Lord of the Desert (10 page)

“Like this,” he murmured, guiding her lips against his until she understood the pressure and contact he wanted. “Yes, that's it. What else?” he persisted.

She nipped his lower lip softly. “I want you to deflower me.”

He was very still. He frowned. “The translation must be an idiom.”

She chuckled and leaned down to his ear. “I want you to become my lover.”

His lean hands spread on the soft, warm flesh of her bare back. “I want nothing more than that,” he groaned, holding her even closer. “But you must realize that the odds are very much against it.”

“The odds were very much against the condition you're in right now,” she whispered. “Where there's smoke, there's fire, my grandfather used to say.”

“More idioms, you little pest…!”

She'd put her open mouth on his chest, and he gasped.

She hesitated. Under her hand she felt the sudden violent shudder of his heart. He wasn't moving. He didn't even seem to be breathing.

She moved closer and did it again, deliberately moving her mouth against his tight nipple and suckling it, as he'd done to her, earlier.

His body came right off the bed. He shuddered. His hands caught the back of her head. He held her mouth to him. His fingers spread into her hair and coaxed her to suckle him again.

She barely lifted her lips as her hand slid to his navel. “Teach me how,” she whispered as she put her mouth on his chest again.

He was muttering something, harsh and feverish, in a language she didn't understand. But he wasn't fighting her wandering fingers. He jerked the belt loose and worked the closure, bringing her hand onto silky fabric. But when she moved it under the waistband, he stopped her firmly.

“It won't matter,” she whispered.

“It will,” he ground out. “Don't stop.”

He drew her hand onto him, feeling it jerk a little despite her resolve when she touched him. There was a velvety hardness under the silk, and he taught her how to brush it, how to explore it, in a silence that was loud with the sound of breathing.

He shivered, but despite the pleasure, there was no upsurge, no building heat. “Damnation!” he choked. “I…can't…!”

“What am I doing wrong?” she asked.

He stilled her hand against him and held it there as he exhaled roughly. His eyes closed. “The pleasure is there, but I can't reach it. The problem is in me, not in you. And this is not the time, nor the place.”

He moved her hand and rolled away from her. He got to his feet efficiently and refastened his clothing. While he dressed, so did Gretchen, but she felt no embarrassment with him now. Her eyes told him so when he turned to look at her.

“I'm not sorry,” she said before he could speak.

“Neither am I.” His eyes met hers. “You belong to me now,” he said, and he didn't smile. “We must marry.”

“Why?” she asked huskily.

“Because if there's any possibility that I can have you, I'm going to,” he said bluntly, holding her eyes. “In my world, no man has a virgin unless he is her husband.”

“But I'm not your social equal,” she protested.

“Gretchen, do you want me to turn the jet around and send you back to the States?”

“After that?” she exclaimed, her expression starting to fill with hurt.

He chuckled. He pulled her tight into his arms and rocked her, cradled her, cherished her against his heart. “It was the single most delightful pleasure of my life,” he whispered. “If you're willing to take the chance, we can be married under my own customs, my own law.” He hesitated. “Such a marriage would be binding only in Qawi,” he added reluctantly, “so that if I am unable to consummate the relationship, you can go home still a virgin.”

“And if you can consummate it?” she whispered back.

He lifted his head and met her eyes with his. “It will take an army to get you out of the country. Because if I can have you completely,” he added huskily, “you will never escape me in this lifetime!”

G
retchen's warm eyes wandered over his face and she smiled tenderly. “I never dreamed anything like this would ever happen to me,” she said softly. “I'd love to marry you. But you don't have to.”

“Having you the object of lurid gossip in the palace would demean me and dishonor you. My father would cut off my hands,” he pointed out. “He's a stickler for tradition. So am I.” He pursed his lips and smiled at her. “So are you, in fact.”

“I don't want to cause you any trouble.”

“You make me a man again, and you think I see you as trouble?” he asked sardonically.

“You hadn't really tried to make love to anyone since the accident, had you?” she asked, seeing the truth in his face. “You might still be able to, with someone else. With that blond woman you said I remind you of,” she added with a surge of jealousy that she fought to keep hidden.

“Brianne.” He thought back to his relationship with Brianne, and his expression hardened. He had adored her, ached for her, and lost her to Pierce Hutton because he thought himself incapable with any woman ever again.

Gretchen saw the disappointment in his eyes and felt uncertain of herself. “Do you still care for her?” she persisted.

“I will always care for her,” he said bluntly. “But she's happily married and she has a two-year-old son. Even if I were whole again, there's no hope. Not with her.” He turned, his black eyes lancing into her green ones. “But my reaction to you is quite promising, and I have every intention of pursuing it. That should make my position crystal clear. If you want to run, do it now.”

She pursed her lips and lifted her eyebrows. “Got a parachute?”

He chuckled. “No.”

