Читать книгу Desire In The Desert - Ryshia Kennie - Страница 26

Chapter Seventeen

“There.” Kate pointed as a bank of low-rise cliffs appeared to their right.

“It should work,” he agreed as he fought to keep the Jeep moving in the right direction. The sand was beginning to act like water as it moved with the wind that churned it.

The visibility had rapidly decreased. Some storms could come out of nowhere, swallowing you in a sea of sand, while others were slower moving and, often, longer lasting. This one wasn’t hitting them out of nowhere but it was rapidly getting worse.

Within minutes he had the Jeep angled in the direction the wind was coming from, using it to act as a barrier.

“We’ll set up the tent beside the Jeep,” he said. “We could stay in the Jeep if I thought this thing was going to blow over quickly, but all signs look like it might run through the night.” A gust of wind hammered him from behind, pushing him forward. He looked at Kate, who was struggling to double her ponytail to keep it from whipping against her face. The scarf she’d been using had blown away minutes ago.

They wrestled with the tent to get the anchor lines secured.

Finally, inside the tent, Kate shivered, clutching her arms. “It’s getting cold.”

It was late afternoon but the temperature had plummeted and inside the tent it was only slightly less chilly than outside.

He tossed her a blanket. “Thanks,” she said as she wrapped it around her shoulders. “One night, not too bad,” she said. “Maybe the kidnappers will get in touch with Zafir by then. I don’t know why they’re waiting.”

“Any number of reasons, but thinking of any of them isn’t going to help us.”

“Maybe,” she said with doubt in her voice. “I don’t think that last attack was planned. I mean, they shot at us twice and the second was so distant. I think whoever it was, unlike the bikers, they were shooting blind.”

“As in we could have been anyone and not someone necessarily after them.”

“Exactly.”

“I suppose we’ll soon find out once the storm is over.” He knelt by the small, portable heater. “We’ll get this going and it should warm up fast.” He glanced at her with a smile. “Just like home.”

“Home with dehydrated stew for supper,” she said with a smile more poignant than humorous.

“Not even that,” he said. “We have no stove. Unless you want it cold, but I’m not sure how that will work with cold water...”

“Stop,” she said with a laugh.

The storm had intensified too fast and they had taken what they could from the Jeep. He’d managed to grab a bag with food supplies and she’d gotten blankets, but after that the storm had taken charge. The camp stove among a few other things had been left behind.

They had shelter and, more importantly, they were alive. They had lived and others had died.

She wasn’t sure how it happened but suddenly she was in his arms and his lips were on hers. Her heart beat wildly as he held her tight against him and she could feel him hard and ready against her belly. His lips were warm and oddly soft in a demanding, masculine way as they parted hers, and her heart pounded in time with his.

She wanted to hold him tighter and demand more. And yet it all seemed too soon and too much. For the first time she had thoughts that hadn’t occurred to her before. He was her boss. Her job mattered. Sex with the boss wasn’t the best career plan she’d ever had.

“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”

His knuckle ran along the edge of her cheek, caressing it, as his tongue tasted the edge of her lips. “What’s wrong?” he asked thickly, his desire still hard between them.

“No, Emir. Not now.” Why did she say that? Not ever was what she meant to say as the wind howled and the tent rocked and sand pelted against the canvas.

He caressed her breast.

She couldn’t have wanted him any more than she did in that moment. Instead she pulled back, forcing him to let her go.

“You’re my boss,” she muttered.

His dark eyes raked her face but he said nothing.

She moved away from him but the tent wasn’t large. She found herself next to the heater, a heat that was safer than the kind of heat he offered.

“We need to get some food, get some sleep and make a plan,” she said.

An awkward silence seemed to descend after those words. She looked at him from beneath her lashes. His back was to her and he was going through their supplies. Apparently he wasn’t fazed by rejection.

“Here’s one of your demands met,” he said, holding up a can. His expression was placid, like nothing had happened between them.

He tossed her a can of soup followed by a spoon and she peeled the metal lid back. Despite the fact that it was cold and, as a result, slightly congealed, it was exactly what she needed.

