Possessed by the Sheikh

Katrina tried to stop what was happening, to break free of the almost bruising pressure of his kiss and pull away from him, but her lips were clinging eagerly to his, parting hotly for the hard thrust of his tongue.

Sanity, logic and her normally alert sense of self-preservation had all somehow become subservient to the thrill of longing and excitement surging through her. Under her fingertips she could feel the crispness of his thick hair, the corded muscles of his neck and the warmth of his skin. He felt so male, and so dangerous. So why wasn’t she pushing him away, instead of burying her fingers in his hair and holding him closer whilst white-hot pleasure licked through her?

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Penny Jordan

POSSESSED BY THE SHEIKH

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ONE

CHAPTER TWO

CHAPTER THREE

CHAPTER FOUR

CHAPTER FIVE

CHAPTER SIX

CHAPTER SEVEN

CHAPTER EIGHT

CHAPTER NINE

CHAPTER TEN

CHAPTER ELEVEN

CHAPTER TWELVE

EPILOGUE

CHAPTER ONE

KATRINA was standing in the middle of the souk when she saw him. She had been about to start bargaining with the stallholder for a length of embroidered silk she had picked up, when something made her turn her head. He was standing on the other side of the narrow alleyway dressed in a traditional white disha-dasha, the sunlight filtering striking shards of light against the honey-coloured warmth of his skin, and glittering on the cruelly sharp-looking knife that was thrust into his belt.

Sensing that he had lost her attention, the stallholder looked past her, following the direction of her helplessly enmeshed gaze.

‘He is from the Ayghar Tuareg Tribe,’ he said.

Katrina made no response. She knew from the research she had done before coming out to Zuran that the Ayghar Tuaregs had been a fierce tribe of warriors who, in previous centuries, had been paid to escort the trading caravans across the desert, and the tribe still preferred their traditional nomadic way of life.

Unlike other robed men she had seen, he was clean-shaven. His eyes, glittering over her with a haughty lack of interest, were heart-stoppingly dark amber, set with flecks of pure gold between the thickness of his black lashes.

They, like him, reminded her of the magnificence of a dangerous predator; something, someone who could never be tamed or constrained in the cage of modern urban civilisation. This was a man of the desert, a man who made and then lived by a moral code of his own devising. There was an arrogance about his features and his stance that both appalled her and yet at the same time compelled her to keep looking at him.

And he had a dangerously passionate mouth!

An unwanted sensual shiver skittered along her spine as she was caught off guard by the unexpected detour of her own thoughts.

She was not here in the desert kingdom of Zuran to think about men with dangerously passionate mouths. She was here as part of a visiting team of dedicated scientists working to protect the area’s natural flora and fauna, she reminded herself firmly. But still she couldn’t stop watching him.

Seemingly oblivious of her, he glanced up and down the alleyway of the busy bazaar. It truly was a scene from an Arabian fantasy come to life, at least so far as Katrina was concerned, although she knew that her boss, Richard Walker, would have derided her contemptuously if she were ever to say so in his presence. But she didn’t want to think about Richard. Despite the fact that she had made it plain to him that she wasn’t interested in him, and in addition to the fact that he was a married man, Richard had been subjecting her to a toxic mix of unpleasant sexual interest combined with outright nastiness when she rejected his advances.

Just thinking about Richard and his unwanted pursuit of her was enough to make her shrink back into the shadows of the stall. Immediately the amber gaze found and trapped her, pillaging the shadows for her, and making her shrink instinctively even further into them without seeking to analyse why she should feel the need to do such a thing.

But even though the shadows were surely concealing her, she could see that he had focused on exactly where she was. Her heart drummed a warning tattoo, and she could feel an anxious beading of perspiration break out on her skin.

A group of black-robed and veiled women walking down the alleyway came between them, cutting off her view of him and, she hoped, his view of her. By the time they had gone and she could see him again it was obvious that he had lost interest in her because he was turning away, pulling the loose end of the indigo-dyed cloth wrapped around his head over his face as he did so, so that only his eyes could be seen, in the traditional manner of men of the Tuareg tribe. Then, with his back to her, he turned to enter the doorway behind him, his height forcing him to duck his head.

Katrina noticed that the hand he had placed on the door frame was lean and brown, long-fingered, his nails well cared for. A small frown pleated her forehead. She knew a great deal about the nomad tribes of the Arabian desert and their history and it struck her sharply how much of an anomaly it was, both that a supposed Tuareg tribesman should go against centuries of tradition and reveal his face for the world to see, and additionally that a member of a tribe so well known for their indigo-dyed clothes that they were often referred to as ‘blue men’ should have such manicured hands that would not disgrace a millionaire businessman.

