LITMIR.BIZ

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Eyes! Look at her eyes!

      He’d had a reason to come into the room …

      “Your equipment …” He grasped for his train of thought.

      She clutched the robe tighter, eyes widening further as her voice hitched. “My equipment?”

      “Not that equipment …” It was all he could do not to groan at yet another verbal misstep. It didn’t help that he’d put her one door away from him, like a shiny-new mistress. And, sweet mercy, did she ever look the part of timid virgin, blushing and stammering the first time her body was exposed to a man’s eyes.

      For the first time in Khalil’s life he wished he could take advantage. Tear that robe off her, coerce and tease until she lay back on the thick bed behind her … and welcomed him with open arms. And legs. His eyes wandered down, past the hem of the silky material to the smooth, pale, shapely legs …

       For God’s sake, look her in the eye.

      “My men have brought your medical equipment to the palace.” He cleared his throat, which had gone dry again. “Where would you like it delivered?”

      “Oh.” She shifted around again, fidgeting with the belt and the hem again, anywhere the material folded or covered her. “I assumed that I was placed in this room so that I would have access to your room to monitor you as you sleep.”

      With a quick hop—which sent too many interesting places jiggling—she rounded the suitcase and perched on the corner of the bed. Her knees clamped together and she resumed smoothing the fabric down her thighs, willing it to cover more of her body than it had when she’d been standing. “Monitors here, but the camera equipment in your room. I know that sounds really creepy, but it is recorded so I can review it the next day to make sure that I didn’t miss anything, but after that it gets erased. Otherwise I’d just have to hover at your bedside and watch you sleep.”

      A short nervous laugh escaped her before she clamped her lips shut, the very picture of distress despite the laugh. “I doubt anyone would be able to get any rest if they felt like someone was standing there, leering at them. My aunt’s cat used to do that in the morning when she wanted me up. Just sit there and stare … And it always worked. Woke me right up.”

      Babbling, a sign of nerves. Definitely nervous. Maybe shy, too, if the way she worked to keep him from even seeing her knees was anything to go by. And all that wasn’t what he should be focusing on.

      He’d known she would need to monitor him, he was familiar with the method in which sleep studies were conducted, but the way she described watching him sleep only made him think of that long dark hair spread across cool white cotton pillows … and the slinky robe slipping over pale, soft flesh.

      She added, “It’ll take several hours to set up all the equipment so I thought maybe we would do it tomorrow. I really won’t be of any use to anyone until I’ve had at least eight hours.”

      Right, she was tired. He should say something, stop her babbling.

      “Of course.”

      Had he ever dated a woman so shy and modest? If he had, he should probably remember her if that appealed to him so much. He’d think less of any man who confessed this sort of reaction to innocence. To think himself capable of it. That emotion could be named by the taste of bile at the back of his throat.

      But the sudden, intense aversion to the thought of accepting her help disgusted him even more.

      Help was the whole reason for her to be there. He should just tell her everything right now. That would replace the sweet, nervous innocent with something uglier, a reflection of the blackness devouring him from the inside out. She’d give him her pity, at best, and she sure as hell wouldn’t sit there, barely clothed, trusting him to fake his way through the actions of a good man.

      “I doubt the equipment is going to be very helpful. My problem is I don’t sleep. I’ve got insomnia. And when I fail to fall asleep, I don’t tend to stay in bed for hours, trying. Not a lot to monitor when that happens. Which happens a great deal of the time.” He’d opened his mouth, said words, but not the right ones. His throat refused to let those words pass.

      “Well, you have to sleep sometime. I mean, you’re not a drooling idiot right now, and after you miss enough sleep—well, I’m sure you’ve noticed the effects. But there are also other effects that are actually quite dangerous. We all have a maximum amount of time we can go without sleep and then our brains start taking micro-sleeps when we’re trying to work. Or trying to drive. Insomnia sounds like a pain in the butt, but really it can be very dangerous.”

      Dangerous, like his reaction to her. “So your solution to it is?”

      Solution? The only one he needed right this second was the one that would keep him from ogling his oldest friend’s little sister.

      “There are a lot of different treatments, and sometimes that means a sleeping pill if you’re at a state where it’s gotten very dangerous for you to stay awake.”

      He’d never consciously liked the idea of innocence before. Before he’d come into the room and been tantalized by the nearly nothing she’d had on—coupled with his weakened state—this was certainly a natural reaction. Not just another flaw in his character.

      “Lose this battle so you can live to keep fighting the war. On another day. Night.”

      He just had to remember who she was and what she was to him. It shouldn’t matter to him what she thought of him, so he should be able to tell Adalyn the truth and actually get the help he’d dragged her around the globe for, not send her to treat imaginary illness.

      “You know,” she continued, “if the battle is a desire to sleep the natural way. Sleep aids aren’t the greatest thing in the world, but sometimes they are necessary as you’re trying to retrain yourself and your bed habits.” She yawned, reminding him that she was tired, too. Probably jet-lagged.

      And she’d stopped smoothing her robe closed. Definitely tired.

      He remained standing as stiff as his suit by the door. “I have sleep aids but, as you said, I try not to use them. I may have dragged you across the world for nothing, Dr. Quinn.” Doctor. Not Adalyn. Speak to her professionally, and perhaps his thoughts would follow that lead.

      “Am I getting that you don’t want me to be here? Did Jamison twist your arm into agreeing to this?” Her gaze sharpened and she stood, her head tilting and those pretty green eyes fixing on him with an intensity that faked alertness. And a little bit of hope. “Because if you really don’t want me here, we could take a day or two and just diagnose and prescribe a treatment and I could go home, rather than sticking around to see you through whatever you need to get right. Jamison could be satisfied with that.”

      “It’s not that I don’t want you here,” he said before it became clear she was offering him an out. She didn’t want to be there any more than he wanted her there. They could put on a brief show of his treatment, enough to satisfy Jay, and then she would happily go home. “I just don’t sleep well at the palace. Or at all. I sleep …” He rubbed his brow, pausing as he paced to a chair and sat. Her fatigue amplified his own. “I sleep better when I’m not in the palace.”

      “Do you keep an apartment somewhere else? Or are you referring to before you came to this kingdom to do the regent thing?”

      “I don’t keep an apartment. It’s a tent.” Why was he telling her this? Letting her witness his trouble would lead to questions, the bane of his existence. The prospect of her finding out seemed worse than the whole world finding out, and he couldn’t even bring himself to care how sexist that seemed to him—not wanting to be treated or rescued by the sweet creature his inner caveman salivated over. He didn’t want her to know any of it, his weakness, his shame.

      “I take short medical missions out into the desert to treat those who live in camps far from medical assistance. I’m a doctor, it is just who I am, and I want to hold on

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