Lord of the Desert (8 page)

He lifted an eyebrow. “Yes. Especially and…so forth,” he teased.

She smiled impishly. “And I'd get to have meals with you, I suppose?”

He nodded.

“And we'd go places together…oh, no, we wouldn't,” she added, remembering a fiction novel she'd once read about his part of the world. “Women don't go out in public with men.”

“I govern Qawi,” he pointed out. “Women have the vote and they are independent of men financially. Those Muslim women who wear the
aba
and the
hijab
make that decision for themselves without coercion from the government. I have women ministers in my cabinet and many of the new corporations opening branches in Qawi employ female executives. As for my private life—I am sheikh. I make my own rules. We could go out anywhere you like. We could even go sailing,” he added. “I have a yacht.”

She was more excited than he'd ever seen her. “I love ships.”

“Have you ever been on one?” he queried.

She laughed. “Well, not yet. But it looks very exciting.”

“Then we will have a cruise.” He frowned slightly at her animated features. “It doesn't…bother you, the thought of being handled so intimately by a man in my…condition?”

“Oh, no,” she said softly, thinking how fine and strong his hands looked. She remembered being held by him in the swing on the lawn and she tingled with pleasure. “I think it would be madly exciting, And to be the only woman in the whole harem…!” Her eyes danced as she glanced at him. “Think what a reputation I'd have in the household! They'd think I was worth ten other women!”

His body tautened deliciously and he chuckled. “You find me attractive?” he asked slowly.

She swallowed and lifted her drink to her lips. “Very,” she said huskily.

He felt the world stop and start again in the few seconds he spent looking into her warm, soft green eyes. He couldn't have imagined her reaction to his proposition. He felt almost whole again.

He reached across the table and possessed her free hand, entangling his fingers tightly with hers. “The one thing I can promise you is satisfaction,” he said quietly, his eyes kindling with soft flames. “Even if not in the conventional manner.”

She smiled, looking faintly confused. “Yes, I think it will be a very satisfying job, at that.”

She hadn't a clue what he was referring to. That was exciting as well. His lips parted. He glanced down and noticed the long-forgotten cigar lying on the tiles, extinguished. He let go of her hand and reached down to lift it, placing it gently in the ashtray on the table.

“I hope you don't mind leaving Tangier in the morning,” he said suddenly.

Her heart jumped. “So soon? But, why?”

“You remember the phone call Bojo received just before I left you so abruptly a few days ago?” he asked, deadly serious now.

She nodded, waiting.

“It was one of Bojo's contacts. My worst enemy has bought his way out of a Russian jail and is probably even now planning an attack on me. In fact, it was very likely his men who attempted to kidnap me in Asilah the other day, although I cannot prove it.”

“Why?” she asked.

“Who do you think gave the evidence that put him in jail?” he mused. “I implicated him in an attack on an oil platform and an ecological disaster in one of the Soviet states. He lost everything he had. Now he thirsts for revenge, and not only against me. I have doubled the security around us for the past four days, but it is only a matter of time until Kurt Brauer tracks us here. We must leave Morocco and fly on to Qawi, where I have enough people to protect you.”

“You really think this Brauer man would hurt me?” she asked, aghast.

“Certainly,” he said simply. “He would hurt anyone connected to me, even in the most casual way, if he could. It is his manner.”

“Do you have many enemies like that one?”

He smiled, and his eyes were genuinely affectionate. “Not many,” he said on a chuckle. “Fortunately for both of us.” He hesitated, watching her. “You may regret having said yes to this job, Gretchen. If the nature of it makes you uncomfortable, you can back out if you want to, but do it quickly. Once you go to Qawi,” he added firmly, and with an odd sort of possession in his tone and his searching gaze, “you stay.”

She thought of lying in his arms and letting him touch her as a lover would. Her heart raced. “I don't want to back out,” she said at once, and with obvious sincerity. “And I'm not afraid of your enemies. I'll stand with you, no matter what.”

His heart swelled at her fervent tone. He smiled slowly. “I knew you had courage,” he said softly. “Then, so be it. We leave the future in the hands of fate.”

“In the hands of fate,” she agreed, and she smiled back, feeling that the truly great adventure of her life was underway.

 

Gretchen was waiting in the lobby the next morning when her new boss came by with Bojo to take her to the airport.

“Something just occurred to me,” she said as they went out and got into the hotel's limousine, driven this time by a smiling Mustapha.

