A Royal Bride of Convenience

In a few minutes the car started to slow down. The driver spoke to her captor in rapid Swahili, but she followed it. Swahili had been an easy language for her to learn. They’d come to a police checkpoint outside the airport and had to stop while the car was searched.

Her prayers for help had been answered!

But when the car came to a full stop, she almost went into shock when the soldier holding her captive pulled her and the baby into his arms in an unexpected move. She half lay against his chest, imprisoned. As the driver opened the door, the light from outside allowed her the first real glimpse of her captor.

Impressions of a man in his thirties with bronzed, rugged features flew at her like colors through a prism. Beneath straight black hair, eyes blacker than the night stared down into hers, impaling her. Their intensity sent a thrill of alarm through her shivering body.

“Kiss me like you mean it if you want your freedom, madame,” he muttered fiercely, before his hard male mouth covered hers.

Did he really say freedom?

The word caused her heart to slam against her ribs. Maybe this man wasn’t her enemy. She didn’t know anything, but on the slightest chance that he meant it, she cooperated by not fighting him.

Her lukewarm response didn’t appear to be enough. While the police shone a flashlight on them, he urged her lips apart to drink deeply. No one would know the baby was sandwiched between them.

What had started out as a cold and calculated diversion to send the message that nothing of importance was going on in the backseat, became something else. His kiss of refined savagery grew more intimate and prolonged.

With the release of adrenaline, she found herself getting into it—a kind of mindless response, because she’d never known a kiss like this before. Lise had never been made so compellingly aware of her womanhood. There was something primitive about what they were doing. It had to be the fear of losing her life that was causing her to lose her mind and her control right now. His kiss had ratcheted up her pulse-rate till it was off the charts.

Somewhere on the periphery she heard the policeman and the driver passing muffled jokes back and forth before the door closed. As the car moved on, she wrenched her mouth from the soldier’s. Out of breath, she slid across the seat with Celeste.

He’d told her to cooperate if she wanted her freedom. Well, apparently she’d passed the first test, but she still had no idea what was going on. In all likelihood he’d used the age-old ploy to escape the government’s radar because nothing was going to deter him from carrying out his mission.

His kiss should have repulsed her. Instead she was more terrified of him than ever because—because in a purely physical way her body seemed to have recognized a force coming from deep within him. Though her mind had screamed for her to stop, her senses had bent to his will. But how could that be possible, or acceptable? It wasn’t!

This soldier was capable of anything, and thought his sensual mastery had produced the results to silence her. That was what his corrupt male ego got for thinking! The next time the car stopped she would open her door and jump out, screaming for help. They weren’t locked. Airport security would have to hear her and come running.

She gathered Celeste against her shoulder to make it easier to run with her. Her fingers slid to the handle. Even before the car came to a complete stop, she would make a run for it.

It was taking forever to get to this plane. Naturally it belonged to some grotesque junta leader and his henchmen, who committed hideous crimes against women and children.

While she was damning them all, the car slowed down. This was her chance. She flung open the door, but her captor checked her movements. While he pulled her back against his broad chest with one arm, his other snaked around to clamp his hand against her mouth. She couldn’t have made a sound if she’d tried. Lise started to feel sick. There was a ringing in her ears.

With frightening ease he dragged her and the baby from the car. She was so weak she couldn’t fight him. He picked her up like she was a piece of cotton and started running with them toward a gleaming white private jet parked in the distance.