The Desert Virgin
Sandra Marton

www.millsandboon.co.uk

ISBN: 978 1 472 03146 4

THE DESERT VIRGIN

© 2006 Sandra Marton

First Published in Great Britain in 2006

Harlequin (UK) Limited

1 London Bridge Street, London SE1 9GF

All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form. The text of this publication or any part thereof may not be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, now known or hereinafter invented, including without limitation xerography, photocopying, recording, storage in an information retrieval system, or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

This ebook is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out or otherwise circulated, without the prior consent of the publisher, in any form or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

All characters in this work have no existence outside the imagination of the author and have no relation whatsoever to anyone bearing the same name or names. They are not even distantly inspired by any individual known or unknown to the author, and all incidents are pure invention.

This edition is published by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises II B.V./S.à.r.l.

® and ™ are trademarks owned and used by the trademark owner and/or its licensee. Trademarks marked with ® are registered with the United Kingdom Patent Office and/or the Office for Harmonisation in the Internal Market and in other countries.

www.millsandboon.co.uk Version: 2020-08-18

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All about the author…
Sandra Marton

SANDRA MARTON wrote her first novel while she was still in elementary school. Her doting parents told her she’d be a writer someday and Sandra believed them. In high school and college, she wrote dark poetry nobody but her boyfriend understood, though looking back, she suspects he was just being kind. As a wife and mother, she wrote murky short stories in what little spare time she could manage, but not even her boyfriend-turned-husband could pretend to understand those. Sandra tried her hand at other things, among them teaching and serving on the board of education in her hometown, but the dream of becoming a writer was always in her heart.

At last Sandra realized she wanted to write books about what all women hope to find: love with that one special man; love that’s rich with fire and passion; love that lasts forever. She wrote a novel, her very first, and sold it to the Harlequin Presents line. Since then, she’s written more than sixty books, all of them featuring sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life heroes. She’s a four-time RITA® award finalist. From Romantic Times BOOKclub she’s received five awards for Best Harlequin Presents of the Year and a Career Achievement Award for Series Romance.

Sandra lives with her very own sexy, gorgeous, larger-than-life hero in a sun-filled house on a quiet country lane in the northeastern United States.

“Sandra Marton introduces sexy, action-adventures to Presents with The Desert Virgin. This story is one nonstop exhilarating ride as an irresistible alpha hero rescues the woman, who will become his true love, and saves them both as they traverse a desert nation to gain their freedom…. Sandra Marton has once again outdone herself and has raised the bar of excellence in romance.”

—Shannon Short, Romantic Times BOOKclub

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

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

CHAPTER ONE

AT THIRTY-TWO, Cameron Knight stood six foot four inches tall. He had green eyes and a leanly muscled body, courtesy of his Anglo father; jet-black hair and knife-sharp cheekbones, thanks to his half-Comanche mother. He loved beautiful women, fast cars and danger.

In all the ways that mattered, he was still the dangerously handsome bad-boy half the girls in Dallas, Texas, had lusted after when he was seventeen.

The only thing that had changed was that Cam had turned his passion for danger into a career, first in Special Forces, then in the Agency, and now in the firm he’d started with his brothers.

Knight, Knight and Knight had made him rich as hell. Men on three continents asked for his help when things got out of hand.

Now, to Cam’s surprise, so had his father.

Even more surprising, Cam had agreed to give it.

That was why he was flying high over the Atlantic in a small private jet, heading for a dot on the map called Baslaam.

Cam checked his watch. Half an hour to touchdown. Good. Things had happened so fast that he’d had to spend most of the flight reading his father’s files on Baslaam. Now, he had time to try to relax.

A man about to drop into an unknown situation needed to be ready for anything. Deep breathing exercises, what one of his instructors at the Agency had always referred to as tai chi of the mind, did the job.

Cam put back his leather seat, closed his eyes and let his mind drift. Maybe because he was on a mission for his father, he thought about his life. What he’d made of it. What he hadn’t.

How close he’d come to meeting his father’s bitter predictions.

“You’re worthless,” Avery used to tell him when he was a kid. “You’ll never amount to anything.”

Cam had to admit he’d seemed determined to prove his father right.

He’d cut school. Gotten drunk. Smoked dope, though not for long. He didn’t like the loss of self-control that came with the short-lived high.

By seventeen, he was a kid heading for trouble.

Angry at his mother for dying, at his old man for caring more for money than for his wife or sons, he’d been a time bomb ready to go off.

