The Prince's Intimate Abduction (The Samara Royal Family Series Book 2) (6 page)

“I can explain,” Turk said, knowing that she’d finally put all the pieces together.  The woman wasn’t stupid after all.  Pissed, yes.  Stupid, no.  “It isn’t as horrible as what you’re thinking.  I guarantee it.  I can easily explain everything.”

Her eyes narrowed.  “If by explaining, you mean to assure me that I didn’t just shake the hand of the Sheik of Kilar and that you’re not Prince…what’s his name, then go ahead.”  She glanced at the other tall man, both of them having identical amused expressions.   “And that isn’t…” she thought about it for a long moment, her hand coming up to press against her head.  “You’re Prince Rais!”  She pointed an accusing finger at Turk’s brother.  Looking back up at the man beside her, she poked him in the chest angrily as more of the mystery was cleared up.  She backed up another step.  “You’re Prince Turk or something like that!”

“You didn’t tell her who you were?” Ramzi asked, trying not to laugh.  Rais wasn’t as kind.  He was laughing so hard that he was holding onto Ramzi’s shoulder. 

Turk sighed as he reached out to take her hand in his, trying to pull her back to his side.  “I couldn’t tell you, Raven.  That kind of knowledge would have put you in danger.  I had to protect you.”

She shrugged away angrily when he tried to take her arm.  “Don’t you dare touch me!” she hissed, furious and feeling like a fool.  For days, she’d watched over this man, worrying about him and lying for him.  And all that time, he’d been laughing at her while he made plans with his brothers, making her look like a fool!  “I’m getting out of here.  Right now and there’s nothing you can do about it. We’re far away from those goons so just leave me out of whatever prank you’re playing now.”

Turk chuckled and couldn’t help enjoying the color in her cheeks or the sparkle in those lovely grey eyes.  “Raven, you’re issuing challenges.  You know what happens when you do that.”  He stared down at her, trying to convey his message, but she was beyond listening. 

He understood that she was nervous.  Well, probably more than nervous.  But she was adorable right now and he was holding back with all of his willpower.  Which was slowly slipping away as she argued with him. 

“You’re Prince Turk!  And you lied about your name!”

“I didn’t lie.  I told you my name.  You just didn’t connect my name to the Palace of Kilar and my family.”

She couldn’t believe he was splitting hairs like this!  “Same thing!” she threw her arms up into the air.  “I never would have let you kiss me if I’d known you were some sort of royal person!”

Turk glanced over at his brothers, then realized that all of his men were still standing at attention.  “Dismissed,” he snapped to his guards.  “Thank you.  Good job, men.”

Raven wasn’t sure what she was going to do.  She was so angry and scared, confused and…yes, she was hurt that he’d lied to her.  She couldn’t trust him.  Not any of them! 

Turk saw that his brothers still weren’t moving.  In fact, they were watching with barely veiled amusement as he tried to talk his way out of this mess.  “Do you mind?”

“Not at all,” Rais replied back, but didn’t bother moving.  “Please, we’re eager to learn from the master.”

She swung around, glaring up at the more handsome version of Turk.  Or Prince Turk.  Or whatever she was supposed to call him.  “He’s no master!” Raven snapped.  “He’s just a lying jerk!”

Ramzi laughed again, unable to hide his amusement any longer.  Rais had one hand covering his face.  “You’re in deep, brother,” he said.

Turk sighed.  “Raven, I didn’t lie to you.  And you’re just scared because of everything that has happened to you over the last few hours.  But it will be okay.”  He fully understood the body’s reaction to an adrenaline rush.  As well as how hard the body crashed after that rush.  It was sometimes hard to regulate one’s emotions during a crisis.  She’d handled it extremely well, all things considered.  Except for demanding that he save her goat, she’d been a trooper.  And he wasn’t ignoring how perfect she’d felt in his arms, both while riding the horse out of the village as well as their flight on the motorcycle.  Now he just wanted to pull her into his arms and hold her like that again, but without the crazy rebels chasing after the two of them. 

“What’s going on?” A beautiful brunette asked as she stepped out to the courtyard.  Well, waddled was more like it. 

