Free The Sheik's Safety by Dana Marton

nothing.”
    She stared at him surprised. First time she had heard him swear. So far he had been cool and collected and regal and all that. And to be truthful, she found it appealing in a strange kind of way. Maybe because he was so different from her. She’d grown up around military men, talking trash, wearing bravado as a uniform, everybody vying for the position of biggest badass on the team.
    She found Saeed’s elegant restraint attractive. More so because she knew from experience the wall of strength behind it.
    He drew a thumb over the bump in her skin below the old scar. “What’s this?”
    She looked away, hesitated. “Birth-control implant.” Not that it was any of his business. She’d thought ofhaving it removed—heaven knew she hadn’t needed it in a long time—but never got around to it.
    He opened his mouth to say something, but was interrupted by a knock on the door that brought a short gentleman in his fifties, fashionably graying at the temples. The doctor. The man wore a three-piece suit as if he were going to a formal reception. After greeting Saeed, he sat on the bed next to Dara and took her pulse while he looked at the wound, then he pulled a handful of supplies from his bag, all sealed in white paper.
    â€œDon’t you have something else to do?” she asked Saeed.
    He threw her a hard look, but did not reply.
    She didn’t know what to make of him. She didn’t expect him to be this upset over her injury. Hell, she wasn’t. Nobody ever had been. Her mother had always been too seeped in her own misery to notice if anything was wrong with her daughter, and then she had left. Her father’s standard response to blood, even when she was a child, had been “Shrug it off, soldier.”
    The doctor unwrapped a syringe, filled it up and numbed the skin around the wound, before getting out his suturing tools.
    Saeed sat on the bed next to her, leaving a proper distance between them. “I’m sorry. You are my guest. As your host I am responsible for your safety.”
    She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. She was doing her job. Injuries were par for the course. She was his bodyguard. He still didn’t get that at all. She shook her head.
    Long learning curve ahead.
    Â 
    S HE WAS HURT . The idea pained him. Saeed tapped his fingers on his desk, distracted from the calls he had to make. He found it hard to concentrate with the foreign woman in the house. And he had never needed a clear head more than at the moment. His life depended on it.
    He picked up the receiver. The minister of agriculture, he decided. He had already set up a meeting for the next day with the minister of trade. A safe bet, he hoped. He was one of the old guard. Saeed hoped Jumaa hadn’t found a way to get to the man yet. If the minister of trade had turned, he could be walking into a trap.
    He was dialing the last number when he saw one of his servants approach.
    â€œYes?” He listened to the phone ring on the other side.
    â€œShe is awake, sir.”
    He nodded his thanks and dismissal as he set down the phone.
    The smartest thing he could do would be to stay away from her. It angered him that he couldn’t. Hewasn’t some overeager schoolboy. He was a man with a man’s control. Except when it came to her.
    He’d been lost from the moment he’d kissed her. No, he corrected after a moment of reflection. He’d been lost since long before that—since he’d first looked into her gold-speckled ebony eyes.
    He wanted her. He wanted her despite her stubbornness, despite her unreasonable nature, despite the fact that they were as unsuitable for each other as two people ever could be. He wanted to write the attraction down to the fact that she was different, a novelty. But he’d seen plenty and even dated some Western women. He’d spent three years in college at Cambridge, and now traveled the world on