The_First_Night

by Lexi Blake

  He leans forward to kiss me and this time I do nothing to stop him. Tonight, we will be together. Even if it is, as I fear, the only time we ever will know each other fully.

  My arms wind around his broad shoulders as our lips finally, finally meet.

  As sensation overtakes me, a vision flashes through my mind of Khalid as a younger man. The sun is high in the sky and he’s standing in front of a cave, afraid to enter. An older man stands behind him, one hand resting on Khalid’s shoulder. I cannot hear what the elder says, but Khalid nods and takes a first step forward. And then he takes another and then disappears inside the cave. Everything about the vision is foreign and yet it also feels familiar.

  It’s impossible. I pull away.

  “What is wrong, little one?”

  “I just saw you as a boy. In front of a cave. Why this vision? Why now?”

  “I told you, we’ve known each other before. Your awareness simply has not yet caught up to mine. Do you remember when I told you I dreamed of you?”

  I nod.

  “In those dreams, I discovered things about you I shouldn’t be able to know. You had a doll named Belle when you were a little girl. When you were six, you lost her and cried the whole night. I wanted to reach out to you and hold you. I wanted to comfort you so much.”

  My mind travels back to my still vivid memory of that day. We were living in New York that year. My father was a professor at Columbia University. My mother had taken me to the park and I was playing on the jungle gym. When my mother came to tell me that it was time to go home, I couldn’t find Belle. We looked everywhere but she was gone. Had she even made it into the playground? I wasn’t sure. All I knew was that somewhere between our brownstone off Madison Avenue and 80th street, and the Mother Goose playground on the East drive off 72nd street, I’d lost Belle.

  The whole way back home my mother and I searched for her along the path we’d taken through Central Park, but we never found her. That night, I cried so hard I couldn’t fall asleep for hours. I thought my heart would break. And then it was morning. Oddly, I hadn’t felt as alone without Belle as I’d thought I would.

  Had Khalid reached across time, across space, to comfort a weeping child? Was what he said true? Was this man my soul’s mate?

  “What was in the cave?” I ask.

  “You might not believe me.”

  “A Djinn?”

  “Ah, you’ve heard the rumors. Yes, when a child of my tribe turns ten, he or she is taken to the Djinn’s cave, and if he is deemed worthy, the Djinn imparts a bit of its magic and he becomes a magi. I was deemed worthy.”

  “And those who aren’t?”

  “They don’t return from the cave. You can see why I was a bit nervous.”

  “Just a bit?”

  He smiles but it’s tinged with sadness. “This ritual is why my tribe is dying. There are so few the Djinn deems worthy anymore.” Khalid’s hand strokes my hair. “But we don’t want to talk about my childhood if we only have this night. And we do only have this night. Even if you wanted to stay, I have to get you out of here. I didn’t like how the king talked about you tonight.”

  “What did he say?”

  “Up until now, he’s treated you as a guest, has he not?”

  “You mean has he kept his hands off me? Yes. I wondered about that in the beginning. Scheherazade was supposed to be his bride.”

  “Yes, but he can find other women to keep him occupied in bed. What he can’t find is someone whose stories entertain him. Today he told me a few months ago, on a night with a blood moon, he sensed a changed in you and it made him afraid. Did you switch bodies with Scheherazade on a night with a blood moon?”

  I nod, afraid to even whisper yes.

  “Well, he’s losing his fear and becoming enamored of you. I know our ruler, Camille. Once he decides to have you, no one will be able stop him. It’s only because of our very long-term friendship he agreed not to have you brought to his rooms tonight.”

  “What did you tell him?” My voice is tremulous as I absorb the horror of his words.

  “I told him you were too shaken by what had happened with Goli and that you wouldn’t be any good to him.” Strong fingers trace the line of my neck, moving down, down, lightly brushing the swell of my breasts. “When he was talking I heard possessiveness in his voice. I don’t think you will be able to keep him out of your bed if you remain here.”

  The thought sickens me.

