by Lynn, Sophia
As they drove, Penny found herself watching the world pass through the window. Najma was an emirate of contrasts, she soon saw. On one block, she saw men and women wearing traditional robes and head coverings, complete with briefcases, headphones and backpacks, and on the next block, she found herself observing a group of people who might have stepped straight off of a street in Washington DC, wearing the latest trends.
“Najma is a beautiful country,” she said softly, turning her head to watch a woman dressed in a gold robe stride confidently down the street.
“It can be,” Ziyad said with a sigh. “Sometimes, it sees things through a darker glass so-to-speak, but that is something I am working on fixing.”
She started to ask him what he meant by that, but then they were pulling into an underground parking lot.
As they drove a little deeper, she couldn't help but notice that all of the parking spaces were empty, sending a little thrill of apprehension up her spine.
“Have to admit, this is a little nerve-wracking,” she observed. “I feel like something horrible is going to happen to us down here.”
Ziyad laughed. “It will be fine, I promise you. I swear, I did not bring you down here to kill you.”
“I would never have thought it of you,” Penny responded solemnly. “I just thought perhaps you had brought me down here to sell me off into slavery...”
She couldn't read the signs in Arabic, but she could see the cheerful flowers that were painted everywhere on the walls. They were colorful and surprisingly well done, and she began to get an idea of where she was. Still, she held her tongue until Ziyad led her through a set of glass doors and up an escalator.
The moment the doors closed behind them, he pulled her into a passionate embrace, kissing her deeply. For a moment, she stiffened due to the surprise, but then she relaxed into him, kissing him back with a fierce will. There were a dozen reasons to try and stop this, but at the end of the day, she simply wanted him so much that there was nothing else to be done about it. She gave herself up to the kiss, and who knows how long she might have let it happen, until finally it was Ziyad who pulled away.
She managed to give him an incredulous look before the door slid open and they were greeted by a smiling woman in a dark red suit.
“Sheikh Ziyad, we are so pleased and honored to have you and your guest join us today. Of course, all of the arrangements have been made to ensure the utmost privacy and comfort for the both of you.”
Ziyad nodded at her. “Very good. And I take it you are the last person on the premises?”
“I am, and I will be across the street at the coffee shop. Whenever you are done, simply text me and I will return.”
“That sounds wonderful.”
“I very much hope you enjoy your time here,” the woman said with a smile. Then she entered the elevator that they had just vacated and was gone.
Penny looked after her with some confusion. “What was that all about?”
“When I learned that we were going to have a day together, I decided I wanted to make it special,” he explained, leading her down a long corridor. “The problem is that there always seems to be someone who recognizes who I am, and things can get a little loud and frustrating. I figured that really wasn't the kind of thing that interests you.”
Penny made a face. “I could put up with it, but it certainly would not be my favorite thing in the world, no.”
“So I wanted to show you one of my favorite spots in the city, and I thought it might be fun if we had it all to ourselves...”
He opened another door for her, and to her surprise, Penny felt a whoosh of damp, tropical air. It was unlike anything she had felt for years, and then she stepped into a brightly lit area that nearly blinded her.
“What is this place?” she gasped, turning around to see it all.
She had stepped into what looked like a tropical rainforest, with gnarled tree trunks and vines covered in vivid flowers everywhere. It had to be a biodome of some kind, but the space simply looked too enormous for that.
“This place is considered one of Najma's great treasures,” Ziyad said proudly. “My great-grandfather was something of a naturalist, and though he could not spend as much time studying the natural world as he would have like, he used to love having specimens brought back to him from around the world. Eventually, he also brought on biologists and specialists of all kinds to create this place, and every generation since has added to it. Would you like to explore it with me?”
“I would like nothing better than to do that,” Penny said excitedly.
Hand-in-hand, they set off through the grove, because that was exactly what it was. Even after looking through the trees, she couldn't tell if the lights were natural or artificial, and when she heard a scattering of twigs from above, she realized there were birds nesting in the branches. When they walked silently, she could also hear the steady hum of insects and the faint rush of water.
“Your great-grandfather must have been a great man to want to bring this back to his people,” she said. “You could live in one place your whole life and never know there was so much wonder in the world.”
Ziyad smiled at her. “I am glad you feel the same way. I am pleased I could finally bring you here.”
They explored the space, which Penny realized was enormous. They found delicate, bell-like flowers of an incomparable purple underneath a few broad leaves, and they almost walked into a plant that was about as tall as Ziyad with a surprisingly horrid scent. They both hurried past, Ziyad shaking his head.
“It's a corpse flower, and I am not exactly sure which relative is responsible for bringing it here. It wouldn't surprise me if they refused to claim it after they figured out how it smelled.”
“With a name like ‘corpse flower,’ I can see how they might have been fooled,” said Penny through her hand. “Come on, I think the air might be clearer up there...”
There was a stream that flowed over a bed of loose river rocks, and a lovely bridge that crossed it. Penny was still cooing at the delicate, striped fish in the stream when Ziyad asked her if she was hungry.
