Defiant in the Desert(25)

                ‘I can’t,’ she whispered. ‘Because I...’ She nearly said I love you, but just in time she bit back the words. ‘Because I’ve wanted this for so long. We both want it. You know that. Please, Suleiman. Make love to me.’

                He tilted up her chin and gazed down at her. ‘Oh, Sara,’ he said, saying her name like an unwilling surrender.

                He entered her slowly. So slowly that she thought she would die with the pleasure. She cried out as he made that first thrust—a cry which was disbelieving and exultant.

                Suleiman was inside her.

                Suleiman was filling her.

                Suleiman was...

                He groaned as he found his rhythm, moving deeper with each stroke. And Sara suddenly felt as if she had been born for this moment. She wrapped her legs around his back as he splayed his hands over her bare buttocks to drive even deeper. Her breath was coming in shuddered little gasps as he moved inside her. She’d had sex before, but never like this. Never like this. It was like everyone said it should be. It was...

                And then she stopped thinking. Stopped everything except listening to the demands of her body and letting the pleasure pile on, layer by sensual layer.

                She felt it build—desperately sweet, yet tantalisingly elusive. She felt the warmth flood through her as Suleiman’s movements became more urgent and she was so locked into his passionate kiss that the first spasms of her orgasm took her almost by surprise. Like a feather which had been lifted by a storm and then tossed around by it, she just went with the flow. She cried out his name as his own body suddenly tensed, and he shuddered violently as he came.

                But it was over all too quickly. Abruptly, he pulled out of her—so that all she was aware of was a warmth spurting over her belly. He had withdrawn from her! It took a couple of disconcerting moments before she felt together enough to open her eyes and to look at him and when she did she felt almost embarrassed. As if the sudden ending had wiped out the magic of what had gone before.

                ‘Why...why did you do that?’

                His voice was flat. ‘I realised that in our haste to consummate our lust, we hadn’t even discussed contraception.’

                Sara did her best not to flinch, but it seemed a particularly emotionless thing to say in view of what had just happened. Consummate their lust? Was that it? ‘I suppose we didn’t.’

                ‘Are you on the pill?’

                She shook her head. ‘No.’

                ‘So we add a baby into the equation and make the situation a million times worse than it already is,’ he said bitterly. ‘Is that what you wanted?’

                She flushed, knowing he was right—and wasn’t it the most appalling thing that she found herself wishing that he had made her pregnant? How weird was it that some primitive part of her was wishing that Suleiman had planted his seed inside her belly. So that now there would be a baby growing beneath her heart. His baby. ‘No, of course it wasn’t what I wanted.’ She met his eyes. ‘Why are you being like this?’

                ‘Like what?’

                ‘So...cold.’

                ‘Why do you think? Because I’ve just betrayed the man who saved my life. Because I’ve behaved like the worst kind of friend.’ His gaze swept over her and somehow she knew what he was going to say, almost before the words had left his lips. ‘And you weren’t even a virgin.’

                It was the ‘even’ which made it worse. As if she’d been nothing but a poor consolation prize. ‘Were you expecting me to be?’

                ‘Yes,’ he bit out. ‘Of course I was!’

                ‘I’m twenty-three years old, Suleiman. I’ve been living an independent life in London. What did you expect?’

                ‘But you were brought up as a desert princess! To respect your body and cherish your maidenhood. To save your purity for your bridegroom. Your royal bridegroom.’ He shook his head. ‘Oh, I know you spoke freely of sex and that beneath your clothes you were wearing the kind of lingerie which only a truly liberated woman would wear. But even though I had my suspicions, deep down I thought you remained untouched!’

                ‘Even though you had your suspicions?’ she repeated, in disbelief. ‘What are you now—some sort of detective?’

                ‘You are destined to be a royal bride,’ he flared back. ‘And your virginity was an essential part of that agreement. Or at least, that’s what I thought.’

                ‘No, Suleiman, that’s where you’re wrong.’ Sitting up, she angrily brushed a heavy spill of hair away from her flushed face. ‘You don’t think—you just react. You don’t see me as an individual with my own unique history. You didn’t stop to think that I might have desires and needs of my own, just as you do—and presumably just as Murat does. You simply see me as a stereotype. You see what I am supposed to be and what I am supposed to stand for. The virgin princess who has been bought for the Sultan. Only I am not that person and I will never be!’

                ‘And didn’t it occur to you to have made some attempt to communicate your thoughts with the Sultan, before he was forced to take matters into his own hand?’ Suleiman demanded. ‘Didn’t it occur to you that running away just wasn’t the answer? But you’ve spent your whole life running away, haven’t you, Sara?’

                ‘And you’ve spent your whole life denying your feelings!’

                ‘I have never denied that!’ he flared back. ‘It’s a pity that more people don’t stop neurotically asking themselves whether or not they are “happy”—and just get out there and do something instead!’