Gail Dayton – Hide-And-Sheikh (страница 2)

“Rudi, with an i,” he said. “I prefer the way it looks written that way.”

She shook the hand still holding hers. “How do you do, Rudi-with-an-i. It’s nice to meet you.”

Whatever he wanted to call himself made no difference to her. But it did surprise her a bit. Why not use his real name? Unless he was more security conscious than he appeared. Ellen stopped herself from searching the room for bodyguards. She knew where his bodyguards were. She’d sent them there herself.

“So.” He glanced down at their still-clasped hands, and the brilliance of his smile suddenly took on a heat that Ellen felt clear down to her toes, which curled in their strappy sandals. “Now that we have the formalities over, why don’t we…”

His words trailed off as he bent over her hand and pressed a kiss to its back, a kiss that sizzled across her skin straight to the libido she’d thought long ago starved to death.

Why don’t we what? Curiosity resurrected her dormant desire. Nothing else had for years.

“Dance,” Rudi said.

“Dance?” That’s all he wanted to do?

Feeling numb and yet feeling every nerve ending spark and sizzle, Ellen let him lead her by the hand—the same hand he’d kissed—onto the dance floor. Rudi tugged, spinning her skillfully into his arms. Never mind that the band clashed and wailed and thumped out raging heavy metal rock that made the flashing lights shudder with vibration. Rudi held her close and danced what Ellen could only describe as some kind of cross between a tango, a foxtrot and sex with clothes on.

Or maybe the sex part was just in her head.

This dance, seen objectively, wasn’t much different from the hundreds of others Ellen had danced. Rudi’s hands rested lightly at her waist, her hands on his shoulders. They moved back and forth to the music in the limited space allowed on the crowded dance floor. But with every brush of Rudi’s hips against hers, the heat turned a notch higher.

Ellen’s hands curved over Rudi’s shoulders, shaping themselves to his lean musculature. He was sleek and strong, beautiful like one of those horses they raised in his part of the world.

He laughed, a very male sound, his eyes flashing pleasure at her, and Ellen realized her hands had slipped. Now they rested on the broad slope of his chest. With another laugh, Rudi whipped off the unbuttoned shirt he wore to let the T-shirt beneath show off his physique. Ellen didn’t have to fake her approval. She liked the way he looked. Entirely too much.

He snapped out one end of the shirt, reached out and caught the other end so that it passed behind Ellen. Then he used it to draw her in closer, until they touched hip to hip. Holding her only with the shirt pulled snug around her waist, Rudi swayed, his eyes twinkling.

“Join me,” he shouted over the crashing music. “Do you not know how to rumba?”

She pushed at him, her fingers curling into his chest. “This doesn’t sound like a rumba to me.”

Rudi deepened the swing of his hips, his thighs getting friendly with their sensual nudging against hers. “The beat is in your blood. Feel it inside you.”

Was it getting hotter in here? Or was he just making her crazy?

He leaned in, until his lips brushed her ear. “Feel it, and let it out.”

Rudi did something with his hands, and the shirt around her jumped several inches higher, drawing her slowly in, bringing her breasts toward that white-clad chest.

Confusion struck her. This was a new dilemma. She needed to tempt him, keep him close until the final moment. But she’d never before been tempted herself. She wanted to touch him, to let her breasts settle against that solid chest, and that would be entirely unethical. She wasn’t supposed to like her targets.

The music paused to allow the gasping musicians time to catch their collective breath. In the startling, deafening silence, Ellen broke away, tugging the navy shirt from his hands. She stared at him, panting almost as hard as the band. Why? She hadn’t done anything strenuous.

Rudi’s smile faltered a second, then returned. “Let me buy you a drink.” The white of his T-shirt contrasted with his deep tan. He was gorgeous and nice. A deadly combination.

Ellen had to get this done and get out quickly, before she got in over her head. It was for his own good. And for hers. They’d both be better off if she just got it over with now.

“I have a better idea.” Still holding his shirt, Ellen caught Rudi’s hand and led him from the dance floor.

“Where are we going?”

“You’ll see.” She threw him one of her patented mysterious smiles, her hair swinging around her shoulders.

