by Dani Collins
He only knew he never should have touched her.
* * *
“Fern.” Amineh’s voice woke her to the first fingers of daylight. “Are you awake?”
“Yes.” She sat up, eyes gritty, and watched the zip climb on the front of her tent.
Amineh poked her head in. “You were right. It was appendicitis. She had the surgery late last night and will be okay. Can you dress and come out? Her uncle wants to thank you.”
Relief lifted a huge weight off her chest. Fern took a big breath and let it out. She’d barely slept, she’d been so worried.
And hurt.
Zafir had been so dismissive, like she didn’t know her place. He’d certainly made it clear how much value he placed in her opinions. Her mother was right. Men didn’t respect women who were easy.
A few minutes later, after ensuring she was covered to the tips of her fingernails, only her eyes showing, she approached the group of men waiting for her near the nomad’s cooking fire.
Zafir was in her periphery. She thought she felt his eyes on her, but didn’t look to check. It was probably just her constant awareness of him playing up anyway.
The tribal leader, the man who had tried to convince Zafir not to listen to her, set his palm on his chest, closed his eyes and bowed his head. Through Amineh, Fern expressed her relief that the girl would survive. The nomads spent a short hour packing and were gone before anyone was hungry for lunch.
The rest of the day was quiet, even the children not talking much. The men kicked a football with Tariq and Jumanah down the beach while Bashira settled in to show Fern the clothing she’d made for her doll with the help of one of the Bedouin women. Amineh joined them and sat down next to Fern with a huge sigh.
“Now we can relax.”
“Be honest,” Fern said as Bashira ran off in search of a dress she’d forgotten in her tent. “Did I cause a political disaster?”
“It could have gone south if you’d been wrong, but you weren’t. Zafir has to be so careful not to be seen as acting like our father and our father was so determined to not just modernize, but Westernize. He tried to settle land rights on the tribes and make them farm it. They’re already losing clansmen to cities and steady jobs. Their way of life is hard enough without government eroding it. Seeing Zafir with Ra’id, whose family always respected their rights to migrate, goes a long way. That’s why we make a point of meeting here like this. The Bedouins travel so much, and talk to so many different people, their opinion can be the difference between large-scale support or opposition for Zafir.”
“And I nearly derailed the whole thing.”
“You did the right thing. You know that. In fact, Zafir tells me you earned yourself an offer of marriage for it.” Amineh nudged her shoulder into Fern’s.
“What?” Zafir had told Amineh about them? And he wanted to—
“From the cousin of the girl you saved,” Amineh continued, her grin widening. “I guess this young man heard you were learning to weave and that the children liked you. He saw you have red hair, which intrigued him. You’ve already had your appendix out, so that will never be an issue...” She gurgled the last words with great humor.
That was not where she had thought Amineh was going. Mortified by how her hopes had soared under such a wrong assumption, especially when Zafir wasn’t even speaking to her, Fern could only look at the ground as an enormous blush flooded into her cheeks.
Amineh burst out laughing and called down the beach to the men, “I told you she’d turn red as a fire engine!”
Fern tried to act like she saw the humor in it, but she was achingly aware that she was secretly dreaming for more with Zafir when the hard fact was, Amineh had just outlined to her how completely wrong she was for him. Not worth the consequences, he’d said that first morning, and no doubt that had been reinforced for him by yesterday’s events.
Assuring herself it was for the best, that furthering their physical intimacy would only set her up for a broken heart, she maintained her distance, ate alone and was in a surprisingly sound sleep when she woke to a hand over her mouth.
CHAPTER FIVE
“IT’S ME. DON’T SCREAM.”
His whisper, scented faintly of cloves and anise, caressed her cheek.
Belated shock went through her and she jerked her limbs into reacting. Unfortunately he was half on her bedroll, pinning her sheet and keeping her reflexive movements muted. She couldn’t even wriggle as he settled his weight half over her.
“Shh. Don’t make any noise. I just want to talk.”
Forcing herself to stillness, she tried to ignore the way her body blossomed against his, even with his thobe, a sheet and her nightgown between. Her breasts tingled, her thighs grew restless. Desire concentrated in her loins, anticipating his touch.
And her helplessness at her own reaction made tears burn her eyes. She turned her head away from him, dislodging his hand from her mouth.
His fingers curled under and he smoothed her cheek with his knuckle. “I know I was harsh to you,” he said tightly. “This thing between us—”
“Is nothing. I know,” she asserted, not wanting to hear him say it. “I’m weak, not stupid. I wasn’t trying to stake a claim on you. I wasn’t assuming we’re friends or anything else. We don’t even know each other.”
His touch stalled, then his breath clouded against her ear in a drained sigh. “I know you’re willing to put everything on the line for the life of a girl you barely know.” His touch caressed from below her ear, along her jaw and down. He opened his hand on her throat and aligned his thumb along the artery throbbing with needy anticipation. “Thank you for doing that. I couldn’t sleep, knowing you thought I was angry with you for it.”
She knew she ought to say something. Forgive him. Tell him to go. All she could think about, however, was how it would feel if he slid his hand down to her breast.