“I guess I am,” she said reluctantly. “Breakfast was a little while ago, but do we really have to stop this?”
“Not at all. Come this way.”
Bemused, she allowed him to guide her to a sheltered spot, one slightly off the path. When they got to the small bench there, she was startled to see a picnic basket waiting.
“You really did plan this, didn't you?” she asked.
“If I'm being dreadfully and embarrassingly honest, this is something I have dreamed about doing with you since not long after we met,” he said with a sigh. “Let's just say that I've had a while to fine tune all the details.”
There was something oddly touching about that, and Penny took a seat next to him with a smile, digging into the basket that he set between them. The contents turned out to be simple...sandwiches, soup and a fruit salad, but they were made with care, and the ingredients were of the highest quality.
“Oh my god, I know this is just a cheese sandwich, but it's delicious,” she murmured, and Ziyad grinned at her.
“This is the company I get to cater my meals when I'm busy at work,” he told her. “If you like, I can start having them deliver to you as well.”
“I love making my own food, but I have to say there's definitely something appealing about this as well...”
After they finished, they set the basket aside and simply leaned against one another in the calm of the grove. It was interesting, Penny thought, that she could still feel the pulse of need between them, but right in this moment, it had transformed into something else. Instead, it was a quiet thrum of understanding between them, something soft and gentle that nonetheless made her smile. With his arm around her, she felt oddly complete, as if everything that could frighten her was a long ways away.
Penny almost drifted off like that, but then Ziyad kissed her forehead.
“There is still at least
one spot to see,” he murmured. “Do you want to come with me? It is my contribution to this place.”
His words woke her up at once, and she nodded eagerly.
“I mean, as long as you didn't decide that it was a grove of corpse flowers that was needed,” she offered, and he laughed.
“Most definitely not.”
He smiled at her and led her down a path she hadn't seen before to a section of the grove that was kept apart by a set of glass doors.
“Now step in slowly,” he said, and Penny didn't know what to expect at all.
The enormous chamber they entered was a great deal like the rest of the grove with one amazing exception. Everywhere she could see, there were butterflies fluttering free. Some were barely larger than her thumb, and a few that she could see had wings as large as her hands.
“Oh my gosh!” Penny gasped, looking around her. “This was what you contributed?”
Ziyad looked around with no small amount of pride shining in his expression.
“It is. I loved coming here as a child, but I always thought there could be something more for children who were less inclined to sit still and who might have liked to see even more color. I came up with the idea of butterflies not that long after my first visit, and shortly after I became sheikh, this was the result.”
“It's amazing,” she exclaimed, turning around and around to see the living scraps of color that swirled about them. At first she was afraid they were going to crush them, but it seemed that butterflies knew how to survive. They swirled in curiosity around their visitors, but when it seemed as if Penny or Ziyad might get a little too close, they floated away with ease.
They finally came to a sheltered spot close to an artificial stream. The shade was welcome after all the bright light, and Penny wiped her brow. In her sleeveless floral dress, she was dressed lightly enough for the experience, but that didn't stop the heat from being slightly oppressive.
“This is amazing, Ziyad,” she said warmly. “I don't think I have ever seen anything quite so amazing.”
He smiled at her, and for the first time, she wondered if he was a little nervous about showing this magical place to her.
“I had hoped you would like it. When she's a bit older, I would like to bring Sola here as well.”
Penny nodded enthusiastically. “I know she would love it, especially this room. It seems made for children.”
“I did hope for that,” Ziyad said easily. “This is an easy place to love.”
“So are you,” Penny said without thinking about it, and then she blushed bright red. “I mean...that is...”
“You don't have to say anything at all,” he assured her, and then he leaned in for a kiss.
She knew it was a kiss that was meant to be chaste. It started light and gentle, and if she had pulled away after a moment, it would have stayed that way. Instead, Penny instinctively reached for a fold of Ziyad's shirt, clinging to him with a strength that startled both of them. Somehow, the hunger that lived deep inside her had roared out of control, and all the weeks of living side-by-side with him without being able to touch him like this crashed down on her.
After a moment of surprise, Ziyad swept her up into his arms, moaning slightly as he dragged her close to him. She could tell he was as hungry for this as she was, and that realization brought a deep groan from her throat. She could feel him shaking with need for her, and that meant in this strange and beautiful place almost anything could happen.
Somehow, before she fell over that edge, right before she reached the point of no return, she thought to look up at him. He made a querying sound as she pressed her hand flat against his chest, holding him off. She never would have stopped him if he didn't want to be stopped, but she trusted him, and he paused to look at her.
“Cameras,” she somehow managed to get out. “What if people are...”
He shook his head. “The people here are loyal, and I know them all well. They did not question it when I told them I wanted the exhibit to myself for the day, and they understand what I meant when I said I wanted the security cameras turned off and all of the personnel gone.”