Late one night, driving a winding back road, watching the speedometer needle of his souped-up truck climb over one hundred, he’d realized he was going past the dark house of a cop who’d roughed him up a year back. It hadn’t been much, just a little hard handling.

What mattered was that the cop had done it as a courtesy to Cam’s father.

“His old man wanted me to give the kid somethin’ to think about,” Cam had heard the cop tell his partner.

With those words echoing in his head, Cam had pulled his truck to the side of the road. Climbed a tree, jimmied open a window, stood over the sleeping cop while the bastard snored, then went out the same way he’d gone in.

It was an exhilarating experience. So exhilarating that he did it again and again, breaking into the homes of men who danced to his old man’s tune, taking nothing from the break-ins but the satisfaction of success.

One night, it all came apart. He was in college by then, home for a long weekend…and he’d come within a whisper of getting caught.

Playing dangerous games was one thing; being stupid was another. Cam quit school, joined the Army, got recruited into Special Forces. When the Agency expressed interest, he said yes. Risk was what you ate and breathed in covert operations.

He thought he’d found a home.

Not true. It turned out the Agency sometimes asked things of you that made you a stranger, even to yourself.

His brothers had taken similar routes. Fast cars, beautiful women, playing Russian roulette with trouble, seemed the path a Knight took to manhood.

A year apart in age, they attended the same college on football scholarships. They’d even all scored touch-downs in the same game, one memorable championship season.

They’d all quit school after a couple of years, joined the Army, then Special Forces and, finally, maybe inevitably, the clandestine labyrinth of the Agency.

Just as inevitably, they’d grown disillusioned with what they found there.

The brothers returned to Dallas and went into business together. Knight, Knight and Knight: Risk Management Specialists. Cam had come up with the name after hours of solemn planning and not-so-solemn drinking.

“But what in hell does it mean?” Matt had asked.

“It means we’re gonna make ourselves a fortune,” Alex had said, grinning.

And they did. Powerful clients paid them exorbitant amounts of money to do things that would have made most men’s bellies knot with fear.

Things that the law just wouldn’t—or maybe couldn’t—handle.

The only person who seemed oblivious to their success was their father…and then, last night, Avery had turned up at Cam’s Turtle Creek triplex.

Avery hadn’t wasted time on preliminaries. He’d explained that his oil contracts negotiator in the sultanate of Baslaam hadn’t reported in for almost a week and was unreachable by cell phone or satellite computer.

Cam had listened, expressionless. Eventually Avery fell silent. Cam still said nothing, though by then he knew what had brought his father to him.

Moments crawled by. Avery grew red-faced. “Goddammit to hell, Cameron, you know what I’m asking.”

“Sorry, Father,” Cam said tonelessly. “You’ll have to tell me.”

For a second, Cam figured Avery was going to walk out. Instead, he took a deep breath.

“I want you to fly to Baslaam and see what the hell’s going on. Whatever your fee is, I’ll double it.”

Cam had tucked his hands in the pockets of his trousers, leaned back against the railing of the wraparound terrace that looked out on the city.

“I don’t want your money,” he said quietly.

“Then what do you want?”

I want you to beg, Cam had thought. But the damnable code of honor drummed into him by the Army, by Special Forces, by the Agency and maybe even by his own convictions, kept him from saying the words.

This was his father. His blood.

Which was why, less than eighteen hours later, he deplaned into a desert heat so fierce it slammed into him like a fist.

A small man in a white suit hurried toward him.

“Welcome to Baslaam, Mr. Knight. I am Salah Adair, the sultan’s personal aide.”

“Mr. Adair. Good to meet you.” Cam waited a couple of seconds, then made a show of looking around. “Isn’t the rep from Knight Industries with you?”

“Ah.” Adair smiled brightly. “He has undertaken a survey beyond the Blue Mountains. Did he not notify you of his plans?”

Cam returned the bright smile. The negotiator was an attorney. He wouldn’t have recognized signs of oil from signs for a neighborhood gas station.

“I’m sure he notified my father. He must have forgotten to tell me.”

Adair led him to a black limo, part of a mixed convoy of old Jeeps and new Hummers. All the vehicles held soldiers bristling with weapons.

“The sultan sent an escort in your honor,” Adair said smoothly.

The hell it was. No escort would involve so many armed men. And where were all the regular citizens of Baslaam? The paved road that led into town was empty. As the only road in a country trying to claw its way into a semblance of the twenty-first century, it should have been crowded with traffic.

“The sultan has arranged a feast,” Adair said with an oily smile. “You will taste many delicacies, Mr. Knight. Of the palate…and of the flesh.”

