Awakened by Her Desert Captor (6 page)

She didn't think. She reacted. She got into the golf buggy and turned the key, setting it in motion. Her heart was clamouring as she sped out of the castle complex.

* * *

Less than an hour later Sylvie's feet sank into the sand. She was on top of a dune, with the now dead golf buggy in front of her. Futile anger made her kick ineffectually at the inanimate object. It had started sputtering and slowing down about ten minutes before, eventually conking out.

The sun beat down mercilessly and there was nothing as far as the eye could see except sand, sand and more sand. Heat waves shimmered in the distance.

Of course it was only now that Sylvie realised just how stupid she'd been to react to her own imagination like that and set off in a panic. She had no water. No food. No idea where she was. Even if she'd had the means she wasn't sure which way she'd come!

Her T-shirt was stuck to her skin and her jeans felt red-hot and too tight. Right now she would have given anything for a cool white tunic and a head-covering. She could feel her skin prickling uncomfortably under the sun, and the roof of the buggy offered scant protection.

She gulped and, absurdly, tears pricked her eyes. Arkim Al-Sahid had driven her to this desperate measure. She wished she'd never laid eyes on the man. She wished he'd never kissed—

Something caught at her peripheral vision and she looked. For a second she wondered if she was seeing things, and then as the image became more distinct her eyes widened.

It was a man on top of a horse... Except this looked like no ordinary horse. It was a huge black stallion. And the man...

Sylvie felt as if she might have slipped back a few centuries. At first she thought it must be one of Arkim's staff, because he was dressed in white robes, with a
keffiyeh
around his head. His face was obscured by the material, leaving only his eyes and dark skin visible. And was that a jewelled dagger stuck into the roped belt around his waist?

He drew up alongside her, the horse rearing up, making Sylvie back away skittishly. Even now—even though her accelerated pulse told her otherwise—she was hoping she was mistaken.

But the man who jumped off the horse had such grace and innate athleticism that her mouth dried.

He tied the horse to the buggy and then stalked towards her, growing bigger and taller as he did so. Right up until the moment that he ripped aside the material covering his mouth and face Sylvie was still hoping it was anyone but...
him
. Of course he'd found her. This man seemed to have a heat-seeking radar, able to pin her to the spot no matter where she was.

‘You damned little fool. What the
hell
did you hope to achieve by this stunt?'

She tried to ignore how Arkim's almost savage appearance made her feel as if she was losing it completely. He looked even more ridiculously handsome against this unforgiving backdrop.

She shouted back. ‘I was trying to get away from
you
, in case it wasn't completely obvious.'

Arkim's eyes glittered like obsidian. ‘In a golf buggy? With none of your things?' He was scathing. ‘Did you really think you could just bounce merrily across hundreds of miles of desert and roll into the nearest petrol station to refuel?'

Humiliated beyond measure, Sylvie launched herself at Arkim, hands balled into fists and beating against his chest.

He caught her arms easily and held her immobile. Tension crackled between them, and for a heart-stopping moment Sylvie thought he was going to kiss her—but then a piercing sound shattered the air and they both looked up to see two Jeeps coming towards them over the top of the dune, horns blasting.

Sylvie felt so jittery all she wanted was to escape back to the castle as quickly as possible and lock herself in her rooms. She was caught between a rock and a hard place. Literally. The thought didn't amuse her.

The Jeeps pulled up and concerned-looking staff spilled out. Sylvie immediately felt guilty for having precipitated this search.

Arkim wordlessly led her over to the nearest vehicle and said a few words to the driver. Then he opened up the back door for her. When she would have expected to get in, he handed her a bottle of water. She looked at him and he was grim.

‘Drink, you'll be dehydrated.'

Sylvie couldn't argue with that, and she was thirsty, so she took several large gulps. Then Arkim reached into the back of the Jeep again and pulled out a long white robe. He thrust it at her.

‘I'm supposed to put this on?' Sylvie said waspishly.

