The Call of the Desert

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He pointed out silkily, “But you did come. What are you afraid of, Julia? That you won’t be able to control yourself around me?”

A few seconds ago she’d seen a look of something like cool distaste cross his face, and yet now he was acknowledging the heat between them. Baiting her. Her heart was thumping so hard she felt sure it would be evident through the towel wrapped around her.

A long buried sensation rushed through her like a tangible force—what it had felt like to have his naked body between her legs, thrusting into her with awesome strength.

For a moment she couldn’t breathe, then she said threadily, “Just give me my clothes, Kaden. This really isn’t a good idea.”

But Kaden ignored her, was already stepping back and away, taking her clothes with him and leaving the fresh ones on the bed. She looked at them. Jeans and a delicate grey silk shirt. Rage filled her belly at being humiliated like this.

She indicated the clothes with a trembling hand. Too much emotion was coursing through her. More than she’d felt in years. “I won’t wear your mistress’s cast-offs. I’ll walk out of here in this towel if I have to.”

Kaden turned. He was silhouetted in the doorway, shoulders broad in a simple white shirt. Black trousers hugged his lean hips. Julia hadn’t even noticed his still damp hair. She’d been so consumed by his overall presence.

He said, with a flash of fire in his eyes, “Be my guest, but there’s really no need. Those clothes belong to Samia. You remember my younger sister? You’re about the same size now. She’s been living here for the last couple of years.”

Immediately Julia felt petulant and exposed. She blushed. “Yes, I remember Samia.” She’d always liked Kaden’s next youngest sister, who had been bookish and painfully shy. Before she could say anything else, though, he was gone and the door had shut behind him.

Defeated, Julia contemplated the clothes. She took off the towel and put them on. There were even some knickers still in a plastic bag, and Julia could only figure that someone regularly stocked up Samia’s wardrobe. The jeans were a little snug on her rear and thighs, and she felt extremely naked with no bra under the silk shirt. Her breasts weren’t overly large, but they were too big for her to go bra-less and feel comfortable. There wasn’t much she could do. It was either this or dress in the robe hanging off the back of the bathroom door. And she couldn’t face Kaden in just a robe.

She went back into the bathroom and dried her hair with the hairdryer. It dried a little frizzy, but there was not much she could do about that either. And, anyway, it wasn’t as if she wanted to impress Kaden, was it? She scowled at the very thought.

Fresh resolve to insist on leaving fired her blood, and she picked up her shoes in one hand and took a deep breath before emerging from the suite, steeling herself to see Kaden again. When she did emerge though, it was to see him with his back to her at one of the main salon windows, looking out over the view. Something about his stance in that moment struck her as acutely lonely, but then he turned around and his sardonic visage made a mockery of her fanciful notion.

She hitched up her chin. “I’ll get a taxi home. I can arrange to get my clothes from you another time.”

Kaden’s hand tightened reflexively on the glass he held. He should be saying Yes, I’ll call you a taxi. He should be reminding himself that this was a very bad idea. But rational thought was very elusive as he looked at Julia.

Her hair drifted softly around her narrow shoulders. Like this, with the veneer of a successful, sophisticated woman stripped away, she might be nineteen again, and something inside him turned over. The grey silk shirt made the grey of her eyes look smoky and mysterious. He could remember thinking when he’d first met her that her eyes were a very icy light blue, but he had then realised that they were grey.

The silk shirt left little to the imagination. Her bare breasts pushed enticingly against the material, and under his gaze he could see her nipples harden to two thrusting points. His body responded forcibly. The jeans were too tight, but that only emphasized the curve of her hips and thighs. He wanted her to turn around so he could see her lush derri?re. She’d always had a voluptuous bottom and generous breasts in contrast to her otherwise slender build.

Heat engulfed him, and he struggled for the first time in years to cling onto some control. Once again when it came to it … he couldn’t let her go.

Julia was on fire under Kaden’s very thorough inspection. “Please …” She wasn’t even really aware of what she was saying, only that she wanted him to stop. “Don’t look at me like that.”

He smiled and went into seduction mode. “Like what? You’re a beautiful woman, Julia. I’m sure you’re used to having men’s eyes on you.”

Julia flushed at the slightly narrowed dark gaze, which hinted at steel underneath the apparent civility. The memory of what had happened just before she’d left Burquat flashed through her head and brought with it excoriating heat and guilt. And nausea … Kaden’s eyes had been on her in her moment of humiliation. Even now she could remember the way that man had pulled her so close she’d felt as if she were suffocating, when all she’d wanted— She slammed the door on that memory.

She shook her head, “No, actually, I’m not. And this is not appropriate. I really should be leaving. So if you’ll just call me a taxi …?”

Kaden smiled then, and it was the devil’s smile. She sensed he’d come to some decision and it made her incredibly nervous.

“What’s the rush? I’m sure you could do with a drink?”

Julia regarded this suddenly urbane pillar of solicitude suspiciously. Her shoes were unwieldy in her hand. She felt all at once awkward, hot, and yet pathetically reluctant to turn and never see Kaden again. That insidious yearning arose … the awareness that tonight was a bizarre coincidence. Fate. Surely the last time she would ever see him?

