Possessed by the Sheikh

‘Nor I you,’ Xander answered him steadily as they embraced one another.

‘Hello there, beautiful! How about coming out with me tonight? I hear that His Highness is holding a very grand reception to celebrate the start of the racing season, and then afterwards we could go on to a club.’

The light-hearted invitation she was being given by the group’s bachelor photographer made Katrina smile. Tom Hudson was an unashamed and incorrigible flirt, but one could not help but like him.

She started to shake her head, sunlight bouncing off the soft waves of her shoulder-length hair, but before she could say anything Richard broke in sharply.

‘We are all here to work, and not to socialise, and you would do well to remember that, Hudson. Besides, we’ve got an early start in the morning,’ he reminded them.

In the uncomfortable silence that followed the expedition leader’s outburst, Tom pulled a wry face at Richard behind his back.

For all that he was very highly qualified, Richard was not popular with any of them, although it was Katrina who suffered most from his presence.

‘He’s gruesome,’ Beverley Thomas, the only other female member of the group, commented later, giving a small shudder as she sat on the edge of Katrina’s bed.

The luxurious private villa that had been put at the team’s disposal was built on traditional lines, with the women’s quarters apart from those of the men, and additional staff accommodation.

At first it had bemused Katrina to discover that she and Bev were to be locked into their quarters at night, but now in view of unwanted advances from Richard she was heartily glad of the fact that they were expected to adopt the country’s customs.

‘I can’t help feeling sorry for his wife,’ Katrina admitted.

‘Mmm, me too! Not that he likes us mentioning her. You do realise that he’s well on the way to developing an obsession with you, don’t you?’

When she saw the apprehensive look Katrina was giving her she relented a little and added, ‘Well, perhaps calling it an obsession is going a bit too far, but he’s certainly determined to get you into his bed.’

‘He might want to but he’s not going to,’ Katrina assured her determinedly. ‘I could cope with his unwanted advances, Bev, but it’s when he starts using his position as expedition leader to punish me for rejecting him that I start to worry. This is my first job and I’m only on probation.’

‘Try not to let him get to you,’ Beverley advised her, stifling a yawn. ‘I’m off to bed. It’s been a long day and, as dear old Richard reminded us, we’ve got a pre-dawn start in the morning.’

Katrina smiled. Personally she was looking forward to their expedition into the desert to examine one of the area’s desert ridges known as wadis.

She should be sleeping. It was over an hour since she had come to bed but every time she closed her eyes she was confronted with a disturbing mental image of the man with the golden eyes, as she had privately nicknamed him.

And it wasn’t just the colour of his eyes that was imprinted on her memory. Her body quivered as fiercely and delicately as though strong fingers had plucked a single chord on a lyre.

This was ridiculous, she told herself stoutly. A woman of twenty-four with a doctorate in biochemistry could not submit herself to some foolish, primitive sexual response to a complete stranger. And not just a stranger, but very probably a criminal as well! But her fingertips were already investigating the smooth curve of her mouth, restlessly seeking the imprint of his on hers. Her memory was faultlessly replaying to her everything that she had felt beneath the hard domination of his kiss.

Angrily she tried to deny what she was feeling. Her parents had been a pair of highly qualified scientists totally devoted to one another; they had lived for one another and died with one another when they’d been killed after the site they had been excavating had collapsed on them.

She had been seventeen at the time. Not a child any more, but not an adult either. Her parents, both only children, had had no other family, and their deaths had not only orphaned her but left her both with an aching need for someone to love her, someone to complete her, and with a deep-rooted fear of those feelings and the vulnerability they created within her.

Because of that she had buried them very deep inside herself, too immature and too frightened to cope with them. Instead she had concentrated on her studies, cautiously allowing herself to make friends, but not allowing anyone to get too close.

At twenty-four she had considered herself to be reasonably well adjusted and emotionally mature, but now…It was most definitely neither well adjusted nor emotionally mature to feel the way she did about a stranger.

Let’s analyse this, she told herself determinedly.