Her stomach muscles tensed and her heart lurched against her ribs. She was no foolish, impressionable girl ready to believe that every man in a disha-dasha was a powerful leader of men, and nor was she hiding some secret fantasy desire for sex in the sand with such a man! She was a qualified scientist of twenty-four! And yet…

As he finally disappeared through the doorway she let out her pent-up breath in a leaky sigh of relief.

‘You want this? It’s very fine silk…Very fine. And a very good price.’

Obediently she gave her attention to the silk. It was gossamer-fine and just the right shade of ice-blue for her own strawberry-blonde colouring. Because she was out in public on her own, she had taken the precaution of scraping her hair back off her face and tucking it up into the deep brimmed hat she was wearing.

But in such a fabric her body could be tantalisingly semi-revealed by its gauzy layers, and she could let her hair down in a silken cloud as a man with golden lion eyes looked upon her…

Katrina let the silk drop from her fingers as though it had burned her. As the stallholder picked it up a group of uniformed men came striding into the alley, causing people to scatter as they pushed past them, thrusting open doors and pulling coverings from stalls, quite plainly looking for someone and equally plainly not caring what damage they might cause to either people or belongings as they did so.

For some reason she could not understand, Katrina’s gaze went to the door through which the tribesman had disappeared.

The uniformed men were on a level with her now.

Behind her the door opened and a man stepped into the street. Tall and dark-haired, he was wearing European clothes—chinos and a linen shirt—but Katrina recognised him immediately, her eyes widening in surprise.

The tribesman had become a European. He turned and started to walk down the alleyway. He had just drawn level with the stall where Katrina was standing when one of the uniformed men saw him and pushed past Katrina, calling out to him in English and Zuranese.

‘You! Stop!’

Katrina saw the way the tribesman’s golden gaze hardened, checking, searching…and then stopping as it alighted on her.

‘Darling! There you are—I warned you not to go wandering off without me.’

The lean fingers she had noticed only minutes ago were now manacling her wrist, sliding down over her hand and entwining with her own, in a parody of a lover’s intimacy, holding her hand fast in a locked grip she couldn’t break. A smile that was merely a calculated curling of his mouth briefly broke up the hard arrogance of his face. He took a step towards her.

‘I am not your darling,’ Katrina told him breathlessly.

‘Start walking…’ he told her quietly, the intimidating, hard gaze imprisoning her under its magnetic spell.

Hostility darkened the normal gentleness of her own speedwell-blue eyes, but it was a hostility that was spiked with something much more primitive and dangerous, she admitted numbly as she did as he was instructing her. He moved closer to her and through the hot, sun-baked scent of spices and perfumes she was sharply aware of, first, the discreet expensive lemony scent of his cologne, and then far more disturbingly as he moved closer to her the intimate, faintly musky scent of his body itself.

The alleyway was full of armed men now, pushing open the doors to the small houses and overturning the stalls as they searched impatiently beneath them, plainly intent on finding something or someone!

The earlier atmosphere of relaxed happiness had gone and instead the alleyway and the people in it had become a place of sharply raised voices and almost palpable fear.

A large four-wheel-drive vehicle with blacked out windows came tearing down the alleyway, sending people scattering, and then screeching to a halt. The uniformed man who got out was heavily guarded and Katrina drew in a small gasp of breath as she recognised Zuran’s Minister of Internal Affairs, the cousin of Zuran’s ruler himself.

Apprehensively she looked at her captor, torn between conflicting emotions. She had seen him enter the building across the alleyway dressed as a Tuareg tribesman, and his behaviour was hardly that of a man with nothing to hide. By rights she should at the very least draw the attention of the fearsome heavily armed men swarming the alleyway to his presence and her own suspicions, but…But what? But he possessed a dangerous fascination that was seducing her into…Into what? Determinedly she started to pull away from him. He checked her small movement immediately, not merely tightening his hold on her, but actually dragging her further back into a narrow space in the shadows of the alley, which was so confined that she was pressed right up against his body.

‘Look, I don’t know what’s going on, but—’ she began bravely.

‘Quiet.’ The icy, emotionless command was whispered against her ear. She told herself that the reason her own body was trembling so violently was because she was shocked and afraid; nothing to do with the fact that she was sharply aware of the male hardness of the muscular thigh pressing into her. And the heavy thump of the male heart was beating so strongly that it seemed to pound, not just through his body, but through her own as well, overriding the shallow beat of her own heart, overwhelming her with its life force, making her feel as though his heart were providing the life force for both of them.

The sudden echo of an old, sharp pain speared her. Her parents’ love for one another had been like that: total and all-encompassing, and for ever.

She made a small sound, an incoherent murmur of private emotional angst, but his reaction was swift and punitive.

His hand gripped her throat, his head blotted out the street, and his mouth silenced any protest she could have made even before she had thought to take the breath to make it.

He tasted of heat and the desert, and a thousand and one things that had been imprinted on him, and which were alien to her. Alien and somehow dangerously and erotically exciting, she recognised in self-disgust as against her will an uncheckable surge of primitive female reaction seized her body.