Rudi followed her out of the warehouse, bemused by his luck. Ellen was the most beautiful woman he’d seen in his entire life, and he’d seen a lot of beautiful women. But they never came on to him like this. Not to Rudi.

Only Rashid ibn Saqr ibn Faruq al Mukhtar Qarif could get women at the snap of his fingers. And then it was the money and the power that attracted them, not the man.

Money and power were as much of an illusion as Rashid. Or maybe Rudi was the illusion. Sometimes he wasn’t sure which of his personas was the real one. But he did know that the money and the power belonged to his father, not to him.

Down the street outside the warehouse, Ellen hailed a taxi. The streetlight gleamed along her slender, mile-high legs as she got in. Rudi stared, half-hypnotized, until Ellen leaned out the open car door.

“Are you coming?” she asked, a smile curving her luscious pink lips. A smile that promised nothing and everything at the same time, that dared him to find out what secrets hid behind it.

He shouldn’t. He had doubtless terrified and infuriated his family enough, vanishing as he had. The bombs back in Qarif were real. The terrorists were real. But the terrorists were still in Qarif, trying to transform the country into a miniature Afghanistan. This woman could not possibly be a terrorist. Just look at her.

Rudi followed his own suggestion as she waited without a hint of impatience for him to make up his mind. She was a blond goddess, a Valkyrie escaped from Wagner’s opera. Her straight dark gold hair spilled over her shoulders like yesterday’s sunlight, streaked with the brighter shine of tomorrow’s dawn. Long thick lashes shaded eyes whose color he couldn’t decipher in the uncertain light. A high forehead, straight narrow nose, prominent cheekbones and full mouth completed her classically beautiful face.

But it was not the beauty of her face or her sleek athlete’s body beneath the simple black dress that drew him. Perhaps it was the hint of mischief in her eyes, or the mystery in her smile, the feeling that she played some secret game and he did not know the rules. She challenged him, dared him to play. Rudi had never been able to pass up a dare.

He stepped off the curb and got in the cab. Satisfaction flickered across Ellen’s face a brief second before she hid it behind that smile. Rudi did not object. She had won only one hand. He intended to win the game.

“So, Rudi.” Ellen leaned back in the corner of the cab opposite him. “What do you do?”

“I dig holes.” At least, he wanted to. His family did their level best to keep him in a nice, clean office where he couldn’t play in the dirt.

Ellen’s eyebrow arched. “Really.”

Would she back off now, thinking him no more than a ditchdigger?

“Holes, as in the Lincoln Tunnel?” she asked. “Or holes as in—” She waved at a construction site vanishing behind them, where bulldozers would have clawed deep into the earth to set the foundation before the steel frame started up.

“Holes as in wells. For water, oil—whatever is hiding down there.”

Ellen’s expression changed, as if she were impressed in spite of herself. At least, Rudi hoped that was what it meant.

“You dig oil wells?” She stretched a long, elegant arm along the back of the seat.

Rudi started to agree, then changed his mind. Tell her the truth, see how that impressed her. If it did. “Actually, I prefer drilling for water. A person cannot drink oil.”

“You can’t run a car on water.”

“Not now.” Rudi grinned. “Give the scientists some time. If they ever finish their fusion reactor research, we could be pulling up to the garden hose to fill our cars with fuel.”

She watched him with that enigmatic smile on her face, saying nothing. Rudi did not know if that meant she wanted to know more or was bored to tears. But he did not handle silence well.

“Of course, you can make more money drilling oil wells, but…” Rudi shrugged. “The people who need water generally need it more.”

Ellen’s smile changed, became warmer and yet sad at the same time. This smile still hid secrets, but it seemed more genuine. “You’re a nice man, Rudi,” she said. “I like you.”

Stunned, Rudi didn’t realize the cab had stopped until Ellen got out. Scrambling to follow her beckoning gesture, he found himself on the sidewalk in front of an upscale hotel. Ellen linked her arm through his and strolled past the doorman into the gilt-and-marble lobby.

She led him past the desk, past the plush brocade chairs, past the opening to the dimly lit bar, to the elevators between the potted palms where she pushed the up button. Rudi’s second thoughts kicked in.