She regained lucidity with a jerk. They'd reached al ain. He was still inside her. The pleasure was a continuous flow now, a plateau of contentment. Her head rolled limply over his heart.
"You should have told me you won't just drive me insane, you'll regularly knock me out, too."
He chuckled, a sound of profound male smugness. "I live to please."
She shuddered as he separated their fusion. "And how."
He adjusted his clothes and jumped off the horse, holding out his arms for her. "And no one saw us."
She closed her eyes in mortification. She couldn't believe she'd risked that. He did drive her insane.
His smile became pure bedevilment. "Let's hope for better luck next time."
There was no next time.
It was almost sunset the next day when she felt a bass drone reverberate in her bones.
In moments the distant yet approaching thunder became unmistakable. A helicopter.
Harres's people had come for them.
Their idyll had come to an end.
Harres turned to her, his eyes eloquent with the same sentiments. But he attempted a smile. "They'll be here in minutes. Do you want to leave immediately?"
She didn't want to leave at all.
She only said, "Yes."
He nodded. "Let's gather the stuff the oasis people gave us."
"I only wish I had something to give them, too."
"You gave them far more than souvenirs, made a lasting difference in so many lives. Many told me they were blessed the day the desert 'yielded you to them.' And you can bring them whatever you want later." She gasped. Then he articulated her wildest hope. "We'll be back here, ya nadda jannati. I promise."
In fifteen minutes, she was standing with Harres a hundred feet from the clearing where the helicopter had just landed.
Four men jumped down, walked toward them with movements made of power and purpose, not even acknowledging the brutal wind buffeting them from the still-storming rotors.
As they strode closer, Talia was left in no doubt they were Harres's blood.
Apparently Aal Shalaan men all descended from a line that had originated the oriental fables of supernatural beings.
The men were close enough to be classed in the same level, yet different enough as to be totally distinct from one another.
But it was the man who'd been in the pilot's seat who captured and kept her focus. And not because she recognized him as Zohayd's crown prince.
Amjad Aal Shalaan had an aura about him that lashed out across space and punched air from an onlooker's body. He reminded her of a majestic black panther, perpetually coiled for attack, complete with startling, searing, soulless emerald eyes. And he had those eyes trained on hers. She could swear she felt her eyeballs about to combust before he turned his attention to his brother.
But that brief eye-lock had been enough for her to have no doubt. He was nothing like Harres. That perfect body housed a dangerous, merciless entity. No one got a second chance with Crown Prince Amjad Aal Shalaan. She doubted anyone got a first one.
For the next few minutes she watched as those male manifestations of the forces of nature descended on Harres with relief and affection. All but Amjad. He held back, his gaze on her.
She felt him slicing through the layers of her character like a mental CAT scan, cutting to her essence like a psychic laser.
Harres introduced the others, Munsoor, Yazeed and Mohab-the latter Ghada's reluctant fiancé-as the cousins who'd been with him for her retrieval operation. They shook hands with her, expressed their pleasure to see her well, if not exactly who they'd signed on to save. They exchanged with Harres dozens of questions and reports about what had happened since they got separated twenty days ago.
Suddenly Amjad spoke. "Enough with the reunion . You can all debrief each other, or whatever you do in this secret-service game you play, later." He focused on Harres. "After Shaheen spent the last three weeks tearing the kingdom apart with me looking for you, he couldn't waste one more moment away from his bride coming to fetch you and has jumped back into her embrace. He sends his 'love' from its depths."
Harres's lips twisted at him. "You tore apart the kingdom looking for me? I'm so touched. I hope we can now glue it back together."
Amjad shot him a look of demolishing sarcasm. She was sure a lesser man than Harres would have shriveled up. "The trials and tribulations of the oldest brother and all that. And then I couldn't let you get lost in the desert with my vital info, now could I? You can glue things back together yourself. Cleanup detail is why a man puts up with younger siblings."
Talia's mouth fell open. Harres only hugged her to his side and guffawed. "Aih, I love you, too, Amjad."
Amjad's gaze clamped the unit she and Harres formed.
Then he grimaced, rolled his eyes before leveling them on Harres disgustedly. "Not you, too."
Harres only laughed. "Oh, definitely me, too. And I hereby echo Shaheen's words. I can't wait until you make it three."
Amjad dismissed him like one would an insignificant annoyance, turned to her. Then, as he looked directly into her eyes, he talked about her in third person. "So what does she have over the rest of the women in the northern hemisphere? Since you went through them all, I'd be very interested to know what extra features she has installed that made you shed your sanity."
Harres nudged Amjad's shoulder, pointing to his own eyes with two fingers. "Eyes here, Amjad."
Amjad ignored him, kept looking at her, yet talking about her, not to her. "The way she's glaring back at me. Fascinating. Fearless, is she? Or is she just so perceptive that she read you right, knew she could pretend fearlessness knowing she has nothing to fear, and that would be what gets to you?"
This time Harres sort of punched him. "Quit your snide mother-in-law routine, Amjad, or prepare to eat some sand."
Amjad's sculpted lips twisted, the provocation in his gaze only rising as he looked down at her. "First you let Shaheen sink into Johara's thrall without throwing so much as a cursory rope and now you're eagerly rushing to join the collective of beached men. Is she pregnant, too? At least, was she any good … " Amjad allowed a beat for her to start to seethe, for Harres to take offense for real before he continued smoothly. " … for any info we can use?"
Okay. All right. The verdict was in.
They hired this guy to teach goading in hell.
The other three men had slipped away midconfrontation, went back to the helicopter to prepare it for the return flight. And, no doubt, to give the brothers a chance to have at it.
Though Amjad was formidable, Harres was clearly the more physical one and there was no doubt who would win in a fight. That was, if Amjad didn't fight dirty. Which she was sure he would, and did.
Keeping her hand clasped in his, Harres said with Amjad's same lethal tranquility, "I'll say this once, Amjad. Talia is my woman, my princess." Talia almost collapsed. Harres was saying what he wished for, wasn't taking into account the implausibility of it all. It felt like heaven. And like hell. And he was going on. "I owe her my life, and I have no life without her from now on. Deal with it. Nicely. Or else."
Suddenly Amjad addressed her. "See this? Your man, your prince, hits a snag, and he threatens, and may I add, employs, physical violence. Tut, tut. A bleak prognosis for a future with him, don't you think, doctor?" Then he swung his eyes to Harres. "And I had such high hopes for you. Have fun in your new life of mind-numbing sameness and soul-destroying emotional servitude."
Before she could finally set him straight, on so many accounts, before Harres could elaborate on his gag order, Amjad turned away, gave the oasis people who'd come to say goodbye a whimsical wave and headed back to the helicopter.
Then, as Talia hugged everyone who came to see her off, crying rivers with Harres beside her promising their return, the aggravating man had the nerve to honk.
Talia's return to the capital was the total reverse of her departure from it.
Going back in a royal helicopter surrounded by princes was certainly something she couldn't have even dreamed of when she'd been kidnapped twenty days ago. But being next to Harres as the real world approached made her realize the depth and breadth of the lifetime they'd lived together during that time.
After they landed in the princes' private airport, Talia changed into the clothes Harres had had delivered there, while he changed, too, before they drove to the palace in separate limos.
He told her they couldn't afford to have her tied to him. Apart from those who knew the truth, everyone thought he'd dropped off the radar on a mission as usual. But the traitors in the palace would know what this mission involved. If she were seen with him, they'd work out her true identity. So she'd arrive at the palace as a friend of Laylah, his cousin. Once that was established, he'd pretend to hook up with her, and it would seem natural to everyone that he'd be interested in the blonde beauty.