As much as she longed to get as far away as possible from this situation, and this man, a dangerous curiosity and a desire for him not to see how conflicted she was by this reunion made her shrug minutely and say grudgingly, “I suppose one drink wouldn’t hurt. After all, it has been a long time.”

He just looked at her. “Yes, it has.” Hardly taking his eyes from hers, he indicated a bottle of cream liqueur on the sideboard and asked, “Do you still like this?”

Julia’s belly swooped dangerously. He remembered her favourite drink? She’d only ever drunk it with him, and hadn’t touched it in twelve years. She nodded dumbly and watched as his large, masculine yet graceful hands deftly poured the distinctive liquid. He replaced the bottle on the sideboard and then came and handed the delicately bulbous glass to Julia.

She took it, absurdly grateful that their fingers didn’t touch. Bending her head, she took a sniff of the drink and then a quick sip, to disguise the flush she could feel rising when the smell precipitated a memory of drinking it with Kaden one magical night in his family’s summer palace by the coast. It was the night they’d slept together for the first time.

For a second the full intensity of how much she’d loved him threatened to overwhelm her. And he’d casually poisoned those feelings and in one fell swoop destroyed her innocent idealism. Feeling tormented, and wondering if this avalanche of memories would ever go back into its box, she moved away from Kaden’s tall, lean body, her eyes darting anywhere but to him.

She sensed him move behind her, and then he appeared in her peripheral vision.

“Please, won’t you sit?”

So polite. As if nothing had happened. As if she hadn’t given him her body, heart and soul.

Slamming another painful door in her mind, Julia said quickly, nervously, “Thank you.”

She followed him, and when he sat on a plush couch, easily dominating it, she chose an armchair to the side, putting her shoes down beside her. She was as far away from him as she could get, legs together primly. She glanced at him to see a mocking look cross his face. She didn’t care. This new Kaden intimidated her. There was nothing of the boy she’d known. They’d both just been teenagers after all … until he’d had to grow up overnight, after the death of his father.

Now he was a man—infinitely more commanding. She’d seen a glimpse of this more formidable Kaden the last time they’d spoken in Burquat, but that had been a mere precursor of the powerful man opposite her now.

Julia felt exposed in her bare feet and the flimsy shirt. It was too silky against her bare flesh. Her nipples were hard, tingling. She hadn’t felt this effortlessly aroused once during her marriage, or since she’d been with Kaden, and the realisation made her feel even more exposed. She struggled to hang on to the fact that she was a successful and relatively sophisticated woman. She’d been married and divorced. She was no na?ve virgin any more. She could handle this. She had to remember that, while he had devastated her, he’d been untouched after their relationship ended. She’d never forget how emotionless he’d been when they said goodbye. It was carved into her soul.

Remembering who the clothes belonged to gave her a moment of divine inspiration. With forced brightness she asked, “How is Samia? She must be at least twenty-four by now?”

Kaden observed Julia from under hooded lids. He was in no hurry to answer her question or engage in small talk. It was more than disconcerting how right it felt to have her here. And even more so to acknowledge that the vaguely unsettled feeling he’d been experiencing for what felt like years was dissipating.

She intrigued him more than he cared to admit. He might have imagined that by now she would be far more polished, would have cultivated the hard veneer he was used to in the kind of women he socialised with.

Curbing the urge to stand and pace out the intense conflict inside him as her vulnerability tugged at his jaded emotions, Kaden struggled to remain sitting and remember what she’d asked.

“Samia? She’s twenty-five, and she’s getting married at the end of this week. To the Sultan of Al-Omar. She’s in B’harani for the preparations right now.”

Julia’s eyes widened, increasing Kaden’s levels of inner tension and desire. He cursed silently. He couldn’t stand up now even if he wanted to— not if he didn’t want her to see exactly the effect she had on him. He vacillated between intense anger at himself for bringing her here at all, and the assertion that she would not be walking out through his front door any time soon.

Kaden was used to clear, concise thinking—not this churning maelstrom. It was too reminiscent of what had happened before. And yet even as he thought that the tantalising prospect came into his mind: why not take her again? Tonight? Why not exorcise this desire which mocked him with its presence?

“The Sultan of Al-Omar?” Julia shook her head, not liking the speculative gleam in Kaden’s eyes. Blonde hair slipped over her shoulders. She tried to focus on stringing a sentence together. “Samia was so painfully shy. It must be difficult for her to take on such a public role?”

An irrational burst of guilt rushed through Kaden. He’d seen Samia recently, here in London before she’d left, and had felt somewhat reassured by her stoic calm in the face of her impending nuptials. But Julia was reminding him what a challenge this would be for his naturally introverted sister. And he was surprised that Julia remembered such a detail.

It made his voice harsh. “Samia is a woman now, with responsibilities to her country and her people. A marriage with Sultan Sadiq benefits both our countries.”

“So it is an arranged marriage, then?”