  Khalid takes my hands in his and brings them to his chest. “You aren’t allowed to think about him now. Not now. As long as I am here, I promise I will protect you.”

  He kisses me again. His touch is a drug, rushing through my system, tranquilizing me, relaxing me and inciting me. Everything around me grows hazy. Only Khalid is real. Only his scent and his touch and his lips and his sex, hard against me, are real.

  “Let go of all your concerns and be with me now, Camille. You’re not the only one who needs to make a memory.”

  His mouth presses against mine and I let go of everything but the feel of him, the heat of his body, the silk of his skin under his shirt, the sensation of his lips. My hands roam across his broad chest, gripping his shoulders. He is solid and real. Yes, somewhere in the back of my mind I know danger surrounds us, but here, now, I believe him. I know I am safe in his arms. Nothing can touch me while he holds me close.

  “I need to see all of you.” He whispers as he unties the ribbons that keep my caftan closed. When his work is only half done and the heavy robe is barely off my shoulders, he suddenly stops.

  Even though his body is taut and ready, he steps back, creating distance between us. And then he waits. Not taking his hot eyes off of me.

  In a flash I understand. He doesn’t want to take me. He wants me—Camille—to present myself to him. Me, not Scheherazade. I find both comfort and excitement in this.

  I drop the silk I wear and bare my body.

  Cool air caresses my skin. My nipples tighten. I shiver and feel a clench between my thighs, inside me, in my center, at my core. It’s his eyes alone that do this to me. As if his very glance is touching me, stroking me, entering me, exciting me.

  “You’re more beautiful than I imagined,’’ he says.

  The longer he watches the more wound up I become, like a top being held back, just before it’s allowed to spin. I am ready, begging to be set free, but his stare holds me, stops me. His steady gaze informs me he’s going to be the one to set the rules, to control what happens between us.

  Finally, he gestures me forward. “Now, please, undress me.”

  Eagerly I reach out. I draw off his shirt and run my palms over his chest. Soft skin covers steel. My lover is a study in contrasts, a mystery I fear I will never solve.

  My hands travel to his waist, my eyes glued to his hips as I lower his pants. As they slip down, he leans forward, presses up against me, blocking my view, kissing me, distracting me. His tongue begs entry. For a moment I tease him, refuse him. Insistent, he pushes. His determination wins me over. I want to feel him in my mouth, to taste that much more of him, and so I relent. His tongue slips between my lips in a silky glide. As his hands find my breasts, my body turns liquid with desire.

  Breaking the kiss, he finds other spots to press with his lips. My eyelids, my cheeks, my nose, my neck. His lips are gentle even as he pinches my nipples, giving me desire and affection in equal dizzying doses.

  “Touch me,” he commands. I could pretend to misunderstand and prolong the pleasure but I’m as anxious as he is to make the most of the moment, the hour, the night. I don’t want to play games when we have so little time and so much to learn about each other, so much to explore.

  He steps back. My breasts instantly ache at the loss of his touch. But I do as he asks and look down. His cock is as long and strong and beautiful as the rest of him. Touching him, I wrap my hand around its base, my fingers not quite meeting. I shudder when I feel him pulse in my hand.

  “Harder. I won’t break.” His h
and covers mine and he guides me. Forces me to tighten my grip, to find the rhythm that satisfies him.

  I gaze up at him as we stroke, together, in tandem, building the pressure, exaggerating the craving. He’s so lovely, so handsome, so exotic looking, so much a part of my soul already. I fear there will never be another man who moves me as Khalid does. Who makes me feel as free as I do in this moment, even as my body is enslaved to his.

  “It’s too much, too good,” Khalid says, stopping me. Then leaning over, he lifts me up. I am suddenly in his arms, cradled, and he is carrying me toward his bed. Even in the moonlight, his skin glows bronze. My desert god, I think, as he lowers me down and I sink into the silk and pillows. He might be able to survive in the harshest of climates, but for now he’s surrounded by the decadence of the palace, and he seems at home in this luxuriously decorated room. The riches become him.

