by Ann Major
A fragile hope flared. He knew that in the open desert, sounds could travel a long way, but he got up and dragged himself, crawling by inches, to the top of the hill, hardly feeling the camel’s thorn and rock tearing at the flesh of his hands and knees.
Beneath him a tiny flame licked a star-sprinkled sky.
This was no dream.
The well! They had reached it! There were twenty tents. Hobbled camels grazed on clumps of thorn. Azid, his Bedouin friend, had set up an encampment as he’d promised.
Kirk went back to Dawn, wearily scooped her up and stumbled down the hill toward the oasis.
The grazing animals became restless, sensing a stranger. A tall man lifted the fold of a tent, squinted into the darkness, gave a shout that brought other men, and then ran forward. One shocked glance into Kirk’s haggard face, and the Arab took the girl into his own strong arms.
“When you did not come yesterday, we thought you were dead, my friend,” he said in the ancient tongue of the desert.
Kirk’s lips curled, but he couldn’t manage a smile. He tried to speak and couldn’t manage that, either. Instead he pitched crazily downward into the sand, unconscious, fainting for the first time in his life.
*
It was cool inside the tent. Kirk dipped the rag into the jeweled bowl and washed Dawn’s pale face, let the liquid trickle into her hair and sponged her neck with its yellowing bruises, her shoulders and her breasts, trying not to think of how alluringly soft and lovely she was.
All it had taken to revive him was Azid dashing water into his face, a roasted leg of lamb that he had gnawed voraciously until the bone gleamed in the moonlight, a long drink, a sponge bath, a shave and two hours’ rest. Then he had awakened, his first concern for Dawn. He had stormed into the women’s section of Azid’s tent and found Azid’s women gently ministering to her. They had bathed her and washed her hair in water sweetened with frankincense, rubbing her body in perfumed oils. They had spooned water between her still lips.
When Kirk discovered that she was still unconscious and burning with fever, he had insisted on taking over the task of caring for her and had shooed the women from the tent. There had been startled gasps from the women as they’d quickly covered their faces when he’d entered, shy giggles and chattering as they left. A man could die for daring to break the sacred taboo of entering the private quarters of another man’s women.
Kirk heard Azid’s low voice from the other side of the dividing cloth, excusing the rudeness, “Wife, my friend has been away a long time. He forgets our ways. He is half-mad from the desert. We must be tolerant.”
With swift efficiency Kirk had stripped away the white robe the women had dressed Dawn in. Then with hardly a glance toward her naked body, he had bundled her thick perfumed hair above her head so she would be cooler.
He had forced tea and broth, a little at a time, down her parched throat and sponged her body repeatedly. When at last, after hours of this labor, she seemed cooler and her naked skin glowed from his frequent spongings, he lay down beside her, gazing into her thin, pale, beautiful face.
How still her thick lashes lay against the gray pallor of her cheeks, he thought. How dark were the blue-tinged shadows beneath her eyes.
He felt a funny constriction in his heart. She was such a little thing, and she had been incredibly brave, scarcely complaining these past few days. Never once had she pleaded for water or food or rest.
Every night she had slept snuggled against him in his arms, and he had wanted her there.
Julia... Darling Julia. He had found her at last. If only she would live, the tragedy that had haunted him for a lifetime would be over. He could bury the guilt, forget the little girl who’d been stolen while in his care and go on with his life.
For an instant he remembered the child she had been. She had been a rowdy, sparkling and adventurous little girl with frizzy black hair and enormous dark eyes, the adored only daughter of the immensely wealthy Jacksons. There were those who had said that she’d been born with all of the Jacksons’ most deplorable characteristics. She’d been a demanding, stubborn, willful little girl, and yet in the tiny imperious creature she’d once been, everyone had found those traits enchanting.
