Under a Desert Moon

by Laura Martin

‘Shall we try that again?’ he asked, motioning to the horse.

  This time he deposited Emma in the saddle without any problems, untied her horse then quickly mounted his own. Within a few minutes they had left the oasis behind them and were striking out farther south into the desert.

  * * *

  ‘I give in,’ Emma said as she lowered herself to the ground. ‘I don’t know how women are expected to ride all day in such heavy skirts.’

  Seb eyed her appraisingly. Her attire was unsuitable for the desert. He knew the best thing you could wear was a long, loose robe, as the locals did. Emma’s dress was long but it certainly wasn’t loose. The bodice constricted her torso and the layers of skirts got wrapped around her legs every time she tried to manoeuvre. The second best thing you could wear in the desert was a comfortable pair of trousers and a loose shirt that covered as much skin as possible from the burning rays of the sun.

  ‘The offer still stands,’ Seb said. ‘I have some trousers and a shirt you’re most welcome to wear.’

  Emma looked at him thoughtfully, as if carefully weighing up the pros and cons. Seb could just imagine her perched up on the horse with a pair of trousers stretched tight around her womanly curves, the material outlining perfectly the contours of her buttocks and thighs. He swallowed. Maybe he should be discouraging her from taking him up on his offer. He found her far too attractive for his own good already, when most of her figure was hidden under the skirts of her dress.

  ‘Maybe I could try them just for this afternoon, see if a change of clothing really would make a difference to my comfort?’

  Seb dismounted, handed the reins of his horse to Akil and started rummaging through one of his packs.

  ‘The trousers might be a bit on the long side,’ he said, eyeing up Emma’s petite form, ‘and the shirt a little baggy.’ He handed her the two garments and a belt.

  Emma looked around them. They had stopped for lunch in the shade of a bush. Seb looked at the scraggy mass of branches—maybe a bush was a bit generous. Whatever it was it didn’t give them much protection from the sun, and it certainly didn’t provide privacy for changing. There wasn’t another bush for as far as the eye could see, or anything else that would shield Emma from prying eyes.

  Seb spoke quickly to Akil and Akins in Arabic. He instructed them to walk the horses slowly for two hundred paces in the opposite direction.

  ‘You’ve got about four minutes until the boys turn around.’

  Emma still didn’t move.

  ‘What about you?’ she asked.

  ‘I thought I’d help,’ Seb said with a grin.

  He almost laughed at her horrified expression and slowly turned his body so he was facing away from her. After twenty seconds of silence he heard the rustling of material as she began to divest herself of her dress. Seb was sorely tempted to turn around. At the oasis he had behaved like the perfect gentleman, not peeking at her once whilst she emerged from the pool despite having caught her staring at him. Now his resolve was weakened, every minute he spent with her he seemed to want her more, the desire was bubbling away beneath the surface and soon he knew it would boil over. Perhaps one look, one peek, would be enough to keep him purely simmering for a while longer.

  ‘Ooh...ow!’ he heard from behind him.

  It was the excuse he had been waiting for. He spun around. Emma was standing a couple of feet away, her dress lifted up so it obscured her face. She wasn’t naked in front of him, a thin chemise covered most of her, but the cotton was flattened against her body and Seb could see every curve and contour. He took a step towards her, telling himself he should just turn back around but not able to comply. Emma had got one of the fastenings of her dress caught in her hair and was now struggling to free it. The dress wouldn’t go up over her head or pull back down and Seb could see the more she struggled, the worse she was making the situation.

  He crossed over to her in two short strides and stilled her with his arms. He heard her gasp at the contact but she didn’t protest. Gently he untangled the fastening from her hair and lifted the dress off over her head.

