by Julia James
Within seconds Diana discovered why it was called ‘dune-bashing’. She shrieked and covered her eyes as the skilled driver performed manoeuvres that took them to the top, then slid them down the other side, then careered up again to totter precariously at an impossible angle before plunging down in a huge flurry of sandy and sideways sliding.
Nikos hoped that she was, despite appearances, enjoying herself.
By the time the driver finally screeched to a juddering halt, turning back to Nikos with a triumphant grin on his face, he believed she was.
‘Oh, good grief!’ she cried, half-laughing, half-shaking as she finally let go her death grip on the door strap. ‘I was absolutely terrified!’
‘Me too,’ Nikos admitted ruefully.
He turned to the driver, exchanging comments on how he’d performed those almost impossible and certainly potentially lethal manoeuvres on the steep soft sand.
Diana caught at his arm. ‘No, Nikos, you are not to try doing it yourself!’ she exclaimed feelingly.
He turned towards her. ‘Worried for me?’ he asked, grinning. His eyes glinted. ‘How very wifely of you.’
It was lightly said, but it was like a sudden sword in her side, reminding her of just how little right she had to be ‘wifely’. But she could not, would not think of that now. Not here in the desert, cocooned in this world so distant from their own.
And then Nikos was announcing his need for lunch—for breakfast had been long ago, before they’d set out to try their hands at the ship of the desert, mounting camels as the patient beasts lay on the sand, clambering up with a serpentine grace and starting to move with their slow, swaying gait.
Diana had found the experience unforgettable as her camel trod silently along the way, feeling only the desert wind playing across her heated cheeks, her head shaded by a wide-brimmed hat, the blown sand off the tops of the dunes catching in the light, the burning azure bowl of the sky arching over them, and the endless ocean of sand stretching boundless and bare all around. She’d felt as if she were in a different world. Ancient and primeval, timeless and eternal.
Far, far away from the real world beyond.
But this world here, now, timeless and primeval, was the world she was giving herself to—and she was giving herself to the man here with her, to this time together. She would not think of the world beyond, would not remember it. Not now.
Elation seared through her—a kind of reckless joy as she seized this moment, this time out of time that had come to her unasked-for, unsought, but which she had taken all the same, bestowed upon her like a gift of all gifts.
The gift of this time with Nikos, the man who, out of all men that existed, had taken her to a place she had not believed could ever be for her.
But it is—it is! It’s real for me—passion and desire. It’s real and now I have it—here, with Nikos, in this timeless place.
That was all she cared about, all she would let herself care about, feel and believe. This time now, with Nikos, alone in the desert.
She could see the camels again now, lying down in the shade of high rocks, resting, as their four-by-four descended to the level dirt track again, taking her and Nikos to where a canopy had been set up over carpets laid on the sand.
There they were offered moistened, cooling cloths to wipe their dusty hands and hot faces, before tucking into an array of spiced and fragranced dishes whose delicious aroma quickened her appetite.
And not just for food.
Her eyes slid to the man she was with and she felt that rush of amazement and wonder that came every time she looked at him, feasted on him. He caught her open gaze and smiled—a warm, intimate smile that brought colour flushing to her cheeks. He said nothing, though, only let his long lashes sweep down as he urged her to try yet another dish.
Around them servants stood, pouring cool drinks from tall silver jugs, removing empty dishes, replacing them with yet more food that seemed to be arriving in a procession from the open-air cooking station some way down-wind of where they lounged.
Eventually, sated and replete, Diana felt her eyelids start to drift down.
‘I’m falling asleep,’ she heard herself say as the heat and drowsiness of midday took their soporific toll.
‘Then sleep,’ said Nikos.
He made a gesture for the servants to clear the last of the bowls and glasses, which they instantly did, then reached across to Diana, drawing her down on the cushions beside him, letting her head loll on his lap. Idly he stroked her hair, plaited into a confining ponytail, but feathering in soft tendrils around her face. Her beautiful, fine-boned face, flushed now with the sun, her hair bleached even paler.
He felt desire stir in him, but held it at bay. It would wait until they were private again.
A slow smile slid across his features and there was reminiscence in his eyes. Their eventual consummation had been everything he’d wanted. Everything he’d intended. Leisurely he replayed in his head that first night—melting her under the stars, seeing the revelation in her starlit eyes as realisation had swept over her, as she’d felt the full intensity of the sensations he’d drawn from her, using all his skills and experience, knowing just what would most sate the desire burning in her like a flame. A desire he had kindled, against her own long-held assumption that men were of no sexual interest to her.
His smile deepened, took on a sensual twist. Well, he had made an end of that! From now on she would burn for him—burn for however long it took before his desire for her began to wane and the day came when he woke and knew their time together was done with.
Until that time came she was his...
He felt his own lids grow heavy in the somnolent heat. To lie like this, with Diana supine in his lap, her arm across his limbs, warm and close and intimate, was so very good.
Would he ever not want her?
The question hung like an eagle over the desert sand, motionless and unanswered, as his eyelids closed and he, too, succumbed to sleep.
* * *
‘I hate to say this...’ Nikos’s voice sounded regretful ‘...but our idyll here is over.’