Ten minutes later she set the empty can aside. The storm was still going full force and as the wind pushed and pulled at the canvas, the noise was almost alarming. It was dark except for the occasional flicker of a flashlight they used to navigate the space. The wind rocked the tent and she wondered if it would hold.

“Ignore it,” he advised. “We’ll be fine.”

But there was pain in his eyes and she knew that he thought of Tara.

“We’ll all be fine,” she said. “Tara, too.”

He didn’t say anything. Instead he handed her a tin of rice pudding.

“No.” She laughed. “There’s something about rice in pudding—no.”

“Don’t know what you’re missing.”

He took a spoonful of pudding that some employee had thrown into the kit and grimaced as he swallowed. He held out his spoon. “You sure?” he asked with a smile.

“From the look on your face, yes,” she said with a laugh and then immediately turned serious. “We’re seven miles from the oasis. That’s what I got from what I saw of landmarks before the storm hit and from matching it on the map,” she said thoughtfully.

He put the tin down. “We could walk in once the storm...”

“A mile of that is going to be a fairly challenging climb through the cliffs that are backing the oasis. Not wise in the dark.” She paused. “I’ve been thinking about the kidnappers. They’ve been playing you, taking their time.”

“And?”

“I think we buy time, make them nervous. Play the game they’re playing right back at them. We put ourselves in position to move on them by nightfall.” She looked at her watch. It was now only seven. “Tomorrow.”

“And Tara has to spend another day and night with them. Anything could happen, they could kill...”

“They need her, Emir. I think we put her in less danger if we bide our time, make them sweat a bit more, than if we try to move in without any idea of the environment in which they’re holding her. Tomorrow we’ll be prepared and we can use the night to our advantage.”

Hours later she slept and awoke to see that it wasn’t quite as dark, that the storm had abated and that she was cold. She looked over. Emir was sitting up, his gaze thoughtful.

She sat up, too. “What’s going on?”

“Not much,” he replied. “Almost daylight. We’ve got about an hour.”

“Did you get any sleep?” she asked as she blinked and rubbed her eyes.

“No.” He shook his head. “You got some sleep anyway.”

“I did,” she replied as she ran a hand through her hair. “I must look a mess.”

“No,” he said softly, his eyes intense as they swept over her. “You look beautiful.”

“Beautiful?” she repeated. She’d just been through a gunfight, a sandstorm—killed a man. No, two.

“They needed to die, Kate,” he said as if he’d read her mind, as if he knew that despite the thrill of battle she was not a killer. “It made me sick the first time and the second. It makes me sick every time,” he said.

“I threw up the first time,” she admitted. “And almost quit.”

“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said softly, meeting her eyes. His were like molten chocolate, the look in them more of that of a lover than of a friend or colleague or even boss.

“I’ve never met anyone like you, Kate,” he said in a gravelly whisper.

She shivered.

“You’re cold. The heater isn’t much. Come here,” he said and he could hear the edge in his voice.

He moved closer to her until he was right beside her. He lifted the blanket from his shoulders and brought it around both of them, and pulled her close to him, using his body to warm her. “Neither of us will be any use to Tara if we use all our energy trying to keep warm.”

But it was only a few minutes of them sitting like that, with her pressed against his side so tight that he could feel the softer contour of her breast, that he knew it had been a mistake. Nature hadn’t built enough restraint in him to hold a woman more sensual than any he’d met before and just keep her warm, or for that matter a woman he’d been attracted to since he’d first set eyes on her.

He tipped her face up and kissed her long and hard, his tongue tasting her, relishing it all; the sweet taste of the cinnamon gum she’d chewed just after awakening, the hot feel of her tongue as it mated with his, the sleek feel of her skin, all awakening a desire in him that ached to be appeased.

He took a deep breath and reminded himself of why he was there, that she was his employee, as she had reminded him—a partner for now. She couldn’t be anything else. And none of that mattered. For the beat of his heart told another story.

“I want you,” he whispered as if all the kisses that had come before hadn’t already told her that.

