Fern was the luckiest person in the world to be able to experience this.
She told herself.
As she held her eyes closed against an inexplicable sting.
She had absolutely no reason to feel lonely in this wide bed. Miss Ivy would enjoy hearing about all of this when Fern had an online connection again.
Make some notes, she cajoled herself, but didn’t move. Instead she mentally wrote something entirely different, something that belonged in an erotic novel. It was a scene where Zafir came to her tent and touched a lot more than her cheek.
* * *
It was the worst night of her life. She tossed and turned, unable to shut off her mind from conjuring fantasies of making love with Zafir.
She didn’t even know how it was properly done! Obviously she knew the mechanics, but she’d been firmly sheltered from any sort of expressions of sexual passion. Her mother hadn’t allowed her to go to sexy movies or watch any of those daytime serials on television. The romance novels at the library had been read from an angle under the desk. Guilt always assailed her for enjoying those stories and more than one academic friend had shamed her for picking them up, but Fern couldn’t help wondering why was it so bad to like stories about love and happily-ever-after?
Because of the sex, her mother’s voice said in her head. Heaven help any woman who gave in to her hormones. That only brought heartache and disappointment.
Fern being the disappointment in question, she had long ago surmised.
Yet here she was, indulging her own hormones with imaginary banquets of kisses and caresses. It wasn’t the first time she’d lain in bed and imagined she wasn’t alone, but she’d never been quite so explicit with her fantasies or had a particular man in mind.
It had to stop.
Throwing off her light sheet, she quietly unzipped her tent and stepped into the cool of predawn. The camp was silent, the stillness only broken by the relentless pounding of her pulse.
Dressed in her knee-length cotton nightgown, she walked down to the beach and sighed as her feet found the damp sand at the water’s edge. The burning inside her began to ease. This was what she’d needed. A cold shower.
Was that why Zafir had come to the water yesterday?
No. No more daydreams that he fancied her. He’d only been washing off travel grime.
Still, she found herself tracking to the place where he’d stood in the water. It felt deliciously cool as it closed over her feet and climbed to the backs of her knees.
Drawn forward, she sucked in a breath as the pool deepened quickly, soaking through to weigh the fabric of her nightgown. Chilly water hit her loins, then her navel. She sucked in her stomach, got as far as her breasts and held her breath.
She dipped until the cold water closed over her and stayed under a moment, nose plugged, letting the chill seep to her bones. Then she titled back her head and rose, baptized into a creature of this foreign yet intoxicating world.
The thought made her smile naturally for the first time since arriving here. Oh, she felt a million times better!
Which was silly. One little plunge into a spring couldn’t wash away a lifetime of baggage and misgivings, but she wished it could be that easy. Her mother’s shaking finger always seemed to follow her, though, undermining her ability to enjoy the simplest sensual experience. She would no doubt criticize her for... Well, everything. Her mother wouldn’t approve of anything Fern had done since the service. Ever in her life, really.