Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

by Kim Lawrence

  Molly begged with the help of hand gestures for Sabra to slow down, but eventually understood that when she had finished eating she could bathe if she wished to.

  Miming disgust when she touched her face, Molly assured Sabra that she definitely wished to!

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘WHERE would you run to?’

  Her hand on the heavy curtain at the door of the tent, Molly spun around, with her hair, still damp from her bath, swinging around her startled face.

  Tair’s head was bare and his dark hair, gleaming blue-black in the candlelight, was tousled and damp, as if he too had just bathed. The flowing robes he had worn earlier were gone to reveal a white tee shirt that clung disturbingly close to his hard-muscled torso, and moleskin riding breeches tucked into leather riding boots.

  She let go of the curtain and it fell back into place with a swishing sound that seemed awfully final.

  ‘I’m not running but, as you ask, any place would be better than here. I was actually looking for Sabra.’

  ‘If you knew the desert you would not say that, ma belle,’ he said drily.

  ‘I’m not your “belle,” or anything else of yours.’

  He revealed his teeth in a wolfish smile and looked amused by her acid tone. ‘There is no place to run, Molly. Accept it.’

  His seductive voice was like rich, warm honey.

  Molly struggled to maintain her attitude of angry defiance while she fought not to recognise the part of her that didn’t want to run.

  ‘Why—because you say so?’ She gave a contemptuous snort and felt her heart beating like a trapped bird in her chest as he took a step towards her.

  His appearance was the essence of primitive, raw masculinity. Looking at him made her ache with longing.

  ‘What did you want to ask Sabra? She has looked after you?’

  ‘Yes, the food was marvellous.’

  ‘The bathing facilities met with your approval?’

  She nodded, the bathing facilities having been positively decadent. She had been reluctant to leave the deep scented water and her skin still glowed with the sweet-smelling oils that Sabra had shyly supplied for her use.

  ‘I was going to ask Sabra about the sleeping arrangements. I’m assuming that I’m allowed some privacy.’

  He had stopped a few feet away from her, close enough for her to be able to trace that thin white scar with her eyes. She wondered what it would feel like to trace it with her tongue, and then wished she hadn’t as her face grew hot.

  ‘The sleeping arrangements are entirely your choice.’ His eyes slid from her face to the low divan piled with silken cushions. ‘But it can get lonely at night.’

  Molly swallowed and folded her arms across her chest in an instinctively protective gesture. ‘I’m quite comfortable with my own company, thank you.’

  ‘Don’t worry—you won’t have to protect your virtue. I have never felt the need to force a woman.’

  The contempt in his voice stung. ‘Just so long as you know I could and would.’

  ‘My taste doesn’t run to beige creatures.’ Although anything less beige than the woman glaring at him with luminous eyes would, he admitted, have been difficult to imagine. His critical gaze ran over her crumpled skirt and blouse before he gave a faint grimace. ‘Why are you wearing those things? I asked Sabra to give you some fresh clothes.’

  Molly knew there were some women who got told by beautiful men they were gorgeous and she knew that she was not one of them. All the same his dismissive contempt stung.

  ‘She did, but I prefer to wear my own clothes. And while we’re on the subject of taste, mine doesn’t run to…’ Molly struggled to speak past the sudden constriction in her aching throat as she stared straight at his chest ‘…to men who kidnap me.’

  ‘Think of it as a little adventure.’

  Molly, who was thinking that the way her skin prickled with heat when she looked at him was insanity, gave a faint scornful snort…She was having a big problem with words.

  ‘Try and be philosophical about this. Concentrate on the plus points.’

  ‘Because there are so many?’

  He laughed and Molly tried hard to maintain her attitude of defiance as her eyes clashed with his bold, glittering stare.

  ‘When else would you have had the opportunity to study at such close…intimate quarters a foreign culture?’ His voice had the seductive texture of warm silk. The sort of silk that would feel sensuous against your skin.

