“Yours,” she promised.
A tempest of ecstasy swept her into its embrace, and she lost herself to it. She tightened around him, shuddering in bliss, her body so hot she believed she might burn to a cinder. Joaidane groaned long and low against her throat, the exciting sound closer to a growl than any human vocalization.
He stiffened but never slowed, his smooth thrusts turning wild and hard until he spilled himself within her. The hot pulse seared through her body and pushed her into a second climax before the first had ended.
Magical. Miraculous. Perfect. No word could describe their union and do it justice.
He slumped atop her and rolled, keeping her in his arms until they lay side by side, their bodies still joined. He stroked her face, soft caresses accompanied by tender kisses until her racing heart slowed and her breaths calmed.
Exchanging kisses in lieu of words, she lay silent and content in his arms until the natural softening of his cock parted their connection. Zarina mourned its loss but took comfort in his presence. After a time, he moved away to the spring and returned with a damp cloth. Then he tended to her with the utmost care, wiping away the stickiness between her legs.
“Thank you,” she whispered.
“You never have to thank me for caring for you, desert rose.” He stroked her hair, then leaned back on his arms and watched the night sky.
Zarina sprawled across the grass on her tummy and gazed at him from beneath her lashes, hoping to look more coy than exhausted. Seductive instead of winded. If sex was always so great, how did any pair of adults manage to tear themselves away from each other? “Is it like that every time?”
The emergence of a rare, cocky grin widened across his handsome face. “When your strength returns, you can tell me.”
“I don’t need to wait for my strength to return. I want to touch you now.”
“Your wish is my command; I’m yours to do with as you desire,” he replied, spreading his arms wide.
With hopes of appearing as alluring as she felt, she crawled to him on her hands and knees. Her core continued to throb with the dull ache of their union, filling her body with indescribable and delicious sensations.
She’d never known the male body could be so enticing. The book hadn’t prepared her at all. Her fingers trailed over the defined dips and curves of his masculine chest, the muscle sculpted with the perfection of a sandstone carving.
Joaidane watched her every move, following her fingers with his eyes when her index finger traveled down the treasure trail of dark hair leading to his length. It twitched once beneath her visual examination, and then the throb between her thighs worsened, core clenching with mounting desire.
How could she possibly need him again so badly when they’d only finished moments ago?
Trusting in herself and emboldened by the glazed look in his eyes, she took her lover into her mouth and slowly lowered. She slurped up again to the tip, rewarded when his eyes rolled back.
Perfect. Using her mouth the way he’d claimed her body, she thrust him further inside, deeper with each pass and bob of her head until she reached her natural limit. Joaidane’s hand fisted in her hair, his hips bucked, and she swallowed another inch.
“Zarina…”
She had never heard his voice so breathless before, so ragged with need. The empowering sound gave life to all manner of naughty thoughts. She curled one fist at the root of his arousal and cupped the cool weight beneath in the other palm before drawing back to his crowned ridge. Her jaw ached, but she didn’t dare to surrender to a fleeting moment of discomfort. Not now when she had him under her spell. Not now when she had captivated him.
“Zarina, you don’t—”
With her tongue flattened against his veined underside, she took him into her mouth again and wriggled a little further, until the tip filled her throat and blocked her air. She wanted to gag but suppressed the reflex through stubborn willpower.
Joaidane’s raw, primal groan made the attempt worth every effort. He was hers, clay in her hands, and she delighted in every moment. As she drew him back, the sweet-salty spray of his seed filled her mouth and she swallowed every drop, suckling until her lover was limp on the ground.
She kissed his silken tip, then pressed her cheek to his thigh.
“Where… where did you learn that?”
Heat surged to her face. “A book.” A most delightful book that had prepared her more than the fleeting and brief conversations she’d had with her deceased mother as a child. Then, she’d only been told sex was necessary to produce children and nothing particularly special.
Oh, how her mother had lied.
“What else did your book teach you?”
Zarina raised her head and crawled up his body, laying down a path of light kisses as she went. “It taught me a woman can ride a man,” she whispered, then flicked one flat nipple with her tongue. “That she can hold the power and bring him to great pleasure.”
His manhood stirred from soft to stiff in a heartbeat, rising upward to press against her skin. She reached down between them and angled him to her core. With her gaze holding his, she sank down and took him inside her.
His stamina was practically supernatural, giving proof to his claims of being different. Whether he was a sorcerer or something else entirely, it mattered not to Zarina. What mattered most was he’d become hers, and she had no intentions of letting him go.
* * *
Joaidane remained alongside Zarina until the early hours of the morning when the moon was nearing its final descent across the starlit sky. Of all the places he’d gone, of all the people he’d met, she had somehow become the most precious of all.
And were his powers not fading, he would have remained alongside her even longer beneath verdant palms swaying above them on the breeze. More than anything, he desired to see her smiling face lit by the golden dawn, but it could never be. Not until his curse lifted.
“Zarina.” He shook her awake. “Dawn will soon be upon us. We must go.”
“Must we?” She stretched out alongside him, drawing his eyes to her bare breasts.
