‘I can’t just wear someone’s things.’
‘These are for guests who arrive unprepared.’ He slowly looked around the room. ‘Nothing changes …’ There was a pensive note to his voice, but he didn’t elaborate. ‘I will leave you to bathe, just help yourself to anything. Perhaps dress for dinner?’
‘Dress?’
‘You wanted an authentic desert experience, well, let me give you one.’ He watched her swallow. ‘I’ll prepare the lounge.’
Despite the ancient ornaments and artefacts, there was every modern convenience and Georgie filled the heavy bath with steaming water and chose from the array of fragrant oils. After several hours in the Jeep and the grit and the sand she had accumulated, it was bliss to stretch out in the warm, scented water. She could have lain for ages, except she really was hungry.
Georgie had had no intention of selecting clothing from the guests’ wardrobe.
A charity cupboard stocked for inappropriate guests she did not need, and she wasn’t keen on the idea of playing dress up. Except maybe she was, because she thought of Ibrahim in his robes in London and there were still angry red marks on her waist where her capri pants had cut into her, and the pale fabric that had looked so cool and elegant on the hanger in the high-street store was now crumpled and rather grubby.
Georgie flicked through the wardrobe: vast kaftans that would swamp her delicate frame. And what was it with Zaqar and shades of yellow? Yet her first brisk hand movements grew slower, her eyes drawn to the intricate beading and embroidery, every piece a work of art. They were in decreasing sizes too, she realised, for there near the end was a slim robe in a dark blood red with small glass beads on the front and a dance of gold leaves around the hem—it was nothing like something she would ever choose for herself, but was perhaps the most beautiful article of clothing she had ever seen.
The fabric slid coolly beneath her fingers, the finest of silks. It beckoned, and she closed her eyes in bliss as she gave in and slid it over her head. It skimmed her body. As she looked in the mirror and saw a different Georgie, her stomach tightened in strange recognition at the woman who met her gaze. Not a girl or a young woman but a woman with all awkwardness gone, and it bewildered her. It was as if the fragrant bath had surgically removed that awkwardness, because she liked what she saw and wanted to enhance it. Her eyes glanced down to the heavy brushes and flat glass containers filled with rich colours to perfume bottles, and she pulled the stopper from one and inhaled the musky scent, she wanted to dress for him. She wanted her night in the desert.
Ibrahim’s catering skills ran to ringing his favourite restaurant and telling them the number of guests. His kitchen in London was stocked and maintained by his housekeeper. At the palace, occasionally at night he wandered in and chatted to the overnight chef, who would prepare Ibrahim a late-night or rather pre-dawn snack, but here in the desert things were different—here, a young prince was left for a period to fend for himself. Not that he had to this evening, for Bedra was both a doctor and royal housekeeper. When he opened the third fridge, there were platters fit for a king, or should a reprobate prince happen by, and there were jugs too, all lined up and ready, that had herbs measured and prepared. All Ibrahim had to do was add water and carry trays through, but he was pleased with his handiwork. He even lit some candles and incense and turned on some music to soften the noise of the wind. Then he headed to his quarters to bath and change.
Ibrahim shaved, which he did not normally do in the desert, but his face was rough and as watched the blade slice over his chin, he thought of Georgie’s cheeks, of her mouth and her face and, yes, deny it as he may, he was preparing himself for her.
Preparing himself for tomorrow, Ibrahim warned himself, because this tent was a place you brought your bride. This was a place where the union was sealed and even if he didn’t strictly believe in the tradition, tonight he would respect it.
He headed out to the lounge area. He wanted to eat and wondered what was taking her so long, because he was ready and had prepared dinner too. But every moment of waiting was worth it as, looking just a little bit shy but definitely not awkward, she came to him.
‘You look …’ He did not finish, he could not finish, because not only did she look beautiful as she stood with her long blonde hair coiling as it dried, her skin flushed from the warm water, somehow she looked as if she came from the desert. Somehow, despite her pale features, despite it all, she looked as if she belonged here, and Ibrahim wondered if this night, together but apart, was more than he should have taken on.