Kirk had always had a softness for children and treated them gently, and Julia had loved him, tottering after him the minute she’d crawled out of the cradle. With him, there had always been adventure. Mercedes had trusted him with her, had let him take her up on his horse. When Julia was five she had demanded her own mount. “I want a horse, Mommy, so I can be a cowboy and ride with Kirk.”
“Cowgirl, querida.”
“No! Cowboy! Just like Kirk!”
It had not been long before the Jacksons had granted this most fervent wish of their darling child. She was given boots, chaps and a cowboy hat. Then a small intricately carved saddle studded in silver. But she had cried she wanted nothing but a horse.
Kirk had led her outside and shown her her new pony. The next day he had begun teaching her to ride. Because there was not much love in his life, teaching her had quickly become one of his favorite pastimes when he’d gotten in from school and finished his chores.
Then on that fateful afternoon when Mercedes and Wayne had been away, three men had ridden into the paddock. At first Kirk had thought they were cowboys coming in from the range. When he realized they weren’t, they already had Julia. He’d told them to let her go, but they’d laughed in his face. “You think you’re tough enough to stop us, kid? We’ll show you tough.”
One had grabbed him, binding his arms behind his back, while the other beat him until he was senseless. Then they left him for dead in the dirt and had galloped away with the screaming little girl to a pickup truck they’d concealed in the dense cover of a mesquite-shaded ravine.
Kirk had been blamed by everyone and locked up in a cell with a dozen juvenile delinquents for a hellish time. Yet no one had hated him more thoroughly than he had hated himself. His own guilt had torn him apart. Every night for years he had burst violently awake in a cold sweat with the vivid memory of Julia’s tortured screams.
Because of him, a precious little girl had wanted to learn to ride. Because of him, she was gone.
The ransom had been paid, but the child was never found.
For years everyone except Mercedes had believed she was dead.
Dawn shuddered delicately. Kirk’s eyes remained glued to her still face.
“Julia...” The name was a velvet whisper in the darkness. It was an agonized masculine sound filled with hope and a terrible yearning.
Briefly he touched her fevered brow.
It seemed he had spent his whole life determined to find her, to save her. He was damned if he was going to watch her die now.
There was nothing more he could do for her except to let her sleep, and he was feeling tired again himself.
He’d never been one to wear much to bed, so he tore off his hot desert robes and lay down beside her. Then he draped his arm protectively across her waist, hoping that she would sense his presence. He fell asleep with his body curving against her warmth.
*
It was the middle of the night. A deep breath swelled against the planes of Kirk’s muscled chest. A soft velvet weight was crushing him in the darkness. But it was not unpleasant, not unpleasant at all.
If only it were.
He came awake slowly to the languid coil of satiny arms and legs enticingly entwined with his, to the engaging sweetness of Dawn’s innocent face pressed closely to his, to the feel of naked breasts snug against his chest.
God, she felt soft, even lush. So innocent and yet so bold. A fluid dissolving heat flowed in his veins.
She had climbed on top of him again as she had that first night when she’d been afraid, and he’d taken her in his arms. Only this time she was naked, and his own chest and legs were bare. Only this time he was less wary of her because he was growing used to her. He was in a camp with armed friends, and instead of a stable wall
and dirt floor, they were lying on soft, comfortable Bedouin carpets beneath cotton covers and blankets.
Her delicate hand was curled trustingly around his brown neck. Her head lay gently nested in the cradle of his shoulder, her black hair sweeping his arms like skeins of perfumed silk.
He supposed he was getting accustomed to her ways, to her craving for physical closeness because now he wanted her near him all the time. His fingers drifted down the length of her spine, over the curve of her buttocks, and he realized that she was perspiring. Her skin was cool. During the night her fever had broken.
He sighed, relieved that she was better, even as he hated the sudden hot surge of his maleness that made him want to forget all that she had been through and just roll her over and take her.
It would be so easy to slide his legs between hers. So easy to...
“Damn!” The ragged whisper exploded from his lips. Then he let out a heavy sigh filled with self-disgust. How could he be such an animal when she was weak and defenseless? Though he hated to move her, he didn’t trust himself to go on holding her with her body locked so tightly to his.