“Great,” Cam said, repressing a shudder. This part of the world, delicacies of the palate could make a man’s stomach roll. As for delicacies of the flesh…he preferred to choose his own bed-mates, not have them chosen for him.

Something was wrong in Baslaam. Very wrong, and dangerous as hell. He had to keep alert. That meant no strange foods. No booze. No women.

Definitely, no women.

Where were all the women?

Leanna wasn’t sure exactly how long she’d been locked in this all but airless, filthy cell. Two days, maybe two and a half—and in all that time, she’d yet to see a female face.

She kept hoping she would because a woman would surely listen to her. Help her escape from this hellhole.

That was right, wasn’t it?

It had to be.

Leanna eyed what little water remained in the bucket she’d been given that morning. If she drank it, would they give her more? Her throat was parched from the heat, though the worst of it was over. She had no watch—the men who’d kidnapped her had torn it from her wrist—but the blazing eye of the sun had begun its descent behind the mountains. She knew because the shadows in her squalid prison were growing longer.

That was the good news.

The bad was that the darkness would bring out the centipedes and the spiders. Dinner plates with legs, was what they were.

Leanna closed her eyes, took a deep breath, told herself not to think ahead. There were worse things than centipedes and spiders waiting for her tonight. One of her guards spoke just enough English to have told her so. Remembering the way he’d laughed still made her shudder.

Tonight, she would be taken to the man who’d bought her. The king or chief or whatever he was called of this horrible place. The bugs, the heat, the taunts of her captors would all seem like pleasant memories.

“The Great Asaad will have you tonight,” the guard had said, and his gap-toothed grin and obscene hand gesture had guaranteed she understood exactly what that meant.

Leanna began to shake. Quickly she wrapped her arms around herself, willed the trembling to stop. Showing her fear would be a huge mistake. It was just that it was hard to imagine how this could have happened. One minute she’d been rehearsing Swan Lake with the rest of the corps on the stage of a tired but beautiful old theater in Ankara. The next, she’d stepped out a side door for a break, been grabbed and tossed in the back of a stinking van…

The door swung open. Two enormous men, their hands the size of hams, stepped into the cell. One stabbed his thumb upright in the air and mumbled something she assumed meant she was to go with them.

She wanted to fall to the floor. She wanted to scream. Instead, she stood tall and glared at her captors. Whatever came next, she’d face it with as much courage as she could manage.

“Where are you taking me?”

She could see that she’d surprised them. Why not? She’d surprised herself.

“You will come.”

The giant’s English was guttural but clear. Leanna put her hands on her hips.

“The hell I will!”

The men lumbered toward her. When they clamped their meaty paws around her arms, she dug her heels into the vermin-infested straw that covered the floor but it didn’t do much good. They simply lifted her to her toes and dragged her between them.

Still, she fought. They were strong but so was she. Years spent en pointe and at the barre had toughened her muscles. She had a terrific high kick, too. It had once earned her a spot in a Las Vegas chorus line and she put it to good use now.

She got the Talking Giant right where he lived.

He doubled over in pain. His partner found that vastly amusing but before Leanna could give him the same treatment, he twisted her arm high behind her back, jammed his ugly face into hers and snarled something she couldn’t understand.

She didn’t have to. Between the stink of his breath and the spray of his spittle, the message was clear.

Still, why would that stop her? She knew what came next. Talking Giant had told her this morning, though she’d already suspected. Two other girls from the troupe had been kidnapped with her. One, same as Leanna, had assumed they’d been taken for ransom but the other had quickly eliminated that possibility.

“They’re slavers,” she’d whispered in horror. “They’re going to sell us.”

Slave traders? In this century? Leanna would have laughed, but the girl added that she’d seen a news report on the white slave trade on television.

“But who would they sell us to?” the first girl said.

“To any son of a bitch who can afford to buy us,” the third girl had answered, her voice trembling. Then she’d added details, enough so the first girl had tossed her cookies.

Leanna had never been the type to throw up or swoon. Ballerinas looked like fairy-tale princesses on stage but the truth was, dancing was a tough life, especially if you came to it via a publicly funded dance program instead of some expensive Manhattan studio.

While one girl vomited and the other shivered, she’d fought the ropes that bound her. But their captors burst in, held them down and injected something into their arms. She’d come to in this horrid cell, alone, knowing she’d been sold…

Knowing it was only a matter of time before her owner claimed her.

Now, that time had come.

