Lord of the Desert (16 page)

 

Gretchen was waiting, biding her time for one chance to save herself. Her brother, Marc, had always told her not to ever try to struggle with an armed man. But she knew self-defense. If she could get close enough to Brauer, she might have a chance of escape. She wasn't up to his weight, but she might not have another opportunity. Once his men returned, it would be impossible to get away.

It was early afternoon before Kurt came back inside the tent, accompanied by three other men, armed to the teeth.

“Your husband is nothing if not persistent,” he told Gretchen. “But it will do him no good. I can't imagine how he thinks he can attack me with a handful of tribesmen on horseback. Perhaps he thinks we are still living in the last century.” He said something to two of the men. They left and an engine revved up. The other man, the redhead, stood rigidly next to Brauer's writing table.

“Where are you going?” Gretchen asked as Brauer searched through the contents of the writing table.

His eyebrows arched. “You think I would tell you? You are an optimist,
madame.
”

“If I'm going to die anyway, who can I tell?”

“Eric is going to escort you out to the desert while my men and I prepare a nice surprise for your husband,” he told her coldly. He spoke to the other man in German. “It has been an interesting experience to meet you,
madame,
” he mused. “A pity that we have so little time to become better acquainted.”

“Doesn't bother me,” she muttered.

He only laughed. He gathered up some papers from his desk and stuck them into the pocket of his safari vest. He said something to Eric, who looked at Gretchen in a way that made her skin crawl.

Brauer went out, and Gretchen eyed her new companion. He was thin and scarred, with receding red hair and freckles and intensely blue eyes. He had a knife in one hand.

Gretchen forced herself to breathe normally, and wait and hope for an opportunity to get away. The man was obviously her superior in strength, and he was armed. She tried to remember everything Marc had taught her about self-defense.
Let the enemy come to you,
she thought,
it gives you the advantage. Use his own strength against him. Never try to fight if you can get away.

Outside there was the sound of a vehicle leaving.

Eric twisted the knife in his hand. His eyes narrowed and he smiled coldly. “Kurt said to leave you in a condition that your husband won't forget. But he didn't say I couldn't enjoy you first,” he added in a tone that made nausea rise in her throat.

She sat very still on the cushions, hands folded in her lap. Her mouth was as dry as cotton. Her palms were sweaty. Her heartbeat was shaking her. Think, she told herself, think what Philippe would do, what Marc would do.

The man, put off guard by her docility and lack of movement, shrugged and tossed the knife onto the writing table. He approached her with a slow, methodical gait, his hot eyes already anticipating pleasure.

She waited, trembling, until he bent over to catch her arms. Instantly, her booted foot came up and she threw him right into the wall of the tent. Without hesitation, she grabbed up the bowie knife and ran out of the tent toward the mountains.

She could hear him behind her, cursing and raging for her to stop. The heavy black
aba
was slowing her down, but it would take precious seconds she didn't have to rip it off. She kept running, her heart bursting. If she could get into the mountains, perhaps…

But distance was deceptive on the desert. The mountains seemed farther away as she ran. The heat was stifling her lungs. She could hardly breathe. There was a wind and it was forcing sand into her eyes, her nostrils, her mouth. She felt covered by it, whipped by it. Eric came closer. She could hear his harsh breathing. Any minute now, she was going to give out, and he'd have her.
Oh, Philippe,
she called silently, in anguish,
if only I'd done what I was told and stayed in camp!

She stumbled and turned her ankle. Tears of frustration and anger burst from her eyes. She went down, holding the bowie knife close in front of her, waiting. He might get her, but she was going to get him first!

He was laughing. He slowed his pace and came toward her with a mocking, victorious smile. She was done for. He could do what he liked, now, and he was anticipating all sorts of perverse pleasures when he felt something thump him in the chest…

The expression on his face puzzled Gretchen. He stopped and his eyes seemed shocked. In the same instant, she heard a loud crack, like a firecracker. Blood issued from the soldier's lips and he suddenly pitched headfirst to the desert floor.

Gretchen saw a cloud of dust, and riding out of it was a tall man on a creamy Arabian stallion, yelling orders. He was holding a rifle and even as he yelled, he sighted it and shot an armed man running toward them. The camp was instantly in an uproar. Mercenaries poured out of tents, firing as they came. The party of Arabs rode like gods on their exquisite horses, standing in the stirrups to fire on the run. Gretchen had never seen anything like it. The mercenaries, though better armed, were routed almost at once and running for their vehicles.

