Prince of the Desert

by Penny Jordan

  Having dismissed his car and driver a safe distance away from the apartment, Tariq paused to breathe in the warm late-night air. It was on nights like this that the desert called to him so strongly that his desire to leave the city behind and satisfy his need to return to it became a hunger in his soul.

  He thought with contempt of the corrupt gang of men he was currently involved with. Only last night their leader had promised him the services of one of the skimpily dressed prostitutes who were also on board the yacht, as a further reward for Tariq’s support.

  Of course he’d had to pretend to be flattered by the offer, even though in reality he had been utterly revolted by the sleaziness of both the gang and their leader’s offer. He had declined to accept, using the excuse that he was afraid that it might get to the ears of his cousin the Ruler, who would then be even less inclined to allow him control of his inheritance.

  Despite the fact that he had been celibate for the last eighteen months—since the termination of a discreet relationship he had shared with an elegant divorced Frenchwoman who, like him, had had no desire to commit herself to marriage—the sight of the skimpily clad young women with their surgically enhanced breasts and vacant eyes had not aroused him at all. How many other members of the gang had enjoyed their favours? Some of them? All of them? And more? Other men as well?

  His mouth curled in contemptuous disgust as he recalled how the gang leader had offered slyly, ‘Why don’t I arrange to have one of them sent up to your apartment so that you can enjoy her in private?’

  ‘Thank you, but no,’ Tariq had responded, feigning regret.

  He reached the apartment block, and, reaching for his pass key, inserted it into the lock and waited for the doors to open.

  Once inside the apartment Tariq strode through to the bedroom without bothering to switch on the light or glance towards the bed, stripping off before going into the wetroom attached to theen suite bathroom and then standing beneath the fierce lash of the shower.

  Gwynneth woke up abruptly. Her face was on fire whilst her body ached with a different kind of heat. Why was this happening to hernow , after all these years? Why had physical desire chosennow to voice its protest at her denial of it?

  Her father had laughed at her and accused her of being unable to understand sexual desire. But she did understand it. She understood it all too well, she admitted. She understood her own vulnerability to it—which was why she had forced herself to learn to control it, to repress and restrain it, out of fear that it would lead her to become like him. But now, suddenly, she couldn’t control it. It pulsed hotly and urgently within her body, clamouring for release, shocking and confusing her.

  Abruptly she sat up in the bed—at the exact moment that Tariq opened the door from theen suite bathroom.

  Gwynneth stared in mute disbelief at the man standing in the doorway, framed by the light from the bathroom behind him. Like her, he was completely naked. Well, no, he was not actually like her at all, she thought feverishly. His skin was warmly tanned where hers was pale, his shoulders broad, his chest softly furred with silky dark hair, his belly flat. He was, she acknowledged, the most sexily physically perfect man she could ever have imagined. Tall, dark and handsome. Plus he had that edgy, dangerous male air that produced a female frisson of erotic fear within her—the kind of fear that was not fear at all, but rather an excitement that was morally shocking. One brief glance. That was all she needed to tell her that everything about him pushed all the right buttons for her. How on earth had she conjured him up? She blinked determinedly. This couldn’t really be happening. He was an illusion, a figment of her imagination.

  Only he was still there, and no amount of blinking seemed to be banishing him. Which meant…Which meant that he had to be real! Hurriedly Gwynneth looked away from him, her face starting to burn.

  It was that over-acted fake look of confusion with which she turned her head and then let it droop on the pale stem of her neck that was responsible for the savage increase in his anger, Tariq decided as he demanded bitingly, ‘How did you get in here?’

  As if he needed to ask. He knew perfectly well what she was and who was responsible for her presence here in his apartment—and in his bed.

  Striding towards her, he said curtly, ‘No, don’t bother answering me. I already know the answer—just as I know exactly what you are!’ He gave her a look of icy disdain. No way was she staying here. He wanted her out of the apartment—and speedily, even if that meant he had to dress her himself.

  Her naked man wasn’t an illusion at all, or a figment of her imagination. He was very much real, and he had almost reached the bed, Gwynneth realised in panic, her trapped gaze skittering away from his chest.

  She cried out in protest as his fingers tightened round her upper arm, instinctively trying to pull away from him as he virtually hauled her off the bed.

  At leastthese breasts were real, Tariq couldn’t help thinking, as he monitored the gentle bounce produced by her agitated movements and remembered the unmoving plastic look of the surgically enhanced breasts of the girls he had seen on the yacht and thought so repulsive. A woman’s breasts surely should be soft and malleable, just big enough to fill a man’s cupped hand, as this woman’s breasts would surely do. He could almost imagine how they would feel, her skin warm, her nipples tightening against his touch, her breasts swelling with arousal just as his own body—

  The shock of what he was experiencing exploded into savage disbelief. He couldn’t possibly be aroused by her.

  ‘What are you doing? Let go of me!’ She couldn’t just give in to him, Gwynneth told herself wildly as she pushed frantically against his chest with her free hand.

  ‘Where are your clothes?’

