Prince of the Desert

Her father had told her that he had not as yet stayed in the apartment himself. He had bought it off plan, fully furnished and ready to move into, right down to the bedlinen and towels, all chosen by a top-flight interior designer. This room certainly had an immaculate ‘show house’ air about it—right down to the subtle scent of sandalwood. This was a room designed to embrace each one of the five senses.

Off the living room she found an immaculate galley kitchen, complete with a fridge that dispensed iced water, and a terraced balcony with table and chairs. But right now it wasn’t either food or drink she craved so much as sleep.

She found the bedroom at the other end of the corridor, and pushed open the door. She came to an abrupt halt. Its decor was so sensually opulent that just looking at it made her skin prickle with sensory overload. It was decorated in a blend of creams and beiges dramatically highlighted with black, and with the lavish use of rich fabrics and gilt-framed mirrors.

She went back to the corridor and opened the remaining door. Maybe originally the room had been intended to be used as a bedroom, but right now it was furnished as a home office.

She had left her case in the hallway and she went back to get it. She frowned a little to see that the main door did not have any kind of security chain, and then shrugged mentally as she reassured herself that it was impossible to get into the building without a pass key.

It was almost one o’clock, and she had an appointment with the government agency dealing with the ownership of Zurani property by foreign nationals in the morning, she reminded herself. And she undressed and stepped into the shower of the marble en suite bathroom.

Fifteen minutes later she was in bed and fast asleep.

‘Tariq.’

A warm smile illuminated the face of Zuran’s ruler as he greeted one of his favourite relatives. He embraced him as his equal, ruler to ruler, for although in Zuran he was the Ruler, and Tariq one of his subjects, Tariq’s own small kingdom—a remote hidden valley where the desert met the mountains—meant that he was also a prince in his own right. ‘I hear that you hope to begin work soon on the excavation of the ancient city of your ancestors?’

Tariq smiled back. ‘Once the heat of the summer is over, work will start.’

‘And you would rather be there, scratching around in the sand, than here at my court?’ The Ruler laughed as he studied the younger man.

Although they were both wearing traditional Arab dress, Tariq was clean-shaven where the Ruler was bearded, grey-eyed where the Ruler’s eyes were a more traditional dark brown, and his skin was more sun-browned than naturally olive, betraying his dual heritage. However, the two men shared the same arrogantly hawkish profile and the same scimitar-like mouths, the same pride of bearing and awareness of who and what they were.

The Ruler reached out and placed his hand on the younger man’s arm whilst Tariq maintained a diplomatic silence. He had fondness and a great respect for the Ruler, both as a monarch and as a friend.

When his late mother’s marriage had ended, after her British husband—his father—had walked out on them, she had accepted an invitation from the Ruler’s late father to make her home beneath his roof rather than live alone with her young son. Tariq had virtually grown up here at the palace, although along with many other young men from Zuran he had received his schooling in England and America.

‘So,’ the Ruler invited him, ‘what progress is there with your investigations into this matter of the double selling of those properties that were made available for purchase by non-Zurani nationals?

Tariq waved away the dish of sweetmeats he was being offered, the scimitar-shaped mouth softening into an amused smile as his somewhat plump relative bit into one. The Ruler was known for his sweet tooth.

‘The leader of the gang—Chad—is a South African, and I have now been allowed to meet him. He has intimated to me that he is already receiving the help of someone high up within the Zurani Government, who has been providing them with the documents they need to claim ownership of the properties. They are then illegally selling them on, at an inflated price, and not just to one buyer but to two, doubling their profit. By the time their victims discover that they do not own the properties they believe they have bought it is too late—their money has gone.

