The Playboy Sheikh

Then her eyes had been as close as this. He was aware of a deep, primitive jealousy now that the others in the room were seeing her so intimately. If he had given way to it, he would have stood up and tossed them bodily out of the studio.

The camera drew back to reveal the wide, straight forehead, smooth cheeks, the straight, slightly flat nose. Then further, and her generous, half-truculent mouth trembled into a smile. Thick, pale blond hair in a wave above her eyes fell back from her forehead and down in a luxurious tumble over one shoulder and arm.

He had lain tangled in that hair, had stroked it and threaded his fingers into it. He could feel the memory of it now on his fingertips, a sensuous silk. Its perfume was suddenly thick in his nostrils. He closed his eyes as the familiar yearning swept him.

“Very unusual beauty.”

“Real individuality…”

Behind him the voices murmured, but he scarcely heard. Onscreen, she spoke briefly, turned and walked away from the camera. She was wearing a short, tight skirt that outlined her hips, showed the slender legs. Her voice was low and resonant, as always, and amused, as it had been when he last heard it. She spoke over her shoulder, a half smile toying at the corner of her mouth, then swung her head so that her hair slid from her shoulder and tumbled down her back.

He felt it like a touch. His skin burned.

The door opened and closed, and she was gone. Just the way she had walked out of his life. A smile, a shake of the head, and the sound of a closing door.

He ached now the way he had then, for the door to open again, for her to come back, to say she had changed her mind.

“Here’s another,” said a voice.

She was there again, this time in a bikini, on a beach. She was eating ice cream, totally absorbed in it, while all around her men ignored reality to watch her and dream. A man capsized a boat. His passengers waved and shouted from the water, and the lifeguard leapt to attention, but it was her that he had seen. A volleyball game collapsed in mayhem as she strolled in the sunshine, her hair blowing, her beautiful body warm with female curves. A hot dog vendor drove his cart off a pier.

She is mine, he told them all.

“Fabulous,” murmured a voice.

There were murmurs of agreement, but Jaf said nothing. He watched her lick the cone and mime a satisfaction that was almost sexual. He had seen that look on her face before, too, but she had not been miming then. He was sure of that.

The ice cream manufacturer’s logo flashed and froze onscreen above her upturned face. “Well, I don’t think we could find a better addition to the harem, could we?” a man said, as if he had a choice. As if it had not been a foregone conclusion from the beginning. “I think she’d be a gift to please any sultan. How about it, Jaf?”

He smiled and nodded. Going along with the pretence. “Fine by me,” he said. As if it hardly mattered to him. As if they didn’t know.

She had smiled at him before she went, half mocking, challenging him. Do your worst, she had said.

She would see what his worst was. A gift for the sultan first, but she would be his, all his, in the end.

One

She clung desperately to the slippery surface of the mahogany chest and rode the swell as a wave lifted her. Behind her the next wave broke with a tumbling hiss, and she gulped in air as it washed over her.

Ahead of her was the long white coastline. Beyond, miles of blinding green sea.

The sun was fierce. The salt stung her eyes. Her pale hair floated around her in the water and clung to her cheeks like rich seaweed. The long skirt of her dress, open down the front to free her legs, trailed behind her in the waves, green on green. Her legs kicked through the sparkling water, searching for a footing. As if the sea were a passionate, impatient lover, another wave rose over her and grasped her in its rough caress.

At a little distance, hidden from view behind a rocky outcrop, he sat astride a white horse, watching. Jealousy burned in him as if he saw another man make love to her.

Her kicking foot touched ground then, and she stood upright in waist-deep water and let the wooden chest go to be pummelled and tumbled up the white sand beach by the surf.

As she struggled through the breakers, they rushed and dragged, the sea trying to pull her back into its arms. She stumbled once, and staggered, almost losing the battle, but the sea missed its moment, and she righted herself.

Still he watched, motionless, as if waiting for a sign.

