by Penny Jordan
A small perplexed frown creased her forehead.
'What's the matter?'
Her face burned with embarrassed colour. She hadn't realised that Xander was watching her so closely.
'Nothing. That is…I just thought…' she began in a suffocated voice, her face burning even more as he too looked at his own body.
'You thought what?' he challenged her coolly. 'That I might be planning to take you back to bed?'
'No!' Katrina denied immediately and truthfully, even though the distressing sudden tightening of her nipples told her how favourably her body was already viewing that possibility.
'No? Then what were you thinking?'
He was going to insist on her telling him the truth, Katrina recognised.
'I just thought that you…that after sex… You just looked much bigger than I'd imagined,' she finally blurted out uncomfortably.
'Imagined?'
The silky, challenging word caught her off guard, conjuring up the erotic thoughts and fantasies she had mentally created around him and rendering her tongue-tied and speechless.
Xander leaned forward, stroking the soapy sponge the length of her back, all the way down to the firm curve of her buttocks.
'So what exactly was it that you did imagine?' he asked her softly.
'Nothing,' Katrina denied quickly.
He dropped the sponge and looked at her, his intent, speculative gaze searching her face.
'Whilst men, like women, are all basically made the same, within the parameters of that sameness there are many different sizes, which is just one of the reasons why you should have told me that you were a virgin.'
He rinsed off the soap with the spray of the shower.
'I am surprised that your parents, your mother, and especially your father did not warn you about this kind of situation…'
'I do not have a mother or a father,' Katrina checked him quietly. 'They were killed in an accident when I was in my teens.'
'An accident?'
'They were scientists,' Katrina explained. 'They were working on an ecological site in Turkey when a roof fell in on them.'
She heard the hiss of his indrawn breath.
'There is no need for you to feel sorry for me. I don't want anyone's pity. I am just glad that they died together, and I am so grateful for the love they gave me and the love they had for one another.'
She spoke with a quiet dignity that once again touched a raw, intimate place in Xander's own emotions. He had to fight against a sudden desire to put his arms around her and simply hold her.
'Stay here,' he said curtly instead, turning off the shower and stepping out, returning almost immediately with a huge soft towel that he wrapped firmly around her.
When she touched its softness with appreciative fingers he told her authoritatively, 'It's Egyptian cotton, and far superior to any other kind.'
'And far more expensive,' Katrina answered him ruefully before tensing and remembering just what he was.
But of course he had acquired the towels in the same way as he had acquired the books but, remembering the outcome of her accusations regarding them, she decided not to challenge him a second time.
Having wrapped her in one of the towels, he wrapped one around his waist and then started to rub her dry—more briskly than passionately, she had to admit. His self-imposed task completed, he wrapped her in a fresh dry towel and swung her into his arms.
'I can walk, you know,' she objected crossly, but she might just as well not have spoken for all the attention he paid to her.
In the close confines of the narrow corridor she could smell the clean, soap-fresh scent of his skin. Her heart thumped heavily and then skidded against the bottom of her chest cavity. She badly wanted to press her lips against the smooth brown column of his throat and then to lick and nibble her way towards his mouth.
A now-familiar feeling of sensual tension was already starting to build again inside her. What had he done to her? Katrina wondered helplessly. How had he turned her from a naive virgin into a woman of wanton hungers and needs who was aching for him again already?
She told herself that it was relief she felt when he carried her into the sleeping area and placed her on the bed.
'Rest now,' he said.
'I don't need to rest,' Katrina objected immediately. 'Just because I was a virgin that does not mean I'm delicate.'
He had been about to turn away from her, but now he stopped and turned to look at her instead, sliding one long, lean-fingered hand against her throat so that she was forced to look back at him.
'You may have been a virgin but, admit it, you were eager and ready for me, weren't you?'
An expression she couldn't define, but which her body obviously understood, crossed his face, causing a small reactionary shiver of sensual excitement to grip her, but she still compressed her mouth and tried to look away from him.
'Answer me,' he insisted. The hard pad of his thumb was rubbing dangerously against her lips. She could feel them swelling sensitively against his touch and she ached to part them and taste the teasing thumb that was causing her so much torment.
'Answer me,' he repeated, removing his thumb.
'Very well. Yes, I was. You are obviously an experienced lover,' she told him colourlessly, determined not to let him see how she really felt.
'You will be in a far better position to know exactly how experienced by tomorrow's sunrise,' he told her mockingly. 'You have scarcely begun to know what sensual pleasure is, although I confess you are an extremely receptive pupil. Just now, in the shower, you looked at me as though you were as hungry for me as a woman of much greater experience. Have you any idea just how enticing and erotic it is for a woman to show a man how receptive she is to him?'
'I did no such thing!' Katrina objected, hot-faced.
'Liar!' he stopped her softly. 'Rest now, and tonight I will show you what pleasure really is.'
His arrogance was unbelievable, Katrina decided angrily, but underneath her anger she could feel the fierce, excited pulse of her own arousal. What she was allowing to happen was far too dangerous, she knew that, but somehow she just could not help herself.
