by Lia Lee
In that moment, she came the closest she ever had to speaking with him. That kindness made her hopeful that he could be just as kind to his brother, that there might be some hope for Peter after all. Then she remembered that the man who slept behind her wasn’t the one who was going to be denying Peter’s fate. It was the one who had stared at her in the airport, his face twisted with shock and loathing as he realized what she had done.
If she wanted her brother safe, this was what she had to remember.
***
The next day dawned bright and clear. When she looked out over the oasis, Irene could see a breathtaking crystalline beauty to it. She sat with the cup of tea that Raheem had made her and wondered if she would ever see this place again after her week was up. The fact that she would not tore at her heart, but it was almost a welcome pain. It was not the pain of never seeing Raheem again, and because of that, it was a kind of relief.
Raheem came up behind her, dropping a kiss on her head.
“Finish your tea and put on some sturdy clothing,” he said. “There’s something I want to show you.”
When she dressed, he led her to the rear of the house, where there was a jeep waiting for them. The tough little vehicle took them across the dunes, into the bright desert. The heat was just beginning to get to her when Raheem stopped at a rocky outcropping. Irene looked at it, puzzled. It looked to be no taller than her waist, and she wondered what Raheem had brought them into the desert for.
He grinned at her confusion, and he came around the jeep to help her get down.
“Trust me when I say that this is much more impressive from the inside,” he promised.
To her surprise, he led her around the stone outcropping to reveal a dark opening sheltered underneath it. Some trick of the wind and rock had created a doorway into the dunes, a place that was somehow clear of sand. Raheem grinned and handed her a miner’s hat, patiently showing her how to buckle it on and turn on the beam. She looked at him apprehensively, but he squeezed her hand.
“Trust me,” he said, and because she did in all matters except one, she allowed him to lead her into the earth.
The ground beyond the dark opening was flat for a short while, but then, to her shock, there were stairs cut into the stone. Her heart beating faster, she followed Raheem down the steps as they wound deep into the ground. The air, so hot and dry above, became something damp and green below, and she wondered how many thousands of years had passed since this place was cut into the rock below the sand.
Finally, they came to level ground again, and after passing through a short tunnel, Raheem and Irene were in an enormous chamber that stretched up as high as a cathedral ceiling. When Irene gasped, looking up, she could see the distant arches carved above her, and she stood in awe of the determination and skill of the crafters who had risked their lives to make such a thing of beauty.
“There are many names for this place, but the one that is most common is the Quiet of the Rock. The story goes that once upon a time, the dangerous spirits and ghosts of the desert would come to this place when they needed to think. No speech was allowed, and more than one demon turned away from a life of evil in this place and resolved to do only good.”
Irene thought that she could understand it. There was something solemn about this place, about the darkness that vaulted so high above them. She couldn’t imagine what it might be like to be noisy or contentious here. Something about this place stripped away all pretensions, all thoughts of conflict. She could feel the peace of it seep into her like water into bedrock, and she grasped Raheem’s hand, trying to convey her thanks through her touch alone.
He smiled at her, and she thought he understood what she meant.
“Come over here. This entire place is amazing, but there was something here I wanted to show you.”
He led her down along the edge of the walls, and some hundred paces from where they started, he showed her a mural. It took her eyes a short amount of time to adjust for the glare of her helmet, but when she saw what he was showing her, she gasped.
The mural, deep underground and in one of the most remote spots in the country, was as breathtakingly vivid and beautiful as it had been when the artist touched his brush to the smooth stone walls. It was a lively piece painted in reds and golds, the scene of a menagerie and gardens in full bloom. She could see the orange-and-black stripes of a tiger, the white feathers of an egret, and the graceful backs and antlers of the deer. Each animal was rendered in vivid, loving detail, surrounded by lush green curls of ferns and trees.
It was a masterpiece, and all around the edge were words in the scrolling calligraphy of Arabic.
“It tells a story,” Raheem said quietly. He took a seat on the cold stone floor, and when Irene took his proffered hand, he guided her to sit down on his lap. It could have been a sexual thing, but she realized that there was nothing sexual about it. He merely wanted to give her a place to sit that was comfortable and close to him, and she warmed to him for it.
“There was once a great lord who kept a menagerie the likes of which the world had never seen,” he read softly. “He was a handsome man, blessed in every way. He was a notorious lover, a fearsome warrior, and a great statesman, but the only thing that could move his heart was his menagerie. His obsession was such that it had to have a fine sample of every animal in the world, and to that end, he sent his men scouring the ends of the earth. They brought back tall giraffes from Cush, enormous cold-blooded lizards from the tropics of distant oceans, deadly cats from the land called Fu Sang. With every animal that was brought to his menagerie, he only grew greedy for more, sending his men far away.
“One day, as he was wandering through his prized possession, he noticed a little roe deer in one of the cages. She was small and delicate, perfect in every way, but in a menagerie of gorgeous peacocks and mighty rhinoceros, there was little special about her. He started to go on his way, but to his shock, she called him back.
