by Lara Temple
‘I didn’t mean Janet and Poppy. When was the last time you saw your mother or sisters?’
He swirled his brandy and a trickle skimmed over the rim on to his finger. He switched hands and licked off the liquid and Sam caught herself leaning forward. Then his words snapped her back to reality.
‘Four years ago.’
‘Four?’
‘You sound shocked. I left England not long after Jacob died. Or rather after Rafe removed me to Cumbria.’
‘You make it sound like you were a piece of furniture.’
‘Close enough. I don’t even remember being removed.’
Sam let that sink in, her heart aching, and grateful he was telling her this. There was nothing in his voice, neither heat nor coolness. He might just as well have been telling her about geological formations, but she knew there was a whole kingdom under that bland layer.
‘I’m so glad he was there when you needed him.’
He smiled at the floor, shifting his shoulders. He’d taken off his coat and cravat and she could see his muscles move under the linen, the taut tendons of his throat, the warm colour of his skin. He smelled of the forest, not the desert—deep and cool and inviting.
‘Yes, I dare say. Poor Rafe. Playing nursemaid was new to him.’
‘Where did he take you?’
‘He has a house up in the hills above Grasmere. It is tiny and in the middle of absolutely nowhere, but he goes there when he needs to...when he needs to be alone. We stayed there for several months and then sailed to Jamaica.’
‘I see why he is so important to you. I will do everything I can to help.’
‘Yes, I know. That is what worries me.’ He finally looked at her, his grey-green eyes warm with laughter. She knew he was doing his best to put her at ease and it worked. She poked her elbow in his ribs.
‘Most amusing. I can be useful at times, but I shall try not to interfere unless you ask me. So while you are canvassing the lawyers I shall work on my drawings. Chase was right—it was important to return to Egypt and see everything afresh. Now I only hope Mr Bunny writes more books so I can use my new inspiration.’
‘Mr what?’
‘Mr Bunny. That is what I call the author of the Desert Boy books.’
‘But why Mr Bunny of all things?’ He sounded so disgusted she laughed.
‘Bunny as in hare, or a hare’s tail. Every time I try to imagine what he looks like the image slips away like the hare in our garden used to disappear into its warren when I tried to catch it.’
‘I’m surprised you didn’t stake a tent beside the hole and wait for it to reappear.’
‘I did linger until I saw the one I’d been chasing pop out of another hole on the other side of the lawn. You think me stubborn, but I am too impatient to waste time on lost causes.’
‘Are you? And I would say you are more tenacious than stubborn. You don’t stick to your guns unless it involves what you consider a higher principle.’
‘My God, Edge. Was that a compliment?’
The dips at the corners of his mouth deepened.
‘It was close. Would you care for a compliment? You have the most beautiful eyes I’ve ever seen. They are never the same colour each time I look at them.’
‘Oh.’ Sam swallowed.
He touched the crest of her cheek. His mouth was still faintly smiling, but his eyes were darker, storm clouds streaked with jade.
‘You’re blushing. You’re usually only that colour when you’re furious at me. Surely you’ve received more fulsome compliments?’
‘I...yes.’
‘Do you always blush like that?’
She shook her head. She felt as though she was being backed off a cliff by a stalking wolf. It is only Edge, stop acting like a green girl who’s never seen a man before in her life. Not that Edge was any man. He was by far the most attractive man she’d ever known, even more so now than when he’d been younger.
And she was married to him.
‘Am I making you uncomfortable?’ It was the hesitant note that reached her.
‘Not uncomfortable uncomfortable. I’m merely not accustomed to you...you always treated me like a grubby, aggravating girl.’
‘Not so much recently.’ The fugitive smile was gone and her heat escalated, like the desert approaching midday. He hesitated and added, ‘And not the last time I saw you eight years ago either.’
‘No...but that was my fault. You were kinder than I deserved.’
‘Kind. I don’t remember being or feeling kind.’
‘No. You were angry with me and you had every right to be.’
His hands fisted and his mouth closed tight. She wished she’d kept her own mouth shut. She hadn’t wanted to chase away his smile and the ever-so-faint hint of flirtatiousness.
A coil of hair fell over her ear and she tucked it back, his gaze following her motion.
‘How do those pins manage to hold up all that hair?’ His fingers touched her hair briefly and she tried to smile.
‘Badly. And sometimes painfully. I prefer it dressed simply, but Janet insisted this occasion deserved rather more pomp.’ She touched the arrangement, but he moved her hand away.
‘Let me.’
Edge proceeded with meticulous care, as if there was a written treatise on how to undress hair in the least painful but most unsettling manner. Weight by weight her hair slid down, settling on her shoulders and then rushing down her back.
‘You smell like spring. Beautiful...’ He breathed in the word, his fingers fanning through her hair and letting it fall over her shoulder. The scent of the bath oils with which she’d washed away the desert joined the jasmine, the brandy and the deeper, darker scent of Edge that was as foreign and familiar as the desert. They were all mixing together, stirred by his hands as they moved gently in her hair.
‘It doesn’t have to be tonight, Sam, but soon I will see all this glory spread on my pillow. On me.’