She should hate and loathe him and not love him; she should…
Love him? She did not love him. She could not love him. What treachery had put that word into her head? She might want him. She might be excited by him, aroused and tantalised by him; she might be all those things and even a great deal more, but she did not love him!
CHAPTER EIGHT
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Morosely Xander stared out across the oasis, beyond which the sun was dying fast towards the horizon.
By rights his sole concern, his every single thought, should have been for his half-brother, and the fact that tomorrow was Zuran's National Day, and the day Nazir had selected for his murder of the Ruler and his coup d'état.
But instead of focusing on that, his thoughts, and even worse his emotions, were rebelliously preoccupied with Katrina.
He had said and done things to her that were totally alien to his normal mode of behaviour, and that alone was enough to fill him with an explosive mix of anger and disbelief, without the additional discomfiting knowledge that he was now aching physically for her so intensely that he actually wanted to put into effect the ridiculous sexual boast he had made earlier. What on earth had prompted him to say such a thing? Surely he wasn't really so vain and shallow that just the wide-eyed, slightly awed and disbelieving way she had looked at his sex earlier had made him want to hear her make those little whimpers of pleasure all over again.
Where the hell were those agents? They should have returned by now with a formal warrant for Nazir's arrest and detainment. He was beginning to fear that they might not return in time. Which meant that he would have to find a way of stopping Nazir himself.
Xander's mouth compressed, a grim look darkening his eyes as Nazir strolled out from between the rows of tents, heading in the direction of the oasis.
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tely Xander started to turn away from him, but, as though Nazir had somehow sensed his desire not to be noticed, Xander heard him call out sharply to him, 'You! Come here!'
Pretending not to have heard him, Xander started to walk away.
'Stop, or I shall shoot you.'
They were alone in the small palm grove, and Xander knew better than to delude himself that Nazir would not carry out his threat.
His own hand went automatically to the dagger in his belt. Like all the male members of the ruling family, he had undergone military training, but he had never killed anyone, nor imagined that he would have to. But now it seemed that fate was putting him in a position where he would have no option. If he ignored Nazir's demand Nazir would shoot him as he had threatened. And if he obeyed him then Nazir would no doubt quickly discover his real identity, and would guess that his plot had been discovered.
Taking hold of his dagger within the concealing folds of his clothes, Xander turned round to confront his half-cousin.
'You took too long, Tuareg.' Nazir was sneering. 'Perhaps I should kill you anyway.'
The gun was already in his hand and he was pointing it right at Xander's heart.
Katrina took a deep breath and stepped out of the tent. She had to find Xander and make him agree to release her. She had spent virtually the whole of the afternoon going over and over what had happened between them and she was acutely aware of how vulnerable to him she was,.
That frightening word 'love', which had crept into her thoughts earlier, had lodged painfully in her heart, making her sickeningly aware of her own danger. She hated the thought of lowering her pride and pleading with him, but she had no other option. She had made up her mind that she was going to ask him how much ransom he intended to demand for her and somehow she would find a way to raise the money herself. She had the small house in England her parents had left her. Surely she could raise some money on that?
She had waited as patiently as she could for him to return, but now her patience had run out, and so she had decided to go and look for him. Soon it would be dark, and once she was alone with him in the intimacy of the tent with the sensual weight of the words he had said earlier still hanging on the air she was afraid that she might weaken.
It had been more instinct than anything else that had drawn her down to the oasis. And now she stood frozen in shocked fear as she witnessed what was happening.
The man pointing the gun at Xander had an obvious air of authority about him, and it crossed her mind that he might have come to the oasis in search of her, alerted to her plight by Richard.
Xander was standing still several yards away from the other man.
'Come closer,' Katrina heard the other man order sharply.
Her heart was thudding frantically against her ribs and a feeling of pain and anxiety was wrenching at her insides. Xander was a thief, and a kidnapper, she reminded herself. She owed him no loyalty whatsoever.
Xander still hadn't moved.
'You dare to disobey me, Tuareg? Very well, then.' There was a malevolent pleasure in the man's voice as he pulled back the trigger.
He was going to shoot Xander… Kill him!
Frantically Katrina rushed forward protesting emotionally, 'No…'
Both men turned towards her, Xander's harsh, 'Katrina!' leaving his lips at the same time as he flung himself towards her, but it was already too late. As fast as he was, he could not match the speed of a bullet.
Katrina felt it hit her with a sense of disbelief and bewilderment, which immediately became an intense, obliterating pain.
She could see Xander looking at her, his lips moving as he spoke to her, but the pain would not let her answer. It was clawing and tearing at her, dragging her away to its dark, cold lair. But at least Xander was safe and the man had not killed him.
Her last thought as she lost consciousness was one of confused awareness that Xander was holding her. But not even the warmth of his arms was enough to stop the icy cold that was filling her veins and stealing her away from him.