You are in a different country with different customs; a country, moreover, that has always fascinated you, which is why you were so keen to come here, why you learned Zuranese in the first place. Additionally you were on an adrenalin high brought on by an automatic fight or flight response to an unfamiliar situation. Of course such a highly charged situation was bound to affect you.

To the extent that she responded physically to a man she didn’t know? A man she obviously should have been on her guard against?

Everyone was entitled to one little mistake, she tried to comfort herself. And, after all, it was extremely unlikely that she would ever see him again. She didn’t want to accept how much that knowledge depressed her.

CHAPTER TWO

THE sun was just starting to rise over the horizon as they drove out of the villa in a convoy of sturdy, well-equipped four-wheel-drive vehicles heading for the desert. To Katrina’s dismay, Richard had insisted that she was to travel on her own with him in the vehicle that he was driving.

‘You’ll be much more comfortable here with me in the lead vehicle,’ he told her, laughing as he added unkindly, ‘The others will all be choking on our dust.’

It was true that the speed at which he was driving was throwing up a heavy cloud of fine sand, but Katrina would still far rather have been with someone else.

‘Why don’t you relax and close your eyes?’ Richard suggested oilily. ‘Catch up on your sleep. It’s going to be a long drive. But drink some water first. You know the rules about making sure we don’t get dehydrated.’

Obediently she took the open bottle of water he was handing her and drank from it.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to sleep, Katrina acknowledged fifteen minutes or so later as she stifled a yawn and then gave in to a sudden overwhelming temptation to close her eyes. If only so that she could avoid having to make conversation with Richard. And she did feel extraordinarily sleepy. Probably because she had spent far too much of the night thinking about the man with the golden eyes. As she drifted off to sleep she felt the vehicle start to pick up speed.

It was the late afternoon sun that finally woke her as it shone in through the windscreen. The realisation of how long she had been asleep made her sit bolt upright in her seat and turn to Richard in consternation.

‘You should have woken me,’ she told him. ‘How much longer will it be before we reach the wadi?’

It was several seconds before Richard answered her, the look in his eyes as he turned his head towards her making her feel sharply apprehensive. ‘We aren’t going to the wadi,’ he replied smugly. ‘We are going somewhere much more secluded and romantic…Somewhere where I can have you all to myself. Somewhere where I can show you…teach you…’

Katrina stared at him in dismay, hoping that she had misunderstood him, but it was obvious from the look on his face that she had not.

‘Richard, you simply can’t behave like this! We have to go to the wadi. The others will be expecting us…’

‘They think that we’ve had to turn back,’ he announced calmly. ‘I told them that you weren’t feeling very well. It was a good idea, I think, to get you to drink that water, which had some sleeping tablets in it.’

Katrina stared at him in horror.

‘Richard, this is ridiculous. I’m going to telephone the others right now and—’

‘You can’t do that, I’m afraid.’ He gave her a self-satisfied smile. ‘I’ve got your mobile. I took it out of your bag when I stopped to tell the others we were turning back.’

Katrina couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘This is crazy! Let’s just go and join the others and forget—’

‘No!’ He silenced her passionately. ‘We are going to the oasis. I’ve been planning how to get you to myself for days, and this is the perfect opportunity and the oasis is the perfect place. It is in the empty quarter of the desert, a veritable no man’s land, and this should appeal to you, Katrina, with your love of this region’s history. It was once used as a stopping-off place by the camel trains.’

Katrina stared at him. Her throat had gone dry and her heart was thudding uncomfortably hard with apprehension. It wasn’t that she was frightened of Richard exactly, but there was no denying that his behaviour pointed uncomfortably towards, if not an obsession with her, then certainly an unpleasant and unwanted preoccupation with her, just as Bev had shrewdly suspected.

‘Look, there’s the oasis,’ Richard declared unnecessarily as the dusty track wound between a rocky outcrop revealing a clutch of palm trees and other vegetation, beyond which lay the blue shimmer of water.

As Richard stopped the vehicle Katrina acknowledged that in different circumstances—very different circumstances—she would have been entranced and fascinated by her surroundings.