  ‘If I want to know about foreign culture I’ll read a book in the comfort of my armchair.’

  It was one thing to be caught in a trap, it was another thing entirely to turn the key in the lock yourself, then give it to your jailer.

  That would be crazy, and only crazy people would give into a sudden attraction that blazed for a short time, then left cold ashes of regret behind.

  It wasn’t a question of whether Tair would respect her in the morning if they spent the night together—he didn’t respect her now—but it was a question of whether she would respect herself.

  ‘There are some things you can’t learn from a book.’

  Their eyes connected and the blaze in his blitzed every sane thought from her head. As the stare lengthened the static hum in the air became a loud buzz in her ears. Every instinct of self-preservation she had screamed at her not to ask him what those things were—in her present state of mind and body she might like what she heard!

  Get a grip, she advised herself as she lowered her gaze. Her skin felt so acutely sensitive that she was conscious of the feathery prickle of her lashes against her hot cheek as she struggled to control her uneven breaths.

  ‘You’re not one of those people who travel to foreign places and stay safely cocooned in sterile luxury behind the high resort walls?’

  ‘In case it has slipped your memory, I’m not on holiday.’

  Tair, who didn’t deign to acknowledge her dry interjection, expanded on his theme, his low voice pitched barely above a sinfully seductive whisper that was doing all manner of damage to her nervous system.

  ‘I think a person should seize the chance of new experiences whenever possible. If you don’t,’ he mused, ‘who knows? You might live to regret it…?’

  And he would, he knew, always regret it if he did not follow the instincts that a midnight ride through a starlit desert landscape had been unable to diminish.

  He had been appalled to find himself actually looking for excuses for her behaviour…and reminding himself that she was all the things he despised in a woman and it had not lessened the fire that burned in his blood.

  Their glances met but after a moment she lowered her eyes in apparent confusion.

  ‘I do not expect the ingénue act. You do not need to play the part with me.’

  Molly, wishing it weren’t an act, forced herself to look at him. ‘So all in all this is just a tremendous opportunity to expand my horizons?’

  ‘A situation is what you make of it.’

  ‘Silly me. I hadn’t realised how lucky I am to be abducted against my will by a man who is a throwback to the good old days when a man was a man and a woman was a slave!’

  ‘I don’t require a slave.’

  She stuck out her chin, stubbornly refusing to acknowledge the message in his gleaming eyes.

  ‘I wasn’t applying.’ With a pretended cool she looked dismissively up the long, lean, muscle-packed length of vital body. Feeling her cool slip, she lowered her glance and gave a cynical snort. ‘I don’t suppose you need anything or anyone.’ Tair took self-reliance to a new level.

  ‘I wouldn’t say that.’

  A note she had not heard in his voice before brought her head up. Tired of skirting around the issue, she said what she had been thinking. ‘Are you trying to seduce me?’

  ‘Yes.’

  The single raw word did more damage to her resolve than all the candlelit dinners and romantic gestures in the world—not that Tair would have offered her either.

&n
bsp; The breath left her lungs in one long sibilant sigh as a pulse of longing slammed through Molly’s body. Her eyes half closed, her breath coming fast, she leaned towards him, her body drawn as though by an invisible force. Every individual cell vibrated with the force of the desire that crashed over her like waves pounding on the shore as she lifted her face to his.

  Tair stepped forward and lifted his hand to tangle his fingers into the sleek mesh of her hair and smooth back the silky strands that clung to her cheeks before framing her face between his big hands.

  He was torn. He wanted to touch her with a need that threatened to consume him, but when he did he was conscious of a vulnerability inside him, an emptiness that he didn’t want to acknowledge was there.

  But he had to touch her.

  As his thumbs moved over the curve of her cheeks he could feel her tremble with passion.

  ‘What are you doing to me? Every time I look at your face, think of your mouth or the curve of your neck…’ Unable to resist the desire to taste her any longer, he pressed his mouth to her throat.

