Ryshia Kennie - Desire In The Desert - Sheikh's Rule

He stood, took off his pants and was again pulling the blanket up around them, as their body heat was trapped by the blanket and combined with the heat of desire finally succeeded in warding off the desert chill.

“Now,” she said as she rose to meet him and clung to him as he entered her as quickly as he’d seduced her. Yet, in the hot and cold of the desert, where life was both tenacious and fragile, somehow it felt right.

But it was only when she rolled over and took command did he wish that time was not a short commodity, because for blissful minutes the nightmare that had been over fifty hours in the making was soothed twice in the most blissful way possible.

“I’m sorry,” she said when she laid by his side sometime later.

It was a strange comment and one he supposed he should have been making, but he wasn’t sorry. He’d been attracted to her from the beginning—wrong place and wrong time, it didn’t matter—he wanted this to happen.

“I’m not,” he said and there was a hoarse edge to his voice. He sat up and snapped the top off one of their water bottles, took a long, thirsty swig and then offered it to her. “It was bound to happen.”

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded as she stood, naked and unconcerned, her hair loose, caressing the edges of her breasts, her face flushed from his kisses. “I was just sorry we didn’t have more time.”

“Really?” Desire raced hot and wild through him. “You’re damn sexy, Kate,” he said. “And I think I’m falling for you. But if you don’t get dressed, we’ll never leave this tent.”

Minutes later, dressed, she sat beside him.

“We need to focus,” he said. “We’re going in after Tara and I don’t want to see any casualties, at least, not of anyone I care about.”

Anyone I care about.

Those words seemed to hang between them, meaning so many things both spoken and not.

“I know you hate waiting,” she said, trying to forget his words that had the power to change so much. “But I really don’t think they have a clue what they’re doing. I’m beginning to think, like we talked about last night, that we should wait until tonight. It will throw them off, which is better for us.”

“If we at least get into position before nightfall, I can live with that.” He stood. “Let’s start getting this packed up so we’re ready to move.” He turned around. “And, for the record, I’d do it again,” he said.

A slow smile spread across her face. “For the record—we will.”

“Darn sure of yourself,” he said as he leaned over to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

She twisted so that the kiss landed on her lips and she took it to the next level. The kiss was hot, openmouthed, ripe with desire and the promise of more. But she pulled away as his body began demanding to take charge.

“I am very sure of myself,” she replied. “Now, let’s get your sister.”

Chapter Eighteen

Wednesday, September 16th, 11:00 a.m.

“Let’s do this,” Kate said as she pulled out her gun, checked the chamber and holstered it. She turned to look at him with zeal for the assignment alive in her eyes. There was a confidence about her that was all about succeeding, and that confidence was contagious.

They’d spent the earlier part of the morning scouting the terrain backing into the oasis. There had been no sign of the last man who had shot at them, but they’d been prepared if he had showed up. When they got back to the tent there was nothing to show that it had been disturbed. No footprints, no evidence that anyone, other than them, had been there.

“Looks like our guess was right. I doubt if their sniper even knew what he was shooting at. He couldn’t see much in the storm,” Kate said. “They know someone’s here. I don’t think they had a visual, but sound travels. It’s clear that they had a watch.”

“I think you’re right,” Emir agreed.

“It’s rough terrain. I doubt if we’ll be able to make anywhere near the average 2.4 miles an hour. So...” She looked at her watch.

“We leave in an hour,” he said as he pocketed the compass, loaded his Glock and stuffed two spare magazines into his pocket. He shifted his knapsack where she knew he had another couple of magazines, just as she did in hers. They were both prepared to hold off an army if necessary.

“Let’s do it,” Kate said less than an hour later.

“Kate,” he said, taking her into his arms and kissing her hot, brief and full of promise.

They both knew this would be the only reference to what was growing between them. After, it would be all business.

And as if to confirm that, he let her go as quickly as he had pulled her against him. It was like they’d never been intimate. It was what they had to do, for they needed to be focused. One mistake could jeopardize everything and everyone.

For the moment it appeared they had the advantage. The kidnappers didn’t know that she and Emir were out here. At least so they hoped, for just ten minutes ago Zafir had contacted them to let them know there had finally been another ransom demand, this time with specific instructions. They wanted a helicopter drop with an unarmed pilot at an oasis thirty miles to the south of the location where they now had them pinpointed. That wasn’t going to happen. Now it was just a matter of getting Tara out.

Unfortunately, the kidnappers knew someone was here, it was only a matter of time before they put the pieces together.

“If we come in from the northwest corner, there’s what I believe is a crevice that leads to a tunnel through a cave and goes straight through and into the oasis, hopefully near where they’re holding her. I don’t know how big it is, but I know the children, when the oasis was a settlement, used to use it,” Kate said with an almost breathy excitement in her voice.

“How do you know this? You have no access to internet, no...”

“At the village. El Dewar. The women had more to say than what I told you.” She shrugged. “An old lady I met was born here, in these very hills, on the oasis we’re heading for.”

“Anything else?”

“No one uses the oasis anymore, at least, not to live. In fact, she said it was mostly forgotten. Dried up when she was a child. She thought that there was some water, enough for a traveler or two. I’d say that makes it about perfect.”

He smiled and put a hand on her shoulder. “Let’s go.”

The valley was narrow and surrounded by low-lying sandstone hills. The oasis was on the other side of the valley and, from what she had gleaned from the atlas, backed two steep hills at the end of the chain that served to protect it from outsiders.

“From what that woman said and what I’ve calculated,” Kate said hours later, “we should be close to the break in the rock that would take us in.” They’d been moving carefully through the valley throughout the afternoon. Now, the sun was setting and spilling a vibrant orange across the valley and up into the hills that stood like ancient sentinels, protecting the valley from intruders.

“We go up from here and through the rocks there,” Kate said a few minutes later as she pointed to her right and about two hundred feet up.

They began to make their way up the narrow, steep path that wound between the rocks. Within twenty-five feet the path became smooth, almost worn, making it clear that at one time it had been a well-traveled route.

“The tunnel that leads into the oasis shouldn’t be much farther,” she said.

The rock rose on either side as high as Emir’s shoulders, then the path narrowed and he found himself occasionally clipping his shoulders against outcroppings.

“They must have used this path to get water or maybe for defense. I believe they more frequently came in from the other way,” Kate said. “From the oasis.”