Carefully he slipped an arm beneath her head and tried to nudge it onto a nearby pillow. He was sliding her body from his, when she moaned softly, and her hands clutched him, clinging gently.
“Hold me,” she whispered drowsily in her sleep. “Just hold me.”
She nuzzled her face against his clean-shaven cheek, touched his throat with her lips, and he cursed himself for the fiery shaft of desire her kiss instantly caused.
“Can’t,” he muttered.
“Can too,” she teased.
He had sought a child and found a woman. He could have handled a child. The woman seemed bent on handling him, at least, when she was nearly unconscious.
His heart thudded wildly. She lit a fire in him—body and soul. It was agony to hold her and not take her, but, for her sake, he forced himself to endure it.
He stared quietly at her for a long moment, but the fine, delicate beauty of her face merely intensified his torture. Her inky lashes lay against her fair, flawless skin, and he remembered the dark iridescent loveliness of those captivatingly slanting eyes. How they had flashed their dislike of him when she’d been gagged and bound, and later, how they’d heated with warmth after she’d let him kiss her.
She amused him. She angered him. She entranced him. She was awakening tender feelings he’d kept suppressed so long he’d forgotten he’d ever felt them.
Smooth and gleaming faintly with oil, Dawn’s mouth was curved into a gentle smile, as though she were very content to lie in his arms, as though she had no reason not to feel safe and protected there. Her long black hair streamed in soft waves over his arms. He wound his fingers in the jet strands, liking the way they slid across his skin.
She was lovely, and he knew his need for her was growing with every day that passed. It shouldn’t be happening. He didn’t want it to, but in some mysterious way she was setting her hooks into some deep part of him. Maybe that was just because he’d never known a woman anything like her. Maybe it was simply that he hadn’t taken her yet.
Moaning ever so softly in her sleep, she adjusted her body to his. Her fingers brushed the dark fur of his chest, tickling him. Then the tiny hand stopped and curled around his waist and awakened every nerve ending in his belly.
Soft fingertips curved into the inside of his navel and made a hot quiver of desire dart through him. His body went rigid, and he balled his hands into fists, jammed them against his sides and stared straight up into the darkness, terrified of losing control.
She slid her leg across his thigh and made a sound like a contented purr. She was soft as velvet, and she made him feel as hot as flames.
This night was both heaven and hell, and Kirk wanted it to end. He wanted her to wake up. He wanted a termination to this steamy flow of his emotions and desire. But her body felt infinitely sweet pressed into his. He hadn’t slept with a woman in a long time. He had forgotten how good it could feel.
He wanted to hold her forever, even if he died with longing.
She had hinted she was a virgin, and as he lay wide-awake in the darkness, savoring the full rounded softness of her breasts against his chest, he considered that. For all his experience, he had never taken a virgin.
Suddenly he knew that when she was better, before he took her home to New York and Mercedes, he was not going to be able to stop himself from having her.
She would be his first virgin.
He would be her first man.
An even trade.
The world-famous ballerina and the Texas cowboy. His mouth twisted cynically. Never before had his taste run to fancy things. Nor to fancy women with tastes for fancy things.
She was not his kind of woman. He knew it in his bones. No matter how much they were attracted to one another here where they were far from their own lives, inevitably they would part and return to their own worlds. She was a city girl, used to living in that insane beehive called New York City where brilliance mingled with mediocrity, fabulous wealth alongside direst poverty, fame with despair. She was used to bright lights, to a city pulsing with nervous excitement, to sophisticated people and their parties.
While he had lived many places, one week in a human zoo like New York made him as jumpy as a caged bobcat. He craved the peace and quiet and wildness of flat, open country. He liked people who didn’t know so much, who didn’t care so much, who didn’t talk so much.
He didn’t want her glittering life any more than she would want his solitary one. They would have to part, or they would destroy each other.
