by Olivia Gates
He tickled her nose with a lock of her hair. “Are you awake this time, or are we having another sleep-talking session?”
“I love it when you tease…oh.” She stormed up to her feet, jumped over him and onto the floor. He too shot to his feet, alarm starting to form on his lips. She squealed, “Bathroom.”
He laughingly if urgently pointed at a door at the far end of the expansive room. She hurtled there.
After dealing with the emergency, she was thankful for the chance to freshen up. She’d never woken up with another person, wasn’t having any interaction with him-the epitome of mouth-watering freshness-before she was squeaky clean.
She was so acutely aware of his presence outside she barely took in the opulence of the all-marble-and-gold-fixtures bathroom as she tried to fix her appearance. Her self-consciousness at being all sleep-swollen and wrinkled increased when she came out to find him, a being out of oriental fables in an outfit made for the desert and sharing its hues and textures, propped up in her bed with his endless legs crossed at the ankles. The one thing that reassured her was that he was looking at her as if she was a hot gourmet meal and he was starving.
She approached him, feeling intensely gauche, her heart stumbling over a thousand insecurities. And incredulity.
God, she was really here. Halfway across the world. On his island. And he was waiting for her to join him in bed, an inexorable magnet when she was a helpless pin. Could this really be happening? She, Farah Beaumont, the ultimate misfit, understood and appreciated, hungered for by this man she hadn’t dared to dream existed?
She faltered, looked around dazedly. He’d opened the blackout curtains and light was seeping through the drapes, giving the room that dreamscape quality. How many hours had she slept? Not many, since sunset was around 7:00 p.m., and she’d gone to sleep as soon as he’d left the room, around 1:00 p.m…
One of his hands patted the space beside him, ending her confusion. She jumped there, curled into him like a cat.
“Now that was an emergency,” he drawled, amusement staining his magnificent baritone.
Just what she’d thought. She chuckled. “Yeah, which is weird, come to think of it. Say…” She sat up. “Don’t you have to go to work, take care of the crisis?”
“I did, for today. I flew out this morning, was in meetings and negotiations for six hours.”
“What do you mean six hours? How can you-this morning…?” Then it dawned on her. “God, how long have I slept?”
“Do you want the interval in hours, or in days?”
“Days!” She flopped back in his arms. “No wonder there was an emergency.” She sat back up, poking him. “Now stop making fun of me with me and tell me exactly how long I slept.”
Making a visible effort to keep a straight face, he examined his watch. “Considering you’ve been awake for exactly fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds now, you slept exactly twenty-six hours, three minutes and…forty-three…four seconds.”
She poked him, kissed him, groaned against his lips, all at once. “It’s all your fault. I never sleep more than six hours.”
He surrendered to her, his hands restless on her back, his groans rising as her lips landed anywhere on his face. “I plead guilty. I whisked you away from your world, kept you up for over a day. I should have insisted you got some sleep.”
She drew back, ran her hands over his robe-clad shoulders. “There was no way I could sleep while you were awake. But you weren’t knocked for a loop staying up so long like I was. You even put in a full day’s work with flights and fights involved.”
He smoothed his hand down her hair. “I sleep little by nature. But with you around, insomnia will enter a new dimension.” His eyes fixed on her lips, pulling them by sheer will toward his. Just half a breath away, he whispered, “How about a ride?”
She pulled away, her eyes rounding, a hundred images crashing into her mind. Sculpted flesh, moist with exertion, hard with arousal, beneath her, around her, hands spanning her waist, moving her up, down…“Huh?”
He’d seen everything that had played in her mind, just as clearly as if it had played on a widescreen. She was certain. In response, his lips crooked at one corner, the roughening of his voice the only indication that reading her thoughts had affected him. “Do you ride? Horses?”
Oh. Oh. “Uh…umm…” She croaked. “Not since I got my scar. It was the last straw. Mom had a fit and insisted that Dad never take me to the ranch again.”
