To Tempt a Sheikh (11 page)

He gave her a delicious look of mock contrition. “Not intentionally, I assure you.”

She now saw the strain and exhaustion traversing his face in lines that hadn't been there even during their worst times. Her heart compressed even as it poured out a surplus of gratitude and admiration. “Oh, Harres, you're such an intractable protector.” She caressed his forearm, basking in mixing their smiles. Then she gasped. “What about your wound? Did you get someone to look at it? How is it?”

He gave a perfect impression of a boy mollifying his
teacher before he revealed something that would send her screaming. “Uh—I have good news and bad news.”

Her eyes flew over him, feverishly assessing his condition. No. Whatever his news was, it couldn't be terrible. Apart from the evident fatigue, he looked fine.

Her heart still quivered in her chest as she said, “Hit me with the bad.”

He gave a pseudograve look. “Your sutures were very good.”

“Past tense?” she squeaked. “You busted them!”

He nodded, holding his hands up. “Good news is, there's no sign of infection. See?” He moved his left arm up with minimal effort and no apparent discomfort. “What's more, the oasis people retrieved our medical kit, so you can sew me up again.”

“You bet I will!” She subsided in relief at the proof that he was okay. Her eyes darted away from him for the first time and took in the whole room. She could see the rest of the place through the open door behind him. “This place is incredible.”

“It is a very special place,” he agreed. “It was the previous oasis-elder's dwelling. He died two years ago. Elders' houses remain uninhabited, as a tribute to their lives and leadership. It is an honor to be given this place during our stay.”

Her smile trembled again. “Only the best for Zohayd's Guardian Prince.”

He shook his head, his eyes bathing her in warmth. “It's not that. Any refugees they claimed back from the desert would have been given the same treatment. I also have a relationship with the people here that has nothing to do with me being their prince. I'm not sure they consider the Aal Shalaans their ruling family, or if they do, that they give the fact much significance.”

“Why not?”

“The oasis and its people are considered off-limits to the outside world they live independent of. They are…revered by the rest of Zohayd and all the region, almost feared as a mystic nation who will always exist outside others' time and dominion.”

She digested this, the feeling of being in another world and time intensifying, validated. “A nation? How many are they?”

“Around thirty thousand. Yet their refusal to join the modern world in any way makes them unique. Uniqueness is power beyond any secured by numbers.”

“Not if they lack the modern methods of defending themselves against intruders, it isn't.”

His face closed. “There will never be intruders. Not on the Aal Shalaans' watch. Not on mine.”

She believed him. Harres the knight whose honor dictated he protect the helpless against the bullies of the world.

Suddenly, she felt she'd suffocate if she didn't feel him against her.

She held out trembling arms. “So, do I get a welcome back to the land of the awake?”

His face clenched with what looked like pain. For a heart-bursting moment, she feared he'd been placating her about his wound. Then his eyes filled with such turmoil, she thought she'd imposed on him.

Just before mortification caused her arms to slump to her sides, he groaned and sank into them.

The enormity of the reprieve, after thinking she'd lost her chance of having him like that, of everything, had her hands quaking as they slid over the breadth of his back, the leashed power of his arms. Her fingers caressed his vitality, his reality, committed every detail of him to tactile memory, felt him being integrated into her perceptions and senses.

Then she reached his face and translated into awareness what she'd been looking at and not fully registering.

“You shaved.”

He smiled into her nuzzling, letting her singe her lips with the pleasure of coasting them over his perfect smoothness. “It was the first thing I did the moment a blade and disposable water were available.”

She rubbed her lips over the underside of his jaw. “You know…I've never seen you clean shaven. When I first saw your face in that bathroom, you were already sporting a mighty ten-o'clock shadow.”

He rubbed his chin over her cheek, giving her further demonstration of his silkiness. “So you approve?”

“I far, far more than approve.”

Her lips traveled up until they glided hesitantly over his, her tongue tentatively laving them in tiny licks, still disbelieving the reality of experiencing this, of their texture and taste.

A rumble poured into her mouth, lancing into her heart just as it spiked her arousal to pain with its unadulterated passion.

Then he broke away from her quaking arms.

She had no power to drag him back into them. And no right, if this wasn't where he wanted to be.

He sat up, severing their connection. Then he rose off the bed altogether.

