Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride

Karim felt his admiration grow as he watched her produce a shaky smile.

How many women who had been through what she had would joke? Most he could think of would right now be having hysterics, hysterics that would have filled him with impatience. She was smiling—shaking like a leaf but smiling—and he was filled with … A flicker of shock registered in his eyes as he recognised the emotion that made him want to gather her in his arms as tenderness.

It seemed it was possible to want to throttle a woman and protect her from the slightest breeze at one and the same time; possible, but not comfortable.

He had not been comfortable since he met his Princess.

Eva’s wandering gaze found his face and lingered, the breath snagging painfully in her throat. The gold-tinged glow radiated by the flickering light cast shadows over Karim’s face, highlighting the strength and purity of his fabulous bone structure.

He was beautiful!

So beautiful it hurt; it hurt physically.

Her lashes swept protectively downwards as things deep inside her clenched and tightened. She was filled with deep, hopeless yearning. If these feelings she could not articulate never went away, how would she bear it?

‘There are a series of caves in the rock face. Up until ten years ago some were still occupied, but once there was an entire community living here.’

‘Nobody lives here now?’ She tried to ignore the strange heaviness in the air that had little to do with the storm that raged outside and instead imagined the silent place filled with the buzz of people going about their lives, living and loving … It was difficult to visualise.

‘You’re not seeing it at its best,’ he observed, stamping his boots without taking his eyes from her face.

An edge in his deep voice made her look up at him. The light was not strong enough for her to read his expression, but Eva found the fixed intensity of his stare unnerving.

She looked away and, aware of her heart pounding against her breastbone, drew a line with her finger in the fine layer of sand that covered the stone floor.

She forced an awkward smile. ‘You’re not seeing me at my best, either.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BUT he was seeing her—you’d think he never had before, the way he was staring, his heavy-lidded regard still trained unblinkingly on Eva’s face as he pulled off his head-covering and dragged a hand through his dark hair.

‘You look exhausted!’ he observed, feeling a stab of self-recrimination. The dust did not disguise the dark smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes.

As Eva’s gaze swept protectively downwards her attention was captured by a painted item lying in the dust. A frown of enquiry forming between her brows, she picked it up.

Karim watched her brush the dust off the broken toy very carefully, his eyes widening with shock as he caught himself wondering if he would choose to end this marriage given the choice?

The speculation was pointless—it was not his choice to make.

‘It’s a doll.’ When her gaze lifted to his her luminous eyes shone with unshed tears. ‘I wonder what happened to the girl who owned it … did she cry when she lost it?’ For some reason the idea of the lost doll and the lost community struck an emotional chord with Eva.

His lips curled into a cynical smile. ‘People discard things when they are broken and sometimes when they are not,’ he observed drily, thinking about his late wife’s reaction to the birth of her daughter. She had made clear she hadn’t wanted a girl.

Eva’s fingers tightened around the carved wooden toy as she leapt on his comment. ‘Are you saying we