  Emma lifted her eyes to his and they stood locked together for a few seconds. She was looking at him with such desire burning in her eyes Seb knew he wouldn’t be able to refuse her anything. Slowly he reached out with his hand and placed it on her waist, flattening the chemise against her skin. He could feel the heat radiating from her as he pulled her closer towards him and he revelled in the easy way in which her body moulded against his. Emma tilted her chin upwards and, with his arm still holding her firmly in place, Seb lowered his mouth onto hers. Her lips were moist and sweet and inviting. Seb kissed her gently at first, but as she let out a soft moan his kiss became more urgent and all-encompassing. As she parted her lips he gently dipped his tongue inside her mouth and elicited another groan of pleasure.

  As he kissed her Seb’s hands started to caress her body. He wanted to remember every curve and every touch. His fingers glided over her softly rounded buttocks and then back to her narrow waist and then up to her shoulders, retracing their steps on the return journey.

  As Seb’s hand rested again on Emma’s buttocks it slowly dawned on him what he was doing. He was seducing her. He was ruining her. He was doing everything he’d promised himself he wouldn’t.

  Gently he pulled away and put a step between them. He knew the minute Emma saw the regret in his eyes. Her expression changed from one of happiness to embarrassment and anger. Quickly she covered herself with her arms and started to tug on the trousers beneath her chemise. Seb ached to help her, to caress her thighs as he pulled the trousers up over her legs and secured them around her perfect waist, but he knew that would only make things worse.

  ‘Turn around,’ Emma said, her voice nearly breaking on the first word.

  Seb wanted to reach out and touch her, pull her towards him again and kiss her so deeply she’d forget she was angry with him, but he knew he couldn’t. Kissing her once was a mistake, twice unforgivable. Kissing her a third time would just be cruel to both of them.

  Chapter Thirteen

  Emma felt lonely. The desert was deathly quiet. Only the pad of the horses’ hooves disturbed the silence, and she’d been listening to that for so long it had faded into the background. She glanced over to where Sebastian was riding a few paces in front of her. He hadn’t said a word since they’d stopped for lunch, since they’d kissed. More significantly he hadn’t smiled once. The man who always had a grin on his face and a joke on his lips now looked deadly serious.

  She didn’t understand why he was so upset now. It was he who had initiated the kiss, not her. He’d come to her assistance without her even asking him to, and he’d bent his head and covered her mouth with his. He could have untangled her dress from her hair and then turned his back; it wasn’t as if she’d forced him to kiss her. So she didn’t understand why he was quite so distant now.

  It should be her that was angry. He’d pounced on her! Emma grimaced—pounced wasn’t the right word. If she was honest with herself, she had been dreaming of kissing Sebastian ever since she’d locked eyes with him on the banks of the Nile. But she hadn’t done anything about it.

  She glanced over at him again. He was as still as a statue and had the same stony expression fixed on his face.

  The worst thing was she didn’t regret their kiss, at least not as much as she should do. Kissing Sebastian was a bad idea, that much she knew. He wasn’t the kind of man you settled down with, and getting married was a dream Emma had given up on long ago. Which meant kissing Sebastian was nothing more than a dalliance, a flirtation. She had been hurt before by letting a man take too many liberties with her affections; she’d thought she had learned her lesson.

  Clearly not. If she was truthful with herself Emma knew she would kiss him again. Sebastian would only have to narrow his eyes, pull her towards him and she wo
uld submit to him.

  It was a different situation from what had happened with Freddie. Freddie had promised to marry her and she’d thought giving herself to him would keep him interested, prompt him to announce the engagement he had made her keep secret. Instead all the man had wanted was a tumble between the sheets. Once he had got what he wanted she had never seen him again.

  No, Sebastian was very different from Freddie, but he still hadn’t promised her anything. If she allowed any further intimacies there was no knowing where it would lead. He had no obligation to marry her, and Emma wouldn’t ever want to be the woman who forced a man down the aisle.

  The only solution was to not allow anything intimate to happen again. Twice was unforgivable, but three times would be disastrous. Emma watched as Sebastian stretched in the saddle and took a deep breath in. She would have to be strong. She couldn’t deny the force of the attraction she felt for him, which meant each and every time they were together she would have to remind herself why kissing him was a bad idea.

