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Of course she was uneasy, he told himself. She had agreed to something that not many would have consented to. She was about to ride across the desert with an almost complete stranger, someone who had already caused her enough trouble.
He wondered why she was willing to do such a thing and then realized that it fit into the kind of person he thought she was. She was someone who liked an adventure, liked to take risks. She couldn't have achieved what she'd done without taking chances. They were both about to take a big chance, he reflected as he tugged on the reins.
The horse responded, starting to move across the sandy ground. Ahmed held onto the reins with one hand and with his other he pulled Gemma closer against him by placing his hand across her middle.
He waited for her to respond with some kind of objection, perhaps push him away, and he was pleased when she didn't do so immediately. Instead, he felt her body tense for a few moments and then, just as quickly, relax.
"Okay?" he asked.
"Yup," she said. "This should be fun," she added.
He smiled. The way she'd said that made her sound so American, so confident, he told himself.
The horse moved across the desert out past the western edge of the town and along the long spread of the valley floor. They rose up and across a ridge and out onto a flat, dune-covered plain that stretched away into the distance. The moonlight cast silvery light across the landscape.
Ahmed drew in a long appreciative breath and felt instantly at home. Ahmed loved this time of night. He'd spent many nights riding in the desert.
Alone.
It filled his soul, connected him to this place in a primal way. It gave him a necessary peace which he could never find back in the city.
The horses hooves were sure footed even in the soft sand as they began to navigate their way through the dunes.
Ahmed knew the safest way away from town and negotiated the narrow passes through the desert dunes with an expert eye. He had an inborn sense of the desert, something he felt in his blood. It was like a compass that never failed him.
Gemma continued to press gently back against him. His body responded to the proximity of hers with a treacherous hardening, over which he had virtually no control.
Not wanting to make her feel uncomfortable, he shifted slightly backwards so that she would not be able to tell how she was affecting him. It had been a long time since a woman had had such an instant effect upon him, Ahmed reflected.
He had realized last night, upon meeting her for the first time, that she was no ordinary woman. And that had nothing to do with her celebrity or fame. He had no interest in such things.
That was where he and Rashid differed. Rashid's idea was to use Gemma as some way of connecting with the outside world, of making Qazhar seem more modern, more contemporary. As far as Ahmed was concerned, that was a project that was doomed to failure.
Rashid thought Gemma would provide him with a role model for young women in their region. That they would see in Gemma something to be emulated.
But, Ahmed already knew something that Rashid didn't. Gemma was so much more than that. She had qualities that took her far beyond Rashid's trivial ambitions. Ahmed had seen those qualities, even if Rashid's narrow vision had blinded him them.
But she wasn't with Rashid now. She was with him.
While she was with him, the only thing Ahmed was interested in was being as close to Gemma as possible. He wanted to find out everything about her. He needed to get to know if his instincts about her were real. Or whether he was simply fooling himself.
One thing was for sure, she affected him physically like no other woman. The scent of her hair; the feel of her blonde locks as they fluttered against the side of his face caused pleasure to sweep through his body. Her heat was so tempting and the feel of her body against his hand settled at her middle just caused firmness to swell in him.
Ahmed was suddenly glad he'd come all this way on the off chance of finding her. It had been a gamble which had paid off handsomely.
They began to move quickly across the desert landscape. The scent of her body wrapped itself around him like a warm blanket.
She didn't say much the first ten or fifteen minutes as they rode across the desert. Perhaps she was just trying to get used to the whole idea, he told himself. Maybe now that she was riding across the desert, with him at her back, she realized just what she'd agreed to.
He would have given anything to know what she was thinking, what she was feeling, but he didn't want to intrude on her private reflections.
In any case, that was part of the deal. He had agreed that by bringing her to his encampment he would be giving her a chance of some solitude.
And he was going to keep that agreement, because that with the kind of man he was. A man who kept his promises.
But it was not going be easy.
Suddenly she spoke. "This is so amazing," she said. Her voice was filled with wonder as she gazed out across the moonlit landscape. "I've never seen anything like this in my life."
