To Tempt a Sheikh (7 page)

N
o one could know how absolutely majestic and humbling night could be until they'd been in the desert at night.

Problem was, it was also downright petrifying and alien.

Talia had known they were in the middle of nowhere. But before she got out of the helicopter, that had only been a concept, a figure of speech. Now it was reality. One that impacted her every sense and inundated her every perception. As she at last had the chance to appreciate.

And what a vantage she had to appreciate it from.

Harres had crash-landed them about five dozen feet from the top of one of those thousand-foot dunes he'd spoken of. From this spot she had an almost unlimited view of the tempestuous oceans of sand that seemed to simmer with their own arcane energy, emit their own indefinable color and eerie illumination. At the edge of her vision, they pushed in a scalpel-sharp demarcation against a dome
of deepest eternity scattered with stars, the unblinking shrapnel of the big boom. Under their omnidirectional light, each steep undulation created occult shadows that seemed to metamorphose into shapes, entities. Some seemed to look back at her, some seemed to beckon, some to crawl closer. It made her realize how Middle Eastern fables had come to such vivid and sometimes macabre life. She certainly felt as if a genie or worse would materialize at any time.

Then again, she'd already met her genie.

Right now, he was taking apart the mangled rear of the helicopter to get to the gear and supplies they'd need before they set off on their oasis-bound trek.

She shuddered again, this time complete with chattering teeth, as much from expanding awe and descending dread as from marrow-chilling cold aided by a formidable windchill factor.

Though he was making a racket cutting the twisted metal with shears he'd retrieved from the cockpit, and the wind had risen again, eddying laments around them, it seemed he'd heard her.

He straightened with a groan that reminded her of his injury, made her wonder again how he ignored it, functioned—and so efficiently—with only the help of a painkiller shot.

He reached out to her face, cupped her cheek in the coolness of his huge, calloused hand and frowned. “You're freezing. Go back to the cockpit.”

She shook her head. “I'm cold, yes, freezing, no. You're the one who's half-dressed.”

Her last word got mangled by another teeth-rattling shiver.

His scowl deepened. “We need to set some ground rules. When I say something, you obey. I'm your commanding officer here.”

She stuck her fists at her waist. “We're not in your army and I'm not one of your soldiers.”

He fixed her with an adamant glare of his own. “I'm the native around here. And I'm the leader of this expedition.”

“I thought we agreed we have equal billing.”

“We do. In our respective areas of expertise.”

“And you're the desert knight, right?”

He gave her a mock-affronted look, palm over his chest. “What? I don't look the part?”

“You sure do.”
With a capital T in “the,”
she added inwardly. “But we established that looks can be deceiving.”

“I thought
I
established they can't be.”

“So you're the real thing. But you could be the prototype and this would remain
my
area. I'm the one qualified to judge which one of us is in danger of hypothermia. And until you get bundled up in thermal clothing like I am, that's you. So now you've done your Incredible Hulk bit and torn away debris and cleared a path to our supplies, you go back to the cockpit. I'll get the stuff we need.”

He took a challenging step, crowding her against the mangled hull. “You'd spend hours trying to figure out what is where. I'm the one who knows where the stuff we'll need is, and can get it in minutes. If you can stop arguing that long.”

“So I'm the uninjured, suitably dressed one, and your doctor, but you're the expert on this lost-cause aircraft and on survival in the desert. See? We end up with equal billing. So we both stay, work together and cut the effort and time in half.”

His eyes had been following her mouth, explicit with thoughts of stopping it with his lips. And teeth.

Then he raised them to hers and captured her in that
bedeviling appreciation she was getting dangerously used to. “You're a control freak, aren't you?”

She let her shoulders rise and drop nonchalantly. “Takes one to know one, eh?”

His lips widened in a heart-palpitating grin. “You bet.”

And even though she'd been and still was in mortal danger, and the emergency light at his feet cast sinister shadows over his hewn face, as if exposing some supernatural entity lurking inside him, she couldn't remember a time when she'd felt more…energized.

Strange how the company made all the difference when the situation remained the same.

I couldn't have dreamed of better company to be in mortal danger with.

Yeah, what he'd said.

Not that she'd agreed to it then. Or could credit it now. But there it was. She was actually looking forward to the grueling and possibly life-threatening time ahead. She'd always thrived on challenge and hardship to start with, but she'd never been anywhere near that level of danger. With Harres by her side, anything felt possible. And doable. And anything was…enjoyable?

She shook her head, as if she could dislodge the ridiculous thought. How could anything be enjoyable in their situation?

She had no idea how. But having no rationalization didn't change the fact that being with him was turning this nightmare into the most stimulating experience of her life.

She watched as he bent the last strip of protruding metal, widening the makeshift hatch, then stepped back, gestured to her.

“Report to packing duty, my obdurate dew droplet.”

Her heart punched her ribs. No one, not even her parents,
had ever come up with such endearments for her. Nothing anywhere as ready and inventive and…sweet. A woman could get used to this.

And this woman shouldn't. For every reason there was.

She bit down on the bubble of delight rising inside her, popped it.

“That's your retaliation for pigheaded, mulish ox and my assortment of other insults?” she tossed over her shoulder as she preceded him into the cramped space, kneeled on the uneven floor of what remained of the cargo bay and awaited his directions.

He came down facing her, started reaching for articles as if he knew exactly where they were. And he clearly did. Prince Harres seemed to be hands-on in his operations' every level and detail.

After he hoisted on a thermal jacket, he answered her previous barb. “I am sabotaging myself by telling you this, since you might now stop them, but those aren't insults. From you, they have the effect of the most…intimate caress.”