The vegetation surrounding the oasis was unexpectedly lush and thick, especially on its far bank. At one time surely a river must have run here, for what else could have carved a path through the steep rocky escarpment on the other side of the oasis? Perhaps even a waterfall had plunged down the smooth, sheer rock face.

Certainly there must be an underground spring filling the oasis itself, or perhaps an underground river. But, undeniably beautiful though the oasis and its surroundings were, Katrina had no wish to remain there on her own with Richard.

Somehow she doubted that he would be responsive to any attempt from her to persuade him to abandon his plans, which meant that if she was to escape she would have to find a way to distract him long enough to allow her to get her hands on the vehicle’s keys and drive off in it before Richard could stop her.

‘I’ve brought a tent with me and everything else we will need.’

‘Oh, how clever of you!’ Katrina told him, trying to sound impressed. ‘I’ll stay here, shall I, whilst you unpack everything?’

Richard shook his head at her.

‘No, I’m afraid you can’t do that, my dear! I haven’t gone to all this trouble to have you do something silly like trying to run away from me!’

He couldn’t make her move, Katrina comforted herself, but a few seconds later, after she had told him quietly that she was not prepared to get out of the vehicle, she realised she had under-estimated the lengths he was prepared to go to.

‘Well, in that case, my dear, I’m afraid you leave me no option but to use these.’ He reached into his pockets and produced a pair of handcuffs. ‘I really wish it wasn’t necessary to do this, but if you refuse to do as I ask then I am going to have to handcuff you to the door of the vehicle.’

She had been wrong not to feel afraid of him, Katrina acknowledged as a cold sweat broke out on her skin. He had already locked the doors of the vehicle and if she allowed him to handcuff her inside it then she’d be trapped.

‘It would be nice to have some fresh air,’ she conceded, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Perhaps I could sit by the oasis whilst you unpack everything?’

‘Of course you can, my dear,’ Richard agreed, smiling at her. ‘Let’s go and find somewhere comfortable for you, shall we?’

She mustn’t give up hope, Katrina told herself stoutly five minutes later. Richard was escorting her to the oasis, his behaviour more that of a jailer than a would-be lover.

‘This will do,’ he announced, indicating one of the palm trees, but as Katrina walked towards it he held back. When she caught the warning chink of metal on metal she knew immediately that it was the handcuffs he had shown her earlier. Without stopping to think, she started to run, her flight from him as panic-stricken as that of a delicately boned gazelle. Fear drove her forward, towards the narrow pass between the steep rocks, oblivious to the sound of vehicles being driven fast over the bumpy terrain and the cries of warrior horsemen. Too late to realise what those sounds were, she burst through the pass and into full view of the group of fugitives.

They were led by El Khalid, but it was one of his young lieutenants who saw her first. He swerved the battered Land Rover he was driving round so hard that he almost overturned it.

Behind Katrina, at the pass between the rocks, Richard fell back in terror, and then turned and ran towards his own vehicle, ignoring Katrina’s plight. He leapt into it and started the engine, driving back in the direction he had come as fast as he could.

Katrina, though, was oblivious to his desertion of her.

The air around her was thick with choking dust, the last dying rays of the sun striking blindingly against the metal of the vehicle racing alongside her. The driver was leaning out of the window, one hand on the steering wheel, the other reaching for her, a lascivious grin slicing his face.

Immediately she turned to run back the way she had come. Unwanted though Richard’s attentions were, she could deal far more easily with him than she could with what she was now facing, but to her horror she recognised that her escape route was already being blocked off by the horse and rider bearing down on her even as she still tried to run from him.

The sound of his horse’s hooves mingled with the fierce cries of the men surrounding her. He was so close to her that she could feel the heat of the horse’s breath on her skin. Her heart felt as though it were about to burst. She saw him draw level with her and bend low in his saddle, his hand coming out, and then unbelievably she was being lifted off the ground and swept up onto the horse’s back in front of him, as his prisoner.