“The last straw, eh? So you’d given them one too many scares. But not to worry. I’ll give you my most accommodating mare to ride.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “But first, something to eat. You must be starving.”
And she was. For him. But he wasn’t, for her? She’d thought he’d postponed making love to her because she’d been exhausted. But she was overcharged now. So why wasn’t he…?
He pulled her to him, buried his face in her neck, bringing her between his legs, leaving her in no doubt of the extent of his hunger, amazing her once more with his restraint. He groaned when she ground her core into his hardness, unconsciously trying to assuage the ache pounding there. His answering thrust felt as involuntary, riding what sounded like a pained rumble, before his hand on her buttocks ground her harder into him, stopping her from moving and maddening them both further.
His voice was tight with control when he murmured, “We’ll spend what remains of the day roaming the island. What we don’t cover today, we will in the days to come.” His voice dropped an octave. “We have all the time in the world.”
He’d read her mind again. And this was his answer. Showing her that he was starving for her, too, with the incontestable evidence of his body. But his words were equally clear.
When he’d said they’d go slow, he’d really meant it.
And suddenly it scared her.
She’d thrown away her wariness at Shehab’s first touch, would have braved any recriminations or repercussions to be one with him, once, in those gardens. When he’d offered slower, more, she’d snatched at the offer that was so much better than what she would have happily settled for.
Even when he’d invited her here, she’d had no expectations beyond the satisfaction of her unstoppable desire for him. She’d been ecstatic that someone like him existed, that she provoked the same desire in him, delirious at anticipating what she’d given up on ever experiencing, a man who set her every cell singing with life. She hadn’t hoped for a second the affair would last for longer than it took for him to move on. She’d accepted it without the least resentment or longing for more. It would have been enough to last her a lifetime.
But now he was offering her what she’d never dreamed any man would-time. And not just time spent seducing her, but time to savor her, her, not her body. As he’d promised, as she hadn’t understood, or believed. As she now did.
And she knew what that time would do.
Time would destroy the simplicity of the equation. She wouldn’t be satisfied with the purity of a physical and transient relationship. If she got to know the man inside the male, undiluted by physical involvement, she might start to think there could be even more. This was a hurt she wouldn’t come back from.
She wanted to beg him not to compound the addiction she could already feel taking hold within her, not to set her up for frustration. For devastation. But for once, something stopped her from confessing her thoughts, her vulnerability. She had no right to burden him with her fears and frailties, to demand that he modify his behavior to observe them. But she could modify her own behavior. If she were sane, she’d lay down her rules and leave if he refused them. But she’d lost her mind…
She should still try to change his.
She slid up his body, rubbing against his unyielding steel, tasting his neck, biting into the sculpture of his lower lip, groaned her plea when he opened to her on a growl of pleasure. “We can explore tomorrow. Today, I only want to explore you…”
He stemmed her entreaty, thrusting into her r
ecesses, draining her until she sagged in his arms. “And you will explore me. And I will explore you, claim you, do everything to you.”
He surged up, sweeping her around and beneath him and her eyes stung, filled, with relief. And disappointment. There’d be no more waiting. There’d be no more.
But he rose from the bed, in one impossible movement scooping her up in his arms and striding to the other end of the room, entered a huge, exquisitely outfitted dressing room.
He laid her down on a sofa facing a wall-to-wall mirror before heading to the closets paneling the walls. Through a sliding door he gathered clothes that looked like replicas of his, and came back to her. Then he kneeled in front of her. He held one foot after the other, slipped off her sandals, then, as in the gardens, he pressed one to his heart. This time when his lips hovered over her flesh, they descended, made contact.
She arched on a spasm of emotion, at the sight of him, the feel, the very idea of him kissing her foot.
“I’ve never waited for the gratification of my desires, ya galbi.” His voice was gruff, driven as he dragged his lips and tongue over the arches of her feet, the backs of her calves, the insides of her thighs. She was quaking, begging when he withdrew, swept the clothes over her lap. “But I can wait if it’s for you. I can wait until everything is perfect.”