  Molly gave a fractured sigh as her head fell back. He ran his fingers slowly down the exposed column of pale skin, then, giving in to the silent invitation, he kissed his way slowly back up.

  By the time he reached her mouth Molly couldn’t breathe.

  ‘Your skin tastes like flowers.’

  Molly’s heavy lids lifted as he tilted her face up to his. She stared greedily at him, memorising each primitive angle, every chiselled plane, and thought how she wished he would kiss her again soon because she was dying already.

  It wasn’t until he said, ‘I couldn’t have that on my conscience,’ that she realised she had said it, not thought it.

  ‘This is happening?’

  ‘If you doubt it I’m doing something wrong.’

  ‘I don’t think that’s possible.’

  He laughed, but the laughter didn’t last and there were lines of strain etched in his face that Molly didn’t see because the raw hunger in his eyes blinded her.

  The warm well of excitement in her belly flared hot as he slowly angled her face first one way and then the other.

  ‘You’re beautiful.’

  For once in her life Molly felt it, and anticipation made the pulses deep in her body throb as his face came close to hers. Tair whispered her name, his deep voice making her nerve endings tingle as he added throatily, ‘So you want to be seduced?’

  ‘I want you.’

  ‘And I want you.’

  ‘I thought I was beige…?’ She groaned as his lips once again found her neck. Clinging to a thin strand of remaining sanity, she gasped. ‘Oh, I really don’t think this is a good idea.’

  He nipped at the soft fullness of her lower lip and then traced the trembling outline of her mouth with the tip of his tongue. Her heavy lids lifted as he nudged the side of her nose with his, and his dark face swam into vision as she felt as much as heard his husky whisper.

  ‘Sometimes bad is more fun than good.’

  Holding her gaze with his hot blue eyes, he fitted his mouth to hers and kissed her slowly at first, then deeper, parting her lips and sliding his tongue into the warm moistness of her mouth.

  ‘You taste so good,’ he said against her mouth.

  She slid her fingers into his thick lush hair and said, ‘So do you,’ in a fierce little voice before kissing him back hard.

  She felt the vibration of a warm laugh in his chest, but soon he was kissing her some more with a hungry, bruising intensity and the force of her response made her tremble.

  When his head lifted Tair was breathing hard, dragging air into his lungs through flared nostrils. She saw the tension in him now, felt it as he stood there like a man who was fighting against invisible bonds.

  ‘If you look at me like that I’ll…’ His eyes darkened as he scanned her upturned features with a fierce predatory expression that made her insides dissolve like sugar in hot liquid. ‘Have you any idea what your mouth has been doing to me?’ he groaned.

  She shook her head and lifted a hand to his cheek. Her lips parted, her expression rapt as she trailed a finger down the stubble-roughened curve of his cheek before tracing the line of the small white scar.

  ‘How did you do that?’ she whispered.

  He said something indistinct, but even if he had shouted Molly wouldn’t have been able to hear it; all she could hear was the throb of blood pulsing through her veins.

  When he turned his head and touched his open mouth to the centre of her palm a fractured gasp escaped her aching throat. And when he took hold of her wrist and trailed kisses along the blue-veined inner aspect of her forearm the strength drained from her limbs.

  An earthy moan of shocked pleasure left her lips as she felt his erection dig into the softness of her belly. ‘You’re…’

  Tair smiled a fierce smile that made her skin prickle with dark heat. Her eyes squeezed closed as he bent his head, his fingers skimming under the neck of her blouse as he kissed her, increasing the erotic pressure.

  Molly felt as though she were drowning in a swirling sea of sensation. She was painfully conscious of her body in a way that she never had been before, conscious of how her soft curves fitted into his hard angles.

