For a moment, the only sound was the pant of her breath.
“Is being married to me really so awful?” he said roughly. “Was—kissing me—really so distasteful to you?”
She took a deep breath.
“No,” she said honestly. She couldn’t lie. She pushed away from him. “But I can’t just wait around here for weeks, hoping she’s all right. If you’re in no hurry to save her… I’ll make a deal with someone who is.”
“You’ll never even make it to Marrakech.”
“I’ll hitchhike into town,” she tossed back. “And hock my wedding ring for a plane ticket to St. Petersburg.”
“You’ll never even be able to talk to him!”
She stopped. “My phone,” she breathed aloud. “I’ll call my sister’s number. Either she will answer it, or Vladimir will. The battery is dead but I’ll plug it in and…” Triumphantly, Josie glanced behind her. Then she saw his face.
With a gasp, she started to run towards the house.
She was only halfway across the inner courtyard, racing for her bedroom, when he came up behind her, scooping her up with a growl. “I won’t let you call him.”
She struggled in his arms. “Let me go!”
“Vladimir will never have that land.” Beneath the swaying palm trees of the sunny courtyard, next to the soft burbling water of the stone fountain, he slowly released her, and she felt the strength of his muscular form as she slid down his body. He gripped her wrists. “It’s mine. And so are you.”
She shook her head wildly. “You can’t keep me prisoner here. I’ll scream my head off! One of your servants will…”
“My servants will say nothing. They are loyal.”
It was impossible to pull her wrists out of his implacable grip. Tears filled her eyes.
“Someone will talk,” she whispered. “Someone will hear me. We’re not that far from the city. I’ll find a phone that works. Or email. There’s no way you can keep me here against my will.”
Kasimir looked down at her, then his eyes narrowed. He abruptly let her go.
“You’re right.”
She rubbed her wrists in relief. “You’re letting me go?”
His sensual mouth curled in a devastating smile. He looked every inch a ruthless Russian prince, his blue eyes icy as a Siberian winter. “Wrong,” he said softly.
Frightened of the coldness in his eyes, Josie slowly backed away. “Whatever you’re planning, it won’t work. I’ll escape you…”
Their eyes locked, and shivers went through her.
“Will you?” he purred.
And coiling back like a tiger, he sprang.
Kasimir heard the loud whir of the helicopter flying away as he stood on thick carpets over the packed sand in his own grand tent, the largest and most luxurious in his camp, deep inside the Sahara Desert.
He looked down at his prisoner—that is to say, his dear wife—sitting on his bed. Tied up with a soft silken gag over her mouth, Josie was glaring at him with bright sparks of hatred in her eyes.
His eyes traced down her body. She still wearing his black T-shirt and oversized jeans from Marrakech, but from the flash of lacy bra strap, he knew she was wearing the sexy lingerie he’d given her underneath. His body tightened. He said softly, “What am I going to do with you?”
Josie answered him in a muffled, angry voice, and he had the feeling she was telling him what he should do with himself, and that her suggestion was not a courteous one.
Kasimir sighed. He should have guessed Josie might speak Russian—it was sometimes taught in Alaskan schools. He regretted that he’d let himself be caught in such a clumsy lie.
But at the moment, he regretted even more his promise never to kiss her again. A word of honor was a serious thing: unbreakable. He’d unknowingly broken a vow once, to his dying father, when Vladimir had sold their homestead behind his back. Kasimir wouldn’t break another.