Awakened by Her Desert Captor by Abby Green Page B

more clothes.
    Then he was unwinding his keffiyeh from his head, and before she could stop him he’d placed it over her hair, like a shawl. He started to wind it around her head, tucking it in, until there was only one long piece left that he drew across her mouth and tucked in at the back.
    She was effectively swaddled. And it was only then that she realised that the Jeeps were driving off into the distance, towing the buggy behind them. Arkim’s scent was disturbing, and all around her. The thought that this fabric had been across his mouth was almost too intimate to take in.
    He held his horse by the reins and was leading it over. Sylvie pulled down the material covering her mouth. ‘What are you doing? Where are the Jeeps going?’
    He stopped in front of her, the huge horse prancing behind him. ‘We are going for a little trip.’
    Before she could ask more, Arkim had his hands around her waist and was lifting her effortlessly onto the horse. His sheer strength took her breath away and she clung to the saddle, her brain reeling at being so high up. She hadn’t been on a horse since she was a teenager...
    Arkim put his foot in the stirrup and vaulted on behind her, his agility awesome. And suddenly he was all around her. Strong muscled thighs gripping hers, his torso against her back, his arms coming around her to take the reins.
    â€˜Cover your mouth.’
    Sylvie was too stunned to move. ‘Wh—where are we going?’
    Arkim angled himself so he could see her and made a rude sound. ‘Don’t you ever do anything you’re told?’ The material was firmly pulled back over her mouth and he said, ‘It’ll stop sand getting in.’
    Sylvie couldn’t say anything else, because Arkim was turning the horse around and they were galloping in the opposite direction from where the Jeeps had gone. For a semi-hysterical moment Sylvie thought that perhaps she’d pushed Arkim so far he was just going to dump her in the desert and leave her to die a slow, painful death.
    Gradually, though, as they galloped into the seeming nothingness of the sandy landscape, almost against her will she felt herself relaxing into Arkim’s body, letting him take her weight. One of his arms was around her torso, holding her to him, and she felt the intimate space between her legs soften and moisten.
    She was fast losing all sense of reality. The real world and civilisation felt very far away.
    After about twenty minutes Arkim drew the stallion to a stop, its muscles quivering under Sylvie’s legs. He got off the horse and Sylvie looked down to see his arms outstretched towards her. His mouth was stern.
    â€˜Bring your leg over the horse, Sylvie.’
    She wanted to disobey, but she knew Arkim would pull her off the horse anyway. Better to do it with a modicum of decorum and not let him see how intimidated she was. And she was scared... Even though she knew—in some way she didn’t like to investigate—that he wouldn’t harm her.
    Her hands landed on Arkim’s wide shoulders and his hands clamped around her waist as he lifted her down as effortlessly as before. She saw the reins on the ground and said nervously, ‘Won’t the horse just go?’
    â€˜Aziz won’t move unless I say so. And we won’t be long.’ Arkim’s tone brooked no disobedience—from her or the horse.
    Sylvie broke away from Arkim’s hands. The keffiyah was still around her mouth and she pulled it down as she looked around at a sea of nothing but blue sky and dunes.
    â€˜Why are we here?’
    Arkim planted himself in front of her, hands on hips. ‘Because this is where you would have ended up if the buggy hadn’t run out of fuel. This is where we might have found you in two days, if we were lucky enough, dehydrated and burnt to a crisp.’
    Sylvie looked at him and shivered. ‘You’re exaggerating.’
    Arkim looked livid. He grabbed