Trish Morey - Innocent in the Desert - The Sheikh's Impatient Virgin / The Sheikh's Convenient Virgin / The Desert Lord's Bride

The blacked-out glass panel that separated them from the two men in the front of the car was back in place before Karim responded.

‘You want to get out, fine … feel free.’

She tilted her head to look at him with confused suspicion. ‘What?’

‘I’m not kidnapping you, I’m rescuing you, Princess,’ he murmured softly.

‘I do not need rescuing.’ Not until now, anyway, she thought as his platinum eyes captured her own. ‘And I’m not a princess.’

‘You really do struggle with reality, don’t you, Princess?’

The throbbing ache between her thighs was real and utterly mortifying. ‘This is not real.’ Any minute now she would wake up, and she would not be lying in anyone’s arms.

‘This is a theme I have already touched on, but as you are clearly a slow learner I will repeat myself … Saying something, even with shrill conviction, does not make it so, Princess.’

Eva lifted a hand to cover the base of her throat, where she was conscious of a pulse frantically leaping.

‘Do not call me that … and I’m not shrill.’ Shrill would have been an improvement on breathy. The longer his eyes held hers, the stronger a hold the languid lethargy that had invaded her limbs became.

She disliked the entire out-of-control floaty feeling almost as much as the man who had caused it … without even trying.

What if he tried?

This horrifying thought made the idea of flinging herself from the moving vehicle not seem totally crazy and actually, the longer she considered it, the better an idea it became.

‘Take me home!’ She clenched her jaw against a grimace, shocked by the undercurrent of desperation in her shrill demand. ‘I …’ The rest of the words were lost when, without warning, he leant across her.

She froze, stopped breathing, stopped thinking, but carried on feeling … The sensual input was painful. His dark head was close enough for Eva to smell the scent of his shampoo, close enough for her to feel the heat of his body.

The moment did not last, but it was long enough for a drugged lethargy to wash over her and invade her limbs, then the door opened.

Eva didn’t move. She looked at her avenue of escape blankly and felt her stomach dip as she thought about the tensile strength in the arm that brushed against her breasts.

He was no longer touching her, but she was even more painfully aware of the tingling sensation in her nipples and the mortifying gush of liquid heat low in her belly.

He was all hard bone and muscle, raw and male …

Her delicate blue-veined eyelids fluttered, her lashes quivering against her flushed cheeks before they lifted and their glances locked.

‘You should not fight it. Marriage does not have to change everything … You and I have been enjoying empty sex outside marriage. I see no reason that we cannot carry on doing the same within marriage.’

The cynical observation hit her like a blast of cold air.

‘You make it sound so tempting.’

‘Your alternative, Eva, is there.’

Eva followed the direction of his nod and looked out into the scene framed by the open door and discovered the car had pulled over at the end of the road where she lived.

A peaceful, quiet backwater, that at that moment was neither peaceful nor quiet. She blinked, trying to make sense of what she was seeing. Had there been an accident … a gas leak?

It had to be something pretty serious to bring TV crews with cameras here.

‘You wanted to go home.’

‘I don’t understand what’s happened.’

‘We have happened.’

‘Oh, my God!’

It was hard to hear her horrified whisper and not feel a pang of sympathy, but the emotion did not show in his manner as Karim asked, ‘You still want to go home?’

Eva continued to stare in utter bewilderment at the people, too many to count, milling around at the far end of the street. ‘But where did they all come from? Why …?’

‘Why do you think?’

Eva, conscious of an icy fist of dread in her belly, felt panic lodged like a boulder behind her breastbone. ‘Me …?’ she said, losing all colour.

‘A student, the daughter of a famous man-hater, who didn’t know who her father was, let alone that he was a prince …

Even if you had no connection with me this story would run and run …’

‘But they’ll lose interest. I’m just—’

‘The numbers will have doubled by morning.’

The brutal observation made her flinch. ‘But when will I be able to go home?’

‘Do I have to spell it out? Every nut job in the country knows where you live. Pictures of you looking cute in pigtails and braces will be on TV screens. People who are your closest friends will tell their warts-and-all stories, lovers you have forgotten existed will crawl out of the woodwork.’

‘There are no …’ She stopped, closed her eyes and pressed a clenched fist to her mouth. The realisation hit her with the force of a boulder landing on her chest—life as she knew it was over.

She felt resentment rise like bile inside her, and opened her angry green eyes. On one level she knew it was utterly irrational to lay the blame for all this at the feet of Karim, but she needed someone to blame and his shoulders were broad.

Her accusing gaze drifted downwards and she thought, Very broad, while struggling to ignore the mental image of him without a shirt.

‘THANK you so much for putting a positive spin on the situation,’ Eva said, injecting silky calm into her voice as she dragged her eyes from the almost surreal scene in the street to Karim’s face.

She surprised a look on his face that had he been anyone else at all she would have interpreted as sympathy.

‘If you want positive spin or, for that matter, spin , I’m not your man.’

‘You’re not my man,’ she retorted seamlessly.

‘I could be.’

‘I …’ Her protective anger fell away so abruptly that Eva shivered. The anger had been her insulation, her protection. Suddenly she felt exposed, vulnerable and more alone than she had in her life previously.

She reached for his hand and held on as if he were the only thing between her and drowning.

‘I can’t go home, can I? Not ever.’

It wasn’t a question.

She heard the choked sound of distress that came from her throat and bit down hard on her quivering lip, determined not to give him the satisfaction of falling apart before his eyes.

‘It is rarely a good thing to go backwards, or even stand still.’

His voice was almost unrecognisably gentle … She sniffed and clung to his hand. Was he trying to make her cry?

Karim struggled to maintain his objectivity as he watched her struggle to come to terms with reality. It was a big task … this sort of thing was tough enough if you had been brought up knowing that your every thoughtless action and careless word would be seized on by the media, scrutinised and pored over.

Karim hardened his heart and reminded himself that she was overdue a reality check.

A cry from outside made Eva turn.

‘It’s her!’

Someone took up the cry and all turned in their direction. She watched as the pack began to advance en masse towards them.

Karim spoke to the driver in his native tongue and, leaning across her, pulled the door closed, shutting out the yells and the crowds. ‘It’s all right.’ His hand went to the back of her head as she leaned into his chest; she was shaking hard.

‘I can’t do this.’ Her hands clenched into her sides, her nails gouging half moons into the soft flesh of her palms as she fought back the sobs of emotion that rose in her throat.

‘I can.’

It was no boast, just a statement of fact.