He stood above her, his heavy-lidded eyes obscuring his expression for the first time since…ever.

Then he drew both hands through his hair and exhaled. “You might be awake, but you're not really all there yet. And you are—fragile, in every way.” His shoulders rose and fell on another exhalation. “So now we get you back to fighting form.”

Was that why he'd pulled back? He wanted her back to
full health, physically and mentally, before he'd consider changing their status quo?

It made sense. And made her even more grateful to him, if that was possible.

She was a cauldron of seething emotions and needs right now, had no control over any of them. And she needed to know if what she felt melting all resistance was the ordeal talking, the days of inseparable proximity and total dependence, or if the feelings originated from her.

Now that stress and danger were over, would the physical and emotional pull remain this overwhelming? Would he remain the same man who'd done everything to keep their spirits up? It had niggled that he might have exaggerated his attraction to her for many worthwhile ends. Survival, smoothing over a bumpy beginning. And maybe not so worth while ones. Gaining his objective—the secret to secure his family and their throne.

So many things hung like a sun-obliterating cloud over the whole situation. Todd's ordeal, the Aal Shalaans' role in it and their current danger, the info she'd stumbled on, Harres's duty as guardian of his family and people.

So he'd done the right thing by drawing away. She'd follow his lead, recover her health and clarity. Until she figured out what was real. Inside her, around her, about him, between them. Or until this mess, this assortment of
messes,
was sorted out.

If they possibly could be.

A
string of eruptions reverberated in Talia's bones.

She would have taken instinctive cover if Harres's arm hadn't been around her shoulder.

He gave her a reassuring squeeze, chuckled in her ear. “No, that's not a firing squad.”

Gulping down her heart, she let him resume leading her through the hurrying crowd, still not sure where their destination was, where the feast was being held. “A gun salute for the Guardian Prince of Zohayd, then?”

His grin widened. “That's just how they announce the beginning of their entertainment.”

“With an aerial blitz?”

He threw his magnificent head back and laughed before looking his pleasure and merriment down on her. “The extra zeal is in honor of your recovery and your gracing of their feast tonight.”

She raised him a wider grin, her heart zooming again
with elation, with anticipation. But mostly, with his nearness.

She'd been up and about for three days now, had recovered fully. But what relieved her was the condition of his wound. Her sutures had been very good. And had remained mostly intact, with only a few needing reapplication. The healing had been spectacular. She'd never known humans could heal that fast. She kept teasing that he must have mutants or local gods in his ancestry. Which wouldn't surprise her.

And during the idyll of recuperation and recreation, they'd remained in the cottage or its garden, with the oasis people coming periodically to check their needs and replenish their supplies. She hadn't wanted to go out, to see more.

She'd had Harres with her.

She now knew that the bonds of harmony and sufficiency they'd forged during their desert trek hadn't just been crisis induced. It hadn't been the isolation or the desperation. It all originated from their unpressured choices, their innate inclinations, their essential selves, and flowed between them in a closed circuit of synergy and affinity.

Being with him
was
enough. Felt like everything.

Tonight was the first night they would join the oasis people. She felt so grateful to them, so humbled by their hospitality. But earlier she'd felt embarrassed, too.

The oasis-elder's wife and daughters had come, bringing her an exceptionally intricate and stunningly vivacious outfit to wear to the feast. As Harres had stood beside her translating their felicity at her recovery and her thrill over their magnificent gift, the ladies had eaten him up with their eyes. She'd wanted to jump to their side and indulge in the pleasure of
oohing
and
aahing
over the wonders of him with those born equipped to appreciate them. Which was every female with a pulse.

But it had been when their eyes had turned to her with knowing tinged with envy that she'd realized. With her and Harres's living arrangement, they must think they were…intimate. And if she was truthful, and she was, they hadn't been only because of his consideration and restraint.

Not one to let misgivings go unvoiced, she'd asked. Was their situation compromising him, a prince in an ultra-conservative kingdom? Now that her staying with him was no longer necessary, couldn't she move elsewhere until his brothers came for them?

He'd said that the oasis people didn't follow any rules but their own. Being one with nature, living outside the reach of politics or material interests, they didn't police others' morality and conduct, lived and let live. But even if they hadn't, he cared nothing for what the world thought. He cared only about what she wanted. Did
she
want to move out?

