The Sheikh's Blackmailed Mistress. PENNY JORDAN

stone—because stone could not have felt what he was feeling right now. Stone could not have been pierced by the sharp, immediate and intense male surge of overpowering need to take her, to let his body satisfy the elemental force that was filling his head with images of their bodies together: naked flesh to naked flesh, her head thrown back in ecstasy whilst he moulded her to him, shaping her with his hands, spreading open the softness of her eager thighs, possessing her as she was begging him to do, endlessly and erotically, as she cried out to him over and over again in her pleasure until it became his, until he knew even as fulfilment rushed through him that its satisfaction would never be enough, that like a drug once tasted he would need more, and then still more.

      The young boy’s fear translated into a grown man’s savage anger against what gripped him. He had to get away from her.

      Sam could hardly contain her emotions. They made her tremble like a gazelle scenting the hunter and knowing its fate. In another minute he would reach her and take her in his arms, and then…She started to walk towards him, her pace quickening with the intensity of her need to touch him and be touched by him. A wild thrill of excitement shot through her—only to turn to a sharp stab of shocked disbelief when, just as she had almost reached him, he abruptly turned his back on her and started to walk away.

      Pain and confusion swirled through her, leaving her feeling unsteady and insecure, desperate to stop him from leaving her.

      ‘No!’

      The denial felt as though it had been torn from her heart, it hurt so much.

      Another man had appeared from a side path and was coming between them, bowing low in front of him, to murmur respectfully, ‘Highness.’

      Highness?

      Had she actually whispered her appalled dismay? Was that why he had turned to look at her, that brilliant emerald-green gaze homing in on her, transfixing her to the spot, unable to move, unable to do anything, until it had been removed from her and the two men were walking away from her back down the path.

      Sam searched her too pale expression in the mirror. If she didn’t go and join the others soon, not only would she miss breakfast, she’d almost certainly have someone coming to ask why she wasn’t there and if she was all right.

      All right? She gave a small shiver. She wasn’t sure she would ever be that again.

      Had she actually seen him by the oasis, or had she only thought she had? Had he been merely a mirage, conjured up by her own imagination? And if he had, what did that tell her about the state she was in?

      ‘Sam—at last. I was just about to come and look for you in case you’d overslept.’

      The anxiety combined with just a hint of reproach in the voice of Anne Smith, the female half of a pair of married statisticians who were part of the team, caused Sam to give her an apologetic look.

      ‘Sorry—’ she began, but to her relief, before she was obliged to come up with an explanation as to why she was so late, Anne continued.

      ‘You’ve never missed breakfast before, and with Sheikh Sadir telling us that the Ruler of Dhurahn has arrived, and that we are all to be formally presented to him, I was getting really worried that you wouldn’t make it.’

      At least now Sam knew the likely cause of his sudden reappearance here at the oasis—as well as the reason he had been in Zuran in the first place. He must be part of the Ruler of Dhurahn’s entourage.

      She had been in a total state of shock after seeing him so unexpectedly and then having him refuse to acknowledge her and walk away from her. It seemed ridiculous now that she had actually thought that somehow or other he had known she was there and come in search of her. Patently it was quite impossible—as she had since told herself. But at the time her sense of despairing anguish, coming so quickly on the heels of her earlier euphoria, had meant that it had been several minutes after he’d disappeared before she’d felt able to move. Even when she had, her heart had been thudding so heavily and uncomfortably that she had felt both sick and light-headed by the time she had reached the privacy of her tent.

      Now she wasn’t even sure she could trust herself to have actually seen him—not simply created the whole incident in the way that people lost in the desert and thirsting desperately for water saw mirages of what they so longed for.

      The fact that she might be late for breakfast had been the last thing on her mind as she had semi-collapsed into a chair, her body going frantic with its wild message of longing, whilst her head and her heart burned with the pain of despair and humiliation.

      Initially she had been glad that the shock of seeing him had left her so weak and shaky. If not for that, she suspected that her body, in its feverish heat of desire that seemed to have turned into a life force outside her own control, would have had her making a complete fool of herself and running after him—or, just as bad, running after a mirage. It was hard to say which would have offered her more humiliation.

      Sam had stayed there in the chair for a long time, trying to understand what was happening to her—and, just as importantly, why. She wasn’t the sort of person who became taken over either by an emotional or a sexual need so strong that it possessed her and threatened her self-control. How could one kiss be responsible for such a dramatic change in her personality? How could it have her indulging in ridiculous fantasies of love at first sight and soul mates?

      Now she felt drained and on edge, exhausted physically and emotionally by what had happened, as weak as though she had been struck down by a powerful virus. Perhaps she had, she thought wildly. Perhaps someone somewhere had found the chemical formula that was responsible for sexual attraction and was trying it out on unsuspecting victims, causing them to suffer hallucinations.

      Now she was being ridiculous, she warned herself as she followed Anne to the large tent that was used for meetings and general information announcements.

      Anne, quite naturally, went to join her husband, who was seated with their colleagues, leaving Sam to find her own seat. Her heart sank when she saw that the only available space was next to James.

      He gave her a superior look as she sat down next to him, and Sam realised too late that virtually everyone else in the tent was dressed formally—or at least as formally as the their desert situation would allow. The men were in long chinos and shirts, the women in sleeved tee shirts—some of them had even covered their heads.

      They had been told at their original orientation meeting that although the Sheikh of Zuran did not expect them to abide by the Arab rules of dress whilst working in the desert, the other leaders might.

      Had something been said to indicate that the Ruler of Dhurahn did expect them to dress more formally? Sam wondered in dismay, now acutely conscious of her own sleeveless tee shirt, and her very practical below the knee loose-fit multi-pocketed cargo pants. She had a fold-up wide brimmed canvas hat in one of the pockets, but no headscarf. It was too late now, though, to worry about her appearance. Two men were being ushered onto the slightly raised platform with its traditional Arab divans.

      One of them was Sheikh Sadir, and the other…

      Sam’s heart literally missed a full beat, staggered through a half-beat and then missed another—rather as though she were a boxer who had been knocked off his feet.

      It couldn’t be, surely? But it was; the man accompanying Sheikh Sadir, and who he was treating with such obvious reverence, was none other than the man she had seen earlier—the man with whom she had exchanged that shockingly intimate kiss in the hotel corridor in Zuran. So he wasn’t a mirage, then. She didn’t know now whether to be glad or sorry about that.

      Now, of course, she truly understood the importance of that reverent ‘Highness’ that had so shocked her earlier.

      She felt James nudge her hard in her ribs, and realised that everyone was standing and lowering their heads. Somehow she managed to get to her own feet in time to hear Sheikh Sadir introducing the man as Prince Vereham al a’ Karim bin Hakar, the Ruler of Dhurahn.

      The Ruler of Dhurahn—Prince Vereham