After he’d taken some tablets with water, she said, ‘We’ve gone almost as far as we can before sunrise.’ She saw him rubbing at his underarm with his arm, trying to scratch unobtrusively. ‘How’s your skin? Is it itching with all the dirt?’
His jaw tightened and he stopped moving. Yet another reminder: Beauty was letting the Beast know just who he was to her, reminding him what he was to himself. ‘I’m fine.’
‘I don’t want to embarrass you. You won’t be able to travel at night if the grafted skin or the burns rip, bleed or itch. We just crawled more than five kilometres. There has to be damage.’
‘I said I’m fine.’ He sounded curt with rejection she didn’t deserve, but he couldn’t help it. ‘Give me the cream and I’ll do it when I need it.’
Hana sighed. ‘There are ways to rub the cream in that optimise stretching and physical comfort for you while we’re travelling. It will also give you better sleep. I can see you’re uncomfortable with my doing it, but we have four days of hard walking to go, sleeping in dirt and mud that could irritate your skin, and—’
Alim heard his teeth grind before he spoke. ‘You’re not going to stop arguing until you get your way, are you?’
‘Probably not,’ she conceded with a gentle laugh.
His head felt like a light and sound show, brilliant stabs of pain shooting from his neck to his eyes. He couldn’t manage rubbing the entire length of his scars now if he tried. ‘Do it, then.’
The words had been clipped, order from master to servant, but she didn’t argue. ‘Stay still, and close your eyes.’ Her voice was gentle, soothing, stealing into his battleground mind with tender healing.
He felt her undoing the buttons of his shirt…oh, God help him for the male reaction to her touch she’d be bound to see. The sun was beginning to rise.
‘Your tension won’t help, you know. Breathe deeply, relax and let me make it better.’
She might have been speaking to a child, but her warm, wet hands against his itching, burning scars, filled with beautiful, scented oils, took away any power to speak. He breathed, and felt the irritable tension leaving him, leaving him only aroused.
‘That’s it, much better. I’m sorry I can’t use any water to wash away the dirt, but the olive oil is helping.’ Her hands were tender magic, kneading softly, moving in slow, deep circles. Her fingers rotated over his skin, deep then soft; her palms pushed up and around, spreading more oil. ‘This solution is fifty per cent cold-pressed olive oil, forty per cent pure aloe juice and ten per cent essential oils of lavender, rosemary and neroli. I make ten litres a month for burns victims or scarring from rifle wounds. A village about forty kilometres from the refugee camp is a Free Trade village, and orders everything I need.’
‘Hmm.’ She could be reciting the alphabet or the phone book for all he cared. Her voice was a siren’s call, an angel’s song; her touch was sweet relief, bliss, releasing him from the burning ropes of limited movement, giving him freedom to lift his arm as she moved it to massage where the scar tissue was worst. Though she said and did nothing a nurse wouldn’t do for any patient, she made him feel like a man again, because she’d treated him like a man.
‘It’s feeling better?’ she asked softly. She sounded—odd.
‘Oh, yeah,’ he mumbled. Feeling as if he were floating, he opened his eyes to a slit—and if he weren’t so utterly relaxed he’d have started. Hana was looking at his body as she massaged, and it held no revulsion, no clinical detachment. Her eyes in the soft rose light of the sunrise looked deeper, softer…her breathing had quickened…she wet her lips…
Then she looked at his face, her cheeks flushed and her lips parted in innocent, lush surprise, and in her expression was something he’d never seen from any nurse.
It was something he’d never seen from any woman. Those lovely, slanted almond eyes held something like innocent languor…beautiful, breathtaking, aching desire. Good, old-fashioned, honest wanting, woman to man.
Then she saw his eyes open, and the look vanished as if it had never been there. ‘Good. I’m glad it helped,’ she said, her tone aiming for crisp, but it wobbled a touch. ‘Get dressed. If I remember rightly, there’s a good overhang a few kilometres away, where we can sleep.’
Was he possibly grinning as widely as he wanted to? ‘Why don’t we sleep here? You look so tired, and it’s been a long, hard day for us both.’