The words, half-absent, undid her. It had to be tonight, or the tension would likely send her into a nervous decline. She sank her hands into his shirt.
‘Not soon. Now, Edge.’
* * *
He’d taken his time undressing her hair, but her dress was off before she even realised. It slithered to the ground and the flower-scented air snaked up her stockinged legs and under her thin chemise. Then his fingers brushed lightly over her shoulders, curling over the straps of her chemise and sending spears of lightning that made her breasts ache. She wanted to lean into him and disappear into his warmth. But she also wanted to tear away his hands and run.
This wouldn’t stop with Edge’s bone-melting, world-shifting kisses. She knew where this was heading—into that bed, into that...
She couldn’t...
She’d hated it with Ricki. Perhaps not at first, she’d been too anxious for everything to work that she’d ignored the discomfort. But soon she’d come to hate it—the heavy, thumping, pushing and prodding and Ricki’s wine-scented breath and his tongue making her gag... What if Ricki was right? That despite the fire that rampaged through her at Edge’s touch there was something utterly wrong with her? That this, too, would end with her lying resentful and tense under Edge as she had under Ricki felt obscene, like defiling a temple. Edge did not deserve that from her.
‘I’m awful at this. Awful.’
His hands stilled. She closed her eyes. Hard.
‘Awful,’ she repeated for good measure and wished the world would suddenly and unequivocally end.
His hands moved lower, closing very gently on her arms, but she didn’t open her eyes.
‘Sam... I don’t understand.’
‘I don’t wish to speak of it. I can’t. I’m so sorry, Edge. Perhaps if we go back there now and tell them this was a mistake you could yet demand an annulment. I never should have done this to you. Yo
u deserve better and I’m the most horrid person in the world to have foisted myself on you...’
She continued talking as he led her into the bedroom, but at the sight of that monstrous bed she took two steps backwards.
‘Don’t worry, Sam, we aren’t going to do anything, I promise. Only lie down and rest.’
He brought her to the bed, peeled back the cover and then pressed her down very gently, moving her to one side so he could move her hair out from under her, like a child.
‘There. Now close your eyes.’
‘I can’t possibly sleep.’
‘I know. But close your eyes for a moment.’
She stiffened as he lay down behind her, but he merely placed a hand gently on her arm, his fingers resting in the crook of her elbow, and she felt her heartbeat against them, as fast and sharp as rockfall.
‘Do you remember the time we were invited to the marriage celebration of Khalidi’s younger daughter in Qetara? What was her name?’
She wished he hadn’t brought up memories of that year. That had been the week before the fateful day she’d fallen off the statue and realised she’d cared far too much for Edge. Why on earth must he bring that up now?
‘Her name was Suleima. That was the first time I tasted raki. It was horrid.’
His laugh was low and warm against her nape and she shivered a little.
‘Yes. But it did wonders for your dancing skills. I remember we were searching for you to return home and I found you in the garden, dancing with Fatima and Suleima.’
‘They couldn’t be where the men were and we wanted to dance so we came to the garden where we could hear the music better. I remember you were shocked.’
‘I...yes, I dare say I was. I had a very set view of the world then. When we arrived at Khalidi’s you were dressed as properly as any young English girl, but the girl dancing barefoot in the garden with her hair down her back...’ His fingers smoothed out a length of her hair.
‘You called me a noisome child.’
‘I shouldn’t have called you that. I was shocked. Not by you, Sam. A little exasperated we had to go searching again, yes, but not shocked. It was hardly the first time you’d behaved true to Sam form. What...upset me was that I wanted to sink my hands into your hair and feel it run through them. That was not the reaction I expected from myself so I became angry at you.’
‘Again.’
‘Again. You were right about me. I tried to force the world into a certain mould. It felt safer that way. You didn’t fit that mould and at that moment neither did my...reactions. I had very little patience for human fallibility.’
‘That’s not true. You were endlessly patient with people even if you hated being so. Just not with your own fallibility, perhaps.’
‘And you are being far too forgiving. You must have wished me at the devil at least once a day when I was at Bab el-Nur.’
‘At least. Almost as often as you wished me there.’
‘Definitely more than once a day.’ He laughed as he leaned over to blow out the lamp, the only light now a faint glow from outside, like a distant torch.
Edge’s hand was brushing softly over the curve of her shoulder and she no longer had to force her eyes shut. It felt good, like the warm desert wind or the music weaving through the wooden shutters. She hummed the memory of that music, deep and haunting.
‘Yes, that was it...as if the night sky was singing,’ he murmured and eased her over on her stomach, his hand stroking gently down her back. ‘Don’t stop.’
It felt so good, just the sweep of his hand, like waves flowing and receding. She wanted to feel it directly on her skin. She wanted to feel his warmth closer to her. She wanted...
He took his hand away and she squirmed.
‘Don’t stop.’
‘I’m not. It will be more comfortable like this.’ He raised her and with complete casualness he slipped off her chemise and lay her down again, pulling the cotton sheet over them. She should have felt embarrassed or scared, but the fear didn’t come. She was even a little disappointed when he didn’t pull her to him, but only stretched beside her and continued stroking her back in long, languid motions.
