Innocent in the Desert: The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride

Getting out of here was her one coherent thought in a brain that was seething with confusing and ambiguous thoughts. As soon as the Frenchman moved out of view she made her way towards the open glass doors.

People had spilled out into the enclosed courtyard where the sound of tinkling fountains was a pleasant background noise to conversation.

Her heels clicked on the mosaic floor as she exchanged a few comments with people. She had no idea what she said, but presumably she must have made sense, unless they were just politely ignoring the fact that she was talking gibberish.

As she stepped through a large metal-banded door and into the corridor beyond, closing the door behind her, the almost monastic silence hit her.

CHAPTER TEN

CLOSING HER EYES AS she pressed her shoulders into the wall, Eva felt the tears begin to seep from under her lashes.

Angrily she brushed them away and straightened up.

She sniffed and inhaled. ‘Don’t get hysterical, Eva. This isn’t love … it’s sexual attraction and it will pass.’ She began to laugh as the irony struck her that she was upset because there was a possibility she was in love with her own husband.

‘Now how crazy is that?’ she asked the painting that showed a stern man with a nose like Karim’s looking noble astride a flashing-eyed stallion.

He didn’t comment, neither did any of the servants she encountered as she walked through a maze of corridors with no particular idea of where she was going. Being the boss’s wife had some perks and there was no sign of her shadows.

When some time later she found herself outside and near a gated entrance to the compound, the idea of escaping, at least temporarily, was too strong to resist.

Maybe outside without people watching her every move she’d be able to think straight? She held her breath as she walked past the armed guards and expelled it again when they made no attempt to detain her as she left the palace compound that was situated a few miles outside the capital, whose lights illuminated the horizon to the south.

When she had last passed along this well-lit palm-lined avenue it had been seething with people; now it was totally deserted. Recalling Karim’s rather stern lectures on security and the dangers of the desert, she felt a faint twinge of anxiety but she pushed it away.

This was not the desert, it was a street with electric lights. She could have been anywhere except there was no litter, and there were no sprawling suburbs—civilisation stopped abruptly and gave way to desert. Karim himself had told her that there was virtually no crime here.

She was perfectly safe and she was allowed to take a walk if she felt like it. She lifted her chin to a defiant angle. Karim probably wouldn’t even notice she wasn’t there.

And if she was needed Eva had no doubt Layla would be only too happy to deputise.

You’re not in prison, Eva, she told herself.

But she was—a beautiful luxurious prison, but nonetheless that was what it was and what made it worse was she had walked inside, locked the door, thrown away the key and fallen for her jailer!

She shook her head and muttered, ‘No, it’s just sex.’

Her brooding thoughts returned to the reception. Was it just sex with Layla or was Karim in love with the curvaceous brunette?

Perhaps that was why a sexless marriage did not seem to bother him in the slightest—he had the lissom Layla to keep him warm when the sun went down.

The graphic images that went with this line of speculation made Eva’s stomach churn sickly. Her hands balled into fists as she barred her teeth in a determined grimace; she was going to get the truth out of him if it killed her!

She had been here long enough to know how palace gossip worked and she was sure that if Layla was his mistress she was probably the only person who didn’t know! The humiliation of being an object of pity was something she just could not bear.

She couldn’t bear their unconsummated marriage, and the irony was that her celibacy had never bothered her before. She had occasionally speculated on what she was missing—now what she was missing was driving her slowly insane.

The trouble was it wasn’t exactly a level playing field. He was the world’s sexiest man and not exactly inexperienced, while her experience consisted of a couple of goodnight kisses and a narrow escape from a supposed friend who had turned into a groper when they’d shared a taxi.

How did you confess to a man who thought you were some sort of sexual expert that you were in fact clueless?

A clueless virgin!

Did he know she couldn’t think of anything else but him?

Of course he knew … With a grimace of self-disgust she shook her head angrily. You could only take self-deception so far … and Karim not knowing that her bones ached with longing when he was near was about as likely as him not touching her because he was afraid of rejection!

And now there was the further complication of Layla, who was not clueless or flat-chested and had possibly spent the last week in his bed.

An emotional rush of misery rushed up to clog Eva’s throat and with a sniff she hitched her narrow skirt that was making it hard to walk above her knees and tucked a long strand of hair that had been pulled free of her elegant topknot behind her ear.

The strong warm wind that blew in from the desert immediately swept it back into her eyes.

With a disconsolate sigh she left it there and thought … Are they having an affair?

The possibility brought a militant light to her eyes; if he thought she was going to put up with him installing Layla as his official mistress, he could think again! Eva’s pace quickened in response to the energising rush of anger that swept through her body.

Karim should have told her about Layla; she had a right to know before she committed herself. Though as not committing herself would have made her responsible for destabilising an entire region and destroying economic progress it was extremely doubtful that her decision would have been different.

This was not what she had signed up for.

She had been so lost in her dark reflections that Eva had walked on several hundred yards before she realised she had run out of streetlamps.

With a sigh she turned and began to reluctantly retrace her footsteps, slowly now as the anger that had consumed her had burnt itself out.