Unless you want to lie beside a wrinkled old man… “Definitely. I, ah, imagine your brother and father won’t be happy that you’ve been out the entire night with a stranger.”
“But you’re not a stranger.” Zarina smiled up at him.
“Not to you, but… I fear I have damaged your reputation entirely. Or I will if we do not make haste.”
“So what? I only care about you. About us. And I will wait for you. My reputation means nothing to me and isn’t requisite to enjoying my life the way I have chosen.”
“Zarina—”
“I mean it. I don’t care if you’re cursed. I don’t care if the neighbors whisper about our activities. This was my body, is my body, and this is my choice. If all I get with you are these few days each month, then I’ll happily take them.”
“You don’t understand what you’re—”
“How are three days of your affection worse than a life with none at all?” she demanded. “I know my mind, my heart, and what I want. Would you deny me the chance to make my own decisions?”
He remained silent.
“Would you?”
Regretting the necessity of parting from her side, he stood, then offered Zarina a hand up from the grass. The gentle blades still felt soft beneath his bare toes.
Although they dressed in silence, they both stole touches and paused multiple times to admire the other. He wanted the sight of her to be forever burned into his memory. To remember her like this forever.
“You haven’t answered me,” Zarina said after she knotted her sash. “Are you already promised or in love with someone? Betrothed or married to a woman far from here?”
Aghast, he stared at her. “No!”
“Then tell me why.”
“A day will come when you’re no longer satisfied with three days.”
She raised her chin. “Then we’ll cross that bridge together
when we reach it. Better yet, you’ll find a way to break it. Won’t you?”
He swallowed. “I’ll try. That is all I can promise.”
“That’s all I ask. For you to try. For you to make my waiting worth it in the end, and that we spend each moment together as if it may be the last.”
They raced the sunrise, rushing across the desert terrain for the city coming within view. Zarina laughed and pressed her cheek against the back of his shoulder without understanding the desperation driving him to push the stallion to his limits.
He couldn’t allow her to witness the shameful transformation from Joaidane to Rumpelstiltskin, and he couldn’t stain their beautiful night with that ugliness.
They reached her house moments before the first streaks of pale gold shone against the horizon. He dismounted and helped her down, indulging in one final moment of having her body against his. Gods. She was all soft curves and beauty, still smelling like flowers and spice even after a long night of lovemaking.
“You must get inside before the city wakens, and I must go,” he whispered against her hair.
“Do you promise to return to Naruk again?”
Could he survive another moon cycle as the terrifying leper shunned by each person he encountered? “Yes. But first, before we can be together, I must try to overcome this curse.” He caressed her cheek, then backed down from the stoop. “In a month, I will return to you, Zarina. I give you my word. And on that night, when I return to you, I will ask your family for your hand in marriage.”
“I wish you could stay.”
Joaidane kissed her fingers. “Wait for me.”
He had less than thirty days to find a permanent end to his curse, and perhaps if he could free himself, he could spare her the awful truth.
Chapter
What would he do without Mithran? Whenever the time came for Joaidane to find a new home, his fleet-footed friend appeared as his loyal rescuer. Their friendship had endured for decades, a partnership benefitting one of them more than the other. After all, Joaidane had nothing to offer but his kindness and appreciation in return.
As elemental spirits of fire and sand, ifrit dwelled in the heart of the Ivory Sea. The inhospitable desert stretched across Samahara from the western mountains to the eastern coast, effectively splitting the kingdom in half. Only a fool would cross without taking the necessary precautions.
I guess I’m a fool, he thought. A fool in love, because nothing else could have made him undertake the journey.
Dismounting on the edge of the last hidden oasis, Joaidane left Mithran to graze and continued on foot. The wind blasted coarse sand against his weathered face and unrelenting heat pounded against the top of his balding head, but he pressed on despite the sunburn on his scalp.
He had to find Yasmina, and if he wanted an audience with the Queen of the Ifrit, he had to go where their kind lived and journey into the inhospitable heart of the desert.
Sweat trickled down the back of his neck as he stumbled across the blistering sand. He’d wrapped additional linens around his feet to protect the soles, useless as it was against the rising temperatures.
Damn. He should have hidden in the oasis with Mithran until nightfall.
But if he’d taken the easy way—the intelligent way—the petty ifrit queen would’ve never revealed herself to him. As he scoured the dunes for her well, he doubted she would emerge for him during the day either.
“Yasmina!” he shouted. “I’ve come to you, humbled and desperate for an audience! Please show me the way!”
Sweat dripped into Joaidane’s eyes. He staggered another step, then collapsed to his knees in the sand. His muddled head spun the world around him in blurry circles.
Did Yasmina hate him enough to allow him to die a dishonorable death in the dunes? He’d never considered it, always assuming his survival for so long had to be attributed to her vindictive streak rather than luck.
If I die here, Zarina will always wonder what happened to me. I can’t give up. She’ll think I abandoned her. The memory of her generosity, sweet kisses, and their ardent lovemaking renewed his strength. Too stubborn to concede defeat, Joaidane grunted and shoved himself to a standing position.
A stretch of shimmering glass glittered down the dune, turned into gold flakes and diamond shards by the midday sun.