The giants dragged her down a long corridor that stank of sweat and human misery. They shoved her into a small room with stained concrete walls and a drain in the middle of the floor, and slammed the door behind her. She heard the sound of a bolt sliding into place but she threw herself at the door anyway, pounding it with her fists until her knuckles hurt.

Then she slumped to the cold floor, looked at the stained walls, at the drain. At the dark, wet stain around it.

She buried her face in her hands.

A long time later, she heard the bolt sliding open. Leanna began to tremble.

“No,” she whispered to herself, “don’t let them see how scared you are.” Somehow, she knew that would only make things worse. Slowly she dragged herself to her feet and lifted her chin.

A woman entered the room. Leanna sagged with relief. Two men with cold, dead eyes stood behind her but the woman’s bearing made it clear she was in charge.

“Do you speak English?” Leanna asked. No reply, but that didn’t prove anything. “I hope you do,” she said, trying to sound reasonable instead of terrified, “because there’s been an awful mis—”

“You will disrobe.”

“You do speak English! Oh, I’m so—”

“Leave your clothing on the floor.”

“Listen, please! I’m a dancer. I don’t know what you think I—”

“Do it quickly, or these men will do it for you.”

“Do you hear me? I’m a dancer! And I’m an American citizen. My embassy—”

“There is no embassy in Baslaam. My lord does not recognize your country.”

“Well, he’d better. Otherwise—otherwise—” The woman jerked her head toward the men behind her. Leanna shrieked as one of them moved faster than she’d have thought he could and grabbed the neck of her T-shirt. “Stop it! Take your hands off—”

The shirt tore to the hem. Leanna lashed out but he laughed and caught her wrists in one hand, lifting her off her feet so the other man could yank off her sneakers and her cotton trousers.

When she was stripped to her bra and panties, they flung her to the floor. Leanna scrambled toward the wall and screwed her eyes shut. Maybe she was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.

This couldn’t be real, couldn’t be real, couldn’t be—

She shrieked as a gusher of warm water hit her in the face. Her eyes flew open. A scraggly line of serving-women surrounded her. Some held steaming pitchers, some held soap and towels. The men had dragged in an enormous wooden vessel…

A tub?

“Take off your undergarments,” the woman in charge snapped. “Bathe yourself well. If you are not clean enough, you will be punished. My lord, the sultan Asaad, will not tolerate filth.”

Leanna blinked. She was in an improvised bathroom. That was the reason for the drain in the floor.

A bubble of hysterical laughter rose in her throat.

The ruler of this godforsaken place had bought her, had her thrown into a vermin-infested hole in the ground. He was going to make her into his newest sex toy.

But first, she had to scrub behind her ears.

Suddenly everything that had happened, that was happening, seemed unbelievable. Leanna let the laughter out. Peals of it. The servant women stared at her in disbelief. One giggled and slapped her hand over her mouth, but not quickly enough. The woman in charge slapped the one who’d dared laugh, barked an order, then rounded on Leanna in rage.

“Perhaps you would like to appear before my lord beaten black and blue!”

Leanna looked her tormentor in the eye. She was tired of being afraid, tired of behaving like a whipped dog. Besides, all things considered, what could she possibly lose?

“Perhaps you’d like to appear before him and explain how you managed to damage the merchandise.”

The woman blanched. Leanna’s heart was racing but she smiled coolly.

“Tell your goons to get lost and I’ll get into that tub.”

Stalemate, but only for a few seconds. Then the woman snarled a command and the men marched out of the room.

Leanna took off her bra and panties, stepped into the tub, eased down in the hot water and let it soothe her body while her brain worked feverishly to come up with an escape plan.

Unfortunately, by the time she was pronounced clean enough for the sultan of Baslaam, she still hadn’t thought of anything. Improvisation was for actors, not for classically-trained dancers.

But she’d never been a coward.

If she had to, she’d die proving it.

CHAPTER TWO

CAM had seen a lot of places in upheaval.

Baslaam wasn’t in upheaval. It was in collapse. It didn’t take training as a spy to see that.

No people. No vehicles. A gray sky, filled with plumes of smoke. And the vultures, scores of them, circling overhead.

Things were not going well in the sultanate, he thought grimly.

Adair offered no explanations. Cam, nobody’s fool, didn’t request any. All he kept thinking was that the pistol he’d secreted in his briefcase might end up being useful.

The sultan was waiting for him in a marble hall with ceilings easily twenty feet high. He sat on a gold throne elevated on a silver platform, and he sure as hell wasn’t the man Avery had described.

The sultan, his father had told him, was in his eighties. Small. Wiry. Hard-eyed and determined.

