Desert Knights

by Conrad, Linda; Conrad, Linda

  Sayeed drew back the curtain gently, making sure his captive was still asleep. His chest tightened as he gazed down at her—she was even more beautiful in repose, if that was possible. Hair like flame spread over his pillow. Her lips, full, were slightly parted as she breathed. Her chest rose and fell gently. Again, he recalled the shape of her breast, the smooth, alabaster skin. He felt himself harden again, and this time he allowed himself to savor the sensation of arousal between his thighs, watching her a few seconds longer, just imagining what she might feel like under him. She murmured, turned.

  His pulse kicked. He quickly pulled the curtain back into place, then returned to his desk. He seated himself and picked up the pile of photographs his men had taken from Kathleen’s tent.

  They were mostly pictures of Dr. Jennie Flaherty—the ones Kathleen had been showing around to villagers. And the responses to the pictures had led her north into the Sahara, in the direction of their camp. Which is what had brought her to Bakkar’s attention.

  From that moment, she’d been doomed.

  Flipping through the pile, Sayeed came to a photo of Kathleen and Jennie together in a cabin of some sort. It looked like Christmastime, a wreath on the door, snow piled high against frosted windows. The two sisters were pink cheeked and smiling as they cradled red mugs of steaming cocoa with tiny marshmallows floating on top. Sayeed studied Kathleen, thinking she was everything he’d ever lusted after in a woman. She had a glow of health, of pure living. Her curves were all woman, and she radiated sensuality. He loved her pale skin, her thick, red hair, her clear, aquamarine eyes—a man could drown in those eyes.

  They appeared to twinkle with some secret as she looked toward the camera, and Sayeed found himself wondering who had taken the photo—a boyfriend, perhaps?

  He wondered if she had a man in her life. He thought not—Kathleen had told him Jennie was the most important person in her life. A significant other would be here in the desert helping her if he was worth his salt. And Sayeed had noted Kathleen wore no rings on her fingers. He guessed she was very much single. A ripple of excitement, of possibility, reached his consciousness before he shunted it out of his mind. What a ridiculous thought. Where in hell had that come from anyway?

  Even if they did make it out of the Sahara alive, even if he did look her up in the States once this was all over, Sayeed wouldn’t stand a chance. Not only had he brutally kidnapped and manhandled her, he’d lied to her about her sister, the most important thing in Kathleen’s life. He had a good sense she wasn’t going to get over that lightly.

  Kathleen Flaherty was the kind of woman who put a lot of stock in a promise.

  He returned his attention to the Christmas photograph of Kathleen and Jennie, again noting the genetic similarities and differences in the siblings: the taller, more angular and much older Jennie and her pretty little sister, twelve years her junior. A new and deeper respect for Dr. Flaherty filled Sayeed. It couldn’t be easy to give up one’s youth to raise a kid sister. Damn, these two, he liked them.

  He thought of Jennie Flaherty locked in the level-four lab, being forced against her will to make the Ebola Botou airborne, working almost 24/7 to meet the deadline set by The Moor, the mysterious leader of the organization known simply as the Maghreb Moors. It must be killing Dr. Flaherty to know what they were going to do with her work and to think of her sister worrying about her.

  He flipped to the last photo. It was an old one—Kathleen, maybe six years old. Which would make Jennie about eighteen in this photograph. Kathleen had mentioned their mother left home when she was five, so this picture could have been taken about a year after their mother abandoned ship. Jennie’s arm was tight around little Kathleen’s shoulder. They looked sad.

  Inhaling deeply, Sayeed turned his attention to the diary.

  The old leather and thick pages gave it a nice heft, but it was not the ideal journal for traveling, especially in a digital world. He thought of her fountain pen, her old-style cotton nightdress, how she knew about the crusades. Kathleen had a respect for the past, for things that took time and hard work. Those were the things she sought to preserve.

  She rolled over in her sleep, murmuring. Sayeed tensed, expecting her to wake. He wondered what she was dreaming. A nightmare perhaps. She’d seen her guards killed. She’d been kidnapped and assaulted. Her head must be filled with horrible images. Guilt twisted through him.

