Anya blinked at that, and found herself clearing her throat. Unnecessarily. And more because of that storm in her than anything in her throat. A storm that wound around and around, then shifted into more of that melting that should have horrified her.
She told herself it was shock. This was all shock. Her whole body keptreactingto this man and she didn’t like it, but it wasn’t him.
You’re not yourself,she told herself, but it didn’t feel like an excuse.
It felt a lot more like permission.
But Anya had trained in emergency medicine. Then had trained more by flinging herself into the deep end, in and out of some of the worst places on the planet and usually with very little in the way of backup.
She could handle tea with a king, surely.
There were fewer bodily fluids, for one thing.
“Crossing into Alzalam was accidental,” she told him. She’d gone over it a thousand times. Then a thousand more. “We were working in one of the refugee camps over the border. You know that civil war has been going on for a generation.”
“Yes,” the man across from her said quietly. “And it has ever been a horror.”
As if he felt that horror deeply. Personally.
Her heart jolted, then thudded loudly.
“I’m surprised you think so,” she said without thinking, and watched a royal eyebrow arch high on his ferociously stark brow. “That you are even aware of the scope of that kind of disaster from...” She glanced around. “Here.”
“Because I am no different from a tyrant who rules by fear.” His voice was soft, but she did not mistake the threat in it. “We are all the same, we desert men in our ancient kingdoms.”
Her heart and that knot in her chest pulsed in concert, and she thought she might be shaking. God, she hoped she wasn’tshaking,showing her weaknesses, letting him see how easily he intimidated her.
“To be fair,” she managed to say, “my experience of desert kings has pretty much been nothing but death, disease, and dungeons. Not to discount the pastries, of course.”
She was holding her breath again. His gaze was so dark, so merciless, that she was sure that if she dared look away—if she dared look down—she would find he’d made her into some of that filigree that lined his archways. An insubstantial lace, even if carved from bone.
And then, to her astonishment, the most dangerous man she’d ever met, who could lock her up for the rest of her life with a wave of one finger—or worse—
Smiled.
CHAPTER THREE
TAREKHADNEVERbefore considered food erotic. It was fuel. It was sometimes a necessary evil. It could, upon occasion, be a form of communion.
But watching the doctor eat with abandon, as if every bite she put in her mouth was a new, sensual delight, was a revelation. She had him hard and ready. Intensely focused on her and the unbridled passion she displayed as if she was performing her joy for him alone.
He could not recall ever experiencing anything quite like it.
And certainly not because of a captive still in her prison attire.
Still, Tarek smiled at her as if none of this was happening. He reminded himself—perhaps a bit sternly—that honey attracted more bees than vinegar. And that even a king could allow himself to act sweet if it suited him. It helped that his plan of how to handle the world’s reaction to her incarceration began to take form in his head.
But she did not look particularly pleased to receive a smile from him. On the contrary, she looked... poleaxed.
“Perhaps this is not the time to ask you these questions,” he said after a moment, when she only stared back at him. Her passionate eating on pause.
Tarek tried to let consideration and concern shine forth from within him, and it wasn’t entirely an act for her benefit. He liked to think he was a compassionate man. Had he not proved it this dark year? He was certainly the most compassionate King the country had ever seen.
Surely the life he’d led had given him ample opportunity to practice.
Anya straightened her shoulders, a slight, deliberate jerk that he’d watched her do several times now. As if she was snapping herself to attention. And when she did, her brown eyes sharpened on him and he wondered, idly enough, if this was the doctor in her. That focus. That intensity.
That, too, made his sex heavy.