The man on the throne was in his forties. He was big. Huge, really, a mass of muscle just starting to turn to fat. The only resemblance between the picture Avery had painted and this behemoth were the eyes, but the hardness in them spoke more of cruelty than determination.

Had there been a coup? That would explain a lot of things, including the disappearance of his father’s representative. It was a good guess the poor bastard was one of the unlucky souls attracting the attention of the vultures.

Cam had only one real question. Why hadn’t he been disposed of, too? The man on the throne must want something of him. What? He had to find out, and do it without giving away the game.

Adair made the introductions. “Excellency, this is Mr. Cameron Knight. Mr. Knight, this is our beloved sultan, Abdul Asaad.”

“Good afternoon, Mr. Knight.”

“Excellency.” Cam smiled politely. “I expected you to be older.”

“Ah, yes. You thought you would meet my uncle. Unfortunately, Uncle passed away most unexpectedly a week ago.”

“You have my sympathy.”

“Thank you. We all miss him. I had similar expectations about you, Mr. Knight. I thought the man who owns Knight Oil would be much older.”

“My father owns the company. I’m his emissary.”

“Indeed. And what brings you to our humble nation?”

“My father thought the sultan—I should say he thought that you,” Cam said, with a polite smile, “might prefer to discuss the final details of the contract with me instead of his usual negotiator.”

“And why would I wish that?”

Why, indeed? “Because I have his full authority. I can come to agreement on his behalf.” Cam offered a just-between-us smile. “No middleman, as it were, to slow the process.”

The sultan nodded. “An excellent suggestion. As it is, your predecessor and I have had some areas of disagreement. He wanted to make changes in the wording your father and I had already agreed upon.”

Bull, Cam thought coldly, but he smiled again. “In that case, it’s a good thing I’ve come, Excellency.”

“I am sure Adair explained that the gentleman in question has gone to visit the plains beyond the Blue Mountains.”

“He mentioned it.”

“It was my suggestion. I thought it might do him good to get away from the city for a while. Take a break, I think you would call it. The plains are very beautiful, this time of year.”

The lie bore no resemblance to what Adair had said, and ended any last hope that his father’s representative might still be alive. The desire to leap onto the platform and grab the sultan by the throat was fierce.

Cam forced a polite smile. “A fine idea. I’m sure he’s enjoying himself.”

“Oh, I can promise that he’s getting a good rest.”

The son of a bitch grinned from ear to ear at the double entendre. Once more, Cam fought back the desire to go for him. Outnumbered, he’d be dead before he got within ten feet.

“While he rests,” Asaad said, “you and I can finalize things.” The sultan clapped his hands. Adair hurried forward with a pen and a sheaf of papers that Cam instantly recognized. “All it takes is your signature, Mr. Knight. So, if you would be so kind…?”

Bingo. This was why the negotiator was dead—and why Cam was still alive. Asaad needed a signature on the dotted line to move forward with the deal.

“Of course,” Cam said smoothly. “First, though, I’d like to get some rest. It was a long journey.”

“Signing a document is not difficult.”

“You’re right, it isn’t—which is why, surely, it can wait until tomorrow.”

Asaad’s eyes narrowed but his tone remained smooth. “In that case, permit me to ease the stress of your journey. I have arranged a small celebration of welcome.”

“I appreciate the gesture, sir, but really—”

“Surely you will not disappoint me by turning down my hospitality.”

The sultan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes. Was the so-called celebration part of a plan to lure Cam into compliance, or was it for more sinister reasons? Either way, Cam was trapped. The sultan had planned a party. There was no way out.

“Mr. Knight? What do you say? Will you be my guest?”

Cam inclined his head. “Thank you, Excellency. I would be delighted.”

Three hours later, the festivities were finally drawing to a close.

The evening had started with a feast. Platters of grilled meats, sweets, pastries…and bowls of other things, easily identified and grotesque, eaten by custom in decades long past.

The first time such a course appeared, Cam felt his stomach roll. He managed a polite smile, began to shake his head—and realized that a hush had fallen over the several dozen armed men seated at the long table.

Every eye was on him.

The sultan raised his eyebrows.

“This is a great delicacy, Mr. Knight—but we will understand if you are not prepared to partake of it. Not all men can be like the men of Baslaam.”

Hell. Was this going to be a pissing contest? A Baslaamic version of “I’m tougher than you are”? If so, Cam couldn’t afford to lose. He smiled, leaned forward and scooped a ladleful of the quivering mess on his plate.

