Nichelle glared at Wolfe. “I wish you’d kept that thought to yourself.”
He chuckled and strolled over to his camel who rolled her big and moist eyes over to him as soon as he came within a few feet of her. Even the camel was head over heels in love with him. Wolfe playfully scratched her head and murmured soft nonsense in her ear that Nichelle was too far away to hear. Figured.
Then they were off again, riding beneath the desert sun with the sound of Mahmoud’s melodic singing, Kareef clapping and providing accompanying laughter. The sunset, when they found it, was spectacular. They rode over the powdery sand, the edges of their turbans pulled down over their mouths and noses to block the sand being tossed around in the wind.
Nichelle’s camel rocked beneath her while the sky turned to amber, then gold, catching fire above them as their small caravan rode toward a mysterious destination. She had done her job with the presentation. Wolfe was happy. They would go back to Miami soon enough. Even with the presence of Isaac and his sycophantic friend, the desert ride was an amazing experience she would not soon forget.
As the last of the light disappeared from the sky, they crested a mountain of sand. Nichelle exhaled in wonder. Below them sat a pair of large tents, white and stretched out beneath the darkening sky. A fire already burned a few dozen feet away from the tents, crackling and showering sparks into the air.
They had arrived at their home for the night.
Chapter 8
Wolfe sat around the fire with Nichelle, Franklin, Green and their guides, sipping from his small glass of mint tea. His thighs ached dimly from the ride, but overall he felt both energized and relaxed, completely at peace. His wants were few.
In the surprising coolness of the desert, the fire’s warmth tempted him closer. But Nichelle’s heat drew him even more. In her jeans and white blouse, she looked very much the modern woman, but with the winds howling through the sand and the camels only a few feet away, it was easy to imagine he was with her in another time and free of the responsibilities that had brought them to Morocco in the first place.
“It is a good night, yes?” Mahmoud nodded to everyone around the fire.
Wolfe nodded back. The trip hadn’t gone quite as expected, but he had enjoyed himself very much. Only one thing would make his desert adventure sweeter. He glanced at Nichelle. Her mouth was curved into a smile and her eyes sparkled with warmth. She looked happy.
“A good night calls for a good song,” Kareef said. Then he launched into the opening words of Pharrell Williams’s “Happy.”
After exchanging a look and “why not?” shrugs, Wolfe and Nichelle started singing along. Franklin and Green looked at them as if they were crazy. The two men’s uptight frowns only made Wolfe sing louder, while Nichelle’s bright gaze warmed him like the midday sun.
The sing-along, scattered with talk of world politics, lasted until their Berber host brought dinner. They ate the small meal of chicken tagine over sweet couscous, talked and laughed around the fire until, one by one, the other men excused themselves for more restful evening pursuits. Franklin and Green went off to their beds in the tent while Mahmoud and Kareef wandered off to smoke, their deep voices in Arabic filling the night with another kind of music.
Wolfe sank lower onto his pallet in front of the fire until he was lying on his back and facing away from the tents. The makeshift bed inside the tent was more comfortable, but in the darkness of the desert, the stars were shimmering and bright. It seemed a shame to sleep indoors when this was happening in the heavens above him.
“Stay out here with me,” he said to Nichelle.
He turned his head to watch her, similarly slumped in her pallet but much more gracefully, her long, jean-clad legs stretched toward the fire while a pillow she’d brought outside supported her neck.
She smiled at him, lazy and sweet. “Do you see me going anywhere?”
Once we get to Miami, yes.
But he said nothing. The profile of her face was awash in light from the fire, teasing out the fullness of her lips, her sharp cheekbones, the line of her neck. He couldn’t think of any place he’d rather be, or anyone else he’d rather share the beauty of the desert with.
“I want to kiss you,” he said.
She didn’t move. He could’ve pretended she hadn’t heard him. Except he noticed the flicker of her eyelashes, the shudder that rippled through her long body.
“Wolfe,” she finally said, her voice softer than the breeze that fluttered the loose turban on his head. “This is the worst idea we’ve ever had.”
He released a breath of relief, a breath he hadn’t even realized he’d been holding. She wanted this, too. And she felt it, whatever “this” was. The pallet was soft under his back, the sand beneath even softer, and it moved when he shifted.
Nichelle stood up and grabbed the edge of her pallet. His stomach dropped in disappointment. She was going inside. But instead of heading toward the tent, she dragged her pallet closer to his until they touched. She lay down beside him, bringing her scent of honey and sage and sweat from their long day’s ride.
