Prince of the Desert

by Penny Jordan

  ‘A cheque?’ Gwynneth questioned suspiciously. Was he somehow trying to cheat her out of the apartment? Did he really think she was that much of a fool to fall for something like that? And besides, she already knew, because the young official had told her, that the apartment was worth in the region of £500,000. So why was Tariq offering her so much more? Because he thought her greed would make her jump to accept his offer? Which meant that he had to have an ulterior motive. But what? It could be that his offer was quite simply a scam. Or perhaps, whatever his reason for wanting the apartment, it had nothing to do with money.

  What should she do? Her first duty was to Teresa and Anthony, and she owed it to them to get the highest price she could for the apartment. Perhaps she could shock Tariq into telling her a bit more by letting him know that she wasn’t as easily deceived as he seemed to think.

  Taking a deep breath, she asked him derisively, ‘Do you really think I’m that much of a fool?’

  ‘What do you mean?’ There was a very ominous and warning note in his voice, but Gwynneth chose to ignore it.

  ‘Isn’t it obvious?’ she said mock-sweetly. ‘You give me a cheque, I sign over the apartment, and then I find that your cheque can’t be honoured.’

  ‘What?You’re accusing me of dishonesty?’ he demanded in disbelief.

  Gwynneth lifted her chin determinedly.

  ‘You obviously want the apartment very badly, and common sense tells me that you must have an ulterior motive. On the face of it, you’ve offered me far more than the apartment is actually worth. Why would you do that? As an act of charity?’ She gave him a thin smile and shook her head. ‘I don’t think so. Perhaps you expected me to be so eager to accept your offer that I wouldn’t stop to question why you were making it. Perhaps you hoped to defraud me via a dud cheque—or perhaps you know something about the apartment that I don’t know which increases its value. There has to be a reason that benefits you.’ She gave a small shrug. ‘Why else would you want it?’

  ‘Is that how you assess everything?’ Tariq asked her with open contempt. ‘In terms of financial value?’

  Hewas treatingher with contempt? Surely it should be the other way around? Somehow he had wrongfooted her, Gwynneth knew, but she was not sure how. With the sleight of hand of some soukfakir switching tumblers and dice, he had managed to transform her moral superiority into his own, and make her look cheap and avaricious.

  ‘This is a financial deal, and the apartment is a financial asset and must be valued as such,’ she answered as firmly as she could. ‘I can’t and won’t agree to your proposition until I have had it independently valued.’

  ‘Youdare to question my word?’

  Gwynneth stood her ground.

  ‘Yes, I do.’

  She heard him mutter something under his breath which she suspected was not complimentary, and then he was striding towards her, reaching for her wrists and manacling them within the hard grip of his strong fingers.

  ‘Get your hands off me!’ Gwynneth demanded sharply, trying to pull herself free.

  Tariq had simply intended to vent his fury by shaking her, but the moment she fought to break free of his hold his reasons for imprisoning her and the warning he had given himself earlier were forgotten, swamped by a surge of primitive male desire. He pulled her against his body, pinning her wrists behind her back and keeping them there in one swift movement that left her almost speechless—and seething.

  ‘Let go of me!’ she demanded through gritted teeth. But then she made the mistake of looking up at his mouth, and found that she couldn’t stop looking. Now the liquid heat pouring through her veins wasn’t just anger. Maybe it wasn’teven anger. Maybe it was…

  She heard him mutter something, and then he bent his head. She heard herself moan as the force of his kiss tipped her head back and he lifted one hand from her pinioned wrists to support the back of her neck, his fingers splaying into her hair. This time she didn’t need to question whether or not he was aroused. She knew he was. She could feel the hot, hard pulse of his erection pressing into the softness of her own flesh.

  Behind her closed eyelids a thousand and one erotic images tormented her. A thousand and one sensual intimacies spread out over a lifetime of dark starlit nights in a land where heaven and earth touched, where the desert met the sky, and where a woman touched that heaven in the arms of her lover. In that place they would share together the transforming wonder that was human passion and human desire and human love…

  Frantically Gwynneth pulled her mouth from beneath Tariq’s. What was happening to her was beginning to scare her—and badly.

  Tariq could feel her heart thudding into his with quick fast beats like that of a trapped bird. He put his hand over it, watching the way her expression changed and her breath caught in her throat as though on a ratchet whilst her heartbeat almost doubled.

  What was it about this pale-skinned, turbulent, impossible woman that pushed him beyond the boundaries of the self-control he had thought unbreachable? Inside his head, thoughts he hadn’t known he could have jostled against one another, their sharp edges raking his pride, leaving it raw with open wounds. He took a deep breath, his chest lifting powerfully, and then shook his head, as though trying to shake off the unwanted reality of his thoughts. A heat like that of the desert sand under the midday sun seared through his body. There was no escape from it, or from the place it was taking him. The only release for him, the only place he could slake the thirst of his desire, was within her. Like an oasis in the desert, she lured and drew him to her.