“A delicacy, Excellency? In that case, I can’t pass it up.”

He ate quickly, tasting slime and something even worse on his tongue, keeping his gut from rebelling by reminding himself that he’d eaten things as bad in other places. A soldier in the field couldn’t be choosy. Bugs, lizards, snakes… Protein, he told himself, that’s all this was.

There was a perceptible murmur when he swallowed the last of the stuff. Cam smiled. Asaad didn’t smile back. His expression was ugly. The bastard had lost the first round and he didn’t like it.

“Delicious,” Cam said politely.

Asaad clapped his hands. A servant scurried in, carrying an oversize urn. “Since you enjoyed that so much, perhaps you would like to sample another of our delicacies. A drink, made from… Well, I won’t tell you the ingredients but I assure you, it is more potent than anything you’ve had before.” At his nod, the servant filled two cups with a brown liquid. Asaad took one, handed Cam the other. “Unless, of course, you’d rather not?”

It was a pissing contest. Juvenile, even pathetic, but what choice did he have except to accept the challenge? Any show of weakness and he could end up keeping his father’s rep company. Asaad needed his signature but there were ways to get it that didn’t involve pretending they were all one big, happy family.

“Mr. Knight?”

“Excellency,” Cam said, lifting the cup to his lips. The liquid smelled like rotting fish but he’d survived worse one long night in Belarus, when he’d downed endless shots of homemade vodka in a face-off with a thickheaded guerilla leader. He held his breath, tossed his head back and drank the swill in one gulp.

“Great stuff,” he said calmly, and held out his empty cup. Another murmur of approval filled the great hall. Asaad’s face grew dark as a thundercloud.

“Do you ride horses, Mr. Knight?”

Maybe the sultan was thickheaded, too. Asking a born-and-bred Texan if he rode horses was like asking a pigeon if it could fly.

“Some,” Cam said politely.

Moments later they were outside in a vast courtyard lit by torches, racing over the hardpacked sand on the backs of half-wild ponies in a game that involved sticks as thick as baseball bats, a leather ball and a looped rope hanging from a tree. Cam had no idea what the rules were but he stayed on his snorting mount, managed not to get clobbered by men wielding their bats with abandon, and whacked the ball straight through the loop.

The sultan’s men cheered. Asaad’s face turned purple. He shouted for silence.

“You are a worthy opponent,” he said in a voice that made clear the statement was a lie, “and I shall reward you.”

With what? A knife across the throat? A bullet in the head? Lose the game and you were dead. Win, and you were dead, too. Asaad was a psychopath, and capable of anything.

Cam’s muscles tensed and he fought to keep his tone calm.

“Thank you, Excellency, but the only reward I want is—”

The words caught in his throat. Two of the sultan’s men were coming toward them. They were big, bigger than the sultan…

Twice as big as the woman they all but dragged between them.

The first thing he noticed was that her hands were bound.

The second was that she was naked. No. Not naked. It was just that her skin was the palest gold and what little she wore was only a shade darker.

Gold cupped her full breasts; a gold thong rode low on her flat belly. A thin gold chain adorned her narrow waist; slender, twisted ribbons of gold hung from the chain and swayed sinuously with each thrust of her long legs.

Her feet were encased in golden sandals, the heels so spiked they could have been declared lethal weapons. Tiny bells dangled from the straps of the sandals and tinkled softly at her every step. Her hair was gold, too, and tumbled forward in silken disarray around her downcast face.

“Do you like your reward, Mr. Knight?”

“She is…” Damn it! Cam cleared his throat. He hadn’t expected anything like this golden creature and it had thrown him. The sultan knew it; he could hear it in the bastard’s oily voice. “She is an amazing sight, Excellency.”

“Indeed.” Asaad smiled. “I will have her brought closer, yes?”

The obvious answer was no. This woman was a trap. It didn’t take a genius to know that. Cam had been wined and dined; he’d been entertained with a crazy game of desert polo. Asaad had softened him up and now he was moving in for the kill. An hour with this houri and he’d sign the contract, no questions asked. He’d be too sated to do anything else.

At least, that was what Asaad figured.

And, damn, it was tempting. Cam could imagine what it would be like to spear his hands into that spill of hair, raise the woman’s face so that he could see if it was as perfect as the rest of her. He could imagine tasting her breasts, stripping away that gold thong…

“Mr. Knight?”

Cam shrugged as if getting a better look at the woman didn’t matter.

“As you wish, Excellency.”