She managed to get to her feet, thrilling at the way those men rode, at the very primitive rampage of native tribesmen against modern guerillas. That tall Arab on the stallion fascinated her. One of the mercenaries charged him. He leaped from his horse to meet the man, taking him in and throwing him with exquisite grace. The man came up with a knife, which was immediately kicked from his hand, and a hard blow from a big fist put him down for good. The Arab picked up the man's automatic weapon and swung back into the saddle as gracefully as any Texas cowboy. Gretchen couldn't take her eyes off him. He took her very breath away.

He wheeled the horse, still holding the weapon in the other. He rode toward her, not even breaking speed when she stood up. He leaned down and a long arm caught her around the waist, pulling her up in front of him. He never even slowed down, wheeling the horse back toward his men. His face was covered with a white fold of cloth, his head was in the traditional headdress with black ropes securing it. He looked like every dream of heroism Gretchen had ever had. A sheikh on a stallion, saving the heroine from great danger in the desert…

He looked down at her, and the black eyes that met her own were glittering with rage.

“You little maniac!” came a familiar deep voice from the fold of the flowing white cloak. “I should have given you to that German dog and let him show you the consequences for disobeying orders!”

She thought she might faint. “Philippe?” she asked, aghast.

He tugged down the fabric to reveal his angry face. “Reckless fool of a woman!” he shot at her. “As if I need protection in the first place…Achmed!” he yelled, and added a stiff command in Arabic. He waved his hand, motioning his men out of the camp and back the way they'd come.

“Why are we in such a big hurry here?” she asked, gingerly handing Philippe the bowie knife, which he stuck in his belt next to his ceremonial dagger.

“I called an air strike on these coordinates,” he told her through his teeth. “Where was Brauer?”

“He rode out of camp before you rode in,” she said, still fascinated by this rugged warrior who'd been hidden in a camouflage of expensive suits and city sophistication. “I've never seen anybody ride like you.”

“I learned to fight and ride before I learned English.” He glared down at her. “Leila told me you came to protect me. How kind of you,” he added icily. “Your concept of me is less than flattering.”

“I didn't know!” she said, flushing. “You always wore suits and I thought you were a city man without any survival skills. Your father said you needed protection, what was I supposed to think? I wasn't sure you'd let your bodyguards close enough to do the job, and I knew I could. I'm a dead shot.”

“I had half a regiment of seasoned veteran warriors with me, didn't you notice?” he demanded furiously. “In fact, I trained them myself! I was one of the few heads of state ever to go through the SAS training course in one attempt! I united the warring tribes in Qawi when they fled under Brauer's attack and organized a counterrevolution here. And you think I need protection?”

“All right, I did a stupid thing! You don't have to go on and on about it!”

He drew in an angry breath as he urged his horse to go even faster as he raged on, “If I'd been five seconds later getting here, that redheaded lump of horse excrement would have raped you!”

“I almost got away,” she said with hurt pride, trying to hold on and keep her seat at the breakneck pace of the powerful animal under them. “And I did throw him into the tent wall! That's how I got outside.”

He wasn't budging. His face was harder than rock. He was almost shivering with rage and fear and, unexpectedly, fierce desire. His body rippled with pleasure from the close contact with her. He felt more potent than he'd been in years. Perhaps it was the combination of danger and relief. Whatever it was, he ached for her.

His arm contracted around her. “How did they get you?”

“I was trying to catch up to you and the horse reared up and unseated me, God knows why,” she muttered. “They were on me before I knew it. Brauer planned to have his friend with the knife peel my skin off. They were going to leave me in the desert for a few days and then tell you where to find me. They thought,” she added bluntly, “that I was Brianne Hutton.”

His breath left him in a rush as he contemplated what might have happened to her. It was the sickest terror he'd ever felt. Then he realized what she'd said. His arm contracted involuntarily. “So he knows that Brianne's coming here.”

“Yes, he does, and a lot more besides. Your chief of security is one of his spies, and so is an assistant cook.” She grimaced at his shocked expression. “He thought I was going to die before I could tell anyone. Your uncle is helping him, too.”

“My uncle will regret it,” he said, and his face looked dangerous. He glanced down at her hotly. “And you are going to regret, deeply, having put me through this torment today. I thought he was going to kill you before I could get to his camp!”

“He did think about it,” she murmured, and gingerly touched her jaw.

