Page 51 of Midnight Shadows

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“How good is your Arabic?” he inquired.

Her lips curved into a cruel smile. “Excellent,” she replied.

“I have a job for you,” he said, caressing her cheek.

“Does it include killing someone?” she asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes.”

Interest flared in her eyes. His stomach tightened when her hand ran lower to cup his groin. His body immediately responded.

“When do I leave?” she purred against his lips.

Seventeen

“Would you care for some fresh juice, Your Highness?” Badr inquired the next morning.

“No, thank you, Badr. Have you seen Midnight?” Junayd responded.

Badr nodded. “She is swimming, Your Highness.”

“Thank you,” Junayd replied.

“I will bring a tray. Her ladyship did not eat breakfast this morning. She is too thin,” Badr clucked with disapproval.

Junayd chuckled. Badr’s lack of formality with him came from knowing him since he was born. Badr had been his nanny. Her husband, Kalil, had been one of his guards until he retired when Junayd went into the military. After he built his home, he had invited them to live here. While seemingly isolated, they often visited the Bedouin tribe where Kalil had grown up or the city of Chiba, fifty kilometers from his home, where their two sons, their wives, and their grandchildren lived.

“I’ll let you tell her that. I get on her bad side enough,” he teased.

Badr’s eyes softened. “It is good that you brought her here, Your Highness. I sense she needs you.”

Junayd kissed Badr’s cheek. “I think you are right. If you have the tray ready, I’ll take it. Midnight is still… shy,” he said.

Badr clucked again and muttered in an inaudible voice while she finished adding several covered dishes to a round silver tray. She handed the tray to him. He was surprised when she didn’t release the tray at first.

“She is good for you, too, I think,” Badr murmured.

“She is better than good for me, Badr. She is myAlmukhtar,” he lightly responded.

Happiness filled Badr’s eyes and if he wasn’t mistaken, perhaps a tear. He took the tray and exited the dining room. An open-air covered passage led to a separate building that housed a salt-water lap pool, fitness center with a wide variety of equipment, and a sauna. The doors silently slid open. A soft splash alerted him that Midnight was still in the pool.

He placed the tray on the table. A thick towel was on one chair. Beside it, a pair of sandals, shirt, and shorts. His gaze moved to the pool. She was wearing a pair of swimming trunks and nothing else.

She looked up when she reached the end, breathing heavily. Her eyes softened and she rested her arms on the edge of the pool. He motioned to the tray.

“Badr was worried. She thinks you are too thin,” he said.

Her gaze flickered to the table and back again. “Did she do the clucking thing when she said it?” she asked, tilting her head sideways and smiling.

“A few times,” he replied with a grin. “I smell coffee. Would you like a cup?”

“Yes.”

She swam over to the steps. Heat pooled in his groin when she rose out of the water. Her nipples were hard and made his mouth water. They lifted when she raised her arms to brush her hair back and ring the water from it.

He recognized the swim shorts as a pair of his. They hung low on her slender hips. His eyes paused on the puckered scar where she had been shot.

“I didn’t have a swimsuit and figured that wearing a pair of shorts that I found was better than not wearing anything at all,” she said, walking over to pick up the towel.


Tags: S.E. Smith Romance