Just perfect.
Farah glowered at the Byzantine-style woodcarving that hung at the entrance to Shehab’s stables. The thermometer nestling in its intricacy stood at 112°F. In the shade. She wondered if it was reading the atmosphere’s temperature or hers.
Even an hour after that episode in her bedroom, after a perfect meal and a real shower and a change into the clothes he’d picked out for her, she was still sizzling. Everything he did or said kept her simmering. Before leaving her to go and deal with some details, he’d urged her to go inside the stables out of the heat and given her a kiss that had her a breath away from meltdown.
She stumbled into the interior, seeking its coolness. The sun was merciless even during its descent, but Shehab had made sure she was protected from all its dangers. Cool, flowing clothes, constant hydration and her every exposed part covered in sunblock. He’d seen to that himself, with meticulousness that had left her feeling more burned than any ultraviolet exposure could have caused. She’d assured him from distant memory that she’d always handled sun and heat well. He’d countered, not sun like this. She hadn’t been built for it, hadn’t been drenched in it from birth like he had been. He had to acclimatize her to it gradually, would never forgo any precaution. He couldn’t be too careful with her.
She thought he could be. He was. Too careful with her. And it was starting to mess with her sanity.
She pushed her sunglasses over her head. As her vision adjusted, a silver mare materialized out of the gloom, patiently standing in the aisle wearing a saddle and bridle. She was looking straight at her, and, Farah could swear, was stunned to see her. In the next second she whinnied and tossed her head. And, wow, what a beauty.
She’d seen enough Useel, purebred Arabian mares, in her father’s stables to recognize one. This one was remarkable even by his fanatical standards. Which figured. There was no way Shehab had anything but the best. The horse stood at least 15 hands, with an impressive depth of chest. Her short head had a beautiful concave profile, a broad forehead and wide jowls.
Farah’s admiring scrutiny faltered. The mare was trotting toward her, ears tucked, nostrils flared, snorting an unmistakable threat…
“Ablah.”
At Shehab’s admonition, the mare at once stopped and perked up her ears, her prominent eyes all but grinning sheepishly.
Farah swung around to him. “I hope that’s not your most accommodating mare.”
“Actually, she is.” He caught his lower lip in his teeth, his face ablaze with wickedness. “I like my horses spirited.”
“Yeah, and it seems you train them as guard dogs, too.”
“She doesn’t usually see strangers. She was probably wary of you.”
She smirked. “She didn’t seem wary to me, and I’m no longer sure I want to reprise my long-bygone equine experience.”
He gave her a considering look, then turned to the mare. “Ablah…ta’ee hena.” Ablah trotted to him at once, nuzzled him in the shoulder. He held her face in his hands, murmured in Arabic. Ablah shifted uncomfortably, looking positively shamefaced.
Farah was incredulous. “What did you say to her?”
He gave Ablah a stern look. “That I was upset with her because she wasn’t nice to you, that you’re the woman I crave.”
“That’s supposed to make her more amenable toward me? I bet that’s why she wasn’t nice. She’s jealous as hell.”
He huffed a chuckle. “She’s a horse, Farah.”
“She’s a mare, Shehab. I bet you have females of every species swooning within a hundred-mile radius.”
He flashed her a smile that left her wanting to flip down her sunglasses. “Though I’d be appalled to think every female rat and shrimp around were wiggling their whiskers at me, I’ll snap this up as the compliment I’m sure you meant.” She narrowed her eyes at him, stuck out her tongue. He laughed, pinched her cheek softly. “I can assure you Ablah won’t try to get rid of the competition. But if you’re not comfortable, I’ll ride her, and you can ride Barq.” He patted the neck of the other horse, which a stable hand had just led up to them, placing the reins in Shehab’s hand. “He’s taken with you.”