“‘Please stop and listen to me,’ she said, ‘for I suffer under a mighty curse. My father is a good sorcerer who has quarreled with an evil one, and in their battle, I was transformed and sent here. Please, if you help me, I will grant you wealth and victory the likes of which you have never seen.’
“The lord looked at her and shrugged. ‘I have wealth and victory already. I need not these things, but I do need a perfect roe deer in my menagerie.’
“At his words, the roe deer shook, but finally she made her last offer. ‘If you help me, I will love you as no man was ever loved.’
“The lord paused, thinking.”
Raheem stopped then, but Irene was so entranced by the story that she had to take a moment to realize that he had. Then she poked him without thinking about it. The story was captivating in a way. She had never heard it before, but someone had loved it so well, they had come all the way down to the Quiet in the Rock to paint it.
Raheem shook his head, a solemn expression on his face.
“My father brought me down to this place when I was only a boy,” he said, “and he showed me this mural. All my life, I have wanted to know how the story ends, what happened to the roe deer and the man she promised to love.”
Startled, Irene followed Raheem’s pointing finger to the mural panel that was slightly beyond where they sat. To her shock, there was an enormous chunk of the rock chipped away. Feeling slightly queasy, she got up to investigate. It wasn’t the work of erosion or an accident, she realized. It was a deliberate act of theft. Someone had wanted to take a portion of that mural back, probably to sell, and they had simply chipped it out of the rock on which it was painted. What was left was damage that was likely decades old, but there was an awful freshness to it, as if the wound would never heal.
She turned back to Raheem, who was watching her carefully.
“That happened in the 1920s,” he said, “when Khanour suffered under the boot of France. We did not have the money and the industry that we would, and France came in to take half of whatever it was
we made and more if it could get away with it. It was a dark time for Khanour, made all the darker because the French took more than just our money. They also took our treasures. Sometimes they said it was because it wasn’t truly important, and the items in question could be bought, even if it was only for a pittance. Sometimes, they said it was because we did not know how to handle beautiful things, and they would keep it safe. All we knew was that by the end of France’s colonial rule, our country was culturally beggared. There is only so much that oral tradition can keep alive. This story was one thing that we lost.”
Irene felt sick when she thought of it. Every culture in the world had a legacy, and to see Khanour deprived of the one that Raheem was desperate to preserve was brutal. She felt too drained for tears. She felt as if she had been wrung out of any emotion.
For the rest of the afternoon, she and Raheem explored the church, marveling at the bits of history that had clung on in spite of raiders and thieves. Irene was constantly impressed by how much had survived even after so much was lost. Some pieces had been retouched and protected, while others had survived simply by dint of being made by people with an eye toward history and those that came after them.
Raheem was silent on the way back. As he drove with an assured confidence over the dunes, she couldn’t help but sneak covert glances at him. Even in repose, there was something deadly serious about his gaze. He was a man from a line of warriors. They had protected their country as if it were a sacred trust. Now that she had been in the Quiet of the Rock, she had an idea of what he was trying to protect.
She was lost in her thoughts when they returned to the house. She had a shower and changed into a light dress, needing to be away from the weight of the grit and the sand. He prepared a light meal for them, but when he placed it in front of her, she pushed it away.
“Raheem.”
He looked up, startled.
“Irene?”
“I have something I want to tell you.”
She took a deep breath and told him all of it. She told him how she had been recruited, and how they had threatened her brother. She told him where she had gone, and who she had talked to. Her excellent memory provided him with names, addresses, everything he would need. Irene talked until her voice was hoarse, but then, finally, she revealed everything to him, everything he needed to know.
Halfway through her speech, he had pulled out his phone, texting the information she gave him to his men. From the intent way he looked, she could tell he was absorbing every scrap of knowledge, taking everything she could give him and turning it into an action that would protect his country.
Irene deliberately did not think of her brother.
When she was done, she slumped back into the chair. She felt as if she had been fighting a hard battle for weeks. In a way, she had been.
“Thank you…” he began, but she cut him off.
“Don’t thank me,” she whispered. “Please don’t. Just… just let me be free of it. I cannot think of it tonight.”
He looked troubled at her speech, but he nodded. When she couldn’t eat her dinner, he did not protest, and only took it away.
That night, he left her in the main bedroom while he went to the smaller one. She could hear him talking to his men, strategizing what they wanted to do and how. Irene emptied her mind of all of it. All she knew was that the bed felt too large, too empty. When the voices from the other room had been quiet for a while, she stood and walked across the hall to find the man who was, by law and ancient right, her husband.
“Will you hurt my brother?” she asked, her voice naked and afraid.
He cared too much for her to lie to her.
“I don’t know,” he said.
They were silent. Irene had thought that she would weep, that she would scream, but after all this time, there was only a clean, gray emptiness. It was so silent inside her that she thought she would go mad if it were not filled.
“Make love to me.”
In any other situation, Raheem’s look of surprise would have been funny. He turned to look at her, his eyes wide.
