different man spoke, the second one to appear from the house. Somewhere was a third. “Sidi al-Issidri was very clear.”

“Let me be just as clear,” the sheikh answered with mock civility. “She is mine.”

Kalen glanced at Keira and Keira felt his gaze, felt a peculiar current curl in her, heat and fear, dread and anticipation. And looking at her, his amber gaze glowing hot, possessive, he added, “Keira al-Issidri is my woman. She belongs to me.”

And then the three men were gone.

Magic, Keira thought, as the men climbed into the car and drove away. Kalen might as well have been a magician like Merlin from the days of King Arthur’s court.

But it wasn’t magic, it was power. And he had far too much of it.

Keira faced Kalen on the front steps as the car disappeared down the street. For a moment neither spoke. Keira stared blindly past Kalen and he made no effort to start a conversation. And yet his silence wasn’t easy. She felt his anger.

“So it’s begun,” Sheikh Nuri said, eventually breaking the silence.

She wished she could say she didn’t know what he meant. She wished she were as naive as he’d accused her of being but Keira knew exactly what Kalen meant.

What had just happened on the front porch of her house was huge.

Sheikh Nuri had just publicly challenged her father. Sheikh Nuri had usurped her father’s authority. And Sheikh Nuri could, because he was third in line for the throne behind his brother and his two nephews.

Her father would be livid. Livid and humiliated.

Keira pressed a hand to her brow, pressing against the ache that had taken up residence there. She’d rejected her father. Accepted Kalen Nuri’s protection. In minutes she’d turned all their lives upside down.

“I should call my father,” she said, voice husky, goose bumps covering her arms.

“I’m certain he’s already heard.”

She gave her head a faint shake. “I should at least try to talk to him.”

Kalen Nuri took a step toward her, closing the distance between them. He stared at her so long and hard that she shivered and looked away.

“He is my father, after all,” she added defensively.

“And what will your call achieve?”

Keira couldn’t answer and Kalen took her chin in his hand, tilted her face up to his. “What do you think you’ll do?” he repeated his question impatiently. “If your father intended to listen to you, to care about your opinion, to care about your needs, he would have listened to you already.”

She hated what he was saying, hated that he was right and she tried to pull away but Kalen wasn’t about to let her go.

“Your father was going to use you to further his own political ambitions,” he added roughly, his fingers too hard on her jaw, his tone too sharp. “To a man like your father you are merely an object, a possession to be used, bartered, traded.”

Each word was worse. Each word bit and stung. “But you’re the same, aren’t you, Sheikh Nuri?” Her throat was swelling closed and she had to force each syllable and sound out. “You’re using me, too. You’re using me to get back at my father. At least be man enough to admit it.”

She heard his soft hiss at her insult. His touch changed, shifted, fingers extending from her chin to her jaw, his fingers briefly caressing the width of her jawbone.

“You lack a Barakan woman’s good sense and quiet tongue,” he said, his thumb slowly sweeping beneath the edge of her jaw, stirring the nerves in the most tender of skin.

Her skin flamed, nerves tightening at the maddening touch. “I’m not Barakan.”

“Yet I’m beginning to think you deserve a Barakan husband. One who would teach you humility and a modicum of self-control.”

She ground her teeth, temper flashing in her eyes. “Hate to disappoint you, Sheikh Nuri, but some things can’t be taught.”

“That’s where you’re wrong, laeela. Anything can be taught. It just takes the right teacher.” A flicker of dark emotion shone in his eyes. “And you would need not just a good teacher, but a patient teacher.”

A hot stinging fizz went through her veins, so hot, so intense that her lips parted on a silent gasp of tangled pleasure and pain.

He made her feel.

He made her feel far too much. “I don’t want a man.” She felt wild, desperate. She’d had so many feelings for Kalen Nuri all those years ago and then everything bad happened, everything had come unglued. “I never want a man.”

“You will when you meet the right man.”

“There is no right man.”

He gave her a long, level look. “There used to be,” he said, tone pitched low, hinting at intimacy and she stiffened.

“Never.”

“There was. Once.” His eyes narrowed, black lashes concealing his expression. “Many, many years ago.”

She closed her eyes, hiding her alarm. He was bluffing. He knew nothing.

Kalen’s thumb caressed her skin, lightly, teasingly stroking from chin to the small hollow beneath her earlobe. “There is always a right man. There is always the one man that can turn a girl into a woman—”

Panting, Keira pulled away, tearing herself from his touch, his words, tearing away the web he was weaving.

This wasn’t happening. This couldn’t be happening. She headed into the house, trying to put fresh distance between them and yet Sheikh Nuri followed immediately. She heard the front door shut, the lock turn. They were alone in her house.

Odd.

Heartbreaking.

And for a moment Keira held her breath, nerves taut, senses too alive. “Pack a suitcase,” Kalen said, meeting her in the hall, just outside her bedroom door. He looked so incongruous in her small, snug house with the bright yellow painted walls and the rich oak trim. It was a sunny house. A happy house. “We need to leave soon.”

Pack. Leave. He was frightening her and nervously she reached up, smoothed tendrils of hair back, combing her long dark ponytail, the ebony strands falling over her shoulder. “I can’t just leave. I have a job, responsibilities—”

“You chose me, remember?”

His soft question silenced her. She didn’t know what to say. Nothing came to mind. Nothing about this was logical and logic was her cornerstone, her foundation. Logic was how she functioned. Logic. Order. Structure.

In her bedroom she grabbed at clothes, pulling shirts and blouses, skirts and slacks from hangers. Everything went into her suitcase, shoes and belts and underwear, too.

She emerged ten minutes later, silent. He nodded at her suitcase, the purse in her hand, the coat over her arm. “Good. Let’s go.”

In the back of his car she sat as far from him as possible. She stared at a point beyond the car window. Minutes passed. Nothing was said but clearly the driver was heading somewhere. There was a definite destination in mind.

“Where are we going?” she asked, forcing herself to speak.

“London.”

“London?”

“That big city in England.”

Years ago she’d had a crush on Kalen Nuri, had even imagined herself in love with him. Kalen Nuri had dominated every waking thought—never mind her dreams. Now she was horrified she’d wasted one thought on him, much less a single breath. “You do not amuse me.”