Wondered how far he should tease her.
Her eyes were very blue in her pale face. She had none of that kohl that sharpened them, just a shimmer of silver on her lids that glittered each time she blinked. It was her mouth that had been painted, in the same blood red as her dress, and it trembled a little as his eyes fell on it, and it killed him that he must wait till tomorrow to kiss it.
She sat on the floor at the low table and Ibrahim did the same. He had seen her a little nervous around food, but now her eyes were just curious. The nerves, he knew, were for another reason, for long before she had sat down he had seen the leaping pulse in her throat, the glitter not just on her eyelids but in eyes that shone with arousal.
‘Here.’ He handed her a heavy fruit, which looked like a cross between a peach and an apple, and selected one for himself. As she went to take a tentative bite he shook his head. ‘It is marula, you drink it.’ He squeezed the heavy fruit between his fingers and she watched as sticky goo ran between them. He selected a straw and plunged it into the fruit and he took her mind to mad places, because the fruit was her flesh and she held her breath as he pierced it.
‘You,’ he said, and she broke the skin of her fruit, not as easily as him but it worked and she drank from it. Though the fluid was sweet and warm and delicious, somehow she wanted to lean and lick the moisture still damp on his fingers.
She ate, and it was different, because she was thinking about food again, about every morsel that slid down her throat, but it was far from with loathing, because each swallow of her throat was watched by him—and she wanted his mouth there.
She wanted their tongues to meet in one half of the pomegranate, but he offered her only her share and then ate his.
‘No spoons.’ Ibrahim said, and made eating seem debauched, but in the most thrilling of ways, and for the first time there was regret that a meal was over. As they moved to the couches, she wanted back at his table.
And Ibrahim knew.
But it was safer on the sofa and she sipped sweet coffee gratefully and had another cup to help her sober up, because that was how he sometimes made her feel.
‘The trouble with antiques,’ Ibrahim drawled, filling her cup with the jug that had been used since his childhood, ‘is that nothing gets thrown out. Nothing changes. Always it is the same.’
‘You hate it here?’
‘No.’ Ibrahim said, and then went on, ‘Not always.’ He saw her confusion. ‘I know every corner of this tent. We came as children—it was good then.’ He didn’t want to talk, he wanted to slowly seduce, he wanted her wanting him in the morning, but somehow she demanded, without him always realising, more from him.
Sometimes he found himself talking with her, not about things that teased but things that tortured. He heard his voice saying things he had never said before, and she didn’t just listen, as others would have, she did not agree but partook.
‘When your mother was here? Was it after she left when it changed?’ she probed, and he closed his eyes, but her question remained and he thought about it, because when his mother had been here, it had been different. Then his father would laugh and the children would play and spend a whole day searching for one rare wild flower for the maid to put on their mother’s breakfast tray. He and Ahmed would play in a cave a morning’s walk from here and the servants would find them at dusk, but the scolding had always been worth it.
Then there had been no fear when he had bee
n with Ahmed, just the arrogance of youth, for surely nothing could harm the young princes.
‘It just changed,’ Ibrahim said.
‘After Ahmed died?’
She had gone where no one should, where not even he dared.
‘For him I would have been king.’ He was beyond angry, his voice was raw. ‘Had he just asked me, had he even bothered to tell me his fears. Instead …’ He could not forgive his brother, and that killed a part of Ibrahim too, and he could not linger on it either, so he spoke of other things instead. ‘It changed for many reasons. For a while it was a playground, but at seventeen you spend a month alone before you go to the military. It is a time of transition. For a month you wander and then return to the tent.’
‘No staff?’
‘None,’ Ibrahim said. ‘You remember the fear when you were left as a child, but there is no one watching this time. So slowly you build up for the walk home.’
‘You walk home?’ She could not keep the shock from her voice—that a teenager would be left to fend for himself then walk for miles. ‘And then you get to join the army—some reward!’