Her lips softened and parted. She felt his missed heartbeat and then the sledgehammer blow of recognition that followed it as he seized like a predator the advantage she had given him. The hard pressure of his mouth on hers increased and fire jolted through her as his tongue thrust fiercely against her own, demanding her compliance.

Her body shook with reaction. Never, ever had she envisaged that she would kiss a man with such intimate sensuality in public and in full daylight, and certainly not a man who was a complete stranger to her.

She was vaguely aware of the sound of the four-wheel drive moving off, but his mouth was still covering hers.

Then, so abruptly that she almost stumbled, he released her. One hand steadied her with a merciless lack of emotion and then he was gone, disappearing into the crowd, leaving her feeling overwhelmed and, more shockingly, as though she had been abandoned.

‘Your Highness…’ Low, respectful bows followed his swift progress through his older half-brother’s royal palace as he made his way to his presence.

The armed guards on duty outside the heavy gold-leaf-covered double doors that led to the Ruler’s formal audience room threw both doors open and then bowed and left.

Xander was now in his half-brother’s presence, and so he bowed deeply as the doors closed behind him. They might share the same father, his elder brother might have a well-known fondness for him, but the man in front of him was Zuran’s ruler, and in public at least respect had to be paid to that fact.

Immediately the Ruler stood up and then commanded Xander to rise and come forward to embrace him.

‘It is good to have you back. I have heard excellent things about you from other world leaders, little brother, and from our embassies in America and Europe.’

‘You are too kind, Your Highness. All such credit must go to you in deigning to honour me with the task of ensuring that our embassies have the personnel they need in order to promote your plans for greater democracy.’

Without any command needing to be given a door opened and a servant appeared, followed by two more bringing fragrantly fresh coffee.

Both men waited until the small ceremony had been completed.

As soon as they were alone the Ruler walked over to Xander.

‘Come, let us walk in the garden.’ He told him, ‘We can talk more easily there.’

Beyond the audience room and screened from it by a heavy curtain lay a lushly planted private courtyard garden, alive with the sound of water from its many fountains.

Not a single speck of dust marred the perfection of the mosaic-tiled pathways as the two men walked side by side in their pristine white robes.

‘It is as we suspected,’ Xander announced quietly as they came to a halt in front of one of the many fishponds, and then he bent down to take a handful of food from the nearby bowl and drop it into the water.

‘Nazir is plotting against you.’

‘You have clear evidence of that?’ the Ruler demanded sharply.

Xander shook his head. ‘Not as yet. As you know, I have managed to infiltrate and join the band of thieves and renegades led by El Khalid.’

‘That traitorous wretch. I should have had him imprisoned for life instead of being so lenient with him.’ The Ruler snorted.

‘El Khalid has never forgiven you for depriving him of his lands and assets when you discovered his fraudulent activities. I suspect that Nazir has promised him that if he succeeds in overthrowing you he will reinstate him. I also suspect that Nazir is intending that it is El Khalid who will be seen as the one to strike against you. Of course, he himself cannot afford to be seen to be connected in any way to your assassination.’ He frowned. ‘You must be on your guard—’

‘I am well protected, never fear, and as you say, for all that he hates me and always has done ever since we were boys, Nazir will not dare to strike openly against me.’

‘It is a great pity that you cannot have him deported and banished.’

The Ruler laughed. ‘No, we cannot do anything without concrete evidence, my brother. We are a democracy now, thanks in part to your own mother, but we must do everything according to the law of this land.’

His half-brother’s reference to his own mother made Xander frown slightly. His mother had originally been employed as the Ruler’s own governess. A passionate liberal thinker, she had taught her young pupil, and at the same time she had fallen in love with his father—a love that he had returned.

Xander himself was the result of that love, but he had never known his mother. She had died of a fever a month after his birth, having first made his father promise that he would respect her own cultural heritage in bringing up their son.

As a result of that deathbed promise, Xander had been educated in Europe and America, before being appointed as a roving Ambassador for Zuran.

‘It is you who faces the greater danger, Xander,’ the Ruler said warningly now. ‘And, as both your brother and your ruler, I am not happy that you should be taking such a risk.’

Xander gave a small, dismissive shrug. ‘We have already agreed there is no one else who we can trust implicitly and, besides, the danger is not that great. El Khalid has already accepted me in my role as a disaffected Tuareg tribesman, ostracised by his tribe for criminal activities. Indeed I have already proved my worth to him. We stopped a caravan of merchants last week and relieved them of their merchandise—’

The Ruler frowned. ‘Who were they? I must see that they are recompensed, although no one has made any complaint to me of such an attack.’

‘Nor will they do, I fancy,’ Xander told him dryly. ‘For one thing the attack took place in the empty quarter beyond Zuran’s border, which is where El Khalid has his base and, for another, the merchandise we relieved them of was counterfeit currency.’

