Sheikh's Castaway by Alexandra Sellers

His need for her was in his lips, his tongue, his trembling hands, and in his dark, approving eyes.
    Meanwhile, across the sky, dark clouds were massing and moving closer. A rumble of thunder breached the silence now and then, and warm wind whipped at the canvas canopy that protected them from the sun. She felt that her body was like the parched earth that had longed for the sky’s blessing for long months and years, and now that he was near it would be sin and worse than sin to turn away into dryness and infertility again.
    Down inside the cabin there was a stateroom, and a bed. After an endless time, Bari drew her up from herseat and led her there, pushing her down onto the soft cushions and following to stretch his hungry body out beside her. Then he took her ruthlessly into his arms and, for the first time, let slip the tight rein he had kept on his passion….
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    Something landed in her lap, bringing her out of her reverie. She blushed, as if Bari might have guessed her thoughts.
    â€œAnd what’s this?” She lifted the little plastic envelope. She was shivering in earnest now.
    â€œA foil blanket. It is dangerous to attempt buddy warmth with only two people in a four-man raft,” Bari said. “All the weight in one place could destabilize the raft.”
    His voice was so full of contemptuous dismissal that she burned with embarrassment, as if she had been offering him sex and been rejected.
    She didn’t believe what he had just said. He simply didn’t want to touch her. The rage and hurt of this morning’s discovery flooded her mind once more. She was in a ferment to shake him out of his damned supercilious contempt, his smug calm.
    â€œWhat gives you the right to look at me as if—as if…I was asking for comfort! ” she shouted. “When did I ever throw myself at you? You were the one! Right from the beginning—as if I were water in the desert!”
    Tears stung her eyes, but she would not be so weak!
    â€œInstead you were a mirage,” Bari said harshly, as her emotions succeeded in igniting his own.
    â€œMe?” she exclaimed, choking on the injustice. “ I wasn’t the mirage! I never lied!”
    â€œWhat was it when you said you would marry me, if not a lie?”
    His voice was cold with fury. In the red glow cast by the canopy he looked unfamiliar, an angry stranger.
    And that was what he was. She didn’t know him at all.
    â€œWhat was it when you said you wanted to marry me?” she countered hotly, the pent-up words bursting from her. “You don’t want to marry me, and never did! And before you deny it, I overheard your aunt and your cousin talking. You’re only marrying me because your grandfather wants an alliance with his old friend’s family. He ordered you to marry me, and you were furious about it. You have to marry me to inherit the family property, isn’t that right? You don’t love me!”
    He watched her steadily, one eyebrow lifted.
    â€œDo you!” she prodded. “Do you!”
    â€œNo, Noor,” Bari replied in a slow, calm voice, not at all the voice of a man caught out. “No, I don’t love you. Why are you pretending outrage when you have always known it?”

Six
    N oor’s mouth opened in slow, appalled disbelief, but Bari gave no quarter.
    â€œI never told you I loved you. You didn’t ask to hear it. What you wanted was a wealthy, socially connected man who would cater to your desire for a life of selfish pleasure. That was what I offered you. That was your price, Noor.”
    â€œMy price! ”
    â€œSo the discovery that you say you have now made—that love is not part of our bargain—will not serve as an excuse. I ask you again—why did you back out of the agreement that both of us understood from the beginning? And why did you choose such a moment, such a grotesque and offensive way to do it?”
    His teeth and eyes flashed in an