“You’re my boss, and my career...”

She looked at him with a desire that had him using all his willpower to hold back.

The rise of her breast seemed no more than a lover’s kiss, a soft caress against his upper arm. He reached out tentatively, his palm brushing the seductive softness.

“I want to be so much more,” he whispered. “The rest doesn’t matter.”

Her breath was a small purr of pleasure as her hand slipped under his shirt, skimmed the side of his ribs and moved down as if his words had given her permission.

His hands dropped lower, pulling her tight against him, flipping onto his back with her on top as he kissed her with every ounce of enthusiasm and feeling she gave him. His hand grazed the edge of her breast as it seductively pressed against him and his want pressed against her thigh.

She shuddered.

“You’re still cold.” He raised himself on an elbow, reaching for the blanket that had dropped to the side.

She took his wrist, even as she shook her head. “Don’t stop.”

He rolled over so that he was on top of her, blocking the cold tendrils of the breeze that seemed to find its way inside the tent. Her curves were pressed more tightly against him. His hand slid under her T-shirt, undoing the front hook of her bra, freeing her breast into his hand. One hand cupped a breast while the other pulled the T-shirt over her head, the bra followed.

She moaned as her nipple tightened beneath his fingers.

He took one nipple in his mouth, his tongue tormenting her in tiny caresses as he toyed with one and then the other. She twisted, rising up as if to meet his hardness, as if that would get them what they both wanted sooner.

“I can’t wait,” he said thickly as he unzipped her pants; his hand slipped under her panties to find her wet. She quivered as his fingers parted her.

Soon she was bare beneath him and her hand was reaching for his zipper.

His hand slipped between them, covering hers, stilling it.

He stood, took off his pants and was again pulling the blanket up around them, as their body heat was trapped by the blanket and combined with the heat of desire finally succeeded in warding off the desert chill.

“Now,” she said as she rose to meet him and clung to him as he entered her as quickly as he’d seduced her. Yet, in the hot and cold of the desert, where life was both tenacious and fragile, somehow it felt right.

But it was only when she rolled over and took command did he wish that time was not a short commodity, because for blissful minutes the nightmare that had been over fifty hours in the making was soothed twice in the most blissful way possible.

“I’m sorry,” she said when she laid by his side sometime later.

It was a strange comment and one he supposed he should have been making, but he wasn’t sorry. He’d been attracted to her from the beginning—wrong place and wrong time, it didn’t matter—he wanted this to happen.

“I’m not,” he said and there was a hoarse edge to his voice. He sat up and snapped the top off one of their water bottles, took a long, thirsty swig and then offered it to her. “It was bound to happen.”

“What do you mean by that?” she demanded as she stood, naked and unconcerned, her hair loose, caressing the edges of her breasts, her face flushed from his kisses. “I was just sorry we didn’t have more time.”

“Really?” Desire raced hot and wild through him. “You’re damn sexy, Kate,” he said. “And I think I’m falling for you. But if you don’t get dressed, we’ll never leave this tent.”

Minutes later, dressed, she sat beside him.

“We need to focus,” he said. “We’re going in after Tara and I don’t want to see any casualties, at least, not of anyone I care about.”

Anyone I care about.

Those words seemed to hang between them, meaning so many things both spoken and not.

“I know you hate waiting,” she said, trying to forget his words that had the power to change so much. “But I really don’t think they have a clue what they’re doing. I’m beginning to think, like we talked about last night, that we should wait until tonight. It will throw them off, which is better for us.”

“If we at least get into position before nightfall, I can live with that.” He stood. “Let’s start getting this packed up so we’re ready to move.” He turned around. “And, for the record, I’d do it again,” he said.

A slow smile spread across her face. “For the record—we will.”

“Darn sure of yourself,” he said as he leaned over to give her a chaste kiss on the cheek.

She twisted so that the kiss landed on her lips and she took it to the next level. The kiss was hot, openmouthed, ripe with desire and the promise of more. But she pulled away as his body began demanding to take charge.

“I am very sure of myself,” she replied. “Now, let’s get your sister.”