“That’s all I came for,” he said, lifting his hand off her as he started to roll away.
“Is it?” Weak, weak Fern. She closed her eyes against the clamor inside her, the yearning that was so self-destructive as to invite more of his dispassionate lovemaking.
His breath hissed in. He set his hand on her stomach. “You want me to stay?”
She shouldn’t. She knew that. But she slid her hand from under the sheet, covered his and lightly drew it up to her breast. “I know it’s bad,” she whispered achingly.
“I’m the one behaving badly, Fern.” He took up her hand and brought her fingers to his lips. “Your first lover should be someone who offers more than a week of stolen rendezvous in the dark. I’m very conscious that I’m taking advantage of you.”
She heard the confirmation that this was all they had and it cracked a wide fissure through her. Turning her hand in his, she traced the smooth shape of his lips, aching for better words to come out of them.
“Apparently I have a suitor if I want marriage,” she said, smiling sadly and glad he couldn’t see it. “At first I thought you were him, here to kidnap me into the desert.”
“That’s not funny.” His grip on her hand tightened and he leaned over her, lips questing for hers. “I wanted to knock his young ass into the dirt when he asked about you. I told you before that if I can’t have you, no one can.”
“But you can,” she told him, smoothing her fingers over the scuff of his growing beard and into his hair to explore the shape of his skull. A distant part of her already wept at the idea of losing him in a few short days, but his possessiveness healed the fracture in her chest with crooked, stinging stitches. Oh, how she wanted this. Him.
His hot mouth caressed the side of her face and she turned her mouth into his, unable to resist.
He muffled a groan and she felt his chest swell. She wondered if it meant he was feeling what she was: heart exploding into fas
ter pounds, nerve endings snapping to life with a pulse of acute need.
She closed her fist to begin bunching his thobe behind his shoulders and he lifted to peel her sheet down. Then he reared back on his knees to shed his tunic. His sculpted form was barely visible in the dull purple light inside the tent, a vague silhouette that was undeniably masculine in its size. Powerful. Weakeningly beautiful.
Fern did something she never imagined herself able to do. She shimmied her nightgown up and over her head, tossing it away, then slid her own knickers off and kicked them to the floor as she opened her arms to him.
He fell on her and they kissed and clung like drowning victims. She knew it was bad to wrap her legs around him, but oh, it felt good to feel his aggressive sex rubbing against hers. He thrust his tongue into her mouth, telling her what he wanted to do to her, and she couldn’t help releasing a moan of encouragement.
“Shh, albi. We have to be quiet.” He nibbled down her neck, sending prickles of excitement through her chest, making her nipples stand taut and sensitive to the friction of his chest hair.
“I know, but it’s so hard,” she gasped, seeking with her hands for the shape of him. So hard.
He muffled a curse against her skin and slid lower, away from her reach as he captured her nipple in his mouth and teased her mercilessly.
“Zafir,” she protested, knee coming up in reaction to the jab of sensation his erotic suckling drove into her center.
He only skimmed his hand along her inner thigh, his teeth sinking in lightly around her nipple as his touch slid easily against her ready flesh. She arched in blinded reaction to his caress and he deepened his exploration, pressing a finger into her.
She threw her arm across her mouth to stifle her cry of joy, so aroused she could barely stand it.
He stoked her desire with tender ruthlessness, refusing to do more than let a few light touches of his thumb pad stroke her where she ached for pressure most. He switched to her other breast, making her want to beg as he continued to tease with those light thrusts of his finger and the not-quite-there caress.
“Zafir, please,” she finally pleaded, fisting her hand in his hair to make him stop.
He dragged her hand from the back of his head and bit the heel of her palm before he slid even lower and pressed her knees open. Then he gave her what she’d been anticipating, but with his tongue.
It was too much. She pushed her hand beneath her pillow and folded it across her face, releasing her sobs of ecstasy as orgasm took her. It was intense and scandalous and so powerful her eyes dampened with emotion while her body continued to tremor with aftershocks.
How could this be sinful? How?
When he rose over her and stole her pillow, she only thought, yes. Whatever he wanted, yes. If he pushed his length into her, she’d welcome him. Revel in his claiming of her.
He rolled her over and brought her hips up, then pinned his steely shaft between her slippery thighs, trapping her knees in place with his own on either side. Covering her the way every other species mated, he slid a hand to where they touched and pressed his shaft against flesh still tingling with postclimax sensitivity. He started to move.
She fisted her hands into her bedroll and held still for his lovemaking, wishing he was inside her. She wanted him to feel the same pleasure he’d given her and—
“Oh!” she gasped as the friction deepened and caused a sharp sensation to yank her back into arousal.
“Shh,” he urged, slowing his movements, caressing her hip and breast. “Are you okay?”
“Yes,” she breathed. “Don’t stop.” She grabbed her pillow and buried her moans into it, giving herself over to him and his needs and the excitement he was rekindling in her. She moved with him, finding the rhythm, wanting this to be the real thing, unable to believe she was almost there again, almost...