“He hit you?” His voice was almost strangled with fury when he saw the discoloration. “He hit you!”

“Yes, well, I hit him back,” she said curtly. “Marc taught me how to throw a punch. I promise you, he looks worse than I do. And if I ever see him again, I'll pump him full of lead!”

“Gretchen.” He drew her up close to him, burying his face in her throat where wisps of disheveled, damp blond hair had come loose from her bun. “You crazy, outrageous, brave little fool,” he groaned.

She linked her arms around his neck and held on hard. She could feel the effect she was having on him and she laughed, low in her throat, at his ear. “Mr. Brauer thought you can't have a woman,” she whispered. “But he doesn't, anymore.”

She felt his heartbeat stop and start again. “What did you tell him?”

“That my maid would laugh at his assumptions. She would, too. Leila thinks we're already…well, doing it.”

“Doing it?” he asked curiously.

She smiled, and shivered a little with reaction. “You know.”

He glared down into her eyes. “This would be a very bad time to…do it,” he said through his teeth.

“Why?”

“Because I'm furious with you!” he said bluntly. His eyes went over her in a sensual appraisal that made her heart catch in her throat. “I couldn't be gentle, even if I could manage it at all.”

Her lips parted. “I wouldn't mind,” she whispered. “I wouldn't mind any way you made love to me.”

His powerful body shivered. He bent, uncaring if the whole planet watched, and caught her mouth hungrily with his own. She held on for dear life, opening her lips, welcoming him, wanting him. Her heartbeat shook her with its mad pounding. His ardor became faintly violent, his arms bruising, his mouth hurting. She almost protested, but she held back. If he couldn't have her in cold blood, perhaps the very fury that rode him would work the miracle.

P
hilippe lifted his head, finally, and his black eyes smoldered as they met hers. He drew her flushed face up into his throat and held her there while he urged his horse across the desert ahead of his men. His heartbeat was shaking him. He'd never felt such blatant desire in his life.

The minute they arrived at the camp, he eased her to the ground and jumped down beside her. He shot orders at his men and then at Leila, who went dashing out of the tent and into another one.

Without breaking stride, he lifted Gretchen into his hard arms and walked straight into his own apartment, lowering the flap before he ripped away the cover and put her down on white cotton sheets. He tore off his headdress and his cloak and his boots and did the same with hers before he bore her back into the cushioned surface of the makeshift bed. He'd never felt such hope for himself as he did now, anger and all. He must try, he must!

She was almost beside herself with excitement. She reached up to him as he turned to her, wanting to speak, but afraid to break the spell. So much depended on what happened next.

He started kissing her before she could say a word. His ardor was insistent, feverishly intense, almost brutal. He wasn't thinking about his capability or the lack of it. She was warm and sinuous under the crush of his powerful body. He could feel her heat, breathe in the faint smell of lavender soap that clung to her skin. He felt her hands on his back, her eager submission. She wasn't in the least afraid, if her kisses were any indication of what she was feeling.

His hands jerked her blouse the rest of the way out of her skirt and moved up over the lacy little cups that enfolded her firm breasts. He tore it out of the way and caressed her, moving his hand again to scatter the few pearl buttons that secured her khaki shirt. Her body arched as he brought his mouth down squarely over one taut little breast and began to suckle it. All the while, his hands were busy with the skirt and everything under it. In seconds, he'd stripped her, and he was enjoying her as if she were his first woman.

He was burning up with desire. He eased up the
thobe
and unfastened the silk trousers, the
chalwar,
that he wore under it and moved away the silk boxer shorts while his mouth fed on her breast. He touched her, and was surprised to find her ready for him. She was saying something, but he couldn't hear her. His mouth shifted over hers, teasing her lips apart so that his tongue could penetrate the warm, soft darkness inside it. She moaned huskily. Her nails were at his nape, digging in, her body was writhing seductively under him.

One lean hand caught her upper thigh and moved her legs apart. He didn't stop to worry about his capabilities. He wouldn't let himself think of anything except the softness of her yielded body and the eagerness of her mouth under his lips. He pinned her under him and penetrated her in one smooth, hard motion of his hips. Her tiny, helpless cry of pain was stifled by the hard, hungry pressure of his insistent mouth.

This ability was unsurprising. He was aroused, as he had been many times before with her. It was his own inability to reach a peak that disturbed him. But he could give her pleasure, even if his body denied it to him.

