She watched in a heavy state of relaxation, smiling at the beauty of his body as it was slowly revealed. The width of the shoulders and the strength of the muscles beneath. His waist was no tapered youth’s, but as strong and muscled as the rest of his body. It was a man’s body, with its scars, muscle and sinew. It was her man’s body.
He turned and looked down at her and his breath caught in his chest. She was so beautiful. He pushed the palms of his hands up her legs, her thighs, her sex, her stomach, her breasts before pushing his fingers into her hair and bringing her mouth to his in a kiss that was a promise of what was to come. Then he tasted her neck, her breasts, her shoulder—stopping every few seconds to watch her skin tense with goose-bumps—before moving on, burying his nose into her hair, breathing its fragrance in deep. It wasn’t the perfume, the shampoo, but her. She had a freshness of purity—of newly mown grass, of a day at the beach, of the desert after a shower. He had no need to know her more than this. This was her essence.
He drew back then and knelt before her, lifting her hips so he could slip into her. With her legs wound tight around him and himself buried deep within her, he felt the familiar sensation of intense excitement as well as intense relief. He felt as if he were home. She shivered over him and dropped her head back with an echo of the same bliss that filled him.
His body responded to the stimulation of his senses as it always did with her by pushing deep within her, wanting the most intense contact possible. She wriggled around him and against him, seeking yet more stimulation, and he marveled at the slightness of her under his hands. His fingers wrapped around her hips and bottom: so slight that he felt that he filled her completely.
He felt, again, the overwhelming need to care for her, to cherish her that he’d been fighting ever since he learnt that she could not be his. He’d fought it again when she’d come to Qawaran, believing that he felt nothing other than lust that had to be satisfied. But now he felt he could no longer fight it and, for the first time, allowed himself to be swamped by his need to hold and cherish.
His hands gathered her to him and, with each movement of her own against and with his thrusting, he realized that she was as much making love to him, as he was to her. And it felt right.
His lips sought hers and they kissed a kiss that was as different from their other kisses as light from dark. There was fire still, but also a desire that was not selfish, but giving and joyful. Connected, they fell onto their sides, moving against one another, not with abandon, but with sensuous care, as one.
Slowly, very slowly their lips parted and Anna fell back on the rug. There they stayed, their eyes focused as he continued to thrust and release, as rhythmic as the ebb and flow of the constant shift of sand forming and re-forming the sand hills that rolled like waves across desert. Only after she’d cried out did he allow his own control to slip and abandon himself to the bliss of overwhelming sensation.
They lay together watching darkness come in silence. Anna lay curled in his arms in a way that she’d never lain with him before. She knew something had changed for him and because of that, it had changed for her also. But she didn’t dare ask, question, or try to have him explain in case it killed something of the magic she felt. She knew it better if it wasn’t explained. Because what she knew was that they’d just made love for the first time. And things were never going to be the same again.
She wanted to hold and keep forever present the last twenty-four hours. They’d been the best in her life. She’d come to know Zahir and learn of his strengths and vulnerabilities. And it had been his vulnerabilities that had reached into her heart.
Her heart. She’d never imagined she would speak of her heart. She smiled, her lips shifting against his warm skin as they curved. Surely she hadn’t imagined their closeness? He was more than wanting to ride out his passion with her, he was kind and cherishing and considerate. No, it couldn’t be purely her imagination. Perhaps, just perhaps, she’d found a home with him.
CHAPTER NINE
Zahir lay awake for most of the night in a state of heightened awareness. He had heard the explosion of birds that inhabited his garden and the surrounding parks and squares and had watched the pale, milky dawn light of an overcast morning find its way through the tracery of branches outside the bedroom and into the large room, shifting shadows of light and dark on the white wall.
He’d been here hundreds of times, watching the same thing but had never felt like this.
Summer madness, he thought to himself, feeling the steady beat of Anna’s heart beneath his hand. Except that he knew it wouldn’t pass like the seasons. Autumn would come, leaves would drop, and he would still want Anna. Winter would wreak its devastations but his passion would remain intact. And then there would be spring again, bringing with it renewal and a strengthening of all that was good.