  He opened the cover of her journal, turned the pages and began to read.

  Slowly, increasingly, Sayeed became overwhelmed by her beautiful, lyrical prose, her descriptions of this desert he’d been born in and banished from by his own father.

  But while he’d returned to the Sahara with vengeance in his heart and a death mission on his mind, she’d arrived with wide-eyed wonder and compassion. And she was painting with her words images he’d forgotten over the years and been blind to upon his return.

  He was seeing it all anew through her eyes—the colors and the scents of the desert, the sounds of his people—and Sayeed felt his kinship with Kathleen deepening inside him.

  She was reminding him what was true. And what was worth fighting for.

  Sayeed read into the night while she slept.

  Her journal affirmed that Kathleen was a fierce defender of those she loved. Loyal. A loner. A romantic at heart with a yearning for a sense of real family she believed she’d never have. Even in her innocence, part of her was jaded, thought Sayeed, and suddenly he wanted to show her—and himself—it was possible. And that shocked him.

  He shook himself.

  He was fatigued. His muscles burned, and his wound throbbed. He needed to find a few hours’ sleep himself.

  His quarters were small. He could lie on the floor, canvas over hard-packed sand, which was a bitch to sleep on. Or he could lie on the edge of his camp bed beside Kathleen. He argued with himself the floor was the wiser option.

  But a secret part of Sayeed—the part that was still Rashid, the part she was reawakening—wanted, needed to be close to her, to smell her hair, her skin, to feel her soft warmth. It was a deep, human need to connect with the person he was coming to know through the pages of that journal and through their forced proximity. And Sayeed argued that if he slept close to her, he had a better chance of protecting her through the night from those barbarians outside.

  He pulled on a light pair of white, cotton pants, turned down the lamp so there would still be some light if she woke afraid in the night. Then, carefully, he edged onto the cot. It creaked under his weight, and he stilled. But she didn’t stir. She was curled over in the far corner against the canvas wall. He lay gingerly on his back, right on the edge, just listening to her breathe, thinking it had been a long, long time since he’d spent a whole night with a woman.

  It made a change from his past relationships.

  Sayeed had never dated a woman he wasn’t sure he could walk away from. He wasn’t even really sure why. Perhaps it was his lifelong obsession with killing his father and uncle, as the ancient code of Sun Clan justice decreed he must, that stopped him short of seeking commitment.

  Or maybe it was because he hated something deep within himself—he carried the genes of his father and of Marwan. And Qasim. How much like them was he really? Did he even deserve a woman like Kathleen or a shot at a proper family life?

  And once he killed them? Could he ever go back to the FBI, to who he’d become in America? Or would he be throwing away everything his mother had sacrificed for him?

  Was there a time to cut the past adrift and focus on the future? Could he even do that?

  Kathleen rolled over onto her side next to him, murmuring again. The sheet she’d wrapped around herself slid off her torso, and Sayeed felt the soft, rounded warmth of her breast against the bare skin of his arm. He focused on keeping dead still as he stared up at the tent roof listening to the sound of a beetle bumping against the canvas, seeking a way in. But then he felt her hand touching his chest.

  His pulse quickened. His mouth
turned dry.

  She murmured again in her dream and cuddled closer to him, seeking comfort. He could feel more of her body, her bare skin. She was smooth like silk, warm. Soft.

  Her hand moved slowly down his stomach, and her leg hooked over his. Sayeed didn’t dare take a breath.

  She was dreaming, wanting him in her sleep.

  His body went hot. His heart began to race. His erection grew hard, urgent, his blood throbbing loud against his eardrums.

  He turned his head to the side. Her face was right there, eyes closed and lids fluttering. Her lips were deliciously parted. He breathed in slowly, just inhaling her breath, her scent. Her mouth was so close. Unable to stop himself, he touched his fingertips gently, illicitly, to her lips.

  Her eyes flared open in shock. He pulled his hand away.

  She stared at him, her pupils darkening.

