Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

by Kim Lawrence

  The entire place seemed totally deserted—it looked like a ghost town minus the town.

  ‘It was twenty years ago.’

  She looked at his profile and the nebulous feeling of something not being quite right crystallised into fear. ‘Why have you taken me here?’

  As she spoke they rounded the side of the largest building and she saw a solitary plane sitting on what she supposed would once have been a runway, but which now had several visible and large potholes.

  ‘It’s all part of my devious plan to abduct you.’ One dark brow elevated.

  The embarrassed heat flew to Molly’s cheeks. ‘Sorry!’ she mumbled, feeling utterly mortified that she’d questioned him.

  ‘It’s just when you said plane I assumed…’ She broke off and gave an awkward shrug. ‘And it did feel as if we’ve been driving for miles and…’

  ‘You suspect my motives?’ he suggested, not looking offended by the possibility as he brought the big vehicle to a halt a few hundred yards from the plane.

  ‘Of course not. I’m a bit tense. The desert makes me nervous.’ You make me nervous, she thought, her glance drifting to his mouth, and you make me feel other things too.

  Things that brought into question Molly’s deeply held belief that she could only ever be sexually attracted to someone she liked, and respected. Someone suitable. Molly simply didn’t accept the idea that you had no control over the person you fell for. It was the equivalent of saying she saw a hole in the ground and she had to step into it—she didn’t have to and she was never going to!

  It was all about walking around the obstacle. So far her life had been obstacle-free—depressingly so, it seemed at times, but when she saw one heading her way she was going to get out of the way!

  Molly could see how the rule might be bent a little if both parties were just after casual sex, but she had more or less ruled that out a long time ago as not really being her.

  As she slid a sideways look at her companion she doubted he shared her view of casual sex—he probably had a very high libido…

  He turned his head and gave her a look of enquiry.

  For a moment her brain refused to function, and the silence stretched uncomfortably.

  ‘Where’s the runway?’ she finally blurted, hoping to give the impression she had been thinking hard about navigational problems and not his appetite for sex.

  If he wondered why she was blushing, to her intense relief he didn’t ask for enlightenment. ‘Just there.’

  Glad to be able to look at something that wasn’t him, Molly followed the direction of his gaze to the same bumpy piece of ground she’d noticed before.

  ‘You landed here?’ she asked as she thought back to how he’d arrived at dinner last night. Her voice rose to an incredulous squeak as she added, ‘In the dark?’

  ‘Visibility was not good.’

  A laugh was drawn from her throat—she had not appreciated until this moment what a master of understatement he was or how much he had played down the incident the previous evening.

  She looked at the potholes in the optimistically named runway, holes that on closer inspection were more like craters, and gave a small shudder as she thought of him landing that small plane in the middle of a dust storm. He was either a very good pilot or very lucky.

  Molly was sure that if she had been forced to endure similar circumstances she would be a gibbering wreck, but there had been nothing about him last night to suggest he had done anything out of the ordinary.

  ‘There was very little option,’ he told her wryly.

  ‘For a man with nerves of steel maybe,’ she said sarcastically. ‘Hysterics would have worked a treat for me.’

  ‘You don’t strike me as the hysterical type.’ He angled a narrow considering glance at her face. ‘Hysterics require a loss of emotional control. A degree of spontaneity.’

  Her firmly rounded jaw tightened in response to the cold disdain in his voice.

  ‘And I think you’re a teacher who likes to be in charge and call the shots.’

  He said it without a trace of irony…it was staggering!

  Her frown died as a gurgle of incredulous laughter escaped her.

  ‘You find something amusing?’

  She had seen a flash of wary caution in his eyes and was puzzled by it, but there was so much about this man that confused her that if she tried to work out what made him tick she could be here until the next century.

  ‘You,’ she admitted frankly.

  The look of blank amazement her response elicited drew another gurgle of laughter from her and the dry suggestion from him she might like to elaborate.

