Taken by the Sheikh (4 page)

Finally the bunker appeared. A huge wave of relief swept through him—the van had not yet arrived back.

He fingered his brow. The blood had dried in the fierce heat. He retrieved the stone from his pocket and ground it against the same tender place until the crust burst apart and it was bloodied again. Then he bent and buried the stone and his clippers deep in the sand. He smoothed the hole over—the wind would finish the concealment in a few minutes.

With a silent prayer of thanks, he lurched the last dozen paces and staggered into the shade of the bunker. He overturned the wooden chair, dabbled his fingers against his brow, and smeared a patch of blood onto one of the legs.

Hopefully that will fool them.

He checked the melted knots in the orange rope and transferred a little blood onto them as well.

Make it look as though she somehow struggled free.

He collapsed onto the mattress and waited, desperate to drink, but knowing he must appear dazed and disoriented if his ruse was to be successful. Nazim and Fayez were wily and experienced campaigners; not easy to fool.

An indeterminate time later he heard the van slide to a halt. He tensed as boots thudded down the steps. He had no idea how bad his head-wound looked; bad enough to be convincing, he hoped.

Nazim was first to enter.

“How was the American bitch? Is it worth us taking a turn?” His eyes darted swiftly around the half-dark bunker. “She got
free?
”

“Free but dead,” Rafiq croaked. “She can’t survive out there.”

“You were too kind with your knots.”

“I wanted her responsive—able to move for me a little.”

“But she escaped?”

“And hit me with that.”

Fayez righted the chair, noting the dark blood.

He bent and touched Rafiq’s wound. “Not too deep,” he said with little sympathy. He dropped his hands lower and ran them over Rafiq’s body, ostensibly to check for other injuries. Rafiq knew he was being searched.

“Drink...” he groaned.

Nazim handed him an orange juice but didn’t bother unscrewing it for him. Icy suspicion glittered in his eyes.

“She grabbed a couple of bottles and ran for it,” Rafiq muttered. “Towards Akajar. I followed her prints for a while once I could. She’ll never make it. She’s dead for sure.”

Fayez checked the drinks crate. Three juices now missing, the Coca Cola untouched. The numbers tallied.

Rafiq struggled with the screw-cap. Fayez took pity on him and opened it. Rafiq practically inhaled the juice. Fayez handed him another.

“The first tape is at the TV station?” Rafiq asked once he could speak more easily.

“Into the drop-box, and the bell was rung as you instructed.”

“Then we’ve succeeded. Now, all we have to do is wait for them to comply.”

“And if we can’t produce the girl?”

“You know they’ll take their time and try to negotiate. It’ll be a fortnight at least before we have to worry. It hasn’t been a problem before.” He smiled—blazing white teeth against dark skin. “Load the gear. We stay apart for the time being. Let’s go home. I want to see the TV news tonight.”

CHAPTER THREE

Laurel jerked awake in full darkness to the solid thumping of an approaching helicopter. She struggled to a sitting position, and sat blinking and confused on a bed that wasn’t hers. The unfamiliar room was dimly lit from light that spilled in from the adjoining bathroom.

Damn—not a weird dream then! I’m still here...

A knock thudded on her planked door. Yasmina’s thin arm snaked in from the hallway and switched on the black iron chandelier.

“Rafiq,” she said, coming further in and pointing to the sky.

Laurel plainly still looked half-asleep because Yasmina whirled one hand to simulate helicopter rotors, and said again “Rafiq.”

“Rafiq,” Laurel agreed, nodding furiously. She struggled off the bed and did her best to indicate she required her jeans and T-shirt. No way was she meeting the pig in a see-through robe and nothing else.

Yasmina shook her head and mimed wringing out washing with her bony brown fists.

Laurel clapped a hand to her forehead and closed her eyes. Well, she could add her trainers and the baseball cap to the robe, but that was it. Not a good look! It seemed even her bra and panties had been dealt to by her unexpected personal maid.

She drew the all-too-transparent robe around her body, hoping to manage a double layer of fabric at least over her breasts and groin. There were no other clothes visible in the shady room; the chandelier gave out only fitful light. Yasmina had scuttled off—plainly she’d provide no further help.

