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Her tent looked miles away from here, however, and... Oh, help me. He didn’t wait. He waded into the water and snapped the towel around her back, barely giving her a chance to lift her arms out of the way before he closed it across her chest and tucked it tight.
She grabbed at it to finish the job herself, then brushed his hands away and glared up at him, even though she was the idiot who’d gotten herself into this mortifying position.
“I didn’t think anyone else was awake,” she hissed.
“The guards patrol around the clock.”
She scowled at the surrounding area, right up to the top of the jagged wall of the canyon, seeing no one. “Well, I wasn’t planning to swim when I came out.”
“Good thing I was.” He nodded at the towel, matching her whisper, but still managing to sound patronizing.
“I wasn’t trying to insult anyone,” she explained, upset that she’d made a cultural gaffe.
He snorted. “That was the least of my reasons for covering you.”
Again he used the tone that suggested she was a bit of a half-wit. She glared up at him, but the eye contact only sent a current of electricity through her that stayed active and hummed in her veins so her breaths stumbled unevenly. A shiver chased over her even as the burn that had kept her awake through the night rekindled.
She forced herself to look toward her tent. Told her feet to carry her in that direction, but all the illicit fantasies she’d had in there loomed large in her mind. The blood she’d cooled with her swim heated and moved with a sensual slither through her veins, creating a simmering warmth in her belly and lower. Very personal muscles clenched in anticipation.
The return to a state of receptiveness was so primeval and quick, her breath hitched in a helpless catch. How did he do this to her by only standing near? It was unsettling to have no control over her reactions.
She didn’t want to know if he knew, hoped he didn’t, but her gaze tracked to his to see.
He was waiting for her. Something fierce flashed in his eyes. This time when he stepped close and lowered his head, as proprietary as a man could get, she didn’t feel any alarm. No sense of self-preservation. Just anticipation. Please.
His lips burned on contact against her cool ones, sliding easily against the dampness left from her swim.
Her eyes closed and her senses came alive to the feel of his firm mouth settling purposefully onto hers. He parted her lips with a lick of his tongue, causing heat to flow into them so fast it stung. Her whole body came alive with a jolt of powerful excitement so intense she shuddered.
And she returned the pressure of his mouth instinctively, moving hers in a type of hungry greed, Her heart pounded with excitement and fear-spiked awareness that she wanted things from him he could never give her. This was futile, but irresistible.
And so exquisite. When his tongue dashed deeper against her inner lips, both daring and deliciously stimulating, she touched her own to his. He tasted smoky and spicy, not like cigarettes, but like open fires and exotic foods. He was remarkable. The sensations he provoked in her were so sweet she wanted to moan aloud. She was drowning—
It hit her that they were still standing in the pool where anyone could see them.
Stricken, she jerked back with a splashing step.
He steadied her, mouth tightening to a harsh line as he scanned over her head. When his searing green gaze came back to hers, his eyes were brimming with frustration.
“Let’s take this to my tent,” he said in a graveled undertone.
Her heart exploded inside her chest like an overinflated balloon, bursting into ragged pieces. Hookups were just that easy? Women were, she supposed. For him. He obviously thought she was.
“Just like that?” she asked breathily, anguished that she’d dropped herself so low in his estimation.
He cocked his head, expression cynical. “You don’t want to?”
His tone was full of the knowledge that she’d kissed him back, making it doubly hard to claim she didn’t want to. Her chest was still rising jaggedly and her vision was full of a naked chest she longed to touch. She swallowed.
“I happen to like my job,” she said, hating herself for not being able to honestly say she wasn’t even tempted. She was. Deeply.
“They don’t have to know,” he said, flatly brushing that away.
“Look.” She must be glowing redder than the sky at the horizon. “I can do the math. You don’t have many options here.” She used her chin to indicate the camp. “I suppose it’s a good offer, that I should feel flattered, but I’m not in your league.”
It was a detail she’d been using in her head to counter her longing and it didn’t seem to sway him any better than it did her.
His expression hardened with derision. “We’ll be on exactly the same level once we’re horizontal.”
Nice, she mentally scoffed, taking that remark like a sword in the gut, while the thought of being horizontal, with him atop her, shorted out her brain.
She startled at the way his hand gentled on her arm as it moved in a light caress that raised prickling sensations across her shoulders and up the back of her neck. He was making no effort to temper his sexuality and was quite overwhelming. Everything about him made her heart race with both apprehension and excitement. His touch was so possessive and strong that every little caress of his thumb against her skin would stay with her for the rest of her life.
“You really want me to believe you don’t want to?” he chided.
“Of course I want to,” she admitted painfully. There was no point in denying it. She was lousy at dissembling. Stronger people walked all over her because she had few natural defenses. It made her great with children and hopeless when it came to a captivating man like him.