While he was thinking it, her hands were smoothing steadily down his spine to his upper thighs, caressing him tenderly. Her mouth opened even more, and she moaned again, twisting her hips up toward his to invite him to move even more deeply inside that secret place.

“Tell me what to do,” she whispered frantically. “I'll do anything, anything to give you pleasure!”

His breath caught. He lifted his head and looked into her eyes. He moved deliberately and her arms tightened around her.

“Teach me,” she moaned, lifting to put her mouth on his. “I don't want pleasure unless I can give it to you as well!”

A shudder went through him at the pure unselfishness of the soft, husky plea. Her young body was unused to the demands he was placing on it, and he was sorry that he'd hurt her. He wanted to cherish her. His lips touched all over her face, down to her lips, brushing, teasing them apart. His body teased as well, fencing with hers, deliberately prolonging the contact and then denying it.

She caught her breath. Her eyes were looking straight into his and she gasped faintly with every slow movement of his powerful body.

He bent and whispered something very softly into her ear. She made an embarrassed little sound, but she obeyed him, contracting the lower part of her belly in a slow, sensuous motion. He groaned sharply.

“Is that…what you want?” she whispered shyly, and did it again.

“Yes,” he managed hoarsely. “Yes, darling, yes…!”

He twisted his own hips against hers, intensifying the soft moans. Her soft body clenched again, and as he felt her contract around him, something happened. A fierce surge of pleasure took him unawares. He felt heat, like a living, breathing thing, traveling along nerves that had been dead for years. There was a sensation of terrible tension, and then a storm crest of white-hot pleasure that lifted him above her in a taut arch and then brought his hips crushing down over hers forcefully. He felt her body resist him once more, just briefly, heard again her soft, sharp little cry.

His head lifted and he looked straight into her eyes as his lean hips fell in one smooth, hard movement. Her lips fell open. She couldn't seem to focus on his face. It came closer and then faded away, and her whole body seemed to be fading in and out with it. She dug her fingers into Philippe's back, holding tight while he intensified the deep, powerful movements of his hips.

“Is this hurting?” he asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Not…anymore. Oh, no, no, it isn't…hurting!” She shivered as the pleasure grew by the second. Her eyes held his. She touched his face, his cheek, his mouth tenderly. “Oh, I want you,” she whispered brokenly. “I want all of you. I want you to be whole again. I'll do anything for you, anything, Philippe…!” She cried out, shivering wildly as pleasure shot through her.

Something arrogant and possessive came into the taut face above hers. He watched her intently, and the movements of his body became more demanding. He pinned her wrists to the bed above her head as his body moved furiously against hers. She began to lift toward him with her last ounce of strength, moaning as each thrust brought a new, higher level of pleasure.

Her reaction made him violent. He hadn't felt excitement like this in so long…so long! He could feel the spiral, the old familiar spiral of ecstasy, beginning! He could actually feel it…The wave was coming. It was almost on him. He couldn't bear it…!

He arched himself above her, groaning harshly as he intensified his possession. Her long legs wrapped sinuously around the backs of his and her face began to clench as the change of position made the pleasure rip through her like a knife blade. She cried out.

“Yes,” he breathed hotly. He let go of her wrists and caught her head in his hands. “Look at me,” he ground out. “Let me watch…let me see it!”

It was unbelievable. She was dying. No human being could survive such waves of searing pleasure, so deep that they were like pain. She began to sob, her cries loud in the silence of the tent. The sound seemed to galvanize him. His mouth found hers and he turned her into his body, rolled over with her, so that she was beneath him and then above him. And all the while, his body teased hers, promising delights beyond imagination.

She begged him to end it, sobbing, moaning harshly as he built the tension to flash point.

“Yes, now,” he bit off. “Now, Gretchen. Now, now…!”

She went off the edge of the world. Her voice broke on a shrill, husky little cry that arched her body, her eyes wide-open, like her mouth, as she gave in to the ardent demands of his body.

Watching her, feeling the helpless convulsions of her body, sent fire through his body. He could feel it in his spine, feel it climbing, ripping, tearing, possessing. He felt it take him, unexpectedly, with a suddenness that left him hanging in midair. He felt the heat explode up from his loins in a violent, shocking, intense flood of exquisite physical sensation. He groaned and began to shiver. Ecstasy. It was ecstasy. He'd never thought to feel it again in his lifetime. Nine years, he was thinking while he still could, nine years, nine years…!