‘Ah. No wonder they haven’t lodged a complaint!’

‘Although there have been hints and boasts from El Khalid of his involvement with some very important person, I have not as yet seen Nazir or any of his men making contact with him.

‘However, if, as I suspect, Nazir plans to have you assassinated during one of your public appearances on our National Day, he will have to meet up with El Khalid soon. Coincidentally, El Khalid has let it be known that he intends to hold an important meeting which we are all to attend, but as yet he has not said either when or where this is to be.’

‘And you think that Nazir will be at this meeting?’

‘Probably. I suspect his hand will be the one that guides its agenda, yes. He will want to ensure that the men chosen to accompany Khalid on an assassination mission can be relied on. Nazir won’t want to risk using any of his own men, of course, so, yes, I believe he will be there. And so shall I.’

The Ruler frowned. ‘You aren’t concerned that Nazir may recognise you?’

‘Disguised as a Tuareg?’ Xander shook his head. ‘I doubt it. It is after all their custom to cover their faces.’

The Ruler was still looking concerned.

‘So, Highness, you are pleased then, with the progress of the new hotel complex development? I heard much praise of our country’s existing tourism facilities whilst I was visiting our embassies,’ Xander announced smoothly, looking warningly at his half-brother as he caught the soft sound of someone walking quietly towards them.

The greenery parted to reveal the small but powerfully stocky figure of the man they had just been discussing coming towards them, his fingers covered in heavy jewel-encrusted rings, his venomous glance resting resentfully first on Xander and then on the Ruler himself. Ignoring Xander completely, he bowed stiffly to the Ruler.

‘Nazir.’ The Ruler greeted him coolly. ‘What brings you here? It’s not often you can spare the time from your duties as our Minister of Internal Affairs to visit us socially.’

‘I am extremely busy, it is true!’ Nazir responded self-importantly.

‘I hear there was some trouble earlier in the souk,’ Xander murmured.

Immediately Nazir shot him a suspicious look. ‘It was nothing…A petty thief was causing some disruption, that is all.’

‘A petty thief? But you were there yourself!’

‘I happened to be in the area. Besides, what business is it of yours how I conduct my duties?’

‘None, other than that of a concerned citizen,’ Xander answered him blandly.

His mouth compressing, Nazir turned away from him, deliberately keeping his back to him as he addressed the Sheikh. ‘I understand, Your Highness, that you have ignored my advice and that you are choosing not to have the armed escort of my personal guard to ensure your safety during the National Day celebrations.’

‘I am most grateful to you for your concern, cousin, but we must remember at all times our duty to the people. Our guests from other nations—especially those we hope will support our growing tourist industry—will not be reassured as to the stability of our country if they think that its ruler cannot go amongst his own people on such a joyful occasion without a phalanx of armed guards.’

‘And then, of course,’ Xander drawled sotto voce into the tension-filled silence that followed the Ruler’s gentle words, ‘one must always wonder who guards the guards…?’

A murderous look of hatred crossed Nazir’s face. ‘If you are suggesting—’ he began savagely.

‘I am suggesting nothing.’ Xander stopped him coldly. ‘I am merely stating fact.’

‘Fact?’

‘It is already proven that the presence of heavily armed personnel can lead to relatively small incidents getting completely out of hand.

‘I’m sure that none of us wants to have to explain to the ambassador from another nation that one of their nationals has been shot to death by an overenthusiastic and under-trained guard.’

‘We will talk of this again, cousin, in private,’ Nazir informed the Ruler grimly, pointedly ignoring Xander as he bowed briefly and left.

The Sheikh frowned as he exchanged looks with his younger half-brother.

‘Our cousin forgets what is due to you, Xander,’ he said angrily.

Xander gave a dismissive shrug. ‘He has never hidden the fact that he has no liking for me, or my mother.’

‘And your father? Our father was the greatest ruler this country has ever had! Nazir would do well to remember that! Nazir was unkind to you when you were a small child, I know, Xander, and neither I nor my father knew of his cruelty towards you then.’

‘I learned to deal with it and with him.’

‘Both he and his father hated your mother. They resented the influence she had over my father. And then when he made her his wife…’

‘He might dislike me, but it is you he wishes to overthrow,’ Xander pointed out dryly before adding, ‘I have to return to the desert before my absence causes any comment. I was concerned earlier that Nazir might have become suspicious of me after he had his men turn the souk upside down looking for me, but I have learned since that it was another Tuareg they were looking for!’

‘The official story is that you have only returned to Zuran briefly and are leaving the country again tonight to enjoy a well deserved rest. It is a pity you do not have time, though, to look over our new joint ventures. Your mares have produced a handsome crop of new foals, and the first phase of the marina development is approaching completion.’