  Chapter 7

  Kathleen was mortified to find herself half-naked in Sayeed’s arms, her leg over his thigh. For a paralyzing moment she thought she might still be dreaming that she was making love with a dark and dangerous Moor, a fierce, desert prince with the mark of the Sun Clan.

  But when Sayeed tried to move away, and she felt his skin hot against the inside of her thigh, fire shot to her belly, and she realized she was most definitely awake. Lust sparked with adrenaline through her blood, making her heart beat faster, blurring her mind. And before she could even think, before he could extricate himself from her slumberous embrace, Kathleen touched her fingertips to his lips, feathering the sculpted outline of his mouth. His eyes turned dark, and his breathing changed. She could feel his muscles quivering with the tension of restraint, and her heart began to race so fast she felt dizzy.

  Kathleen closed her eyes and pressed her lips against his. She tried to tell herself this was foolish. This man had abducted her, and she knew nothing about him. She might never make it out of the Sahara alive. But maybe that’s what drove her now—a need to affirm life, to feel, to make love before she died.

  Sayeed drew her tentatively into his arms, as if in question, allowing her plenty of opportunity to pull away, and when she didn’t, he kissed her back, his tongue exploring the sensitive, inner seam of her lips. Kathleen’s mind swooped with pleasure. Heat rushed to her belly. She murmured, kissing him as she hooked her leg higher over his, and she felt her nipples hardening against the bare skin of his arm.

  Sayeed thrust his fingers into the hair at the back of her neck and drew her closer, his kiss becoming more aggressive, more urgent. Her mind spiraled as his tongue went deeper, tangling with hers. And suddenly Kathleen didn’t care that she was a captive somewhere in the Sahara, being held in an enemy camp. She couldn’t think about anything other than savoring the sensation of this very moment.

  “Kathleen,” he whispered, pulling back slightly, his voice thick, his lids low, eyes dark with desire. “We shouldn’t, not after—”

  But she drew his head back down, kissing him hard, demanding. Angry. Afraid. Craving the raw, physical release of the emotional energy trapped inside her, not wanting to think about how close she had come to losing her life. Or what might happen next. She kissed him fiercely, as if there might be no tomorrow, and she was going to take every little bit out of today.

  He seemed to sense this, because again he pulled away, and this time he held her face firmly between his hands, his gaze penetrating, smoky, hungry, almost dangerous. Her blood pounded.

  “Kathleen, are you sure?”

  Her answer was to reach under the covers and trail her fingertips over the muscled ridges of his abdomen, her hand inching lower and lower toward his groin.

  She felt his sharp intake of breath as her fingers touched the hair low on his belly, and inside she smiled. He yanked her hard against his body, and she felt his large, rough hand stroking up the outside of her thigh, over her hip, along her waist, until he cupped her breast, the rough pad of his thumb rasping over her sensitive nipple. Heat condensed into liquid-like fire between her legs, and Kathleen felt drunk, delirious. Her fantasies—all the romantic desert stories she’d ever read—came swirling to life in her mind, mixing and melding reality with dream. She could not believe she was actually in bed with a dark and dangerous Moor, and hell, she could fantasize he really was a Sun Clan prince in disguise if she wanted and that he was just living temporarily with a dark band of Ali Baba thieves. His hand went to her belly, then lower, and she gasped. He was melting her from inside out, and she became filled with a desperate urge to open to him, to feel him touch her between her legs. Kathleen angled her thigh higher over his body, giving him access. And she began to shake in anticipation as he teased the inside of her thigh with his fingertips, getting closer and closer.

  Then suddenly, he cupped her, and she groaned in sensual pleasure as he sunk his finger inside.

  She moved against him, her need growing desperate and fierce.

  Sayeed sank another finger into her, and Kathleen’s breath hitched slightly on a small, distant spark of fear, but she was ready for him, had never felt more ready for this. She moved her pelvis, heightening the sensation, desperate, aching desire driving her.

