“What is it, baby?”
The little girl turned and pointed to the west, her black curls bobbing. “Baba!”
Bashea raised her eyes and saw Tahj approaching, walking his horse through camp alongside his brothers-in-law. The group had been in to Avistad to counsel the good King Radeem and had been gone nearly a week.
Spotting them, Tahj quickly handed the cloth camel he had brought for his daughter to someone behind him and squatted, holding his arms open wide. With a squeal, Keiara took off running in his direction. Without even looking, Bashea dreamily handed off her son, Shahzad, to her sister, and followed in her daughter’s wake.
Bashea noted that, unbeknownst to Tahj, the someone he had given the camel to squatted down behind him and off to the side a little, holding out the camel and pretending to make it walk through midair. Enamored by the camel, Keiara sped past Tahj and into the waiting arms of her Uncle Bagrat, who stood with the girl in his arms and tickled her with the camel, laughing at Tahj’s expression.
“Well,” Tahj snorted with his hands on his hips, “a man leaves for nearly a week and this is all the love he gets?”
Bashea walked up behind him and slid her arms around his waist, whispering suggestively in his ear, loud enough for Bagrat to hear, “I’ve got some love for you….”
Tahj smiled at Bagrat. “I’ll take it!” He turned and gave Bashea a loud, smacking kiss on the lips as she swayed and giggled in his arms. Then the kiss turned more serious as Bashea took the sides of her husband’s face into her hands, and then more passionate. Suddenly, Tahj bent and swept Bashea off her feet. Bashea squealed in surprise, hugging herself closer to him. “Take care of the kids for awhile, Bagrat,” Tahj called boisterously over his shoulder.
“Oh, ho!” Bagrat chuckled. “What do we think of that, Miss Keiara?” He nuzzled his niece’s neck and she giggled, squirming and scrunching up her noise happily.
Bashea looked back over Tahj’s shoulder as he marched off with her toward their tent. Her heart warmed to see her daughter in Bagrat’s arms. It wasn’t long ago they were worrying about whether or not Bagrat was going to make it through the night. She thought of that time with an inward shudder, and she felt a pang of love for him. He looked up and caught her eye, and it seemed as if he was thinking the same thing, his look fleetingly serious. Maybe Bagrat’s being gone with Tahj had stirred up those old emotions and worries about him. She smiled, and then blew him a kiss. He winked at her, and then raised Keiara over his head, where her camel came to make a nest in his hair, its legs swinging in front of his eyes, blocking his view.
“Be careful with her,” Bashea warned as Tahj ducked with his burden into the tent.
Once inside the tent, Tahj put his wife down gently on her feet. “I really missed you!” he said, grabbing Bashea by the hips and walking her back to the bed as he kissed her.
“I missed you, too!” The kiss she gave him was meant to entice him further, and entice it did.
He started peeling off his clothes. “I’ve been thinking about this for days.”
She was thrilled. “Mmmm…me, too.”
He began to kiss her again, running his hands over her skin feverishly, his movements becoming rough and reckless. He laid her back across the bed, joining her as he tore at her clothes in an effort to assist her in getting them off. He felt the cloth give and the sound of fabric ripping. Instantly he pulled back, “I’m sorry.”
She heard the guilt in his voice, and it infuriated her. “Why, Tahj?” she snapped, sitting up suddenly.
Confused, he sat up, too. “Because. I vowed to always respect you, Bashea.”
She got up, crossing arms over her chest and walking away from him. “It’s been four years, Tahj, nearly five, and in all this time you’ve always been so…controlled. Horribly, awfully, controlled.” She turned, and, seeing the look of hurt in his eyes, she came back quickly, taking his face in her hands as she stood between his legs. “Not that it hasn’t been wonderful. And being together like this…has been beyond my wildest imagination. But, I feel you pull back, hold back sometimes instead of…I don’t know, being too wildly in love with me that you can’t hold back. You can’t refrain. You’ve just got to have me.”
“Bashea, I feel that way all the time. But I just can’t go…ripping your clothes off.”
“I know.”
“Then what is it that you want?”
She took in a deep breath, and then blurted out, “I want you to take me, take me hard and fast without thinking about respecting me. Just stop thinking at all! Go with your feelings—”
He grabbed her roughly by the hips and swung her around onto the bed. “Be still, woman!” he demanded, and then he did as he was bade. Taking her as he had always longed to, with abandon, with wanton recklessness, without any other consideration other than satisfying himself, and in so doing he drove them both wild, to a place they’d never been before, a new, electrifying, and exhilarating place.
And when at last they took that sweet, final plunge, they lay together in the golden afterglow, both thinking about their relationship without speaking. They were happy. They had their children, who gave them great delight. They had their family, Bagrat, Jahmeel, and all the rest, Radeem and their friends in Avistad, and even Faraz and his daughters, who had come to visit a time or two. And they had their home in Tamook. Boltar had tried to take it all from them, but they had prevailed together, better, stronger for having done it with each other. They appreciated each other more, and everything they had, because they had been forced to fight for it.
Their relationship had been tempestuous from the start, a whirlwind of strong emotions, much like the storms that gathered over the desert, shifting huge sand dunes, reshaping the terrain. But they had made it through the winds to the stillness, the quiet, refreshing stillness after the storms, where things began anew, and love grew stronger each day. And they thanked the gods for it.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Lunch lady by day, romance writer by night, M.J. Schiller fills up the rest of her spare time with family, karaoke, and P90X, (not necessarily in that order). She is a mother to three fifteen-year-olds, Mitch, Ryan, and Hannah. Yes, they are triplets! And her eldest daughter, Maggie, who is seventeen and a phenomenal writer also. She has been married for over twenty years to her fabulous husband, Don, and all the above reside in Bloomington, IL with their cat, Serena. To find out more about her and be notified of new releases, sign up for M.J. Schiller’s newsletter at www.mjschiller.com. She can also be found on Facebook, twitter, Pinterest, and Goodreads, as well as a number of other places.
Taken by Storm (ROMANTIC REALMS COLLECTION) Page 21