Forbidden: The Sheikh's Virgin (6 page)

Rafiq was shouting something, and she looked around through the haze of her tears to see him close, perilously close, the two drivers running behind, their arms flapping as uselessly as their white robes. Two driving lessons would have to be enough. She’d learned the basics in those. Start. Go. Stop. How difficult could it be?

She threw the car into ‘drive’ and pressed her foot hard down on the accelerator. It moved like a slug, and she slammed her fist against the steering wheel. ‘Come on,’ she urged, and floored her foot again, this time remembering the handbrake at the last moment. She jerked it up, releasing it, and the car lurched forward. She spun the wheel, spraying sand behind her in an arc, and took off in the direction the family had disappeared. She would catch up with them, plead with them to let her return to Shafar with them. It was not as if she was going to keep the car. The family had only just gone. They couldn’t be too far ahead.

The vehicle snaked down the rutted track, difficult to follow and worse so through the blur of tears. He thought she’d married Hussein because she’d wanted a trophy husband? How could he think that, even if she
had
betrayed him? He should never have been there. Eleven months longer in the desert and he would probably have been over her. He wouldn’t have cared so much that she’d gone. A year in the desert and he’d probably have grown out of her, been relieved she was no longer an issue for him on his return.

A fresh flood of tears followed that thought, refusing to be staunched. He should never have come back early from the desert! He should have stayed away. Then he wouldn’t have seen her. And then she wouldn’t have been forced to lie to him. Forced to try and prove it…

She sniffed. She’d played her hand too well and convinced him with her words and her actions that she’d never loved him. And somehow that had been the cruellest blow of all. For hadn’t he seen her family gather around her, as if she was more a prisoner than a bride? Hadn’t he witnessed his own father in the audience, smirking as his plans to rid himself of another woman unworthy of being his daughter-in-law had gone even better than he had expected?

A wail erupted from her throat, chopped up into sobs as the car bounced over the rutted track.

And hadn’t he seen the sickness on her face at the reception, when Hussein had made her touch him—there—while Rafiq was watching?

How could he not have seen that? And he’d believed her lies, believed what his eyes had told him, and now he hated her. Damn him!

The car bounced and bucked its way along the desert track, past a sign that was behind her before she could read it, the wheel jerking out of her hands at times, the tyres finding it hard to get traction on the sandy hill. She couldn’t remember a hill, but surely they had passed this way earlier, hadn’t they?

All she could see through the mists of her vision was sand and more sand, red and endless, and if there were tyre-tracks anywhere the wind had long since blown them away.

Where was the track? Surely it was here somewhere. She blinked the tears from her eyes. Surely she hadn’t lost it? Fear gripped her, and she pushed her foot harder down on the accelerator, desperate to get to the top of the dune so that she might get her bearings. But there was no stopping at the top of the rise. The tyres suddenly found purchase and the car roared up the slope, launching itself into space before crashing down on the other side in a crunch of springs and a grinding of metal. Pain blinded her as her head smashed against the door pillar,
stunning her momentarily. The car was steering itself down the other side of the dune, half sliding, half careening, until the terrain thankfully flattened out, the car slowing as her foot slid from the accelerator.

Sera took a breath, blinked away her shock as she reclaimed control of the steering wheel. The side of her head throbbed where it had collided with the pillar, and she knew she’d have a headache later, but at least the shock had stopped the flow of tears and she could see where she was going. The dunes were lower here, with a wide, flat depression between. At last something was going right for her. This would definitely make for easier going until she regained the track.

She pressed down on the accelerator and the car surged over a last small dune. She was starting to relax, her racing heartbeat finally settling, when the car lurched, nose-first, its front wheels digging into the desert sands. She tried to power her way through, but the wheels spun uselessly, only digging themselves deeper. She battled with the gearstick, trying to coerce it into reverse gear, by chance happening on the button that allowed her to move it.

The tyres spun wildly in the other direction. Sera willed them to pull free of the clinging sands, and yet still the car refused to budge. If anything, it felt as if the car was burying itself still deeper.

Great. Her head sagged against her arms on the useless steering wheel and she felt despair welling up inside her once again. So much for escape. She was bogged down, stuck fast, up to her axles in sand in the middle of a desert, and she wasn’t going anywhere until she dug herself out.
If
she could dig herself out. What a mess!