Yet he knew this wanting was different. It was like a fierce thirst, and even a long drink wouldn’t be enough to satisfy him. He would want her again and again.
There would be a last time to hold her, a last time to taste her lips, to take in the sweetness of her body. A last time to make love to her—the worst last time of all.
He would have to make every moment they had together count.
At the thought of that last goodbye, a bittersweet pain tore through him, intensifying until it felt as though some vital organ had been ripped out.
He pulled her closer, laid his cheek against her hair, running his hand soothingly along her neck, down the length of her back.
It no longer bothered him to hold her, to want her. Every moment with her seemed infinitely precious.
He knew that some part of him would never want to let her go.
But he was a man used to letting go, a man used to losing everything he loved.
*
The next morning Dawn was better. When she stirred, Kirk shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep so she wouldn’t feel embarrassed. She got up slowly. Shimmering sunlight sifted through the folds of the tent and splashed her slim back with golden glowing fire. She was pale, ethereal, like a goddess awakening from a lovely dream.
Through the curtain of his thick lashes he watched her pull the white cotton gown over her breasts. It fell in heavy folds past her ankles, swallowing her like a little girl putting on her mother’s dress. In the shapeless white gown, with her raven hair spilling to her waist and her waiflike eyes shining shyly, she was exquisite.
But he wished she was still naked.
When she looked at him, even though he shut his eyes again, he felt his skin heating.
She came to him, lay down lazily beside him, draped a hand across his belly and waited for him to wake up.
“I’m awake,” he murmured huskily.
She touched his cheek with feather-light fingers, tracing the smooth hard line of his clean-shaven jaw very tenderly. “I know,” she whispered.
His mouth quirked. “How...”
“You were watching me.” There was no embarrassment, no shyness in her expression. “And you were blushing.”
He felt his cheeks heat again, and then smiled sheepishly. “I was?”
She bent over him, caressing his cheek. “I thought you didn’t like skinny girl
s, macho man.”
His eyes burned her like fire. He caught her hand, held it prisoner in his long dark fingers before sliding his palm against hers, bringing hers to his lips, and blowing a warm kiss against her wrist. “I was wrong.”
She shivered.
“And I thought you didn’t like macho-men Neanderthals,” he taunted with an insolent grin when her pulse leapt beneath his nibbling lips.
“Surely I didn’t call you that?”
When he smiled, she hesitated, and he watched the warm tide of color rise in her cheeks.
“I was wrong to do so,” she admitted, thinking that without his beard to mar the fine-chiseled lines of his dark face, he was stunningly handsome. “You’re beautiful,” she whispered with glowing eyes.
“That’s supposed to be my line, princess.”
“Then why did you let me beat you to it?”
“Maybe I don’t like to rush a girl,” he drawled in a low, soft tone.
She traced a fingertip across his belly. “And do you have—a girl, Mr. Macho cowboy... Lots of girls?” she drawled, sexily mimicking his Texas accent.
His other hand folded over the one on his stomach so that he held both her hands. His fathomless eyes were dark and seeking. “There’s one—I want to have.”
As his hands tensed on hers, and he started to draw her closer, her bones turned to water. Dawn was too conscious of that long bronzed body, of the intimacies they had shared and of her nudity beneath the white gown.
They were in bed. Every night since she’d know him, she’d gone to sleep in his arms.
His handsome face was darkly flushed. The emotions he normally kept under iron control were surging to the surface.
Blood pounded in her head like a desert drumbeat. Warily she licked her dry lips. Never before had she known a man like him. Without the desert robes to conceal the power of his sun-darkened male physique, he seemed bigger, more dangerous. He exuded male virility. It didn’t matter that only minutes before she’d awakened naked in his arms and found that she’d crawled on top of him once again like an uninhibited wanton, that she’d probably lain that way for hours. It didn’t matter that she could still feel the burning imprint his hard warm body had left on hers.