  She could smell the scent of soap on his skin mingled with the warm musky scent of his body and it sent a stab of lust through her. She leaned into him, holding on tight to his narrow waist because her legs would no longer support her. She could feel the taut muscles and the edge of his ribcage, and as their eyes met his were so hot and hungry that she felt dizzy with sheer wanting just looking at him.

  ‘You are the most beautiful man, Tair, so beautiful. I can’t stand up.’

  ‘That works for me,’ he growled, scooping her up into his arms and striding towards the low divan. He laid her down with a tenderness that was in stark contrast to the fierce need in his face.

  ‘I still don’t like you.’

  He arranged his long lean length beside her and pushed the silky skein of hair back from her face.

  ‘Do you suppose we could discuss this later?’

  She nodded. ‘I just thought I should be honest.’

  ‘Your honesty is appreciated.’

  ‘I do want you though.’ She couldn’t stop staring at his fingers as they slipped the buttons of her shirt undone. He had to be feeling her heart, it was thumping so hard against her ribcage.

  ‘That was the message I was getting.’

  She ran the tip of her tongue across her dry lips. ‘You’re trembling.’ She could feel the shudders that were running through his taut frame.

  ‘So are you.’

  ‘There is something I have to say.’

  ‘Not now.’

  ‘About me and Tariq—he really is—’

  ‘Definitely not now!’ A nerve clenching in his cheek, he laid a finger against her lips and levered himself upright.

  It took several deep breaths before the image in his head was extinguished and he could control the swell of mindless jealousy.

  For a moment she thought he was going to walk away. The relief when he didn’t was intense. Lying there, she watched as he pushed a few cushions out of the way and propped his broad shoulders against the carved headboard.

  ‘Just shut up, come here and let me undress you, ma belle. I have been thinking about unwrapping you all day.’

  CHAPTER NINE

  MOLLY looked at the hand Tair stretched out towards her. She might not know much, but she knew a no-going-back moment when she saw one and this was it.

  For a second she just stared at his hand, so much darker compared to her own, the fingers long and sensitive, a strong hand.

  Her eyes lifted, and she thought how he was a strong man. A man with passion and conviction. One conviction unfortunately being that she was a home-wrecking tart, so it seemed safe to assume that his feelings for her had very little to do with respect.

  This should have mattered, but by this point it didn’t. She expell
ed the breath that had been trapped in her lungs in one shuddering sigh and stretched out her own hand to him.

  Tair’s fingers closed around hers, their eyes met in a moment of mutual understanding and then he pulled her towards him.

  ‘That’s right,’ he approved as she put her knees either side of his thighs.

  Her face was level with his when Molly, still kneeling with her skirt hitched above her knees, laid her hands either side of his face then in the same seamless action kissed him firmly on the mouth.

  For a split second he didn’t respond, but when he did it was as if a touch-paper had been ignited and the flame was contagious. When she met his tongue with her own and the kiss deepened her hips unconsciously moved with the same sensuous motion as her mouth.

  Tair breathed words against her mouth in his own language, words she understood on a primal level. Words that made her skin crackle with heat and her quivering stomach muscles grow heavy with desire.

  When Tair laid his hands on her shoulders Molly responded to the pressure, her skirt riding farther up, and she sat down, gasping sharply as the sensitive apex of her legs made contact with his hard thighs.

  The raw desire in his face shook her to the core and made the excitement pulsing inside her expand. Her heart swelled with emotion…She wanted to give herself to him more than she wanted to take her next breath.

  His cerulean eyes didn’t leave hers for a second as he undid the last few buttons of her shirt and peeled it off her shoulders. A moment later the blouse was flung away.

  A heartbeat later her bra followed.

  She lifted her hands in an instinctive gesture, but with a growl he caught her wrists and held them firmly to her sides.

  ‘I want to look at you. Don’t hide yourself, Molly…never hide yourself from me.’

  His eyes fell and she held her breath. It seemed impossible that someone who embodied every male physical attribute there was could be impressed by her unfeminine angles.