Something about this trip was making him tense.
Lily focused her attention out the window, questions circling her brain, fighting the urge ask to ask him what was bothering him.
No, she should not have accepted his invitation. Should have insisted that one of the tribesmen take her. Should have ignored this fascination she had with him.
When I was fifteen my father beat me . . .
She didn’t want to know. She didn’t.
“You want to ask me something?” he said at last, breaking the tense silence.
“Not especially,” she lied, keeping her gaze out the window, trying not to betray her shock of how easily he’d seemed to pick up on her discomfort. “I suppose I was hoping for camels rather than a car. Being in the desert, etcetera.”
Isma’il lifted an eyebrow, but didn’t take his attention from the road in front of them. “Please. I am not a complete cliché.”
“No. If you were a complete cliché you’d be wearing your robes.”
He wasn’t today. Today, he wore a white cotton shirt much like her own, and grey utility trousers. But somehow, the more familiar clothes did not make him any less dangerous. Or settle the seething, shivering tension that made her feel like she was in the car alone with a very powerful, very dangerous animal.
“You are tense,” he said abruptly. “Are you all right?”
She shifted in her seat. “I’m fine.”
His dark head moved and she could almost feel the brush of that intense blue gaze like a touch. “You are not fine.”
“Neither are you.”
That seemed to shut him up. He shifted his attention back out the windscreen.
Silence built, thick and heavy.
“Tell me about your gold medal win,” he said, breaking it.
It wasn’t the subject she would have picked, her win spoiled as it was by memories of Dan. “Why? Is this part of your getting to know one another plan?”
“If you like.”
She didn’t want to talk about it, but answering him was better than sitting there suffocating in the tense silence. “What do you want to know?”
“What did it feel like? The moment you won?”
“I didn’t realize I had at first. When you’re in the water, everything fades away. It’s just you swimming your guts out as hard as you can, as fast as you can. Nothing else matters. I remember being surprised when my hand hit the wall and I realized the race was over. Then, I looked around and saw everyone cheering. And it was me they were cheering for.”
“That must have been an incredible moment.”
Unexpectedly, she felt her throat close at the memory. The triumph of it. Standing on the dais, her parents cheering from the stands as the medal was hung around her neck. Her father’s proud face. And Dan’s—
Ruined. It was ruined.
“Very.” The word came out flat and unconvincing.
Blue flashed as he glanced at her, but she turned her head away, looking out the passenger window once more.
Another tense silence fell.
“Don’t let him take that from you,” said Isma’il, roughly. “Don’t let him ruin that for you.”
Lily closed her eyes. “What are you talking about?”
“You know what I’m talking about. You told me last night. Your coach. What he did to you the night you won. Pretending you do not understand will not make the memories go away. Neither will pretending it does not matter.”
“I don’t want to talk about—”
“That moment was your triumph, but you are letting him take it from you.”
Anger twisted inside her, escaping her rigid control. “I’m not letting him take anything. And you know nothing about it, so don’t you dare presume to tell me what I should or shouldn’t do.”
“You cannot run from it forever, Lily. You cannot pretend it doesn’t exist.”
Hot, angry words crowded in her throat. She forced them down. “I’m not.”
“Then, why do you keep denying it?”
“I—” She stopped, the words sticking in her mouth. And from somewhere, other words came out, hoarse words. “Because admitting it happened makes it real.” Turns me into a victim.
More silence and she wanted to reach out and snatch the admission back. Armor herself once more in denial. But it was too late. Far, far too late.
He stayed silent, his attention on the road ahead of them. Not looking at her.
And somehow that made it easier to say, “It did happen though. Dan stole my victory. He stole my medal from me.”
Abruptly, Isma’il jerked hard on the wheel, the car bouncing over some rocks to come to a halt before the flat, rocky desert surface began its transition into dunes. Then, he turned, blue-green eyes blazing into hers. “That medal is yours,” he said fiercely. “All your effort. All your hard work. And he can only take it from you if you let him.”
Lily’s heart squeezed tight inside her chest. “But that’s the thing. I did let him. I didn’t fight him. I didn’t protest. I let him take it, because I thought I was in love with him.”
Isma’il went still. “You were sixteen. What does a sixteen year old know of love?”
“Enough to want to be kissed. To be touched.”
The look in his eyes went hard. “And how old was he?”
She didn’t know why she was talking about it. She didn’t want to, didn’t want to revisit it and yet, she couldn’t seem to stop the words from coming out of her mouth. “Thirty. He was thirty. And he knew I was in love with him.”
“You blame yourself.”
“No, I never—”
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“Yes, I know that. Of course—”
Isma’il’s hand reached out, cupped her cheek, a gentle touch that made her whole body go tense and still. “It wasn’t your fault,” he repeated, sounding out each word with careful emphasis. “You were sixteen, Lily. And whether you were in love with him or not, what he did to you was wrong.”
No one had ever told her that, because she’d never told anyone. Oh, she’d known in her heart that Dan had done something he shouldn’t have, but always there had been the secret fear she’d led him on in some way. Courted his attention without meaning to. That because she’d had a crush on him, she’d asked for it.
