Was this real, or was everything being amplified by the circumstances combined with a dose of blood loss, survival elation and gratitude?
But when he added in his mounting physical response and mental appreciation, he was back to square one.
This was as real as anything got. And from the way she kept stroking him with her eyes after she finished each step and with her hands after each cut as if to apologize for the necessity of hurting him to heal him, from the way her hands and lips trembled at his merest indication of discomfort, he knew.
It was just as real for her.
It didn't matter who they were, or how and when they'd met. What they'd done since, the seeming lifetime of life-changing events and feelings they'd experienced together, meant they could leap over most stages of development and acknowledgment of attraction.
She finished the procedure and he sat up, helped her wrap his torso in bandages. As she began to draw back, he couldn't bear it. His right hand wove into her hair, kept her close, brought her closer. And she lurched away.
He stilled, his heart jolting with the same force.
After a long moment, he removed his hand, whispered, "Are you afraid of me?"
"No." Relief deflated him at her vehement denial. Then she grinned sheepishly at him, boosting her beauty to dizzying heights. "Which might be the stupidest thing I've ever thought or felt, considering I'm in the middle of nowhere with a hulk of a man in a hostile land where I know no one. But there you go. I'm not afraid of you. Not for a second. I'm … the very opposite."
Warmth flooded him at her admission. He'd been right. She felt the same way.
Another unknown urge took him over, the desire to tease her, even as he wanted to devour her. "Now that's a little white lie. You were so afraid of me for at least a few seconds that you almost gave me a permanent disability."
"That was before I saw your face, heard your voice. Before that, you were this … huge chunk of night that had come to claim me."
"You were right about the coming to claim you part." He reached out to her again, slid a hand around her waist, drew her to him. "So are you going to tell me where you learned to perform field surgery like that?"
"In medical school, where else?"
"You mean you are a doctor?"
"Last I heard that's what came off said school's production line."
"So everything I thought you were was false, from your gender to your profession. Is there no end to your surprises?"
A grin trembled on her dimpled but now colorless lips. "Now why would there be?"
The urge to capture her lips, nibble color and warmth back into them surged inside him, almost brimmed over into action.
"No reason at all, ya shafeyati."
"What does this mean?"
"My healer."
"So how do you say 'my rescuer' in Arabic?"
"Monqethi."
She repeated the word after him, that voice that even when she'd tried to deepen and roughen it had coursed through him like an intravenous aphrodisiac now becoming a vocal caress that soothed his insides, infused his every cell.
Then she heightened her exquisite torture. "And 'my hero'?"
His vocal cords locked against the tide of temptation. He whispered, "Buttuli," listened to her hypnotic melody begin to repeat it, before his control snapped.
He swooped down and took the rest of her tremulous homage inside him, along with that breath that had been tormenting him with its arousing fragrance. She gave him more, in one gasp after another, opened for him.
He wanted to drown in her, drown her in him, give her a glimpse of the need and ferocity she ignited in him. His lips claimed hers as if he'd brand her, his tongue thrusting deep, breaching her, draining her of moans and sweetness. She took it all, seeming unable to meet his passion yet overwhelming him with her surrender.
"Talia … nadda jannati … my heaven's dew … "
"Not fair," she moaned into his lips. "I don't know your name … let alone what it means."
He drew in her plump lower lip, suckled it until she cried out and took his tongue deeper.
"Harres … Harres Aal Shalaan." He started to translate, had said only "Guardian-" when she gasped then pushed him away.
He stared down at her, all his being rioting, needing her back against him, her lips crushed beneath his, her heat enveloping his suddenly chilled body.
She gaped up at him.
Then she finally rasped, "You're an Aal Shalaan?"
Harres nodded, already acutely sorry that he'd told her.
Now it would end, the spontaneity of the attraction that had exploded to life between them. Now that he'd told her who he was, nothing could ever be the same. There hadn't been a woman of the thousands he'd met in his life, the hundreds who'd pursued him, no matter how attracted to him they were, who'd seen him as anything but an amalgam of status, power and money. He was never just a man to them. He'd cease to be just a man to her now.
He exhaled, his gaze leaving her kiss-swollen lips in regret as he waited for artificiality to settle into her guileless eyes, for calculation to take hold of her open-book reactions. He'd often chafed at the trappings of his status and position and wealth. He now positively cursed them.
Then she again did the last thing he could have expected.
Her gaping became a glare of such revulsion and hostility, he might as well have turned into a slimy creature before her eyes.
Then she spat, "You're one of that pack of highborn, lowlife criminals?"
Three
Harres stared at this woman who'd just called him and his family a pack of criminals. And he did the only thing he could.
He threw his head back and belted out a guffaw.
Now that the local anesthetic was wearing off, his wound protested the uninhibited movement, stabbed him with a burning lance of pain. It wasn't any hotter than the glare of abhorrence Talia still scorched him with. Seemed his mirth only poured fuel on her sudden antipathy.
But he couldn't help it. There was no way he could control his relief, his thrill, that instead of fawning over him, she looked ready to sock him again.
Then she did. On his good arm, hard enough to sober him a bit, save him from tearing loose her meticulous suturing efforts with laughter.
"Don't you laugh at me, you aggravating jackass!"
As if in response to her anger, the wind exploded with sudden fury around the helicopter, rocking the wreckage.
She didn't seem to notice as she braced herself, her incandescent eyes riddling him with azure-hot holes.
And he just loved it.
He raised a placating hand, tried to pretend a measure of sobriety. It was far harder than anything he'd done tonight. Right along with not reaching out and dragging her back against him. The woman sabotaged his propriety sense and either caressed, aroused or tickled all others.
"I wouldn't dare. And then, this is delight, not ridicule." His left hand rubbed the sting of her blow, as if to trap the feel of her flesh against his, even in anger. His lips were still burning with the memory of capturing hers, his tongue from tangling with hers, tasting her intoxication and swallowing her whimpers of pleasure. All of him still tingled from having her, ton of clothes and all, pressed against him. He wanted to get this confrontation out of the way so he could have her there again. "And it's your doing again, you and your endless surprises."
She balled her fists, her bee-stung lips pressing into an ominous line. "How about I give those a fitting end? By fracturing your nose."
Her aggression made the pleasure bubbling inside him spill again into a chuckle as he gave his aching jaw a reminiscent rub. "To go with my jaw?" He turned his face, presented her with a three-quarters view of said nose. "Or do you think it could do with a new one?" He shook his head at her chagrined hiss. "Whoa, that alone could have done the job. It's a good thing I didn't tell you my name when you had your scalpels deep in my flesh."
Her eyes became slits of enraged challenge. "But now I know it, and I'll have those scalpels there again while debriding the wound before closing it. Over many stages. Or it will fester. And don't tell me you can take care of it yourself, 'cause we both know you can't. Most of the wound track is where you can't reach it. And next time, maybe my nerve block won't be as … effective."
He gasped in mock shock. "You not only flaunt your power over me, you'd abuse that power, disregard your oath to do no harm? You would torment me while I'm under your scalpel? You'd gloat at my helplessness and need, and take pleasure in my pain?" He let excitement at her implied threat spread his lips. "I can't wait."