  Her clothes? His question bemused her, making her frown slightly.

  Tariq could feel the silky length of her hair brushing his chest as she dipped her head and tried to raise her arms to conceal her naked breasts. Her skin looked milky pale against his own, the movement of her arms bringing the fingers he had wrapped around her arm into contact with the soft flesh of her breast. Her eyes were a deep jade, her lips the soft pink of the inside of a shell dredged up from the depths of the gulf. His gaze dropped from her mouth to her breasts, creamy pale flesh mounted with warm brown nipples that were swelling and hardening beneath the heat of his gaze.

  Gwynneth could hear the sound of her own breathing, feel the heavy sensual pound of her own blood. Her gaze, no longer under her control, dropped boldly down his body to where she had been so determined not to look, and a small sound that she would not allow to be a soft moan of pleasure leaked from her lungs.

  Tariq could feel the savage surge of his own anger racing through him, overturning everything in its way. Anger against the woman he was holding, anger against the men who had sent her to him, anger against so many things—but most of all anger against himself. He was simply not prepared to admit to the unwanted piercing stab of desire that was currently arcing through him. It was impossible for him to be aroused by a woman such as this, impossible for him to want her, impossible for him to touch her. But, impossible or not, all three of those things were happening.

  CHAPTER TWO

  THIScouldn’t possibly be happening, Gwynneth decided breathlessly. She could not be standing here naked, body-to-body with this man who was a stranger to her but whom her body was welcoming with such rejoicing.

  And yet when he turned her towards him she reached out and touched his face with her fingertips, slowly exploring its structure. His flesh felt warm against the hard contours of his bones, and something about the sheer male arrogance and power of him set off a quivering sensation of wanton excitement inside her. She could feel the heat of his grey-eyed gaze burning into her own skin, her breath catching in her throat as she looked at the thick clumped black lashes shielding his eyes from her. His hands were resting on her waist, almost spanning it. They slid down to her bottom, kneading her flesh, pressing her into his own body and its hard erection. Sh
e made a soft sound of pleasure, rubbing herself against him, reaching up to pull his head down towards her so that she could offer up her mouth for him to plunder. The kneading had become a rhythm he was slowly forcing on her own body, using pleasure to make her flesh accept and reciprocate the sensual beat of physical arousal. Now she knew why the sound of softly beaten drums could be so erotic, Gwynneth thought feverishly, as his mouth took hers and his tongue reinforced the rhythm he had set her body.

  Now she was her father’s daughter. Now she was obeying the call of her own blood. Now she was exposed to that need within herself she had always tried to deny. Now she was not denying it, though. She was embracing it, welcoming it, abandoning herself to it, physically powerless to resist the relentless drive of her own need, and emotionally too flooded with what she was feeling even to want to do so.

  There was a pagan drive within her, a stream of subconscious need from the dawn of womanhood, imprinting itself relentlessly over every protective pattern she had ever tried to teach her body.

  Shewanted to feel like this, she recognised dizzily. She needed to experience what she was now experiencing; she needed to take the sweet juicy flesh of sexual arousal and taste every bit of it, savouring its taste and its texture on her fingers, her lips, her tongue, in her mouth, her belly, her deepest self. She wanted to linger over every delicious mouthful, to breathe in its scent, absorb its reality; she wanted to take her own sexuality and relish every second of experiencing its coming of age.

  These thoughts flashed hypnotically through her mind, glinting like tiny shoals of brilliantly coloured fish, dizzying in their speed and beauty.

  Chad had certainly known what he was about in choosing to send this woman to him, Tariq recognised as his self-control gave up the fight to force his body not to respond to the dangerous shimmering sensuality she exuded. It was almost as though it surrounded her in a multi-layered invisible aura that weakened and then trapped his treacherous senses, until nothing mattered more than satisfying his desire for her.

  The increasingly charged sound of their breathing echoed erotically on the sandalwood-scented air. Their lips met, their tongues entwining, and Gwynneth’s soft moans were echoed by Tariq’s harsher sound of raw male need. Gwynneth kissed his throat, sliding her open mouth over his newly sweat-dampened flesh, tasting the little beads of arousal glistening against the smooth tanned flesh, savouring the fresh, erotically musky scent with which his body was telling her its need. The feel of his hands spread over her bottom, pressing her closer to him, made her sigh with liquid pleasure. His hands stroked upwards to her waist, and up again, whilst the hard thrust of his thigh parted her own. His hands cupped her breasts. She moaned in eager delight, her teeth nipping at the strong column of his throat, her fingers digging into the muscles of his back as her body arched in a torment of longing.

  Tariq swung her up into his arms. The moonlight shining in through his bedroom windows highlighted her slender delicacy, silvering the thrust of her hipbones and her desire-swollen mound, whilst shadows deepened the dark allure of her tightly erect nipples.

  He had reached the bed, but, too impatient to wait until he had placed her on it, Tariq laid her back against his bent leg, one arm supporting her whilst he looked down at her. He could see the contraction of her ribcage as she breathed, could see too the tiny shudders of arousal quivering over her as she looked up at him, wantonly offering herself up to his visual and physical possession.