  In another age he would have summoned a Wise One to remove the spell she had surely put on him—but it was a spell which his senses told him had possessed her as well.

  The frantic beat of her heart beneath his hand told him how much she wanted him, and his own reaction to it betrayed how much he wanted her. His desire for her was an insistent driving force that filled his mind and his body and drove his heartbeat. It was his life force, and without it he would die.

  He lifted his hand to her breast, soft and round, filling his palm. He drew his fingertips to her nipple, tugging sensually on it whilst she shuddered against him and cried out with pleasure. Inside his head he could almost see the pale globe of flesh, almost taste its sweetness. His erection stiffened and throbbed painfully.

  How could she be letting Tariq do this? How could shenot ? an inner eager voice demanded hungrily. Somehow the simple act of his fingertips playing with her nipple was enforcing a rhythmic urgency on her that had her grinding her lower body into him whilst she pressed her lips to his throat, her tongue-tip tasting the salty sweat on the heat of his skin. She felt him pushing her clothes out of the way, to expose her breasts to the coolness of the air-conditioned room and to the heat of his touch, her own arousal. In the mirror hanging on the adjacent wall she could see the dark splay of his fingers against the pale outline of her breast as she pressed herself into his body. The sight was unbearably erotic, making her shudder tightly in response to its message.

  In a far-off century there would have been nothing to stop him from taking this pale-skinned seductress and making her his willing slave, locking her away in the luxury of his harem, where no other male eyes could see her and no other male hands could touch her. Then she would have been his to enjoy, whenever and wherever he wished. But this was now, and he was…he was dangerously, recklessly, unacceptably out of control, Tariq admitted grimly. He forced himself to release her.

  He had let her go. So why was she standing here looking at him as though she wanted…? Quickly Gwynneth straightened her clothes, her fingers made clumsy by reluctance and thwarted physical need.

  And it wasonly physical need that she felt, she reassured herself fiercely as she stepped back from him and told him jerkily, ‘Wrong move! If that was supposed to make me change my mind and agree to sell the apartment to you, it hasn’t worked!’

  Before he could retaliate, she turned round and almost ran to the main door, yanking it open and sli
pping through it as he called out to her to stop.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  WHATan idiot she was, coming out without her bag, and with no hat or sunglasses, Gwynneth derided herself as she stood in the hot sunshine and shielded her eyes to look uncertainly back at the apartment building.

  She could go back. Sheshould go back. But she wasn’t going to.

  Because she was afraid of what could happen if she did? She was afraid, yes, but not of Tariq. An inner female knowledge she hadn’t known she possessed told her that there was no likelihood of Tariq forcing himself on her. Why should he, after all, when they both knew he did not need to? She was so sexually attuned to him and by him that her whole body positively vibrated every time he came anywhere near her. Vibrated? Now, why had that particular word popped into her mind?

  If she hadn’t felt morally obliged to do what she could financially for Teresa and Anthony, she would have been tempted to simply walk away and leave Tariq in possession of the flat. After all, there were more important things in life than money, and her peace of mind was one of them. Her peace of mind and her self-respect.

  Now that she was away from him, and had broken free of the powerful orbit of his sexuality, she could think more clearheadedly about what had happened to her. The discovery that she had after all inherited her father’s sensual nature made her feel a lifetime’s worth of conflicting emotions. Anger and fear, resentment and a desire to fight her own need—but once she was in Tariq’s arms these had immediately morphed into not so much eager compliance as something far more proactive. It had been a battle of age-old female sexual shame versus a glorious, wild ‘I can touch the sky’ feeling of power and pleasure. And those were just the emotions she could easily recognise. There was a whole lot more going on underneath that was too scary for her to investigate.

  What she felt was like…She stood in the street, screwing up her eyes and wrinkling her nose as she concentrated on finding the perfect metaphor to describe her current state of mind. The closest she could get was to say it was like standing on a bridge looking down into unmoving very deep water, knowing that she was too close to the edge and that for her own safety she needed to move away. But instead of doing so, or even just staying where she was, she was moving forward, daring herself to see how much of a risk she could take. Because secretly shewanted to throw herself off that bridge and into that water? Because shewanted to take that risk and to feel the exhilaration of that freefall into danger before the water closed over her, dragging her down into its unknown depths?

  Up above her in the apartment Tariq watched her. If he went after her and she ran off it would draw the kind of attention he most certainly didn’t want to a situation he wanted even less.

  What was the matter with him? He was behaving with the kind of recklessness he had always despised in others. He moved back from the window, all too aware of the swollen ache of his erection—something else to despise himself for. To a man who had always considered himself to be more aesthetic than carnal, his body’s stubborn refusal to control its lust for a woman his mind wanted to reject was as distasteful as it was infuriating.