‘It isn’t far enough from the village.’ She was the one now speaking through gritted teeth. ‘When we reach the truck, you call the shots. Right now, this is my territory. If you want to live, you’re doing things my way.’
Unable to muster up an argument when she’d saved his life again tonight, he shrugged; but he hated that she was right and he couldn’t argue, couldn’t take charge and protect her somehow. ‘Three days,’ he said softly. ‘Then you’d better believe I’m calling the shots. I’ll get you to the refugee camp safely, Hana, that I swear—but you’ll obey me, no questions asked.’ And we’re going to explore that look you gave me just now, the man in him vowed, exultant.
She nodded; far from pushing back, there was a suspicious twinkle in her eyes. ‘I will obey you joyfully, my lord, for I am a weak woman in need of your strength.’ She mock-genuflected before him, touching her forehead to the ground as she spoke. ‘It must be the reason why I never left the village before. I was waiting for you to guide and direct me.’
He had to choke down laughter at her unexpected sense of humour. ‘Can it, Hana,’ he said, using a phrase from one of his former pit crew, ‘and let’s get going.’
She grinned and bowed again; then, with a grin that held more than a touch of the imp—pretty, so damned pretty—she said, ‘We should crawl again for a while. It’s getting light.’
The prospect made him forget temptation for the present. Alim groaned and dropped to his stomach, but Hana was ahead of him, already wriggling down the hill.
He’d been too busy trying to breathe before to notice how enticing that wriggle was. No—he’d ignored it, thinking it was useless. But after that look…
If they’d been anywhere else, had she been another woman…but they were crawling through mud in wild dogs’ territory with a warlord’s men with assault rifles in every other direction; and this was Hana, who’d frozen beneath him. She deserved his respect, not the burden of unwanted fascination from a man who looked like a damned monster—and he had no magical spell she could reverse with her kiss. The way he looked now was how he’d look for life.
The look had to have been a mistake. He was a nowhere man with no home, no position. He had nothing to offer any woman but ugliness, emotional baggage and a cartload of regrets—and he suspected she had more than enough of her own without taking his on board. Whatever that look had been, she didn’t, couldn’t want him. He could take that. Just keep commando crawling and don’t look.
‘The creek bed’s lined with stones for the next few kilometres. Take these,’ she murmured tersely a few minutes later, flipping some leather gloves back at him. ‘You’ll sweat, but it’s better than leaving a blood trail behind for jackals and dogs to find.’
‘Thanks,’ he muttered back, pulling them on. The skin of his hands had begun to rip, and his clothes were well on their way to becoming shreds, but his hands were the worst. He pulled out a plastic bag from his pack, and shoved it between his T-shirt and the dying jacket to keep his scars from bleeding. If nothing else, it would stop the blood from touching the ground for a few more minutes.
‘Come on,’ she whispered in clear impatience as she crawled on.
That was the only conversation they had in two hours.
The sun had risen above the eastern rim of the creek wall before she called a halt. ‘We’re only seven or eight kilometres from the village, but this overhang’s the best shelter we’ll find for hours. Let’s eat and get some sleep.’ She leaned against the overhang wall and stretched her back and shoulder muscles with a decadent sigh before rummaging in her backpack.
Refusing to watch—she was killing him with every shimmering movement of her sweetly curved body, her pretty face—Alim sat beside her and stretched too, over and over to work out the kinks—and he was surprised to find the concussion hadn’t left him revolted by the thought of food as it always had before when he had concussion, after hitting his head in a race. Despite that his brain was banging against his skull and his eyes ached and burned, his stomach welcomed the thought with rumbling growls.
So he stared when all she handed him was a raisin-nut energy bar.
‘Eat it slowly. It’s all we can afford to use. I’d only saved enough for me to escape with, so half-rations are all we have.’ She surveyed his face, his eyes. ‘You’re in pain. Take a few sips of the willow bark before you sleep.’
Irritated by her constantly ordering him around, by seeing him as a patient after their gruelling trek, he flipped his hand in a dismissive gesture. ‘I’ll sleep it off.’
‘Don’t be stubborn. You’ll be no use tonight if the pain gets worse. You’re less than twenty-four hours from concussion. Take the willow bark, and some ibuprofen with it.’
