Sheikh's Castaway. ALEXANDRA SELLERS

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СКАЧАТЬ a life raft in the rear.” He sounded doubtful. “Can you get it out?”

      She set down the mike and unbuckled herself. “Right.”

      “Be prepared for more turbulence.”

      She hastily kicked off her shoes and got up, scrabbling her way between the two passenger seats behind and into the back of the aircraft as fast as she could, yanking at the voluminous skirt of her dress, clutching tightly to anything within reach. Meanwhile the plane leaped and bounced as the storm did its unholy best to knock her off balance.

      Strange, she thought distantly, all this bucking wasn’t making her queasy now. Maybe having nerves at a fever pitch had something to do with that.

      Still the wind howled and shrieked around the little plane. Lightning crackled within the clouds, and the answering thunder pounded and banged them almost physically.

      In the luggage space behind the passenger seats, she saw a suitcase-sized container fitted to the bulkhead on a mounting. There were very similar items on the yachts of friends, and in her carefree life Noor had been miles from imagining she would ever actually need one.

      She knelt into the cloud of her dress and wrestled with the clasps holding the case in the cradle. She noted only distantly that the tip of one perfect peach-coloured fingernail snapped off in the process.

      “LIFE RAFT, 4 PERSON. DO NOT INFLATE IN AN ENCLOSED SPACE.”

      Bari swore as the plane bucked again, and Noor fell against the seat and then the bulkhead as she dragged the case awkwardly off its mounting. It was heavy and hard and had a mind of its own, but with curses and tears she at last manoeuvred it to a position behind Bari’s seat. Two more fingernails tore in the process.

      The sweat of struggle was on Bari’s forehead, and his face was white with strain. A black curl fell over one eye. “Sit down,” he called. “We’ll break out of cloud soon and I may have to take it back up fast.”

      Fear rushed through her again at this stark statement of what she already knew—that they might be blindly flying towards a mountainside. Biting her lip, Noor struggled back into her seat and shoved her arms through the safety harness, clicking it home.

      Rain pounded the metal body of the plane, and the wind screamed around them, in an intensity of sound she’d never heard before. Thunder rolled all around. She felt the noise in her skin, in her body, as if sound itself embraced her, a physical thing.

      She picked up the mike again. “Mayday, Mayday, this is India Sierra—”

      Suddenly they were out of cloud, driving through rain so heavy there was scarcely any improvement in visibility. But below she could see water, and she let her breath out on a long silent sigh. Thank God, thank God. Alhamdolillah. She glanced at Bari, but she saw no emotion other than fierce concentration on his face.

      “Brace yourself,” he said briefly. The water looked choppy and unforgiving. Noor pushed her free hand against the control panel, pressed her stockinged feet against the floor.

      “This is India Sierra Quebec two six, we are—”

      He slowed the engine, dropping lower, trying to gauge the height of the chop by what he knew of the sea as a sailor. It was rougher than he had hoped.

      The belly of the plane touched down with a hollow thump, and then another and another as they hit the waves. Bari wrestled to keep the plane from nose-diving, the muscles of his arms bulging with the effort. As he slowed to a standstill, a bigger swell grabbed the starboard wing. With a sharp, terrifying scream of metal the plane slewed around, bounced up, smacked down, pitched forward and then dropped back.

      Four

      The high scream stopped. The propellers stopped. The pounding rain increased in ferocity, but still it sounded like silence to the two in the cockpit. Bari slapped his harness open.

      “Are you hurt?” His voice was harsh.

      “No,” Noor said faintly. The truth was she was so shocked that if she did have broken bones she wouldn’t have known.

      “The hull is damaged,” Bari said, flinging open his door onto driving rain and waves that slapped against the belly of the plane, stretching greedy fingers into the cockpit. “We’ve got a couple of minutes before it goes under.”

      Noor, dizzy and shaken, struggled out of the harness and her seat again.

      Bari was in the open doorway, the rain slashing at him, staining his jacket dark, plastering it to his skin. He tied the cord from the life raft to a metal brace with quick expertise. Somehow he did not look incongruous in his wedding finery. The purple silk jacket that was dress uniform to a Cup Companion only emphasized his physical power and masculinity. Around his hips the jewelled belt of his sword glowed dully. He looked like an ancient painting of a noble warrior, ready for anything.

      Lightning crackled behind his head, and thunder exploded around them like a small bomb.

      “Take your dress off,” he shouted.

      Her hand went unconsciously to her throat. “But I’m—”

      “Now!” His voice was harsh. “Do you want to drown?”

      She was too stunned by events to argue. He was right. If she fell into the water, the dress would drag her down. Anyway, what did she have to hide from Bari? He had been so intimate with her body he practically owned it.

      Bari didn’t waste time watching to see her obey. He dragged the life raft through the opening and heaved it onto the water.

      Noor reached up behind her neck and her fingers tugged at the first of the dozens of tiny silk-covered buttons that ran down her back. She managed to undo three or four, watching as Bari jerked at the cord of the plastic case now riding the waves a short distance away, but the dress was too tight for her to reach further.

      “You’ll have to undo me,” she said hoarsely, and so quietly he didn’t hear against the sudden hissing and snapping as the life raft opened. Noor coughed. Since trying to make the Mayday call she seemed to have no voice.

      “You have to undo me!” she cried louder.

      He looked at her. She was offering her back, her head turned to look over her shoulder into his face. Bari’s eyes took in the lifted shoulder, the fall of glowing auburn hair, the partly opened neckline of the dress, the soft skin of her back as it disappeared under the delicate white silk.

      Even now, with danger crackling all around, the thought of the might-have-been passed over them. Wordlessly his hands rose to the buttons, and moved against her back to undo her wedding dress…as he might have done in a hushed bedroom somewhere, their hearts beating not with fear but desire….

      He undid two of the tiny, impossible buttons, and then muttered something she didn’t hear. His hands clenched against her skin for a moment before he wrenched them apart. The fabric screamed its protest at the violation of the should-have-been, and he tore the dress open from neck to hip. Buttons flew like little pellets, landing all around with a sound that was curiously distinct against the noise of the storm.

      They said not a word. Bari lifted his hands and turned back to his task with the raft. It was nearly fully СКАЧАТЬ