by Lisa Torquay
She’d started to understand several words in Arabic and even managed to communicate with the women in the villages they’d overnighted. She understood, thus, when Tariq announced the setting for camp. And made her camel sit and dismounted, taking the sac and water skin with her. In a dark brown set of tunic, pantaloons and veil, she praised herself for being a quick learner with the language and camel riding. From each village they passed, Tariq got her new attires embroidered with local typical patterns, as she began to notice, and deemed beautiful.
Her sac, containing her new clothes, thudded on the tent’s rug in the exact moment Mustafa screamed: Thieves! The spot proved perfect for a raid, just as Tariq had feared. Her heart skipped to overdrive while she hurried to the tent’s entrance to peep through the canvas.
Up in the hills, men in white garbs, faces covered, lay on the ground holding muskets. They had horses, which meant they didn’t live far, since the animals needed ready available water, she concluded.
Tariq walked in large strides towards their tent. It opened brusquely and his hard gaze found her. “You stay here.”
She wished to argue the dry order, but he’d swivelled out in a half second. Did he think she was just a piece of merchandise to be moved and ordered? How annoying! She could help, she’d say. Her father had taught her to shoot varied types of fire arms, she huffed.
Lucinda peeped again and saw Tariq’s men taking muzzles, a model of riffle, and positioning themselves to fight. So Tariq’s artillery in better condition than the thieves’, she mused. This modern muzzle held a new technology in which fit several bullets. It did not require recharging after each shot like the older ones.
Without pondering twice, she decided to act. The clearing where they stood cramped, but the sun hadn’t set yet. The outlaws might detect her. The best way out should be to creep under the canvas, behind the tent. And that’s what she did. Clawing her way to the wooden crates, she grabbed a muzzle and a box of bullets. A heavy riffle which she’d learned to hold with the stock on her right shoulder. Heart thundering, she hid behind a tall rock, loaded her muzzle and got prepared. Alright, she knew how to shoot, out in the country, or in a fox hunt, maybe. But a war, a fight against people in the desert? Well, that was different. She could get shot. Tariq, too. Oh, dear! The possibility made her certain she must do this. And never asked herself why.
With his muzzle, Tariq used another rock as cover, and assessed the situation. Cold fear coursed him for the first time in his life. Obviously, this situation did not figure as strange for him, who grew up accompanying his father in caravans. But now he had a different factor to consider. Lucinda. He would never forgive himself if something happened to her. His heart raced at the idea. Life would be unbearable if she… He interrupted the train of thought. Protection of her became his priority. Just like during the storm.
Around him, his men stood in readiness. He spotted a dark brown cloth flapping in the wind. Damn woman! Delicate hands grabbed a muzzle as if it belonged to her. She could shoot? The newness of a woman being able to do it so unthinkable, blind rage and a red-hot fear for her safety shrouded his common sense. No time to go to her and put her in her place, literally and figuratively. Blast her! Gunpowder exploded on the other side, on the hills. His eyes snapped to the place from where the sound came. A shot of their own followed, and a scream from one of the covered-faces.
Their opponents lingered not too far way, Tariq observed. The man on the hill dropped the musket and lifted his bleeding hand towards his horrified eyes.
Tariq cast a glance at his men. Nothing. At her. Her muzzle in the act of lowering back on the ground, upstanding. She’d shot the man’s hand? He turned to the hills. Another shot, directed at him, missed.
He was going to repay the favour, but a second stampede crushed his ears, a new scream on the other side. The woman was impossible. Her strategy seemed to prevent the hill men to go on attacking, without harming anyone. A sharp mind, he’d give her that, even if he had an overwhelming impulse to go there and twist her delectable neck.
Not bad, Lucinda celebrated after the second shot. A cold shiver ran through her when she devised the shot directed at Tariq. She adjusted her veil about her face and kept her attention focused. A third shot from the hills ricocheted on her rock. The caravan men retributed around her. Quickly, she came from behind the rock, pointed her muzzle at the place it had come from and fired. A scream, a musket dropped and a bleeding right hand. One of the men shouted on the hills–a woman–she understood. Too bad, her mind declared, and hid back behind the rock.