‘No.’ Ibrahim shook his head. ‘First you become a man. There is a very good reason to find your bearings and keep walking back to the palace. There, waiting, is your reward.’
Georgie blinked and as his eyes never left her face, as realisation slowly dawned, her pale skin darkened. ‘That’s disgusting,’ Georgie spluttered.
‘Why?’ He was genuinely bemused. ‘I am a royal prince—the woman I marry must be a virgin. It is my duty to be a skilled lover.’
‘To teach her!’ Georgie spat.
‘Of course.’ Ibrahim said. ‘But even a teacher first has to be taught.’
‘You make it sound so clinical.’
‘When?’ He challenged. ‘You interpret it as clinical—I assure you it was not.’
‘You can’t teach it …’ she flared but right there her argument started to weaken, because in his arms she had learnt so much. ‘It isn’t just …’ she tried again, but words failed her. ‘Some things,’ she attempted, and then closed her eyes in defeat, because how could she admit that it wasn’t just his skill that brought her to frenzy, it was him.
That just the curve of his arrogant mouth and the scent of his skin prompted vigilance, that if he sat there now and did not move, if all he did was stay still as she leant over and kissed him, if all he did was lie there as her hands roamed his body, it would be every bit as good as her recall. It wasn’t Ibrahim’s skill her body craved—it was him. ‘When we …’ Georgie swallowed. There was something she needed to say. ‘When I stopped you, it wasn’t because—’
‘I don’t want to discuss it,’ Ibrahim said, because it would be too dangerous here to recall that night. Going into the details of their time together would not help.
‘Please. I want—’
‘You heard what I said.’
He could be so rude. Annoyed at him, angry at how he just closed off whenever it suited him. She refused to drag conversation out of him. She wandered around the lounge and there was much to amuse and interest her. She ran her fingers along one instrument and another and for the first time in her life she actually wanted to dance. She wanted to turn up the music and turn to him, and she felt as if she was fighting insanity, wondered just what it was in the fruit, because the desert made her dizzy with freedom from inhibition. She forced herself to explore rather than linger, picked up a heavy glass bottle and pulled out the stopper, but Ibrahim came over.
‘They are not for cosmetic …’ Ibrahim shook his head, took the glass jar and replaced the stopper. ‘They are medicinal.’
‘I know,’ Georgie answered, irritated. ‘This is what I study.’
‘These are potent.’
‘I do know!’ She saw the dismissal in his single blink. It was a reaction she was used to, yet from Ibrahim it annoyed her. ‘Just because you don’t believe in my work …’
‘But I do.’
‘So why are you so scorning?’
‘I am not …’ His voice trailed off, because in truth he was. ‘There are thousands of years of learning, of wisdom in these oils, our ways—’
‘That can’t be learnt in a four-week course!’ Stupidly she felt like crying, not at his scorn, not at his derision, but because she felt there was truth in what he was saying. It was a question she had asked herself. She had sat in a classroom and later with clients wondering if she was worthy of imparting such ancient knowledge.
‘Do you believe in what you do?’ Ibrahim asked.
‘Of course,’ Georgie said. ‘Well, I do, but I know there is more, much more to learn.’
‘Always there is more to learn, for ever there will be more to learn,’ Ibrahim said.
‘So you don’t think I should practise.’
‘I did not say that. I go for my massage in London. There are practitioners like you …’ He said it without scorn. ‘They work with the oils, but their minds are not present.’ How could he explain something he did not fully understand himself? But Georgie understood.
‘Mine is,’ she said, and took the bottle back from him. She held it a moment then took off the stopper, placed a drop of oil on her finger and moved it to his throat. He stood rigid as her finger slid down to his throat and in tiny circular motions massaged over his thymus—that area held past issues and his was full. She could smell the frankincense, the bergamot and a note she couldn’t identify, and still her finger circled and her mind was present. It was Ibrahim who pulled back. ‘This is what you do for a living?’ He captured her hand.
‘You make it sound like I’m running some seedy massage parlour. It’s about energy and healing and relaxation.’ She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘I don’t have to explain to you what I do.’