He was right. It was so much better like this, though ‘comfortable’ was not the right word. It was soothing, blissful, warm and warming. She’d never thought of her back as anything more than...her back. Now, like an ignored feline suddenly getting all the stroking attention after years of living in the wild, she was luxuriating under his hands, arcing and stretching and seeking more. And all the other parts of her were becoming envious.
She turned to try to capture the trail of his sweeping fingers, her behind tingling each time his hand swept within reach and then away. Her shoulders curved, her arm rising in hope his fingers would slide under and over towards where her breasts felt suddenly full, the spears of lightning no longer painful but urgent. She was a constellation of new stars revolving around a growing sun of heat and darkness at her core—a new centre of tension, very different from what held her back, but just as frightening. It was a pulsing beating of drums, just like the music still humming through her.
‘Are you sleepy?’ His lips feathered over her shoulder-blade and a flame licked up the right half of her body.
Sleepy? Sleepy?
‘No. Don’t stop.’
‘I won’t.’ His hand was freer now, not stopping at the limits of her back, venturing to slide into the dip of her waist, over her hip, just brushing the line between her and the bed and sending darts of heat and need along her abdomen. It was utterly foreign and yet utterly right.
Then it retreating to the slopes of her back again before venturing lower again, curving over her backside and stopping. His hand was large and warm and she felt it shake a little and could feel his breathing, too, had changed. He wasn’t as calm as he wished her to believe and she smiled against her pillow. She no longer wanted him calm. She shifted, arching her backside a little into his palm, and heard him breath in and out. Then his hand continued.
It was a sweet, building agony and she didn’t want it to end. She was lit up inside and out, soothed and excited and desperate to move and wanting to stay just as she was, revered like this for ever and ever. She wasn’t humming any longer, or she was, but a different hum—a mixture of murmurs and moans that she didn’t try to stem because she felt their impact on him. His breathing was deeper, audible, his hand losing its finesse, tightening on her hip. His leg came to be pressed against hers as well, as exciting as the pressure of his hands. Then he buried his face against her nape and took a deep breath before moving away completely.
‘Goodnight, Sam.’ His voice was raw and her eyes flew open.
‘Goodnight?’
‘That’s the limit of my self-control. I think we should stop now and... Sam...’ her name sank into a groan as she turned over, her leg sliding against his ‘...there is no need to rush...’
‘Hush...’ She kissed his throat, from the silk beneath his ear to the roughness of stubble along his jaw. He tasted so good, so very good. And his mouth... Her body was still humming, hungry for the contact he’d withdrawn. She moved closer, sighing against his lips as her breasts pressed against his arm and chest.
‘It’s like lying on sun-warmed granite...’ Without thinking she rubbed herself against him a little, luxuriating in the slide of skin on skin. She’d never realised how good that could feel—their bodies sparking against each other like living flints. A sharper, hotter spark drew her even closer, her leg rising over his.
‘That doesn’t sound very comfortable.’ His voice was choked and she felt his erection pulse against her thigh and she gave it a testing brush with her leg and was rewarded by another groan, his arms coming around her, his hand closing on her behind as he raised her more fully on top of him.
‘It isn’t comfortable, it is... I don’t want to sleep. I want every
thing, Edge.’
The next moment she was under him, being kissed into oblivion, his hands doing to her front what they’d wreaked on her back, trailing destruction and moving lower.
She’d watched his hands countless times when he worked alongside Poppy and Huxley at the tomb, or later in the room at Bab el-Nur where they recorded their findings. But she’d never realised quite how magical they were, that sure, gentle touch was so much part of his nature. On her skin it felt as though he was discovering her, too, unearthing her from a wasteland, every brush of his skin on hers, ever kiss and taste unveiling a hidden essence that marked who and what she really was. She felt like she was discovering her body with him.
But even as her body came into focus, alive and vivid, her mind was fading. He spoke to her, soft endearments and encouragements as she whimpered or as her own hands clasped around him as if he was holding her above an abyss and any moment now he would let go and she would either fall away into bliss or oblivion.
Though she’d stopped thinking, reality snapped back when his fingers brushed over the hair at the apex of her thighs and skimmed over the sensitive skin of her womanhood. The starburst of sensations only shocked her further, her legs clamping shut.
‘What are you doing?’ she hissed and he raised his head. His cheekbones were marked with colour, his lids heavy. He looked half-lost to passion and that only made her blood heat further, but not enough to chase away her fear.
‘Sam...’ He appeared at a loss for a moment, then he pressed his lips to the corner of her mouth. ‘If you aren’t ready, there is no hurry.’
Ready. She knew what ready meant. All this heaven was merely prelude to the fumbling, the pushing, and the shoving. At least that meant it would soon be over. She wished he could have just...kept doing whatever he had done before this part had to happen. She sighed.
‘I am ready.’
He raised himself a little further, ran his tongue over his lower lip and her gaze fixed on that surface. She wanted to taste it...
‘I am not planning to do anything else this evening but pleasure you. And if you prefer to rest now, I understand. This is hardly a...conventional situation. I don’t wish to hurry you.’
