Possessed by the Sheikh

This was ridiculous, she told herself stoutly. A woman of twenty-four with a doctorate in biochemistry could not submit herself to some foolish, primitive sexual response to a complete stranger. And not just a stranger, but very probably a criminal as well! But her fingertips were already investigating the smooth curve of her mouth, restlessly seeking the imprint of his on hers. Her memory was faultlessly replaying to her everything that she had felt beneath the hard domination of his kiss.

Angrily she tried to deny what she was feeling. Her parents had been a pair of highly qualified scientists totally devoted to one another; they had lived for one another and died with one another when they’d been killed after the site they had been excavating had collapsed on them.

She had been seventeen at the time. Not a child any more, but not an adult either. Her parents, both only children, had had no other family, and their deaths had not only orphaned her but left her both with an aching need for someone to love her, someone to complete her, and with a deep-rooted fear of those feelings and the vulnerability they created within her.

Because of that she had buried them very deep inside herself, too immature and too frightened to cope with them. Instead she had concentrated on her studies, cautiously allowing herself to make friends, but not allowing anyone to get too close.

At twenty-four she had considered herself to be reasonably well adjusted and emotionally mature, but now…It was most definitely neither well adjusted nor emotionally mature to feel the way she did about a stranger.

Let’s analyse this, she told herself determinedly.

You are in a different country with different customs; a country, moreover, that has always fascinated you, which is why you were so keen to come here, why you learned Zuranese in the first place. Additionally you were on an adrenalin high brought on by an automatic fight or flight response to an unfamiliar situation. Of course such a highly charged situation was bound to affect you.

To the extent that she responded physically to a man she didn’t know? A man she obviously should have been on her guard against?

Everyone was entitled to one little mistake, she tried to comfort herself. And, after all, it was extremely unlikely that she would ever see him again. She didn’t want to accept how much that knowledge depressed her.

CHAPTER TWO

THE sun was just starting to rise over the horizon as they drove out of the villa in a convoy of sturdy, well-equipped four-wheel-drive vehicles heading for the desert. To Katrina’s dismay, Richard had insisted that she was to travel on her own with him in the vehicle that he was driving.

‘You’ll be much more comfortable here with me in the lead vehicle,’ he told her, laughing as he added unkindly, ‘The others will all be choking on our dust.’

It was true that the speed at which he was driving was throwing up a heavy cloud of fine sand, but Katrina would still far rather have been with someone else.

‘Why don’t you relax and close your eyes?’ Richard suggested oilily. ‘Catch up on your sleep. It’s going to be a long drive. But drink some water first. You know the rules about making sure we don’t get dehydrated.’

Obediently she took the open bottle of water he was handing her and drank from it.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to try to sleep, Katrina acknowledged fifteen minutes or so later as she stifled a yawn and then gave in to a sudden overwhelming temptation to close her eyes. If only so that she could avoid having to make conversation with Richard. And she did feel extraordinarily sleepy. Probably because she had spent far too much of the night thinking about the man with the golden eyes. As she drifted off to sleep she felt the vehicle start to pick up speed.

It was the late afternoon sun that finally woke her as it shone in through the windscreen. The realisation of how long she had been asleep made her sit bolt upright in her seat and turn to Richard in consternation.

‘You should have woken me,’ she told him. ‘How much longer will it be before we reach the wadi?’

It was several seconds before Richard answered her, the look in his eyes as he turned his head towards her making her feel sharply apprehensive. ‘We aren’t going to the wadi,’ he replied smugly. ‘We are going somewhere much more secluded and romantic…Somewhere where I can have you all to myself. Somewhere where I can show you…teach you…’

Katrina stared at him in dismay, hoping that she had misunderstood him, but it was obvious from the look on his face that she had not.

‘Richard, you simply can’t behave like this! We have to go to the wadi. The others will be expecting us…’

‘They think that we’ve had to turn back,’ he announced calmly. ‘I told them that you weren’t feeling very well. It was a good idea, I think, to get you to drink that water, which had some sleeping tablets in it.’

Katrina stared at him in horror.

‘Richard, this is ridiculous. I’m going to telephone the others right now and—’

‘You can’t do that, I’m afraid.’ He gave her a self-satisfied smile. ‘I’ve got your mobile. I took it out of your bag when I stopped to tell the others we were turning back.’