There were tears in her eyes and she hated them, because she knew it wasn’t her fault. She didn’t need him to tell her that.
Don’t you?
A terrible sense of exposure crept up on her. The realization that her guard was down, that she was vulnerable again.
Lily jerked away from him, her cheek burning where he’d touched her. Her eyes burning with unshed tears. She pulled on the door handle.
“So?” She struggled to get her voice going. “I guess we’re here then.”
* * *
Isma’il curled his fingers around the lingering warmth the touch of Lily’s cheek had left in his palm. He’d forced her into the admission, pushed her, and he knew it. But he hadn’t been able to stop himself. The flat sound of her voice as she’d talked about what should have been a triumph had made him so angry. The thought of what her coach had taken from her. It made him want to kill the bastard.
Perhaps he shouldn’t have asked her about the medal in the first place, but he hadn’t been thinking straight. The approaching dunes and their attendant memories had made him tenser than he’d thought. And being in close quarters with her, inhaling her scent . . . that had been difficult too.
“Yes,” he said, the rough edge still sounding in his voice. “We are here.”
She didn’t look at him, pushing the door open and getting out, keeping her face turned away.
Protecting herself.
He badly wanted to take her chin in his fingers, turn her back to face him. Tell her that she didn’t have to protect herself from him. That he would never hurt her. But the way she’d jerked away told him he’d gone as far as he could for now. Pushing her further wouldn’t help.
Letting out a breath, he sat back in his seat, stared out the windscreen.
The desert. The dunes.
That terrible slick feeling coated his fingers. He looked down, but as usual, his hands were clean.
Glancing out the car window, he saw Lily approach the foot of one of the great mountains of golden sand. The memories receded at the sight of her graceful figure. Yes, look at her. Keep thinking about her. Perhaps on the starting blocks, ready to throw herself into the water, power her way to gold. Tall and strong and magnificent.
Pushing open the door, he got out, the sand shifting underneath his desert boots.
Lily’s dark eyes watched him, her expression unreadable. But he knew she’d somehow sensed his tension. That she’d guessed something was wrong.
The words he’d thrown at her came back to haunt him.
You cannot run from it forever . . .
But he wasn’t running, was he? He was here. And those memories no longer had any power over him. He would make sure of it.
“The best view is up there,” he said, pointing to the top of the dune. “It is not an easy climb.”
“I didn’t expect it to be.” She glanced up at where he’d pointed. “I think you should know I find the lack of camels very disappointing.”
The comment was silly and he nearly smiled, reminded at last of who he was supposed to be. “Camels are not as comfortable to ride as you think.”
“Damn sight easier than climbing a hill full of sand.”
“Complaining, Habibti?” The endearment slipped out before he could stop it, but she didn’t seem to notice.
“No, of course not. I’m a gold medal winner after all. Climbing a sand dune is nothing.”
The tightness in his chest began to loosen, the weight of memory easing. “Then, show me, Ms. Harkness. I am keen to see how fast you can get to the top.”
Dark eyes glanced back at him. “Faster than you.”
“Is that a challenge I hear?”
But she’d already gone, climbing up the dune like a mountaineer.
Sand though was different from rock and he soon caught her, cheeks pink, her forehead gleaming with sweat. The sun had descended farther down the horizon, so it wasn’t so hot, but still the heat coming off the sand was enough to make things uncomfortable.
“Do you need help?” he asked.
She frowned. “Do I look like I want help?”
“Truthfully? Yes. You do.” He held out his hand to her.
Her frown deepened. “Nothing worse than smugness, Sheikh.” But she reached out. Took his hand. And he felt everything go still within him, as her fingers closed around his. Somehow, the gesture meant something.
Lily gave him an impatient look. “Come on then. What are you waiting for?”
Ten minutes later, at the top of the dune, he released her hand, and watched the awe cross her face as she stared at the view.
In every direction, stretched the sands, the setting sun painting them a million different shades of pink and red and orange, the sky almost the same color as the dunes themselves.
She collapsed on the dune, out of breath. “It’s so beautiful.”
He wanted to say the obvious thing. That it wasn’t the desert that was beautiful. It was her.
But he didn’t. Instead, Isma’il sat down beside her, watched as the colors of the desert around them turned her skin pink, made gold highlights gleam in the depths of her dark eyes.
Easier to focus on her than the memories the desert conjured up.
The pain of wounds barely healed, sand under his feet as he ran. Ran and ran and ran, on and on into the burning heat. Into the blinding light. Into the silence. Letting the rawness of the desert burn away the sight of the bruises on his father’s face. The cuts across his cheek.
The sight of the blood on the hard leather of his father’s riding crop. His blood. Khalid’s blood . . .
Gold shone beneath the silk of Lily’s headscarf, so much purer than the red that had stained the tiles of the floor where he’d been beaten. He wanted to push away her scarf, see the colors of the sun in her hair, drown the thick red in his memory.
He’d lifted his hand before he was even conscious of doing so, reaching for the scarf and pulling it away. Lily stiffened, turning her head to look at him. She said something, but he didn’t hear.
