The Desert Prince's Mistress

by Sharon Kendrick

  She must snap out of it. They were lovers again, and hadn’t she been wanting that to happen? What did she expect—that because they had just shared a delicious and erotic encounter in the stables that he would start offering her the moon and the stars?

  She stretched, and yawned. ‘Go and run it, then.’

  ‘Or shall I have one of the servants do it?’ he teased.

  ‘Careful, Darian,’ she said steadily. ‘Much more of this and you’ll come back down to earth with a bump when you get back to England!’

  He didn’t answer, just went into the bathroom and filled the tub with hot, soapy bubbles, and when he called her to tell her that it was ready she was already naked, and when he saw her his heart missed a beat. Their short and tumultuous history had not embraced any of the normal stuff, he realised. This was the first time he had seen her completely naked.

  ‘You are very beautiful,’ he said evenly.

  But as his golden eyes slid over her Lara felt a little like one of the Akhal-Teke horses, being appraised for her physical attributes alone. ‘Thank you.’

  He pulled her into his arms, feeling her tension dissolve as he ran his fingertips up and down the smooth, satin flesh. ‘Get into the bath,’ he said huskily. ‘You’re shivering.’

  The warm, silken water lapped over her skin, and she sank deep into it, watching while he stripped off his shirt and his jodhpurs until he was as naked as a gleaming, golden statue.

  ‘Move over,’ he instructed, and then his eyes became smoky and he smiled, his voice softening to a whisper. ‘Actually, don’t. Stay just where you are.’

  Lara had never made love in a bath before and it was another out-of-world experience—the water providing weightlessness and making their kisses slippery wet, their limbs sliding and entwining and mingling until the obliteration of orgasm left her reeling and empty.

  The water was cool by the time she opened her eyes, to find him looking at her.

  ‘We’d better get out,’ he said.

  She nodded, but drew a deep breath, knowing that unless the subject were broached it would always be like an unspoken barrier between them. ‘Darian, have you…have you forgiven me?’

  ‘For?’

  ‘For keeping secrets. And one in particular.’

  His eyes narrowed. Why bring that up again, and especially now? ‘It’s forgotten.’

  ‘Seriously?’

  He shrugged his broad, gleaming shoulders, and tiny droplets of water ran down the tawny skin. ‘I understand why you did it, okay?’

  ‘That isn’t the same as forgiveness.’

  ‘Hell, Lara—can’t you just leave it alone?’

  ‘No, I can’t!’ With an effort she disentangled herself and climbed out of the bath—because somehow this needed to be said when she wasn’t touching him, because touching distracted them both and detracted from the importance of what she was saying. ‘I need you to know that when I said sorry I really meant it.’

  He sighed as he followed her out and let the water go, hearing it gurgling and sucking away. Her words had the unmistakable ring of truth and regret, and they chipped away at his resolve. It was easier to think of her as foxy and deceptive, rather than soft and giving and warm and regretful. Qualities like that made him forget that this was something not dissimilar to a holiday romance. Two attractive people thrown together in a beautiful place, giving in to the pleasures of the senses without any of the hassle of normal day-to-day living.

  ‘Forgiven and forgotten,’ he said, and took her into his arms. ‘Now, smile for me.’ He dropped a kiss onto her trembling lips. ‘That’s better. Mmm. That’s much better. Let’s go to bed.’

  ‘Now?’

  ‘Sure—why not? Dinner isn’t for hours.’

  His body was close. Close and warm and overwhelming. ‘That wasn’t what I meant,’ she said weakly.

  He pushed himself even closer. ‘I know it wasn’t. But, in answer to your unspoken and rather sweet question, the answer is yes, I want to go to bed and make love to you. Again. But if you’re tired…? He tilted her chin upwards, dazzled by the lost, dazed look in her blue eyes.