He gave in to the hot, sweet tidal wave. He groaned harshly and his body corded, convulsed above hers, rippling over and over and over again with exquisite sensations of pleasure. He groaned again. He cried aloud harshly, his voice rasping as the intensity of delight all but cost him consciousness. Never in his life…!

There were running feet and a loud, quick spate of Arabic outside the chamber. Philippe, his hair damp with sweat, his face still taut in the aftermath of passion, his body shuddering with ripples of ongoing pleasure, yelled something at them harshly. The footsteps went away quickly.

Philippe took a slow, steadying breath, and looked down into drowned green eyes in a face flushed with shock and uncertainty. His own eyes were fierce, dark, shocked. He shivered again and again in the slowly diminishing waves of pleasure, looking straight into her soft, curious eyes, letting her share his ecstasy until, finally, the spasms began to ease and his body relaxed all at once, with all its formidable weight pressing her into the thin mattress under them.

Barely able to breathe, he lifted away from her, quickly concealing himself before she could see him, and his eyes went to her thighs. He touched them gently, bringing away a faint smear of blood. He looked down at her yielded, trembling body, his eyes dark with possession as he registered her silky smooth pink skin.

“You bled,” he said quietly. His voice was faintly unsteady, because his heartbeat was shaking him. His hair was damp, as if he'd been running.

Gretchen swallowed down a wave of shyness. She had nothing on, and he was making a meal of her with his eyes. She was still shivering, too, in the aftermath of something unequaled in her life. “Yes. It's natural.”

“Was it bad?” he persisted.

She shook her head. She smiled shyly, her eyes twinkling as she looked up at him. “You felt it, didn't you?” she whispered. “You felt it all over, at the end, just like me.”

“Yes,” he whispered. “I felt it. I felt it!” He bent and brushed his lips softly over hers, and then over her eyes, tasting the tears that came readily to them. “Don't cry,” he whispered, smoothing his eyes over her face. “It was beautiful. It was so beautiful, Gretchen. I never dared hope that I would ever know fulfillment again in my life.”

Her arms clutched at him, dragging him back down over her shivering body.

He laughed softly. “No. Not just yet.” He drew away from her with an expression that was puzzling. He touched her face with soft, tender fingertips. His eyes were possessive, jubilant. He chuckled, deep in his throat, and slowly got to his feet, refastening his clothing with hands that still held a fine tremor in the aftermath of joy. He looked at her hungrily for a few seconds, sprawled on the sheets with her hair all around her head. He smiled tenderly as he pulled the sheet slowly over her. “First things first, my lady,” he said huskily, and turned away.

He called Leila and went out before she could say a word.

An embarrassed Gretchen found herself pounced on by Leila as well as four other women, who went about sorting clothes, filling a bathtub and stripping the bed.

Leila helped her into the small tub. “It will be all right,” she said gently, as if she knew what had just happened. It would have been hard not to know, Gretchen supposed, embarrassed as she remembered Philippe's shout of pleasure and the concern of the guards outside the chamber.

“Leila,” she began.

“The
sidi
said to bathe and pamper you, and he will be back to have supper with you. It is your wedding night, Lady,” she added with a grin. “I think that it will be a very long one!”

Gretchen closed her eyes on a moan. Well, there was no longer any doubt in her mind, or probably in Philippe's, about his condition. That had been real lovemaking, not foreplay. And it was a certainty that these women who'd stripped the bed would have seen evidence of the consummation of the marriage. That would solve Philippe's dilemma. Never again would he have to fear gossip. But it also meant that he could marry now. He would be able to find a wife befitting his station in life, and it wouldn't be a nobody of a little country girl from Texas. She felt miserable at the thought of losing him when she'd only just begun to love him.

She felt a soreness that the water seemed to ease, and when she was finished, Leila brought her a small jar of salve to use where the tissues were torn. These women were obviously all married themselves, and they knew about first times. They were kindness itself.

Later, they dressed her in a filmy lavender silk
gellabia
with exquisite embroidery in many colors and left her, her long hair brushed and clean, in the bedroom chamber.

She waited on pins and needles for Philippe to come back. Today had been a revelation. She'd discovered a side of him that she hadn't known existed. Her husband, and he was no sophisticate. Well, he was, but he was a tiger as well. She remembered him riding right into the camp to rescue her—unafraid, relentless. It would be a story to tell her grandchildren, if she ever had any.