Diana looked across at him as they sat taking their breakfast in the beautiful inner courtyard, the trickling fountain cooling the air beside them, verdant greenery all around them in the private, enclosed space.
Nikos set down his phone. ‘That was the Minister for Development’s office. There’s another meeting this afternoon with the minister and several other bigwigs. I’ll need to be there.’
Diana blinked. The world beyond the desert had seemed so very far away, and yet here it was intruding, downloaded from the ether, summoning them back to reality. She tried to count the days since they’d arrived here from the coast, and failed. One day had segued into the next—indolent, lazy, luxurious, self-absorbed and self-indulgent. A time of passion and desire—a time of bliss.
A fantasy of Arabian Nights made real...
And now it was to be ended.
A kind of numb dismay filled her—a sense of dissociation, loss.
Nikos was already getting to his feet. ‘I need my laptop,’ he said. ‘There are some things I must check. Finish your breakfast, though. There is no immediate rush. They’re sending a helicopter to take us back to the city.’
The helicopter, when it arrived, was a huge, noisy, angry wasp, churning up the sand, landing just beyond the perimeter fence. It seemed like an invasion to Diana. As Nikos helped her aboard, ducking under the sweeping rotors, it was as if the twenty-first century was crashing back into her.
The machine took off with a deafening roar, wheeling up into the steel-blue sky, casting its wrinkled shadow over the dunes as it headed back to the coast. It took them back to their hotel, but Nikos was not there long—only long enough to shower, change into his business suit, take up his briefcase and depart again, leaving Diana alone and feeling dislocated and bereft in their suite.
Her head was all in pieces. The abrupt change was jarring. From the emptiness of the desert�
�the absolute privacy of their time there and all that that had brought—back now into the modern world, busy and crowded, demanding and bustling.
Here, time existed. Other people existed. Other priorities. Other realities.
Realities that now forced themselves upon her.
She did not want to face them—but she must.
Restlessly she paced about, netted by tension. There was a deep disquiet within her. A deep, fearful unease.
Danger was lapping at her feet...
CHAPTER EIGHT
NIKOS THREW HIMSELF into the back of his car, his face set. That meeting had not gone well. The damned internal politics of the sheikdom were raising their heads again. Sheikh Kamal’s cousin, Prince Farouk, who was against all development, was leaning on the minister to block him, Nikos, favoured as he was by Sheikh Kamal. So, although the minister had been urbane, he had also been regretful. And adamant.
There would be problems. Difficulties. Delays. It was unfortunate, but there it was.
He gave a frustrated sigh. Sheikh Kamal, shrewd and far-seeing, would, he knew, outmanoeuvre his cousin in the long term, and until then he would have to exercise patience—though it went against the grain to do so. All his life he’d targeted what he wanted, gone after it and achieved it. Wealth, a trophy mistress, and now a trophy wife.
Immediately his mood improved. After all, there was an upside to this delay in his business affairs here. It would give him more time with Diana...
He felt himself start to relax and his body thrummed with anticipation. She would be waiting for him in their suite, no longer the ice maiden but the warm, ardent, passionate woman of his desires, fully awakened by him, as by no other man, to the rich glory of her sensuality.
A sensuality that had swept him away.
Oh, Nadya had been a passionate woman—fiery and tempestuous—and he’d always chosen women for their passion. But with Diana... His expression changed, became wondering. With Diana it had been more than passion, that incandescent union with her beneath the stars.
He tried to understand it, to comprehend it. Was it because he’d had to wait so long to claim her? Was that the reason that those days with her in the desert had been so...so special? So different from any other days he’d known? Was it because she’d been that untouchable ice maiden, yielding to him only after so long a wait? An ice maiden only he could thaw, who only melted in his arms, no other man’s?
A frown drew his brows together as he tried to work it out. Work out why it was that those nights he’d spent with her had been so overwhelming.
Because it wasn’t just passion or desire—that was why. There was more than that. Oh, yes, there was a sense of triumph that she’d finally yielded to him and his patience had been so lavishly rewarded. But still there was more than that.
It was the sense of companionship they’d shared. Whether it had been watching the stars, knowing she was as beguiled by their majesty as he was—something that Nadya would have found incomprehensible and irrelevant—or laughing as they’d swayed on those poor camels, bearing the load of riders who were rookies, or leaning back into each other’s arms as they lounged on the divans by the poolside, under an awning out in the desert heat.
And talking—always talking. Sometimes about world affairs, sometimes just about anything or nothing. Stimulating and energising, or easy and uncomplicated—they could segue from one to the other effortlessly, seamlessly.
I like her company—I enjoy being with her—whether she is in my arms or just spending time with me.
Was it really that simple? If it was, then there was something else, too. Something basic, fundamental—something he’d never thought about before.
She is happy to be with me. She likes my company...enjoys being with me. As I enjoy being with her—for her company, for just being together...
That seemed an odd thing to think, in many ways, because it wasn’t something he’d ever considered before when it came to women. It made him realise that the time he’d spent with Nadya, with all of her predecessors had been entirely superficial. It had been about sex—nothing more than that. Nadya had been specifically chosen to be a trophy mistress—showing the world he could have so lauded and beautiful a woman in his bed, on his arm.