  How could she be feeling this intensity of physical excitement in lying here, knowing that she was offering her body up to this stranger as a source of erotic pleasure they could both share and enjoy? How could she have come to disassociate herself from her flesh, as though she and this man were co-conspirators, both intent on the same goal of sharing the feast of sensuality they had prepared?

  Tariq reached out and slowly stroked his fingertips from the base of her throat down between her breasts, watching as her heart jumped and her breathing deepened, moving lower across the concave dip of her belly to stroke up to the swollen flesh and soft hair covering her pubic bone.

  He leaned forward, his tongue flicking against the hollow of her throat as his fingers carefully parted the folded outer lips of her sex.

  The flick of his tongue-tip and the stroke of his fingers seemed to create a taut cord of intensity that coiled her pleasure higher and tighter with every touch.

  When he lowered her to the bed, without ceasing to caress her, she reached up for him, telling him urgently how good his touch felt, then shuddering when he cupped her breast with his free hand, savouring the erotic texture of her nipple and its response to his sensual stimulation.

  Mindlessly Gwynneth reached out for him, her eyes widening and her gaze focusing hotly on him as she tried to enclose him within her grip and realised his potency.

  When she exhaled, it was with an instinctive and deep-rooted female recognition of sensual pleasure at his size and strength. Somehow, she realised, her body, her senses, had a knowledge that she herself had never allowed them.

  Deep within her female muscles flexed and female flesh heated, whilst a sound that was almost a voluptuous purr of anticipated pleasure vibrated in her throat.

  The male flesh she was touching felt hot and slick, the movement of the skin she was rhythmically caressing unexpectedly erotic to her own senses. She moved demandingly on the bed, opening her legs and arching her back as Tariq’s fingers stroked over her, experiencing a pleasure that turned her body liquid with aching need.

  Had there ever been another woman like this one? Surely she was unique in her erotic offering of herself, in her sensual abandonment to her own pleasure? It took from him the role of being pleasured and demanded instead that he should make himself the provider of her pleasure. She was surely a queen amongst houris, demanding his subservience to her desire, Tariq acknowledged, and the intensity of his own physical desire burned away both his pride and his contempt.

  Her tight, erect nipples demanded the worship of his gaze, his touch and his tongue-tip. But to draw one fully into his mouth and to pleasure it rhythmically as he suckled on its swollen heat would, he knew, be a pleasure too far for his self-control. However, the slender fingers sliding into his hair and commanding that he did just that could not be denied.

  Gwynneth moaned and trembled convulsively as pleasure leapt fiercely inside her, her fingers tightening around the hard, hot shaft of male flesh that was moving within her grasp in quick urgent strokes, whilst knowing male fingers stroked and tugged the swollen flesh of her clitoris until she cried out aloud in a frenzy of arousal that took her higher and higher, so high that she felt she couldn’t bear any more. But even as she cried out against what she was feeling her orgasm was overwhelming her. She heard the man call out, but his words meant nothing. Her body shuddered into its own completion.

  It was the way she had abandoned herself so utterly to her own fulfilment that had thrust him past the barriers he had imposed on himself and overwhelmed his self-control, Tariq decided grimly as he moved away from her to deal with the resolution of his own release.

  Five minutes later, when he returned from the bathroom, she was fast asleep.

  Tariq frowned as he looked down at her. Why hadn’t she dressed and left? That was certainly what he would have preferred her to have done—wasn’t it? She opened her eyes and looked up at him and smiled. And then she closed them again. By the time he had exhaled, very, very slowly, she had fallen asleep again.

  Still frowning, he pulled the covers over her. At least that way her body was concealed and could no longer be the source of any kind of temptation to him. He should feel nothing but disgust for himself. Hedid feel disgust for himself, Tariq decided grimly. How could he have wanted a woman who sold herself to any man who could afford to buy her? What hitherto unknown to him part of himself had she managed to reach in order to arouse a desire in him strong enough to overwhelm his self-control?

  The blending of East and West that was his heritage
had given him the advantage of not having any desire to experience the wanton sexuality so freely exhibited by so many Western women. He had never, as other Arab men he knew did, felt any urge to provide himself with the services of a Western mistress, a woman with whom he could have sex without censure and whom he could dismiss from his life when he chose.

  Zuran’s exclusive hotels did not permit the kind of behaviour indulged in by young Westerners in other foreign resorts. Topless sunbathing, any kind of intimacy with a man in public—these things were banned by law. But there were men, rich men, who brought with them to Zuran women who were quite plainly not their wives. And, as he was discovering, Zuran had now become a target for the kind of sordid, seedy lifestyle he deplored, for drugs and prostitution racketeers. He was under no illusions; it was common knowledge that the two went hand in hand.

  But, even knowing all of that, he had still been unable to stop himself from reacting to the skilled sensuality of a woman he simply shouldn’t have wanted to touch.

  How many of the other men in the gang had shared this woman’s favours? One of them? All of them? Together?