As she walked she became aware that the buffeting wind had increased in strength and while it should be on her back now it was actually everywhere, hitting her from all sides.

She bent her head as the sand in the air stung her face.

She had not gone a few feet before she became aware that she was in trouble: the lights above were barely visible through the sand that stung and bit into every exposed inch of her skin. She couldn’t see where the road surface ended and the desert began and the tall turrets and gleaming spires of the royal palace were barely visible.

Mind-numbing panic running just beneath the surface of her paper-thin stoic calm, she refused to recognise it as she told herself that it was lucky she had not strayed from the highway or walked far.

All she had to do was walk in a straight line.

‘How difficult can that be?’

A few minutes later she was forced to acknowledge that her forced jovial comment had been a classic case of tempting fate. The surface she now stumbled over was not tarmac, it was uneven and rocky. Even if she had been able to lift her head there was no point—the visibility was nil, the world was black and the sand cut into every exposed inch of tender flesh without mercy.

She coughed, unable to breathe as she dropped to her knees and wrapped her arms around herself in a futile attempt to protect her face.

There was nothing in her world but the noise of the storm, a roar all around … inside her head, everywhere. A strange sense of calm descended over her as she huddled there. Someone who was going to die ought not to feel so calm.

Eva began to lift her head … the expected sting on her face was not as bad as she had anticipated. Had the storm abated slightly? A tiny grain of hope took root and somewhere deep inside the instinct for survival stirred.

‘I can’t die! I don’t want to die!’

If she died Karim would marry Layla.

‘That’s not my plan, either.’

When he had first spotted what looked like a bundle of rags Karim had thought the worst, then as the bundle had moved and he’d heard her speak a surge of relief had flooded his body.

His relief was tempered by the realisation that if he had chosen another path he would never have found her. He might have passed within yards of her …

He was not normally a person who dwelt on what might have been, but he struggled not to dwell on the narrowly diverted disaster as he reminded himself that they were not home and dry yet.

Hearing things could not be a good sign; Eva lifted her head and forced her reluctant eyelids to part. The voice was not in her head, it was in her ear.

The storm had not abated; it was a man’s body and more precisely his chest, broad and incredibly comforting, that sheltered her from the extremes of the sandstorm.

Karim had found her.

‘Karim? You shouldn’t have come—now you’ll die too!’ she wailed.

The wind tugging and dragging at his white robes, he knelt before her, appearing immune as the rocks to the wind and sand. His eyes above the cloth that covered his lower face blazed like the stars that had been blotted by the sandstorm.

He bent his head close to hers like a lover, but there was nothing loverlike in the words he yelled in her ear. ‘Nobody is going to die. If the storm kills you it will deny me the pleasure of throttling you with my own hands!’

‘I—’

‘Shut up!’

Before Eva could respond to this autocratic decree she found herself drawn against his body. She gasped and stiffened, then sighed as a hand behind her head forced her face into his shoulder.

Karim, holding her, found himself caught between rage and tenderness.

Eva tried to lift her head but he pushed it back down. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m thinking.’

He was also stroking her hair in the middle of the raging storm; the small act of tenderness brought tears to her eyes. Eva closed her eyes, feeling his body heat and his strength slowly seep into her bones; for the first time she allowed herself to think that she stood a realistic chance of surviving this.

She was vaguely conscious of the sound of ripping cloth, but did not connect it with her own designer gown. Then as he rose she felt herself enfolded, not just by his arms, but by the flowing fabric of his robe, which he had wrapped around her. He placed a hand under her behind and without waiting to be instructed Eva automatically wrapped her legs around his middle, a voice in her head that clearly did not appreciate the seriousness of the situation saying she could get used to this.

‘Hold on!’

The instruction was unnecessary—she already was!

Having found it impossible to stay upright herself, Eva couldn’t believe that Karim could move forward with the additional burden of her weight. Above the sound of the storm that raged around them, with her head pressed into his shoulder, Eva was conscious of the heavy thud of his heartbeat.

She held tight, closed her ears, concentrated on the sound, felt the moisture leak from under her eyelids and as love for him filled her it was a relief to finally stop fighting the realisation.

What if she never had a chance to tell him how she felt? She felt the salty moisture leak from her eyes.

‘Not far now,’ Karim shouted in her ear. Fuelled by the adrenaline rushing through his veins and acting on nine parts instinct and one part sheer desperation, he hoped that he was telling the truth.

Eva wanted to ask, Not far from where? But she didn’t have the strength; it was all she could do to hang onto him. Her arms and legs were trembling with the effort of holding on.

How did he keep going? she wondered as Karim continued to make steady progress, not moving swiftly but with assurance; once or twice she could sense him testing his footing before he continued.

The almost animal screech of the whipping wind and whirling sand had filled her head and hurt her senses for so long that when it stopped abruptly it was disorientating.

She opened her eyes and there was nothing but inky, impenetrable blackness. She could still hear the keening cry of the wind but it was a background noise.

We’re safe … we’re safe, she thought, too relieved to wonder where they were or how he had found their sanctuary.