Her heart thudded all over again at the memory. He'd been so intense, yet indulgent, not taking it for granted that she didn't want to. And she didn't. She couldn't even think how fast the day was approaching when she would move out of his orbit, return to a life that didn't have him in it.

She couldn't think, so she didn't. Plenty of time later to. Her lifetime's worth.

Now with her heart thudding, she investigated the external source of pounding.

In the dual illumination of a waxing moon and raging fires, she saw it was coming from the direction of the biggest construction she'd seen so far in the oasis.

Silvered by moonbeams and gilded by flickering flames, a one-story circular building rose among a huge clearing within the congregation of dwellings. It was made of the same materials but could accommodate probably a few thousand. It had more windows than walls, and flanking its
single door, older women in long-sleeved flowing dresses with tattoos covering their temples and chins were squatting on the ground, each with a large wooden urn held between bent legs, pounding it with a two-foot pestle.

He smiled into her eyes. “When it's not used as a percussion instrument, the
mihbaj
doubles as a seed grinder, mainly coffee, and…” A storm of new drumming drowned out his voice, coming from inside the building, making him put his lips to her ears. “The whole rhythm section has joined in. Let's go in.”

As they did, she felt as if she'd stepped centuries back into the ancient orient with its special brand of excesses.

The ambiance was overpowering in richness and depth and purity with an edge of mystic decadence to it. Heavy sweet-spicy
ood
incense blended with the distinctive smell of fruit-mixed tobacco that many smoked in their water-filled
sheeshas
. The fumes undulated like scented ghosts, twining through the warm, hypnotic light flickering from hundreds of polished, handcrafted copper lanterns.

The huge circle of the floor was covered in handwoven rugs, the whitewashed walls scattered in arabesque windows, most thrown open to let in the desert-night breeze and the rising moon rays.

All around, multitudes of exuberant cushions were laid on the floor and against the walls, with
tableyahs
—foot-high, unpolished wooden tables—set before them for the banquet.

On the unfurnished side, a three-foot-high platform hosted the dozens of drummers producing that blood-seething rhythm.

“The tambourine-like instrument is the
reg
. The
doff,
the large one with no jangles, acts as the bass drum.” She followed Harres's pointing finger, eagerly imbibing the info. “But it's the
darabukkah,
the inverted vaselike drums,
whose players keep up the hot rhythm. Usually they wow the crowd with some impossibly complex and long routines before the other instruments join in.”

They sure wowed
her
. She felt the rhythm boiling her blood, seeping into her nervous pathways, taking hold of her impulses.

She let Harres guide her to the seating arrangement. But with every step she swayed more to the rhythm, her every cell feeling like popcorn, ricocheting inside her with the need to expend the surplus energy gathering in them in unbridled motion.

Suddenly Harres took her hand and spooled her away then back into his arms, all while moving as one with the beat. “Dance,
ya nadda jannati
. Celebrate being alive and being in paradise.”

And being with you,
she wanted to shout.

She didn't, let her eyes shout it for her. Then she danced, as if she'd been released from shackles that had kept her immobile all her life, riding the compelling rhythm, moving with him to the primal beat, her heart keeping the same fiery tempo.

Somehow, they wound up in the middle of a dancing circle that he'd either led her to or had formed around them.

The young tribe members swirled around them in intricate routines, the males swooping like birds of prey, bounding and stomping in energetic courtship and persistent demand, the females twirling around like huge flowers, gesturing and tapping in practiced coquetry and eager acceptance.

Harres led her in emulating them, then in improvising their own dance of intimacy and delight in each other.

And for an indeterminate stretch, she felt she'd been transported to another realm where nothing existed but
him. She felt him, and only him, as his eyes and touch lured her, inflamed her, shared with her, joined with her, as he moved with her as if they were connected on all levels, as if the same impulses coursed in their nerves, the same drive powered their wills and limbs.

She surfaced from the magical realm to everyone singing. In moments she found herself repeating the distinctive, catchy melody and lyrics, without understanding a word.

Suddenly Harres pulled her to him, turning the energy of their dance into a slow burn of seduction, his lips at her ear shooting more bolts of stimulation through her. And that was before she heard what he whispered.

“Everything before you passed and went to waste.”

Her whole frame jerked with the shock, the emotions that surged too fast, too vast to comprehend, to contain.

