by Trish Morey
But out here, deep in the desert, when she hadn’t cared what might happen to her, she should at least have realised how dangerous her actions were for everyone else.
When had she become so selfish? She had not thought through her actions. She had not thought of anyone else at all.
But of course the men did not take issue with her—it was not their place to judge. Instead, both men stared at the doomed car, now sinking its way deeper into the desert itself, offering prayers of thanks for their prince’s safekeeping as they neared.
‘Your Highness,’ one of them panted, his hand over his chest as he dipped his head with respect. ‘We feared for your safety.’ His eyes were once more drawn to the bizarre sight of the doomed vehicle, and he caught his breath before he could continue. ‘Are you all right?’
‘I’m fine,’ Rafiq said, handing water to the men. ‘Drink. Then one of you see to Sera. She has a wound on her head. The other one, help me. The car is beyond winching now, but there’s still time to save a few more things.’
In a daze, Sera allowed herself to be guided to the blissfully cool air-conditioned car, where the first aid kit was accessed. ‘I’m sorry to cause so much trouble,’ she said to the man as he tended her wound, but he merely shrugged philosophically, as if there was nothing unusual in a woman going crazy and causing mayhem in the desert.
Her actions had lost them a vehicle.
She’d lost them hours of daylight.
And somewhere along the line she seemed to have lost a grip on herself.
It must be a kind of crazy, she thought, wincing as his fingers prodded at her head. A few short hours ago she’d been perfectly content with her life, or at least as content as someone with her past could hope to be. She had a role at the palace with a woman who understood, and she performed her duties well. She was quiet. Thoughtful. Responsible.
Until Rafiq had returned and her world had been turned upside down. Who was she that she could forget who she was so easily? That she could be swept away on this unfamiliar tidal rush of memories and emotion?
She squinted past her carer to where Rafiq was bundling the goods he’d salvaged from the car before she’d jumped. His pale shirt and trousers were smudged with sand, tendrils of his dark hair clung damp against his brow and his features were set. Even under the hot sun, his eyes had returned to their glacial blue.
They hadn’t looked cold before.
He’d held her in his arms and looked down at her and her heart had skipped a beat. For his blue eyes had simmered with heat, a boiling spring steaming with desire, a summer storm that promised lightning set to rent the sky in two. And then his desperate eyes had found her mouth and her trembling had changed direction. She had trembled not from the shock of the near disaster; she had trembled from the shock of knowing he wanted her.
And from the shock of wanting him.
Her hands twisted into knots in her lap. She must be crazy to even think it.
And yet there had been no mistaking Rafiq’s desire. She had witnessed the need in his storm-tossed eyes. And while it had shocked her, and sent her trembling anew, she could not deny that the knowledge had secretly thrilled her, even while it had terrified her.
Rafiq still wanting her?
It was beyond comprehension. Beyond belief.
Even his kiss made no sense. For his kiss, when it had come, as his turbulent eyes had promised it must, had been nothing like the tender kisses they’d exchanged in their youth. This kiss had been ruthless and hard, savage in its intent, almost as if he’d wanted to punish her, and yet still it had brought with it an awakening of her senses, an unfurling of emotions and passions that she’d been long since denied.
Had long since denied herself.
A kiss so momentous it had reawakened both her heart and her soul.
But at what cost?
Her hands twisted and retwisted while she sat patiently, an expression of the turmoil going on inside herself, until the driver pronounced his work done. A graze and a bruise was the only visible external damage, but he gave her a warning to let him know if her pain worsened.
Could her pain worsen? Surely it wasn’t possible. For this pain she felt now, the pain uppermost and foremost in her mind, was not just the mere throb of a temple; this pain was akin to the intense sting of a numbed limb whose blood supply had been cut off and then suddenly resumed, whose numb flesh had reawakened to the stabbing pins and needles of sensation as the flow returned.
Except that pain did not normally last longer than a minute or two, and this was not some arm or leg that felt the pain of sensation returning.
This was her heart.
Their party made camp where the desert track met the sea. The sun was already low on its downward track towards the water, a fireball already sinking, almost extinguished, and the mountains that were their goal loomed dark and threatening before them.
Rafiq had not been happy, but there was nothing else for it. In the light of the advice from the travellers at the oasis, and supported by his drivers, Rafiq had agreed that they had lost too much time today, and that the path up to Marrash would be too treacherous in the dark. They would camp by the coast.
And while he didn’t say it outright, while the drivers remained silent on the subject, Sera knew he held her responsible. Knew that he was angry.
For, when once his eyes had all but demanded her attention, he’d been avoiding her ever since the accident, ensuring he sat in the front with one driver while she sat in the back seat with the other, guaranteeing they wouldn’t have to share the same seat or inadvertently make eye contact. Guaranteeing he wouldn’t have to so much as look at her.
Even now, while the camp buzzed with activity around them, while a meal was prepared and the final touches put to the tents that would house them tonight, he kept his distance, leaving her to her own devices.
