The Sheikh's Captive Mistress Read Free

sparkling water.
    She sniffed and glared back at him. “I’m on a plane to Yoman, and I’ll never see my family again unless they find a way to pay your sheikh and even then there’s no guarantee he’ll give me back. Stop telling me to relax. Go fuck yourself!”
    “It’s going to be fourteen hours. Just take a sip and try and calm down. We can fight you the whole way, make this unpleasant,” he finished, gesturing to her jaw. “Or we can all rest and you can save the time to scheme for when you arrive.”
    “I like that idea.”
    He grinned. “Besides, even if you broke away from us, there are few places for you to go at 30,000 feet. Just drink and try and rest.”
    She took a tentative sip of the water and grimaced when it tasted a bit bitter. Maybe tap water from the plane wasn’t the best. However, after she drained her glass, she began to feel floaty and disoriented. As the plane took off to the sky, Emma’s head swam and her temples throbbed. The last thing she remembered was the sharp clink of her glass slipping through her fingers and hitting the ground.
    ***
     
    The next thing that Emma could recall was the scorching hot air on her face as a car door was opened. When she blinked awake, she was convinced it was all a dream. Everywhere she could see was desert. Far into the horizon was nothing but massive sand dunes and the fading sunset. Sand grains swirled through the winds and bit into her cheeks, making her try and hide her face. This didn’t feel real. It couldn’t be. Not when she was in the searing desert with a giant castle before her. It was a titanic structure, filled with high turrets, rising to touch the clouds themselves almost. It reminded her of Aladdin and for the stupidest of moments, she thought of herself as Jasmine.
    But this just…it was a dream.
    She’d been wishing for adventure and was too drunk on vodka. Emma was sure she’d wake up any minute back in her apartment with a crazy story to tell Parker and Alexis. It didn’t matter that her eyes watered from the sharp gusts or that her jaw throbbed from where it had been hit. This wasn’t real.
    It was even less so when she was scooped out of the car by strong arms. At first, she was so tired that she didn’t bother to look up, only buried her face deep into his chest. Even through the fabric of his clothes, she could feel the density of his muscles and the strength of his arms. Whoever was carrying her smelled amazing. Surely, she had to smell like a camel who’d galloped through the sands for three days, such was the heat and her sweating. The same couldn’t be said about her stranger. His skin was cool and scent delicious. He smelled of jasmine and turmeric, of heady musk and everything purely male.
    It made her mouth water.
    Despite everything, if her crazy dream gave her a man who smelled and felt like this, then Emma could almost forgive it. But this moment of being carried from the car and up the castle steps couldn’t last forever. Eventually, she felt herself being set down upon a mattress as soft as any she’d ever felt before. Emma sank into it. Looking up, she finally got a full glimpse of whichever servant had been assigned to carry her.
    It was then she finally faced the hard truth that this wasn’t a dream.
    Her imagination was too limited to come up with a male specimen this superlative.
    He was tall, well over six feet, with broad shoulders. The man was olive-skinned, as well, but he didn’t have a bushy beard, instead it was something trimmed neatly and kept close to his face. There was something ungodly sexy about it, and she suddenly wished he’d rub those sideburns over her bare stomach so she might feel the sharp tickle of that beard on her. His eyes were piercing, a beautiful hazel mixed with flecks of gold. Gifted also with a strong chin and high cheek bones, he would have been at home on any catwalk in Milan or Paris.
    “I…which servant are you?”
    He laughed and it called to something deep