Katrina couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

‘This is crazy! Let’s just go and join the others and forget—’

‘No!’ He silenced her passionately. ‘We are going to the oasis. I’ve been planning how to get you to myself for days, and this is the perfect opportunity and the oasis is the perfect place. It is in the empty quarter of the desert, a veritable no man’s land, and this should appeal to you, Katrina, with your love of this region’s history. It was once used as a stopping-off place by the camel trains.’

Katrina stared at him. Her throat had gone dry and her heart was thudding uncomfortably hard with apprehension. It wasn’t that she was frightened of Richard exactly, but there was no denying that his behaviour pointed uncomfortably towards, if not an obsession with her, then certainly an unpleasant and unwanted preoccupation with her, just as Bev had shrewdly suspected.

‘Look, there’s the oasis,’ Richard declared unnecessarily as the dusty track wound between a rocky outcrop revealing a clutch of palm trees and other vegetation, beyond which lay the blue shimmer of water.

As Richard stopped the vehicle Katrina acknowledged that in different circumstances—very different circumstances—she would have been entranced and fascinated by her surroundings.

The vegetation surrounding the oasis was unexpectedly lush and thick, especially on its far bank. At one time surely a river must have run here, for what else could have carved a path through the steep rocky escarpment on the other side of the oasis? Perhaps even a waterfall had plunged down the smooth, sheer rock face.

Certainly there must be an underground spring filling the oasis itself, or perhaps an underground river. But, undeniably beautiful though the oasis and its surroundings were, Katrina had no wish to remain there on her own with Richard.

Somehow she doubted that he would be responsive to any attempt from her to persuade him to abandon his plans, which meant that if she was to escape she would have to find a way to distract him long enough to allow her to get her hands on the vehicle’s keys and drive off in it before Richard could stop her.

‘I’ve brought a tent with me and everything else we will need.’

‘Oh, how clever of you!’ Katrina told him, trying to sound impressed. ‘I’ll stay here, shall I, whilst you unpack everything?’

Richard shook his head at her.

‘No, I’m afraid you can’t do that, my dear! I haven’t gone to all this trouble to have you do something silly like trying to run away from me!’

He couldn’t make her move, Katrina comforted herself, but a few seconds later, after she had told him quietly that she was not prepared to get out of the vehicle, she realised she had under-estimated the lengths he was prepared to go to.

‘Well, in that case, my dear, I’m afraid you leave me no option but to use these.’ He reached into his pockets and produced a pair of handcuffs. ‘I really wish it wasn’t necessary to do this, but if you refuse to do as I ask then I am going to have to handcuff you to the door of the vehicle.’

She had been wrong not to feel afraid of him, Katrina acknowledged as a cold sweat broke out on her skin. He had already locked the doors of the vehicle and if she allowed him to handcuff her inside it then she’d be trapped.

‘It would be nice to have some fresh air,’ she conceded, trying to keep her voice steady. ‘Perhaps I could sit by the oasis whilst you unpack everything?’

‘Of course you can, my dear,’ Richard agreed, smiling at her. ‘Let’s go and find somewhere comfortable for you, shall we?’

She mustn’t give up hope, Katrina told herself stoutly five minutes later. Richard was escorting her to the oasis, his behaviour more that of a jailer than a would-be lover.

‘This will do,’ he announced, indicating one of the palm trees, but as Katrina walked towards it he held back. When she caught the warning chink of metal on metal she knew immediately that it was the handcuffs he had shown her earlier. Without stopping to think, she started to run, her flight from him as panic-stricken as that of a delicately boned gazelle. Fear drove her forward, towards the narrow pass between the steep rocks, oblivious to the sound of vehicles being driven fast over the bumpy terrain and the cries of warrior horsemen. Too late to realise what those sounds were, she burst through the pass and into full view of the group of fugitives.

They were led by El Khalid, but it was one of his young lieutenants who saw her first. He swerved the battered Land Rover he was driving round so hard that he almost overturned it.

Behind Katrina, at the pass between the rocks, Richard fell back in terror, and then turned and ran towards his own vehicle, ignoring Katrina’s plight. He leapt into it and started the engine, driving back in the direction he had come as fast as he could.

Katrina, though, was oblivious to his desertion of her.

The air around her was thick with choking dust, the last dying rays of the sun striking blindingly against the metal of the vehicle racing alongside her. The driver was leaning out of the window, one hand on the steering wheel, the other reaching for her, a lascivious grin slicing his face.

Immediately she turned to run back the way she had come. Unwanted though Richard’s attentions were, she could deal far more easily with him than she could with what she was now facing, but to her horror she recognised that her escape route was already being blocked off by the horse and rider bearing down on her even as she still tried to run from him.