Mia walked over to her husband and latched her arm to his, looking up at her brother-in-law as she waited for an introduction to the lovely woman glaring at Turk. 

“This is the woman who saved Turk’s life,” Ramzi said as he took her hand, helping his very pregnant wife.  “Shouldn’t you be sleeping?  And why are you out of the palace?  You should be resting back at the palace where you’re safe,” he told her gently, all traces of amusement gone as he stared down into her soft, blue eyes. 

The beautiful woman with the most incredible smile moved closer to her husband’s side and hugged his arm.  “I knew something was going on so I had my guards find out where you were.  I knew something had happened to Turk,” she said and punched her husband’s side gently.  “Besides, I couldn’t sleep.  I’ve been too worried about Turk,” she said, rubbing her stomach. 

Raven’s eyes watched the woman’s hands, trying to suppress the pang of jealousy that hit her.  This woman was obviously madly in love with the tall, dark-haired giant and the giant was just as enamored of the woman. 

Turk shifted, trying to hold Raven close while, at the same time, not punch his brothers for their untimely arrival.  He loved his family but his sister-in-law looked like she should be sitting down relaxing somewhere and his brothers…well, his brothers could be a pain in the ass. 

Besides, he wanted to get Raven alone, to explain his actions.  He had plans for the two of them but he couldn’t put them into action until his family was gone.  “I’m glad you’re all here and I appreciate your support.  As you can see, I’m perfectly safe and, thanks to Raven’s brilliant medical knowledge, I’m perfectly healthy as well.  So go on back to the palace while I sort this problem out with my guards.  We have work to do in finding the bastards that did this to me.  As I told you several nights ago, something is going on and I have to get to the bottom of it.” 

He turned to the slender woman who kept trying to pull away from him.  “You’re coming with me,” Turk said, interrupting her perusal of the black-haired beauty.  Turk was done discussing this issue and grabbed Raven by the hand, literally dragging her out of the courtyard and into the cool interior of the house. 

It took her several moments to realize that he wasn’t leading her towards an exit.  He was bringing her into that house?  A house that looked…very secure?  Danger signals were going off inside her head and she almost stumbled on the step leading into the cool interior.  “I’m not going with you,” Raven exclaimed, tugging at his arm. 

Turk stopped and turned around.  He saw the challenge there in those lovely, silver eyes but he wasn’t going to let her stubbornness put her in danger.  Those men wouldn’t hesitate to hurt her in order to get information on him.  “Listen closely Raven.  We’re going to a place where we can discuss this in private.  I’m not going to air our problems in front of my family.”

Raven couldn’t believe what he was saying.  He was acting like the two of them were a couple.  A few kisses and her crazy, can’t-sleep-because-big-huge-men-wouldn’t-get-out-of-her-mind fantasies didn’t constitute a “relationship.”  She jerked at her hand, his words making her heart pound erratically inside of her chest and all of those other warning signals were ringing frantically.  “We don’t have problems.  Because there is no ‘we’ between us.”

Turk stopped trying to nudge her into the house and looked down into her silver eyes.  His hands were holding her upper arms and his fingers were caressing her skin, sending shivers along her back.  His hold wasn’t hurting her in any way, but she knew that she couldn’t pull away from him. 

“There’s definitely a ‘we’ and if you don’t come with me, I’ll be forced to prove it to you in a much more intimate way.”

She leaned forward, trying not to give in to his intimidation tactics even though they were very effective.  In fact, Turk was a master at intimidation and she was quaking already, but trying hard not to show it.  “Oh, you’re so big and tall and mean, eh?  Well, I’m not afraid of you, Prince Jerk or Turk or whatever I’m supposed to call you now that I know that you’re just a big liar.”

Turk was finished, especially when another guard came around the corner, hearing her words.  He couldn’t let her get away with insubordination and he relished the idea of showing her who was the boss. 

“If that’s the way you want to do it, then fine!” he replied with a smile that warned Raven that she was in big trouble.  A moment later, he bent down and lifted her over his shoulder, carrying her up the stairs and into the house.  He only smacked her bottom once during her entire tirade, so he was thinking that he’d done a very credible job of holding his temper in check. 