Arkim's expression darkened. ‘Yes. You're already burning.'

Her skin
was
still prickling, but Sylvie was afraid that it was more to do with his effect on her than the sun—even though when she looked her arms were ominously pink.

Mutinously she pulled on the long-sleeved robe, and was surprised at how much cooler she felt instantly—which was crazy when she was pulling on
more
clothes.

Then he was unwinding his
keffiyeh
from his head, and before she could stop him he'd placed it over her hair, like a shawl. He started to wind it around her head, tucking it in, until there was only one long piece left that he drew across her mouth and tucked in at the back.

She was effectively swaddled. And it was only then that she realised that the Jeeps were driving off into the distance, towing the buggy behind them. Arkim's scent was disturbing, and all around her. The thought that this fabric had been across his mouth was almost too intimate to take in.

He held his horse by the reins and was leading it over. Sylvie pulled down the material covering her mouth. ‘What are you doing? Where are the Jeeps going?'

He stopped in front of her, the huge horse prancing behind him. ‘We are going for a little trip.'

Before she could ask more, Arkim had his hands around her waist and was lifting her effortlessly onto the horse. His sheer strength took her breath away and she clung to the saddle, her brain reeling at being so high up. She hadn't been on a horse since she was a teenager...

Arkim put his foot in the stirrup and vaulted on behind her, his agility awesome. And suddenly he was all around her. Strong muscled thighs gripping hers, his torso against her back, his arms coming around her to take the reins.

‘Cover your mouth.'

Sylvie was too stunned to move. ‘Wh—where are we going?'

Arkim angled himself so he could see her and made a rude sound. ‘Don't you
ever
do anything you're told?' The material was firmly pulled back over her mouth and he said, ‘It'll stop sand getting in.'

Sylvie couldn't say anything else, because Arkim was turning the horse around and they were galloping in the opposite direction from where the Jeeps had gone. For a semi-hysterical moment Sylvie thought that perhaps she'd pushed Arkim so far he was just going to dump her in the desert and leave her to die a slow, painful death.

Gradually, though, as they galloped into the seeming nothingness of the sandy landscape, almost against her will she felt herself relaxing into Arkim's body, letting him take her weight. One of his arms was around her torso, holding her to him, and she felt the intimate space between her legs soften and moisten.

She was fast losing all sense of reality. The real world and civilisation felt very far away.

After about twenty minutes Arkim drew the stallion to a stop, its muscles quivering under Sylvie's legs. He got off the horse and Sylvie looked down to see his arms outstretched towards her. His mouth was stern.

‘Bring your leg over the horse, Sylvie.'

She wanted to disobey, but she knew Arkim would pull her off the horse anyway. Better to do it with a modicum of decorum and not let him see how intimidated she was. And she was scared... Even though she knew—in some way she didn't like to investigate—that he wouldn't harm her.

Her hands landed on Arkim's wide shoulders and his hands clamped around her waist as he lifted her down as effortlessly as before. She saw the reins on the ground and said nervously, ‘Won't the horse just go?'

‘Aziz won't move unless I say so. And we won't be long.' Arkim's tone brooked no disobedience—from her or the horse.

Sylvie broke away from Arkim's hands. The
keffiyah
was still around her mouth and she pulled it down as she looked around at a sea of nothing but blue sky and dunes.

‘Why are we here?'

Arkim planted himself in front of her, hands on hips. ‘Because this is where you would have ended up if the buggy hadn't run out of fuel. This is where we might have found you in two days, if we were lucky enough, dehydrated and burnt to a crisp.'

Sylvie looked at him and shivered. ‘You're exaggerating.'

Arkim looked livid. He grabbed her arms with his hands. ‘No, I'm not. Men who know this area, who have lived here for years, can still get caught out by the desert. Right now it looks calm, wouldn't you agree?'

Sylvie nodded hesitantly.

Arkim's mouth thinned. ‘It's anything but. There's a sandstorm due to hit any day now. Have you ever been in a sandstorm?'