He dropped his grip and still her finger circled. ‘Show me,’ Ibrahim said, which normally would have been a dangerous tease, an extension of his game, but it was more than that. He could feel the tiny flickers of her pulse in the pads of her fingers, and he also wanted some of this peace she talked about. ‘Show me,’ he said again.
He was used to massage—a keen horseman, there was all too often a hip or a shoulder that had taken a beating. He used massage just for physical ailments but wanted more. Often in London he found himself face down on a table, but no matter how skilled the hands, no matter how they relaxed his body, his mind did not quieten, and it was that he craved—some peace and clarity, for conflicting thoughts to still so he could assess them. For a second she had given him that quietness and he wanted more.
He pulled off his robes and lay on the cushioned floor. Just a sash covered him and it was Georgie who was awkward as she prepared her oils from the vast selection. It was she who was facing the biggest test, she wondering how to remain professional because he was utterly and completely exquisite. She was used to shy, fragile women, and there could be no greater contrast. His back gleamed with muscle and awaited her touch, but there was a pertinent problem and as she prepared her dishes and vials she tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact.
‘You need to lie on your back.’
She watched his shoulders stiffen, watched his expanded chest still as he held air in, then he turned round and she covered him, because this was not about sex, this was about something more.
But for Ibrahim any hope of relaxing, of merely enjoying a feminine touch, was dashed then, because lying like this with her kneeling next to him, it would take every ounce of concentration he possessed to ignore her, not to give in to the natural response of his body. He must lie there now and think of things, anything other than the woman who was moving down to his feet. He must not think of the hands she rubbed together to warm in preparation and he was about to roll over, to tell her not to bother, but as she captured a foot her fingers were so silky and oiled he lingered.
She had felt him resist, felt him fight, but as her hands slid to his feet and she stroked his sole, there was a tentative surrender that she recognised,
a shift when a mind handed itself over to you. She wasn’t sure if that trust was merited. Just a ping of doubt went through her as she thought of a four-week course versus the arts of the desert, then she knew what to do, and there was no more trepidation. She felt as if the roof had lifted from the tent, felt as if it was daylight again and the wind was gone, that the sun was beating directly into her head, spreading through her body and warming her fingers. Her hands knew what to do, and Georgie gave in to the healing along with Ibrahim and did what the desert told her.
She oiled his feet with lavender and spruce, worked slowly up past his calves, and when his legs were oiled and his body relaxed, her mind with his, she oiled her fingers and moved to his navel. There was a brief hesitation as her fingers hovered, and then it was only about him and she worked gently there with jasmine and neroli. She moved to his chest, small clockwise motions around his heart, and she couldn’t hear the wind, just its message, and she worked on forgiveness with geranium and other drops of different oils, but she still felt resistance, his urge for her to move on. She moved to his stomach again. She worked on release, with ylang ylang and blue tansy, but he would not give in to it.
She added melissa, the fragrance he had smelt on her that night on the balcony, or as he called it—Bal-smin. It was the chief of oils and Ibrahim met his match in it. She saw his eyes close tighter, and if it had not been Ibrahim, so proud and removed, she would have sworn it was a man fighting back tears. Then she felt the release, felt the pain slide out beneath her fingers as he freed Ahmed. And then she went to his heart again, which didn’t need her hand now because he had forgiven, and her hand slid down his body, down his legs, then to his feet to finish.
And it was more than intimate, it was more than sex, it was the closest he had ever been to another person, and when she had finished, when he opened his eyes, he willed her to go on. But she could hear the music and see the man before her now, and it wasn’t her vocation that led her—it was instinct. She watched her own fingers as they dripped oil low on his stomach, and it was the woman she had only today first seen in the mirror that peeled back the sash. Her warm hands slipped around him, stroked him while she looked at him, slid both palms around in a skilled motion she had never so much as attempted before, and he looked into eyes that were wanton and a red mouth that in moment would take him—and how he wanted it to.
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 117