“What?” he asked as he slid into the back seat with her, leaving Bojo to occupy the passenger seat in front.

“Philippe is really your name, isn't it?”

He chuckled. “In fact, it's one of several. But I'm known by it abroad.”

“Philippe,” she said, making it sound like a verbal caress. She smiled. Her lips pursed. “And the Souverain part?”

His perfect white teeth showed against his olive complexion. “French for sovereign—which I am,” he added facetiously. “And I do have French blood, as well as Turkish and Arab. My real surname is Sabon. I thought it better to keep my identity secret until I knew you better.”

She laughed. “I was so naïve.”

“You were, and are, an absolute delight,” he corrected. “You made me ashamed of the masquerade, especially when you were so honest about yourself, right from the start.”

“I hate lies,” she said simply.

“So do I, but one must occasionally employ small ones,” he returned. He studied her faintly sunburned face. She was wearing a long-sleeved silk blouse over a green-patterned sundress that brought out the emerald sparkle of her eyes. “Aren't you hot in that?” he asked suddenly, indicating the long sleeves.

“Yes, I am, but the travel brochures said people here would pinch bare arms.”

He shook his head. “Don't read travel brochures. Ask a native.”

“Are you a native of Morocco?” she asked, puzzled by his wording.

“I've never been sure about my birthplace,” he remarked quietly, studying her. “Much of my early life is a blur.”

“Why?” she asked, puzzled.

“I grew up as a ragged little street beggar in Baghdad,” he said with ill-concealed bitterness in his dark eyes. “I was starving when my father came to Iraq, allegedly on a state visit, and tracked me to an old nurse who was keeping me,” he hesitated, “who was using me,” he corrected bitterly, “to beg for food. The nurse had been a servant of my mother's who ran away with me when my mother vanished. She was afraid that my father might kill me for my mother's sins.”

“What did your mother do that was so terrible?” she asked.

He took her soft hand in his and held it tight in his, making her tingle with pleasure. “She slept with at least two of the palace guards,” he said through his teeth. “At that time in our history, the penalty for adultery by a Muslim woman was death. She fled the country.”

“I suppose your father had a harem?” she asked with faint distaste.

“My father is Christian,” he said, surprising her. “He had one wife, and despite their different religions, he was faithful to her. A Muslim woman is not permitted to marry outside her faith. But, then, my mother was apparently unconcerned with questions of religion, or morality. More than once, my father and I have agonized over whether I am actually his son. Neither of us has had the courage to have blood tests done,” he added with bitter mockery.

“I'm sorry. I was making assumptions.”

He turned toward her. “I have noticed that about Americans,” he said softly. “As a nation, you seem to be obsessed with sex.”

“Don't look at me,” she murmured dryly. “I don't indulge.”

“I know.” He brought her moist palm to his lips and stared into her eyes. “It excites me to know. Purity is a valuable commodity in this part of the world, for both men and women. We find your Western idea of morality corrupt.”

She crept an inch closer to him, wary of the two men in the front seat who were talking together spiritedly, oblivious to their passengers.

He turned, so that his knee touched her legs in the long skirt of the sundress. His eyes searched hers. “You have an…odd effect on me,” he whispered tautly.

Her eyes fell to his firm, beautifully chiseled thin lips. “Is that why you pushed me away?” she asked softly.

His lean hand slid into the coil of blond hair at her nape and drew her ear to his lips. “I pushed you away because you aroused me, quite noticeably,” he whispered bluntly, his voice rough with emotion. “It had been nine years since I…felt such an intense reaction to a woman.”

Her lips parted. She felt her body swelling, felt her heart beating. She wondered if he could hear it, because it was so loud. Unconsciously, one of her hands was pressing against his white shirt under his jacket and her nails curled into the fabric, feeling a cushy softness under it. He wanted her—he wanted her!

He made a sound deep in his throat and his hand at her neck bruised for a few seconds. He drew back so that he could see into her green eyes. He watched them dilate, felt her jerky warm breath at his lips, watched her bodice shake with each hard pulse of her heartbeat. Two little peaks formed in the silky fabric, outlined by the sheer white cotton blouse over it.

She stared back at him with barely contained desire and fierce pride that she could do something other women couldn't. She was all but shivering with delicious new sensations.

His thumb was under her ear, against her throat, feeling that frantic pulse in her neck. “He fondled you, you said,” he murmured.