“Then I guess you're stuck with me. Monsieur Souverain,” she murmured mockingly.

He caught her hand in his and opened the cabin door. “Out,” he said on a laugh, nudging her into the aisle in front of him.

She laughed, too, and the bodyguards stared at both of them with varying degrees of puzzlement. Probably they'd heard all that gossip, too, Gretchen thought, but she was disheveled and her mouth was swollen and Philippe didn't look too neat himself. They looked shocked to see such radiance on their ruling sheikh's lean, hard face. Good. That ought to give them something to think about, she told herself smugly.

She sat beside Philippe until the plane landed in Qawi. It was no more what she'd expected than Morocco had been. There were date palms everywhere, sandy stretches that led to the Persian Gulf, and sparkling blue water. Inside the ancient wall of the old city, the buildings were a blinding white. There were beautiful mosques and a cathedral, and in the distance, she saw what looked like the beginnings of a new and modern city.

Philippe motioned to one of the stewards, and the neatly uniformed young woman in the head scarf smiled at Gretchen as she handed Philippe what looked like a bundle of black cloth.

“This is necessary,” he told her solemnly. “It is the same as opening an umbrella during a rainstorm in your own country. I am sovereign of my country, and I must respect all its traditions as well as protect you from any extremists who live here.”

“You don't have to explain it to me,” she assured him. “I spoke to a Muslim woman in the hotel and she told me that to a lot of them who live strictly by the Qu'ran, the
aba
and
hijab
are visible signs of their pride and their purity.”

He smiled radiantly. “Who taught you the words for cloak and head covering?”

“She did,” she told him. “And it's a
thobe
that men wear with a
bisht
over the
thobe
and a
gutra
on the head held in place by that rope-thing called an
igal.
”

He pursed his lips. “I'm impressed.”

“Shukran.”

He chuckled. She'd thanked him in Arabic. “Now I'm really impressed,” he added when she grinned. “Here.” He stood and dropped the dark
hijab
over her head, covering her neat bun of blond hair. He added the huge black hooded cloak to it. “There are still those among my people who might do you harm if they see your shape blatantly displayed. I won't have you at risk, in any way.”

She smiled up at him. “Thanks. But it's okay,” she assured him. “If you came home with me, you'd have to put on a cowboy hat and somebody would probably try to trick you into getting on an unbroken horse.”

He choked back a laugh at her assumption that he couldn't ride an unbroken horse. She had an interesting, if incorrect, opinion of him. She was going to be surprised when she saw him as he truly was, on his own home ground. He stood aside to let the bodyguards open the door of the huge black stretch limousine for them.

“You might have told me who you were from the beginning,” she pointed out when they were flying down the paved road toward what must be the capital city.

“What, and take all the fun out of our relationship?” he replied with a grin. “Surely, men are more attractive to women when they remain mysterious?”

“You're a king.” She was still getting used to that, and it helped if she reminded him occasionally, too.

“I'm a sheikh,” he corrected. “The head of the tribe which traditionally held power in this part of the continent. The line has come down relatively unbroken through
imamates
for six generations, although my father is the first Christian leader.”

“I see. You inherit the crown, so to speak, like kings do.”

He lifted an eyebrow and for an instant, he seemed very foreign. “No one inherits a title among these desert people,” he said softly. “It is won, and held, only by the man who can defend it.”

That was confusing and she wanted to ask more questions, but the phone rang and in seconds, the intercom came alive. Philippe listened and then picked up the receiver at his side, speaking abruptly and rapidly into it. He hesitated and then spoke again, grimacing as he put the phone down.

“More trouble,” he said shortly. “A raid at the border. Several men were killed.” He glanced at her. “It will mean a trip to the border on our northern desert. I must deal with this.”

“Do you have an army?” she asked.

“Not in the sense you mean, not yet,” he replied. “We are an old country, but without a modern base of power unless you include long-range tactical weapons and an elite but small military unit with a limited amount of equipment. No, the rebels will have to be met in the old way. And while we solve that problem, we can solve our own,” he added with a lingering search of her eyes. “I will arrange the wedding at the same time.”

“You're really serious?”

“I am.”

“But you said your father didn't like Americans,” she pointed out.

“Gretchen, you will enchant him,” he said quietly. “All it needs is time.”

“Will we leave right away?”

“Not for several days,” he replied. “I have to meet with my ministers and my father to discuss the treaties I have just signed, and the contracts I have negotiated. You will have enough to occupy you,” he promised gently. “My minister of education will bring you up-to-date on my kindergarten project.”

“I hope I can do what you want me to,” she said worriedly.

“Of that, I am certain. And soon, so will you be,” he said.

“You make me feel as if I can do anything,” she confessed. “Until the past few days, I was sort of a bystander of life. You make me want to be a participant.”

His eyes narrowed. “This man who wanted to marry you,” he said, his eyes intent on her face, “what became of him?”