  She gave a shrug and thought it wasn’t her problem if he didn’t like what he heard. She had no doubt he wouldn’t because, although he might be a bit unorthodox as Arab princes went, the bottom line was that he was an Arab prince and he took a certain amount of respect for granted.

  ‘Me like control? This from someone who is probably the most domineering man on the planet!’ And she’d only seen his royal persona. Goodness knew what he was like behind closed doors…closed bedroom doors…

  She lowered her eyes to shut out the sight of his dark sardonic features and clicked her tongue pretending an amusement she was no longer feeling. ‘As if you go with the flow?’

  She lifted her eyes and was irrationally annoyed to see that he was looking amused. It goaded her on to add unwisely, ‘I always think men like you are threatened by women who know their own minds.’

  Looking at him through the mesh of her lashes, she saw he didn’t appear very threatened, but neither was he looking pleased. She closed her mouth but almost immediately opened it again…the buzz, the adrenaline rush she got challenging him was exciting and addictive. Had she lost her mind?

  ‘That’s why they pick the ones who act as if everything they say is a pearl of wisdom.’

  This went some way to explaining his hostility towards her—but she realised this theory only worked if she had come across as a woman who had a mind. The previous night she had barely said more than a few words and they were please and thank you.

  She had actually acted pretty much like his perfect woman…minus the obligatory beauty. Now if she had looked like Bea…?

  Well, she didn’t, so she’d have to get used to it. ‘At least I have a sense of humour.’

  She wasn’t aware that she had voiced this wistful observation out loud until Tair said, ‘Tariq appears to find it one of your most attractive qualities.’

  ‘Do you?’ she blurted.

  There was a long enough pause to allow Molly time to squirm and despairingly wonder why she kept saying cringing things like that.

  When he finally responded there was no discernible expression on his dark, devastating features. ‘No.’

  It wasn’t what he said or the way he said it—his voice was flat and devoid of emotion—it was where he was looking when he said it, her mouth, that made the pit of her stomach disintegrate and her temperature rise by several uncomfortable degrees.

  After he delivered his flat, monosyllabic response he carried on staring. Trapped by the heat in his shimmering eyes, she stared back.

  A pulse of hot liquid longing and then another and another thudded through her. She struggled with the reckless impulse to reach out and touch his lean face, to press her fingertip to the nerve that clenched spasmodically along the side of his chiselled jaw.

  She lifted a hand, then, fingers clenched tight, she pressed it to her own throat. Growing dizzy, she struggled to draw adequate air into her lungs—they felt scorched by the heat that engulfed her.

  Molly had no idea how long they stayed that way, but when he did speak she blinked like someone waking up. The question was what was she waking from—a nightmare or an erotic dream?

  ‘Do you want to wait here or would you like to look around the plane?’

  With a sigh she released her seat belt. ‘I wouldn’t mind stretching my legs.’ A cold shower would have been better but she e
agerly seized on the opportunity to not think about what had just happened. ‘I suppose we should crack on.’

  He looked at the nape of her neck and wondered how he had ever not seen past her disguise. He agreed in a colourless tone, ‘By all means let us…crack on.’

  It was predictably hot outside, but Tair appeared not to feel the heat as he led the way to his plane. Molly, trotting a few feet behind him, was uncomfortably conscious of the sweat breaking on her skin and by the time they got inside the plane everything was sticking in an unpleasant way.

  Without a word Tair left her in the passenger section while he went towards the cockpit area, to retrieve whatever it was he had presumably taken the detour for.

  ‘I’ll just take a look around, shall I?’ she called out. He ignored her. ‘Rude rat,’ she muttered, mentally conceding that he was a very sexy rude rat! She had never got the dark, smouldering, bad-boy thing before, but she was starting to see the appeal. Her eyes widened with horror at this realisation and she pressed her fist into her mouth to stop herself groaning out loud.

  What was she doing?

  Nothing, she hadn’t done anything. Yet, said the voice in her head and she groaned again, pressing her arms to her stomach and rocking forward.

