Bedded By The Desert King. Susan Stephens
fringing around a tented roof and the fabric was drawn up to a spike in the centre. Missing only a pennant, it reminded her of a medieval pavilion, reinforcing her opinion that she was stepping back in time, with a man who might be dangerous…A very attractive man who might be dangerous. Her heart was thundering—and for all the wrong reasons. She just had to keep telling herself that this was the photo opportunity of a lifetime…
But, as he raised the heavy curtain concealing the entrance to his tent, goose-bumps lifted on her arms. As she hesitated he tipped his chin, indicating that she should enter. The little she could see of his face beneath the folds of black cloth was hardly reassuring. His gaze was as dark and as unbending as iron.
‘Come in,’ he said impatiently. ‘I have no intention of hurting you, if that’s what you are worried about. In my country the safety of a guest is a sacred charge.’
Did that sacred charge extend to young women reckless enough to venture into the desert unaccompanied? Zara wondered. It must do, but she gathered from the hard look in his eyes that the prospect of her stay seemed nothing more than tiresome to him. He jerked his chin again and she got a sense of a man who was accustomed to having his smallest whim accommodated the instant he made it known. ‘Dinosaur,’ she muttered under her breath.
‘What did you say?’
His voice had softened to the point where she had to strain to hear it and she shivered involuntarily to think that all his senses might be so keen. ‘Nothing…’
His eyes challenged her assertion.
‘Come in, or stay outside,’ he said as if he couldn’t have cared less what she did. ‘Either way, I’m going in, and I’m closing down the entrance while I wait out the storm.’
‘Are you threatening to leave me out here?’
‘Take it any way you want.’
Firmly clenching her jaw, she walked past him into the tent. She saw him staring at her camera and clutched it closer. No way was he taking her camera from her. He might as well have tried to cut off her arm.
She was conscious immediately of the fresh, clean smell inside the tent and the neatness of it all. As she looked around, her eyes found their way back to her host. She noticed he wore a weapon tucked into his belt. She glanced at his face and back again. The long curving dagger looked lethal, but it had a beautifully worked gold hilt and she guessed it was more for ceremonial use than anything sinister. As her heart rate steadied she admired the intricate workmanship and longed to take a photograph of it so she could add it to the record of her trip. Perhaps if she asked politely she might persuade him to let her use her camera for some things in spite of his earlier objections. ‘What do you call that?’ she said, glancing at it again.
‘A khanjar. Tradition demands that I wear it,’ he explained, confirming her first impression. ‘It is meant to represent a Bedouin’s honour and is an indispensable piece of equipment in the desert. You never know when you might need a knife…’ His dark gaze flashed up.
‘Would you object if I take a picture of it?’
‘Of the khanjar, no…’
The expression on his face left her in no doubt that her image must be confined to the dagger. She was careful to show him, as she narrowed her eyes in preparation for taking the shot, that the picture would be in close up and of the dagger and nothing else. She had no idea what else she might find inside the tent and was keen to respect his wishes in the hope of finding more material for her journal of the trip.
She had guts, he’d give her that. The dagger was beautiful and it pleased him to think she’d noticed it. It had been his father’s and he felt Sheikh Abdullah’s presence whenever he wore it. It both comforted him and served as a painful reminder that his work outside Zaddara had kept him away from a man he would have liked to know better. And that now it was too late… ‘That’s enough,’ he said sharply, wheeling away from the probing lens.
His feelings of regret were not something he wished to share with this stranger.
She flinched at his impatience, but lowered the camera. ‘This is what I do,’ she explained with a shrug. ‘It’s all I do. I take pictures…wildlife, indigenous people, unusual rock formations—’ She threw up her hands so the camera swung free on its cord around her neck. ‘I don’t know what you imagine, but I’m no threat to you.’
But was he a threat to her? Zara wondered. In the capital city of Zaddar women were equal to men, but here in the desert different rules applied. She could see that women would be bound by certain restrictions, strength being just one of them. If this man should decide to overpower her…She watched him releasing the bindings that protected the entrance to his tent. Once they were secured inside it, neither one of them would be leaving in a hurry.
It made her angry to think she had got herself into this position. She had researched the trip so thoroughly, reading everything she could lay her hands on, but nothing had prepared her for the vastness of the desert, or the emptiness. Compass, first aid kit, rug and a cold box full of supplies seemed woefully inadequate to her now. But Zaddara was supposed to be completely safe. How was she to know this man would send his armed guard to apprehend her? The thought irked her; his behaviour had been out of all proportion and she decided to challenge him about it. ‘Was it really necessary to send a man with a gun after me?’
‘I didn’t send Aban after you; he took it upon himself to secure the dunes while I was swimming. Would you have me reproach him for doing his job so well?’
‘The gun was unnecessary.’
‘There are poisonous snakes in the desert,’ he countered, ‘if you had bothered to check.’
She had checked. What sort of amateur did he take her for? But she drew the line at carrying a gun. A camera was her weapon of choice, and she used that and the images it produced to challenge the motives of the people who killed the creatures she had made it her life’s work to protect. ‘Nevertheless—’
‘Nevertheless?’
The rejoinder came back sharp as a whip crack. And it was a mistake to hold his gaze. Having never had her blood pressure raised by a man was no preparation for an encounter like this. The Bedouin was unlike any man she had met before. She could usually judge people from their appearance, but this man was an enigma. Tall and powerfully built, he was tanned a deep bronze and his steely eyes were watchful. He had brought her inside his tent only because he had to. She sensed he was a deeply private man who didn’t want her there any more than she wanted to take the risk of being alone with him.
‘It was wrong of you to travel so deep into the desert without a companion—’
‘I didn’t have a companion to bring—’ Zara’s mouth slammed shut. Why had she admitted to being alone? ‘People know I’m here, of course.’
‘Of course,’ he agreed in a way that suggested he didn’t believe her for a moment.
Following him deeper inside, she looked around. As she had first thought, everything was spotlessly clean and orderly and was made comfortable with heaps of intricately embroidered cushions and finely woven rugs. In a variety of rich colours, these were perfectly arranged in piles to relax and recline on. A slender coffee pot made from what looked like beaten silver rested on a simple brazier and the delicious smell made her swallow involuntarily.
‘You are thirsty?’
He had barely any accent at all, she realised now, and the rich baritone strummed something deep inside her. Coffee was a good starting point if she was going to strike up a dialogue with him and get to know more about his land and customs. ‘I’d love a coffee, thank you…’
How many people got the chance to see inside a real Bedouin tent and find out how a man like this lived? Zara wondered as she moved past him to sit on the cushions he indicated. He made her feel tiny and delicate, which she knew was survival of the species at work. However hard she might try to fight it, her female genes craved his masculinity—and she wasn’t fighting