His Queen by Desert Decree(14)

Azrael rolled his eyes and tugged on Spice’s reins to head for the cave where he had hidden as a child with his mother from Hashem’s soldiers. ‘You didn’t do too badly for a city girl,’ he heard himself pronounce. ‘It was an outstandingly stupid move, of course, but you travelled a great distance—’

‘Shut up,’ Molly moaned.

Azrael grinned. ‘There’s nothing I enjoy more than a trapped audience.’

‘Butrus thinks you walk on water, O Glorious Leader,’ she mumbled.

‘I am an ordinary man,’ Azrael countered with crushing calm.

Molly’s eyes closed. Ordinary? Somehow she didn’t think so. Mr Gorgeous had come after her and saved her and she was grateful even if he did annoy the hell out of her. She didn’t mind that he had become Mr Grumpy again by the time he found her. ‘Thanks,’ she framed hoarsely.

And that was the last thing Molly remembered before she recovered consciousness in what felt like a freezing cold bath. Her eyes were heavy and gritty and opening them took as much effort as trying to lift her arms out of the water.

‘No,’ a familiar voice declared. ‘You must stay in the water to cool your body down.’

She let her eyes stay closed because she thought she was dreaming. They had been in the desert where there was no water, certainly none he could submerge her entire body in. Her mind wandered off again and she drifted, only minimally aware of being roughly towelled, something catching at her ribcage and a yanking sensation before she was laid down somewhere, fabric of some kind lying lightly on her skin. She felt cool, wonderfully, blessedly cool for the first time in hours and she made no protest when she was lifted up and a bottle was put to her lips to drink. She gulped back the water and lay down again, her senses beginning to return to her. Her lashes lifted only a little because her eyes were so heavy and she had a blurred glimpse then of a man undressing.

She shouldn’t look, a bossy little inner voice told her brain. She shut her eyes and breathed in deep, stifling that prissy voice, and she looked. And what she saw was a sight she was persuaded even at that moment that she would never forget... Azrael naked and an absolute symphony of bronzed, muscular male perfection from his wide, smooth brown shoulders, down the long, graceful golden line of his spine to his small, taut, masculine buttocks and his powerful hair-roughened thighs. A thick blue-black mane of hair brushed those amazing shoulders as well. She closed her eyes again fast, feeling like a shameless voyeur. She was perving on him when he thought himself unobserved, having assumed that she was asleep, and she should be ashamed of herself. She had never thought a man could be beautiful before and now she had learned different because, stripped of clothes, Azrael was magnificent.

Azrael slumped down into the chill of the cave pool with intense relief. His body had betrayed him as his mind could not. He was so turned on he literally hurt from the pounding pulse of his arousal. A man without ready access to sex should never, ever be forced to undress a woman, he reasoned in exasperation. He had removed only the dress, submerging her in the bra and panties she still wore, determined not to give Molly any reason to accuse him of overfamiliarity.

And then the blasted towel had caught on the bra hook and ripped the heavy-duty bra half off, a garment more surely suited to an old and very sensible lady rather than a young and beautiful one. So, having partially detached and damaged the wretched thing, he had had to remove the bra, revealing the sort of bountiful pale curves topped by the most succulent nipples that any man would have... Azrael gritted his teeth, killing his thoughts stone dead, perspiration breaking on his brow. He was being thoroughly punished for his lack of physical control. But he had done what he had to do and she was safe and unharmed, he reminded himself soothingly. Now he should be able to relax...but relaxation had never been more of a challenge for him.

Molly wakened to a shadowed darkness that startled her as she gazed up at the craggy stone roof far above and realised that she was not in a building but in a very large cave. And then she saw the rusty old lantern glowing on the edge of the rock pool that she now appreciated must have illuminated that glimpse she’d had of Azrael naked. A small waterfall emerged directly from the rocks behind the pool and flowed down to break the still surface of the clear water. She blinked and sat up, remembering her experience in the desert with a shudder and acknowledging that, considering her earlier condition, she now felt astonishingly normal. She would have to thank Azrael. Had she thanked him? She wasn’t sure. But he deserved thanks for defying her worst expectations and coming out into the desert to find her and rescue her. So, where was he?