His Desert Rose

HIS DESERT ROSE, HER DESERT PRINCE ...
"I WAS HOPING I MIGHT PERSUADE YOU TO THINK OF YOURSELF AS MY GUEST. THIS WAY YOU FORCE ME TO MAKE YOU MY PRISONER."

"You invite a guest," Rose said, ridiculously disappointed. "You could have invited me."

"You'd have come?"

Maybe. Probably. In a heartbeat. But she couldn't tell him that. Not now. And they both knew that as a guest her presence wouldn't serve his purpose. Instead she extended her wrists to him, holding them close together, palm upwards, offering them as if for handcuffs. "Perhaps it's time we both recognise the truth of the situation."

For a moment he stared at her, his face livid in the flaring lamplight. Then he stepped up to her, took her proffered wrists and, holding them easily in one hand, pulled free the scarf that now trailed untidily from her neck. Without a word he bound her wrists, wrapping the scarf around them once, twice, three times, in a purely symbolic gesture but one that left her in absolutely no doubt of her position. As if to drive home the point, he caught the loose ends, wrapped them swiftly about his fist and yanked her towards him.

Her protest evaporated in a quick gasp as he caught her shoulders and pulled her hard against his body, so that her head had nowhere to go but backwards, leaving her vulnerable, exposed.

"Is this what you want?"

She didn't believe it. She didn't believe he was going to do this. He wouldn't. Even as she opened her mouth to warn him that he was making a big mistake, he did.

Genre: Romance