Sobbing for breath, her heart pounding sickly, her face pressed against the coarsely woven cloth of the tunic he was wearing, she could do nothing other than lie there, forced to breathe in the smell of the fabric, with its faint lemony scent. Katrina stiffened. She now realised the lemony cologne, like the scent of the man himself, were both immediately familiar to her. The drumming of horse’s hooves became the drumming of her own heart as she struggled to twist her body so that she could look up into his face.

As she had expected all she could see of it were his eyes—gold-flecked, reminding her of a tiger’s eye. Her heart leapt and banged against her chest wall as she looked into them and saw them flash gold sparks of molten anger back at her.

Quickly she turned her head, too shocked to withstand the contempt in his eyes. In the distance she could see the four-wheel drive disappearing as Richard drove himself to safety, having left her to her fate. Tears welled in her eyes and one rolled down her face to land on the golden warmth of the male hand holding the horse’s reins.

His mouth hardening, he shook it away. He murmured to the horse as he wheeled round and started to head back to the group of men watching them.

As he did so out of nowhere, or so it seemed to Katrina, a vehicle appeared, driven at frightening speed right at them. In the driver’s seat was the man who had first pursued her, his face contorted with savagery as he shook his fist at her captor and mouthed some words in a dialect she could not understand before driving off again, reaching the waiting onlookers ahead of them.

There were a hundred, no, a thousand questions she wanted to ask, Katrina acknowledged, but before she could do so he was reining in his mount in front of a powerfully built man of medium height, who was gesturing to him to dismount.

Katrina shivered to see the powerful-looking rifle he was wearing slung over one shoulder, an ammunition belt around his waist, into which was thrust a wicked-looking traditionally curved dagger.

At his side was the man who had pursued her, gesticulating angrily as he pointed towards her and burst into a rapid speech, of which she could only catch the odd word.

A brief inclination of his head from the man at her side told Katrina that the man with the gun must be the leader of the men. But whilst he obviously commanded the obedience of everyone else, she was aware that her captor’s body language was subtly emphasising his own independence.

‘Why did you let the man get away?’ Katrina heard the leader demand angrily in Zuranese.

There was a brief pause before her captor answered him coolly, ‘El Khalid, you’re asking me a question you should surely be asking another! A man on horseback, even when that animal is as fast as any mount in the Ruler’s fabled stable, cannot hope to outrun a four-wheel drive. Sulimen could have caught up with him had he not decided to pursue an easier prey.’

‘He has taken my prize and now he seeks to discredit me. The girl is mine, El Khalid,’ the driver of the Land Rover protested hotly.

‘You hear what Sulimen says, Tuareg! What do you answer him?’

Katrina had to bite down hard on her lip to stop herself from turning to her captor and begging him not to let Sulimen take her. The leader had called him ‘Tuareg’, using only his tribal name, whereas he had used the more intimate Sulimen for the other man. Did that mean he would favour the other’s claim? Katrina felt sick at the thought.

Why didn’t her captor say something…? She could feel him looking at her, but she could not bring herself to lift her head and look back at him. She was too afraid of what she might see in his eyes.

‘I answer him that I have the girl and he does not. She will earn me a fat purse when I take her back to Zuran City and ransom her back to her people.’

‘No one is to leave this camp until I say so,’ came the harsh response. ‘I have gathered you all here in this place for a special mission. Our success in it will make us all very rich men.

‘Since both of you lay claim to the girl, then you might fight one another for her.’ He gave a small jerk of his head, and before Katrina could protest she was being led forcibly away by two fierce-looking armed men.

Anxiously she turned round just in time to see El Khalid removing the glitteringly sharp-edged hooked dagger from his belt and throwing it towards her captor.

The breath left her lungs in a rush as he caught it and he and Sulimen began to circle one another. Sulimen already had a similar dagger in his hand and almost immediately he jabbed savagely at his opponent with it. The other men had begun to form a circle around them.

Standing behind them between her jailers, Katrina could only catch maddeningly brief glimpses of the two men as they fought.

