The Playboy Sheikh's Virgin Stable-Girl by Sharon Kendrick Read Free Book Online Page A

stable girl. Why, he had forgotten that she was a girl.
    But now he noticed how the faint sheen of sweat clung to her skin, making her tunic stick to the curves of her body—undeniably emphasising her femininity. In fact, she was not a girl. Not at all. This green-eyed servant with the honeyed skin was pure woman.
    Suddenly, he felt the insistent clamouring of sexual hunger. A sudden ache in response to the provocation in her confident assurance that she would be able to jump his powerful horse—a provocation made more sensual still by the fact that it was completely unintended.
    Kaliq’s mouth dried. ‘Not now,’ he said huskily. ‘Dismount.’
    Something dark which underpinned his aristocratic voice reminded Eleni exactly where she was. And that what she had just done surely amounted to a punishable offence…for she had been speaking to the Prince Kaliq Al’Farisi as if he were an equal!
    It was as if the world had suddenly changed from safe to danger in the blinking of an eye. Aware of a strange and sudden tension hovering around them, Eleni slid to the ground. With trembling fingers she tied the stallion to a post and then stared up at the sheikh, dreading what he would think of her behaviour.
    Kaliq stared at her, the pulsing of blood thick in his veins. ‘You have a gift,’ he said simply.
    Eleni let out a low sigh of relief. So he wasn’t angry that she had spoken to him as if she had been speaking to a stable lad! ‘Thank you, Highness.’
    A gift he must utilise, he thought, and then ran his eyes over her again—this time trying to ignore the soft swell of her hips and the lush pertness of her breasts. Despite the sheen of her newly washed hair—how could he take her anywhere when she still looked like the scruffy urchin he had found in her hovel of a desert home? ‘You have settled into your quarters?’ he questioned acidly.
    ‘Yes, Highness.’
    ‘And?’
    ‘They are indeed the most beautiful—’
    He cut across her words with an impatient wave of his hand. ‘Please do not state the obvious,’ he snapped. ‘I have a whole palace of people who do that constantly—and it bores me. I ordered that new clothing was to be left there for you—yet today you appear before me dressed in this lowly apparel. Why is that? Do you reject my generosity?’
    ‘No, Highness.’
    ‘What, then?’
    Inwardly, Eleni squirmed. ‘It was just…’
    ‘Just what?’
    The ebony light from his black eyes was piercing. How could she tell him that the feel of fine silk brushing against her skin had made her feel peculiar—and not like herself at all. Just as he did. ‘Habit, I suppose,’ she answered instead.
    ‘Then break it,’ he ordered softly. ‘When you work for a prince, you will dress accordingly, is that understood?’
    ‘Yes, Highness.’
    Idly, he ran the flat of his hand over his narrow hip. ‘Really, you should be wearing jodhpurs,’ he mused. ‘Like these.’
    It was impossible to avert her eyes from the cream-covered fabric which stretched almost indecently across his narrow hips and hugged the muscular thighs, but Eleni’s natural modesty and fear made the words tumble out of their own accord. ‘I could not possibly wear such garments as those, Highness!’
    ‘No?’ He thought that the soft rose flush of her cheeks made her green eyes look even more magnificent. Would she be as good in bed as she was in the saddle? he wondered, and was punished with another sharp spear of desire. ‘Maybe not,’ he agreed, on a sultry murmur, and felt his throat dry with lust.
    Trying to dispel the image of how her bottom might look when hugged by a snug pair of jodhpurs, he forced his thoughts back to the present. ‘Now listen to me. I have matters which I wish to discuss with you,’ he said huskily. ‘You will be brought to me later this evening.’
    Brought to him? Eleni shifted from one foot to the other. ‘Could we not…discuss it now?’ she ventured, suddenly nervous.
    He slammed her a chilly