It took a minute for her to realize what he was saying. “Through my blouse,” she whispered shakily. “Not under it. Not ever. I hated it when he handled me.” Her nails curled harder into his broad, muscular chest. She knew he would be hairy under it. She could feel the thick, soft cushion under the fabric. “I would…love…letting you touch me…!”

He dragged her face into his throat and shuddered, holding her there while he fought for control. His body was throbbing. Throbbing! He couldn't breathe. His hand contracted behind her head and pressed her cheek to his chest, where her fingers curled into him.

She made a tiny little sound in her throat and he groaned audibly at her ear. Damn the men in the front seat, damn the limousine, damn the people in the street milling around the car with its open windows…He wanted her!

“Sit up. Right now!” he said through his teeth and dragged her away, putting her firmly back in her own seat while he looked deliberately out the other window, his fist clenched by his side.

She was reeling. But this time she knew he hadn't pushed her away because he didn't like her to touch him. She looked at him deliberately below his belt, where his jacket had fallen open. She might be innocent, but she knew from her reading how an aroused man looked. And he was violently aroused. It made her sing with pleasure to know that she'd done that to him, when no other woman had managed it in nine years.

Then doubt crept in and she wondered if he'd manufactured that story about being impotent. She thought about it and decided that he couldn't have. The shock and newness of his improved condition was making him wild. She could see it in the fierce clench of his hand, and she felt proud of her femininity. She'd felt inadequate since Daryl. Now she knew that it wasn't because she was somehow lacking in physical attraction. Philippe wanted her. He really wanted her!

She thought about lying in his arms with her body bare to his eyes, his hands, his mouth…It would be heaven to let him touch her.

She reached down between them to his clenched fist and covered it with light, cool, caressing fingers. He captured it at once, levering his fingers in between hers as he turned his head and looked at her with an expression that could have melted metal. She drew in her breath sharply and his hand contracted.

She knew at that moment that she loved him…

T
he minute Gretchen and Philippe arrived at the airport with Mustapha and Bojo, the atmosphere changed entirely. They were met at the entrance by three more men in suits, very big men with bulging jackets who surrounded them at a signal from Bojo and escorted them through the crowded terminal and out to the tarmac where a Learjet was waiting. One of the men looked more like a professional wrestler than a bodyguard, right down to the jet-black hair caught in a ponytail. He didn't speak at all, but at a sharp word and a gesture from Philippe, he immediately became part of Gretchen's shadow.

Two uniformed men met Philippe with deep bows and spoke in respectful tones. Philippe spoke in turn, obviously giving orders. He took Gretchen by the arm and led her up the steps and into the cabin of the spacious little jet. They were followed by the bodyguards and Bojo, all of whom took seats at tables a good little distance behind Philippe's.

The private jet was fascinating to Gretchen, who'd never been inside one. It had comfortable seats, tables, a uniformed flight attendant and every sort of electronic gadget Gretchen could have imagined.

“It looks like my brother's study,” she mused with a smile as she sat down across from Philippe at the table by the window.

“What does your brother do?” he asked.

“He works for the Federal Bureau of Investigation,” she said. “He's a senior agent. He used to be a Texas Ranger, though, and I think he misses it. His best friend, Judd Dunn, still works out of Austin. He keeps trying to get my brother to come back. But Marc's been with the FBI for two years now and although he likes the job, he says the constant traveling is wearing him out.” She chuckled. “He used to hate living in our little town, but now he says he misses Texas.”

His eyes narrowed. “Are you two close?”

“Yes,” she said. “With our parents dead, all we have left is each other. Do you have brothers and sisters?”

He looked out the window as he pulled an expensive cigar from his pocket, clipped the end, and lit it. “I had two brothers, both older than I. They were victims of a political assassination fifteen years ago.”

“I'm sorry.” She toyed with the ties that wrapped around her green silk dress. “Do you have to worry about enemies other than the man with the mercenaries?”

He leaned back in his chair, studying her. “Any head of state faces potential assassination, Gretchen,” he said gently. “It goes with the responsibility.”

“That's why you have Bojo and the other bodyguards, isn't it?”

He nodded. “I go nowhere in the world without them.” He smiled faintly. “As my father's only living child, I have to bear a certain amount of overprotectiveness. When he can spare the attention from his precious orchids, of course,” he added with a chuckle.

“Does he approve of you hiring an American woman to handle your social requirements?”