She pushed open her door to climb out and the car groaned and tilted, as if the weight of the open door had somehow pulled it over. It seemed to rock unsteadily for a moment then,
for a moment in which she wondered if she’d imagined the movement, and whether the knock on the head was affecting her balance, and then she saw it—the almost imperceptible movement in the sand below her, the slip and suck as it embraced the car’s tyres and drew the car even deeper, the slow vortex that made clear its deadly mission.

And a new and chilling horror unfurled in her gut
.

H
E WAS
as angry as hell, and it wasn’t all directed at the woman behind the wheel in the car ahead. Sand showered his windscreen, making it even harder to work out which way she was going. Who the hell had taught her to drive? She was all over the place, making no allowances for the rough terrain, least of all with the accelerator. Anyone would think the hounds of hell were after her.

He’d like to have a few words with the person who’d taught her to drive. Most of all, though, he was looking forward to having a few choice words with her. What the hell was she thinking, taking a car and driving off into the desert like that? What did she think it would solve?

Nothing.

All he’d done was deliver a few home truths and, like the spoilt society princess she was, she’d bolted. So maybe the truth hurt. Well, he had news for her: he had a few more home truths to get off his chest before their time together was over. And if she’d thought him angry before, she hadn’t seen
anything
yet. Once he got her to stop he’d show her just how bad his temper could get.

She had that car all over the place, the vehicle bouncing and sliding from side to side, but it was when she suddenly veered
off the rutted path and took off across the desert sands that fury turned to fear. He jerked the wheel around to follow, the heel of his hand hard against the horn, trying to get her attention, trying to warn her. But there was no stopping her, just as there had been no reasoning with her. She kept right on going.

What the hell was she thinking? She’d roared past a warning sign as if it had been nothing. But he’d seen the map. He’d seen the warning not to leave the road, and he’d seen the hatched areas that signalled the danger zone.

Sinking sands.

The desert around here was full of them, their appearance indistinguishable from the surrounding desert, traps for unwary travellers or wayward beasts.

He’d learned that lesson the hard way. He’d seen one swallow an entire camel during his month in the desert—the doomed animal’s neck and head flailing hopelessly, its limbs already stuck deep within the remorseless sucking sand, its eyes wide and desperate, its panicked bleats sounding more like screams. The unnatural sound was what had drawn him to the pit’s edge, and the noise had continued while he fought to save the doomed animal. But there had been no saving it, and soon, despite his efforts, both the camel and the sound had been swallowed up, and the desert had fallen silent but for the howl of the empty wind.

Oh, God, he’d seen first-hand what those sands could do.

The car in front screamed up a dune, launching itself into the hot, thin air, disappearing at a crazy angle over the other side and sending his gut lurching. He wanted her to stop—but not because she’d rolled the car!

It seemed to take an eternity to get there, until he topped the dune and could breathe a sigh of relief. He was in luck. She’d stopped at last. Maybe she’d come to her senses. Or maybe…

His blood chilled as he drew closer and skidded to a halt,
sending a cloud of red sand into the air. There was a reason she’d stopped. Her tyres were buried deep in sand, the car stuck fast.

And then he saw her door swing open and the car tilt ever so slightly with it, shifting ever deeper to one side, and something curdled in his gut.

‘Sera, no!’ he yelled. ‘Don’t get out!’

She turned her head, her eyes wide, but it was surprise he read in them first and foremost, as if she thought it odd that he should be here. What did she think? That he would let a lone woman drive off into the desert by herself? She didn’t know him at all if she thought that.

‘Stay there. Close the door.’

She looked at him as if he was mad, and he could understand why. She no doubt wanted to get out of the car, not lock herself inside while the car worked its way into a sandy grave. There was no point trying to explain to a society princess and no time, but the last thing he wanted was for the car to slip sideways and make it even harder for her to climb out.

Besides, it was a car and not a flailing-limbed camel, too panicked and too stupid to know that fighting the wet sand was the worst thing it could do and would only hasten its demise. The car would sink slower if it didn’t go down nose first, but not with the doors open.

Maybe Sera was just too afraid to argue, because she reached out, trying to pull the heavy door back. ‘It won’t budge,’ she cried, and he cursed when he saw why.