‘Unfortunately at the moment the gang leader obviously doesn’t trust me enough to give me the name of the Zurani official who is assisting him. Chad is too clever to put himself at risk—so much so, in fact, that he controls his criminal operation from a sea-going yacht. As you know, I have represented myself to the gang as someone whose services can be bought—a disaffected and profoundly greedy junior member of the Zurani Royal Family—in the hope that the promise of my potential influence will cause them to reveal the identity of their contact. But Chad is a very cautious and suspicious man. It is obviously not enough for him that I have accepted the bribe he has already offered me, in the form of one of the apartments they have now acquired with my assistance.’

‘This, of course, is the apartment in which you are now living?’

‘It seemed a good way to reinforce his belief in my greed. I’ve also claimed that I’m short of ready cash because the inheritance from my mother is being kept from me and controlled by you. Although to cover myself I have let it be known that this is not public knowledge.’ Tariq shrugged. ‘After all, we must assume that whoever it is who is helping them will know who I am, and of my family’s wealth, so they have to believe in my grudge-bearing and acquisitive nature.’

‘I sense that you are not entirely happy with the role you have been called upon to play,’ the Ruler remarked sympathetically. ‘But you are one of the few people in whom I have absolute trust, Tariq, and this is a very sensitive matter.’

‘Indeed! So far all the victims we know about have stated that they bought their property via a supposed “official agent”. Unfortunately,’ he added dryly, ‘since this agent dressed in traditional Arab dress, had a beard and wore very large sunglasses, none of them felt able to recognise and identify him. We must assume that he either was or is connected with the Zurani official who is helping the gang. That being the case, if what is happening becomes public knowledge in the international arena it will damage Zuran’s reputation very badly.’

‘That must not be allowed to happen. This man must be found and unmasked,’ said the Ruler sternly, his expression softening as he added, ‘I know that I can trust you to do whatever is necessary.’

Having dismissed his car and driver a safe distance away from the apartment, Tariq paused to breathe in the warm late-night air. It was on nights like this that the desert called to him so strongly that his desire to leave the city behind and satisfy his need to return to it became a hunger in his soul.

He thought with contempt of the corrupt gang of men he was currently involved with. Only last night their leader had promised him the services of one of the skimpily dressed prostitutes who were also on board the yacht, as a further reward for Tariq’s support.

Of course he’d had to pretend to be flattered by the offer, even though in reality he had been utterly revolted by the sleaziness of both the gang and their leader’s offer. He had declined to accept, using the excuse that he was afraid that it might get to the ears of his cousin the Ruler, who would then be even less inclined to allow him control of his inheritance.

Despite the fact that he had been celibate for the last eighteen months—since the termination of a discreet relationship he had shared with an elegant divorced Frenchwoman who, like him, had had no desire to commit herself to marriage—the sight of the skimpily clad young women with their surgically enhanced breasts and vacant eyes had not aroused him at all. How many other members of the gang had enjoyed their favours? Some of them? All of them? And more? Other men as well?

His mouth curled in contemptuous disgust as he recalled how the gang leader had offered slyly, ‘Why don’t I arrange to have one of them sent up to your apartment so that you can enjoy her in private?’

‘Thank you, but no,’ Tariq had responded, feigning regret.

He reached the apartment block, and, reaching for his pass key, inserted it into the lock and waited for the doors to open.

Once inside the apartment Tariq strode through to the bedroom without bothering to switch on the light or glance towards the bed, stripping off before going into the wetroom attached to the en suite bathroom and then standing beneath the fierce lash of the shower.

Gwynneth woke up abruptly. Her face was on fire whilst her body ached with a different kind of heat. Why was this happening to her now, after all these years? Why had physical desire chosen now to voice its protest at her denial of it?

Her father had laughed at her and accused her of being unable to understand sexual desire. But she did understand it. She understood it all too well, she admitted. She understood her own vulnerability to it—which was why she had forced herself to learn to control it, to repress and restrain it, out of fear that it would lead her to become like him. But now, suddenly, she couldn’t control it. It pulsed hotly and urgently within her body, clamouring for release, shocking and confusing her.