She shook her head.

‘Imagine a tidal wave coming towards you—except in this case it's made of sand and debris, not water. You'd be obliterated in seconds. Suffocated.'

Genuine horror and fear finally made her realise just how reckless she'd been. She seized on the surge of anger. He made her feel as if she was a tiny ship bobbing about in a huge raging sea.

‘Okay, fine—I get it. What I did was foolish and reckless and silly. I didn't know. I didn't mean to put everyone to so much trouble...' A very unwelcome sense of vulnerability made her lash out. ‘But, in case you don't remember, it's
your
fault I'm even here!'

* * *

Arkim looked down at that beautiful but defiant face and felt such a mix of things that he was dizzy. He shook his head, but nothing rational would come to the surface. All he could see was
her
.

He gave in to the urgent dictates of his blood and lowered his mouth to the lush contours of hers—and drowned.

His tongue swept into her mouth in a marauding move and he quickly became oblivious to everything except the rough stroke of his tongue against Sylvie's, demanding a response.

She resisted him for long seconds, but he felt her gradually relax, as if losing a battle with herself. Once again there was an almost unbelievable hesitance—as if she didn't know what to do. The thought that she could do this—get under his skin so easily, make him doubt himself—made Arkim's blood boil.

He held the back of her covered head and put his hand to where her neck met her shoulder in an unashamedly possessive move, his thumb reaching for and finding that hectic pulse-beat, which was telling him that no matter how ingrained it was in her to act, she couldn't control
everything
.

And finally he felt her arms relax and start to climb around his neck, bringing her body into more intimate contact with his. Her mouth softened and she...acquiesced. The triumph was heady. Her tongue stroked his sweetly, sucking him deep—as deep as he imagined the exquisite clasp of her body would be around his in a more intimate caress.

He wanted to throw her down on the ground right here and pull up that robe, yank down her jeans, until he could find his release. The desire was so strong he shook in a bid to rein it in. And that brought him back from the brink of losing it completely.

Reality slammed into him. He was in the middle of the desert, under the merciless sun, about to ravage this woman. Make her his...brand her like some kind of animal.

He wanted to push her away from him and yet never let her go.

He hated her. He wanted her.

He pulled back from the kiss even though everything in his body and his blood protested at the move. He felt the unrelenting beat of the sun on his head. Her eyes opened after a moment, wide and blue...and that intriguing blue-green. Her cheeks were flushed. Lips swollen.

And then suddenly she tensed and scrambled free of his arms. Arkim might almost have laughed—even now she was intent on playing this game of push and pull. Acting her little heart out.

‘Have you forgotten that you're a civilised man?'

Even her voice sounded suitably shaky. But Arkim barely cast her a glance as he reached for the horse's reins. ‘I don't have to be civilised here.'

That was why he'd brought her here in the first place—because he didn't trust himself around her in more civilised surroundings. It was as if he'd known the desert was the only place big enough to contain what he felt for her.

He picked up the reins, ignoring the dull throb of unsatisfied desire in his system...the way his arousal pressed against his trousers under his robe.

‘You really can't turn it off, can you?'

Sylvie scowled at him. She should have looked ridiculous. The
keffiyah
was askew on her head, and slivers of bright red curling tendrils of hair peeped out from under its folds. She crossed her arms. ‘Turn what off?'

‘Your constant need to act out some role—pretend you don't want this.'

‘I'm
not
acting. And I
don't
want this! I don't know what happened there...a moment of sunstroke...but it won't be happening again.'

Arkim almost felt pity for her. He reached out and rubbed a thumb back and forth over her plump lower lip. ‘Oh, don't worry—it'll be happening again, and you'll be fully participant in it when it does.'

Sylvie slapped his hand away. She might have screamed at his arrogance, but he was lifting her up onto the horse again before she could take another breath. And, in any case, what could she say after she'd just melted all over him?

It was pathetic.
She
was pathetic. She turned to mush when he came near her. So she'd just have to keep him at a distance.