Three
bold, irresistible men.
Three brand-new romances by today's top authors...
Summer never seemed hotter!
THE SHEIK'S
VIRGIN, by Susan Mallery
He was the brazen stranger who had made it his mission to
chaperone innocent, beautiful Phoebe Carson around his native land. But
what would Phoebe do when she discovered her suitor was none other than
Prince Nasri Mazin-and he had seduction on his mind?
SHEIK OF ICE,
by Alexandra Sellers
She came in search of adventure-and discovered passion in the
arms of tall, dark and handsome Hadi al Hajar. But once Kate Drummond
succumbed to Hadi's powerful touch, would she succeed in taming his hard
heart?
KISMET, by
Fiona Brand
A star-crossed love affair and a stormy night combined to
bring Laine Abernathy into Sheik Xavier Kalil Al Jahir's world. Now, as
she took cover in her rugged rescuer's home, Laine wondered if it was
her destiny to fall in love with the mesmerizing sheik....
The Year 1192, The Holy Land:
Prince Kalil Husam al Din, General to
Saladin and named Al Saqr-The Falcon-by his men, sat his horse, still
and solitary, as the sun reached its meridian and burned down with a
white hot intensity that stung his eyes and burned metal into skin.
Heat waves shimmered off stone and
sand, distorting the crazed puzzle of hills and gullies even further,
sinking and pooling into the maddening illusion of water, so that his
nostrils flared and his mouth ached with the need to drink.
A faint breeze stirred the tangled mane
of hair that hung, coal black and loose, about his shoulders as his
narrowed gaze swept the arid terrain. His war stallion blew softly and
dipped his head in the vain hope of finding a tuft of grass growing from
the sandy soil. The sudden movement broke Kalil's stasis; abruptly he
shifted in the saddle, his normal immunity to the discomforts of heat
and battle, thirst and fatigue, gone. He had already removed his helm;
now, with muscles weary and stiffened from too many hours in the saddle,
he drew off his gauntlets and pulled the heavy, overheated mail hauberk
from his shoulders.
A hot gust of wind sent tangled strands
of hair whipping about his face as he secured the garments on his
saddle. Kalil frowned at the added complication of the rising wind as
once again his dark, cold gaze skimmed the deceptive dips and hollows of
the barren hill country, and touched on the distant smudge marring the
white-blue arc of the sky.
His bare fist tightened on the reins.
The oily curl of smoke was all that
remained of his home. The tiny village had been razed to the ground, the
cool, quiet refuge of palace and gardens looted and burned by the
retreating remnants of the Couer de Lion's armies as they cut a bloody
swathe from the Holy Land to their last coastal bastion at Acre.
His throat closed against a raw throb
of grief and rage, but with a practiced flick of a mind hardened by too
many battles, too many years spent campaigning at Saladin's side, Kalil
dismissed what he couldn't change with his own strength and intellect,
and forced his attention to the demands of the present.
With a last brooding sweep of the stony
puzzle of hills and gullies for the marauding band of soldiers that had
pursued them through the night, he wheeled, returning to the ragged
column of refugees that were all that remained of his men and his
household. Some were mounted on an assortment of horses and camels; most
were on foot, carrying children, possessions, and leading livestock,
their faces slack with exhaustion and lined with strain. Loaded carts,
from which food and drink were being dispensed, were clumped together in
the inky well of shade cast by an outcropping of wind-carved basalt.
Hooded, jessed falcons flexed their wings desultorily beneath the
wearing heat, and his leashed hunting dogs lay sprawled beneath the
carts, lean flanks heaving, tongues lolling a startling pink against the
burnished browns of their coats and the bleached mosaic of the desert
floor.
Kalil's gaze skimmed the rough
gathering, his mind automatically inventorying his people even as he
hungrily sought out the blaze of colour that was his own dark blue
mantle, with his crest, the falcon, emblazoned in gold on the rich
cloth.
