He catches my hand in his and brings it to his mouth. A smile curves my lips. I lean forward, my bare breasts brushing his torso as I sway with the music. It is like rubbing a magic lamp. It awakens a genie of dark excitement deep within his body. I see the fever-thirst come into his eyes. I stop smiling.

He spreads his fingers on my hips. They are like flames on my skin. I turn and let my shoulders rub against his chest, and my buttocks brush the hard flesh between his legs. His reaction is intoxicating—he reels me in suddenly so the base of my side is pressed into the rod of hot flesh. My limbs tremble in anticipation. He moves his body against me: long thighs, muscles, sinew, tendon and bones, all melds with me.

In response, I move my buttocks away from his body and slide my hand between us. I palm his hardness and curl my hand possessively around the hard shaft. It responds by twitching and growing harder still.

‘Impressive,’ I whisper.

He chuckles, a dark, possessive sound. ‘The better to fuck you with.’

His hands roam my body, from my belly up to my breasts and down between my legs.

‘Oh yes,’ I gasp, gently stroking the bulge, wanting the brutal force of his thrusts and the agonized sound of my name on his lips as he floods me with hot cum. He bends his head and his mouth scorches mine, hot and hungry, the taste of salt and tequila, a sparkling shock. My eyelids flutter closed. We are ravenous creatures in the desert. He lifts his head, breath coming fast and shallow.

‘If you don’t get inside me soon I’m going to melt.’

As if on cue the music changes. The air fills with drums.

He wraps his thick and sinewy arms around me and, sweeping me off my feet, swirls me around so fast I am a dizzy blue mist landing on the orange silk bed. My weight crushes the flower petals. In dying they gasp out their sweetest scents. They mix with the oily scent of the candles.

He kneels down. His scent is different: he is as fragrant as the hot sand. He catches my eyes, smiles faintly and, parting my trembling thighs, sinks his fingers into me. My flesh flowers around the heat of his fingers. Grasping his hand, I hold his fingers deep inside me. I close my eyes and savor the delicious sensation of my muscles jerking and quivering around him, as they anticipate release.

My hands fall away as his fingers curl inside me and begin to stroke slowly. He knows exactly where to rub to make me explode.

‘God! I’m so crazy about you,’ he rasps, as his mouth descends on a nipple. Hot and rough. It burns me. He sucks the other deep in his mouth. Pleasure shoots straight into my sex, making more blood rush to it, swelling it further, until it…hurts. I whimper.

He stops and looks at me with heavy-lidded eyes.

‘Don’t stop,’ I whisper hoarsely. ‘Take me as if I am a captive you bought in a market.’

His smile drips with dominance and lust. ‘What kind of a captive would you be?’

‘What if I am an enchanted slave who is spellbound to her owner by dark magical cravings she can’t resist?’

‘A bewitched slave who can’t say no. My, my… Must be my lucky day.’

I moan as his fingers pierce me hard and fast.

‘I love watching you helpless and writhing at the end of my hand.’

I arch helplessly.

‘And I own every inch of this purchase.’

‘Every inch,’ I croak. I grab his silken hair and pull his mouth down.

‘So you want to be taken as a market slave, hmm?’ His voice is dangerously soft.

‘Yes,’ I say, still only frustratingly impaled on his fingers.

Hands of steel flip me over so suddenly I yelp with surprise. With my head buried in the cushions I hear the sounds of his clothes falling away. My hips are grabbed and jerked upwards and held up tilted at an angle. When his cock slams into me I am still hazily aware of the men outside, so I scream into the pillow.

‘This is what you wanted?’

‘Yes.’

‘And this?’ He plunges in so punishingly hard I break out in a sweat.

‘Yes,’ I growl, like an animal possessed.

He goes at it, wild. Our mating is crazed and brutal. I bite the pillow to keep from crying out too loud. He grasps my hair and pulls away the pillow.

‘Fuck you,’ I snarl.

And he slams again into me. He pulls my ass cheeks apart and pushes deeper in. His dick feels hot, burning hot. I am already so sore and battered, my body is beginning to quiver, but just as I think I can bear it no more, I become aware that he is almost cresting. I know him so well I can feel it come into his body. I push my flesh against his groin and squeeze my muscles tightly together, and he groans and calls my name as he spurts and jerks into me.

For a few seconds neither of us moves. Holding me close against his body, he lays me back down on the bed, and rests on top of me, his shaft still buried deep inside me. I love the feeling of his weight on me, while he is half supported by his elbows. His lips settle on the pulse at the side of my neck. His tongue darts out to lick it. Then he puts his mouth on it and sucks it. A whimper escapes. He leaves the pulse and trails upward along the side of my neck to my ear. He nibbles the lobe.

‘Don’t stop,’ I moan. My voice sounds almost anguished.

He pulls out of me and, rising to his hands and knees, turns me over. He straddles my thighs, holding my hands high over my head, and looks at my exposed body. His eyes rove over my body jealously. Then he lowers his head in a kiss so soft and sweet that it brings tears to my eyes.

‘Blake?’

‘Don’t speak. I think I need to have my way with you,’ he purrs.

My breath catches at the raw heat in his eyes, even though I am not sure I can take another pounding quite so soon. ‘I thought you just did,’ I say softly.

He smiles wolfishly. ‘See what happens when you pretend to be a little slave girl?’

‘Did I say I couldn’t take another round?’

‘That’s true.’

He slides off me. ‘Lift your legs up, knees straight.’

‘Why?’

‘Humor me.’

He grabs my thighs and opens my legs into a V. And then he takes his wolfish grin between my legs and devours me greedily. Literally consumes me. It just goes on and on and on until the climax comes with such shattering impact that it feels as if the back of my head has been blown off. When it is over I am sobbing with the intensity of the experience.

He gathers me in his arms until my heart rate slows, my breathing returns to normal and the crazy heartbeat stops.

‘I think I could grow used to being a captive slave,’ I say, encircling his neck and pulling his mouth down to mine. It feels so good to have his naked body over mine. I kiss him. He tastes of me.

‘You really are the sexiest sheik that ever walked a desert.’ My voice sounds soft and fluttery.

A corner of his mouth lifts. ‘And you, my love, are the most beautiful slave that ever graced any tent.’

‘What if I buy you in at the market tomorrow?’

‘Honestly, can’t wait,’ he says, and his voice is so rich and deep my breath catches in my throat. For the rest of my life, no matter how long I live, I know I’ll never forget this moment. The feel of his skin on mine, the handsome curve of his lips, the lock of hair falling forward and the look in his eyes. God, I love this man so much I would fight for him. Never again will I run away.

‘Do you think the men outside heard us?’ I murmur contentedly.

‘If they didn’t hear us before they will now,’ he says, and, throwing a long, muscular arm gleaming with a sheen of sweat out, reaches for the jar of spreadable chocolate.

I giggle…but not for long.

Four

Sometime during the night I awaken and, extricating myself from Blake’s embrace, silently leave the tent. Outside in the white moonlight men smelling of camel are on night watch. They are boiling tea, or cutting their fingernails with the sharpened jawbones of animals, or making camel hair rope while they look out for hyenas. Hyenas, they claim, will even eat the dates from their supplies.