Already the bottom corner of the door was dragging at the sucking sands. Soon the soft sand would pour through the open door, claiming the car for its own. ‘Leave it,’ he ordered, ‘and get into the back.’

The car tilted further as she scrambled over the front seats. Meanwhile he moved cautiously closer, testing each step before
giving it his full weight. ‘Watch out!’ he heard her call, as if he were the one stuck in the middle of a pit of sinking sand.

His foot found the edge of the pit, sinking into the soft, damp sand just a couple of feet short of the car’s tailgate, but at least she hadn’t landed the car any further in. He might have to congratulate her for that once they were out. Still, it would be a stretch, but he should be able to reach the tailgate. He made sure both his feet were on solid sand and then leaned over, letting himself fall the last few inches to the doors, wrenching the handle, fighting the angle of the sinking car to pull the back doors open.

‘I’m sorry,’ she cried, from where she sat huddled in the back seat. ‘But I couldn’t stay back there. I had to get away.’

The car slipped deeper then, tilting further, the metal groaning an unearthly groan, metal and rubber against the sucking forces of sand, and she winced, her fingers clutching the back seat like claws. The acid reply that he’d been so ready to let fly from his lips died a rapid death. ‘Forget it,’ he simply said, pulling stuff out of the back of the car and tossing it behind him, hoping it reached solid ground but more intent on making space right now for her to climb through. ‘Just be ready to jump over when I tell you.’ He found a folded tarpaulin and flapped it open with one hand, spreading it out on the soft ground below him as best he could. It wasn’t much, but at least it would be some protection if anything they needed fell in his rush to clear space.

‘I’m sorry about the car,’ she babbled. ‘I didn’t know.’

‘I said forget it!’ He did a rapid assessment and decided he’d made enough space for her to climb through. ‘Now, let’s get you out of there. Are you ready?’

She nodded uncertainly and he leaned out of the way to give her more room. She hauled up her robe to clamber inelegantly over the tilted seat, revealing a long sweep of
golden skin followed by another just as perfect, just as lean and smooth and long, distracting him when he least needed a distraction.

The car dipped sideways into the sand and his hold slipped with it. ‘Rafiq!’ Sera screamed, reaching for him as he fell, but he had landed on the tarpaulin, his weight spread, and was able to roll away and be on firm sand again before he could sink.

‘Now, get ready,’ he told her, relieved to see she had tucked the offending legs back under her robe, where they could not distract him again. ‘Reach for my hand, and when I give the word, you jump. Got that?’

She nodded and dragged in a breath, as if steeling herself, her eyes a mixture of fear and apprehension.

He leaned out towards her and she balanced as best she could in the sloping doorway, reaching out her own hand to him. His fingers curled hungrily around her small hand even as the car pitched nose-down, with sand pouring into the front seat. Sera gasped, lifted higher with the back of the car, her fingers slipping from his as her arm stretched. But his grip only tightened. There was no way he was letting her go.

‘Now!’

She sprang at his command, the same instant as he pulled on her hand, launching her across the distance with so much force that she collided against his chest. His arms immediately wrapped around her as he spun her away from the edge of the pit and to safety.

‘What the hell were you thinking?’ he yelled. ‘What the hell were you playing at?’

And her response came not with words but as tremors. They started out as a shiver that set her body quaking in his arms. He looked down at her flustered face, at the black-as-night eyes that looked up at him, eyes wounded by the verbal attack that had come so close on the heels of her rescue, and he looked at the
open mouth as she dragged in air, at those lips, so close to him now that their proximity must surely equate with possession.

Possession he had no choice but to take.

His mouth crashed down upon hers in a brutal kiss, a kiss that he tore from her, a kiss that spoke of dread and fear and loss, of agony and relief as his mouth plundered hers, his hands sliding up her slim back to bury themselves in that silken curtain of black hair and anchor her close to him. Remorseless and ruthless. Avenging himself for the wrongs of the past. Like a man dying of thirst, he drank deeply of that first heady stream. Unable to stop even when good sense dictated he should, even when he knew his life depended on restraint.

There was no restraint here.