He pursed his lips and blew out a wisp of smoke. He considered his answer carefully before he decided he must tell the truth. “No. He has a fine distaste for Europeans because of the imperialism of years ago. And he thinks of Americans as decadent, so he may cause you some discomfort. You must not let him intimidate you,” he told her firmly. “Most men will walk on a woman who permits it.”

“Including you?” she asked demurely.

His black eyes narrowed and he didn't smile. “Especially me. You have no idea of the sort of life I've led. I was overly fond of giving orders even before I assumed power in Qawi, and I will warn you that I have been accustomed since childhood to total obedience.”

“That doesn't surprise me,” she confessed with a tiny smile. She found him even more fascinating now that she knew a little about his life. “Are all the women in your country veiled and kept separate from men?”

He began to smile. “Ah, the American press,” he mused. His black eyes twinkled wickedly. “I understand. You Americans think that our women are oppressed, that they live in fear of mutilation and death from men.”

She laughed softly. “Not since I've met you, I don't,” she told him.

“I'm flattered.” He took a small puff from the cigar. “And as it happens, you're right. I am working to change the status of women and my father rages at me unsuccessfully for the new laws I have had put in place. He says that I am as decadent as the Europeans and the Americans, wishing to give rights to women that should belong only to men!”

“Good for you,” she said admiringly.

He laughed. “He is a Christian, too, you know,” he remarked surprisingly. “He wrested power from his uncle and retained it for forty years. But his faith made his reign somewhat difficult until our religious population became so diverse. This is why he put it out that I was Muslim, and I permitted the assumption until I assumed office. I have the greatest respect for the Prophet and his writings, because a good deal of my family is Muslim,” he added quietly. “We persecute no religion in Qawi.”

“You said that your country was still rather…primitive.”

His broad shoulders lifted and fell. “Compared to yours, certainly. But I have great plans for my people, for new educational facilities and modern hospitals and industry. Not polluting industry, however,” he was quick to insert. “We have learned too much about acid rain and chemical spills to import them. No, our industry will be almost exclusively limited to electronics—computers and its accompanying hardware and software. We have already attracted an American franchise here, a corporation that now markets hardware and software together. You might know of its originator, in fact,” he added. “Canton Rourke.”

She drew in a sharp breath. “‘Mr. Software!' But didn't he go bankrupt a few years ago?”

“He did, and regained his fortune. I know him through a mutual friend, an ex-mercenary who now lives in Cancún, Mexico, a gentleman by the name of Diego Laremos.”

“You know real mercenaries?” she asked, fascinated.

He laughed with pure delight. He leaned toward her, glancing warily over her shoulder. “Who do you think Bojo is?”

Her green eyes widened. “Is he, really?”

“He belongs to a group of them, headed by a former physician named Micah Steele.”

Gretchen made a sound in her throat. “Oh, if that isn't one big coincidence,” she said at once. “For heaven's sake, I work…worked, that is…with Micah's stepsister, Callie Kirby, at the law office in Jacobsville, Texas!”

“Micah speaks of her. Well, then, you may also know Eb Scott and Cy Parks, former members of the group, and perhaps Cord Romero, who was…”

“Cord was blinded!” she exclaimed. “That's why my best friend Maggie went home, to take care of him. They were raised together as foster children. I only have this job because she had to forfeit it! We came to Morocco together.”

His hand reached out and smoothed over her graceful fingers. “Fate,” he murmured, meeting her sparkling eyes.

“Yes,” she agreed breathlessly. “Fate.”

His forefinger traced over the back of her soft hand and her lips parted as she struggled with her racing pulse. He saw it and thanked providence for sending him this woman, who made him come alive again, who made him feel like a man again. His body responded even to this light touch, and he caught his breath as he searched her pale eyes.

The plane began to move while they watched each other. Scant minutes later, it was airborne, high above the tarmac, reaching for the clouds.

Philippe's black eyes flashed as he studied her flushed, excited face. She looked as hungry as he felt. Abruptly he unfastened her seat belt and his and pulled her out of her chair. He shot a command to the other men as he passed them, tugging a curious Gretchen along with him to the back of the plane.

He opened a small door, put her inside, and closed it back. It was like a tiny apartment, complete with luxurious bed, writing desk, and two round windows. It was dark in the compartment, light coming in only from barely open shades over the two seating classes.

Gretchen started to speak, but he put a firm forefinger over her lips and bent to lift her clear of the floor in his arms.