“Daryl?” She sighed. “He took up with a banker's daughter and left skid marks…” She saw the lack of comprehension in his face and laughed. “Sorry. I'm afraid that idioms are second nature to Americans. He started dating a banker's daughter. He couldn't get away from me fast enough. He thought my mother would leave a great deal of insurance money. But there was none.”

“An opportunist,” he commented.

“Yes, and I hadn't the experience to recognize that when I saw him,” she said self-consciously. “Mother was very possessive of me, especially when I got old enough to date. I think she knew she was dying and she was afraid of being left alone. As if I would ever even have thought of leaving her by herself!”

“No,” he mused, studying her. “You are not the sort of person to abandon a loved one in need.”

“At least he was around when she died, so I wasn't totally alone. Marc was in Florida working undercover. He didn't get home until after the funeral.”

He muttered something, his eyes flashing. “You had no one to help with the arrangements?”

“I sort of had Daryl, at least until he felt safe mentioning the will.” She shook her head. “But I guess there aren't a lot of men who'd want to settle for life on a run-down cattle ranch in a small Texas town.”

“You sell yourself short,” he said curtly.

Her eyes widened. “Speaking of selling women,” she said, leaning toward him, “did white slavery
really
go on over in this part of the world?”

He burst out laughing. “Why do you want to know?” he teased. “Do you think I might be tempted to sell you?”

“I guess not,” she said with a smile. “You wouldn't need the money.”

“No, I wouldn't,” he agreed. His eyes slid over her warmly. “White gold,” he murmured. “That's what they would have called a woman like you. You would have fetched a handsome price.”

“There, you see, it did cross your mind!” she chided.

He chuckled softly. “Even if I were a brigand, would I sell the greatest treasure in my storehouse?” he murmured.

She smiled back at him. It was like a new beginning, this foreign place with a man who was already fascinating to her in every way. Her small hand reached for his under the cover of the
aba.
Without turning his head toward her, his long fingers curled into hers and pressed them tightly before letting them go. She remembered then that public shows of affection were unacceptable in this part of the world and she moved her hand back from his unobtrusively. He noticed, and his eyes twinkled approvingly.

 

Gretchen's first sight of the palace was a revelation to Philippe, who watched her reaction with pleasure.

“The
Palais Tatluk,
” he murmured as it came into view, a towering, sprawling white stone structure with arched doorways and arched windows with black grillwork on both stories. There were no balconies, but then she remembered that in Arab households, the balconies always faced inward, not outward, so that the women were hidden to the eyes of the world. “The seat of power of my family.”

“It's magnificent,” she said, lost for words.

“It was the only structure Brauer's men didn't destroy two years ago,” he said through his teeth, and for an instant, he looked so menacing and fierce that he seemed like a stranger. “Brauer intended using it as his headquarters when he and his mercenaries took over my country.”

“How did you escape?” she asked. “I mean, if you don't mind telling me?”

“I slipped through the perimeter and joined a small caravan bound for Oman,” he murmured. “Then I managed passage with my pocket money to Martinique, where I…borrowed funds to launch a successful counterinvasion.”

“Against mercenaries?”

His head turned toward her, and the expression in his eyes was odd. “You know nothing of us. You may find that all your assumptions are far short of the mark. In all the Middle East, there are no mercenaries, no soldiers, equal to my
sha-KOOSH.
”

“Your what?”

He smiled. “My personal bodyguard. They are my
sha-KOOSH—
my hammer, you would say in English. They have no equal in combat, except perhaps the British SAS. The Special Air Services,” he enlightened her. “A unit of exceptionally gifted soldiers whose training methods are, shall we say, also exceptional.”

“Oh, I see. Like our Green Berets and navy SEALs,” she agreed. “You send them in against terrorists.”

“Send them in…” He seemed puzzled.

“I can't get away from idioms,” she groaned.

He lifted an eyebrow and smiled at her. “I understand. The general sits at his desk and sends his men into battle, yes?”

“Well, not all of them,” she amended. “But no one expects the head of state to lead a charge.”

He averted his eyes before she could see the merriment in them. “Of course not.”

“You said your family had been in power here for generations.”

“So they have,” he replied. “Originally, it was part of the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Then when the French and British fought over us in the nineteenth century, foreign missionaries came in and began to convert us. We won our independence in 1930, when my grandfather defeated a detachment of the French Foreign Legion and drew together the remaining nomadic Bedouin tribes under one sheikh. My father succeeded him, but not until after he was won over to Christianity, which caused no small disturbance. He was forced to go to war to defend his position. My two half brothers were Muslim, and I was raised to honor both traditions. But some years ago, I, too, converted. This caused some dissention and my father thought it wise not to make an issue of religion. As you might understand already, there are many Muslim sects, some of which are more reactionary and militant than others. We coexist with them, and the Jews, with laws in place that protect no right more than that of freedom of worship.”