A second man shouted up the rocks and the entire group mounted their horses and fled. Everyone in the caravan stayed put, waiting for the horses to disappear in the distance. When it was safe, everyone neared Tariq, celebrating the ridding of the danger.
Of course, nobody came to greet her. She put back the gun and bullets in the wooden box and walked back to the tent. Good the whole thing didn’t last much.
She had barely entered the tent when Tariq stormed in, tying the canvas. His expression hard, his cognac eyes darting fire. “What do you suppose you were doing out there?” He’d stopped, his legs apart, his arms crossed.
“Helping, naturally.” She strived to keep a detached tone, even if the sight of him would always shake her insides.
“Oh, a woman skirmisher.” She didn’t miss the too silky tone in his deep voice.
“Yes, my father taught me about guns.” With a shrug, she unwrapped her veil.
His perusal watched as the veil uncovered her dried-dates hair in a bun. “How liberal.” He drawled, his cognac beams darkening as if she had stripped all her clothing. Plus, her rebellious demeanour aroused him; the tableau robbed clear reasoning from his poor self.
“What’s wrong with that?” Undisguised defiance streaked her voice.
“I told you to stay here!” An edgy command. Her pepper-mint eyes squinted, chin up, arms crossed as his.
“And who are you to command me?” Her chin shot higher.
The question came all too rhetoric, but it intensified his already dark rage. “I am the leader of this caravan!”
“Well, you are not my father, you’re not my betrothed or even my—” She wanted to say ‘husband’, but the concept remained so foreign. Saying it out loud would be like opening Pandora’s box.
His eyebrows joined in irritation “You could have gotten hurt, stubborn woman!” Mentioning other men made his guts twist with something he couldn’t name. But the twisting had a sour tang.
“But I didn’t.” Her hands flew to her waist, making her breasts lift under her tunic. “And I sent them away.”
“You’re supposed to obey, when I tell you to!” Those fetching mounds muddled his concentration.
“You have no authority over me.” His eyes caused her nipple to harden. Her breath shortened and she flushed.
Locks of obsidian hair fell on his forehead. His tallness dominated the tent, emanating raw masculinity, emphasised by his day-long stubble.
A lopsided humourless smile drew his sensuous lips “The simple reality that I am holding you in hostage, gives me rights over you!” The statement smug and arrogant infuriated Lucinda more than she would admit.
Her green eyes had darkened and her full lips parted in shock. The truth of his words and the presumption that male supremacy listed as common practice in his culture made a wave of wrath surface like a volcano. “I am nobody’s and I will never be!” She breathed imprinting contempt in it.
Tariq’s blood boiled. Her defiance to his commands would always make him see red and harden certain parts of him in the process. “That can be rectified.” Velvety voice hoarse. Two steps and he reached her. One arm behind her knees, another on her narrow waist. She gasped when he lifted her effortlessly, the sudden movement making her long hair come loose and billow around her. Assertive masculine feet marched purposefully to the bed and put her there as he came over her.
Their eyes battled, their short breaths mingle
d. A dash of heat crossed her body.
“You drive me insane!” He breathed and in a second his sensuous mouth pillaged hers in a molten kiss which she reattributed in equal measure.
Hell broke loose. The last days’ frustration and forceful self-control took their toll. The need for each other prevailed. His arms embraced her under her back, her legs cradled him, then held him. Their mouths glued in hotter and hotter kisses. She gasped, he moaned, every clear thought banned. Lucinda’s control vanished as searing passion threatened to dissolve her.
He continued plundering her with his wide-open kisses and one of his hands sneaked under her tunic and found her pebbled breast. The agonising sensation darted directly to her core producing gasp from the bottom of her throat.
Tariq had his insides twisting with crave for her as her response to him fuelled his already unbearable hunger. Nothing mattered, no one mattered. But here. And her.