  He suddenly flipped her onto her back, knelt over her and stared down at her nakedness. Approval was written into his handsome, dark features, and the desire in his eyes was raw. He’d left the kerosene lamp on low, and the bare skin on his chest gleamed in dark contrast to the white, cotton pants gathered and slung low at his waist. His black hair hung glossy and loose about his impressive shoulders, and he was breathing heavily. He asked her again. “Kathleen—”

  She shook her head, shutting him up as she reached out and began rolling the loose, cotton pants down his hips.

  A twinge of apprehension braided into her desire as she saw the dark flare of hair between his legs and the size of his arousal. She swallowed, but continued rolling his pants down farther, revealing the white bandage over his hip—a wound he’d received saving her. Reality crawled back into the edges of her passion. So did a moment of doubt. She touched the bandage.

  He didn’t wince, didn’t flinch. His black gaze held hers, pinning her to the pillow, devouring her, his chest rising and falling. He placed his hands between her knees, and, slowly, he opened her legs wide.

  Kathleen swallowed another spurt of anxiety as he lowered himself over her and entered between her legs with just the tip of his erection. Hot. She almost fainted as her mind rushed and spun like a fairground ride.

  Slowly he pushed deeper, the quivering in his arms showing how much his restraint was torturing him. He moaned in pleasure as he sank a little deeper inside her, teasing her ear with his tongue, his breath sending warm, drugging waves through her entire body.

  He pulled himself out a little and thrust back harder, a little less controlled. He did it again, this time thrusting all the way to the hilt, with a groan of lust. Kathleen arched sharply under him and gasped as a sharp, tearing pain radiated through her body.

  He froze in shock.

  His gaze shot to hers.

  And the question was sharp in his eyes. He started to withdraw.

  “No, please,” she whispered, arching up to him, holding him in.

  “You’re a virgin?” he whispered.

  Tears of pleasure rolled down her cheeks, and she nodded.

  Again he tried to extricate himself. But she shook her head. “Please, Sayeed, I want this. It’s beautiful.”

  He entered her again, very slowly this time, gradually filling her with his warmth, allowing her to accommodate him. The skin all over her body turned sensitive, every nerve ending awakening, tingling, her cheeks growing hot as pleasure radiated through her core.

  He began to take her faster, faster, and she grew wetter, warmer, hotter until she felt a scream rising from somewhere deep in her chest. She could feel his whole body begin to shake, and she could feel an almost electrical quivering inside her. Then, as he plunged deep into her, he froze and shuddered with release, holding her close, murmuring Arabic wo
rds into her hair that she could not catch.

  Sayeed was overwhelmed to learn he’d just taken a virgin. He felt truly bound to her, truly responsible in ways he couldn’t begin to describe. He had to protect this woman now. And as he held her in his arms, he vowed he would. No matter the cost. And he could feel this new goal suddenly beginning to assume equal, if not greater, proportion to his sense of duty to his adopted country and to this mission.

  Sayeed looked down into her eyes—large pools still filled with the darkness of desire.

  “Come on top of me, Kathleen,” he whispered in English.

  She seemed suddenly embarrassed, as if she’d failed in some way. He stroked the side of her cheek. “You’ll feel more that way.”

  He swung her on top so that she straddled him. And the sight of her totally naked on top of him stole his breath. Red hair glowing like fire in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp cascaded in waves over her pale breasts. Her nipples were still tight and pointed with desire, her skin glowing with a sheen of perspiration.

  Sayeed grasped her hips. “Move like this,” he whispered, watching her face as he began to rock her back and forth on top of him. She let him direct her movements, and then he saw the change in her face. She began to move on her own, fuelled by her own desperation, riding him hard, her hands braced on his shoulders, her skin rubbing against his as she opened her legs wider, sinking lower onto him, making him go deeper. She moved faster, hard rhythmic strokes increasing in tempo until she was almost panting, and suddenly she arched her back, her nails digging into his skin as she thrust her head back and came with a sharp cry.

  She sank down on top of him, warm, soft, relaxed, and Sayeed just held her in silence, stroking her hair, feeling himself go soft inside her.