"An artfully sensual story full of excitement and suspense."
Reviewed by Kay Quintin
Posted June 16, 2010
Romance Suspense
Recovering from an explosion that nearly blew out her
eardrums during her father's celebration of Hunt Drilling's
association with the Kadir foreign partners, Rylie Hunt is
striving to come to terms with the death of her father. Now
six months later, the weak but recovering Rylie is
convinced it was not an accident but a terrorist attack
from the Kadir Shipping conglomerate. Having lost
everything and no longer being the carefree and rich girl
of the past, Rylie spends the last of her resources to
attend the World Industry & Shipping Conference in Geneva
to confront the Darin family about her suspicions. Darin himself comes to Rylie's aid as she nearly collapses
from weakness. As the two finally meet elsewhere to
confront her hatred and need for revenge, she is apprised
of the centuries-old feud between the Zabbars and the
Kadirs. The Zabbars are intent on humiliating and
embarrassing the three sons of the eldest Kadir leader.
Together, she and Darin, along with his two brothers,
Tarik, formerly of the American Special Forces, and Shakir
of the English Paratroopers, take on the Zabbars. Thus the
dodging of assassins, sabers and bullets and blood
commences. Rylie and Darin still find the time to discover
the sensual and magical sex that deepens their commitment
and Darin's compulsion to protect. With the battle heating
up, Darin feels it's imperative to walk away from Rylie to
distance her and thus protect her from the feud that could
end her life. HER SHEIK PROTECTOR is the first book in the new Desert
Sons series from Linda Conrad. This story is
artfully sensual and full of excitement and suspense. Once
into this story, you will be compelled to continue turning
pages to the final destination. I really hated seeing the
story end as I became completely enthralled in the feud
between the families and the compulsion to continue with
the couple's existence. I don't intend to miss the
following stories of this series. Fantastic writing!
SUMMARY
Darin Kadir had to protect American Rylie Hunt at all costs.
Seeking answers, she’d traveled halfway around the world to
find him. Now she is a target of his family’s arch nemesis
and must trust Darin in order to survive. Caught up in a covert war between two families, Rylie wants
only to find her father’s killers and bring them to justice.
She doesn’t want to fall in love. But the desire burning
in Darin’s eyes is unlike anything she’s ever known. Will
she surrender her heart—or become a casualty of a war across
the ages?
Excerpt “No buts.” Darin had had enough. “You
can have the gun. And I’ll slip the train porter money to
keep an eye on the corridor and on your door. You should
be safe enough.”
He inched his arm around Rylie’s waist
and began shuffling her out of the dining car. But the
moment her body was pressed to his, their combined heat
raced along his veins and landed hot and erotic at the base
of his spine.
Impossible. Not now. He
eased his grip on her and backed away to a more respectable
distance. But he kept them both moving forward through the
passenger cars.
Rylie never spoke a word. When he gave
her the gun and final instructions on how to use it, she
glared up at him with a look that could’ve set fire to a
glacier.
“Stay safe,” he reiterated while
turning his back on that gorgeous but furious face. “And
be here when I return.”
He took a deep breath and walked out of
the door, praying all the while that by leaving her alone
he wasn’t making one of the biggest mistakes of his whole
life.
Rylie stared at the back of the closed
door, still waiting for Darin’s return and to hear him say
he needed her help. Ten seconds. Forty. One minute.
Two.
Well, dang it.
Okay, she got that he was worried about
her. Really she did. But she’d also hoped he was coming
to know the person she was inside. The person who could
never in a million years wait around in safety, sitting on
her hands while someone she cared about worked to save her
life.
Uh uh. So not going to happen,
Darin.
It was amazing how close she felt to
him in such a short time. How well she knew the real him
even with few words spoken between them. How could he care
about her and not know her any better than he apparently
did?
And he did care for her, she was
absolutely positive. Um, maybe his emotions were based
mostly around lust, but he did care. She could easily see
that in the way he looked at her and in the way he kept
demanding that she stay safe.
Her insides were already jumping,
raring to follow after him. But she would sit here for one
more minute first. To be sure he didn’t turn her around in
the corridor and find a way to lock her inside their
cabin.
Images churned in her mind as she
perched a foot over one knee, flapping it up and down in
mid-air with nervous energy. She cared about him too.
More than cared. In fact, what she’d been feeling verged
on an once-in-a-lifetime thing.
But was it real? Her emotions had been
on such a roller coaster ride since she’d first set eyes on
him that she hardly knew what to think. It had started out
with her being sure she hated him. Positive he’d had a
hand in murdering her father. Now she knew he was no
murderer. Taking a life in self defense had all but killed
him, too.
As the days and hours had gone by,
she’s been experiencing many other feelings toward him.
Some she couldn’t even name. Lust was right up there on
top, of course. But there was so much more.
That last kiss had been…special. It
was the kind of kiss that spoke of millions of tomorrows.
The extraordinary sort of kiss that brought to mind knights
in shining armour about to give up their lives for the
woman they loved. A kiss like nothing in her
experience.
Love? Not a remote
possibility in their case. Darin didn’t even know the true
her. And would he still care as much if he did? Maybe
not. Maybe they came from such differing backgrounds that
he would never be able to respect a strong woman. A woman
who wanted to stand beside her man and not behind him as
they faced life together. A woman like her.
And how did she feel about him deep
down? She knew there was a lump in her chest whenever she
thought about him. A lump in her chest and a wildly crazy
heat at her core. The man seriously turned her on.
She had an idea of how the two of them
could become closer and get to know one another better.
But first she had to make sure he stayed alive.
Two hours later Rylie’s ears were
popping again as she crept through the quiet corridors,
looking for any sign of Darin or the Taj Zabbar kidnapper.
The train must be heading lower, going in the direction of
the lake below the mountains. Rylie could almost feel
gravity pulling her downward.
She must’ve been just missing Darin and
the kidnapper while she searched. It was possible they had
ducked into a cabin or hidden behind a closed door when
she’d gone by. But she had traveled the length of this
train twice, looking. Now she wasn’t sure what was left to…
The train rounded a steep u-curve right
then, and Rylie got a good view through the windows into
another corridor as the snaking cars doubled back on
themselves. There, maybe only two or three train-car
lengths ahead, she saw two men locked in mortal combat in
the well-lit corridor of a sleeping car.
Darin.
Blasting out of her own corridor at a
dead run, Rylie swore under her breath. She should be
covering his back. She was the one with the gun after
all.
She pushed through pressurized door
locks and tramped across the little bridges called
vestibules that connected two cars. Through one car. Then
into the next.
By the time she hit the third empty
corridor in a row she was breathing hard and very
confused. She’d seen them. Clearly. It hadn’t been a
dream.
Then she heard a noise coming from the
end of the car. It sounded as though someone had
momentarily gone through the pressurized door onto the next
vestibule. Shoving hard to open the door, she blinked at
sudden air movement and turned her head in that
direction.
To her amazement, she saw shoes…well,
feet with shoes on them…as they disappeared up a ladder
that she’d never noticed before. A ladder to the roof of
the train? Why?
After she heard a distant shout,
sounding for all the world like Darin’s voice, the why
didn’t seem too important. If he could chase someone to
the roof of a train, she could follow.
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