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Reality slammed into him. He was in the middle of the desert, under the merciless sun, about to ravage this woman. Make her his...brand her like some kind of animal.
He wanted to push her away from him and yet never let her go.
He hated her. He wanted her.
He pulled back from the kiss even though everything in his body and his blood protested at the move. He felt the unrelenting beat of the sun on his head. Her eyes opened after a moment, wide and blue...and that intriguing blue-green. Her cheeks were flushed. Lips swollen.
And then suddenly she tensed and scrambled free of his arms. Arkim might almost have laughed—even now she was intent on playing this game of push and pull. Acting her little heart out.
‘Have you forgotten that you’re a civilised man?’
Even her voice sounded suitably shaky. But Arkim barely cast her a glance as he reached for the horse’s reins. ‘I don’t have to be civilised here.’
That was why he’d brought her here in the first place—because he didn’t trust himself around her in more civilised surroundings. It was as if he’d known the desert was the only place big enough to contain what he felt for her.
He picked up the reins, ignoring the dull throb of unsatisfied desire in his system...the way his arousal pressed against his trousers under his robe.
‘You really can’t turn it off, can you?’
Sylvie scowled at him. She should have looked ridiculous. The keffiyah was askew on her head, and slivers of bright red curling tendrils of hair peeped out from under its folds. She crossed her arms. ‘Turn what off?’
‘Your constant need to act out some role—pretend you don’t want this.’
‘I’m not acting. And I don’t want this! I don’t know what happened there...a moment of sunstroke...but it won’t be happening again.’
Arkim almost felt pity for her. He reached out and rubbed a thumb back and forth over her plump lower lip. ‘Oh, don’t worry—it’ll be happening again, and you’ll be fully participant in it when it does.’
Sylvie slapped his hand away. She might have screamed at his arrogance, but he was lifting her up onto the horse again before she could take another breath. And, in any case, what could she say after she’d just melted all over him?
It was pathetic. She was pathetic. She turned to mush when he came near her. So she’d just have to keep him at a distance.
But then he got up on the horse behind her again, and predictably Sylvie’s body went into a paroxysm of anticipation as one arm snaked around her torso, holding her to him, and his other hand expertly gathered the reins to urge the horse on. Of course he would have to be an expert horseman too. Was there anything this man couldn’t do? Apart from act in a civil manner to her?
His lower body was pressed against her backside now, and she could feel the thrust of something unmistakably hard. Her face flamed, and it had nothing to do with the sun. She yanked the material of the keffiyah back over her mouth. He wouldn’t have to ask her to cover up. She’d never uncover herself again in this man’s presence.
CHAPTER FOUR
SYLVIE SAT CURLED up on one of the vast couches in the living area of her suite. When she’d returned to her rooms a couple of hours ago she’d found Halima waiting for her, with ointment for her sun-tender skin and some lunch snacks—and plenty of water. Arkim’s efficiency at work. Afterwards she’d changed into loose pants and layered on a couple of her sleeveless workout tops to keep her arms bare.
On their return Arkim had taken her into an expansive stables area at the back of the castle, and when he’d helped Sylvie off the horse she’d felt wobbly-legged and suitably chastened after being shown the very real dangers of the desert.
Arkim hadn’t accompanied her back to the castle; he’d sent for one of his staff to do it. Sylvie had recognised him as one of the drivers of the Jeeps and had apologised to him for having dragged them out to look for her. She wasn’t even sure if he’d understood her, but he’d shaken his head and looked embarrassed, as if it was nothing.
The night was falling outside now: the sky was a stunning deep violet colour and stars were appearing. Questions abounded in her head. Questions about Arkim. Seeing him against this backdrop was more intriguing than she liked to admit. And she hated to acknowledge it but she was also fascinated by the barely repressed emotions below the surface of his urbanity. He was different here. More raw. It should be intimidating. But it excited her.
What was his connection to this place? And if he had a connection here, how could he—a man who had this desert in his blood, so timeless and somehow base—agree to marry purely for business and strategic reasons?
A noise made her tense and she looked round to see the object of her thoughts in the doorway to her living room. Dressed in a robe again, with his head bare, he looked...powerful. Mysterious.
Sylvie’s belly tightened. ‘Come to check your prisoner is still here?’
Arkim’s mouth lifted slightly at one corner, as if he were wryly amused, and Sylvie felt it like a punch to the gut.
‘Somehow I don’t think even you would be so foolish as to try and escape again.’
Sylvie scowled. ‘Next time I’ll prepare better.’
His smile faded. ‘There won’t be a next time—believe me. You won’t be leaving until I do.’