Despite the grimness of the past hours,
a smile tugged at Kalil's mouth when he saw that the mantle, which he'd
secured around his wife's shoulders as they'd retreated from the
ferocity of the attack, had been discarded against the heat of the day,
and his lady's veil had slipped-again. His dark mood dissolved into
something close to delight as he surveyed the guard around Laure: Gan,
the whipcord lean Frenchman, and his wife, Ila--both of whom were bonded
to his lady, and now to him-and his two most trusted lieutenants.
Sulaimon and Yusef were both studiously looking anywhere but at Laure,
their backs stiff with offence at the outrageous sight of her moonlight
pale skin and pretty lips, the ever errant tendrils of her dark hair
fluttering in the breeze.
Laure's dark green gaze fastened on
his, and Kalil's heart swelled in his chest, threatening to burst with
the strange intensity that gripped him still, despite the cold demands
of the trade agreements that existed between their two houses, the
exchange of jewels and silks for ships and gold, and the practicalities
of marrying to secure his lands and his ancient bloodline.
They had met and bedded on the day they
were wed, but from the first he'd been filled with longings and needs
he'd thought long buried by darkness and blood. He was twenty and eight,
already a widower twice over, and yet he'd been overwhelmed with the
need to converse in a voice not choked by battle and too often forced to
stony silence; to laugh and play and speak as a simple man and not a
blooded warrior of The Faith. His discomfort had endured through the
entire day of their marriage, the formal completion of the contracts,
the interminable feasting. The few compliments he'd finally managed to
choke out had fallen on deaf ears: his lady hadn't understood a word.
Lady Laure de Vallois sat her horse,
exhausted yet spellbound, as the strange, fierce husband she'd traveled
half a world to wed, returned from his lonely vigil on the hill. He was
garbed for battle still, although he'd shed the heavier metal
accoutrements against the burning heat of the day, securing them behind
his saddle along with his battle shield and mace. Freed of the
constriction of his helm, his hair hung long and tangled and barbaric
about his broad shoulders, so that she longed to run her fingers through
the dark strands, comb out the knots, and bring a smile to the hard,
sculpted planes of his face. A fine linen surcoat clung damply to his
chest, and a leather belt fastened his dagger and sword at either hip,
the hilts glinting with the rich gold of his crest as he rode amongst
his people with the muscular, catlike grace of a man who spent much of
his life in the saddle. He looked grim and formidable, but despite the
long hours of battle and flight, purpose and energy burned from him,
igniting a ripple of hope everywhere he passed. She could see why his
men loved him, why small children risked the ire of the big bronze
stallion he rode to dash up and touch his leg and chatter shyly at him.
His people adored him. He was their hope, their falcon-and now hers--as
bright and wild as the desert itself.
Her stomach tightened as he approached.
His stallion sidled close enough that their legs brushed, and she caught
the musky, sweat-sharp scent of his skin; the spicy scent of his hair.
Despite the heat and her exhaustion, a fierce wave of longing swamped
her.
Lips twitching, he reached over and
tugged her veil into place so that she felt smothered all over again.
"For Yusef, and Sulaimon," he said in
careful Arabic, so she could catch each word. A rare smile entered his
dark eyes. "And for me."
His fingers brushed her cheek through
the filmy veil, and on an impulse-one of the many unladylike impulses
that had made her difficult to school to the high standards demanded by
her powerful family--she caught at his hand and clung, driven by the
numbing fear of the past few hours and a sudden desperate need to break
through the frustrating, invisible barriers that closed her out of much
of her husband's life. She had been used as crudely as a piece of gold
by her family to buy influence and trade concessions in these foreign
lands-a hedge against the treacherous ebb and flow of politics and the
greed of Phillip II and the Church--but that cold fact didn't change who
she was inside, or the girlish dreams she harboured still. She needed
her husband to have at least a modicum of affection for her, and from
Kalil, she needed...more.
His startled gaze clashed with hers. An
awkward silence swelled between them; then his hand turned, gripping
hers. His palm was hot, calloused, his grip close to painful as he
carried her hand to his chest and pressed it there so she could feel the
damp heat of his skin beneath the linen, feel the heavy pounding of his
heart. The gesture, in full view of his people, his men, was intimate,
unconscionable....
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