Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin

by Kim Lawrence

  She was comfortable in her own skin, and if this man with his perfect face and better than perfect body couldn’t see past superficial things like make-up and clothes that was his problem. She only had a problem if she started caring what men she met casually thought about her.

  It could be she had a problem.

  She looked at his fingers holding her glasses. They were rather incredible; long, tapering and the lightest contact with them had sent her nervous system into meltdown. She was sure there was a perfectly logical explanation for what happened—a build-up of static electricity and a freakish set of circumstances that couldn’t be repeated if she tried.

  But Molly wasn’t about to put her theory to the test. As far as Prince Tair was concerned she had a strict no-touch policy—her body was still shaken by intermittent aftershocks from his light touch. Anything more intimate and she might well end up hospitalised.

  Just as well him getting more intimate with her was about as likely as snow in the desert.

  With the fixed smile still painted in place, she reached out to carefully take her glasses from his fingers.

  He gave a sardonic smile that Molly didn’t choose to respond to, her cheeks pink as she slid the spectacles onto her nose while expelling a shaky sigh of relief. Of course he knew he was gorgeous. Of course he knew women fainted away when he deigned to throw them a smile, but, God, she didn’t want to be one of them.

  It was all so shallow and silly. It seemed a good moment to remind herself that she was neither.

  ‘I’m meeting Tariq,’ she explained, hoping he would take the hint and go away. There were only so many times a girl could make a fool of herself. ‘He should be here any minute now.’

  ‘I know.’

  ‘You do?’ Then why hadn’t he just said so straight off instead of giving her the opportunity to act like a total imbecile?

  ‘He asked me to deliver a message.’

  She gave an encouraging nod. Dragging a sentence out of this man was like dragging blood from the proverbial stone.

  ‘He is not coming.’

  Molly’s face fell. ‘Right, well…thank you.’ She urged him to go—her system couldn’t take all this undiluted testosterone.

  ‘Beatrice is not well.’

  Molly’s mask fell away. ‘Beatrice…’ She pressed one hand to her mouth and, all hint of self-preservation gone, she caught his arm with the other. ‘What happened?’ she asked, her mind turning over the events of two days earlier when she had come across Beatrice sitting with her head between her knees recovering from a slight dizzy spell.

  Molly’s first inclination had been to get help, but Bea had begged her not to, saying that Tariq was already wildly overprotective and he would worry himself silly over a moment of light-headedness.

  She shouldn’t have let Bea dissuade her, she thought. She should have told Tariq.

  Tair felt the fingers curled over his forearm tighten.

  ‘Apparently she had a…troubled night.’

  ‘Troubled? What do you mean troubled?’

  Anyone who hadn’t seen Tariq come out of her room the previous night might have believed that wide-eyed concern. The mouse was clearly a very good actress, although earlier she had not been good enough to hide her response to his touch. The shocked expression in her widely dilated eyes had been a total give-away.

  ‘The doctor came this morning.’

  ‘Doctor…oh, God!’

  Tair watched the rest of the colour leave her face. Her fainting on him hadn’t been any part of his plan.

  ‘And he advised she be transferred to hospital.’ Presumably her reaction had more to do with guilt than genuine concern, or if it was it was a very selective form of that sentiment.

  ‘Is she…is the baby…? She hasn’t gone into labour yet?’ She quickly reminded herself that lots of babies were born perfectly healthily at thirty-five weeks.

  ‘As far as I know it is just a precaution…?’ He deliberately injected a questioning note into his voice.

  Molly let go of his arm and lifted a hand to her head. Closing her eyes, she leaned back against a tier of elaborately carved cast-iron shelves spilling with lush greenery. ‘This is my fault.’

  Tair saw no reason to let her off the hook. If she was beginning to realise that her selfish actions had consequences it was long overdue, he thought grimly.

  ‘What makes you say that?’