Memory flickered in him. He’d thought of Diana as the next step on from that. Did he still think of her that way? Merely as a trophy wife? Or could the woman he’d made his own beneath the desert stars mean something more to him?
Maybe I’ll never get bored with her! Maybe I’ll never tire of her?
The thought hovered in his mind. It was something that he’d never felt about any woman before and he did not know the answer—not yet. For now all he wanted was what he had had in the desert—Diana in his arms, clinging to him in ecstasy.
Arriving at the hotel, he strode across the vast atrium, hastening up to the honeymoon suite. To Diana—warm and ardent with all the passion he had awakened in her, all the desire he had released in her.
My bride. My wife!
Emotion washed through him—strange and unfamiliar. It was desire for her, yes—strong and powerful—but more than that too. He didn’t know what, but it was there, just as strong, just as powerful. He wondered at it, for he did not recognise it, had no experience of it.
Then the elevator doors were opening, and with eager steps he strode along the plush corridor to reach their suite, swiping the key card and going in.
She was there, by the window of the balcony, a coffee tray set out on the dining table in the embrasure where she sat with her tablet, studying the screen. She looked up with a startled expression as he walked in, carelessly tossing aside his briefcase.
‘Oh!’ she exclaimed.
For a moment there was a panicked look on her face, but Nikos didn’t register it. He walked up to her, loosening his tie as he did so, as if it were constricting him.
‘Thank God that’s over,’ he said feelingly. ‘That damned meeting!’
Diana looked at him, alarmed. ‘It didn’t go well?’
Was there strain in her voice? He hardly knew. Instead he answered directly.
‘A set-up by Sheikh Kamal’s rival for power,’ he expostulated. ‘I’m being blocked—and it’s because of an internal power struggle in the royal family.’
‘Oh, I’m sorry...’ Diana’s voice was concerned, but distracted.
He shook his head. ‘Well, it’s not that bad. Things will come about. I put my money on Kamal—he’s a smart guy and won’t be outmanoeuvred. But I’ll have to hold fire for a while.’ His expression changed. ‘In a way,’ he said, and there was a glint in his eye now, ‘it has its advantages. Gives me more free time while we’re here. We can enjoy ourselves all the more. Starting...’ there was a growl in his voice ‘...right now.’
He drew her upright, made to slide her into his arms, into his waiting embrace. It was good, so good to have her here for him. So good to feel her slender body, so pliant, so beautiful, to see her upturned face, her mouth waiting for the kisses which she had come to yearn for in their desert idyll, returning them as ardently as he bestowed them. Diana, his beautiful, exquisite Diana—his, all his, completely, all-consumingly.
‘I’ve been aching for you,’ he said, his voice a low, husky growl, his eyes alight with sensual desire. ‘Aching...’
His mouth lowered to hers, his arms around her tightening. But there was something wrong—something different. She was tensing her body, straining back from him.
‘Nikos—’
There was something wrong in her voice, too.
He drew back a moment, loosening his clasp but not relinquishing her. ‘What is it?’ he said. Concern was in his voice, in the searching frown of his eyes.
She slipped her hands from her sides to rest them against his shoulders—to brace herself against them. Hold herself away.
‘Nikos—we...we can’t!’
His frown deepened, as did his expression of concern.
‘What is it?’ he asked
again. ‘What is wrong?’
She did not answer, then carefully she drew away from him. He let her go and she walked to the far side of the dining table, as if to put it between them.
‘We need to talk.’
He stared at her. There was distress in her voice, in her face—her eyes.
His brows drew together in a frown. ‘What is it?’ he said, and now his voice was different too. Edged.
She took a breath. Cowardice bit within her. And temptation. Sweeping, overpowering temptation! The temptation not to say what she was steeling herself to say. To keep silent. To hold out her arms to Nikos and let him sweep her against him. To carry her through to that preposterous bridal bed smothered in rose petals and take her to the place they had found in each other’s arms, each other’s ecstasy.
But if she did...
Emotion devoured like the jaws of a wolf. If she succumbed, as she so longed to succumb, then what she had tried to keep at bay out in the desert, what she had denied, refused, would happen.
And I cannot let it happen. I dare not!
All her life she had kept intimacy at bay, kept herself safe from what she had seen destroy her father. The hurt he’d suffered that she dared not risk for herself! So now she must say what she must say. Do what she must do.
Nikos’s voice was cutting across her anguished thoughts.
‘Diana—speak to me. What is it?’
There was steel in Nikos’s voice now. He wanted answers, explanations. Something was going wrong, and he wanted to know what it was. Why it was. So that he could fix it. Whatever it was, he could fix it.
Her breath caught—then she forced herself into words. Words she had to say. Had to...
‘Nikos—what happened in the desert...it shouldn’t have happened!’
Disbelief flashed across his face. ‘How can you say that?’
His voice was hollow. As if the breath had been punched from his body by a blow that had landed out of nowhere. His mind was reeling, unable to comprehend what she had just thrown at him. It made no sense. No sense. How could she possibly be saying what she had just said?