Gail Dayton - Hide-And-Sheikh

“My place.”

“You said it was a business meeting.” Ellen glared at Rudi. She was beautiful when she was angry.

“It is. In town, in the morning.” He offered Ellen his hand. “Coming?”

Rudi held his breath as she looked from his face to his hand and back again, waiting for her to decide. Would she take his hand?

When her fingers slid across his palm and her hand closed around his, the touch jolted him. Every molecule in his body wanted her. Not just for sex. He wanted more.

He wanted to see admiration in her eyes. He wanted to hear her laugh. He wanted to wake up with her in the morning after a night of hot, mindless, slow, sultry sex and have her smile at him.

“Well?” Ellen’s voice broke into his musing. “Are we going to get off this airplane?”

Rudi grinned. He loved her sass.

Dear Reader,

Welcome to Silhouette Desire, where every month you can count on finding six passionate, powerful and provocative romances.

The fabulous Dixie Browning brings us November’s MAN OF THE MONTH, Rocky and the Senator’s Daughter, in which a heroine on the verge of scandal arouses the protective and sensual instincts of a man who knew her as a teenager. Then Leanne Banks launches her exciting Desire miniseries, THE ROYAL DUMONTS, with Royal Dad, the timeless story of a prince who falls in love with his son’s American tutor.

The Bachelorette, Kate Little’s lively contribution to our 20 AMBER COURT miniseries, features a wealthy businessman who buys a date with a “plain Jane” at a charity auction. The intriguing miniseries SECRETS! continues with Sinclair’s Surprise Baby, Barbara McCauley’s tale of a rugged bachelor with amnesia who’s stunned to learn he’s the father of a love child.

In Luke’s Promise by Eileen Wilks, we meet the second TALL, DARK & ELIGIBLE brother, a gorgeous rancher who tries to respect his wife-of-convenience’s virtue, while she looks to him for lessons in lovemaking! And, finally, in Gail Dayton’s delightful Hide-and-Sheikh, a lovely security specialist and a sexy sheikh play a game in which both lose their hearts…and win a future together.

So treat yourself to all six of these not-to-be-missed stories. You deserve the pleasure!

Enjoy,

Joan Marlow Golan Senior

Editor, Silhouette Desire

www.millsandboon.co.uk

has been playing make-believe all her life but didn’t start writing the make-believe down until she was about nine years old, because it took her that long to learn how to write coherent sentences. She married her college sweetheart shortly after graduation and moved to a small Central Texas town where they lived happily for twenty years. Now transplanted to an even smaller town in the Texas Panhandle, Gail lives with her Prince Charming, their youngest son and Spot the Dalmatian, where they are still working on the “ever after” part. The “happily” they have down.

After a checkered career with intervals spent as a mommy, the entire editorial staff of more than one small-town newspaper, a junior college history instructor and legal assistant in a rural prosecutor’s office, she finally got to quit her day job in favor of writing love stories. When she’s not writing or reading other people’s love stories, she sings alto in her church choir and teaches basic sewing as an incentive to finish her own sewing projects, which would otherwise languish. Gail would love to hear from readers. Write her at P.O. Box 176, Clarendon, Texas 79226.

To those wonderful women from Waco,

the best friends a writer could have.

Thanks for all your support. I wouldn’t be here

without you. To Myles, for worrying about me when

I don’t write, and for twenty-five wonderful years.

Chapter One

Chapter Two

Chapter Three

Chapter Four

Chapter Five

Chapter Six

Chapter Seven

Chapter Eight

Chapter Nine

Chapter Ten

Chapter Eleven

She’d found her target. He lounged near the makeshift bar, his perfect teeth glinting as he smiled at some dark-haired bimbette. In the warehouse-cum-nightclub in New York’s garment district, lights flashed, strobe-quick and bright, or slower, in garish colors that painted the party goers in even more ghastly shades than they’d painted themselves. Except for that man, her night’s mission. The Sheikh of Araby.