  He turned away. Her reaction to his offer to buy the apartment from her was still rubbing his pride raw, like tiny grains of sand against skin. What was she up to? Did she think that by holding out she could get him to raise his offer still higher? He could taste the bitterness of his own angry contempt. For her or for himself?

  He would have to find some way to bring an end to this increasingly dangerous situation. And itwas dangerous—and not just because of Chad Rheinvelt, he admitted unwillingly.

  One option would be to arrange for her to be told that she did not own the apartment but that she would be fully compensated for its value. Then he could leave everything to be dealt with by the Zurani government department concerned. But that would mean involving others, which in turn would mean talk—or, more relevantly, gossip. About Gwynneth, about him, about their shared nights together under the same roof. All leading to the kind of speculation he abhorred.

  A look of grim hardness tightened the bones in his face. That was something he was not prepared to countenance. No way. The Ruler, of course, knew exactly why he had not been able to move out of the apartment prior to the discovery of Omar’s identity. But Tariq had his own reasons for not wanting what had been going on to be made public.

  He had wasted enough time already on Ms Gwynneth Talbot and the problems she was causing him. It was time they were brought to an end. He had other and far more important calls on his time and his emotions—not least several preorganised meetings, some here in Zuran, others in the valley itself, with certain specialists to discuss various aspects of his plans for the valley.

  With the encouragement of the Ruler he was considering the advantages of making the whole valley a heritage site, endowing it for the benefit of their people, but this was not a project that could be rushed. It was one, though, that was very close to his heart. Other men might leave children behind them to mark their existence;his mark upon the face of time would be made in the restoration of the legendary hanging gardens and by turning them into a place of wonder and beauty that could be enjoyed by many rather than kept for the pleasure of a chosen few. That was his dream and his goal.

  And a long-legged fair-skinned woman was not going to deflect him from it. He glanced at his watch. If he didn’t leave now he was going to be late for today’s meeting with the Ruler’s own specialist horticulturist, who had already been out to the valley to take some samples of its flora.

  Why on earth hadn’t she come back? Or was he being naïve? Was this yet another ploy of some kind?

  Thank goodness for modern air-conditioned shopping centres, Gwynneth thought with relief, as she hurried out of the sun and into the welcome shaded coolness of the large shopping mall a small distance away from the apartment block. Not that she could do anything other than window shop, since she hadn’t brought her bag out with her.

  But at least she was away from Tariq.

  An hour later, when she or rather her overheated passions had had time to cool down, she decided that she needed to do everything she could to expedite a speedy decision with regard to ownership of the apartment. Even if that meant camping out in Zuran’s land registry offices until she got an answer. But first she would have to go back to the apartment, smarten herself up a bit and get her purse. And that meant…

  Don’t think about it, she warned herself as she left the shopping mall.

  She blinked in the fierce glare of the bright sunlight and paused to shade her eyes before looking to check that the road leading to the hotel was clear and starting to walk across it.

  She had only taken a few steps when out of nowhere a car screeched round a corner and came racing towards her, its driver too busy speaking into his mobile to be aware of her. She could see the danger and her own vulnerability, but was too shocked to be able to move. And then suddenly firm hands grabbed hold of her, half dragging and half pushing her out of the path of the car as it swerved violently close to her and then roared off.

  The entire incident had taken only a few seconds, but those few seconds could have been her last, Gwynneth realised, and she turned to give her rescuer a grateful smile and stammer her thanks. He was a shortish man, close to middle age, and obviously an Arab although he was wearing European clothes.

  ‘You are all right?’ he asked her courteously.

  Gwynneth nodded, feeling suddenly shaky. ‘When I checked the road there was nothing there.’ She didn’t want him to think she had just walked out in front of the car. ‘And then suddenly the car was there, and the driver didn’t see me. He was on the phone…’ Her disjointed sentences quavered into the late-afternoon heat. She turned to look in the direction the car had come from as her rescuer guided her across the road.

  ‘Thank you so much—’ she began a second time, but he shook his head, turning away from her to disappear into the crowd of people emerging from the shopping mall.

>   She was still feeling slightly shaky when she reached the apartment block. Despite the coolness of its foyer, her heart was thumping erratically, and a fine film of dewy nervous perspiration was dampening her hairline. But it was the thought of Tariq that was responsible for her anxiety, not her close call with the car.

  All the way up in the lift her stomach was churning.

  Five minutes later she was standing outside the main door to the apartment. Automatically she put her hand down for her bag and her key card, before remembering that she had left the flat without bothering to pick up her bag. The foyer door was unlocked during the day, so she hadn’t remembered till now.

  No bag, no key card, no way of getting into the flat. Her shoulders rounded slightly with defeat. There was only one thing she could do now. Taking a heroically deep breath, she pulled herself up to her full height and rang the bell.

  The seconds ticked by as she strained to hear some sound of movement inside the apartment.