“This is a bad idea.” She touched his chest through his linen shirt and jacket, burning him. “Only here,” she said. “This can’t happen again when we get home.”
He wanted to say No. I want this all the time. We’d be so good together. But the more desperate part of him simply wanted whatever she had to give him now. Anything that she would share. Her pallet, her breath, her lips. She hovered close to him, her breath puffing against his mouth, her hand making gentle circles over his chest.
“Wolfe...”
She kissed him.
A light touch on his mouth, a tentative press of warm flesh that made him gasp at the instant heat low in his belly. She hummed in approval and smiled against his lips. But he was beyond amusement. His flesh was on fire with a slow, pulsing need. That need built steadily between them as their mouths came together more firmly, no longer timid, both of them perfectly sober, perfectly clear-eyed and wanting. He settled a hand on her hip and carefully drew her close to him, allowed her to feel how much he wanted her.
He groaned. “You taste so good...”
Then he was done talking. Nichelle was soft and feminine and her mouth was a drugging, wet heat. Sweet mother of all that was good, he’d never felt anything like this in his entire life. With a touch of her tongue to his, he wanted to flip her over on her back and roughly take her and make her his. But he also wanted to treasure her, make sure that no one ever hurt her again, least of all him.
Her fingernails dug into his chest through his shirt, plucked apart the buttons to expose his bare skin. Arousal bucked harder in his belly. He licked the damp interior of her mouth, and she sucked on his tongue, a hot and suggestive suction that had him thick and firm in his pants.
He growled and pressed closer to her, then rolled over until he was balanced carefully over her but cradled between her thighs. Her belly was soft under his hands, her nipples firm. Nichelle’s breath hitched. She bit his lip, her hands drifting down to his sides, shoving up his shirt to get more of his overheated skin. He circled his hips into hers and they shivered together. His pulse was out of control, a mad riot under his skin. Wolfe panted into the soft curve of her neck, bit her. Nichelle whimpered his name. Her hand slipped under his shirt, an inciting warmth along his back, stroking the muscles hard and rippling from the control he was exerting over himself.
It would be easy to take this to its logical conclusion. To slip the jeans down her thighs, tug down his zipper, join with her in a way he had done before with countless women. But this was Nichelle. His Nicki. She was so many things to him that the act which should have been simple—muscle memory wrapped up with the unfamiliar emotions that made him grasp her body even more tightly to him—was not.
He wanted her. Wasn’t it that straightforward? They were both adults. No one in Marrakesh really knew them. As far as these people were concerned, they were a married couple and didn’t need anyone’s pe
rmission to have sex under the stars. His thoughts skittered away with the slow stroke of her thumb over his nipple. He shuddered and jerked down into her.
“Nicki...”
Nichelle looked up at him, mouth open in a wet and hungry smile. “Yes, Wolfe?”
She lightly pinched his nipple, watching his reaction from under half-closed lids. Arousal drew Wolfe down to kiss her again. Her mouth was soft between his teeth. She whimpered and the sound went straight down his middle, made him want to please her and show her he was there for her, no matter what she needed or how long she needed it.
He stroked her hip through the jeans, fingers hovering above her belt buckle. She arched up into him. Their tongues tangled and meshed, a slow and wet sound that dragged him deeper into the morass of lust and want. Her zipper slid down. Gasping, she wrenched her mouth from his when he touched her outside the delicate fabric of her panties. Wolfe stopped.
She whimpered again. “Keep going. Please.”
That was all the permission he needed. Wolfe slid his hands into the underwear, parted her damp folds and found the source of her desire’s heat. Nichelle breathed his name, a hot gust of breath against his neck. She fumbled against his bare skin, fingers clumsy in her lust, scraping and squeezing his nipples while she whimpered and twisted against him. Wolfe panted into her mouth.
She was hot and wet around his fingers, nails digging into his side while she rolled her hips, begging wordlessly for more of his touch. Her breath sped up. The motion of her hips on the pallet grew more desperate. Wolfe ached to fill her. But he ached even more to satisfy her.
“Oh my God. Oh G—!”
She sank her teeth into his neck to muffle her scream. He bucked with the sharpness of the pain but didn’t stop touching her. She jerked her hips, and he encouraged her abandon with the curl and thrust of his fingers. Nichelle stiffened abruptly then shuddered against him, panting.
“You...” She licked her lips and tried again. “That was so unfair.” Her voice was broken as if she’d been screaming for hours.