Not that she liked watching men fight—far from it—but on this occasion she had a very strong reason for wanting to know which one was going to be the victor. Whilst the men had dragged her away, the two opponents, whilst retaining their headgear, had removed their cloaks and tunics and were fighting bare-chested as they circled one another barefoot.

It was now dark and lanterns had been lit to illuminate the scene that to Katrina looked like something from another world.

The light from one of the lanterns glittered on the daggers as they were raised in clenched hands, and the sickening sounds of human combat echoed the thuds of bare feet on sand.

She heard a low grunt of pain and heard the watching men roar in approval; above their heads she could see the hand holding a dagger aloft, the light catching the tiny droplets of blood that fell from it. Her stomach heaved. Was the man with the golden eyes badly wounded? Ridiculously, given all she already knew about him and all that she didn’t, her anxiety and concern were not for her own plight and safety, but for his, and she knew that had she been able to do so she would have rushed to his side.

She heard another groan and another roar of approval, but this time it was the name ‘Tuareg’ the watching men were calling out in praise.

The fight seemed to go on for ever, and Katrina was becoming increasingly sickened by the thought of such violence and cruelty. She was simply not programmed to find anything about physical violence acceptable, Katrina acknowledged. Her initial anxious need to see what was happening had been overlaid by relief that she was spared witnessing such a loathsome spectacle.

But at last it was apparently over, the watching men cheering loudly as she was pulled through their ranks to where the two antagonists stood in front of El Khalid.

Only one of the three men commanded her attention, though, and her stomach churned with a mixture of nausea and guilty relief as she heard the crowd chanting ‘Tuareg’ and saw that in his hands he was holding aloft both of the daggers, whilst his opponent slumped despondently beside him.

But then he turned round and Katrina sucked in a shocked breath as she saw the blood-beaded wounds on his flesh. One had slit the taut skin of his face along his cheekbone and dangerously close to his eye, another was carved just above his heart, and blood was dripping from a third on his upper arm.

A feeling of sick dizziness began to threaten her, but she ignored it, dragging her gaze away from the sweat-gilded expanse of taut male chest in front of her. Sulimen, in contrast, did not appear to have any wounds at all, which puzzled Katrina a little since ‘Tuareg’ was obviously the victor.

‘Here is your prize,’ she heard El Khalid telling him. ‘Take her.’

Was it her imagination or was the slight bow her captor made in El Khalid’s direction more cynical than respectful? If so, no one else seemed to have thought so.

He still hadn’t so much as acknowledged her presence, turning to toss El Khalid’s dagger back to him, and then turning back to lean forward and scoop up his discarded tunic.

Out of the corner of her eye Katrina saw Sulimen go to sheathe his own dagger, but then terrifyingly, instead of doing so, he lunged violently towards her captor’s unprotected back, the dagger clenched in his raised hand.

Katrina heard her own sharp sound of shocked warning, but it seemed something else must have alerted ‘Tuareg’ to the danger because he had already whirled round, and in a movement so fast that Katrina’s eyes could not follow it he had kicked out at Sulimen’s raised hand, dislodging the knife.

Immediately three men seized Sulimen and dragged him away. As though nothing at all out of the ordinary had happened, her captor picked up his tunic and pulled it on before indicating with a brusque inclination of his head that she was to join him.

‘Come,’ he said peremptorily. He took such long strides that she had difficulty in keeping up with him, but the moment she reached his side he stopped walking and turned to look down at her.

‘You will not walk at my side, but behind me,’ he told her coldly.

Katrina could hardly believe her ears. And as for walking behind him! The traumas she had endured were forgotten, in the full fury of her outraged female pride.

‘I will do no such thing,’ she refused hotly. ‘I am not your…your chattel…And besides, in Zuran men walk alongside their partners.’

‘This is not Zuran, it is the desert, and you are mine to do with as I choose, when and how I choose.’

Without giving her the opportunity to answer him, he turned away and continued to walk swiftly towards the pitched tents, which were cleverly concealed from view in a protective natural enclosure of steep-sided rocky outcrops.