“Irene…”
Despite the concern there, she could see the heat rising in him as well. The night before, he had done nothing but give her pleasure. The memory of the last time that they had truly joined was vivid in his mind, and she could see his passion try to overtake his reason.
“I know what I want,” she breathed. “I need to… be away from myself. This is how I want to do it.”
Raheem licked his lips, his gaze roving up and down her even as she could see him fight himself over what was right for her.
“I don’t know if you are in your right mind…”
“I was in my right mind when I gave you what you wanted to know,” she said, her voice quiet. “Give me what I want now.”
A shudder went through him. She knew that in the war between his passion and his reason, his reason was going to lose. The air between them became heavy with the promise of sex. The space between them was so charged that a single spark would have caused it to ignite.
Irene could feel Raheem’s eyes on her, making her more aware of her body than she ever had been before. She was aware of the weight of her clothes, the way her hair brushed against her bare shoulders, the way her light skirts brushed against her naked legs. Despite being fully clothed, she wasn’t sure that she had ever felt so naked.
“If you don’t want what’s happening here, you should tell me now,” Raheem said, his voice low. There was a hint of menace there, something almost wild. It should have made her want to run, but instead, she was drawn to it. It was how it always seemed to be with Raheem. Everything about him only pulled her in deeper, made her want more.
“I… I do want it,” she said softly.
The dark fire that flared in his eyes woke something hot inside her, something that curled through her body and made her skin feel as if it were alive with electricity.
“This is your last chance, Irene,” he said warningly. When he took a step toward her, she thought of a panther stalking its prey, its eyes bright to catch every movement.
Irene had to swallow twice before she could speak.
“I don’t want a last chance,” she said clearly. “I want you.”
It was like throwing gasoline on a fire. She felt more than heard his soft intake of breath. In a matter of seconds, he had crossed the floor to where she stood, catching her up in a wild embrace. Before she could say another word, his hard mouth slanted across hers. He was warm, so warm everywhere, bathing her senses in the sheer maleness of his body. His strength, his scent, the demand of his mouth, they overwhelmed her, and with a willing moan, she allowed herself to be drowned.
“I have wanted this since the first moment I met you,” he groaned. “When I first laid eyes on you, I knew that I needed to know how you felt, how you sounded when you moaned with pleasure…”
She could feel the tension that was threaded through his frame. He was all hard angles and muscles. When he shifted, she could feel his cock pressed up against her thigh. Without thinking about what she was doing, she pressed herself against him. The contrast of his hard body to her softness made her nearly dizzy with need and with pleasure.
Raheem’s laugh was nearly a groan.
“You could undo me with a single embrace,” he growled. “That’s the kind of power that you have over me. That is how much I want you.”
She laughed a little at the idea of someone like her being able to control a man like Raheem. There was something beyond belief about it, but Raheem seemed perfectly serious.
“You could make me beg,” he said, lifting her up in his arms. “You could make me crawl, if I were not careful.”
“That’s not what I want you to do,” she whispered huskily, and his answering laugh was harsh.
“No, I think I know what you might like, beautiful woman…”
He laid her on the bed, where a single beam of moonlight illuminated the white sheets. For a moment, he simply loo
ked down at her. She wondered how she must look, sprawled in wild abandon over the bed. He reached for her dress. At first, she thought that he meant to undo her buttons, but as she reached to help him, he fisted his hands in the thin fabric and ripped it open. She gasped at his strength and her sudden exposure. Lying in the ruined remnants of her dress, wearing only a peach demi-bra and matching panties, she had never felt quite so exposed. Wide-eyed, she looked up at him, and his grin was very sharp.
“I was tired of being kept from your skin, your beauty,” he said, and he came down to rest his body on top of her.
He started to kiss her, resting his weight on his elbows. With a sense of utter dominance and desire, he toyed with her mouth, running the very tip of his tongue along her lower lip before sliding his tongue alongside hers with insinuating intimacy. She had never thought that kissing was a terribly erotic act, despite its intimacy, but now she could feel that it was only adding fuel to her fire. When he pressed his tongue between her lips, it was a sly intimation of what he was going to do later, and her body responded to it.
Irene ran her hands along his body, frustrated that he was still clothed. She tugged ineffectually at the fabric, wishing that she could tear it away as easy as he tore hers. She slid her hands along his sides, down his thighs, and then they came up again to cup the steel of his desire between her palms. Her intimate touch made him groan, and for a moment, she thought she had broken through that iron control. Instead, he drew back with a soft laugh.
“Clever girl, but too clever, I think, by half.”
She started to ask what he was going to do about it, but then he reached for one of the scraps of her dress. Before Irene could figure out what he was doing, he had captured her wrists, twining them together with the fabric before lashing the loose ends to the bars at the top of the bed. Now she was stretched underneath him, her hands helpless above her head. It should have been frightening, but there was something in her that had always craved being this open, this helpless under a man she was coming to realize she trusted so deeply.