His stubble grazed her skin as his mouth left hers and descended warm to her neck. He made her take out her tunic, baring her full dusky breasts to him, he perused amazed over her beauty. Mouth and hands feasted on the full mounds, clinging to them as if his life depended on them.
Her hands anxiously sought his skin under his kaftan. Unwillingly, he lifted his torso and took it off himself. Their eyes meshed, hot and so voracious, all cares thrown to the desert wind.
The sight of his broad shoulders and large chest, sprinkled with black hair, trailing a straight line to his bulked pantaloons, enchanted her. He came down again and kissed her with doubly thirsty urgency. His hot skin in contact with hers, his haired chest tickling her breasts made her wanton and febrile.
Now he nipped her throat, her chest and captured one breast. She arched and gasped with the acute pleasure assailing her. His hot breath on her skin, his teeth torturing her as his other hand teased her nipple. Brazen moisture coated her core. Her fingers merged in his sleek obsidian hair, keeping him where he made her desperate for more. His hands caressed her everywhere, incandescing the whole of her.
She needed to see him in all his magnificence. His pantaloons must disappear. He lifted, hastily completing the task and did the same to her. They gobbled at each other. He was gorgeous, long muscled legs, his very, very hard member protruding, eager for her. A feverish sensation dominated her, making her anxiously famished for everything he could give her.
Tariq had lost the power of speech, his throat clogged with fire at the sight of her. “Beautiful!” He managed in a hoarse low voice. And then his mouth fell between her legs, throwing her in a vacuum of delight. He caressed and licked and savoured driving her to desperation.
She couldn’t take it anymore. Her sense of hollowness, incompleteness, in total starvation undeniable. “Tariq…” She moaned. “I need …I need…” She didn’t know what she needed, but she knew he was able to fulfil this irrational want.
Her words raised his temperature a thousand-fold, but a coherent answer escaped his foggy mind. The torment of her flesh continued as he extricated moans from her with single-minded intent.
He lifted his head, his cognac eyes dark and hazy. “Lucinda, I cannot stop. I must have you!” His body burned for her on the verge of derangement.
She pulled him up, the urge for satisfaction so intense, the rest balled in a blur. He came to her. She didn’t give him time, she pulled him to her. He was so enthralled he offered little resistance.
“Wait, Lucinda.” His breathed a plead. “Wait!” He tried to command, but she didn’t care for his orders. Inadvertently, he plunged in her. “Ooohhh!” He groaned, being sheathed so tightly in her hot moisten body. Lost, he was simply lost. Completely. Inescapably. Taking her meant the ultimate defeat, the ultimate victory. Lacerated with the imminent explosion, body overtaken by urgency, his mind maddened, his soul wrenched. This was more, wretchedly more than anything he’d experienced in his life.
The first fill of him delicious, she moaned. And then a sharp sensation tore at her and she panted for control.
Tariq stopped, even if he had become so hard he wanted to pound blindly. “I told you to…”
But next minute the discomfort left her, replaced by inexorable hunger. She started to move, seeking more of him. Their bodies matched so precisely, their passion so reciprocated, their souls so merged, it was like they’d melded in each other. They locked in a tight embrace, moving in unison, nothing in this world would make them apart at that moment.
Doom approached with fearful speed. He began moving deep in her. No memory of him being ever so frittered, so out of himself. He thrust in her, his face hidden in the curve of her neck, trying not to go so fast. He’d soon be undone. But she wouldn’t let him stop, she urged him, demanded more. And he had no choice but careen towards downfall.
His flesh thrust further and further while she clenched him with a cry at her climax. Once, twice. On the third, he fell in an abyss of dark pleasure, moving and moving until total satisfaction hit them both. Something far, too far from usual happened here. It hadn’t been only his body. A deeper factor played in him. Sensations beyond pleasure. So consuming and surrendering, he didn’t understand it. He crumbled on her, panting, completely spent as an unprecedented peace enveloped him. Never in his life did he witness such a thing.
