Read Online To Tempt a Sheikh by Olivia Gates - Free Book Online Page A

distracting him. Even thinking she owed him nothing but hostility, even if she wasn’t acknowledging the sincerity of his outrage on her behalf, she was still trying to defuse it.
    Before he kissed her, compelled her to carry out her earlier threat, he said, “Talia, I’m going to take off those layers of clothes…”
    â€œOh, no, you’re not!” she squeaked.
    â€œThen you do it. But I will have them off. Then you’re going to lie down against me. You’re going to stretch those muscles, or they’re only going to get worse. I’ll massage them with anti-inflammatory ointment.”
    She remained stiff in his hands for a moment longer before she capitulated, nodded and unzipped her coat.
    He followed those capable hands as they undid the layers of clothes beneath it. And when he realized she wore a corset under her man’s undershirt, he felt blood desert his head, his heart seeming to pump it only to his loins. He’d been in enough trouble when he’d believed her figure was as uneventful as a boy’s. She’d been subduing a very…eventful one.
    When she’d moved things around to expose only her midriff, she looked at him awkwardly. She tensed again when he began to turn her, and he whispered in her ear, “Let me take care of you. Don’t resist me.”
    A breath shuddered out of her as she let him manipulate her body onto his lap. “Resistance is futile, huh?”
    He smiled down at her as he opened the ointment tube. “Oh, yes. You’re in no shape for it right now. Resist me all you like when you’re no longer in pain.”
    She murmured something, a cross between grudging consent and whimpering pain/pleasure as he carefully began to examine her, then spread the ointment he’d warmed first between him palms over her aching flesh. His own flesh ached, too, all over.
    Then, as she relaxed into his touch, arched up into his soothing hands, he saw the outline where the impact had bruised her paleness.
    All blood was back, shooting into his head.
    He heard the viciousness in his voice as he growled,“Just thinking they had their hands on you at all, let alone in violence, makes me contemplate murder.”
    She fidgeted at his intensity, her eyes scanning him from her upside-down position. “You mean you don’t do that on auto?”
    He gave her a chiding glance. “Murder isn’t even in the same solar system as manipulation or framing innocents for fraud. Don’t you think you’re taking your enmity too far?”
    She sighed as she relaxed again under his cosseting hands. “I don’t know. Maybe you think killing someone a suitable punishment for abusing their power, as an ultimate example for others. As for taking my enmity too far, let me throw one of your brothers in jail for five years, ruin his future and destroy his psyche, and then we’ll discuss the exaggeration of my beliefs and reactions.”
    He stopped his massaging movements when she started to quiver. She could be getting cold or tender…or aroused. He was all of that. And though all he wanted was to rip off his clothes and hers and remedy all the causes of their distress, he knew that must remain a fantasy for now.
    With what stood between them, maybe forever.
    He kept his hands pressed lightly into her flesh for a few more defusing moments, his gaze tangling with her turbulent one.
    Then he removed his hands, helped her up. She declined his help straightening her clothes. Then, with her eyes still wrestling with his, she nestled into the farthest part of the cockpit from him, against her door.
    He’d thought he could postpone this until she was less raw, until he’d decided how to go on from here. But her withdrawal snapped something inside him. He had to settle this score. Now.
    He pressed closer, showing her he wouldn’t take hercategorizing him as the villain and shunning him. “Let’s get one