Master of the Desert

Master of the Desert
Susan Stephens

Stranded, seduced…and pregnant! Sheikh Ra’id al Maktabi mastered the wild inhospitable desert out of necessity… But the sexy stowaway who has clambered onto his yacht he’ll tame for fun. He assumes that heiress Antonia Ruggiero is used to being pampered and preened. But on his boat Ra’id is the master.He’ll put her to work scrubbing the decks – and after hours he’ll take her between the sheets! Until they get to dry land, where the only mistress Ra’id obeys is duty. But an unexpected pregnancy could change all that!

THE AL MAKTABI BROTHERS

Kings of the desert…Masters of the bedroom!

Razi al Maktabi

This prince has two passions: business and women. His playboy days might be numbered when duty beckons, but there’s always time for one final fling! As he takes the Phoenix throne, Razi will work the same magic on the Isla de Sinnebar as he has on every woman of marriageable age—but what happens when he finds out he’s going to be a father?

Razi was last seen cavorting in RULING SHEIKH, UNRULY MISTRESS in Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™!

Ra’id al Maktabi

Darker than night and twice as dangerous, Razi’s older brother sits on the Sapphire throne of Sinnebar. Scarred inside and out, Ra’id is a powerhouse of strength and command. He rules his heart like his country—with an iron will. Now one woman is about to come between him and his throne!

Find Ra’id ruling in Mills & Boon®Modern™ Romance!

Susan Stephens also writes for Mills & Boon® Modern Heat™ !

Ra’id strode across the beach, holding Antonia in his arms as if she weighed nothing, while she linked her hands behind his neck and snuggled her face against his chest. It was the easiest thing in the world to believe they belonged together, and that this was their island with no outside world to complicate or muddy the water.

There was no tomorrow here, no yesterday—there was only now, with the ocean lapping rhythmically on a sugar sand shore, and a sickle moon and diamond stars to light their way. There was just one man, one woman…

There was only this…

Master of the Desert

by

Susan Stephens

MILLS & BOON

www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)

Susan Stephens was a professional singer before meeting her husband on the tiny Mediterranean island of Malta. In true Modern

Romance style they met on Monday, became engaged on Friday, and were married three months after that. Almost thirty years and three children later, they are still in love. (Susan does not advise her children to return home one day with a similar story, as she may not take the news with the same fortitude as her own mother!)

Susan had written several non-fiction books when fate took a hand. At a charity costume ball there was an after-dinner auction. One of the lots, ‘Spend a Day with an Author’, had been donated by Mills & Boon

author Penny Jordan. Susan’s husband bought this lot, and Penny was to become not just a great friend but a wonderful mentor, who encouraged Susan to write romance.

Susan loves her family, her pets, her friends and her writing. She enjoys entertaining, travel, and going to the theatre. She reads, cooks, and plays the piano to relax, and can occasionally be found throwing herself off mountains on a pair of skis or galloping through the countryside. Visit Susan’s website: www.susanstephens.net—she loves to hear from her readers all around the world!

CHAPTER ONE

SHE had the figure of a glamour model, the face of an angel—and she was threatening him with a knife.

It wasn’t every day his ocean-going yacht was boarded by a barely clothed virago. What few clothes remained on the young girl’s bruised and scratched body were ripped and sodden, and the knife she was brandishing looked as if it had come from his galley. In her other hand, she was holding a hunk of bread and cheese, stolen from the same place, he presumed.

Was a French baguette worth killing for?

Probably, he mused, remembering he had persuaded a top French boulanger to open a branch in Sinnebar.

As the merciless sun sliced its way through the mist, his first impulse was to get the pirate princess into the shade, but he remained still, not wanting to provoke her into anything more reckless than she had already attempted. She was young, barely out of her teens, but had clearly been through some sort of trauma. He took in the tangled mass of blonde hair and bruised face with slanting blue-green eyes, more wounded than wounding. ‘What do you think you’re doing?’ he said calmly.

‘Don’t!’ she threatened, jabbing the sultry air with her knife.

He held the laugh, relieved she was okay. Mist hung tenaciously, making visibility poor; she must have climbed up on deck while he’d been in the sea checking the hull for storm damage.

‘I’m warning you!’ she exclaimed, though he hadn’t moved.

If she backed away another inch, she’d be over the side.

Her shock at seeing him had forced her into the role of aggressor, he concluded, remaining still so as not to alarm her. She hadn’t recognised him or she would have put down her little knife. ‘Why don’t you give me the knife?’ he suggested, knowing if she had meant to attack him she would have done so by now. ‘Or, better still, throw it overboard?’

She bared her teeth at that to give him a little warning growl, like a kitten with a toothache. ‘Don’t you come any closer,’ she warned, ‘Or I’ll—’

‘You’ll what?’ He disarmed her in one absurdly easy move. There was a flash of warm flesh beneath his hands, then it was all shrieking and clawing as she fought him as if to the death. ‘Wildcat!’ he exclaimed, feeling a sharp thrill of pain as she dug her sharp, white teeth into his hand. Resigned to capture, she couldn’t take her eyes off the much bigger knife he wore hanging from his belt. ‘I have no intention of harming you,’ he reassured her.

She had no intention of listening, which left him dealing with a wriggling desperado, who drummed his deck furiously with her tiny heels as he steered her towards the opening leading to the lower deck and his first-aid kit. Finally losing patience, he bound her arms to her side and swung her over his shoulder. ‘Stop that!’ he instructed as she arched her body and pummelled his back. ‘Do you want to bang your head?’

She went rigid as he padded sure-footed below deck into what was an all-purpose space on the ocean-going racing yacht. She was still in shock, he registered as he set her down on the one and only seat. All home comforts had been stripped away below deck to make room for necessary equipment, but as he’d been trialling on this voyage rather than racing there was plenty of fresh food on board—hence the bread his pirate wench had stolen. He had brought other supplies and small comforts along to make his time aboard more pleasurable, including the cushions he’d laid out on deck so he could sleep beneath the stars.

When the girl groaned and put her head in her hands, his first thought was to rehydrate her. He reached into the cold box for a glucose drink. ‘Here,’ he said, loosening the top and offering it to her. Her expression didn’t change. She remained stiffly non-responsive, staring ahead with her jaw set in white-faced fright.

‘Drink it, or I’ll hold your nose and pour it down your throat.’ He’d used similar shock tactics years back when his younger brother Razi had refused to take his medicine.

Just like then, she retaliated with a furious, ‘You wouldn’t dare!’

One look from him was enough to settle that argument. She held out her hand. He gave her the bottle; she gulped down the contents greedily.

‘When was the last time you had something to drink?’

She refused to answer. Swiping the back of her hand across her mouth, she raised blue-green eyes to his face. Chips of glacial ice would have held more heat.

No surrender, he concluded. And as for apologising for trespassing on his yacht? Forget it.

Tugging on the first top that came to hand, he began heating water to bathe her wounds. Blocking her escape with his body, he reached into a cupboard for antiseptic, lint and cotton wool. Adding a splash of disinfectant to the water, he stuffed a blanket under his arm and turned around. ‘Here—put this round you.’

She flinched and refused to look at him, drawing her legs in defensively, but it was when she crossed her arms over her chest that he finally lost patience. ‘I’m not interested in your body,’ he assured her, only to be rewarded by a tiny squeak of protest from a girl who was clearly accustomed to being admired. Proving the point, he put the bowl down and tugged the blanket tightly round her slender shoulders, trying not to notice that one lush, pert breast was partially exposed.

Seeing his momentary distraction, she snatched the blanket from him, holding it so tightly closed that her knuckles turned white.

‘Don’t flatter yourself.’