Instead, all the things he felt, all the things he’d wanted to say to her in the past years, all the strain of the last few short hours—everything spilled out into that kiss as his mouth savaged hers while they stood amidst the sandy dunes under a scorching desert sun.

Until she flinched, and his hand in her hair came away sticky and damp.

Breathless and conflicted, searching for answers to questions he didn’t understand and finding none, he pushed her away from him as abruptly as he’d pulled her into his kiss, his chest labouring, his senses shot as he tried to make sense of the discovery.

He looked down at his fingertips, felt something twisting and curling inside him. ‘You’re bleeding.’

Somehow Sera managed to keep upright, although her legs felt boneless, her senses in a shambles. He’d been angry with her, hadn’t he? So angry after he’d pulled her out of the car. But then he’d kissed her—a kiss that had knocked her remaining breath clean out of her lungs and left her more confused than ever.

And all he could worry about was a bang on the head she’d forgotten completely in the thunderclap of a kiss that had
blanked her mind, wiping clear the terror of her escape, the relief at being safe, the fact that he hated her.

He hated her
. He’d told her so. He’d shown her in his words and his actions.

So why had he just kissed her?

‘Your Highness!’ The breathless cry came from the dunes behind and she turned her head to see one of the drivers, half jogging, half stumbling through the sand, his face red and sweat streaked from his exertions, his white robe sticking to him and stained with sand. The other followed a few paces behind, looking no less stressed, and guilt sliced into her as cleanly as a surgeon’s scalpel.

She
was the cause of their distress. And their concern for their prince meant they must follow even as he chased the crazy woman in the car. Rafiq would not have thought of such things—he had been so many years in Australia that he would not understand the depth of their responsibility to a member of their royal family. But she knew how the palace worked. And she should have realised Rafiq would follow. He probably hadn’t finished telling her how little he thought of her—for that reason alone he would have been driven to pursue her.

But out here, deep in the desert, when she hadn’t cared what might happen to her, she should at least have realised how dangerous her actions were for everyone else.

When had she become so selfish? She had not thought through her actions. She had not thought of anyone else at all.

But of course the men did not take issue with her—it was not their place to judge. Instead, both men stared at the doomed car, now sinking its way deeper into the desert itself, offering prayers of thanks for their prince’s safekeeping as they neared.

‘Your Highness,’ one of them panted, his hand over his chest as he dipped his head with respect. ‘We feared for your safety.’ His eyes were once more drawn to the bizarre sight of the
doomed vehicle, and he caught his breath before he could continue. ‘Are you all right?’

‘I’m fine,’ Rafiq said, handing water to the men. ‘Drink. Then one of you see to Sera. She has a wound on her head. The other one, help me. The car is beyond winching now, but there’s still time to save a few more things.’

In a daze, Sera allowed herself to be guided to the blissfully cool air-conditioned car, where the first aid kit was accessed. ‘I’m sorry to cause so much trouble,’ she said to the man as he tended her wound, but he merely shrugged philosophically, as if there was nothing unusual in a woman going crazy and causing mayhem in the desert.

Her actions had lost them a vehicle.

She’d lost them hours of daylight.

And somewhere along the line she seemed to have lost a grip on herself.

It must be a kind of crazy, she thought, wincing as his fingers prodded at her head. A few short hours ago she’d been perfectly content with her life, or at least as content as someone with her past could hope to be. She had a role at the palace with a woman who understood, and she performed her duties well. She was quiet. Thoughtful. Responsible.

Until Rafiq had returned and her world had been turned upside down. Who was she that she could forget who she was so easily? That she could be swept away on this unfamiliar tidal rush of memories and emotion?

She squinted past her carer to where Rafiq was bundling the goods he’d salvaged from the car before she’d jumped. His pale shirt and trousers were smudged with sand, tendrils of his dark hair clung damp against his brow and his features were set. Even under the hot sun, his eyes had returned to their glacial blue.

They hadn’t looked cold before
.

He’d held her in his arms and looked down at her and her
heart had skipped a beat. For his blue eyes had simmered with heat, a boiling spring steaming with desire, a summer storm that promised lightning set to rent the sky in two. And then his desperate eyes had found her mouth and her trembling had changed direction. She had trembled not from the shock of the near disaster; she had trembled from the shock of knowing he wanted her.