So she realized what a chance she was taking in revealing how attracted she was to him. If he took it into his head to pursue her, she’d have no way of stopping him.
“Then let it happen.” His reassuring caress became something more, something drugging and inducing. “I’m not going to hurt you, Fern.”
“I’ve been given to believe differently,” she protested with the caustic sarcasm she hated resorting to, but her back was to the wall. “Apparently it does hurt. The first time.”
So there, she told him with a pointed look into stunned aqua eyes. Her face ached. Yes, she mentally transmitted. No one had ever wanted her enough to take her virginity. It was lowering and painful, but it was true.
Now her feet found the ability to propel her away to somewhere dark and small. Chest aching, she let her shaky legs carry her back to her tent.
* * *
Her plan was to shamelessly use the children as deflective shields if Zafir approached her, but he didn’t.
Which was unconscionably disappointing.
But what did she think? That she was irresistible? With this bedhead?
She’d woken from a deep sleep that had been an escape from a desire to cry. If an unfamiliar towel hadn’t been lying in a heap next to her still damp nightgown, she might have thought she’d dreamed the whole thing.
Sadly she hadn’t. And now Zafir knew she was a virgin. One who was inordinately hot for him.
Funny how Mother was always right. Lust did make you miserable. Fern supposed she ought to be glad it hadn’t also got her pregnant, kicked out of her home and abandoned by the father. She wouldn’t be so busy trying to make ends meet and raising a burden alone that life would pass her by in an astringent blur.
“Excellent!” Tariq declared, making Fern look up from kneeling next to Bashira as she helped the girl focus the microscope.
“What is?” she prompted, but a tickling shiver chased up her spine and she knew without following Tariq’s gaze over her head.
“My father is coming to take us for a walk.”
Standing, she pivoted to face Zafir, taking a breath to argue, but he stole her ability to speak simply by arriving and casting a respectful eye over her overturned wicker basket and tablet, which showed pictures of water bugs.
The girls leaped up to fetch proper shoes.
“Why...?” she asked, feeling persecuted.
“You’re safe, Fern,” he assured her, one hand lifting to calm her as he held his distance.
She didn’t feel safe! Not when his sweeping gaze seemed to visualize her nude beneath a soaked gown. She crossed her arms, hiding that her nipples prickled into points and trying to protect the fragile ego squirming like a wisp of smoke behind her breastbone.
“I shouldn’t have presumed this morning.” A mixture of compunction and frustration flashed in his expression. “If I frightened you, I apologize.” He sounded sincere. Looked it, even though his gaze was now penetrating hers in a way that was extremely uncomfortable. “It won’t happen again.”
Well, that certainly told her how irresistible she was. Her eyes grew damp with a startling mixture of frustration and longing. She lowered her lashes to hide her completely misplaced disappointment.
“Lust is bad,” she managed to say, stating it for her own benefit, hoping to soothe this sting of rejection by making it sound like she wouldn’t go to bed with him even if he wanted her to.
His mouth twitched, the corners deepening with a pained and secretive smile. “Says the woman who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” He sobered into the man she had read was a determined leader of a troubled populace. “But in this case, yes. The consequences aren’t worth it.”
A thick lump rose in her throat. His words cut to the bone and set her adrift. Funny how it really didn’t matter that Zafir’s kiss had been incidental, brought on by proximity and availability, nothing personal. She had done what females did around all alpha males: projected willingness. His reaction had been as biological as hers.
She shouldn’t want him to do it again, but she did.
Lust. Hormones. Whatever it was, they were very detrimental to a woman’s good sense. She ought to thank him for dismissing any possibility of giving in to it.
But she was just hurt.
He smiled and offered, “I’m only here because Tariq pled your case at lunch.”
“My case?”
“His own,” he answered with a tilt of his head. “Ra’id has asked you not to take the girls beyond the camp without him, but he has agreed with Tariq that I am an acceptable escort.”
“I—” think, she urged herself “—don’t want to impose.”
“We’re also facilitating for Ra’id and Amineh,” he said.
“In what way?” She looked up from setting rocks on the children’s sketches so they wouldn’t blow away if the wind came up.
Zafir’s dry lift of his brows made the wheels roll and click in her head. But he couldn’t really be saying what she thought he was saying. They were having sex?
“You’re like one of those chameleons that switches color between one breath and the next.” His husky tone laughed at her flush.
“Well, I can’t believe what you just implied! It’s rather personal, isn’t it? And she’s your sister. Did they actually ask you...?”
“No. And I’m not going to dwell on whether that’s what they’re really doing. But the girls both have birthdays about nine months after past vacations here. Ra’id has had a killer travel schedule the last few years, but he told me last night they’re looking forward to a more settled life next year.” He shrugged. “And he loves his girls, but his successor is his brother. He’d like a son.”