They found the crisis together, the sweetness of it so intense she forgot to breath, but maybe that was his arm locked around her rib cage. She kneeled in his fierce grip, loving the feel of his muscles twitching with contractions as she held in her scream of abandonment as her thighs quivered in ecstasy.
His heart continued to pound against her shoulder even after they’d collapsed onto their sides, spooned together. His breaths stirred her hair and he had one warm hand clasped possessively over her breast.
Fern blinked to focus in the dark, stunned by how wild that had been. Very lusty. Kind of dirty. Yet it made her feel so close to him. She resisted the urge to snuggle backward into him, but he stroked his hand down her front and tugged her tight against him, then kissed her shoulder before he relaxed with his nose in her hair.
She blinked her damp eyes, feeling cherished and safe.
“I want to see you. All of you,” he whispered.
“Why?” she asked, warming at the thought.
“Because I think your freckles would be pretty.”
“They’re not. I look like a speckled pony. That’s what my mother used to say. She didn’t like them. Should you stay?” she asked, partly to change the subject, partly because she wanted to prepare herself. This was really nice, but she had to remember it was temporary. “I don’t want to fall asleep.”
“Can you put your tablet on vibrate and set the alarm?”
As she reached through the dark to where she’d left it and clicked it on, he tilted the light to her chest.
“Don’t,” she murmured, lifting it away and tapping, showing him the time she set.
“That’s fine,” he agreed, gathering her into his naked length as she set it away again. “Why didn’t she like them?” He caressed down to her belly and back up to her breast.
“Probably because I got them from my father. Maybe just because they were a part of me. She didn’t like me much.”
His hand stalled on her hip. “Are you being serious?”
“I shouldn’t be, should I? I’ll stop.” She rolled into him and nuzzled her nose into the hair sprinkled against his breastbone, hands fondling between them. “Why are you still hard? I thought men, you know, relaxed after.”
He’d run a towel down her belly and thighs before pulling her to the mattress with him. They’d definitely found their pleasure together.
“I’d dearly love to know how to ‘relax’ around you, Fern. Being hard this much hurts.”
Don’t laugh, she thought, pretty sure that men didn’t have much of a sense of humor when it came to sexual frustration, but she was insanely flattered.
“I feel the same, like I’m some kind of sex addict, thinking about you all the time. Is it always like this?” she asked, stroking him with a light grip. “I’ve never felt so greedy about anything. Sometimes I might think, ‘oh, that man is handsome,’ or something like that, but I’ve never wanted to—” Take a man with my mouth.
She really wanted to do that. He was covering her hand, teaching her how he liked to be stroked. As she found the rhythm, she searched out his flat nipple with her mouth. It was a bold move, but that’s what he’d done to her and she’d loved it. Surely he would, too?
He cupped the back of her head, then tilted her up for his kiss. She let him have the lead for a while, but he was so steely and aroused. So intriguing. All she could think about was owning him the way he had taken possession of her.
“I want to do something,” she whispered as she pulled away and pressed his shoulder so he was flat on his back.
As she slid down his body, he went hard all over, like he was made of marble. “You don’t have to.”
“I want to. Tell me how to make it good.”
“It’s already good.”
She laughed. “I’m not there yet.”
“I know, but it’s still great,” he whispered, making her smile as she touched her lips to his hot, velvety shape.
* * *
Zafi
r had one foot in heaven, one in hell.
He counted the daylight hours until he could go to Fern, and cursed when the sun arrived, extinguishing another night with her. When he picked up the message relayed from base camp, his heart sank into the underworld.
He told Ra’id first, because it was expected that he would.
“I have to leave in the morning,” Zafir said, explaining the situation with demonstrators in his home city.
“I’ve been thinking of leaving myself,” Ra’id admitted. “Amineh wants to stay the full two weeks, and the girls would live here if I could arrange it, but I’m restless. There are things I should be looking after at home. We’ve had the meeting we needed. It’s time.”
Zafir nodded. They were both high-energy men, used to demanding days and schedules that took them around the world in a week. As children they’d been neighbors and acquaintances. At boarding school, they’d gravitated to each other, Ra’id for Zafir’s mastery of English and Zafir for Ra’id’s understanding and sharing of his Arab blood. As adults they were as close as brothers and never tired of each other’s company, but they also knew and respected the responsibilities each had. Idleness was not a natural state for either of them, so leaving made sense.
But Zafir wasn’t ready.
“You look genuinely worried. Is this demonstration worse than the others?” Ra’id asked.
“No,” Zafir said, consciously clearing his scowl, but unable to stop thinking about what he would be giving up. “It’s the same group that rabble-rouses every time I’m away. Things will settle the minute I’m in residence so I’ll go home and make that happen.” He wouldn’t ignore these small uprisings as his father had done, allowing them to escalate into riots and bloodshed.
“This man who keeps causing unrest. Abu Gadiel? I thought you were going to marry his daughter and quiet him for good?”
Zafir gave a tight smile at the running joke. “That suggestion is looking less outlandish and more practical every day.” His mouth twisted on the words. He was not quite ready to face what could be inevitable.