  Tired? She had never felt more awake nor more on fire in her life. She stared into his face. The tawny hue of his skin was shadowed by the sculpted cheekbones and the faint darkening around his jaw. His lips parted a fraction and she touched her fingertip to them, tracing a line around them, biting back a wistful sigh. She wished that the doors of the palace could be boarded up and the two of them locked in here for ever, because she recognised that she had fallen in love with him, without rhyme or reason, nor even the comfort of having known him first as a friend.

  She lowered her lashes, afraid that he might be able to read the emotion in her eyes, terrified that it would send him running—as surely it would. ‘No, I’m not tired,’ she murmured.

  He gave a low laugh of delight, loving the way she gave him that demure little look even while the tension which was shivering over her body told him that she was feeling anything but demure.

  He reached out and untied the knot of the belt at her waist, so that the robe fell open. He slid his hand inside, to cup her breast, its sinful weight resting in the palm of his hand, and felt the swift spasm of desire so strong and so intense that it was close to pain.

  He was almost beyond words. Again. He shook his head, as if doing that would make clear some of the confusion making it spin. One touch and he was lost—or was that simply because he had been fighting her since they had arrived in Maraban? Surely it was just his appetite made keener by deprivation, rather than some dark, erotic power exerted by Lara, who could switch from wanton to demure and then back again?

  ‘Come on,’ he said huskily. ‘Let’s lie down before I fall down.’

  ‘Not again! You really are a fallen man, aren’t you?’ she teased, because somehow it was easier to keep it light than to struggle with the enormity of how her feelings for him had just crept up and changed irrevocably. She wound her arms around his neck and looked up at him.

  ‘I’ll show you just how much, shall I?’ he questioned softly, and picked her up and carried her through to the bed.

  They slid between the Egyptian cotton sheets and he ran his fingertips lightly over her.

  ‘Do you realise we’re in bed properly together, at last? No sofas, no stables and no baths.’ He gave her a look of mocking query. ‘Isn’t this how most people tend to do it, Lara?’

  She doubted it. That was her last sane thought as he moved his hand between her legs. Surely it couldn’t feel this good for other people? Surely they had just invented something new—just him and her? And could it just get better and better, like this? she asked herself afterwards in disbelief, as wave after wave of pleasure racked through her body once more.

  Don’t analyse; enjoy. Pretend it’s a dream from which you’ll never waken.

  From that day on it felt like a honeymoon—without the declared love and the wedding, of course, but the days had about them a dreamy and blissful quality which was how she had always imagined a honeymoon to be. No worries and no reality. Lazy mornings and long, beautiful nights. And if Lara was acutely aware that it couldn’t last for ever, that the sands of time were running out for what was only ever intended to be a short stay, she didn’t confront it. Sometimes it was easier to hide from reality than have to face it.

  Darian was no longer up at the crack of dawn to go to the stables, but Khalim still took them both out riding straight after breakfast each morning. Darian improved day by day—he was like a sponge, soaking up every single thing that Khalim told him and then fearlessly putting it into action.

  ‘He will beat me yet,’ Khalim sighed to Lara the first time Darian galloped, giving an exultant little whoop as he did so, and looking more carefree than she had ever seen him.

  She nodded. ‘Probably.’ But he has me beaten already, she thought. Certainly my resolve not to fall in love with him.

  ‘You are in love with him?’ probed Khalim quietly, uncannily
seeming to echo her thoughts. But then, he was a very perceptive man. He watched and he observed and he allowed instinct to guide him.

  ‘Khalim!’ She turned to him, knowing that her cheeks had grown pink. ‘You can’t possibly ask me a question like that.’

  ‘I can ask anything I like—for I am the Sheikh!’ he teased, but then his eyes unexpectedly softened. ‘I think that you are, Lara. It is there for all to read when you are watching him and he cannot see you.’

  ‘And Darian?’ she questioned, her heart pounding, afraid of what she might hear. ‘What do you see when he watches me?’

  ‘I see a wary man,’ said Khalim truthfully. ‘He looks at you as I would a spirited horse who was perplexing me!’

  Which was an ironic comparison when she stopped to think about it. ‘Did he…did he say anything to you of what went on between us…before we arrived here?’

