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

Eva tried to lift her head but he pushed it back down. ‘What are you doing?’

‘I’m thinking.’

He was also stroking her hair in the middle of the raging storm; the small act of tenderness brought tears to her eyes. Eva closed her eyes, feeling his body heat and his strength slowly seep into her bones; for the first time she allowed herself to think that she stood a realistic chance of surviving this.

She was vaguely conscious of the sound of ripping cloth, but did not connect it with her own designer gown. Then as he rose she felt herself enfolded, not just by his arms, but by the flowing fabric of his robe, which he had wrapped around her. He placed a hand under her behind and without waiting to be instructed Eva automatically wrapped her legs around his middle, a voice in her head that clearly did not appreciate the seriousness of the situation saying she could get used to this.

‘Hold on!’

The instruction was unnecessary—she already was!

Having found it impossible to stay upright herself, Eva couldn’t believe that Karim could move forward with the additional burden of her weight. Above the sound of the storm that raged around them, with her head pressed into his shoulder, Eva was conscious of the heavy thud of his heartbeat.

She held tight, closed her ears, concentrated on the sound, felt the moisture leak from under her eyelids and as love for him filled her it was a relief to finally stop fighting the realisation.

What if she never had a chance to tell him how she felt? She felt the salty moisture leak from her eyes.

‘Not far now,’ Karim shouted in her ear. Fuelled by the adrenaline rushing through his veins and acting on nine parts instinct and one part sheer desperation, he hoped that he was telling the truth.

Eva wanted to ask, Not far from where? But she didn’t have the strength; it was all she could do to hang onto him. Her arms and legs were trembling with the effort of holding on.

How did he keep going? she wondered as Karim continued to make steady progress, not moving swiftly but with assurance; once or twice she could sense him testing his footing before he continued.

The almost animal screech of the whipping wind and whirling sand had filled her head and hurt her senses for so long that when it stopped abruptly it was disorientating.

She opened her eyes and there was nothing but inky, impenetrable blackness. She could still hear the keening cry of the wind but it was a background noise.

We’re safe … we’re safe, she thought, too relieved to wonder where they were or how he had found their sanctuary.

‘Wait here.’

Wait where? she thought.

Placed on her feet and without the supporting strength of his strong arms, Eva sank to the ground. It felt cold and hard against her bare legs.

‘Don’t leave me!’ she begged, not giving a damn about pride as she clung onto his leg in the pitch darkness.

The anger Karim had been forced to hold in check was once more frustrated, now by the note of pure panic in her tremulous voice. The vulnerability she so often struggled to hide behind a tough exterior was right there and it awakened protective instincts he hadn’t known he possessed.

She nearly died … He pushed away the thought because he knew if he let it take hold he would not be able to control the rage that continued to simmer just below the surface. He would finish rescuing her and then he would throttle her, he promised himself.

He unfurled her fingers and retained them in his hand as he dropped to his knees beside her. Reaching out, he found her face and framed it with his free hand, rubbing the dust from the curve of her cheek as he did so.

‘You will stay here. I will find some light, all right?’

There was a pause before she nodded, wondering where on earth he was going to find light. She shivered when his fingers fell away, the loss of physical contact making her feel utterly bereft, and she knew there was a lot more to her reaction than a simple fear of dark strange places. She craved his touch with an intensity that was just as primal as the survival instinct that had made her fight the storm.

‘I won’t go far,’ he promised.

He didn’t. Eva could hear him as she sat in the darkness, her teeth chattering more with reaction than cold, listening to the sounds of him moving around. He swore once when he obviously collided with something, then there was a scratching and scuffing sound, then light.

It came from an old-fashioned kerosene lamp that Karim held aloft.

Eva blinked as her eyes adjusted slowly.

Looking around, she was able to distinguish a crude table set against one wall. A chair stood beside it, another lay overturned. There were several assorted items that suggested this place had once been occupied.

‘Where is this place?’ Eva asked, rubbing her hand along the smooth stone surface she sat on. The walls around and above them had the same pale sand appearance. ‘What is it?’

Holding the light, Karim moved closer and, brushing some debris off the crude table, placed it down on the scratched surface.

‘Just like home,’ she joked shakily. ‘Though with slightly less gold leaf.’

Karim felt his admiration grow as he watched her produce a shaky smile.

How many women who had been through what she had would joke? Most he could think of would right now be having hysterics, hysterics that would have filled him with impatience. She was smiling—shaking like a leaf but smiling—and he was filled with … A flicker of shock registered in his eyes as he recognised the emotion that made him want to gather her in his arms as tenderness.

It seemed it was possible to want to throttle a woman and protect her from the slightest breeze at one and the same time; possible, but not comfortable.

He had not been comfortable since he met his Princess.

Eva’s wandering gaze found his face and lingered, the breath snagging painfully in her throat. The gold-tinged glow radiated by the flickering light cast shadows over Karim’s face, highlighting the strength and purity of his fabulous bone structure.

He was beautiful!

So beautiful it hurt; it hurt physically.

Her lashes swept protectively downwards as things deep inside her clenched and tightened. She was filled with deep, hopeless yearning. If these feelings she could not articulate never went away, how would she bear it?

‘There are a series of caves in the rock face. Up until ten years ago some were still occupied, but once there was an entire community living here.’

‘Nobody lives here now?’ She tried to ignore the strange heaviness in the air that had little to do with the storm that raged outside and instead imagined the silent place filled with the buzz of people going about their lives, living and loving … It was difficult to visualise.

‘You’re not seeing it at its best,’ he observed, stamping his boots without taking his eyes from her face.

An edge in his deep voice made her look up at him. The light was not strong enough for her to read his expression, but Eva found the fixed intensity of his stare unnerving.

She looked away and, aware of her heart pounding against her breastbone, drew a line with her finger in the fine layer of sand that covered the stone floor.

She forced an awkward smile. ‘You’re not seeing me at my best, either.’

BUT he was seeing her—you’d think he never had before, the way he was staring, his heavy-lidded regard still trained unblinkingly on Eva’s face as he pulled off his head-covering and dragged a hand through his dark hair.

‘You look exhausted!’ he observed, feeling a stab of self-recrimination. The dust did not disguise the dark smudges of fatigue beneath her eyes.