The helicopter’s thudding was now deafening. Its swishing rotors chopped at the air; it sounded to be landing very close to the house. A couple of minutes later eerie silence fell, disturbed only by the distant screeching of wakened birds.

Laurel thrust her feet into her trainers, struggling to lace them up with fingers that seemed all thumbs. Then she combed her fingers through the long strands of her newly-washed hair. She was as ready as she would ever be, and she was going to deliver the tirade of her life.

She strode with false bravado down the hallway to where the lights shone brighter and the air smelled of delicious cooking aromas.

“Ah, you have arrived safely, Miss Kiwi,” a husky voice said. She whirled around and found herself being inspected by piercing dark eyes. Eyes which had no doubt been enjoying an excellent view of her bottom under only one layer of flimsy fabric.

“No thanks to you,” she retorted, feeling a hot blush rushing up her neck and over her face.

“You think not?” The query was soft, but she sensed steel behind it.

“Leaving me there on my own to walk all that way? In such disgusting heat?”

“Spiriting you away from two dangerous animals? Oh please...” His eyelids drooped. “You’d rather I’d left you to defend yourself? I’m sure you would have done it so well, a big strong girl like you.”

Laurel drew herself up to her full five-feet-four and clenched her fists.

“I see they got the better of
you
anyway,” she said with satisfaction, indicating the clotted bruising above his eye.

“Perhaps. Perhaps not.” He seemed unruffled by her jibe.

Yasmina bustled towards him with a bowl of water, antiseptic and a sponge. The tiny woman dumped her equipment down with little regard for the table-top, tugged Rafiq onto one of the dining chairs with even less ceremony, draped a small towel over his shoulder, and attacked his wound with tender dabs and much clicking of her tongue and ai-ai-ai-ing.

Rafiq suffered this attention without comment, and his intent dark gaze pinned an embarrassed and furious Laurel where she stood. She clutched the robe even more tightly around her and crossed her arms over her breasts. She’d be damned if she’d turn away and display her butt again...

Why on earth had she pulled her sporty shoes on? They must look ridiculous under the pretty robe with its borders of sensuous gold embroidery. The floors were smooth stone strewn with soft patterned rugs—she’d had no need for tough rubber soles.

The pig looked amused, damn him. As though he positively enjoyed her unease. After everything he’d subjected her to that afternoon, he now thought it fair to laugh?

Having subdued her and held her down with his disgusting masculine body?

And handcuffed her, and played with her hair?

And manhandled her into the hideous bunker by grabbing her by the pony-tail?

Filmed her without permission, and put her through the hell of having those weapons thrust in her face?

Snarled at her to impress his friends?

She knew she could go on and on, piling accusation upon accusation.

“I hope that hurts,” she said, eyeing Yasmina’s efforts.

“Quite a lot, thank-you.”

“Good. Excellent. It serves you right. At least you can take me back to Kalal in the helicopter now—except she’s washed my clothes and I’ve nothing to wear.”

He nodded, and intensified his gaze, travelling without hurry from the top of her head down to her ankles and the incongruous shoes.

“Yes, I can see you are wearing nothing,” he finally agreed. “They suit you very well, these non-existent clothes. You’re a pleasant diversion from Yasmina’s torture.”

Laurel seethed, but managed somehow to hold her tongue and not react to his taunting. Right now she needed his flying skills more than she needed to defend her own pride.

Yasmina heard her name spoken and gave Rafiq a fond pat on the cheek. He threw a few soft words in her direction and then returned his attention to Laurel.

“Well you can’t go travelling if you’ve nothing to wear, can you Miss Kiwi? The International Aviation Federation forbids it on grounds that pilots may be distracted and rendered unsafe to fly.”

“What!?” Her eyes blazed at his insolence.

His own much darker ones stared her down. Surely he had his tongue tucked into his cheek and was trying to annoy her?

“And anyway, this pilot is hungry. He needs feeding and resting before he’s fit to fly again.” He turned his attention back to Yasmina, leaving Laurel stunned and silent.

“What have you cooked for us?” 

“Lamb stew with cumin and tomatoes, My Lord Rafiq. Ripe apricots to follow with your coffee.”

She gave his forehead a final close inspection and appeared as pleased as she was ever going to be.