  Khalim shook his head. ‘He is a man who keeps his own counsel. He told me nothing, though some of it I have guessed.’ He smiled. ‘Do not worry yourself, Lara—these things have a habit of working out in the way that fate intends them to. Give it time.’

  But it was borrowed time, and she did not know how long it would last. How long before this suspended state would be broken into by the demands of real living?

  And then her question was answered. She saw the end in sight and a slow, waking dread came to life inside her.

  They were waiting in the dining room when Khalim swept in. Only for once he did not dismiss the retinue which always accompanied him. His face was unusually stern, and Lara saw Darian’s eyes narrow, as if he sensed that something was wrong.

  ‘I must go to Dar-gar,’ Khalim said immediately.

  ‘Is it Rose?’ questioned Lara at once. ‘Is the baby all right?’

  Khalim shook his head. ‘Rose is fine and so is the baby,’ he said gently. ‘Though I have been away from her too long. No, my police have brought me news of a divisive element which is growing within the city walls, and my place is there.’ He turned to Darian. ‘You will accompany me?’

  ‘Of course.’

  Darian had agreed without hesitation, without even thinking about it for a moment, thought Lara sadly. But her sadness was for what might have been—for shouldn’t she be joyful that Darian had a place here, that Khalim needed him, wanted him beside him to face the adversities as well as enjoy the pleasures of being ruler?

  Darian had changed, even in the short time they had been here. It was perfectly plain to see if you looked properly—though maybe up until this moment she hadn’t wanted to, or dared to.

  Here in Maraban his presence seemed even more dominating than it had the first time she had seen him. He exuded an indefinable air that was much more than the power he had attained through his own successful career as a businessman. It was something which went deeper than that, and it was all to do with his royal blood. She had thought it when she had met him, and it was even more evident now. Maraban had released something in him, and in so doing it had bound him to the place for ever.

  Darian belonged here, Lara recognised with a sinking heart. He did not need to wear the flowing robes of Khalim for anyone to be able to tell that at heart he was a true sheikh.

  She had seen him discover a part of himself here which had been missing before. The golden eyes had become even more alive. She had watched the way they looked up at the clear Maraban sky every morning, watched him suck in a breath of pure, clean air and smile the smile of a contented man.

  She had listened to the way he devoured facts about the country from Khalim, asking him this and asking him that, nodding his head as he absorbed as much of its history as was possible. Even the food they were served and the different drinks—he tried each and every one, and savoured them with the air of someone who had never really tasted before.

  Last night, in bed, she had dared broach the subject of what might have been.

  ‘Does it hurt?’ she’d said softly. ‘Or make you angry to think your mother had to struggle to survive when all this wealth was here for the taking?’

  There was silence, so that for a moment she wondered whether or not he had heard her. Or overstepped the mark, perhaps, by trying to delve into his innermost thoughts.

  Darian stared at the ceiling. He had been thinking about it a great deal, knowing that he had to come to terms with certain things or he would be unable to move on. If circumstances had decreed it, then he would have led a very different life.

  ‘The question is whether or not Makim knew that she was pregnant,’ he said slowly. ‘Whether he refused to stand by her—that would make a difference to the way I felt.’

  She stroked at his temple. ‘And is there no way of finding out?’

  ‘Oh, yes. He kept diaries. Khalim told me.’

  ‘So read them! Find out.’

  ‘There’s a fifty-year rule about opening them,’ he said slowly. ‘Or at least it’s fifty years before they can be brought into the public domain.’

  So he would never know, or at least not until he was an old man, when the knowledge would no longer matter as much as it mattered now. ‘Oh, Darian,’ she said softly, and kissed his cheek.

  Sometimes she was so damned soft and tender that he felt as weak as water, and Darian liked to feel strong. He turned over onto his elbow and concentrated on her pink and white naked body instead. ‘Oh, Darian—what?’ he questioned sulkily.

