Merciful God. She was gaping at him as if she recognized him. She couldn’t. She mustn’t!
He was supposed to pass himself off as a common soldier. Nobody was supposed to find out who he was. Kareem had broken Nick’s nose and blackened his eyes himself and had assured him when he came to that he didn’t look one bit like a king.
“Êtes vous Américaine?” Are you American, he asked. Although, how could those big, round cornflower-blue eyes in a tiny patch of lightly tanned skin revealed by her veil be anything but American?
She nodded. “Oui.”
He switched into English, a language his guards were much less likely to know than French, and asked low and urgently, “How did InterAid get into Baraq?”
The woman shrugged. “That’s way above my pay grade to know. As far as I know, we were invited.”
“What are you doing here?” he demanded. Sharaf was up to no good letting these people in so soon after the coup. What was the bastard planning now?
“We’re here to render humanitarian aid and monitor the treatment of prisoners.”
Sharaf must be making a run at legitimizing his control of Baraq. Dammit. The country mustn’t fall into the general’s bloodthirsty hands. Chagrin at his helplessness to protect his people from the madman burned in his gut.
“Would you mind if I had a look at your nose? It could use some attention.”
Nick flinched as the aid worker reached for him. She still wore a strange expression as though she half recognized him. Frantic to get her to stop looking at him like that, he stilled himself and answered smoothly, “Be my guest.”
She stepped closer. The first thing he noticed was that she smelled like lavender. The scent reminded him of cottage gardens in the English countryside—enchanting and gentle. The second thing he noticed was the expression in her incredibly blue eyes. Complete disbelief about summed it up.
Either he looked a whole lot worse than he realized or she had a darn good idea of precisely who he was. Damn! He had to distract her. But how? His mind went completely blank. “You smell like lavender,” he announced for lack of anything else intelligent to say.
She laughed as she reached for his nose. “I don’t see how. I think the Army got this robe off some goat herder’s wife who’s never heard of bathing.”
Her fingers lightly probed the swelling, and his grin turned into a grimace as shards of glass-sharp pain shot through his face. He shifted carefully and made room for her on the ledge beside him. The woman sat, her black robe billowing against his hip in a seductive slide of smooth fabric. An urge to put his hands on her, to feel the curves beneath her flowing robes, made his palms itch. He fisted his hands at his sides. So not the time for that. Must be some sort of primitive survival reaction kicking in because, damn, she was attractive—and all he could see of her was her eyes.
Her touch was gentle on his skin. The peroxide she used to clean his cuts stung like crazy, but he managed not to wince too much. However, when she carefully probed his broken nose again, he couldn’t help but suck in a sharp breath.
She said cheerfully, “Underneath the swelling, your bones are actually aligned fairly well. You shouldn’t come out of this with a crooked nose.”
As if he had a prayer of living long enough for his nose to actually heal? Not bloody likely.
She asked, “Is all that blood on your shirt yours or someone else’s?”
“I don’t know.”
“If you’ll take off your shirt, I’ll find out for you,” she suggested.
He shrugged out of the filthy Army blouse, amused when she stared at his muscular chest. At least Kareem’s hasty beating to his face hadn’t cost him all his charms with the ladies.
“You’re covered in blood. I’ll have to wash it off to see if there are any wounds beneath it,” she mumbled. There was a noticeable hitch in her voice. As if she was nervous about touching him. The idea amused him. Women he barely knew draped themselves all over him constantly as though he were their personal play toy.
He scrutinized the young woman before him, for surely she was young to react the way she did to him. She groped in her medical bag and eventually emerged with a package of antiseptic towelettes she fumbled clumsily at opening.
He leaned back against the cold stone wall and raised his arms, resting his hands on the back of his neck. His posture, suggestive of reclining in bed, seemed to fluster her even more. For some perverse reason, he was enjoying discomfiting this poor girl.
Slowly she leaned toward him. Her chest rose and fell faster under her dark robe, and her pupils dilated to black, limpid pools.
Blast him if she wasn’t having the same effect on him. On full alert, he watched as she drew close. Close enough for him to see that her eyelashes were light brown. A blonde, maybe? His nostrils flared. There were only a few tiny laugh wrinkles by her eyes. Definitely young, then. Those eyes of hers were extraordinary, as clear and bright as the sky on a summer day.
Her hands settled lightly on his rib cage. They felt like an angel’s kiss against his skin; featherlight, exquisitely sweet. So incongruous in this cold, hard prison.
Her gaze jerked up to meet his, surprised. For an instant, they looked directly into each other’s souls. A connection leaped between them. An almost psychic knowing that went far beyond sexual awareness. Synchronicity.
Her gaze faltered, while he blinked in surprise. Who was this girl?
Slowly she washed him, the intimacy of the act curling around them like strands of silk, drawing them into a web that bound them inexorably to one another. Almost painfully sharp electricity shot through him at the seduction of her hands soothing his bare flesh. She petted him as she might a magnificent lion. Her touch lacked the finesse of an experienced lover, but that didn’t stop it from arousing him to a stupidly feverish pitch. What the hell was wrong with him?
He supposed it had to do with her offering him solace. She didn’t exactly know how to do it, but her naive sincerity made the gesture all the more appealing. He caught another tantalizing whiff of lavender and glimpsed a few strands of golden hair escaping her head scarf. An intense desire to see the face beneath the veil surged through him.
Her compassion made him want to put his arms around her and hug her in gratitude. She was a priceless reminder of the sane, normal world that existed somewhere beyond the walls of his prison. He closed his eyes in sudden pain. He hadn’t realized just how isolated he felt until she had arrived.
Her fingers lightly probed his ribs, looking for broken bones. “If you’ll lean forward,” she murmured, “I’ll check the ribs in your back.”
He bent toward her, his arms coming up to surround her lightly. She jumped like a frightened doe in his arms.
“Uh, not exactly what I had in mind, but I suppose it works,” she mumbled in consternation.
It felt as if he’d captured a rainbow, all light and air and fragile color. He held her delicately while a powerful protective impulse slammed into him. He couldn’t recall the last time he’d reacted to a woman like this. It must have something to do with that whole business of being about to die.
He didn’t go for fragile females. The women he generally ran with could take perfectly fine care of themselves, thank you very much. But then, given that this young woman was here in the middle of an ongoing war, she probably could, too.
He smiled into the folds of her veil as her hands traced the ribs in his back, checking for broken bones. Her fingers trembled against his skin. And something inside him trembled in response.
Surprise coursed through him. He didn’t know which one of them was more flustered at the moment.
“Poking you like this hurts, doesn’t it? I’m sorry,” she breathed.
He opened his