  Emma nodded to herself and tightened her hold on the reins. She was resolved. She would admit her attraction and move on. From now on their relationship would be purely professional.

  And if her resolve weakened she would remind herself of the months of hurt and heartache she’d suffered when Freddie had disappeared, taking her reputation with him. She had cried for two days solidly and the hurt and pain had lingered on for much, much longer. She couldn’t bear to be in the same situation again—neither her heart nor her reputation would withstand it.

  They had been riding for hours now without any respite. Emma had finished the last drop of water from her water skin over an hour ago and her throat was dry and itchy. The sun was dipping low in the sky and she knew they would have to stop and make camp soon, otherwise they would be riding in the dark.

  She was just about to spur her horse forward so she was level with Sebastian when he raised a hand and motioned for her to look in front of them. Emma squinted into the distance and thought she could make out a shape near the horizon.

  ‘We’ll make camp there,’ Sebastian said. ‘It’ll be close but we should just make it before sunset.’

  ‘What is it?’ Emma asked, glad to have something normal and mundane to talk about.

  ‘Ruins.’

  ‘Ruins? All the way out here?’

  ‘It used to be a temple, provided shelter and sanctuary for weary travellers.’

  ‘Very apt,’ Emma said. She didn’t think she’d ever been more weary in her life.

  ‘There’s only one wall still standing, and a few fallen columns, but it’s as good a place to camp as any.’

  Emma nodded.

  ‘It’ll be cold tonight,’ Sebastian warned. ‘There’s no wood to fuel a fire and the sky is clear.’

  They rode on in silence, watching the ruined temple take form before their eyes. Emma felt a bubble of excitement as she did every time she came across a temple or a tomb. It didn’t matter how poor a state it was in, she still loved discovering nooks and crannies and picturing the ruins in their former glory.

  After another forty minutes of riding they arrived at the temple. Sebastian was right: it was little more than a single wall with a few weather-beaten stones lying in piles in a seemingly haphazard pattern. There were a few columns lying on their sides in the middle of the structure.

  Sebastian dismounted and reached up to help Emma down. His touch was feather-light and as soon as her feet touched the floor he moved away.

  Emma took a few minutes to stretch out her sore muscles. She had always enjoyed riding but had hardly spent more than an hour at a time on a horse before. These long days of riding were punishing on her leg and back muscles.

  Changing into Sebastian’s trousers and shirt had been a godsend, and her afternoon ride had been much more comfortable than the morning; however, now she had dismounted she felt a little exposed clad only in trousers and a shirt. She was aware of the material of the trousers clinging to her buttocks and hips as she moved, and outlining the flesh below. Wearily Emma shook her head; she shouldn’t worry too much. Sebastian had made it clear kissing her again was a mistake; he hadn’t said a word all afternoon, just ridden along beside her in brooding silence. Emma wasn’t so naive as to think his response meant he didn’t desire her—a man didn’t kiss a woman with that much passion and intensity twice without some desire involved—but he most certainly had regretted the kiss. Which meant he would be staying well away from her trouser-clad body. And Akil and Akins were barely more than children, more preoccupied with their games and competitions that kept them occupied during the long rides than her attire.

  Already Sebastian and the boys were setting up the camp for the night, shaking out blankets and putting in place the bundles on which they rested their head. Emma glanced at the sky and saw it would be dark soon; the sun was already low and dipping fast. She’d noticed the sunsets were much quicker in Egypt than they were in England. It seemed as if one minute the sun was just starting its descent, the next it had fallen below the horizon.

  Seeing that Sebastian had all the camp arrangements in hand, Emma went to explore the ruins. She spent a few minutes clambering over the fallen columns and inspecting the blocks of stone. On one or two there was just a hint of colour, a faded clue as to the vibrant paintwork that would have once covered the temple. Emma traced her fingers over the rough stone and closed her eyes, imagining she were back two thousand years and the temple were bustling with priests and visitors, humming with life.