The sun turned her hair bright gold, and pink and orange. Warm, beautiful and alive. He couldn’t stop looking at it. Couldn’t stop imagining it loose, not tied up in that ponytail she always had it in, or that elegant chignon back at the palace. Couldn’t stop the need to touch it, wanting to feel the softness of it against his fingers and not the slickness blood.
“What are you doing?”
“Let your hair loose.” He had meant it to sound like a request, but it didn’t come out that way.
If she was surprised she didn’t show it. “Why?”
“Because I want to see it.”
“I’m not sure I—”
“Please, Lily.”
For a long moment, she remained silent, looking at him. Then, she reached up and pulled at the hair-tie that held her hair back. A mass of pale gold fell over her shoulders, longer than he’d thought. More beautiful than he’d imagined. It looked so silky.
The need to touch became too great to contain so he didn’t try to, moving his hand slowly to where the silken strands lay against her shoulder. She remained still as he touched her hair, his fingertips stroking. So soft. So good to feel it against his skin.
“Are you going to tell me why you’re doing that?” she asked quietly.
He twined his fingers around one pale blonde lock, warm silky hair replacing the slick feeling. Better. So much better. But it wasn’t enough. He wanted more.
Isma’il looked into her dark eyes, her face bright with the last rays of the sun. Held her gaze as he slid his hand behind her head, watching her, gauging her response. He knew what he was doing. He knew what he wanted. Just as he knew that this was the one woman he should not be doing it with. But he didn’t stop. Couldn’t stop.
Her breath caught and he felt her muscles stiffen. And yet, in her eyes something had ignited and one thing he was sure of—it wasn’t fear that burned in them.
“I want to kiss you,” he said, his voice hoarse. “Do I need to ask permission?”
Lily didn’t reply, but her gaze was so intense it felt like she saw right inside him. Then, taking him utterly by surprise, she moved. But not away from him. She leaned forward towards him instead, going onto her knees, placing one hand on the sand near his thigh. So close, her hair falling everywhere, almost brushing his shirt, the clean, fresh scent of her like an oasis in the dry heat all around them.
“What are you doing, Habibti?”
Still, she didn’t reply, her gaze fixed on his. Intent. Purposeful. Then, she leaned forward a fraction more and brushed her mouth over his.
Sweetness and fire flared hot inside him. An aching, searing heat. She tasted like apples and wine, heady. Intoxicating. It was all he could do not to grab her, haul her into his lap and devour her utterly. But he didn’t, because he would not do that to her. Would not take what she did not want to give. Instead, he curled his fingers into the sand, desperate to hold onto something, fighting to contain the desire that opened up inside him, dark and hungry and wild.
Lily’s kiss was hesitant, as if she wasn’t quite sure of what she was doing. As if she wasn’t quite sure of the taste of him. So he made himself stay quite still, letting her explore his mouth, her tongue running along his lower lip, tracing it, her mouth opening a little more, deepening the kiss. The hesitant quality to it began to fade as she leaned into him, her head tilting to deepen the kiss even further.
It was too much. Too intense. Too sweet.
He pulled away, his control thin and ragged against the desire that roared inside him. That wanted her beneath him, panting in his ear. Screaming her pleasure, as her nails sunk into his skin.
“Sheik
h?” Her voice sounded breathless, a note of uncertainty in it he’d never heard before.
He didn’t want to look at her. Didn’t want to move in case the tenuous grasp he had on his control slipped and the hungry thing inside him broke free. God in heaven, what was he doing bringing her here? Thinking that he was protecting her, that she was safe with him. A foolish assumption. She wasn’t safe with him. It was him she needed protecting from.
“Did I do something wrong?”
Isma’il made himself look at her. “No.”
“Then, what is it?” Her eyes were full of doubt. “Why did you pull away?”
Sand, dry and gritty against his skin, such a contrast to the smooth warm of her hair.
Better than blood. Better than the slick leather of the riding crop.
“You are not the only one with memories you would rather forget.” His voice sounded harsh, but he didn’t try to moderate it.
“What memories?”
“Memories of the desert.”
“The desert?” She stared at him. “What happened in the desert?”
He took a breath. Met her dark gaze. “I nearly died, Lily.”
Chapter Seven
At first, Lily barely understood what he’d said, her head still too full of that astonishing, incredible kiss. Her first kiss. The first she’d taken and not had forced on her.
And she’d wanted to take it. Take it for herself. Because there had been something in the way he’d twined his fingers in her hair, in the look in his eyes as he’d stared at her, in the stark desperation in his voice as he’d asked for the kiss, that had gotten to her. A need she hadn’t been able to deny him. A need she hadn’t been able to deny herself.
Lily sat back on the sand, a hot restlessness sweeping through her. “You nearly died?” she repeated blankly, struggling to make sense of the words.
His face may as well have been cast in bronze for all the expression he gave away. “I told you my father beat me hard enough to put me in hospital? Well, not long after I got out, I ran away from home. Into the desert. I thought dying of thirst was preferable to being killed by one’s own father.” There was a chilling detachment in the way he spoke. “I’m not sure how long I wandered around in the dunes. Long enough to collapse and get severely burned.”
Never Seduce a Sheikh (International Bad Boys Book 2) Page 8