  At the sound of the engine roaring into life she pulled upright and walked quickly towards the cockpit that was partitioned off from the rest of the plane by a curtain.

  She pulled it back to reveal Tair sitting in the pilot’s chair, clicking switches.

  ‘I don’t know if you’ve noticed,’ she said, trying to sound casual, because she didn’t want to come across as some sort of neurotic female, ‘but we’re moving.’

  Not looking at her, he carried on clicking and consulting dials. ‘Yes.’

  ‘So is that normal?’

  ‘When you’re about to take off it is.’

  ‘I thought for a second you said take off.’

  He turned his head and flashed her a smile that sent a chill of apprehension through her. ‘I did.’

  She gave a shaky laugh. ‘If you’re trying to scare me, it worked.’

  ‘Then I’m not trying, I’m succeeding.’

  Molly gritted her teeth…Don’t lose it, she told herself. ‘Will you look at me?’

  He did, but only for a split second. ‘That might not be such a good idea just now.’

  His sardonic tone brought a flush of anger to her pale face. ‘What are you doing, Tair?’

  ‘I could tell you but I think the technical detail might pass over your head.’

  Molly felt as if her head were going to explode. ‘It’s insane, if you’re doing what it looks like. Are you really…?’

  ‘You should belt yourself in.’

  Molly paled, her shaking hands reaching for the back of a seat as her mind started to spin. ‘But surely you can stop it?’ She felt stupid for asking, but she needed some reassurance and if he was coping with an emergency she probably ought not to ask such questions.

  ‘I could,’ he agreed. Molly barely had time to start relaxing when he flashed her a flat look and added after a pause. ‘But I’m not going to.’

  Presumably this was his idea of a joke. The alternative was not one she wanted to think about. She gave a laugh to show him he hadn’t spooked her.

  ‘And this is the moment I’m supposed to panic?’ Pursing her lips, she shook her head slowly from side to side. ‘Sorry, but I’m not falling for that one.’

  He turned his head and looked at her just for a second, an arctic coldness in his azure eyes that appeared far too realistic to be part of any joke. His dark brows arched.

  ‘Suit yourself.’

  Molly’s temper flared at the dismissal in his manner. ‘Will you look at me when we’re talking?’ she yelled shrilly.

  ‘You can talk, and you no doubt will—I’ve yet to meet a woman who understood the value of silence—but I’m busy flying a plane.’

  She glared at the back of his neck in frustration. ‘Will you stop saying that? You’re not flying a plane!’ The fear she was struggling to control sent her voice up a quivering octave.

  ‘Well, if I’m not, who is? Sit down and belt yourself in. We’re taking off. We can discuss this later.’

  Molly abandoned reason. ‘We can’t…’ She heard the throbbing note of rising panic in her voice and stopped to take a deep breath. ‘Tair,’ she said hoarsely. ‘Please think for a moment about what you’re doing.’

  She had tried shrill demands and now she was resorting to husky seductiveness, Tair thought. He wondered if the husky little catch in her voice normally worked and decided if the damage it was doing to his concentration was any indicator it probably did.

  ‘You’re insane!’

  Not that he looked it—in fact he was emanating a statuesque calm as he sat behind the control panel.

  ‘I don’t know why you’re doing this. Maybe you have your reasons.’ Most lunatics did. ‘But it’s nothing to do with me so why don’t you stop the plane and let me off?’ Preferably now before they were several thousand feet above the ground. The way the plane was picking up speed suggested that this moment was not far off.

  He flashed her a contemptuous look. ‘It has everything to do with you.’

  ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ she said miserably. She shook her head slowly from side to side, baffled confusion in her pale face as she tensely grabbed hold of the back of his seat to steady herself and looked around the enclosed space like a hunted animal seeking an escape route.