‘Wait here.’

Wait where? she thought.

Placed on her feet and without the supporting strength of his strong arms, Eva sank to the ground. It felt cold and hard against her bare legs.

‘Don’t leave me!’ she begged, not giving a damn about pride as she clung onto his leg in the pitch darkness.

The anger Karim had been forced to hold in check was once more frustrated, now by the note of pure panic in her tremulous voice. The vulnerability she so often struggled to hide behind a tough exterior was right there and it awakened protective instincts he hadn’t known he possessed.

She nearly died … He pushed away the thought because he knew if he let it take hold he would not be able to control the rage that continued to simmer just below the surface. He would finish rescuing her and then he would throttle her, he promised himself.

He unfurled her fingers and retained them in his hand as he dropped to his knees beside her. Reaching out, he found her face and framed it with his free hand, rubbing the dust from the curve of her cheek as he did so.

‘You will stay here. I will find some light, all right?’

There was a pause before she nodded, wondering where on earth he was going to find light. She shivered when his fingers fell away, the loss of physical contact making her feel utterly bereft, and she knew there was a lot more to her reaction than a simple fear of dark strange places. She craved his touch with an intensity that was just as primal as the survival instinct that had made her fight the storm.

‘I won’t go far,’ he promised.

He didn’t. Eva could hear him as she sat in the darkness, her teeth chattering more with reaction than cold, listening to the sounds of him moving around. He swore once when he obviously collided with something, then there was a scratching and scuffing sound, then light.

It came from an old-fashioned kerosene lamp that Karim held aloft.

Eva blinked as her eyes adjusted slowly.

Looking around, she was able to distinguish a crude table set against one wall. A chair stood beside it, another lay overturned. There were several assorted items that suggested this place had once been occupied.

‘Where is this place?’ Eva asked, rubbing her hand along the smooth stone surface she sat on. The walls around and above them had the same pale sand appearance. ‘What is it?’

Holding the light, Karim moved closer and, brushing some debris off the crude table, placed it down on the scratched surface.

‘Just like home,’ she joked shakily. ‘Though with slightly less gold leaf.’

Karim felt his admiration grow as he watched her produce a shaky smile.

How many women who had been through what she had would joke? Most he could think of would right now be having hysterics, hysterics that would have filled him with impatience. She was smiling—shaking like a leaf but smiling—and he was filled with … A flicker of shock registered in his eyes as he recognised the emotion that made him want to gather her in his arms as tenderness.

It seemed it was possible to want to throttle a woman and protect her from the slightest breeze at one and the same time; possible, but not comfortable.

He had not been comfortable since he met his Princess.

Eva’s wandering gaze found his face and lingered, the breath snagging painfully in her throat. The gold-tinged glow radiated by the flickering light cast shadows over Karim’s face, highlighting the strength and purity of his fabulous bone structure.

He was beautiful!

So beautiful it hurt; it hurt physically.

Her lashes swept protectively downwards as things deep inside her clenched and tightened. She was filled with deep, hopeless yearning. If these feelings she could not articulate never went away, how would she bear it?

‘There are a series of caves in the rock face. Up until ten years ago some were still occupied, but once there was an entire community living here.’

‘Nobody lives here now?’ She tried to ignore the strange heaviness in the air that had little to do with the storm that raged outside and instead imagined the silent place filled with the buzz of people going about their lives, living and loving … It was difficult to visualise.

‘You’re not seeing it at its best,’ he observed, stamping his boots without taking his eyes from her face.

An edge in his deep voice made her look up at him. The light was not strong enough for her to read his expression, but Eva found the fixed intensity of his stare unnerving.

She looked away and, aware of her heart pounding against her breastbone, drew a line with her finger in the fine layer of sand that covered the stone floor.

She forced an awkward smile. ‘You’re not seeing me at my best, either.’

CHAPTER ELEVEN

BUT he was seeing her—you’d think he never had before, the way he was staring, his heavy-lidded regard still trained unblinkingly on Eva’s face as he pulled off his head-covering and dragged a hand through his dark hair.

‘You look exhausted!’ he observed, feeling a stab of self-recrimination. The dust did not disguise the dark smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes.

As Eva’s gaze swept protectively downwards her attention was captured by a painted item lying in the dust. A frown of enquiry forming between her brows, she picked it up.

Karim watched her brush the dust off the broken toy very carefully, his eyes widening with shock as he caught himself wondering if he would choose to end this marriage given the choice?

The speculation was pointless—it was not his choice to make.

‘It’s a doll.’ When her gaze lifted to his her luminous eyes shone with unshed tears. ‘I wonder what happened to the girl who owned it … did she cry when she lost it?’ For some reason the idea of the lost doll and the lost community struck an emotional chord with Eva.

His lips curled into a cynical smile. ‘People discard things when they are broken and sometimes when they are not,’ he observed drily, thinking about his late wife’s reaction to the birth of her daughter. She had made clear she hadn’t wanted a girl.

Eva’s fingers tightened around the carved wooden toy as she leapt on his comment. ‘Are you saying we

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