Her skin was dusky, nipples dark rose-brown, pointing straight out from the coldness of the water.
She turned, and Brandt caught sight of the dark delta of hair between her thighs, the glint of a green jewel in her belly button. She was exotic even unclothed—the princess of an oil-rich Saharan kingdom, as far removed from his lifestyle as a woman could get. And she was set to marry an Arabian prince who might well be one of the wealthiest men in the world when he became king.
Unattainable. Wrong side of the tracks.
Brandt told himself to look away, but he couldn’t. He was utterly mesmerized—she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen out in this dry, scrubby, hard country. Like a bird of paradise that didn’t belong. That he couldn’t have.
Yet...somehow, naked, stripped, out of her element, she did fit, at least for this moment standing under that water. Just him and her, the water, rocks, sky, bushveldt stretching out for miles below—it seemed the most natural and beautiful thing on this earth. And in this moment, Brandt wanted to possess her with every molecule in his body, with a deep, raw hunger that went beyond the physical. It was a longing, a craving that made him feel suddenly lonely in his life. And he realized Dalilah was awakening in him powerful things he’d long buried.
A desperation swelled fierce and hot in his chest, and almost involuntarily, Brandt slowly put the camera to his eye, adjusted the lens, focusing on how the sleek curves of her body echoed the smooth contours in the red rock. He clicked almost before he registered the action, capturing wet hair slicked over her shoulders, the aristocratic slant of her nose. The pleasure in her features as she closed her eyes.
On one level he knew he was stealing these images, that he shouldn’t be doing this. But Brandt also knew Dalilah’s presence in his life was rare and fleeting, that he could never have her in the way he suddenly wanted her, and he was desperate to hold on to a part of her, a memory he could return to once she was gone from his life. A touchstone.
Photography had saved Brandt before. Capturing images of things that moved him deeply in war zones had become an outlet for his conscience. Returning to those images taken over the years had kept him grounded, reminded him why he’d made the choices he had. Photography had become, in part, the reason he could no longer fight, or kill.
Right now, though, he wanted to capture this moment in its purity and beauty—to remember this bittersweet, poignant, painful sensation Dalilah was reawakening in him—for reasons he couldn’t begin to articulate to himself yet.
He zoomed in closer, focusing on the winking of the emerald jewel at her navel, the hollow at her throat, the valley between her rounded breasts as he clicked.
She flicked her wet hair back suddenly and droplets of water sparkled in a graceful arc like diamonds in the sunlight—natural jewels, flickering to life one second, then falling and melting into the pool the next. Yet he’d caught them. That was rarity, pure wealth. Not an ostentatious Argyle pink stone bought by dirty oil money.
Brandt lowered the camera, blood racing.
Dalilah reached for her bra and G-string on the rocks, and began washing her underwear in the pool using the shampoo, affording him a vision of her rounded buttocks.
Heat sliced through his brain, blinding him a moment, throbbing low in his belly. She came to the edge of the pool and bent over, breasts swinging forward as she laid out her clean underwear on the hot rock, steam rising instantly. Through the valley of her breasts, a gap of sunlight was visible between her thighs to the apex where her hair was wet and dark. Something dark and carnal overtook his thoughts and his mouth turned dry. He raised the camera again, but this time he couldn’t click the shutter. As desperate as he was to feed the hunger within him, to make love to her with his lens, something had shifted, and it suddenly felt wrong. His breathing grew lighter, faster, tension, conflict whipping through him.
She reached for the sarong, started wrapping it around her torso.
Brandt leaned back, barely able to breathe, heart thudding in his chest, his groin hot, hard, his brain thick as molasses. He willed himself to calm, willed the desire pulsing between his thighs to abate.
But she edged around the outcropping of rock, wrapped in the sarong, damp spots on her breasts, and his pulse spiked back into overdrive. Brandt quickly scrubbed his hands over his face, avoiding meeting her eyes. “Done?”
“Just waiting for my things to dry so I can change.” She hesitated. “You okay?
No.
“Yeah,” he said, voice clipped. He stood, his erection making him feel like that frustrated bull elephant—this was insane, the level of lust coursing like molten lead through his system. This woman was like a drug he’d tasted and couldn’t get enough of, messing with his body and mind.