Her Desert Dream

‘Bab el Sama is yours, sitti.’

Dena left her alone to explore and she skirted the terrace, noticing how cleverly it was shielded from the creek by the trees so that no one from below would be able to see the royal family at play.

Taking a path, she found steps that led invitingly downwards in the direction of the beach but, conscious of the silk kaftan flowing around her ankles, she turned instead along a path that led upward through the garden.

After the crash that had killed her father and left her mother in a wheelchair, she and her mother had moved from their small house with a garden into a ground floor flat that had been adapted for a wheelchair user.

She’d missed the garden but, ten years old, she’d understood the necessity and knew better than to say anything that would hurt her mother. It was the hand that life had dealt but even then she’d used her pocket money to buy flowering pot plants from the market. Had grown herbs on the windowsill.

This garden was like a dream. Little streams ran down through the trees, fell over rocks to feed pools where carp rose at her appearance.

There were exquisite summer houses tucked away. Some were for children, with garden toys. Some, with comfortable chairs, were placed to catch a stunning view.

One, with a copper roof turned green with verdigris, was laid with rich carpets on which cushions had been piled, and looked like a lovers’ hideaway. She could imagine lying there with Kal, his lips pressed against her throat as he unfastened the buttons…

She lifted her hand to her breast, shook her head, trying to rid herself of an image that was so powerful that she could feel his hands, his mouth on her body.

As she backed away there was a scuffle near her feet as a lizard disappeared in a flurry of emerald tail. For a moment she stared at the spot, not sure whether she’d imagined it. Then she looked up and saw Kal standing just a few feet away.

The keffiyeh had fallen from his head and lay gathered about his neck. His robes were made of some loosely woven cream material and the hem was heavy with sea water and sand. As they stood there, silent, still, a trickle of sweat ran from his temple into the dust on his cheek.

After what seemed like an age he finally moved, lifting his elbow to wipe his face on his sleeve.

‘I’ve been riding,’ he said wearily.

‘I saw you. You looked as if you were flying,’ she said.

‘That’s me,’ he said, the corner of his mouth lifting in a self-mocking smile. ‘Addicted to the air.’ He took a step forward but Lydia, almost dizzy with the scent of leather, of the sea clinging to his clothes, of tangy fresh sweat that her body was responding to like an aphrodisiac, didn’t move.

Hot, sweaty he exuded a raw sexual potency and she wanted to touch his face. Kiss the space between his thumb and palm, taste the leather; lean into him and bury her face in his robes, breathe him in. Wanted to feel those long, powerful hands that had so easily controlled half a ton of muscle and bone in full flight, on her own body.

She cooled her burning lip with the tip of her tongue, then, realising how that must look, said, ‘Maybe my problem with flying is that I didn’t start in the right place.’

He frowned. ‘You don’t ride?’

‘No.’ Having studied every aspect of her alter ego’s life, she knew that while most little girls of her class would have been confidently astride her first pony by the time she was three, Rose was not one of them. ‘But, if I had to choose, I think I’d prefer it to fishing.’

His smile was a lazy thing that began in the depths of his eyes, barely noticeable if you weren’t locked in to every tiny response. No more than a tiny spark that might so easily have been mistaken for a shaft of sunlight finding a space between the leaves to warm the darkness. Then the creases that fanned out around them deepened a little, the skin over his cheekbones tightened and lifted. Only then did his mouth join in with a slightly lopsided gotcha grin.

‘Here’s the deal,’ he said. ‘You let me take you fishing and I’ll teach you to ride.’

His voice, his words seemed to caress her so that it sounded more like a sexual proposition than a simple choice between this or that outdoor activity. Standing there in the dappled sunlight, every nerve-ending at attention, sensitized by desire, she knew that if he reached out, touched her, she would buckle, dissolve and if he carried her into the summer house and laid her amongst the cushions, nothing could save her.

That she wouldn’t want to be saved.

This powerful, instant attraction had nothing to do with who they were. Or weren’t. It was pure chemistry. Names, titles meant nothing.

She lowered her lids, scarcely able to breathe. ‘Is that your final offer?’

His voice soft, dangerously seductive, he said, ‘How about if I offered to bait your hook for you?’

Baited, hooked, landed…

She swallowed, cooled her burning lower lip with her tongue. ‘How could I resist such an inducement?’

A step brought him alongside her and he took her chin in his hand, ran the pad of his thumb over her mouth in an exploratory sweep as if to test its heat.

‘It is a date, Rose.’

He was so close that she could see the grains of sand thrown up by the flying hooves which clung to his face and, as she closed her eyes to breathe in the pure essence of the man, his mouth touched hers, his tongue lightly tracing her lower lip, imitating the route her own had taken seconds before, as if tasting her.

Before she could react, clutch at him to stop herself from collapsing at his feet, it was over.

‘You will fish with me this afternoon. I will ride with you at dawn.’

‘Perfect,’ she managed through a throat that felt as if it was stuffed with cotton wool. Through lips that felt twice their normal size.

Then, as she opened her eyes, he stepped back and said, ‘You might want to wear something a little less… distracting.’

Before she could respond, he strode away in a swirl of robes and she did not move until she was quite alone.

Only when the path was quite empty, the only sound-apart from the pounding of her heart-was the rattle of palm fronds high above her, did she finally look down, see for herself how the light breeze was moulding the thin blue silk to her body so that it outlined every contour. Her thighs, the gentle curve of her belly. The hard, betraying, touch-me peaks of her breasts.

CHAPTER SEVEN

KAL stood beneath the pounding icy shower. He did not need hot water; the heat coming off him was turning the water to steam.

He closed his eyes but it didn’t help. Without visual distraction, the image of Rose Napier, silk clinging to every curve, filled his head, obliterating everything from his mind but her.

If he had ever doubted her innocence, he was now utterly convinced of it. No woman who had a scintilla of experience would have let a man see such naked desire shining out of her eyes, been so unconscious of the come-and-take-me signals her body was semaphoring in response to his nearness. Given him such power over her.

But maybe they were both out of their depth.

Preoccupied with his own concerns and apparently immune to this pale beauty that the entire world appeared to be in love with, his guard had been down.

Knocked sideways from his first sight of her and, knowing that he wouldn’t sleep, he’d gone to the stables, determined to blow away the demands of his body in hard physical activity.

But as hard as he’d ridden he could not shake loose the image of those blue eyes. One moment keep-your-distance cool, the next sparkling with life, excitement. A touch of mischief.

Almost, he thought, as if she were two women.

The adored, empathetic public figure-as flawless and beautiful as a Bernini marble, as out of reach as the