Kaden nodded his head, not sure where the defensiveness he was feeling stemmed from. “Of course—just as my own marriage was arranged and just as my next marriage will be arranged.” He quirked a brow. “I presume your marriage was a love match, and yet you did not fare any better if you too are divorced?”

Julia hid the dart of emotion at hearing him say he would marry again and avoided his eye. Had her marriage been a love match? In general terms, yes—it had. After all, she and John had married willingly, with no pressure on either side. But she knew in her heart of hearts that she hadn’t truly loved John. And he’d known it too.

Something curdled in her belly at having to justify herself to this man who had haunted her for so long. She looked back at him as steadily as she could. “No, we didn’t fare any better. However, I know plenty of arranged marriages work out very well, so I wish Samia all the best.”

“Children?”

For a moment Julia didn’t catch what Kaden had said it had been uttered so curtly. “Children?” she repeated, and he nodded.

Julia felt another kind of pain lance her. The memory of the look of shame on her husband’s face, the way he had closed in on himself and started to retreat, which had marked the beginning of the end of their marriage.

She shook her head and said, a little defiantly, “Of course not. Do you think I would be here if I had?” And then she cursed herself inwardly. She didn’t want Kaden analysing why she had come. “My husband—ex-husband—couldn’t … We had difficulties … And you? Did you have children?”

That slightly mocking look crossed his face again, because she must know well that his status as a childless divorcee was common knowledge. But he just shook his head. “No, no children.”

His mouth had become a bitter line, and Julia shivered minutely because it reminded her of how he’d morphed within days from an ardent lover into a cold stranger.

“My ex-wife’s mother suffered a horrific and near-fatal childbirth and stuffed my wife’s head with tales of horror and pain. As a result Amira developed a phobia about childbirth. It was so strong that when she did discover she was pregnant she went without my knowledge to get a termination. Soon afterwards I started proceedings to divorce.”

Julia gave an audible gasp and Kaden saw her eyes grow wide. He knew how it sounded—so stark. His jaw was tight with tension. How on earth had he let those words spill so blithely from his mouth? He’d just told Julia something that only a handful of people knew. The secret of his ex-wife’s actions was something he discussed with nobody. As were the painstaking efforts he’d made to help her overcome that fear after the abortion. But to no avail. Eventually it had been his wife who had insisted they divorce, knowing that she could never give him an heir. She hadn’t been prepared to confront her fears.

Kaden’s somewhat brutal dismissal of a wife who hadn’t been able to perform her duty made a shiver run through Julia. The man she’d known had been compassionate, idealistic.

To divert attention away from the dismay she felt at recognising just how much he’d changed, she said quickly, “I thought divorce was illegal in Burquat?”

Kaden took a measured sip of his amber-coloured drink. “It used to be. Things have changed a lot since you were there. It’s been slow but steady reform, undoing the more conservative laws of my father and his forebears.”

A rush of tenderness took Julia by surprise, coming so soon after her feeling repelled by his treatment of his wife. Kaden had always been so passionate about reform for his country, and now he was doing it.

Terrified that he would see something of that emotion rising up within her, Julia stood up jerkily and walked over to the window, clutching her glass in her hand.

She took in the view. Kaden had told her about this apartment, right in the centre of London. Pain, bittersweet, rushed through her. He had once mentioned that she should move in here when she returned to college in London—so that he could make sure she was protected, and so she would be waiting for him when he came over. But those words had all been part of his seductive patter. Meaningless. A wave of sadness gripped her.

She didn’t hear Kaden move, and jumped when his deep voice came from her right, far too close. “Why did you divorce your husband, Julia?”

Because I never loved him the way I loved you. The words reverberated around her head. Never in a million years had she imagined she would be standing in a room listening to Kaden ask her that question.

Eventually, when she felt as if she had some measure of control, she glanced at him. He was standing with one shoulder propped nonchalantly against the wall, looking at her from under hooded lids. With one hand in his pocket, the glass held loosely in the other, he could have stepped straight out of a fashion magazine.

He looked dark and dangerous, and Julia gulped—because she felt that sense of danger reverberate within her and ignite a fire. She tried to ignore the sensation, telling herself it was overactive hormones mixed in with too many evocative memories and the loaded situation they were now in. She looked back out of the window with an effort. She felt hot and tingly all over, her belly heavy with desire.

“I … we just grew apart.” She shook her head. “It seemed like a good idea, but it never really worked. And our difficulty with having children was the last straw. There wasn’t enough to keep us together. I’m glad there were no children. It wouldn’t have been the right environment to bring them into.”

Julia had never told Kaden that she was adopted, or about her own visceral feelings on the subject of having children. She’d never told anyone. It was too bound up in painful emotions for her. And perhaps she hadn’t told him for a reason—because on some level she’d been afraid of his judgement, and that what they shared hadn’t been real. She’d been right to be afraid.

She was aware of tension emanating from Kaden and didn’t want to look at him, afraid he might see the emotion she felt she couldn’t hide. Her face always gave her away. He was the one who had told her that as he’d held her face in his hands one day …