  She inhaled deeply and opened her eyes. ‘A few days ago Bea sort of fainted—well, she said not, but I think she did. She asked me not to say anything to Tariq…I knew I should have told him…’ She shook her head and gave a self-recriminatory grimace as she slapped the heel of her hand hard against her forehead. ‘If she’s ill, if anything happens to the baby, it’s my fault.’

  She was either a brilliant actress—and no one was that brilliant—or this woman had a seriously skewed take on morality. How could she care about the wife and cheat with the husband?

  ‘Do you know what’s wrong? Is there something you’re hiding? Is Bea in danger?’

  He shrugged. ‘I’m not hiding anything. Tariq wasn’t that forthcoming.’

  ‘He must be frantic!’ If anything happened to Bea or the baby she knew he would be utterly devastated. Her half-brother’s obvious adoration of his wife had been one of the first things that had made her warm towards him.

  ‘I’m going out to the hospital so I could take you if you like? I’m sure you will be a great comfort to Tariq.’

  Molly, deaf to the ironic inflection in his steely addition, turned to him with a beam of gratitude.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘I’m sure Beatrice would like to have such an old friend around.’

  She smiled and reached out impulsively to touch his arm again as she said, ‘It really is kind of you.’ Then Molly saw he was looking at her hand and with a self-conscious grimace she let it fall away.

  ‘Not kind.’

  The strange way he said it made her throw him a frowning look of enquiry, but his expression told her nothing.

  ‘Come.’

  Molly responded to the command, falling into step beside him as he went through a door that linked the glasshouses with the main building. ‘I was thinking, perhaps I should ring the hospital? They must have left in a hurry. Maybe,’ she mused, quickening her pace to keep up with Tair’s longer stride, ‘there is something Bea would like me to bring for her…’

  Molly knew if the positions were reversed she would like to have a few personal things around her to make her hospital room seem more homely.

  ‘There is no shortage of people to bring the princess what she needs.’

  Molly gave a rueful grimace and felt foolish. ‘Of course there is. I just can’t get used to that.’

  ‘To what?’

  ‘The fact that there are people to tie her shoelaces if she wants.’ And Beatrice seemed so normal.

  ‘I forget that you knew Beatrice before she was married. Have you been friends long?’

  Molly, never comfortable with the lie, shrugged and mumbled, ‘It feels like for ever.’ Which was true; her rapport with Beatrice had been instant. She doubted she could have felt closer if Bea had been one of her own sisters.

  When they reached the courtyard a four-wheel drive was waiting there for them. Tair spoke to the man behind the wheel, who got out and, with a courteous nod in her direction, retreated.

  ‘I prefer to drive myself.’

  Molly dragged her eyes from the vehicle to the man she was going to share it with and felt her stomach muscles tighten nervously. Suddenly this didn’t seem like such a brilliant idea.

  ‘Should I change?’ she asked, lifting a hand to her head. ‘I should probably tidy up and get something to cover my hair. Look, you don’t have to wait for me—you go. I’ll make my own way to the hospital.’

  ‘You look fine as you are.’

  Tair slid into the driving seat but still Molly hung back. She recognised the reason for her reluctance and knew it was ridiculo
us, but the thought of being in an enclosed confine with this man and his sexual magnetism scared her witless.

  Though wasn’t magnetism meant to work both ways? If so this must be something else because he wasn’t drawn in her direction, reluctantly or any other way!

  He glanced across at her, with one dark brow elevated, looking more like a dark fallen angel than ever. ‘Are you coming?’

  ‘I was just…’ She stopped, her eyes sliding from his as she realised she could hardly tell him his aggressive masculinity made her feel raw and uncomfortably vulnerable.

  A spasm of irritation crossed his dark features as she continued to hesitate. ‘Do you want this lift or not?’

  Molly told herself to calm down. This was just a lift; she wasn’t signing away her life. All she had to do for Tariq and Bea was to survive for twenty minutes in this man’s company.

  ‘Well, if it’s no bother.’