Or rather, the Sheikh of Qarif, to give him his true name. As she maneuvered her way toward him, Ellen watched the lights turn his handsome face pink, then sickly green, then dappled blue, but his perfection continued unblemished. He knew it, too.

He threw back that chiseled profile in a laugh that had to be calculated to show off his best features: dark sultry eyes, straight white teeth, high, carved cheekbones. His picture hadn’t done him justice.

Oh, it had amply illustrated his movie-star features, but it hadn’t said a word about the sexuality that oozed like honey from his every pore. Ellen kept the wry twist from her faint smile at the sight of the little girl bees buzzing around him. She couldn’t let him see past the mask she wore to her real purpose. He might be the best-looking, sexiest man she’d seen in the past dozen years, but he was still her target.

And, as mama always said, beauty is skin deep, but ugly goes clear to the bone. Somebody’s mama had said it, even if Ellen’s never had. She’d known spoiled, rich playboys. One of them she’d known very well.

Davis Lowe had been born with a golden spoon in his mouth and upgraded to platinum at his first opportunity. He’d swept her off her middle-class feet with his charm and his money and brought her into his world, where she’d met his spoiled playboy friends. Because of Davis, she’d learned these rich men were all the same.

Whether they were from New York or New Delhi, they all expected the world to bow and scrape and cater to their every whim. At least this one offered a nice view.

Finally he reacted to Ellen’s laser-beam stare. He looked up and met her gaze. Ellen held it a long moment, allowed a hint of a smile to brush her lips, then she turned away and began to count seconds.

One… She found a place at the sawhorse-and-planking bar, and ordered a gin and tonic. Seven, eight, nine… Would she have to look at him again? The pretty ones were often tougher to get to. Ellen tossed her hair back over her shoulder. Long, straight, dark blond hair with golden highlights, it was one of her best weapons.

“Hello.”

Bingo. He was hooked. Fourteen seconds. Not her best time, but not her worst, either. If “the look” didn’t get them, the hair usually did.

Ellen turned and gave her sheikh a once-over. That high-beam smile of his could prove near lethal at close range. She raised a cool eyebrow. The effect was somewhat destroyed by the fact that they had to lean close and shout full volume to be heard over the pounding music.

“Hello?” she said. “That’s all you can come up with? What kind of line is that?”

He shrugged. “It is no line. I said hello. If you want a line, I am sure many other men here would be happy to provide one.”

His English was impeccable, overlaid with a faint hint of the foreign, and a fainter hint of a…Southern drawl? He wore a short-sleeved raw silk navy shirt unbuttoned over a plain white T-shirt. A T-shirt that must have been bought a size too small, given the way it strained over the man’s lean but well-muscled torso. Khaki slacks finished the ensemble. Not what one would expect from the scion of a royal family, but it looked good on him. Darn good. Did she have the right man? Ellen studied his face again, comparing it to the memorized photo in her head. This was her target. No mistake.

She lifted a shoulder in a casual shrug. Cool and calculated would serve her better with this one. He would be used to women falling over themselves to please him.

“I don’t need a line.” She accepted the drink from the bartender and took a sip, schooling her expression against the taste. Fruity concoctions with paper umbrellas, the kind she preferred, didn’t blend with the sophisticated image she wanted to project tonight.

He grinned and pushed his hand back through his thick sable hair. “That is just as well,” he said, “because I do not have any idea what to say next. Whatever I say will sound like a pick-up line.”

Ellen found herself charmed by his apparent openness and told herself it was an act. It had to be. Nobody with “prince” in front of his name could be this transparent.

“Have you any suggestions?” He propped an elbow on the bar and leaned. The wattage in his smile seemed to go up.

“My name is Ellen.” She put her hand out to shake. She had to keep him on a string until she knew she could reel him in.

“Names. Good.” He took her hand and squeezed gently. “Call me Rudy.”

Rudy? Ellen ran through the list of names they’d given her, half a dozen or more, all belonging to the target. Of the few she could actually remember, Rashid was one, and it didn’t sound anything like Rudy. Neither did any of the others.

“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.