He pressed her nearer, his voice deeper, darker, the only thing she heard anymore.
“Koll shai gablek addaw daa.”

That was what she was singing along.

Harres was just translating.

But no. He wasn't. He meant it. Even if the magic of those moments, of their situation and surroundings was amplifying his emotions…

The music came to an abrupt end. The silence that exploded in the next moment felt like a freezing splash, dousing her fire.

No. She wanted this time out of time to continue, to last.

But she knew it wouldn't. None of it would.

She could only cherish every second, waste none on despondency.

She looked up at Harres, found him looking back at her with eyes still storming with stimulation. She teetered from his intensity, from the drain of energy. He bent and lifted her into his arms.

People ran ahead, indicating the place of honor they should occupy. She tried to regain her footing, but he only tightened his hold on her. She struggled not to bury her face in his shoulder in embarrassment, to be carried like that, and after the whole tribe saw her dancing like a demon, too.

At their place, he set her on the cushions, sat down beside her and fetched her water and
maward
—rose essence. Then he began peeling ripened dates and feeding them to her.

She fought the urge to do something to be really embarrassed about. Grabbing his hand and suckling the sticky sweetness off his fingers. Then traveling downward…

Going lightheaded with the fantasies, with holding back, she mumbled around the last mouthful, “You do know I'm fully recharged and in no need of coddling, right?”

He shook his head. “You used up your battery with that marathon jig.”

She waved her hand. “I'm just saving up for the next one.”

He smiled down at her, poured her some mouthwatering cardamom coffee in a tiny, handblown, greenish glass and brought it to her lips. “A sip with each bite of dates is the recommended dose.”

She did as instructed, her eyes snapping wider at the incredible blend of aromas and flavors, of bitterness and sweetness, at the graininess of the dates dissolving in the rich heat and smoothness of the coffee.

She sighed, gulped the rest. Sinking deeper in contentment, she turned to adjust her cushions. He jumped to do it himself.

She leaned back on them, quirking her lips at him. “When will you believe you don't have to keep doing stuff for me, that I've never been in better shape? No emergency doctor could have done a better job on me.”

“I know, my invincible dew droplet, but would you be so cruel as to deprive me of the pleasure of pampering you?”

Now what could a woman say to
that?

Nothing but unintelligible sighs, evidently. That was all that issued from her as the oasis elder rose to deliver a word of welcome before waiters with huge trays holding dozens of plates streamed out to serve dinner.

More sighs accompanied the fantastic meal. The food at the oasis was the best she'd ever had. Tonight it rose to ambrosia level.

Harres fed her, cut the assortment of grilled meats, told her the names and recipes of the baked and grilled breads and the vegetable stews. He introduced her to date wine, which she proclaimed should replace nectar as the drink of the gods. But it was
logmet al gadee
that was truly out of this world. The golden spheres of fried dough, crunchy on the outside, soft on the inside and dipped in thick syrup were so good there should be—and probably there was—a penalty for it.

After dinner they danced again, then she shook hands with hundreds of people, thanked them all for the best night of her life. On their stroll back to the cottage, she decided something.

Everything in this place was pure magic.

But she knew that wasn't an accurate assessment. Had she been with anyone else, she wouldn't have enjoyed it a fraction as much. She'd been to idyllic places for vacations before, but had never enjoyed one after her parents died, had stopped trying to years ago….

“What are you thinking,
ya talyeti?
”

She shook off the surge of melancholy, smiled up at him. “This means my Talia, right?”

He nodded, sweeping a soothing hand over her hair, now
supple and sparkling from a miraculous blend of local oils. “Your Arabic is getting better every day.”

“I find it fascinating, so rich and expressive in ways so different from English. I'd love to learn more.”

“Then you shall.”

It was always like that. She wished for something, and he insisted she'd have it. She knew he
would
give her anything, if at all possible.

Feeling her skin getting tighter with emotion, she answered his previous question. “I was thinking of my parents.”

His eyes grew softer. “You told me they died. I didn't want to probe. Not a good idea bringing up death and that of loved ones in our situation back then.”

“But you want to know now.”

“Only if it doesn't pain you to talk about them.”

“No, no. I love to talk about them. I hate it that people avoid bringing them up, as if it will remind me of their loss. As if I need to be reminded. It's actually not mentioning them that makes me feel their absence even more acutely.”