They remained joined in a tangle of arms and legs for a long time, wrapped in a world of their own. Twilight had faded, and the tent merged in dimness.
Lucinda lay in a state of bliss. The women in her country did not prepared for this shattering experience. She hadn’t had the remotest clue it could be like this. And if someone asked her whether she regretted it. No, absolutely not. And drag the rest of her life ignoring what it meant to feel alive? Unthinkable. Logically, she’d have to bear the consequences. And they’d be heavy. She’d face them when the time came. For once, she’d think only of herself, instead of worrying about the burden of morality, so heavy on women, she reckoned.
Tariq moved up and sat. A vague sense of abandonment covered her. He stood on his feet, paced to the pitcher and washing cloth he always ordered for her, and picked them up on his way. He lit the oil lamp and came back to bed. The lamp bathed him in a warm light.
She watched as he displayed his overwhelmingly seductive body around, without a hint of modesty. A beautiful specimen! She suspected she’d never get enough of watching him.
He sat back next to her. “Are you sore?” His cognac eyes heedful on her.
“No, I don’t think so.” She followed him with her greedy attention as he moistened the cloth and started cleaning her. Despite the scorching passion they’d shared, his hands worked delicate now, cleaning the blood from her thighs. Their eyes met; a strange expression glinted in his marvellous ones. She didn’t identify it. Hers lowered blushing.
After cleaning himself, he stood up again to dress his kaftan and sirwaal. “I’ll be back.” He said simply and left the tent.
What was he thinking? Tariq asked himself as he walked to the camp fire to fetch food. To deflower an English rose, member of the peerage? Had he gone crazy? Well, he had to admit he had been blindly demented with yearning for her. Her defiance made him furious and aroused at the same time. Thoroughly tyrannised by his voracity for her, he threw his cares away. And this taste he had of her? Made him only want more. And more. And more. It hadn’t been possible to stop. Whatever came next, this wouldn’t be undone.
Too sated, his body still craved her, unwilling to allow wary reason to return.
Regrets? None, whatsoever. Unfortunately. Or fortunately, who knew.
They sat in the middle of the bed with a large copper plate full of couscous, stewed mutton and vegetables. The rich flavour of spices spread in the tent as they ate with their hands.
“Do you have siblings?” He asked between one mouthful and the other.
“Yes. Two brothers and one sister.” She took a sip of tea. “And you?” She’d dressed her brown tunic and pantaloons back again
“My mother was my father’s only wife and
I am her only son, but I have half brothers and sisters by my father’s concubines.”
A polygamist society, she’d read. A man could have several wives and concubines if he had the possibility to support them. In her country, a man had only one wife, but mistresses came countless. Again, if he afforded them.
“You grew up in the desert.” It was more a statement than a question.
“Not exactly.” He ate another mouthful. “Our family is from Tunis.” He finished his tea. “I started accompanying my father when I turned fifteen and school finished.” Hard to believe it’d been more than sixteen years ago. “When he passed away, three years ago, I took over his legacy.” His mother had followed his father not long after his passing.
Her finger traced the embroidered pattern of one of the cushions absently. “I grew up out in our manor in the country, but we took regular trips to London.” She smiled to herself, remembering her rather happy childhood, her brothers and sister raiding the grounds, to their governess chagrin.
Tariq watched the good memories play over her face. And wished they’d been neighbours or something, so they would have been able to go about in mischief for years and years. When they grew up… He made his wishful musings freeze. What then? He suspected his Scottish tutor made him read too many of those silly romantic novels. Not that Sir Walter Scott was silly or anything. His reveries stood totally out of tune though. In his world, a woman must stay home, available to her man and to give him children. Love didn’t take part in this. Desire, affection, yes. Love, in turn, remained a foreign concept in his culture.
They sat on the mattress staring at each other and no words came to either of them. Lucinda found herself unable to tear her eyes from him and his irresistible attractiveness. His straight nose, his abundantly lashed cognac eyes, his darkened stubble. He had to be the most magnificent man on Earth.