The Sheikh's Captive Mistress by Jessica Brooke, Ella Brooke Page B

might not be able to keep up with the emotional toll.
    “Emma, you don’t have to marry me,” he said, his voice soft and sad.
    She blinked up at him and her large eyes were wide and startled. “I know we have to work to negotiate, but there has to be another way. If I could just talk with Daddy, make him see what a good man you are and how badly your people are suffering from the attacks. He’d understand. He values family just like you do.”
    “So you’re saying you want to stay?” She leaned up and kissed him, emphasizing her attraction to him by biting at his lower lip. What a fiendish minx she was. Emma knew that it drove him nuts. Munir moaned under her ministrations, but kept his focus on the debate at hand. “I’m serious. We do need to do this right. It’s not truly love if I keep you like a pet. If you want to leave, if life in Yoman is too tough or scary for you, well, after Kashif’s attack I cannot blame you.”
    She shook her head and stared deeply into his eyes, her own like clear pools or a virgin spring he wished he could lose himself in forever. “That’s nothing.”
    “Don’t knock that aside.”
    “It was scary, and I might need to see doctors later just to talk about it or with you, I get that, but I helped save myself and the people I care about here had my back. I know I can trust you and Basheera and Naseem no matter what, and that’s a good thing. Besides, we both know Kashif is going nowhere from now on. I…” she swallowed and bit her lower lip. He tensed beside her, afraid he was about to be delivered a world class blow off. “I love you, Munir. I’d like to think that you’re my habbibi, too, that we’re beloved to each other.”
    Happiness filled his heart, warmed in a way even the highest desert sun never could aspire to. Leaning forward, he gave her a long kiss, feeling his tongue play with her own. When he pulled back, that mischievous fire was back in Emma’s sapphire eyes.
    “I love you.”
    “Then I love you and nothing can stop that,” she said, burrowing into him and whining a bit when the limo pulled up to the correct position at the palace’s livery. “Oh man, I was just getting snuggly back here!”
    “We have all night for that, habbibi ,” he said, laughing.
    But then as the door opened, the laugh died in his throat.
    Before him stood Senator Alan James, a man with blue eyes just like his daughter’s, but these were angry like blue hell fire. “Get out of the car and give me back my daughter!”
    Munir would have questioned it, fought for her, but the senator was flanked by a phalanx of Navy SEALs, and his father was nodding solemnly behind everything. Hurrying out of the car, he held Emma’s arm as they both stood before their fathers and a lot of United States military personnel.
    “Senator James, I can explain,” Munir started.
    The senator eyed his daughter and snapped his fingers. Two large men with bulging muscles and crew cuts stalked forward and pulled Emma from him. She screamed and fought it, but was soon ushered over to stand guarded behind her father.
    “Daddy, I can explain this. I know it’s hard to believe, but I love him.”
    The senator’s nostrils flared. “Former Sheikh Shadid called and told me what his son had done, how he stole you without his father’s consent for a bargaining chip. Darling, what you feel right now? It’s called Stockholm Syndrome, so just let Daddy take care of this.”
    “Daddy, please!” she shouted, tears streaming down her cheeks. “That’s not what happened at all. The old sheikh masterminded all of this and now he’s ratting out Munir. Please, you have to listen.”
    Her father shook her head and walked up to Munir. “I should bomb this Godforsaken country into rubble for all the pain you’ve caused my family, all the fear you put us through, thinking our daughter was dead. Just look at her! Did you put your filthy hands on her?” he demanded.
    Munir ignored the way flecks of spittle hit