Taken by the Sheikh

His explanations would have to wait until they got back to the oasis, Drax realised, as the wind died abruptly and suddenly there was complete silence.

‘What—?’ Sadie began uncertainly, sensing that the unnatural calm had a dangerous malevolence about it.

‘The eye of the storm,’ Drax told her grimly. ‘If we’re lucky, very lucky, we might make it to the oasis before all hell breaks loose. There it is up ahead—see?’

Sadie could. The camp had an abandoned, empty air about it; several of the palm trees had been uprooted, one of them having crashed down into the oasis itself. Drax brought the vehicle to a halt alongside the one remaining tent—Drax’s tent, Sadie saw.

‘Where are the others? Vere?’ Sadie asked, almost stammering over his twin’s name as she remembered what she had heard him saying.

‘Back in Dhurahn by now. You drove straight into the path of the storm. Quick,’ he commanded her, unbuckling his seatbelt and turning to unfasten hers. Sadie shook her head. She wanted to refuse to get out of the Land Rover, but the eerie silence was somehow more frightening than the thought of being with him. At least she knew that only he was here.

She wouldn’t let him touch her, though, not even as she struggled through a deep drift of sand to cross the few feet that separated the vehicle from the entrance to the tent.

‘We are lucky that the generator is still working,’ Drax said once they were both inside. ‘At least for now.’

‘Maybe the storm is over and we don’t need to stay here? Maybe we should try to get back to the city?’ Sadie suggested. ‘And when we do get there I want my passport back, Drax. I won’t stay and be…abused.’ She lifted her chin and said fiercely, ‘If you and Vere want to play those sort of perverted games then you will have to find someone else to play them with.’ Her face was burring with shame and disgust.

‘Sadie—’ Drax groaned, but he stopped speaking abruptly as suddenly, out of nowhere, the silence was torn apart by an unearthly sound as the wind returned to howl and scream its fury whilst tearing at the fabric of the pavilion as though it were an alien life force.

It was impossible to speak above its fury, but Sadie could see from Drax’s expression the danger they were in. ‘We’re going to die, aren’t we?’ she whispered.

Drax must have read her lips, because he shook his head and mouthed back, ‘If we do it will be together. And I would rather die with you, Sadie, than live without you.’

What was he saying? He couldn’t possibly mean those words. To her disbelief, she saw that he was coming towards her. She tried to evade him, but it was too late. His arms closed round her and his mouth came down on hers in a fierce, possessive kiss.

She shouldn’t be letting this happen. But somehow she couldn’t stop herself from lifting her own arms to hold him close. Perhaps it was the knowledge that they might not survive that was fanning the embers of her need into such an urgent heat, making her return his kiss with equal hunger, urging her to take what there was before the darkness came down on them.

Outside the wind shrieked, but all Sadie could hear was the frantic thud of her own heartbeat and the voice inside her that said nothing mattered but this need within her. Her body ached and yearned for Drax’s touch—and not just his touch, but his possession. She could feel her flesh heating, seeking a complete union with his, wanting at its most intimate level to draw him in and keep him there, to make him so much a part of her that there were no boundaries left between them and they were one perfect whole. This was all that mattered; it was all that she wanted to communicate to Drax.

She pressed her body up against his, willing him to respond to her need, to answer her impatient hunger, to have him destroy the barriers between them, to answer the storm inside her and tear away everything that separated them so that they could be truly together, flesh on flesh, heart on heart, until she possessed him deep within her.

Somewhere a small part of her registered that she was being driven by a form of madness, but her need scorned it. What was madness but a delicious form of intense reality? And nothing could be more real than this. She could feel Drax’s hands moving urgently over her body. She moaned with hot, hungry pleasure, sliding her own hand down his back and then over the curve of his buttock, and then between their bodies so that she could touch him intimately. She felt him shudder when her flingers closed over him, and she shuddered herself in response, lost mindlessly in the storm of her need for him.

‘Take me to bed, Drax,’ she begged fiercely. ‘Here and now, when it’s just the two of us. I want you so much…’

‘No.’ His denial was low and raw, the aching, tormented sound of a man refusing what he wanted most. ‘No, Sadie,’ he repeated, releasing her. ‘Not until I have talked with you. Explained everything to you.’

‘We might not live that long,’ Sadie said. ‘And if we don’t, I want my last moments with you to be in your arms, Drax. Not—’

Drax gave her a small shake. You mustn’t say that. We are going to live. Now, let me explain—’

‘Not here.’ Sadie was being driven by an instinct she didn’t understand but could no longer fight. ‘Tell me in bed, Drax, while you’re holding me.’ What she meant was that a part of her didn’t want to see his face because she didn’t want to see that he was lying to her.

‘Very well,’ Drax agreed. ‘In bed, in my arms, you shall hear the truth and know my heart, Sadie.’

CHAPTER TWELVE

THEY undressed quickly, feverishly almost, aware not only of their intense desire for one another and the unresolved issues between them, but also of the threat of the storm and its power to destroy them. The fine grains of sand brushed easily from Sadie’s skin as she stood staring at Drax’s naked body, unable to stop greedily absorbing the sight of him. She could feel the fine tremble of his hands when he reached for her, holding her so tightly in his arms that she could feel the rapid beating of his heart as though it were her own. She wanted him so badly, and to judge from his state of arousal his need matched hers. Would he think about his twin later, when he possessed her? Would he imagine th

at Vere was with them? Would he—?

He touched her face gently and kissed her forehead. ‘Don’t look like that, Sadie. What you overheard wasn’t what you thought, although I can understand how damning it would sound.’

‘You can’t magic away the words you spoke, Drax.’

‘No, I can’t. But I can explain where they came from. The truth is that I spoke those words out of blind, driving jealousy and bitterness, Sadie. All our lives Vere and I have put our loyalty to one another and our relationship first. When I fell in love with you I discovered for the first time what it meant to hate my brother, to feel murderously jealous of him.’

‘Why should you feel like that? You knew how I felt about you.’