it around her shoulders. “One night, not too bad,” she said. “Maybe the kidnappers will get in touch with Zafir by then. I don’t know why they’re waiting.”
“Any number of reasons, but thinking of any of them isn’t going to help us.”
“Maybe,” she said with doubt in her voice. “I don’t think that last attack was planned. I mean, they shot at us twice and the second was so distant. I think whoever it was, unlike the bikers, they were shooting blind.”
“As in we could have been anyone and not someone necessarily after them.”
“Exactly.”
“I suppose we’ll soon find out once the storm is over.” He knelt by the small, portable heater. “We’ll get this going and it should warm up fast.” He glanced at her with a smile. “Just like home.”
“Home with dehydrated stew for supper,” she said with a smile more poignant than humorous.
“Not even that,” he said. “We have no stove. Unless you want it cold, but I’m not sure how that will work with cold water...”
“Stop,” she said with a laugh.
The storm had intensified too fast and they had taken what they could from the Jeep. He’d managed to grab a bag with food supplies and she’d gotten blankets, but after that the storm had taken charge. The camp stove among a few other things had been left behind.
They had shelter and, more importantly, they were alive. They had lived and others had died.
She wasn’t sure how it happened but suddenly she was in his arms and his lips were on hers. Her heart beat wildly as he held her tight against him and she could feel him hard and ready against her belly. His lips were warm and oddly soft in a demanding, masculine way as they parted hers, and her heart pounded in time with his.
She wanted to hold him tighter and demand more. And yet it all seemed too soon and too much. For the first time she had thoughts that hadn’t occurred to her before. He was her boss. Her job mattered. Sex with the boss wasn’t the best career plan she’d ever had.
“No.” She shook her head. “I can’t.”
His knuckle ran along the edge of her cheek, caressing it, as his tongue tasted the edge of her lips. “What’s wrong?” he asked thickly, his desire still hard between them.
“No, Emir. Not now.” Why did she say that? Not ever was what she meant to say as the wind howled and the tent rocked and sand pelted against the canvas.
He caressed her breast.
She couldn’t have wanted him any more than she did in that moment. Instead she pulled back, forcing him to let her go.
“You’re my boss,” she muttered.
His dark eyes raked her face but he said nothing.
She moved away from him but the tent wasn’t large. She found herself next to the heater, a heat that was safer than the kind of heat he offered.
“We need to get some food, get some sleep and make a plan,” she said.
An awkward silence seemed to descend after those words. She looked at him from beneath her lashes. His back was to her and he was going through their supplies. Apparently he wasn’t fazed by rejection.
“Here’s one of your demands met,” he said, holding up a can. His expression was placid, like nothing had happened between them.
He tossed her a can of soup followed by a spoon and she peeled the metal lid back. Despite the fact that it was cold and, as a result, slightly congealed, it was exactly what she needed.
Ten minutes later she set the empty can aside. The storm was still going full force and as the wind pushed and pulled at the canvas, the noise was almost alarming. It was dark except for the occasional flicker of a flashlight they used to navigate the space. The wind rocked the tent and she wondered if it would hold.
“Ignore it,” he advised. “We’ll be fine.”
But there was pain in his eyes and she knew that he thought of Tara.
“We’ll all be fine,” she said. “Tara, too.”
He didn’t say anything. Instead he handed her a tin of rice pudding.
“No.” She laughed. “There’s something about rice in pudding—no.”
“Don’t know what you’re missing.”
He took a spoonful of pudding that some employee had thrown into the kit and grimaced as he swallowed. He held out his spoon. “You sure?” he asked with a smile.
“From the look on your face, yes,” she said with a laugh and then immediately turned serious. “We’re seven miles from the oasis. That’s what I got from what I saw of landmarks before the storm hit and from matching it on the map,” she said thoughtfully.
He put the tin down. “We could walk in once the storm...”
“A mile of that is going to be a fairly challenging climb through the cliffs that are backing the oasis. Not wise in the dark.” She paused. “I’ve been thinking about the kidnappers. They’ve been playing you, taking their time.”
“And?”
“I think we buy time, make them nervous. Play the game they’re playing right back at them. We put ourselves in position to move on them by nightfall.” She looked at her watch. It was now only seven. “Tomorrow.”
“And Tara has to spend another day and night with them. Anything could happen, they could kill...”
“They need her, Emir. I think we put her in less danger if we bide our time, make them sweat a bit more, than if we try to move in without any idea of the environment in which they’re holding her. Tomorrow we’ll be prepared and we can use the night to our advantage.”
Hours later she slept and awoke to see that it wasn’t quite as dark, that the storm had abated and that she was cold. She looked over. Emir was sitting up, his gaze thoughtful.
She sat up, too. “What’s going on?”
“Not much,” he replied. “Almost daylight. We’ve got about an hour.”
“Did you get any sleep?” she asked as she blinked and rubbed her eyes.
“No.” He shook his head. “You got some sleep anyway.”
“I did,” she replied as she ran a hand through her hair. “I must look a mess.”
“No,” he said softly, his eyes intense as they swept over her. “You look beautiful.”
“Beautiful?” she repeated. She’d just been through a gunfight, a sandstorm—killed a man. No, two.
“They needed to die, Kate,” he said as if he’d read her mind, as if he knew that despite the thrill of battle she was not a killer. “It made me sick the first time and the second. It makes me sick every time,” he said.
“I threw up the first time,” she admitted. “And almost quit.”
“I’m glad you didn’t,” he said softly, meeting her eyes. His were like molten chocolate, the look in them more of that of a lover than of a friend or colleague or even boss.
“I’ve never met anyone like you, Kate,” he said in a gravelly whisper.
She shivered.
“You’re cold. The heater isn’t much. Come here,” he said and he could hear the edge in his voice.
He moved closer to her until he was right beside her. He lifted the blanket from his shoulders and brought it around both of them, and pulled her close to him, using his body to warm her. “Neither of us will be any use to Tara if we use all our energy trying to keep warm.”
But