The sea’s froth bubbled around her as she moved, dragging her skirt back to reveal her legs and then rushing forward with it again, as if in sudden anxiety to preserve her modesty. As she came unsteadily out of the sea it danced and hissed around her slick, glowing thighs, then her knees, then her rippling calves, and finally her ankles, while her dress alternately hid and revealed her flesh.

It was an erotic and evocative striptease. His body tormented him as he imagined his hands, his mouth, his body stroking her as the waves did, reducing her to the panting exhaustion that made her breasts heave.

With a sensuous sweep, she lifted one arm to drag the long, water-soaked hair off her neck and shoulders and toss it to fall down her back. Her firm young breasts pressed against the low neckline of her dress as she moved, and her forearm showed soft and female under the green fabric.

His mount snorted and tossed its head, and he laid a hand on its neck. “Wait a little,” he murmured. The horse obediently stilled.

At a point barely beyond the water’s reach, in grateful, graceful exhaustion, her hands lifted high, her head fell back, and she opened her mouth with a cry of triumph and gratitude and dropped to her knees on the sand. Then she collapsed onto her back, her arms outstretched, to drink in sun and air and life.

A stronger wave rolled up the beach under her legs, lifting the skirt of her dress in a bubble and then dropping it to one side, revealing her legs again, one knee a little bent. His body hurt with the need to kiss her where the water kissed her.

The horse reacted instantly to the permission of his knees and leapt forward into a gallop. Sand flew up under its hooves. His keffiyeh and his white robe streamed out behind and his white-clad legs blended with the horse’s back as if they were one creature.

They pounded along the beach together, horse and man, spattering sparkling water that caught the bright sun so that they seemed to spread diamonds in their train.

She must have felt the thunder under her back but, as if too exhausted to react, still lay without moving. Then he was almost upon her. He pulled the horse to a standstill as she turned her head against the sand to look up.

Her eyes found his face. Her mouth fell open in complete shock. She leapt to a sitting position, all trace of exhaustion gone. Totally disoriented, she cried, “What are you doing here?”

He smiled grimly, one eyebrow raised. “This is my land,” he informed her.

“Your land?” she repeated in blank amazement.

“I told you you would come to me in the end,” he said.

“What the devil’s going on?” demanded Masoud al Badi, of no one in particular. “Where did that white horse come from? Where’s the black horse? What the hell is Adnan doing?”

The assistant looked up from the shooting script and shrugged expressively. “I went over the scene with him, and he was on the black horse then.”

The director turned his eyes back to the couple on the beach. “Isn’t that Adnan out there with her? Who the hell is it? Where’s Adnan?”

“I’m here,” said a sheepish voice as a man in the same white desert garb as the rider came out of a nearby trailer. “It’s Jafar al Hamzeh.” He shrugged helplessly. “Sorry, Mr. al Badi, he said—”

“Jaf?” exploded the director incredulously, whirling to stare again. “Is he crazy?”

As he watched, the distant female figure struggled to her feet and started running wildly along the beach. Her naked feet left small, perfect white imprints in the wet sand as she ran.

“Allah, he’s panicked her! She’ll break her ankle!” the director cried.

A buzz ran through the set at the sound of the name, and the crew was suddenly alert. Wardrobe people and makeup artists and gofers appeared at the doors of different trailers as if someone had waved a magic wand. Jafar al Hamzeh, Cup Companion to Prince Karim, was not only rich and as handsome as the devil, he was also, at the moment, the tabloids’ favourite playboy.

Things got interesting when Jafar al Hamzeh was around. If he had taken an interest in the film’s star…this could be quite an adventurous shoot.

Down on the beach, the rider remained still, seated negligently on the horse, one fist against his hip, the other casually gripping the reins, in a posture so purely, physically arrogant it was like watching a hawk or a big cat. Letting his prey run a little, his attitude said, for the sake of better sport.

The director stood as if tied, staring, while the tiny green-clad figure raced wildly down the beach. He lifted his bullhorn and shouted, but they were too far away. His voice would be feeble against the surf.