  He stares down at me, his eyes taking in everything. I take deep pleasure in knowing what he sees is me—every freckle and imperfection, each scar I earned. When he smiles in satisfaction, I know it is me and only me he is pleased with. He reaches out and cups a breast. My whole body seems to swell at the sensation.

  “This is more than I dreamed of, Camille.”

  I can’t help but smile at him, my magical lover. “You never dreamed of this? Never dreamed of making love to me?”

  His lips tug up and I swear he blushes. “A million times and more.” His fingers brush down the length of my body. “And this is better than any fantasy.”

  This was real and I never wanted it to end.

  “Spread your legs for me.” His voice is low and almost gruff, as if it takes him a great effort to say these words.

  I hesitate.

  “I said spread your legs.” He encircles my ankles with his hands and waits for me to open to him. “I am the king in this room and you will obey me. Here, I’m in control.”

  My heart aches for him because I understand his need. A powerful man in his own world, here in the palace he is but a guest. The king has all the power. He brought Khalid here and he can send him away. The king can allow me to live or end my life.

  The king can take what belongs to Khalid. He can take me.

  If I do nothing else, I will give Khalid what he needs. I will be his to command at the very least in the intimacy of his bedchamber.

  I let my legs fall open with only a hint of self-consciousness. There’s no place for it here. It’s right to be naked with Khalid, to offer myself to his every desire.

  “Can you even guess how long I’ve waited to make a meal of you, my love?” He drops to his knees, and my body clenches in anticipation. He inhales, his eyes closing as he takes in the scent that is evidence of my desire. His long fingers part the petals between my legs and dip just inside to see how ready I am. “How luscious you are, how quickly you respond. ”

  “Only to you.” There has never been another who has made me feel as I do now and I want him to know it, to have this gift, one of the few things I can give him.

  “Then allow me to show how grateful I can be.” He lowers his mouth onto me and his tongue moves to where his fingers just were, opening me up to a heaven here on this earth.

  With long, slow strokes he makes me squirm and twist with pleasure, and then he commands me to be still and to allow him this decadent exploration of my body. Whispering words of desire against my flesh, he makes me wait before spearing me with his tongue again and again.

  It feels so good and so perfect to be devoured like the sweetest fruit he’s ever tasted. His fingers explore me again, finding the nub that is the most sensitive part of me. Then he flicks it with his tongue. Then rubs it with his fingers. Then his tongue. I can’t breathe. Can’t think. I am being tortured with pleasure. His fingers rub circles on that tender flesh. His tongue slides. Rubs. Slides. I am throbbing with feelings that can’t last much longer. I can’t last much longer. My heart races as the pressure builds.

  My hands sink into his wavy hair as I try to hold on to consciousness. It’s useless. One more slither of his tongue, another press of his thumb and I wash away. The wave hits me and I cry out his name. Khalid is the only thing real in this world. All else is liquid fire burning away the façade. Leaving me more utterly myself than I have ever been. Even as I lie in another woman’s body, I am Camille because he is Khalid.

  “I can’t wait. I can’t. I’m sorry, my love… I…know I should make it last…but I can’t…” He pushes me up on the bed and covers me with his whole body. “Need you…always needed you…need you now…”

  I feel his cock press against me. He looms over me until all the world seems swallowed up in him. He is everything to me in that moment. I love the way his weight presses me down, how his hips hold my legs wide for him. He invades in the sweetest way. Pressure. A tiny pain. And then...then he is marvelously and miraculously inside me. He fills me. He’s almost too big, but I welcome that, too. I will feel the soreness in the morning and it will remind me that we were together, that briefly we shared perfection and can do it again. As long as I’m here, we can be together.

  As long as I’m here…do I even want to leave? Does home mean anything without this man?

  I sigh and wrap my legs around his waist and after all this time, after no time, after minutes and lifetimes, we are finally connected. His masculinity is buried deep in that part of me that is most feminine. We are halves of a whole, and the pleasure I feel is almost familiar. As though we felt it before, on the day our souls were married and only now reclaim it.

