YET TO COME

BOOK PREVIEW

This is an extract from another one of my books: THE SHEIKH'S ONE NIGHT LOVER. I really hope that you enjoy it! Ciao!

......

The sudden sound in the dark hallway made her stiffen just after a door, unable to move as she was on forbidden grounds, appearing here after having lost her way. Her throat ran dry and fear washed over her. The sound came again, louder, choked, and she was able to distinguish it as a man's low cry. Her first instinct was to run down the long dark halls. But, the second cry touched something in her. It was slightly higher than the first, pained, and distressed. Although she didn't know who it belonged to, she opened the door silently and peered in, cautiously, carefully. The room was completely shrouded in darkness and her eyes could make out nothing. The disturbing cry came again, more loudly than the former. She heard the utterer struggle. She stilled. What if the occupant of the room was being killed by strangling? Was it good if she perchanced and interrupted such? She realized that she herself would have to be killed if she did. She made to turn, about to leave when a voice stilled her.

'Stop,' he said. It was just a word but it iced her. She turned back as trashing sounds came to her and she figured then that the occupant of the bed was struggling with his own bed. 'Don't, please,' he pleaded softly in a hoarse masculine voice, but loud enough for her to hear him. She wondered if he had cried for it sounded as if he had. His plea touched her. It sounded desperate. He kept talking, begging softly in muffled words, trashing violently as his cries increased. She could not bear to leave him. She made towards him, navigating the dark room with his voice and sometimes her hands. Her eyes gradually adjusted to the darkness. She went around the bed to the struggling figure that was violently trashing as if someone was pressing him down by neck. 'No! No! Let me,' he pleaded.

'Hey!' she whispered bending over the trashing form on the bed, happy to discover that he was alone, leaning into him. His soft pleas quickened, pained. He sounded breathless as if life was going out of him. Did he have a spiritual problem? She climbed into his bed despite her thoughts, kneeling beside him, trying to hold him down. His eyes flew open, and then they went shut again, taking with it the pain and distress she had glimpsed in its dark depth. 'Hey! Wake up!' she tried to rouse him, shaking him. Her eyes had completely adjusted to the initially thick darkness.

'No!' he mumbled repeatedly. His trashing stopped for a moment before his hands went to his neck, trying to removing an invisible external force, fighting with something -or someone? - that just wasn't there. She hugged him to her, soothing him with words.

'It's alright. It's just a nightmare. You'll be just fine,' she whispered. It worked, for he stilled, relaxing, melting into her warm embrace. He opened his eyes then and stared at her.

'Sumera,' he whispered opening his eyes, directing his melanous gaze directly into her huge brown orbs.

'Are you alright?' she asked him.

'Sumera,' he whispered with so much tenderness. Was he referring to her? She was not Sumera. He was mistaking her for someone or he had gone to bed foxed. 'Sumera, my Sumera,' he said and she was convinced that he was still drugged on sleep, not totally conscious. It was quite good. His words were a bit slurred.

'It was a nightmare.'

'It was bad,' he told her,' the nightmare,' he added. She nodded, not sure if he could see her or decode the gesture in his state.