How could he make any plainer the fact that he regretted their kiss? And how could he have better shown his contempt for her but to bend her to his will and then drop her cold?
Which didn’t make forgetting it any easier for her.
For his taste lingered on her lips.
And the memory of the touch of his fingers raking through her hair while his mouth had plundered hers still set her scalp to tingling. How was she expected to just forget those sensations? That kiss had awakened something inside her. A yearning. Long-forgotten feelings.
She swallowed, squeezed her eyes shut, and wished she could so easily shut out the tangle of unwanted emotions. Because she didn’t want to feel. She had taught herself long ago not to feel. It was the only way she’d been able to close out the revulsion. The disgust.
And yet his kiss had brought feeling back, sharp and prickling and uncomfortable.
Later, after a meal heavy with silence, she wandered alone along the long sweep of sandy beach, the caw of gulls and the foaming crash of the waves and the sea-softened wind that toyed with her hair her only companions.
Her feet left imprints in the damp sand, footprints the next incoming swoosh of wave wiped away, as if she’d never walked that way.
On and on she walked, until the lure of the beckoning sea became too much, and she stopped and decided she was far enough away from the camp. She walked higher up the shore, to where the foaming waves would not reach, and stood there, contemplating the endless sea, shimmering silver under the moon’s pearlescent glow.
The tug of the water and the promise of the ocean’s soothing caress became too much, and she picked up her hem and scooped her bulky abaya over her head, shaking her long hair free as she dropped the garment to the sand.
She strode into the welcoming water, felt the refreshing rush as a wave came to greet her, then the suck as it receded, coaxing her deeper. She waded in until she was waist-deep and then dived under an incoming wave, setting her nerve-endings alight with the sensual slip of water against skin.
He hadn’t really believed she’d been running away. He didn’t really believe she’d try an
ything like that again. But that didn’t mean he didn’t think she was an accident waiting to happen. Just a short walk, she’d said after their meal, to clear her head—and yet already she’d walked the length of the beach and then some before she’d finally stopped. He’d wondered if he should turn, or just wait for her there in the dark. She was bound to be unimpressed if she learned he’d followed her.
And then she’d done the unexpected and pulled her dress up and over her head, and the air had been punched from his lungs.
In the light of the moon her skin glowed gold, her hair shining black, tumbling down to her slim waist as she shook it free from her dress. Long-limbed, and with curves where they should be, she stood under the moonlight like a golden goddess, before she moved to meet the water, her hips swaying, her long hair rippling down her back, as graceful and elegant as a water bird.
Sera.
His Sera.
CHAPTER SIX
NEED punched into him like a curled fist. It had hit him hard the first time, when he had kissed her in the desert after pulling her to her escape. Hit him unexpectedly, with its force and sheer ferocity. Because he’d realised finally that his kiss hadn’t just been about vengeance. It had been need that had driven him to taste her lips. Need that had made him crush her to him as if he’d never let her go again.
A need that had rocked him to the core when he had put her away from him, determined to keep her at arm’s length, where the siren could no more mess with his head.
But now, seeing her like this, golden-skinned and lithe, and with the water slipping its cool magic up her silken thighs, it was as if his need had taken root and become a living thing.
How could one be jealous of the water in the sea? But right now he was. He wanted to be there in place of it, caressing the secret places he never had, sliding past that silken skin, holding her flesh in his thrall.
Why shouldn’t he have her?
She was nothing to him now but a dark memory. Nothing but an itch that had never been scratched. Once upon a time he’d respected her innocence, had been prepared to wait until the right moment, until the ceremony that would see them tied together for ever. But why should he wait now? There was nothing left to wait for. There would be no ceremony, no forever, and she was a widow, no longer the innocent.
Why shouldn’t he have her?
She hadn’t fought against his kiss. Even if she had not wanted it, as he himself had not, she had not protested or struggled to be free. Instead her body had swayed into his, melted against his, her mouth opening at his invitation just as surely as he knew her body would open for him. After all, she was a woman now practised in such moves.
What was one more man to her now?
He wandered closer to where she’d left her abaya, crumpled on the sand, and dropped the sandals he’d been carrying in his hands. Out in the sea she was diving through the waves like a dolphin, her body sleek, her back curved, the moonlight turning her body to a swish of silk through the water. He envied the black hair that hugged her skin and curved around her breasts just as he envied the sea that embraced her.
She was beautiful. A goddess. And he wanted her.
She should have been his a long time ago.
She could be his now.
And he would have her.
Sera wanted to stay there for ever, but she knew that she had already been away too long, that her presence would be missed and that Rafiq had probably sent out a search party.
Besides, the water had not numbed her heated skin as she needed. Instead the waves had been a sensual massage against her skin, its motion past her skin feeding the tension that had beset her body ever since Rafiq had appeared outside his mother’s apartment, the remorseless tension that had cranked up one-hundredfold when he’d folded her so tightly in his arms and kissed her senseless.