  She remembered thinking fleetingly that he always put barriers up—that he went only so far before the shutters came down. But then he had made love to her in a way which made her misgivings melt away with the sureness of his touch, and afterwards she had cried softly, and she wasn’t quite sure why.

  She stood watching now as he talked to Khalim, their heads bent and deep in low conversation, excluding her completely.

  ‘Lara, I will have the jet prepared for you,’ said Khalim, straightening up.

  She looked directly into the golden eyes which were trained on her watchfully. Make it easy for him, thought Lara. No bitterness, nor regrets, no tears or recriminations. Let it be a fond memory, something to warm him during the long, cold Maraban nights, until he finds another woman to replace me.

  She nodded. ‘I shall leave as soon as possible,’ she said.

  ‘How soon is soon?’ demanded Darian.

  Khalim glanced at his watch. ‘You can be airborne within the hour.’

  That quickly? Her head swam. But wasn’t anything possible for the Sheikh of Maraban? That didn’t even leave them time for one last, loving goodbye.

  ‘I’ll go and pack,’ she said, noticing that Darian didn’t attempt to change her mind for her.

  She went back to their room, looking sadly at the rumpled sheets, which would normally have been changed while they were at dinner so that they would return to a neat and pristine bed for another night of long lovemaking.

  It wasn’t enough, she thought sadly. It had been too brief and all too beautiful, and then snatched away by chance and circumstance.

  The door opened and her expression of regret quickly changed to one of acceptance. She would not burden him with her sadness, nor leave him remembering her face all crestfallen. And maybe in a way this was for the best. Ending naturally at its height rather than leaving her with a sour taste when it faded away, or he tired of her.

  But inside her heart was breaking into a million pieces.

  She clipped the suitcase closed and smiled. ‘There!’

  Darian looked at the tumble of dark, silken curls, the brittle way she was smiling at him. Something had changed. He knew it and she knew it, too. Yet wasn’t it human nature to want things to stay exactly as they were?

  ‘I don’t want you to go, Lara.’

  But Lara recognised that his words were inadequate, spoken only because it was the ‘right’ thing to say at a time like this. She shook her head. ‘You need me to go, Darian. There is stuff here for you to do, and my presence isn’t helping.’

  ‘Yes.’ There was silence for a
moment, and when he spoke his voice was heavy. ‘You know, I can’t promise you anything, Lara. Not even whether or not I’ll see you again.’

  ‘I know that.’ Her eyes were very bright, but her voice was steady. ‘And neither should you. This has all been a very strange experience—perhaps it’s best that we put it down to just that…an experience.’

  She was moving away from him, and unexpectedly he felt a wrench. He reached out his arms to her, but she shook her head and turned away. If he touched her she would dissolve with the tears which were threatening to fill her eyes—and why leave him with that as an enduring vision?

  ‘I’d better get going,’ she said brightly. ‘Can’t keep Khalim waiting, can we?’

  But he kissed her on the airfield, in full view of Khalim and servants and flight attendants and all. He brought his lips down on hers in a hard, almost punishing kiss, as if he wanted to physically imprint himself on her and leave her with a memory of him which no one else would ever be able to match.

  But he hadn’t needed to kiss her to do that.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  THE first thing Lara saw on her return to England was her face—only for a moment she didn’t quite recognise it, for it was magnified to sixty-eight times its normal size, the blue eyes staring moodily down at her from a giant hoarding as her taxi drove out of Heathrow.

  For a minute she blinked, disconcerted.

  She had forgotten all about the job—the means she had used to get to Darian in the first place, which had ended up, ironically, with her winning the contract.

  It was strange to see your features so enlarged. She looked all eyes—their sapphire-blue colour blinding—but there was a haunted, almost distracted quality to her smile, and she knew why.

  It was the very first shot, and it had been taken just after he had put the shawl around her shoulders, when she had been disarmed by the soft and solicitous gesture. She was wearing the chiffon dress and holding the phone to her ear, and there was a dazed, almost dreamy expression on her face. It looked like the expression of a woman in love, but that was crazy. You couldn’t fall in love that quickly could you?