He laid her on the bed and slid alongside her. She looked up at him with open puzzlement as he searched her eyes in the dim light.

“Consider this,” he whispered amusedly at her lips, “a rabidly sexist interview for your new position…!”

And his hard, beautiful mouth reached down to brush over hers with a tender sensuality that pulled tight every muscle and nerve in her body.

Her faint gasp brought his head up. His tracing fingers were just above her collarbone, on the silky purple fabric of her long-sleeved embroidered blouse. Her eyes were wide-open, fascinated, as she watched his face tauten. The silence in the cabin was only broken by the high-pitched whine of the jet engines and the rough sigh of Philippe's breath as he searched her face.

He could hear her breathing jerk against his mouth, he could feel her galloping heartbeat. “It has been so long, Gretchen,” he bit off. “I have been too intimidated by my condition to even approach a woman intimately for almost nine years.” His hand was faintly unsteady as it drew tenderly against her body. Even through two layers of soft fabric, it burned like a brand. She felt her body go tight and sensitive in the oddest places and she moved involuntarily.

“Oh…glory!” she choked.

“You enjoy this? So do I.” His fingers became bolder, tracing the soft curve of her breast. He looked down and, with pure male arrogance, watched her nipples peak. She caught her breath and reached up with nervous fingers to his broad chest in its shirt, gently pressing against it. He felt his body responding to that light, tentative pressure as if she were touching his own skin. He groaned softly.

Her fingers stilled. “Sorry,” she began, and started to move her hands away.

He caught them at once and put them back. “I like it,” he told her. “Don't stop.” His eyes glittered. He guided one soft little hand to the buttons of his vest and nodded.

“This is uncharted territory for me,” she said gently. “I don't know what to do.”

“I'm going to show you,” he said curtly. “There's nothing to be afraid of. I am, as you already know, not man enough to pose a risk to your chastity…”

Her hand had covered his mouth firmly. She looked at him with a fierce, unblinking scrutiny. “You're a man who had a terrible accident,” she said firmly. “It doesn't make you less a man. I'm the one who lacks all the usual skills,” she added gently and smiled at him. “I don't even know what I'm supposed to feel, so it isn't as if I can be critical of anything you do.”

His short breath was audible. “And I originally hired an experienced woman…!”

“We all make these little mistakes,” she said wickedly. “You just didn't know what you'd be missing. That's okay. I won't hold it against you.”

He was torn between amused laughter and a feverish hunger to crush her into the bed under him. These were new feelings. He felt himself begin to react to her silky warmth against him and he stiffened suddenly.

She felt the increased pressure against her hip and her eyebrows lifted. “I thought you said you couldn't do that,” she whispered shyly.

“I haven't been able to make that happen,” he agreed in a rough whisper. “Not for nine long damned years. And I have to feel it,” he added hotly, “for the first time, with a woman who wouldn't know an orgasm from a potato!”

She burst out laughing at his sardonic expression. “Oh, you wicked man!” she whispered huskily.

Her amusement veiled a growing passion, and he could see it in her eyes, in the faintly sensuous movement of her body against his hips.

“Wicked, am I?” he murmured, delighted by her eagerness for him, by her unexpected teasing, by her easy acceptance of his limitations and her pleasure in his touch. He began to smile. What had seemed like a potential ordeal all these years was suddenly fun. He reached under her and pinched her bottom, hard, laughing when she squealed and pushed at him, laughing back.

One of his long, powerful legs shot between both of hers and he came down on her with almost a decade of buried ardor making his blood hot.

“Torment,” he breathed into her mouth. “You tease me with dreams of utter paradise…!” He broke her lips apart and began to brush them with his lips and his tongue. All the while, his hands were exploring the slender, warm shape of her body from her rib cage to her hips and back again.

“Philippe?” she whispered jerkily.

“What?” he murmured absently.

“I have breasts,” she bit off as he nipped her full lower lip with his teeth.

He stilled. His head lifted and his surprised black eyes met hers. “I beg your pardon?”

“I just thought I'd mention it,” she pointed out, breathless. “You seem to think my only assets are my rib cage and my hips.”

“You're a virgin,” he began.

“Yes, but I'm not dead from the neck down!” she whispered. Her fingers went to the buttons on his vest and then his shirt, and he hung poised just above her with his heartbeat shaking him as he tried to adjust to her mood.