CHAPTER NINE
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'Katrina?'
Reluctantly Katrina opened her eyes and looked up into the face of the uniformed nurse smiling down at her. Katrina's mouth was dry and she felt heavy-headed, unable to think properly or clearly. Confusing images filled her slow-moving thoughts.
She was lying in what was obviously a hospital bed, but the room she was in was like no hospital room she had ever seen or imagined seeing. It looked more like a super-luxurious hotel bedroom: a sparkling clean, luxurious hotel bedroom, she acknowledged as she tried to sit up.
Immediately the nurse shook her head and showed Katrina a small but very complicated-looking remote-control device.
'You can alter the position of your bed with this,' she instructed Katrina, before adding, 'The doctor will be in to see you soon. Are you in any pain? You were given an intravenous painkiller after the operation last night to remove the bullet from your arm.'
The bullet! Agitation filled her as everything came rushing back to her. Xander. The desert. The man with the gun. Xander…Xander…Xander…
'Where am I? Where is…?'
'You are in the special private royal ward of the Zuran Hospital,' the nurse answered her importantly, plainly impressed with the status that Katrina had been accorded. 'The Ruler himself has told the chief surgeon that he wishes to be informed of your progress hourly, and the Sheikha, Her Highness, the Ruler's wife herself will be visiting you this morning. We've received a gift of some clothes for you to wear when Her Highness comes to see you. You cannot receive Her Highness in what you were wearing when you were brought in to us. It would be a disgrace!'
The royal ward of Zuran Hospital? What was she doing here? How had she got here? She had no memory of anything after the explosion of pain she had experienced when she had been shot.
'Let me pour you some water,' the nurse offered. 'You must drink as much as you can to wash the anaesthetic from your system and to prevent you from becoming dehydrated.'
Katrina's eyes widened as she saw that the bottle of water she removed from the discreetly hidden fridge bore a royal crest, and her eyes widened even more when the nurse produced a heavily cut crystal tumbler for her to drink from.
But even as she gulped eagerly at the crystal-clear cool water it wasn't her own situation that was on her mind so much as Xander's. Where was he?
'The man,' she began hesitantly, but the nurse stopped her immediately, a look of contempt and anger darkening her eyes.
'He has been taken into custody by the special agents from the Ruling Council. By good fortune they had arrived at the desert camp of the renegade El Khalid in time to witness everything. Indeed it is thanks to them that you were brought immediately here to Zuran. The Council will decide on the ultimate fate of this unspeakable villain, but there is no doubt that he will receive his just deserts. Such a man truly deserves to be punished for what he has done!'
Katrina's heart sank lower with every word the other girl uttered. 'Where is he now?' Katrina asked her chokily. Her drug-fogged brain was already planning recklessly to plead Xander's case, and to beg for mercy to be extended to him. Wildly Katrina wondered how much money she could borrow against her small home and if it would be sufficient to buy Xander his freedom.
She was halfway to working out the details of such a plan when she realised abruptly what her frantic thoughts meant.
She had told herself that she did not love Xander, but why else would she be feeling the way she was? Surely a much more appropriate emotion ought to be more of relief at having finally escaped from him. She should feel determined to put everything that had happened to her and Xander right out of her mind for ever. But instead she was making desperate plans to help him!
'The special agents from the Ruling Council have taken custody of him in prison and he will be held there until his trial. His Highness made an announcement to the nation this morning to alert us to what has been happening, and of the br
avery of his half-brother Sheikh Allessandro, who was the one who discovered the plot against the Ruler. Sheikh Allessandro is to join His Highness in his walkabout today during our National Day celebrations. I will put the television on for you and you will be able to watch the celebrations,' the nurse told her enthusiastically, beaming with delight.
Katrina felt too sick with despair to respond. She tried to remind herself that she had known all along what Xander was, and how much his moral outlook on life differed from her own. She had warned herself of the emotional danger she'd been in and how foolish it would be for her to allow herself to weave dreams and fantasies around him, but she might as well not have bothered! Stupidly she had done exactly what she had told herself she must not do!
Where was Xander now? Was he already incarcerated in some cramped prison cell? She tried to imagine the proud features contorted with fear, but she could not do so. The image of him that was burned for ever in her memory was that of him standing tall and magnificent before her.
'What…what will they charge him with?' she asked the nurse huskily.
'Treason—he dared to threaten the life of our beloved Ruler,' the other girl responded darkly.
Katrina made a small sound of anguished protest, but the nurse didn't hear it, she was too busy putting the television on, her back turned towards Katrina.
As soon as the nurse had gone, the consultant himself arrived. Katrina lay stiffly in the bed, consumed with despair and anxiety for Xander, whilst the consultant inspected the wound to her arm.
'You are a very fortunate young woman,' he told Katrina benignly. 'Another few centimetres and the bullet would have penetrated your heart. Mind you, you are not alone in your good fortune, for I would not have cared to have to inform His Highness that you were seriously injured. He was beside himself with anxiety for you.'