He didn’t stop until they were in a room above the main level.  His soldiers were everywhere except in this area and, thankfully, it was sound proofed.  When he lowered her to the floor once again, he pinned her against the wall.  “Okay, we’re alone now.  Let’s have it out!”

Raven glanced around, realizing that they really were in a comfortable looking house but in her furious efforts to get away from him, she’d seen a wall of computers and lots of techy gadgets.  They were no longer in that room and she had no idea what was going on, she thought with increasing anxiousness.  Where were they now?  What was he going to do? 

Despite all of her bravado, she was intimidated now that she wasn’t out in the morning sunshine.  Well, and now that she wasn’t standing in front of this man’s brother who ruled the entire country.

Focusing on her anger instead of her fear, she squared her shoulders and faced him with narrowed eyes.  “You’re the Minister of Defense, aren’t you?” she snapped at him, crossing her arms, unaware of how the movement pushed her breasts against the thin tee-shirt she’d worn to bed last night. 

Turk’s gaze automatically moved lower, his observant eyes zeroing in on those breasts that he wanted to explore.  He realized suddenly that she hadn’t taken the time this morning to put a bra on and her breasts were…ah, hell, she looked beautiful and exhausted. 

All of his anger over her stubbornness dissipated and he sighed.  He wanted nothing more than to pull her into his arms and make love to her, to show her that they not only were a couple, but that the attraction between them could be explosive.  But she was too tired right now.  They’d barely gotten three hours of sleep before those rebels had shown up to try and capture him.  She needed sleep and the knowledge that she was safe more than anything else at the moment. 

He pulled her into his arms and kissed the top of her head, ignoring her stiff resistance to the caress.  “Hell, honey.  You’re exhausted.  Why don’t you take a long shower, relax and get some rest?  You’ve spent so much time taking care of me over the past week, it is your turn to be taken care of.  You definitely need a break.”

As much as she wanted to, Raven couldn’t resist the weakening inside of her at his gentle, kind words.  She’d been braced for anger and his gentle words completely threw her off kilter. 

Nor could she resist the enticing strength of his arms and chest.  Feeling his body against hers, all she wanted to do was curl into him and ask him what was going on, to explain their crazy departure.  Unfortunately, she was seriously afraid of the answers.  “I don’t think I could sleep right now.  I don’t understand why I am here, what this building is used for or why you had to lie to me about your identity.”  And she didn’t like that she felt so good in his arms.  It was wrong.  It was so wrong as to be dangerously bad.  At this point, Raven felt that she was fed up with danger but she suspected that she wouldn’t be free from that feeling for a while.  Especially when she liked being in Turk’s arms too much and Turk epitomized danger. 

Pulling back, she sighed and pushed her hair out of her eyes.  “I probably look like a crazed person after that ride through the desert.”

He thought she looked amazing.  Her hair was going all over the place and her cheeks had a touch of pink to them, adding color to her normally pale cheeks and making her adorable freckles stand out more.  The only thing wrong was that her pretty, grey eyes were shimmering with tears. 

“Hey,” he said and waited for her to look up at him.  “It’s going to be okay.  I know the people who did this to me and I have a plan to capture them.”

She knew that was what he should do, but the thought of him diving right back into danger made her stomach almost ill with worry.  “And you’ll save Sam?” she asked, then felt ridiculous for worrying about her goat.  She wasn’t worried, actually.  She would be perfectly fine in the fenced in back yard of the clinic.  The stupid, annoying animal was probably thrilled to have more time to chomp on the grass.  And that silly goat had gotten out of her fenced-in area more times than Raven cared to think about so if she ran out of grass, she’d simply do one of her escape tricks and be on her merry way.  “Don’t answer that.  Sam isn’t the problem.  The others in the village will realize that I’m gone and take care of Sam.  I just…” she laid her hand in the middle of his chest, then pulled it away when he covered her hand with his own. 

He understood and didn’t push her.  “Go take a shower and get some rest.  By the time you wake up, I’ll have some clean clothes for you and we can talk further, okay?”