  CHAPTER FOUR

  MOLLY had assumed that Tair was taking a short cut to the airport when he turned off onto a dirt track, but after they had been travelling for forty minutes it occurred to her that short cuts were meant to be…well…shorter.

  Were they lost?

  They hit another bump in the road and Molly let out an involuntary little cry as she was jolted.

  He flicked her a brief sideways glance. ‘Are you all right?’

  ‘Fine.’

  Tair turned his attention back to the road and she slid a covert look at his patrician profile. He didn’t look like someone who didn’t have a clue where he was. He looked like someone who always knew exactly where he was going. On the other hand, she supposed, men were notoriously reluctant to admit when they were lost.

  Her lips curved into a secret smile as she looked at him and thought how he was definitely all man. The gusty sigh that lifted her chest caused his eyes to find her face once more.

  ‘Are you sure you’re all right?’

  ‘I bit my tongue, that’s all.’

  Feeling the guilty heat rise to her cheeks, she fixed her gaze on her hands clasped primly in her lap. Adjusting her regard onto the arid scenery they were driving through, she thought how there wasn’t a single landmark in the miles and miles of featureless desert. It had to be very easy to miss a turning out here. It wasn’t as if there were signposts or, for that matter, anything else.

  She averted her gaze from the bleak landscape with a shudder, unable to see the beauty in this empty land that Beatrice spoke of. Presumably her mother had seen no appeal in it either.

  ‘I suppose satellite navigation must be essential out here,’ she remarked casually. The vehicle they were in was equipped with it, but Tair had not switched it on.

  His broad shoulders lifted in a shrug. ‘Useful, I suppose, if you are not accustomed to negotiating the desert terrain.’

  ‘Which you are?’

  ‘Which I am,’ he agreed. ‘It is in my blood.’

  Molly could have listed the constituents of blood and to her knowledge the items would not include a sense of direction. She kept a discreet silence on the subject but possibly her scepticism showed because he volunteered further information to back up his claim.

  ‘My mother came from a Bedouin tribe, and my grandfather is the sheikh of his tribe.’

  Her eyes widened. As she glanced at him it was impossible not to see him as a romantic figure in flowing desert robes. ‘People still live that way?’

  ‘The tribal way of life is dying out,’ he admitted.

  It was hard to tell from his expression if he considered this a bad thing or not.

  ‘But there are some like my grandfather who keep tradition alive.’

  ‘Your grandfather is alive?’

  He flashed her a grin and for a brief moment looked less austere and stern. ‘My grandfather is very much alive, but Mother died when I was a child.’

  ‘Mine too.’ Which was about the only thing they could possibly have in common.

  ‘You have no family?’

  Her eyes dropped as she shook her head. ‘Dad is alive and I have two stepsisters, and two half-brothers.’

  His brows lifted. ‘A large family.’

  Families were a place Molly did not want to go! She was beginning to wish she had stuck to a safer subject like the weather.

  ‘Big queues for the bathroom,’ she said, trying to close down the subject, though she couldn’t help but wonder what his reaction would be if she said, Actually I’m Tariq and Khalid’s half-sister—my mother divorced the king.

  His blue eyes looked over at her face. ‘But you could not have been lonely growing up.’

  Did that mean he had been? Did lonely little boys turn into men as self-reliant as this one? Despite the extreme unlikelihood of this, an image of a dark-haired little boy with lonely blue eyes flashed into her head. The sort of little boy you’d want to pull into your arms.

  Only, little boys you wanted to hug grew up into men around whom it would be wise to keep such impulses under control!

  Besides, she thought, her glance drifting towards his powerful shoulders, relaxed despite the rough terrain he was negotiating, it was obvious that there wouldn’t be many people who could pull him any place he didn’t want to go these days!

  He was far more likely to be the one doing the pulling and very few women she could think of would do any resisting!

  Her lashes brushed her cheeks as, eyes half closed, she wondered what it would feel like to have those arms close around her. Her eyes darted, as though drawn by an invisible force, to his mouth, her pupil dilating dramatically as she stared at the sculpted outline. It was a fascinating combination of passion and control. A fractured gasp locked in her throat and she pressed a hand against the pounding pulse at the base of her neck.