“What about your son?” she asked tartly. “Also an oasis baby?”
He lost all hint of humor as his expression shuttered. “Wedding night.”
Conversation closed, she heard loud and clear. It left her feeling as though she’d overstepped, but he started it.
The children returned and they headed out. Twenty minutes later, they had followed a track through tall grass that crackled like green flames around them, then they climbed to a vantage point above the spring. Zafir explained the relay station that kept them in contact with the outside world and the girls waved at the servants in the camp below.
No sign of Ra’id and Amineh. That shouldn’t make her feel envious, but Fern was. Greener than the oasis.
We all have different paths, Miss Ivy would say. Bloom where you’re planted. She was full of those sorts of sayings. Most of the time Fern appreciated that encouraging, make-the-best-of-it quality in her friend. Today she just felt...single.
Disregarded.
Unloved and unlovable.
* * *
Zafir showed the children how to use his digital camera then stepped back to watch them stalk geckos in the rocks.
Fern stood a few feet away, looking over the camp below. Her narrow waist was emphasized by the wide band of her beige skirt and her arms were covered by an equally dull-colored shirt, but his mind kept seeing her as she’d looked this morning: a water nymph sent to inflame him. She’d risen from the water, small breasts high and firm and topped by pebbled nipples he’d longed to tongue and suck. Her form was sleek, her femininity understated, but she’d been undeniably all woman when the fabric of her nightgown had painted her stomach and upper thighs, falling away into a frustrating veil that hid her most intimate flesh.
He’d already been primed for her, having spent the night recalling those confusing moments in her tent. She’d been such a curious mixture of invitation and hesitation, baffling him. Experienced women could be notorious teases, but he hadn’t caught that vibe from her. More an alarmed hesitation that had stopped him as much as the knowledge that kissing her at all was reckless.
He’d been so sure she was feeling the attraction as strongly as he was, but she’d tripped away like a frightened rabbit. He didn’t prey on women so her reaction had made him feel like a cad.
Her faltering made sense now that he understood how inexperienced she was, but through the night he’d pulled his own insecurities into the equation and tortured himself by wondering whether she really wanted him. The idea that she didn’t, when he burned for her so strongly, had been painful. Really, truly agonizing.
And then she’d stood before him in the pool and projected all those signals of yearning again, her body on display. He’d had to know.
Her lips had latched to his as she surrendered to passion and that had been it. He couldn’t remember a time when a simple kiss had ignited him so thoroughly. They were a perfect match and only the knowledge that his and Ra’id’s men were watching over them had kept him from giving in to the barbarian ancestry that had raged to the fore. He’d trembled with the effort to keep from pressing her back onto the dry sand, lifting her night dress and filling her with the flesh that had thickened in powerful response to the sight of her.
Getting her into his tent and under him had been imperative.
And if she had agreed, he would have breached her maidenhead.
That still confounded him. Her reluctant “of course I want to” had been ringing in his head since she’d said it, soothing his ego. It now offered bittersweet consolation as he faced that he really couldn’t seduce her. It would be the height of dishonor.
Why couldn’t she be the sophisticate that most of her countrywomen were?
“Tell me about yourself, Fern,” he commanded, still not fully believing what she’d revealed. “Have you never been curious?”
She flashed him a startled, slightly harassed look, then glanced at the children working out a rotation system for the camera. Tariq’s guard had wandered farther up the path and beyond their hearing.
“I’m highly curious,” she argued with small flags of pink on her cheekbones. “For instance, I wonder why Tariq’s guard came with us but none to watch the girls. What conclusion should I draw from that?”
“My son’s guard is our best snake handler,” he replied with amusement, more than aware his culture was still quite sexist by Western standards, but in this case his reasons were purely practical. “I thought it wise to have him scout the area before letting the children poke around. Now stop evading my question. You know what I’m really asking. How old are you? If you were from this part of the world I wouldn’t be surprised, but how does an English girl remain untouched until she’s twenty-two?”
“Three,” she countered with a little grimace and a defensive fold of her arms. She pushed her straw hat more firmly onto her head, no doubt trying to hide beneath its wide brim. “I had other priorities,” she said. “And it’s not something I want to throw away out of mere curiosity.”
She sounded prudish and uptight, not like a typical product of the Western world. Male or female, most people her age were hooking up out of boredom if nothing else. He’d been a kid in a candy store at that age, having developed some skill by his early twenties and feeling the pressure to marry soon. He’d taken advantage of every opportunity while he’d had his freedom.
Good thing he had, since his married years had been dry.
“That wasn’t meant to sound like a challenge,” she added, sending him a look he supposed was intended as a rebuff, but as he held her gaze, her expression softened to yesterday’s absorption.