His eyes left her in no doubt of what that meant. She almost choked her lungs out imagining his body stirring, hardening, aching in response to her words, to her…

She pretended to cough, waved a hand at him. “Try another one. You're just insult-proof, as you said early on.”

“You remember?” He looked disproportionately pleased that she did. “
Aih,
I've never had a hair-trigger ego. And then, most insults are falsehoods or exaggerations, attempts to get a rise. My best payback to insults is to let them slide off me, inside and out.”

She gasped in mock stupefaction. “You mean people actually dare to attempt to insult you?”

“I have an older brother. A very…aggravating one. And three younger ones. I'm no stranger to insults. But you will insult me only if you fear me or distrust me.”

Her heart hiccuped at the sudden seriousness in his eyes. The cross between warning and entreaty there had the mocking comeback sticking in her throat. She instinctively knew he was telling the truth. That this was the one thing he wouldn't laugh at. The one thing that would hurt him.

And even if she told herself Todd's ordeal balanced out everything Harres had done for her, that he'd only done it for the person who held the vital info he wanted to extract and to keep hushed, her fairness again intervened. He'd been right when he'd said he had nothing to do with Todd's imprisonment. And she didn't believe in guilt by association, even if she made it sound as if she did. And if she went a step further into truthfulness, she had to admit something else.

She didn't want to hurt him. Not in any way.

Lowering her gaze in indirect agreement and swallowing her barbed tongue, she helped him drag out backpacks then cut off the safety belts that still secured crates in the debris.

He dragged one between them, popped the lid open before looking at her with teasing back in his eyes, to her relief. “There's one thing I can't get over. How you don't take words lauding your beauty and effect as your due—my jasmine dew.”

She followed his lead, loaded water bottles and packets of dry food into the backpacks. “Next you'll call me Mountain Dew.”

A chuckle rumbled inside his massive chest. “Oh, no. You get your own brand names. But we do have canned relatives around.”

She stuffed a compartment into one backpack, turned
to the other one, which she noticed was much smaller, as he pulled out another crate. “How nutritionally sloppy of you.”

He opened the crate, produced guns, flares, flashlights, batteries, compasses and many other articles, which he distributed between the two backpacks. “I assure you, I never come within a mile of anything canned, except in emergencies. For easily stored quick fixes of hydration and calories, they work in a bind.”

“Let's hope we don't have to resort to them. I'd rather drink detergent. But then we won't have to, since you have it all figured out, being the desert knight that you are.”

He gave her a stoking glance. “That's right. And this desert knight says close your backpack and let's move on to packing our accommodations.”

“You mean this tiny thing is mine?” She eyed his backpack. It was almost as big as her. “And this behemoth is yours?”

He nodded matter-of-factly. “I am twice as big as you are, and can carry four times as much or more.”

“Listen, this is getting old. I won't stand by while you bust my sutures.”

“I thought they were mine.” Before the urge to smack him transferred from her brain to her arm, he added, “If I can't handle it, I'll tell you.”

“Yeah, right. Right after you tell me you've sighted the first flying pig.”

“But I'm the mulish ox here, therefore perfectly qualified for hefting and towing.” Before she could plow into a counterargument, he cupped her face in both hands. The gentleness in his grasp made everything inside her crumple, pour into those palms. “Thank you for worrying about me, for braving exhaustion to spare me. But I've been through worse, have trained to weather the worst conditions for over
a quarter of a century.” His lips quirked. “Probably longer than you've been on the planet.”

That shook her out of her hypnosis. “What? When I told you I've been practicing medicine for years? You think they grant babies medical licenses now?”

“They do, to prodigies.”

“Well, I'm not one. I'll be thirty next August.”

“No way.” He looked genuinely stunned.

“Yes way.”

“See? No end to your surprises.”

“Stick around. They're bound to end sometime.”

“Oh, I intend to. And I bet they never will.”

“Didn't take you for a betting man.”

“I'm not. But I'll bet on you anytime.”

Only then did she notice he still held her face in his palms. And that she was shaking all over again. And that he knew that he turned her into a live wire, knew she was struggling not to succumb. He was also certain she would.

She glared back.
Never again.

“Don't be so sure,” he murmured, his tone a sweeping undertow, his exotic accent sliding over her, enveloping her.

She gasped. He'd heard her thoughts, was taking the challenge.

She shook her head, reclaimed her face from his possession.

With a last molten look of challenge, he resumed packing.

Afterward, he fashioned a sled from the helicopter's remains, using ropes for a harness. On it he loaded a folded tent, their quarters, as he called it, and piled on blankets, sleeping bags and mats.

She matched him move for move, followed his directions,
anticipating his needs as if they'd been working together for years in perfect harmony. And she felt that overwhelming in-sync feeling again, just as she'd felt when he'd assisted her in treating his wound, always reading her next move, ready for it with the most efficient action.

It wasn't only that. She felt her body gravitating toward him, demanding his closeness. She resisted the compulsion with an equal force until she felt she'd rip down the middle.

It's survival,
she told herself. Seeking the one person around. Being out here would have been unsettling enough in controlled conditions. But she'd just learned that her predicament was far worse than she'd thought. And with him generating that field of reassurance and invincibility, who could blame her if all she wanted was to throw herself into his haven?

And since when did she indulge in self-deception?

This man had jolted things inside her, like electric cables forced life into a dead battery, from the second she'd turned to face him. Ever since, his nearness, everything he said or did, revved that life into something almost…painful. An edge that scraped everything aside. A knot of hunger that—

“You're hungry.”

She jerked at the dark compulsion of his voice, and glared her resentment at him. Couldn't he have the decency to have one crack in his imperturbable facade? It might be self-defeating to wish that her one chance at survival be less than the absolute rock he needed to be to get them out of this, but she still wished it. No one could be
that
unflappable, could he?