Penny Jordan Tribute Collection. PENNY JORDAN

Xavier smiled ruefully as he embraced the senior tribesman whilst the others went about the business of breaking camp ready to begin the long slow journey across the desert.

      ‘You could always come with us,’ Ashar responded.

      ‘Not this time.’ Xavier shook his head.

      All around him he could hear the familiar sounds of the camp, the faint music of the camel bells, the orderly preparations for departure. The tribe would travel through the night hours whilst it was cool, resting the herd during the heat of the day.

      Ashar’s shrewd brown eyes surveyed him.

      Ashar remembered Xavier’s grandfather as well as his father. Alongside his respect for Xavier as his leader ran a very deep vein of paternal affection for him.

      ‘Something troubles you—a woman, perhaps? The tribe would rejoice to see you take a wife to give you sons to follow in your footsteps as you have followed in those of your grandfather and your father.’

      ‘If only matters were that simple, Ashar.’ Xavier grimaced.

      ‘Why should they not be? This woman, you are afraid perhaps that she will not respect our traditions, that she will seek to divide your loyalties? If that is so then she is not the one for you. But knowing you as I do, Xavier, I cannot believe that there could be a place in your heart for a woman such as that. You must learn to trust what is in here,’ he told him, touching his own heart with his hand. ‘Instead of believing only what is in here.’ As he touched his hand to his head Xavier hid a wry smile. Ashar had no idea just how dangerously out of control his emotions were becoming!

      He waited to see the tribe safely on their way before climbing in his vehicle to drive back to the oasis.

      A sharply crescented sickle moon shared the night sky with the brilliance of the stars. Diamonds studded onto indigo velvet. For Xavier it was during the night hours that the desert was at its most awesome, and mystical, a time when he always felt most in touch with his heritage. His ancestors had travelled these sands for many, many generations before him, and it was his duty, his responsibility to ensure that they did so for many, many generations to come. And that was not something he could achieve from behind the walls of a high-rise air-conditioned office, and certainly not from the fleshpots of the world as Khalid would no doubt choose to do. No, he could only maintain and honour the tribe’s traditional way of life by being a part of it, by sharing in it, and that was something he was totally committed to doing. He must not deviate from that purpose. But his feelings, his love for Mariella could not be denied, or ignored. The strength of them had initially shocked him, but he had now gone from shock to the grim recognition that it was beyond his power to change or control the way he felt.

      He saw Mariella’s vehicle as he drove up to the oasis. Parking next to it, he got out and studied it warily. He did not encourage anyone to visit him when he was at the oasis and he was certainly not in the mood for uninvited guests, right now! Where and who was its driver?

      Frowning, he headed for the pavilion, not needing to waste any time lighting the lamps to illuminate the darkness, his familiarity with it enough to take him from the entrance to the opening to the bedroom without breaking his stride.

      Mariella was lying fast asleep in the middle of the bed, where she had curled up in exhaustion like a small child. The white robe she was wearing was Xavier’s and it drowned her slender body. She had lit one of the lamps, which illuminated her face, showing her bone structure and the thick darkness of her silky eyelashes. In the enclosed heat, Xavier could smell the scent of her, and of his own instant reciprocal desire for her.

      Xavier’s hand tightened convulsively on the cord that fastened the curtain to the bedroom’s entrance, whilst his heart tolled in slow, heavy beats. If he had any sense he would pick her up and carry her straight out to the Jeep and then drive back to the city with her without stopping!

      He let the heavy curtain drop behind him, enclosing them both in the sensual semi-darkness.

      Standing next to the bed, he looked down at Mariella.

      Something, some instinct and awareness, disturbed Mariella’s sleep, making her frown and stir, her eyes opening.

      ‘Xavier!’

      Relief… and longing flooded through her. Automatically she struggled to sit up, her arms and legs becoming tangled in the thick folds of Xavier’s robe as she did so.

      ‘What are you doing here?’ Xavier demanded harshly.

      ‘Waiting for you,’ Mariella told him. ‘Waiting to tell you how much I want you, and how much I hope you want me.’

      She watched as his eyes turned from steel to mercury and recognised that she had caught him off guard.

      ‘You drove all the way out here to tell me that!’

      His voice might be curt and unresponsive, but Mariella could see the way his jaw tightened as he turned his head away from her, as well as feel his betraying tension. Tiny body-language signs, that was all she knew, but instinctively she knew she had an advantage to pursue!

      ‘Not to tell you, Xavier,’ she corrected him boldly. ‘To show you… like this…’

      Standing up, she went to him, letting the robe slide from her body as she did so. She had never envisaged that she would ever feel such a pride in her nakedness, her femaleness, such a sense of power and certainty, an awareness of how much a man’s still silence could betray how very, very tightly leashed he was keeping his desire.

      She was standing in front of him and he hadn’t moved. For a moment she almost lost her courage but then she saw it, the way he clenched his hand and tried to conceal his involuntary reaction.

      Quickly she raised herself up on her tiptoes and cupped his face with her hands. Never in a thousand lifetimes could she have behaved like this simply for her own gratification, for the indulgence of her own sexual or emotional feelings, but she was not doing it for them, for herself, she was doing it for the child she so desperately wanted to give life! Silently she looked up into his eyes, her own openly reflecting her desire. Very deliberately she let her gaze drop to his mouth. There was no need for her to manufacture the sharp little quiver of physical reaction that pierced her, tightening her belly.

      She brushed her lips against his—slowly, savouring the delicate sensual contact between them, refusing to be put off by his lack of response, drawing from her inner self to focus totally on the pleasure it was giving her to explore the shape and texture of his mouth. Very quickly her senses took over, so that it was desire that led her to stroking his bottom lip with her tongue tip rather than calculation, the same desire that drove her to trace tiny kisses along the shape of his mouth and then draw her tongue lightly along that shape.

      Xavier couldn’t endure what she was doing to him! Mentally he willed her to stop, but instead she opened her mouth over his and started to kiss him properly! Lost in what she was doing, what she was enjoying, Mariella took her time, putting her whole self into showing him just how hungry for him she was.

      And then sickeningly, she could feel the rejecting hostility of his body, and for a heart-rocking second when he raised his hands she thought he was going to push her away. She suspected that he had thought so too, because suddenly in his eyes she saw both his shock and his raw, burning hunger.

      He could never be a man who would be a passive lover, Mariella recognised on a deep shudder of pleasure as his hands imprisoned her and his mouth fought hers for control.

      How little he realised that her surrender was really her victory, she rejoiced as his tongue thrust urgently between the lips she had parted for him.

      ‘I can’t believe that you’ve done this,’ she heard him saying thickly.

      ‘I had to,’ Mariella whispered back. After all, it was the truth. ‘I had to be with you, Xavier… like this… as a woman.’

      He had released her to look at her, and now he lifted his hand to her face. Instantly Mariella caught hold of his wrist and turned her head to run her tongue tip over his fingertips.