“She has made us lamb stew, my old nurse and nanny. We can’t just fly off and disappoint her.” He grinned at Laurel’s outraged expression. “We’ll eat and then we’ll see.”

“We’ll eat and then we’ll
fly.
”

“Perhaps.” His eyes continued to roam around her body, stopping now at her small hands with their pearly pink nails, next on her pale throat which had so drawn him as she gulped at the orange juice after their frantic march across the swirling sand, then down to the crossover neckline of the robe where her breasts were pushed together by her arms holding the fabric tight.

She was not sport for the likes of Nazim and Fayez. He knew all too well what her fate would have been if he’d not intervened; she’d been disposable the moment the recordings were complete.

And he would have had to let them have her because so much time and planning had gone into the mission, and so many other lives were at risk because of it. The scene his mind insisted on summoning curdled his blood. She was a pretty thing—soft and young, feisty but unsophisticated. She wouldn’t have stood a chance.

“I can’t eat dinner wearing only this,” she objected, glaring down at the fabric.

Rafiq dragged his brain back from rape and murder to the tiny problem of the see-through robe.

“Yasmina has very few clothes, and she would be embarrassed for you to borrow any of them.”

“But...this isn’t decent.”

“Poor Miss Kiwi. I held you underneath me this afternoon for many minutes so I’m well-acquainted with your body. Why should you be worried after that?”

“You’re disgusting!”

“I’m realistic. There are no other ladies’ garments in the lodge. Although...”

He pushed back the chair, unfolded to his full height, and placed the hand-towel on the table-top.

He enjoyed her disbelieving stare as he pulled his shirt from the waistband of his trousers. He slipped the topmost button undone, then moved down to the next, and the next. His eyes sent her a mischievous challenge as he progressed downwards. As he’d hoped, Laurel found it impossible to look away. She swallowed.

He saw the small convulsive movement, and something gave a kick deep in his gut. So he was turning her on a little? Not as much as her compact curves in that transparent confection were affecting him!

He drew the unbuttoned shirt-fronts apart and stopped, his torso still shadowed by the fabric, but now on display for her from neck to navel.

Laurel swallowed again and cleared her throat. Surely he was made of milk chocolate, smoothly molded and glossy? The lamplight shone on his hard-muscled dark-nippled chest and the warm sweep of taut flesh below. She let her eyes slide down to his narrow hips and back up again to his face.

Half a smile caressed his lips.

Damn you. You know I’m enjoying the view...

“Yes, you would be more concealed in my shirt,” he said. “It’s clean. I showered and changed before I flew out here.” He shrugged the cinnamon-colored garment off and held it to his nose.

She was disappointed to find it hid quite a lot of his body like that, but she’d gained the view of his broad shoulders and the smooth length of his muscular arms in return. Reasonable compensation, she decided after a few electric seconds.

“I think your pretty robe may have been left here”—he punctuated the sentence with a telling pause—“by a friend.” Did one dark eyebrow twitch?

A girl-friend!
Suddenly Laurel couldn’t wait to rip it off. She grabbed the cinnamon shirt from him and dashed back to her room to change.

Rafiq’s gut swooped again at the sight of her soft peach of a bottom under the mauve gauze. Two beautiful handfuls. Or should that be hands-full, he wondered? What the hell did it matter, as long as they were
his
hands that were full?

Soon would be good.

Soon would be
so
good. Today’s mission had gone well, but it had been nerve-wracking and physically draining. He’d worked hard with his brain and even harder with his body. The danger of being discovered had been constant. The danger to Laurel had been horrendous.

His body needed release.

He doubted Laurel would be the one to supply the release in her current mood. She didn’t know it yet but she’d be sleeping in the deep desert tonight, and he’d be the one to decide when she left the lodge.

She’d be staying, however much she might wish to leave. And that wouldn’t improve her mood one little bit.

Laurel glared at herself in the long, ornately-framed mirror. He’d known—of course he had. The pig’s chivalry extended only so far. She might now be concealed from neck to mid-thigh but the lowest button on his shirt sat barely level with her crotch. And her cotton bikini panties were unavailable, undoubtedly still wet, and unable to be worn yet.