  How would it feel to be claimed by that mouth? She ran a finger across the upper curve of her lips and thought it would surely be pretty mind-blindingly sensational.

  God, what was she doing?

  She was weaving a sexual fantasy about someone she didn’t even like doing something he was never going to do. Men like Tair Al Sharif did not kiss women like her.

  But if he did?

  The question popped unbidden into her head and once it was there it wouldn’t go away, even when she tore her eyes from his mouth.

  They hit another pothole and Molly, teeth gritted and eyes trained on the dusty track ahead, barely noticed—even though her seat belt cut painfully into her shoulder. She picked up the thread of their conversation.

  ‘I wasn’t lonely.’

  Molly winced to hear the note of defiance in her voice. Tair had struck a sensitive nerve she hadn’t known she had because she hadn’t been lonely. Not as such.

  How could a person be lonely with a great dad and stepsisters who never excluded her? Sue and Rosie had always gone out of their way to involve their studious, less popular little sister. The fact that she had always been conscious of a sense of being different was down to something in herself, Molly suspected.

  ‘And I really would be a lot happier if you kept your eyes on the road—if you can call it that.’ Now that she said it Molly realised that she wasn’t sure there was even a track anymore. It had deteriorated over the past couple of miles to the point where it was hard to tell where it ended and the desert began.

  ‘If I was a more suspicious man I might think you were trying to change the subject.’

  The man was far too perceptive. ‘No, I simply don’t want to arrive at the hospital in need of medical attention,’ she retorted tartly while thinking psychiatric analysis might not be such a bad idea.

  She lasted thirty seconds before she responded to the overpowering compulsion to look at him. She was studying the strong, aggressively male curve of his jaw from beneath the concealing sweep of her lashes when he turned his head. Caught staring like a child in a sweet shop, Molly fought the impulse not to look away guiltily.

  He smiled the sort of smile that suggested it wasn’t anything new for him to have women stare i
n lustful longing at him, which it no doubt wasn’t, but that in her eyes did not excuse the arrogance. In fact it made it worse!

  She cringed inwardly imagining him thinking she was a pushover—another one unable to resist his alpha-male magnetism.

  Insufferable egotist!

  ‘I was just wondering…’if you’re as good at kissing as you look? ‘…if your male ego…’ she choked as her colour heightened ‘…would take a bashing if I asked you if we’re lost?’

  He grinned again and Molly thought he really should do that more often.

  ‘My ego is pretty robust, but thank you for caring.’

  She’d never seriously thought any different—he hardly looked as if he had a self-esteem issue. ‘I don’t,’ she muttered under her breath.

  She was relieved when Tair showed no sign of hearing her childish retort. She wasn’t childish, or inarticulate, and she definitely wasn’t sex-starved—well, only out of choice and it had never felt like a problem before—so why was it she displayed all these embarrassing characteristics around this man?

  ‘So I’ll risk it. Are we?’

  He probably wouldn’t look on getting lost in a desert as a crisis—he’d more likely relish the challenge of being forced to rely on his ingenuity to survive in a hostile environment.

  A frown of dismay twitched her brows as it occurred to Molly that the thought of being lost in the desert didn’t alarm her as much as it should have. A circumstance that might have something to do with whom she’d be stranded with.

  ‘No.’ He flashed her a quick sideways look.

  Was she meant to find the monosyllabic response comforting? ‘Then where are we?’

  ‘We are almost there,’ he said in the manner of an adult humouring an impatient child. ‘In fact,’ he added a moment later, ‘we are there.’

  She shook her head, repeated, ‘There?’ and looked out of the window. ‘Here! This isn’t an airport.’

  This wasn’t anything! Apart from a couple of large corrugated metal buildings that had seen better days, there seemed very little to differentiate where they were from the previous dusty miles of empty red sand they had just driven across.