She was really beginning to annoy him with her imperious, ‘don’t be stupid’ tone. No woman apart from his mother had ever spoken to him this way. But she was right, so he obeyed the directive, drinking a long swig of the foul medicine with one precious tablet.
‘Go ahead and say it.’ She sounded amused.
He turned to her, saw the lurking twinkle in her eyes. There were smile-creases in her face through the caked-on dirt. And no poetry came to his mind. No woman had ever laughed at him, either, unless he’d made a joke. ‘What?’
She waved a hand as scratched and cut as his. ‘You know, the whole “don’t boss me around, I’m the man and in control” routine. You’re the big, strong man, and dying to put me in my place. Go on, I can handle it.’ Her teeth flashed in a cracked-mud smile.
With her words, his ire withered and died. ‘Did it show that much?’ he asked ruefully.
She nodded, laughing softly, and he was fascinated anew with the rippling sound. If he closed his eyes, he didn’t see the maiden from the bowels of the worst pig-pits, torn and bleeding and coated in mud. She stank; they both did—but he’d rather be here smelling vile beside Hana than in a palace with a princess, because Hana was real, her emotions honest, not hidden because of his station in life. She laughed at him and teased him for his commanding personality, and once the initial annoyance wore off he rather liked it.
‘I have no right to assert my authority over you.’ Stiff words from a man unused to apologising for anything—but it felt surprisingly good when it was out there.
Flakes of dried mud fell from her forehead as her brows lifted. ‘Did that hurt?’
He sighed. ‘You really are Australian in your outlook, aren’t you? You bow to no man. Your father must have had a really hard time if he was the traditional kind—’
He closed his mouth when he saw the look in her eyes. Devastated. Betrayed. A world of pain unhealed. And hidden deep beneath the pain was defiance. She was fighting against odds he couldn’t see, and he sensed she’d refuse to show him if he asked.
If she’d pushed his buttons, she hadn’t once pried into his life. He’d done both without even thinking about it. ‘Hana…’
She slipped down to lie on the uneven ground. ‘I’m going to sleep. I suggest you do, too. We have to go faster tonight.’ Her body flipped over as she turned her back on him.
It was another unwanted first in his life—yet it didn’t rouse his fierce competitive instincts, but filled him with remorse. She didn’t want his apology, because he’d hurt her, a woman who’d risked her life and given up her home for him, a man she’d met less than a day ago.
Aching to reach out and touch her, he contented himself by touching her with words…and this time it wasn’t hard. ‘Hana, it was a silly joke, but I hurt you. I’m sorry. I won’t pry again.’
After a moment, she nodded. ‘I’m going to sleep now.’ Her voice was thick.
‘Goodnight,’ he said quietly, feeling an emotion once totally foreign to him, but now all too familiar. Shame.
He didn’t sleep for a long time, and he suspected she didn’t either.
Hana awoke to the heavy warmth of Alim’s arm around her.
It was comforting. It was arousing and it was beautiful. For the first time in years, she didn’t wake up feeling so utterly alone…
It was a prison trapping her beneath the will of the man, choking her. Giving in to a man’s wants and desires had subjugated her until she’d had no life left.
‘Get off me.’ She fought to make the words calm. This was Alim, not Mukhtar, whose criminal acts, blind obsession and selfish needs had ruined her life; but she could feel the rising panic, the memories of the night he’d tried to make his lies come true.
‘Hmm?’ He moved in closer, holding her. He was aroused, moving against her bottom as though he had the right.
‘I said get off.’ It wasn’t a half-request any more. She was almost yelling in her fury and panic to get away.
She felt him stir, this time in wakefulness. ‘Huh, what? Oh.’ Too slowly, still half asleep, he lifted his arm and moved away. ‘Sorry, I wasn’t awake,’ he mumbled in Gulf Arabic.
Hana struggled for a semblance of serenity, breathing deep, closing her eyes. I am in control of my life, my decisions. I am—
I am alone. No man controls me.