She shivered in the water, suddenly feeling cold, and turned for shore, catching a wave and riding it into the shore, where she stood in the shallows, put her arms behind her head to squeeze the water from her hair, and looked up the beach for the place where she had left her gown.
The tremor squeezed every muscle tight when she found it, and she dropped her arms and crossed them defensively across her belly when she saw who was sitting beside it.
Rafiq.
How long had he been sitting there, lounging back against the sand like a modern-day pirate, his white shirt bright in the moonlight, his pants rolled up at the ankles? How long had he been watching her?
What defences the sea had managed to wash away were hastily re-erected. The relaxing benefits of the motion of the waves were suddenly for naught. With her water-cooled flesh exposed to both the balmy breeze and to his gaze, her flesh was turning to goosebumps.
Couldn’t he at least look away?
She forced herself forward, crossing the sand on uncertain legs, refusing to meet his gaze, wishing she’d thought to pack a swimsuit in her hastily packed bag. She made a swipe for her abaya, but he got there first, picking it up in his hands, resting his elbows on his knees as he held the garment. But at least he wasn’t looking at her any more. His gaze was turned out to sea, no doubt so that he could pretend he hadn’t noticed she had just been reaching for it.
‘Have a nice swim?’ he asked, the sides of his mouth turned up.
He dared to smile? As if this was some kind of game? ‘What are you doing here?’
‘Don’t you know it’s dangerous to swim alone at night?’
‘Don’t you know it’s rude to spy on people?’ The words were out before she could stop them, her boldness shocking her so much that she took an involuntary step back across the sand in defence. She wasn’t used to thinking such thoughts any more, let alone speaking them aloud—not when she knew what the consequences could be.
But Rafiq’s smile merely widened, as if he hadn’t noticed her transgression. He kept his gaze seawards. ‘I was worried about you.’
‘You thought I’d run away?’
‘Not really. But you do have this thing with sand. I didn’t want to take any chances.’
Was that supposed to be funny? Or her cue to fall down and thank him for rescuing her today, even when he’d frozen her out and treated her as if she didn’t exist ever since he’d rescued her? When he’d snatched up her clothes so she couldn’t get dressed? Not a chance.
‘As you can see, I’m fine.’
Now he did look at her, his eyes searing a path all the way from her knees to her face, the slow way, until her skin burned and she cursed herself for inviting him to look.
‘Would you mind handing me my dress?’
His white teeth flashed in the moonlight. ‘What if I said I liked the view just the way it is?’
It wasn’t what she wanted to hear, but even while her flesh tingled a tiny part of her wanted to rejoice in his words, because it had been Rafiq himself who had uttered them. But it was still wrong—for so many, many reasons. He shouldn’t look at her that way. Couldn’t he see her shame? Couldn’t he tell?
She remembered the men who had admired her body and her looks, the men who had run their pudgy fingers through her hair, their alcohol-heavy breath perilously close to her own as they had whispered secret wishes in her ear that had turned her stomach.
And she remembered too the men who had recoiled from her, their faces shocked and appalled, as if she were no more than a piece of dirt.
She was worthless. Could he not tell?
She spun around on the soft sand, banishing the poisonous memories as she turned her back on Rafiq for evoking the twisted memories of days thankfully gone, for the long-forgotten desires of her own wayward body combining inside her into a potent mix. ‘I just wanted to have a swim in private. Is that too much to ask?’
And something in her tone must have worked its way into his arrogant brain, for suddenly he was next to her, holding out her abaya. She snatched it from his hands, bundling it over her head and punching through her arms, struggling to get it down over her still-damp body, not
waiting to get it right down over her legs before she set off down the beach, away from him, desperate now to return to the camp where there were others, where there could not be this talk of ‘liking the view’ of her, undressed or otherwise. Where the conversation would be on safer territory and not in this permanent quicksand that seemed to surround their every exchange.
She sighed. She’d hoped earlier that she’d had her last encounter with the sinking sands, and yet they were all around her, in his words and in his heated looks, ready to trap her and suck her down.
‘I don’t need you to follow me,’ she protested, enjoying her newfound freedom to speak her mind as he drew level alongside her. ‘I don’t want you here now.’
‘You are a woman walking in the dark alone. Your safety is my responsibility.’
‘This is Qusay. It is safe for women here.’
‘There are still strangers. Tourists.’
Ridiculous! There was no one else here in this remote corner of their country. The roads were too basic, the infrastructure negligible, and the closest this part of the coast had to a tourist resort were the tiny villages that scraped an existence from the sea and he knew it. But there was a better way of showing how flawed his argument was. ‘Are not you a tourist yourself? Should I then be fearful of you?’
His intake of air was audible, and his already gravel-rich voice deepened. ‘I am Qusani, born and bred.’
‘But you don’t live here. You’re only here until Kareef is crowned, and then you’ll return to your home halfway around the world. That makes you little more than a tourist. And, based on your own assertion, that makes you someone I should be wary of. Given the way you snatched up my abaya so I could not cover my body, I’d say you were right.’