  I feel Khalid give up trying to hold on. I feel him inside of me surrender to the inevitability of this—our first night.

  Our only night.

  “I love you,” he whispers as he thrusts inside of me and leaves me speechless and feeling what I have never felt before.

  Connected.

  “I love you. I do. I love you too,” I tell him, surprising myself but knowing that it’s true. And has been for a long, long time. I might not have seen him in my dreams the way he saw me, but I longed for him. For a man who could understand me, help me to become this version of myself, the most loving, the bravest. It’s not that he completes me, I was wholly myself before, but he complements me. And I him.

  Without him I can survive, but I cannot soar.

  He pulls back, almost severing our connection, but at the last moment he pushes back in. I can feel him move inside me, caressing places I’ve never felt before. Somehow he finds my every trigger and primes them. I’m on the edge of such ecstasy.

  Over and over he presses in and retreats. I clench around him. This is our beautiful battle. One where we are both the victors.

  I feel Khalid move inside me and a deeper more intense sensation of pleasure begins to build. It starts low, a vibration in my womb, and then it sparks through my body. Khalid presses his lips back on mine, kissing me hard as he finds a fast and steady rhythm. My soul flows into his and his into mine, the two becoming a new, co-mingled soul that never existed before this moment. Even as our excitement builds, even as I begin to burst open for him, a sense of peace I’ve never known before surges through me.

  Straining, slowing, cursing, Khalid attempts to extend the moment that’s too good to last. I can’t hold back and let go, and like a glissade on a harp, glide blissfully over the edge, feeling every sound, hearing every color. On the edge of what is left of my consciousness, I’m aware of Khalid’s body stiffening and I feel the hot wash of his pleasure fill my womb.

  I want to stay with him. I realize in that moment that I am trapped. I love him. Life will be less without him.

  Moments later, breathing hard, he looks down at me. “No matter what may come, no matter how many years pass before we can be together again, no matter what planes divide us, you, Camille, you will always be my wife.”

  And he would be my husband. Even if only in my dreams.

  * * * *

  When I finally wake, I see Khalid is already up. He sits with his back to me, his head down.
I can feel the misery in his pose and it depletes me. As I watch him, I know what I need to do. What I want to do.

  “I’m going to stay,” I tell him. “I can’t leave you. I love you more than I need my body back or my time back.”

  His head shakes. “You must go.”

  I get to my knees, lean up against him, my front pressed into this back. I place my hands on his shoulders. “Now that I’ve known the peace of being connected to you, I can’t be apart from you. What would my life be like? I’ll be fine here, I will. I’ll make sure the women get used to me. I’ll befriend them. I’ll be careful.”

  “Of course you can charm them. They aren’t why you’re in danger. It’s the king. If you stay any longer, he’s going to call you to his bed. Even if you were willing to sleep with him in order to stay with me, I wouldn’t be able to live with myself knowing what you were sacrificing.”

  My gut twists at the thought of being with the king. Now it’s my turn to put my head in my hands. And that’s when I notice the little stain on the sheets. Horror swamps me, and I realize what I have done.

  “She was a virgin. Oh Khalid, Scheherazade was a virgin.”

  Khalid looks where I’m pointing. When he sees the blood, he frowns. “I knew you weren’t a virgin so I didn’t even think about whether or not she was. Of course Scheherazade was and her virginity belonged to the king. There will be hell to pay if he discovers she no longer possesses that gift.”

  “What can we do?” My mind races. I want to stay. Khalid says I have to leave. If I do leave and exchange places with Scheherazade, I will have left her vulnerable and I’ll be responsible for her death. I can’t go. I feel relief flood me. I have a solid reason why I can’t go back to my time.

  He reaches for his pants. “Don’t worry, little one. It’s simple enough to fix. The women of my tribe have been deceiving men about the state of their chastity for centuries. We don’t believe women who take pleasure are any less valuable. By the time Scheherazade returns to her body, it will be intact once more.”