  Emma’s eyes sprang open as someone touched her gently on the shoulder. She spun to find herself face to face with Sebastian.

  ‘Isn’t it beautiful?’ he said, motioning at the horizon.

  Emma glanced up and almost gasped. In just a few short minutes the sky had turned from blue to an assortment of reds and pinks.

  ‘Come here,’ Sebastian said, taking her hand and leading her to one of the fallen columns. He effortlessly lifted her up so she was sitting comfortably on it and pulled himself up beside her.

  ‘I love the sunsets in the desert.’

  Emma was just glad he was speaking to her. Anything was better than the silence of the afternoon. Sebastian was normally such a chatty person, always ready with a joke or a story to keep her entertained. The afternoon had seemed quiet and empty without his company.

  They watched in silence as the sun continued its descent and Emma marvelled at the changing colours of the sky. Sebastian wasn’t touching her but she could feel his presence and she sensed his tenseness.

  ‘I apologise for earlier,’ he said as the last rays of light disappeared.

  Emma nodded, not knowing how else to respond.

  ‘I acted without thinking.’ He paused. ‘No, I acted on my base desires,’ he corrected himself. ‘And that was unacceptable.’

  Emma still didn’t say anything.

  ‘I saw you all tangled up in that dress and I had an overwhelming urge to kiss you. But a gentleman would have restrained himself. You deserve better.’

  He was speaking stiffly, as if the words were rehearsed. Emma wondered if this was what he’d been doing all afternoon—figuring out what to say to her.

  ‘The thing is, you are a woman of good birth and I know it is expected that if a man compromises a woman in any way then he should do the right thing and marry her...’ Sebastian raked a hand through his hair ‘...but I can’t. It’s not you—you’re a wonderful woman and any man would be lucky to have you as his wife. It’s just I won’t marry. I can’t marry.’

  Emma nodded automatically. So this was what he was worrying about: that she’d force his hand and march him down the aisle. She would never expect him to propose just because they’d shared two unwitnessed kisses. She could put his mind at ease and hopefully they could go back to the way it had been before.

  A sm
all voice screamed inside her head, asking whether she really wanted things to go back to the way they were. And why didn’t he want to marry her? What was so repulsive that two men metaphorically ran for the hills after a bit of intimacy?

  ‘I’m sorry,’ Sebastian finished quietly.

  Emma took a deep breath and turned to face Sebastian. He was a good man; she’d come to realise that in the short time they’d spent together, and he’d never set out to seduce or delude her. They’d made a mistake, and he was trying to be honest and open about the consequences.

  ‘No one but the two of us know about the kiss,’ Emma said, seeking out his eyes in the darkness, ‘so there’s no need to even think of marriage. In the eyes of the world you haven’t compromised me, and in my eyes I’m just as much to blame as you.’

  Emma felt him relax a little beside her. She felt a pang of sadness at the thought of him regretting their moment of intimacy so much he’d had to spend a whole afternoon wondering how to tell her he wouldn’t marry her.

  ‘Thank you,’ he said, his voice low and a little husky.

  He jumped down from the column and reached up to help Emma down.

  ‘I’m just going to stay for a minute longer,’ Emma said.

  Sebastian walked away back to where they’d laid out the camp and Emma was left alone. She felt the tears starting to form in her eyes and slip down her cheeks and she slowly brushed them away. She’d always thought what had happened with Freddie was an unfortunate lapse of judgement on her part, an episode that could have happened to any naive young girl. But now this had happened with Sebastian it made her think maybe it was something about her that was wrong. Firstly, after what had happened with Freddie she should know better than to kiss a man she barely knew, but Sebastian only had to look at her with his cheeky smile and piercing eyes and she knew she’d be back in his arms. Secondly, what was it about her that scared men off so completely? She’d never had a chance to confront Freddie, never known the whole truth about why he had done what he’d done, but she wondered now if it was because of something wrong with her.