The sultan snapped his fingers. The men dragged the woman forward. When they were a few feet away, she raised her head and looked straight at Cam.

His breath caught in his throat.

She had wide-set eyes the color of the Mediterranean, fringed by incongruously dark lashes. A small, straight nose. A delicate chin and a mouth—God, what a mouth! It was meant for things men dreamed of in the dark hours of the night.

Cam felt himself turn hard as stone, his erection so swift and powerful that he had to shift his weight to ease the discomfort of it.

Asaad barked an order. The guards shoved the woman forward the final few feet. She stumbled, then regained her footing. One of the men snarled a word and she obeyed what must have been an order to bow her head again.

“Well, Mr. Knight?” Asaad’s voice was a purr. “What do you think?” Smiling, he stepped closer to the woman, caught a handful of her hair and jerked her head up. “Is she not exquisite?”

“She is—she is very beautiful.”

“Yes. She is. She has spirit, too. A magnificent creature, yes?”

What was she? A woman from the harem? But her hands were bound. Why?

“She is, Excellency.” Cam paused. He didn’t want to sound too curious. If he did, Asaad would probably stretch out whatever game they were now playing. “Is she a prisoner?”

The sultan sighed. “Yes. Unfortunate, don’t you agree? What you can see of her is beautiful.” Asaad slid his meaty hand down the woman’s throat, over her breast, cupped first one mound of flesh and then the other. When she tried to jerk away, his fingers clamped around her wrist. “But her soul is ugly.”

Cam looked at the sultan’s meaty fingers, biting into the woman’s flesh.

“It’s difficult to imagine that a woman like this—any woman, for that matter—could do something so terrible it would anger a man like you, Excellency,” he said, hoping the barbarous lie would work.

It seemed to. Asaad’s grip loosened.

“You are correct, Mr. Knight. I am a kind man. A generous one. But Layla pushed me beyond human endurance.”

The name suited the setting. So did her costume. But the blue eyes and golden hair threw him. They were rare in this place. Hell, they were all but unknown.

“I imagine you are thinking she is not from here.”

Right on the nose, you greasy bastard. Cam smiled lazily, as if it were something that really wasn’t of much interest. “I did wonder, yeah.”

“I bought her,” the sultan said matter-of-factly. “Oh, not the way it sounds, I assure you. We are an ancient culture, sir, but we abhor slavery. No, the lady came to me willingly. She is a dancer. That is what she prefers to call herself but really, she is… I think your word is whore.”

Cam nodded. He understood. He’d been in this part of the world before. Women like this called themselves models, actresses, dancers…but Asaad was right. Basically they were whores for sale to the highest bidder.

The blonde stood straight and tall under his scrutiny. Was she trembling? Maybe, but the wind blowing in from the desert was cool and she was damned near naked. That could explain it. So could the fact that she was Asaad’s prisoner. From what he’d seen of things, that would make anybody tremble.

Asaad leaned closer. “I met her on holiday in Cairo. She was performing in a club. I sent her a note… Well, surely you know how these things go.” He dug his elbow into Cam’s ribs, as if buying a whore’s favors was something they had in common. “Layla is a woman of, shall we say, significant talent. That is why, when it came time to return home, I offered to take her with me.”

Cam shot another look at the woman. Her head had come up; she was staring almost blindly into the darkness beyond the courtyard and yes, she was definitely trembling.

Not that it meant a damn to him.

“And she accepted,” he said, making it a statement instead of a question.

“Of course. She knew it would be worth her while. All went well for a few weeks. She was inventive. Imaginative.” Asaad gave a deep sigh. “But I wearied of her. A man needs variety, is that not so?”

“Wouldn’t sending her back to Egypt be simpler than making her your prisoner, Excellency?”

The sultan threw back his head and laughed. “You are an amusing man, Mr. Knight. Yes, of course. Much simpler. And that was what I attempted to do. I made arrangements to send her home—with a substantial bonus.” His smile faded. “Yesterday, just before she was to leave, I learned she’d stolen a priceless jewel from my chambers. This, after all I’d given her! When I confronted her, she tried to put a dagger between my ribs.” Asaad let go of Cam’s elbow and stepped back. “I have been trying to decide what to do with her.”

What to do? How to do it, the sultan surely meant. The penalty for theft and attempted murder could only be death. That the woman had survived a day was something of a miracle. Tomorrow, she’d be food for the vultures. But tonight…

And then Cam understood. Asaad had a plan, and it was as transparent as glass.

The woman was shaking, she was on display—but she was docile. Why? If her life was at stake, why wasn’t she pleading for mercy?

