To Touch a Sheikh by Olivia Gates Read Free Book Online

lips lifted in that world-renowned smirk and he rasped out a bass, “Welcome to my lair.”
    Her stinging gaze clung to his until he looked ahead to navigate through a corridor that made her feel as if he were taking her deeper into the arcane sanctum of a wizard.
    Which he was. He’d always practiced magic. At least on her.
    They entered a spacious rectangular hall with adobe walls and stone floors strewn with hand-woven kilims. Their same combination of bold, dark colors imbued cushions of every size covering one long, low, wooden settee resting against the wall with a huge square oak table in front of it. Flanking the corridor, the hall continued into two more areas. One had a fireplace of yet another mix of rocks and stones, huge cushions on the floor and a tableyah, a foot-high circular table of palm wood that looked handmade, with the anachronism of a sleek silver laptop on top making it look more primal. The remaining area was a kitchen with a brick oven built into the wall, a sink and a cooktop in a huge island with a countertop of unpolished quartz. The rest of the walls were covered by an extensive pantry.
    Leading from the hall, she could see another corridor extending to what she assumed were two more rooms. If youcould call them that, when neither had a door, just walls forming the corridor and separating them from each other.
    Four large, arched windows flanked the open areas, the eerie illumination of the sandstorm seeping through their shutters. They buzzed in their frames with its bombardment. The resoluteness of their seal allowed nothing to penetrate their defenses, or the place would have been knee-deep in sand. Everything looked pristine.
    It could have been a dump, and it still would have been the best place she’d ever been for saving them from the death screeching for their souls outside. But even had that not influenced her opinion, it was more evocative and enthralling than all the imposing edifices she’d seen in the region. Being composed of the elements of Zohayd’s nature, reflecting its origins, faithful to its essence, it was real, unpolished and unpretentious. It made her feel as though she’d stepped into the atmospheric setting of one of the One Thousand and One tales with which Shahrazad had assuaged her king and husband Shahrayar’s madness.
    Now that she was there, she could imagine Amjad building nothing else as his hideaway from the world. It possessed the rawness of his aura, the unadorned impact of his power…
    Her musings came to a halt as his hands changed pressure on her body. She almost cried out when he lowered her to her feet. She swayed, looked up into eyes that had turned golden green in the unearthly light, and quivered with the need to nestle into him again.
    Not that he had been letting her “nestle” into him to begin with. He would have carried anyone the same way. So it was hands—and everything else—off until he sanctioned it, invited it. Invited her.
    She struggled to step away, to do without his support, quirked her lips at him. “So your lair is from another era. You didn’t tell me you have time travel among your limitless powers.”
    He flicked a glance around the place, looked back at her in mocking reassurance. “The place only looks primitive. It’s got every modern amenity, never fear.”
    â€œIt isn’t primitive. It’s…authentic.”
    â€œ Authentic is a cover word for backward.”
    â€œYou think I’d go for a cover word to express an unfavorable opinion?”
    â€œCome to think of it, no. You’d probably ‘smack out’ said opinion.”
    â€œMaybe not as you would. But this place is enchanting. And not only because it’s a sight for my sore eyes after the nothingness we’ve been engulfed in for an eternity.”
    â€œSo now we know what eternity is. The four hours it took to get here.”
    She groaned, remembering the