There. She’d done it. She opened her eyes and said gently, ‘It’s all right. I know you didn’t mean anything by it.’ Her nose wrinkled, and she forced a smile. ‘Especially with the way I smell at the moment.’ She spoke in English, with a marked Australian accent.
‘It’s not just you, Sahar Thurayya,’ he replied in a strange mixture of English and Arabic. ‘I currently offend myself. Alim from the Pigpen.’ He chuckled, wrinkling his nose in turn.
Hana had to wrench her gaze from him. His laughter highlighted his scars, taking the handsome face a level higher, to a dark, dangerous male beauty. Combined with his poetic turn of conversation, it was no wonder women fell at his feet. It was a wonder she hadn’t already—
Fallen for him. Two days and she was already in way over her head, lost in stormy seas without a life preserver, and he hadn’t even touched her. But, oh, she’d touched him and she knew…Did he have any idea how it had felt for her, having her hands on his body? Had she given away the aching throb low in her belly, singing in her blood?
Sahar Thurayya. How many women had he named so exquisitely in the past?
‘I think a more appropriate name for me at present would be Dawn Stink,’ she said lightly, turning to her backpack. ‘Or Evening Stinker, since it’s after sunset. Are you hungry, Pigpen, or do you need ibuprofen? We have to eat quickly and go. Sh’ellah’s men will be looking for us. I just hope they haven’t worked out that you were the truck driver, since we ran.’
‘I’d like both food and painkillers, please,’ he said, warm laughter still in his voice. ‘So you can call me Pigpen, but never use my name. It’s a telling omission,’ he added softly—and she knew he’d seen her reaction to his body yesterday, was testing her…
She handed him an energy bar, ibuprofen tablets and a canteen without looking at him. ‘I told you before. I’m waiting to see if you live up to it.’
‘Well, I certainly live up to Pigpen.’ He took the medicine before eating, and she sensed a question coming before he spoke. ‘Do you keep all men at a distance, or is it only me?’
The light tone in no way hid the serious intent of the question, but it wasn’t aimed at her. The look in his eyes—haunted by bleak self-disgust—told its tale to a trained nurse. She’d seen it many times with burns patients—the horror-filled self-loathing inspired by seeing how they’d look for the rest of their lives. The soul-deep belief that nobody would ever look at them without revulsion, or, worse, they’d always have to endure the awkward, averted eyes and half mumbles of people who didn
’t know what to say to the poor freak…
What could she say? Nothing, except the truth—that when she’d touched his body, she’d felt he was anything but a freak. That something had awakened in her, beautiful as sunlight on water or the first shooting of a new flower, and now merely looking at him made that budding desire blossom through her veins as fast as grapes on a vine.
She felt herself flushing deeper than the heat of early night allowed. ‘Only the ones who put my village at risk and force me to run from my home,’ she replied, the quipping note in it a thin sheet covering her pain: both for him and herself. For the first time since leaving Perth, she’d finally felt safe in Shellah-Akbar, as if she belonged somewhere.
Was that why she felt such a kinship to him…because he was a lost soul, just as she was?
A long silence followed; it pulsed with questions he didn’t ask. ‘I’m sorry, Hana. I came to help but did more damage than good. How unusual for me.’
She turned her face at the self-mocking bitterness, but he’d stood, looking around. For a second time, she opened her mouth and closed it. Despite seeing his near-naked body, sharing a bed with him, faking sex and massaging his body, saving his life and waking in his arms, she didn’t know him well enough to attempt comfort.
And yet every time she looked in his eyes, she saw the mirror held up to her face…
When will you learn to love yourself, my Hana? Her mother had first asked that when she was about eleven, and its echoes still rang unanswered in her heart. Always trying to prove something—that you’re the fastest, the smartest, the strongest, most independent, that you don’t need anyone—and you never see how vulnerable it makes you.
Looking at Alim now, she felt the echo of her mother’s sadness in the heart of a man she’d only known a short time, a man born to wealth and privilege, raised to rule a nation as the spare, thrust into the position after—
Hana closed her eyes. They were two of a kind, seeing themselves through a warped reflection of what they’d done…or should have done. Or what they’d left undone. Nothing was good enough.
Desert Jewels & Rising Stars Page 126