The Queen of the Ifrit had made him a path after all.
Before she could change her mind and withdraw her benevolent offer, Joaidane lurched forward until the trail curved around a high dune and sloped downward. In the distance, Yasmina’s well shone pearlescent beneath the sapphire sky. Desperate to reach her, he picked up speed and ignored the cramps tightening down his calves.
I can make it!
His muscles tightened like leather stretched over a wooden frame, limbs resistant to his brain’s commands. By the end, he crawled on his hands and knees until he reached the edge of the font. He scooped a hand inside the cool water and brought it to his mouth while the imperious and proud statue of Yasmina loomed above him.
“Queen Yasmina,” he rasped after the second sip. “Please awaken and speak with me.”
Only the howl of the wind answered him. He slumped against the well and closed his eyes, struggling against the overwhelming exhaustion. The sense of defeat. He’d made it this far, but all for nothing it seemed.
No. No, I will not give up so easily.
Trembling, limbs quaking, he forced himself back to his feet and stared up at the statue.
“I petition you, Queen Yasmina!” he cried. “Speak with me! I’ve crossed the desert, and I will not be turned away.”
The winds died down and left an eerie silence over the dunes. Static hung in the air.
“Why have you come, Rumpelstiltskin?” Yasmina’s voice whispered from the statue. Candles at the stone base ignited, and the wicks blazed with violet flames.
“That is not my name.”
Stone and glass melted away into flesh and silk given life by sensual and ethereal movements. Her gold and jade garments floated without a breeze, fluttering around her ankles as strands of ruby hair drifted around her face. She glided down from the raised pedestal and hovered before him with her slippered feet inches from the ground.
“It is the name I have given you. The name you deserve for your transgressions.”
Joaidane lowered his gaze to the ground and drew in a deep breath. “It has been centuries.”
“You are the one with a lesson to learn. Not I. The length of your punishment is, as it always has been, dependent on you.”
“You’re wrong, Queen Yasmina. You’ve given me an impossible curse, one no one will ever lift because I’ve been forgotten. I’ve traveled the sands hoping to find anyone willing to utter the words, but there’s no one.”
She chuckled. “So you say. I’ve watched you these past years. Tell me, why do you stay in Naruk? You are treated no better in that city than anywhere else—reviled or ignored.”
“Not by everyone. I met a woman—”
“I knew it,” she spat. “You love no one but yourself, and this proves it. I should have expected you to use a woman as an excuse to escape your punishment.”
“That’s not true. I care for Zarina.”
Queen Yasmina tossed her head back and laughed, her amusement echoing beneath the unyielding sun. “You only care that she notices you. You miss the pleasures you once enjoyed as a handsome man.”
“At first, yes. I freely admit it. Having a pretty girl pay attention to me was flattering, and I looked forward to her visits for my own selfish reasons. She brought me food and kind words. But Yasmina, it turned into more. I love her.”
“Why should I believe you?”
“Was it not you who aided me against those thieves?” he asked. “My life hadn’t been threatened and I wasn’t in danger, but you gave me a coin and a way to purchase the information I needed. You allowed me more magic in a single weekend than I’ve used in three hundred years.”
Yasmina lifted
a brow but remained silent as she waited for his explanations. Joaidane mopped his forehead with the back of his wrist. Sweat seeped into his eyes. She’d taken every one of his natural gifts, including his immunity to fire and heat.
“In those three hundred years, have I come once to you, my queen?”
Her eyes narrowed. “No. A most curious thing, I admit. I had expected you to beg and plead for your pitiful life.”
“You made your judgment clear, and for many years, I hated you for it.”
“And now?”
“For Zarina, I would swallow my pride and cross the Ivory Sea a thousand times, blistered and weathered more each time. For her, I would carry these old bones until they were all that remained if you would hear my pleas. Please, Queen Yasmina, I beg of you.”
She drifted around him, looking him up and down from head to toe. Joaidane resisted the urge to fidget in her presence, but her intense scrutiny made him feel like a naughty child. He straightened as much as his crooked back would allow and raised his chin.
“Please, grant me leniency,” he pleaded again.
“Leniency is all you ask? Then perhaps you would like to enter a little wager with me.”
“A wager?”
“Yes.” She tapped one ruby nail against her lower lip and gazed into the distant dunes. “I will grant you a trade. Your face in exchange for knowledge of your Zarina’s fate.”
“What?” Apprehension gnawed into his gut. “Her fate?”
Yasmina gestured with both of her hands, raising a column of sand between them. As it swirled, the image of Zarina’s tear-stained face materialized in the moving grains. “The fates are a fickle thing, Joaidane. In the coming days, she will need you. Will you be there?”
He met her gaze without blinking or flinching away. “I would stand beside Zarina throughout any trial. She’s a good woman, with a heart larger than any other citizen of Naruk. Perhaps in all Samahara. She feeds the poor, clothes the weary, and watches the children of her neighbors without ever asking for anything in return.” And worst of all, she’d endured countless betrayals from her own father yet still devoted her life to her family. “What’s the cost?”
Zarina and the Djinn Page 12