Farah looked at Barq, a magnificent black stallion who looked decidedly more docile than Ablah and who was checking her out with interest. She looked back into the mare’s eyes, almost saw the impish challenge there, then she shook her head. “Nah, I think I’ll get acquainted with Ablah. I’m sure we can come to an understanding, one lady to another.”
His smile brightened with approval. “That’s jameelati, always doing the unexpected.”
“Yeah, let’s just hope I don’t really do the unexpected and spend my sabbatical in traction. Say, what does Ablah mean?”
“‘Perfectly formed.’ Barq means ‘lightning.’”
Farah eyed the magnificent mare, then sighed. “And she knows it, too. And if Barq’s name is also descriptive, I’d say it’s a good choice I opted to ride Ablah.”
He gathered her to him, tilted up her face to his. “You do know I wouldn’t propose riding either if I wasn’t certain you’d be totally safe?” She nodded, smiled her total trust up at him. His smile widened as he half kneeled beside her offering a leg up. “Up you go.”
She put her foot in the stirrup, grabbed the saddle and let him boost her up only for Ablah to give a distressed whinny when she landed on her back.
“Oh, c’mon. So I’m no lightweight, but your master outweighs me by…” she eyed him hungrily, gave her lips an involuntary lick “…seventy pounds, at least. So quit pretending you’re about to keel under my weight.”
Ablah snorted, swished her tail. Shehab laughed at the dialogue between woman and mare. Then he bent to Ablah and murmured in her ear, his eyes on Farah. “Et’addebi.”
Ablah fell silent at once, stood motionless and stared ahead, like a soldier, all obedience and steadfastness.
Farah giggled. “What was that? A magic word?”
His eyes glittered pure onyx in the declining sun slanting through the wide-open doors. “Behave.”
She wanted to cry out that she was behaving, had already used up her courage in propositioning him, would never make a move again. Then she realized he’d just been translating.
But, no. He was also warning her not to try again to end the time he was bound on having together without sexual intimacy.
Before she could say anything, he swung up on Barq’s back and leaned toward her, lowered her sunglasses over her eyes, put his on, pulled Barq’s reins, rapped Ablah’s rump lightly, and the two horses fell into step with each other.
Shehab kept within an arm’s reach of Farah for the first few hundred feet, murmuring direct
ions and encouragements until she was whooping in unbridled joy as she gained confidence, began to rise and fall with the rhythm of Ablah’s medium sustained gallop, the wind weaving its hot, dry fingers through her hair, sending it flowing behind her like living bronze fire.
And he again had to acknowledge that it was nothing short of a miracle. That he was out here, taking her on a tour of the island, instead of back in her bed, taking her, period. That he’d taken her riding, instead of having her ride him.
And she’d wanted to, had entreated him to let her.
The only way he’d accessed the unsuspected power that had enabled him to say no was that this torture had a flipside. In prolonging her seduction, he found himself reveling in the bittersweet anticipation, the burgeoning arousal.
Exhilaration bubbled inside him in answer to her unfettered enjoyment. He shouted to her over the whipping of wind and the staccato of hooves, “You’re a natural horsewoman, ya saherati.”
“It’s Ablah who’s a natural rookie mare,” she shouted back, giggling. “You were right. She is riding herself, so to speak, keeping me miraculously glued to her back.”
From then on they kept exchanging smiles and shouted comments, laughing at anything the other said.
He gave her a thorough guided tour, and she was the perfect tourist, gratifyingly interested and impressed. Then at the highest point on the island where both its sides could be seen, he brought them to a stop, carried her down from Ablah and to the spread beneath the shade tent he’d had erected for them.
He sat down, took her across him, one knee supporting her back, her breasts pressing against his chest, her buttocks against his erection. He took the lips she offered, thrust into the sweetness she surrendered, drew back only when torment lost the sweet edge, the bitter side beginning to cut deep, looked down into the emerald eyes that truly rivaled the crystalline shores of his island. So willing, so giving, so trusting…
No. Willing, yes. Giving, no. She wanted only to take. He must never lose sight of that.