Abruptly she sat up in the bed—at the exact moment that Tariq opened the door from the en suite bathroom.

Gwynneth stared in mute disbelief at the man standing in the doorway, framed by the light from the bathroom behind him. Like her, he was completely naked. Well, no, he was not actually like her at all, she thought feverishly. His skin was warmly tanned where hers was pale, his shoulders broad, his chest softly furred with silky dark hair, his belly flat. He was, she acknowledged, the most sexily physically perfect man she could ever have imagined. Tall, dark and handsome. Plus he had that edgy, dangerous male air that produced a female frisson of erotic fear within her—the kind of fear that was not fear at all, but rather an excitement that was morally shocking. One brief glance. That was all she needed to tell her that everything about him pushed all the right buttons for her. How on earth had she conjured him up? She blinked determinedly. This couldn’t really be happening. He was an illusion, a figment of her imagination.

Only he was still there, and no amount of blinking seemed to be banishing him. Which meant…Which meant that he had to be real! Hurriedly Gwynneth looked away from him, her face starting to burn.

It was that over-acted fake look of confusion with which she turned her head and then let it droop on the pale stem of her neck that was responsible for the savage increase in his anger, Tariq decided as he demanded bitingly, ‘How did you get in here?’

As if he needed to ask. He knew perfectly well what she was and who was responsible for her presence here in his apartment—and in his bed.

Striding towards her, he said curtly, ‘No, don’t bother answering me. I already know the answer—just as I know exactly what you are!’ He gave her a look of icy disdain. No way was she staying here. He wanted her out of the apartment—and speedily, even if that meant he had to dress her himself.

Her naked man wasn’t an illusion at all, or a figment of her imagination. He was very much real, and he had almost reached the bed, Gwynneth realised in panic, her trapped gaze skittering away from his chest.

She cried out in protest as his fingers tightened round her upper arm, instinctively trying to pull away from him as he virtually hauled her off the bed.

At least these breasts were real, Tariq couldn’t help thinking, as he monitored the gentle bounce produced by her agitated movements and remembered the unmoving plastic look of the surgically enhanced breasts of the girls he had seen on the yacht and thought so repulsive. A woman’s breasts surely should be soft and malleable, just big enough to fill a man’s cupped hand, as this woman’s breasts would surely do. He could almost imagine how they would feel, her skin warm, her nipples tightening against his touch, her breasts swelling with arousal just as his own body—

The shock of what he was experiencing exploded into savage disbelief. He couldn’t possibly be aroused by her.

‘What are you doing? Let go of me!’ She couldn’t just give in to him, Gwynneth told herself wildly as she pushed frantically against his chest with her free hand.

‘Where are your clothes?’

Her clothes? His question bemused her, making her frown slightly.

Tariq could feel the silky length of her hair brushing his chest as she dipped her head and tried to raise her arms to conceal her naked breasts. Her skin looked milky pale against his own, the movement of her arms bringing the fingers he had wrapped around her arm into contact with the soft flesh of her breast. Her eyes were a deep jade, her lips the soft pink of the inside of a shell dredged up from the depths of the gulf. His gaze dropped from her mouth to her breasts, creamy pale flesh mounted with warm brown nipples that were swelling and hardening beneath the heat of his gaze.

Gwynneth could hear the sound of her own breathing, feel the heavy sensual pound of her own blood. Her gaze, no longer under her control, dropped boldly down his body to where she had been so determined not to look, and a small sound that she would not allow to be a soft moan of pleasure leaked from her lungs.

Tariq could feel the savage surge of his own anger racing through him, overturning everything in its way. Anger against the woman he was holding, anger against the men who had sent her to him, anger against so many things—but most of all anger against himself. He was simply not prepared to admit to the unwanted piercing stab of desire that was currently arcing through him. It was impossible for him to be aroused by a woman such as this, impossible for him to want her, impossible for him to touch her. But, impossible or not, all three of those things were happening.

CHAPTER TWO