For a moment, Penny could only marvel at the power Ziyad wielded, and then he kissed her on a particularly sensitive part of her throat, and she couldn't think very much after that. Instead, she simply gave herself up to the passion between them.
His mouth was fire and storm on her body, and she opened for him, letting him touch her wherever he wanted, letting his hands rove over her curves even as she reached for him. He was too covered, too covered by far, and she tugged his shirt out of his trousers before pulling it over his head entirely.
There was something deliciously primitive about the way he looked bare chested in front of the stream behind him, as if he were some wild warrior out of a fantasy novel, come to take what was his. At the moment, she was what was his, and she gave herself up to it wildly.
Somehow, it was as if a bolt of lightning struck them both at the same time, and suddenly, they couldn't stand the clothes they were wearing. A flurry of hands and whispered words made short work of them, and then they were standing naked, regarding each other with need and a kind of lust that she was suddenly sure she would never feel with anyone else.
“I need you,” she said, aware of the deep ache in her voice.
Her words lit a fire in his eyes, and then he caught her up in his arms. There was no mistaking his male desire, hard between them. If they had been touching each other, glorying in each other before this, perhaps there was a chance they might have taken it more slowly, but right now, there was no stopping either of them. He wanted to ravish her, and she wanted exactly the same thing.
For a moment, she wondered if they would simply lie down on the floor, but then he hauled her over to the bench. She had a bare moment to look at the curved back of the bench, to realize that was what he was going to do, before he pushed her over it, the warm wood pressing into her stomach.
“Oh my god,” she moaned. She could imagined how she looked, her plush white form thrown over the edge of the bench, her breasts hanging down one side and her legs, not quite long enough to touch the ground, kicking up on the other.
“You look amazing like that,” Ziyad growled. “Ripe and ready, eager for my touch.”
“Yes, yes,” she panted. “Please, I can't wait much longer.”
“Well, that's a shame, because you might have to.”
She nearly yelped at his words, but then his hand drifted between her thighs, and she groaned instead. There was something deliciously slow about the way he touched her. She knew she was spreading her legs, begging for his touch, promising him whatever he wanted if he would only take her, but none of it mattered as long as it got her what she wanted, what she needed more than anything else.
“Such a beautiful woman,” he purred. “So beautiful, and so very desperate for me.”
There was no way she could have argued with his words, not when she could feel how hot and wet she was for him, not when every motion of his fingers was driving her towards a climax she could almost grasp. She arched and groaned on his hand, coming so close to fulfillment, and then he took his hand away. The sound she made was one of need and disappointment, and he laughed at her, though there was more sympathy in it than she would have thought.
“Patience, bella,” he murmured. “Patience is rewarded...”
She started to ask how, but then he stepped behind her. She could feel his hot, hard cock brush against the warm skin of her buttocks, and then she felt his hand circle his shaft, guiding his cock as he pressed inside her. Penny almost moaned with satisfaction, and then she realized he was entering her slowly, so slowly that it made her want to weep.
“No, no,” she said, nearly wild. “I need more than that.”
“Good,” he growled, and then, pulling almost all the way back out, he surged deep inside her, not stopping until they were joined as intimately as they could be. The sound she made echoed through the butterfly house, and
she whimpered as he started to thrust.
He had taught her years ago that there were many ways of making love, but she was not sure she had ever had him so hungry before, so needy for her that he nearly bruised her hips on the bench. When she opened her eyes, she could see the swirl of colors from the butterflies dancing in front of them, and when she closed them, she could feel every pulse of his body, every thrust as he pressed inside her.
They were both crying out, but it didn't matter what words they were using, whether they were in Arabic or Italian or English. Whatever the words, the meanings were the same: I need you, I want you, you are the best of me and you make me feel so damned good...
Penny wanted the violent sensations of pleasure he was giving her to last forever. She wanted to live in this place where every nerve inside her was straining for fulfillment, and where in every way, shape and form, she was hanging on his every move. Then the pleasure broke over her, and she had no choice at all. Her body shook as if it were in an earthquake, and when she threw her head back in ecstasy, it felt as if the entire universe had opened up in front of her.
Somewhere behind her, she could hear Ziyad’s breathing go hard and harsh, and she felt his hands close over her hips with a nearly brutal grip. He was calling her name over and over again, and she wasn’t sure she had ever heard anything so delicious. With one final thrust, he spilled inside her, and she shook with their combined moans.
The power of their intimacy made them both limp; she felt him slump over her back while they were still joined in the most intimate way possible. He feathered soft kisses down the back of her neck, making her laugh. Her own voice sounded light and sweet in her ears, and when he pulled away from her, she gasped at the sensation. As weak as she was, she might have rolled straight off of the bench and onto the floor, but he caught her gently around the waist, helping her to the other side of the bench so she could sit down.
Even once Penny was there, she felt as if somehow her bones had been replaced with gelatin. All she could do was curl up next to him, making a sound that was suspiciously like a purr as she moved closer to him.