Lucy and the Sheikh(36)

He turned away, unable to watch her any longer. He took a long drink of hot tea and wished he’d brought something stronger, something that would have numbed the unwelcome feelings that had surfaced from nowhere and refused to leave. She got to him. She uncovered the hurt of his youth—when his father had shown him how little he believed in him—that he could have sworn he’d forgotten.

He looked across to his men who were grouped around a second fire, alternately singing and drinking. He envied them their apparent simplicity. Then he tilted his head slowly until only the stars were visible between the leaves of the ragged palm fronds. He recited the names of the different star groups out of habit. He’d used to ride out into the desert to escape his father, then stay out all night to make his father worry. He hadn’t though. His father hadn’t bothered to try to find him. It had been his staff who had gone looking for him. His father hadn’t cared.

“What are you looking at?” Lucy’s voice was soft on the quiet night air.

“The stars.” He didn’t look at her but heard her move around the fire toward him.

“You’re a romantic at heart.”

“You don’t know me,” he snapped back, the deep-seated bitterness lashing out in an attack he immediately regretted. Then he turned to her and his heart stopped. Her hair tumbled around her shoulders and her eyes were huge in the flickering light of the fire. She looked so vulnerable it made his unromantic heart ache.

“No, I don’t. It was just an observation.” She pushed her hands through her already untidy hair. “Look, I’m tired, I don’t want to argue. I’m going to bed.”

He reached out and grabbed her hand and was shocked by the way she jumped. “Wait, I’m sorry. For all of this, I’m sorry.”

“It’s not your fault Maia disappeared into the desert with a stranger.”

“No, but it’s my fault I was angry with you for your lack of trust in me.”

She shook her head incredulously. “But I did trust you; I trusted the man on the beach, that first night; I trusted Razeen.”

“What do you mean?”

“I could have turned tail, swam back to the boat. After all I was alone, wearing only a bikini, with a strange man. But… I trusted you. Instinctively I trusted you.” She shifted her gaze to the fire whose flames danced in the darkness. “And I was right. You were, you are, wonderful: so caring, so respectful.”

He drew in a ragged breath that contained the subtle scent of her skin and stood up, unable to stop himself. He pushed his fingers through her unruly hair so he could see her face and brought his lips to hers, needing to connect with her, needing to give back to her, what she’d just given him. She melted in his arms. And the feeling of her body so soft and warm, folding against his hard body, ignited a fire deep within him. He deepened the kiss, needing to feel her tongue against his own, her breath mingling with his. He groaned as she slid her hands around his waist and pressed her hips against his. He pulled away sharply, still holding her face in his hands.

“Are you sure you want this? Tell me now if you don’t.”

She covered his hand with her own. “Razeen, come to me?” Her voice sounded small and tentative, lost in the empty hollowness of the vast desert. Even the singing was silent now. He took her hand and they walked swiftly through the warm sand of the oasis to his tent.

Once inside, darkness enveloped them and there was nothing but the delicate scent of Lucy’s skin, the feel of her curves under his hands, and the taste of her lips. He lay her gently onto the bed and slowly unbuttoned her top. She gasped as his fingers brushed against her sensitive skin and she arched back when he pushed her bra aside and claimed her breast with his mouth. He’d made love so many times in his life and yet it had never felt like this.

The silence and darkness of the desert, that weighed heavily all around them, combined with the emotional turmoil of the past twelve hours to create an intensity of experience that heightened every sense. Everything appeared so simple now, in this timeless place where only he and Lucy existed.

Within seconds they’d both shed their clothes and he swept his hands up her naked body as she angled herself for him. He knelt back and watched her as he rolled on the condom. Then, gently he slid inside her, dipped down to her lips and kissed her. Their mouths didn’t leave one another’s as he moved, slowly at first, inside her. He took his lead from her: the movement of her hands over his body, the breath that quickened in his mouth, and the heat of her skin against his. Never had he felt so in tune with another person.