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Sylvie was too stunned to move. ‘Wh—where are we going?’
Arkim angled himself so he could see her and made a rude sound. ‘Don’t you ever do anything you’re told?’ The material was firmly pulled back over her mouth and he said, ‘It’ll stop sand getting in.’
Sylvie couldn’t say anything else, because Arkim was turning the horse around and they were galloping in the opposite direction from where the Jeeps had gone. For a semi-hysterical moment Sylvie thought that perhaps she’d pushed Arkim so far he was just going to dump her in the desert and leave her to die a slow, painful death.
Gradually, though, as they galloped into the seeming nothingness of the sandy landscape, almost against her will she felt herself relaxing into Arkim’s body, letting him take her weight. One of his arms was around her torso, holding her to him, and she felt the intimate space between her legs soften and moisten.
She was fast losing all sense of reality. The real world and civilisation felt very far away.
After about twenty minutes Arkim drew the stallion to a stop, its muscles quivering under Sylvie’s legs. He got off the horse and Sylvie looked down to see his arms outstretched towards her. His mouth was stern.
‘Bring your leg over the horse, Sylvie.’
She wanted to disobey, but she knew Arkim would pull her off the horse anyway. Better to do it with a modicum of decorum and not let him see how intimidated she was. And she was scared... Even though she knew—in some way she didn’t like to investigate—that he wouldn’t harm her.
Her hands landed on Arkim’s wide shoulders and his hands clamped around her waist as he lifted her down as effortlessly as before. She saw the reins on the ground and said nervously, ‘Won’t the horse just go?’
‘Aziz won’t move unless I say so. And we
won’t be long.’ Arkim’s tone brooked no disobedience—from her or the horse.
Sylvie broke away from Arkim’s hands. The keffiyah was still around her mouth and she pulled it down as she looked around at a sea of nothing but blue sky and dunes.
‘Why are we here?’
Arkim planted himself in front of her, hands on hips. ‘Because this is where you would have ended up if the buggy hadn’t run out of fuel. This is where we might have found you in two days, if we were lucky enough, dehydrated and burnt to a crisp.’
Sylvie looked at him and shivered. ‘You’re exaggerating.’
Arkim looked livid. He grabbed her arms with his hands. ‘No, I’m not. Men who know this area, who have lived here for years, can still get caught out by the desert. Right now it looks calm, wouldn’t you agree?’
Sylvie nodded hesitantly.
Arkim’s mouth thinned. ‘It’s anything but. There’s a sandstorm due to hit any day now. Have you ever been in a sandstorm?’
She shook her head.
‘Imagine a tidal wave coming towards you—except in this case it’s made of sand and debris, not water. You’d be obliterated in seconds. Suffocated.’
Genuine horror and fear finally made her realise just how reckless she’d been. She seized on the surge of anger. He made her feel as if she was a tiny ship bobbing about in a huge raging sea.
‘Okay, fine—I get it. What I did was foolish and reckless and silly. I didn’t know. I didn’t mean to put everyone to so much trouble...’ A very unwelcome sense of vulnerability made her lash out. ‘But, in case you don’t remember, it’s your fault I’m even here!’
* * *
Arkim looked down at that beautiful but defiant face and felt such a mix of things that he was dizzy. He shook his head, but nothing rational would come to the surface. All he could see was her.
He gave in to the urgent dictates of his blood and lowered his mouth to the lush contours of hers—and drowned.
His tongue swept into her mouth in a marauding move and he quickly became oblivious to everything except the rough stroke of his tongue against Sylvie’s, demanding a response.
She resisted him for long seconds, but he felt her gradually relax, as if losing a battle with herself. Once again there was an almost unbelievable hesitance—as if she didn’t know what to do. The thought that she could do this—get under his skin so easily, make him doubt himself—made Arkim’s blood boil.
He held the back of her covered head and put his hand to where her neck met her shoulder in an unashamedly possessive move, his thumb reaching for and finding that hectic pulse-beat, which was telling him that no matter how ingrained it was in her to act, she couldn’t control everything.
And finally he felt her arms relax and start to climb around his neck, bringing her body into more intimate contact with his. Her mouth softened and she...acquiesced. The triumph was heady. Her tongue stroked his sweetly, sucking him deep—as deep as he imagined the exquisite clasp of her body would be around his in a more intimate caress.
He wanted to throw her down on the ground right here and pull up that robe, yank down her jeans, until he could find his release. The desire was so strong he shook in a bid to rein it in. And that brought him back from the brink of losing it completely.
