Felicia felt the bed give under their combined weight.
‘Shall I send for Doctor Hamid?’ Nadia asked worriedly.
Raschid was bending over her, and something of her panic must have shown in her eyes, because he said over his shoulder, ‘No need. It’s merely salt deficiency, as I told Achmed, that and too much sun. I’ll deal with it. You get back to Zayad—I heard him crying as we came in.’
‘He caught our anxiety,’ Nadia admitted, glancing at her husband. ‘You must go for Mother and Zahra. They will wonder what has happened. Thank goodness we don’t have to greet them with the news that Felicia is missing. It was a wonder that you found her, Raschid.’
‘Without the falcons I doubt that I would. She had wandered miles from the oasis.’
There was silence, and then cool, detached hands were easing her aching body out of the sand-stained garments on to deliciously cool fresh sheets. From the bathroom she heard the sound of running water—a sound she had longed for during her ordeal. She opened her eyes and discovered that Raschid was standing by her bed. Awareness came back on a floodtide. She had gone out into the desert because she had overheard Raschid discussing her with his sister. Raschid had read Faisal’s letter! She struggled to sit up and was pushed back against the pillows, Raschid’s hands cool against her heated skin.
‘You are badly burned,’ he told her unemotionally. ‘Your skin must be attended to. I would call Nadia to you, but she is too upset.’
‘I can manage,’ Felicia assured him, knowing that she could not.
For a moment his eyes seemed to darken and then he was walking to the door. Long minutes dragged by while she tried to summon the energy to walk to her suitcase. Surely she had brought with her some anti-sunburn cream! She had small hope of it completely easing the heated burning of her skin, but it might ease the pain a little.
She was halfway across the room when an incredulous oath stopped her in her tracks, as Raschid plucked her up and returned her unceremoniously to her bed.
‘What the hell were you doing?’
Tears stung her eyes. She dashed them away, suddenly noticing the tube of cream he held in his hand.
‘I was going to the bathroom,’ she told him. ‘I wanted to have a shower, to comb my hair….’
‘You nearly perish in the desert and all you can think of is brushing your hair?’ He strode to the dressing table and returned with her brush. ‘If I wasn’t sure it’s too late by a considerable number of years to have any effect, I would be tempted to wield this implement on a part of your anatomy where it might produce better results!’
Her face burned.
‘You wouldn’t dare!’
‘Don’t tempt me,’ Raschid advised her. ‘You’ve pushed me to my very most limits, Miss Gordon. Believe me, it wouldn’t take very much at all to push me over them! Now sit up.’
She did as he told her, conscious of the scantiness of her brief bra and pants, as he methodically stroked the brush through her hair.
The effect was nerve-tinglingly sensual, but he seemed impervious to it, brushing her hair until it fell round her shoulders in a soft bell.
‘That is your hair disposed of,’ he said grimly, ‘but as far as your shower goes, I’m afraid you’ll have to forgo that in favour of something a little less exhausting. Stay there.’
He disappeared into her bathroom, and came back with a sponge and towel.
‘I want to put some of this cream on your burns, but I think we had better remove some of the dirt first,’ he told her.
‘I can do it myself.’ So this was what he had meant by ‘less exhausting.’ Felicia shuddered at the thought of having to endure the clinical touch of his hands on her body, when she longed for them to caress her in fierce possession.
He didn’t bother to reply, merely pushing her back on to the pillows and disposing of her protests by the simple expedient of ignoring them.
His touch was sure, and strangely relaxing, as he bathed the dust from her tired limbs. There must be something wrong with her, she thought achingly. She was actually enjoying this, even though she knew Raschid felt not a single jot of answering desire. Only when his fingers brushed the exposed curve of her breast did she move, trying to stop the colour rising betrayingly in her cheeks.
Raschid seemed unaware of her tension.
‘Soon be finished,’ he told her coolly—so coolly that she replied crossly, ‘Yes, doctor!’
His eyebrows rose, as he reached for the tube of cream he had placed on the floor.
‘I can manage the cream myself,’ she began hurriedly, but the glint in his eyes warned her that she was treading dangerous ground.
‘I think not,’ he murmured silkily. ‘Now turn over, please.’
She knew better than to defy him, so she presented him with a mutely protesting back, hunching her shoulders and burying her face in the softness of her pillow. Nothing happened and she relaxed her tensed muscles, raising her head to look at Raschid. He was regarding her with glinting anger, coupled with another emotion she could not name.
His fingers were cool against her overheated skin, massaging the cooling lotion into her shoulders with a circular movement at once intensely relaxing and yet somehow subtly seductive.
At first she told herself she was imagining the steely determination she had read in his eyes, but as the pressure of his fingers deepened, their subtle message increasing with each punishing stroke, her breathing became more and more erratic as she fought to control the desire pulsating through her. Her brain screamed at her to tell him to stop, but she lacked the willpower. His hands lifted the heavy weight of her hair off her shoulders, his fingers kneaded the bunched muscles at the base of her neck, until the tension eased.
‘Turn over, Felicia.’
Her heart seemed to be beating in her throat. She couldn’t breathe. She felt his hands slide down to unclip her bra, the weight of his body as he kneeled over her. She closed her eyes, trying to breathe evenly and slowly while she fought for self-control.
Hard fingers slid under her, turning her resisting body. She refused to look at him, glad of the protective darkness of her room. She would not let him see the desire she knew must be in her eyes.
His touch remote, he smoothed more lotion along her burning forearms and neck.
Perhaps she was going mad, she thought hazily. Perhaps she had only imagined the sensuality of those earlier caresses?
Tears welled in her eyes. She lifted her hand surreptitiously to brush them away, but it was pushed away, as Raschid’s hands cupped her face, forcing her to meet his eyes.
‘Tears?’ he whispered mockingly. ‘For whom do you shed them, Felicia Gordon?’
‘Myself.’ One sparkling tear accompanied her forlorn admission, trembling like a diamond against the darkness of Raschid’s skin, and then unbelievably she heard him curse, his arms tightened urgently around her, the warmth of his skin a welcome panacea for her bruises, his mouth brushed her face in light, butterfly kisses, teasing and tantalising, his hands returned to cup her face, so that her lips were forbidden the contact they craved.
‘Well, Felicia Gordon, am I a substitute for Faisal now?’
Faisal! The letter! But it was too late. Her tears flowed faster, her hands going up of their own accord to lock behind the dark head those tormenting few inches away, pulling him down towards her.
‘Please, Raschid!’
Where was her pride? Her determination to keep her love a closely guarded secret? They were gone, swept away in the wild tide of longing that surged through her, destroying the barriers of years. In the darkness