Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 48620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48620 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 243(@200wpm)___ 194(@250wpm)___ 162(@300wpm)
Ignoring her hiss, Khalil said, “Let me help you with that.”
Harper frowned. Help with what? And then the sheikh leaned towards her, reaching for her seatbelt, and she jerked. “No, it’s okay—-” His arm brushed against her breast as he reached for the other end of her seatbelt. She shut up and focused on breathing instead.
It took him the longest time to secure her seatbelt, with his arm constantly brushing against her breasts. By the time he finally pulled away, she was red-faced, breathless, and turned on.
Their eyes met.
He smirked.
Damn sheikh.
“Are you alright?” he asked politely.
“Better than ever,” she snarled. Damn sheikh.
As the plane sped down the runway for takeoff, the sheikh murmured, “Remember when I said I had something to tell you?”
“No.” She was simply being contrary, and when he smiled, she knew he was letting her know that he knew it was so – and he found it amusing. Damn sheikh.
Grimacing, she grumbled, “Fine, I do remember. What is it?”
The plane took off, forcing them to lean back against their seats, and as she felt her stomach do its tiny customary flip, she heard the sheikh murmur something like, Will you marry me?
Even Harper had to smile a little at that.
Yeah right.
As the noise of their flight receded, she glanced back at the sheikh, saying, “Sorry, I didn’t quite catch that. What did you say again?”
He smiled at her. “I think you did.”
Oh, that smile. That heart-stopping, jaw-dropping smile. She cleared her throat and told herself to stop being a ninny. “I really didn’t.”
“Very well then.” And with that too-sexy smile still playing on his lips, the sheikh asked in a perfectly casual voice, “Will you marry me?”
Chapter Six
Harper had not spoken for fifteen minutes now. Khalil didn’t mind, and while her silence had initially surprised him, he realized after a while that it was exactly like her to react like this. Although her temper tended to have a short fuse over the smallest of things, Harper was the opposite in the moments that mattered. He recalled a story about her once, the first time she had heard of her father’s injury and the possibility that he would never walk again. She had been silent for a long while, and then – while her father had been in the operating room for hours – she had started reading books. Started talking to doctors. Started asking about the funds that were available to soon-to-be-decommissioned soldiers like Howard.
When Howard had woken up, his daughter was by his side, and she had the answers to all the questions he could ever want to ask.
Looking at her now, with her brows furrowed and her gaze darting to him once in a while, he knew she was thinking things through, considering and dismissing possibilities that did not fit his profile.
Was he insane? Was he joking? Why would he want to marry me?
Some questions she could answer herself, other questions –
He only had to wait until she asked them of him.
Meanwhile, he would simply enjoy looking his fill of her. She would be dynamite in a bikini, the sheikh thought with a frown. That was a good thing, but only if she wore the bikini in his presence alone. Everywhere else would be forbidden.
The thought had him shifting in his seat, the sheikh grimacing when he realized that imagining a bikini-clad Harper was enough to have his penis growing hard under his trousers.
“Sheikh?” It took a moment before the sheikh turned to face her, and she frowned, thinking he looked a little flushed. “Are you okay?”
“Of course.” Now was not the time to tell her he was thinking of fucking her. “You have made up your mind?”
“Ha. Ha. Ha.” She would really thump him if he were serious about that.
His smile was faintly apologetic. “I am rushing you then.”
“No kidding.”
Her tone was extremely sarcastic, but her eyes showed faint panic. He was sorry for this, but not enough that it would dissuade him from his objective. She was what he wanted, and he would have her. It was only a matter of when. Studying her face, he asked slowly, “May I at least think you are not rejecting my proposal outright?”
“I should,” she muttered, “if I were smarter.”
The sheikh frowned. “Why do you say this? Would it be so bad to be married to me?”
“Will I be the only woman you’re marrying?”
Ah. So she was worried about that. “I respect the dictates of Islam, but I was also baptized Catholic.”
Oh! She had not known about that.
“Also, to have more than one wife is not actually a requirement of Islam.”
“But it’s allowed,” she said darkly.
“In a nutshell, yes. But you need not worry about that. When I take you as my wife—-”
“If you take me as your wife,” she corrected.
He ignored this. “It will only be you.”