There could only be one reason. The sultan must have promised her mercy. All she had to do to was follow his orders, and those orders surely involved Cam.

She was to be a gift.

He’d take her to bed, she’d perform tricks that would keep him from thinking and Asaad would let her live. But why? Was she supposed to put a knife in Cam’s belly while she feigned passion? No. Asaad would want him alive until he signed the contract.

Maybe the son of a bitch just wanted to watch through a hole in the wall. Maybe his men were going to break in and grab him while he was screwing the woman.

Maybe that was the night’s real entertainment.

“Don’t look so grim, Mr. Knight. Layla tried to kill me. She doesn’t warrant your concern.”

“Frankly, Excellency,” Cam said with a man-to-man grin, “my only concern—if you want to call it that—is over the world’s loss of the lady’s considerable talents.”

“Indeed.” The sultan leaned toward him. “Then you will be happy to hear that I have decided to give her to you for the night.”

“You are most generous,” Cam said, trying to look as if he meant it. “But you may recall what I said earlier. I’ve had a long day, and I am—”

“Tired.” Asaad winked. “But we are both warriors, and a warrior knows the best way to renew his strength. Unless… Is she not to your liking? She has the morals of a desert viper but you have nothing to fear. My men will stand guard outside your door.”

Cam almost laughed. He’d just bet they would.

“She will give you pleasure beyond your wildest dreams.”

“I’m certain she would, Excellency. Still—”

“Take a better look, Mr. Knight.”

Asaad cupped the woman’s breast and pinched the nipple through the gold fabric. She flinched but made no sound. Cam jammed his hands into his pockets to keep from grabbing the sultan by the throat. So what if Asaad manhandled her? She was his to do with as he pleased.

He’d seen worse in his years undercover. Black ops wasn’t for the faint of heart.

Still, something about what was happening made his belly knot.

“Touch her yourself, Mr. Knight. See how smooth her skin is.”

Asaad ran his hand over the woman, from her breasts to her belly. She swallowed hard, her throat visibly constricting, and drew a breath that made her nipples press against the gold cloth that contained them.

The sultan laughed.

And Cam felt his body respond.

He wanted to touch her. Shove Asaad out of the way and put his hands on Layla instead. He despised himself for it but the need burned in his belly, hot as flame.

He wanted to bare her breasts, see if her nipples were the pink of rose petals or the pale rust of apricots. Taste them, roll them on his tongue while he slid his hand between her thighs, under the thong to the hot, wet center of her.

He told himself there was a logical reason for this insanity. All the adrenaline he’d burned these last hours, anticipating danger, meeting it, being on constant guard…

Any man would be more than ready for the release you found in sex. Never mind that the woman was a whore, a thief and worse. That she’d sold herself to God only knew how many men.

She was beautiful, and he wanted her…but he wouldn’t take her. She was a golden trap.

Cam stepped back, drove every X-rated image from his head.

“Do what you want with her,” he said coldly. “I’m not interested.”

There was a silence. Then the woman’s head came up. Her lips curved in an insolent smile as her eyes swept over him, lingered on the taut fabric at his groin, then rose to his face.

“What he means, Lord Asaad,” she said softly, her eyes never leaving Cam’s, “is that he’s not man enough to use me properly.”

She spoke in English but the insult was clear. A collective roar went up from the assembled men. After a shocked moment, the sultan threw back his head and shouted with laughter.

The world went black, narrowed down to only the woman’s taunting smile and the contempt on the face of the sultan.

Cam growled an obscenity, pushed past him, curled his hand around the narrow band that joined the golden cups of the woman’s bra and ripped it in half.

Her face went white. She threw up her bound hands in a frantic attempt to cover herself but Cam grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands down.

Now, the only sound in the vast courtyard was the rasp of his breath.

“You like to play rough?” he said softly. His mouth twisted in a cold smile. Slowly, purposefully, he let his eyes sweep over her.

Her breasts were perfect. Round and high, just the size to fill his palms. The tips, beaded by the rapidly chilling night breeze, were the shade of ripe apricots.

“Very nice,” he said in a voice he barely recognized as his own.

Eyes locked to hers, he lifted his hand, ran his knuckles lightly over her breasts. When she tried to jerk away, her guards grabbed her arms and forced her to stand still as Cam stroked her nipples, warm silk against his fingertips.

“I’ve changed my mind,” he said thickly. “I’ll take her.”

Her scream was lost in the delighted howl of the crowd as he scooped her up, tossed her over his shoulder and headed for the palace.

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