With a furious flick of his wrist, he stopped their forward momentum. Even his body guards – who were well versed in stopping people who wanted to get near him – were stunned that a person could get so close to him without their knowledge.
“Stay back,” he ordered to all of them. Since it wasn’t in their nature to allow any sort of harm to come even remotely close to him, they weren’t sure what to do, but they all obeyed his order without question, although there were several frantic glances.
“She’s unarmed,” he said, although he had no real knowledge of that. He just suspected that this little woman wouldn’t have thought to bring a weapon of any sort. He was equally impressed with her for being so capable and getting through multiple layers of security but also furious with her for even attempting something so suicidal. If he hadn’t seen her first, she would have been grabbed immediately and imprisoned. He might not have even known that anyone had gained access to the palace grounds since it wasn’t something that he needed to know about. He trusted his guards to take care of the perimeter and anyone who dared to come close was prosecuted.
As his mind went through what she would have endured, without his knowledge, the admiration for her audacity diminished and his fury took over. “What the hell do you think you’re doing?” he demanded, calling out to her and daring her to try to get away from him. Amazingly, she didn’t immediately show herself and he grew impatient as he waited for the woman to come out from her hiding place behind the stone wall.
Nikki bit her lip and clenched her eyes closed, unable to believe that she’d actually been caught. But the men bearing down on her from all directions with machine guns pointed at her were a pretty good sign that she had lost her stealth status.
With a sigh, she lifted her hands and stood up, turning to face Nazar with wary, nervous eyes. If those eyes had been powerful at the press conference several days ago, that was nothing compared to her reaction to his gaze at the current moment. Or maybe it was all the guns pointing at her that had her trembling, feeling like her knees might give out on her at any moment.
Nazar stormed towards her, raising a hand once again when his guards, nervous about her presence and the fact that they’d been unable to stop her from entering, approached as well. “Stay back and lower your weapons!” he commanded.
Turning back to Nikki, he glared at her with his hands on his hips. “Come here!” he told her, the fury coming through his voice like a knife.
Nikki considered her options. Seeing the cold wrath in those black eyes, she looked towards the guards with the machine guns and actually considered that they might be less dangerous at this point. “No,” she called back and watched with increasing fascination as Nazar actually became angrier. She thought she might actually see steam rising from the top of his head, but didn’t mention that. Nor did she smile at the vision of the top of his head exploding off like in cartoons.
Shrinking back, she took several steps in the opposite direction but froze when the guns went up again, all of them pointing in her direction.
“Don’t you dare fire at her!” he yelled. “I’ll handle this!”
There was a small argument in Arabic between Nazar and the man standing behind him, but Nikki breathed a sigh of relief when the guys in black lowered their machine guns.
“Return to your posts!” he told each and every one of them.
Nikki didn’t want a translation of the argument he’d just won with the man behind him. But the man holstered his pistol and stepped back, tossing out one more glare in her direction before resuming his vigil behind Nazar.
When the man stepped back, Nazar turned to face her once again, his eyes shooting daggers at her and she quaked even while her tennis shoes seemed to be melting into the stone floor beneath her feet from the incredible heat of the sun. “Nikki, so help me if you don’t get over here this instant, I might just let the guards have their way and toss you into a prison cell.”
Nikki cringed at his words and she took a step forward, but then stopped.
“Where’s Brianna!” she challenged him. “If you’ll just let my friend go, I’ll be out of here and you’ll never have to see me again.”
Nazar gritted his teeth. Never in his life had he ever felt this way. He prided himself on his cool, controlled temperament but there was something about this woman that pushed him beyond irritation and annoyance. She fired him up and not always in a good way. “Nikki, get your little butt over here, right now!”
He almost burst out laughing when the obnoxious, adorable woman actually turned around as if she were trying to see if her butt was small or otherwise. How could she create such volatile emotions in him from such a short acquaintance? But from the moment he’d seen her from the podium in Washington, D.C., he’d known this woman would be different. She’d gotten under his skin with her pretty blue eyes and her lush, sexy figure. But this escapade really was beyond belief. Not that she understood the danger she was in! One moment he was ready to turn her over his knee and spank her until she had some common sense and promised never to put her life in danger like this and the next, he wanted to chuckle at her actions and kiss her until she couldn’t speak anymore.
Instead, he glared at her until, visibly shaking, she walked over to stand directly in front of him. “How did you get in here?” he demanded in a low growl. He’d had his security team scouring her home and work areas, trying to find her knowing that she wasn’t going to show for their dinner. He’d almost fired his body guards when he found out that the one woman who had distracted him so completely had simply walked away from him and hadn’t been followed. He’d been furious to be denied her company; he could still feel her skin under his fingertips, could still remember the anticipation of what she might taste like. If he had been clearer about his intentions that afternoon, the past few sleepless nights might have been completely different. Or he might have just had sleepless nights for a completely different reason.
Nikki licked her lips and looked around, painfully aware of all the very angry, probably embarrassed palace guards and body guards. “Well, it wasn’t all that difficult,” she whispered, leaning forward slightly and glancing to her right and left.
Nazar wasn’t sure what to say to that. People were killed trying to enter the palace grounds. And here she was – standing in front of him with the sun shooting auburn sparks off of her brown tresses – telling him that it wasn’t very hard for an unauthorized person to enter the compound.