  ‘Look, nobody’s going to hurt you.’ While Tair was totally furious with her and felt nothing but utter contempt for her lack of morals and selfishness, he didn’t get anything but an uneasy feeling from making a woman look petrified. ‘Sit down, buckle up and shut up.’

  Molly would have loved to tell him what he could do with his orders, but as the aircraft put on a final spurt of speed self-preservation seemed more of a priority.

  Like an automaton she did what he had curtly ordered with the addition of closing her eyes.

  ‘You can unfasten your seat belt now.’

  Molly opened her eyes, but her white-knuckled fingers stayed tight around the metal clasp. They really were in the air!

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Switching to autopilot.’

  ‘No, I mean what are you doing?’ Her voice rose to a shrill shriek.

  ‘I would have thought that was obvious.’

  Her mind still shied away from putting words to her situation. ‘You’re kidnapping me?’ she said, hoping he’d laugh and say something cutting about how he could have any woman so why would he want to kidnap her.

  He didn’t laugh, he just said calmly, ‘An emotive way of putting it, but I suppose essentially accurate. Though, like I said, you are not in danger. Nobody is going to harm you.’

  ‘Are you mad?’ A stupid question because if he was he would deny it. The mad people in films always thought they were sane.

  ‘You can’t go around kidnapping people.’

  ‘I don’t. This is a first.’

  ‘I feel so special,’ she inserted weakly. His mental health was no longer in question. ‘Did you plan this or did you wake up this morning and think you might try abducting someone today?’

  ‘As I said, you’re not in any danger, so why not just sit back and enjoy the ride?’

  Molly’s chest swelled with indignation. ‘Enjoy?’ She took a deep breath and forced herself to smile, though the effect was slightly spoiled by the gold glow of fury in her eyes. ‘Look, take me back and I won’t say anything. I won’t tell anyone,’ she promised.

  He looked at her with a chilling lack of emotion, and it was that that scared Molly more than anything yet.

  ‘Do you dislike me so much?’

  ‘This is not personal.’ At least, it shouldn’t be, thought Tair. But as an inherently honest person, he recognised the moment he spoke that this was not so—he had a personal reaction to everything this woman did, includ
ing when she stared at him with big reproachful eyes. ‘I have no feelings one way or the other about you,’ he added with a contemptuous sneer that said otherwise.

  Molly lifted a hand to her head. ‘This is surreal. It can’t be happening.’

  ‘As I said, you might as well relax and enjoy the ride.’

  ‘I’m not going to enjoy anything. I hate you—you’re…’ She stopped, sucking in a steadying breath while forcing her stiff features into a smile of appeal. ‘Look, just turn this thing around. You can’t do this! What about Beatrice? What will she think when we don’t turn up at the hospital?’

  If they taught duplicity she would be a straight-A student. Tair considered himself a pretty good judge of character, but even when he looked in her eyes all he saw was genuine anxiety for a friend.

  He saw different things when he looked at her mouth, so it was probably better not to go there, he thought. It was a pity his cousin had not displayed a similar amount of self-control where the Mouse’s mouth was concerned, he reflected, his jaw hardening.

  ‘I imagine that Beatrice will feel relief if she’s got the faintest idea about what you’re up to.’

  ‘What are you talking about? Beatrice will be worried sick.’

  He turned in his seat, his eyes like ice chips. ‘Enough!’

  Molly flinched at the staccato command and drew back in her own seat. His blazing blue eyes raked her face.

  ‘You should know, Miss Mouse, that I have zero tolerance with liars and cheats, so no more of this nauseating pretence of concern.’

  Molly shook her head in utter confusion.

  Tair watched as she gave a brilliant performance of being scared and even though he knew it was fake he still felt like a total brute.

  ‘Stop acting!’

  ‘I’m not.’

  His lips curled expressively. ‘I doubt that a woman like you knows the meaning of the word care. How could you when you pretend to be Beatrice’s friend and all the time you’re seducing her husband?’

  Her jaw dropped. ‘I’ve never seduced anyone in my life. I wouldn’t know where to begin.’