Wolfe bent to kiss her again. But the noise of people coming closer pulled him from his stupor. He quickly searched the darkness to find Mahmoud and Kareef. They had finished their cigarettes and were coming back to the fire. Wolfe pulled his fingers from Nichelle’s body, zipped her pants and pulled down her blouse.
Against him, she was lust-drunk, mouth swollen and soft. Her lashes fluttered down to hide her eyes, and she bit her lip. She looked vulnerable and delicate, the soft underside of her woman-in-charge attitude revealed. He didn’t want anyone else to see her this way.
Wolfe grabbed a blanket from beneath his pallet and pulled it over her. She blinked in surprise. Then her eyes flickered toward the sound of the two approaching men. He dipped his mouth close to her ear, told her how much he wanted her and made a promise he intended to keep. Then he pulled away and put some necessary space between them. Nichelle rolled over onto her side, curling under the blanket and pulling it up to her ears.
The men came close, with a flurry of Arabic. But within moments they seemed to grasp the situation and vanish toward the tents.
“That was a little embarrassing,” Nichelle said softly.
The light from the fire played over the planes of her face, revealing the subtle tremor to her mouth, its damp curve.
“Only a little.” He made sure that the men hadn’t seen anything. Just a married couple lying close together by the fire. She was fully covered up, and his aroused body pressed down into the pallet, away from unwanted eyes.
Wolfe touched her shoulder. “We should probably get some sleep,” he whispered.
She nodded in the flickering light and rolled into him, bringing back her warmth and the salty intimacy of her scent. “This is just for tonight,” Nichelle said. “It’s cold and I don’t want to go back to the tent.”
Inside the tent was everything they’d come here to do. Business. Just like their pretend marriage was business—but Wolfe echoed her sentiment. For him, going back inside the tent meant a loss of their privacy. A privacy that the two Moroccan men had given them under the stars.
“Get some rest.” This time she was the one who tried to soothe the situation. “I promise not to molest you while you sleep.”
Wolfe smiled. “Don’t make promises I don’t want you to keep.”
Chapter 9
The next morning, Nichelle woke to the insistent vibration of her hybrid satellite-mobile phone. Although they were ostensibly on a mini vacation, she kept her phone with her, ready to hear whatever Quraishi’s decision was. She slid her arm under the blanket to reach for the phone, incidentally touching a warmth that did not belong to her. Wolfe.
She grabbed the phone, but her eyes tripped over the beauty of him stretched out on the pallet beside her, breathtaking in the rising sun. Her hand fluttered to her heart with the return of last night’s memories. She tore her eyes away from Wolfe to answer and pay attention to the call.
“Nichelle Wright speaking.”
“Madame.” It was Yasmina. “A decision has been reached.” Her voice gave no indication which of the firms had been chosen. There was the general warmth, a pleasant camaraderie, but that was all.
Nichelle tamped down the feeling of impatience. “Yes?”
“We would like for you to come back to your hotel,” Yasmina said. “I will meet you there at ten this morning.”
“Very well.” Nichelle peeled the rest of the blankets from her and ran her fingernails through her short hair. “See you then.” She disconnected the call. “Wolfe.”
“I’m awake.” The words rumbled from him, low and sexy. His eyes stayed closed, though he moved his legs against hers, a smile on his lips. “What did they say?”
“We’re meeting with them for a decision in a few hours. No hint about what it is.”
He sighed and opened his eyes. “More games.”
He shook his head, feet brushing hers again in a final stroke of intimacy as he turned away from her to stretch and yawn. She watched the arch of his neck, the muscles that rippled beneath his unbuttoned shirt. The memory of how the shirt came to be unbuttoned teased her: her hand against his chest, his thudding heartbeat under her palm, which echoed the frantic pulse between her legs.
He had felt so good last night, touching her in ways that made her whimper with surrender and need. If Mahmoud and Kareef hadn’t returned, she wasn’t sure she would’ve been able to stop herself from throwing away every ounce of decency just to have Wolfe under the stars. He had been the voice of reason, whispering his desire for her, but pulling away.
“I want you,” she remembered him whispering. “But not here. I want to...” And he’d whispered filthy and raw things in her ear while he pulled away from her, inflaming her while depriving her of his aroused body and the means to sate it. “The next time I have you like this—” he’d briefly pressed his hardness between her thighs, curled into her, fingers tight on her hips “—I won’t leave until we’re both satisfied.”
Nichelle trembled with the memory of those heated words. Much like she had trembled last night, wishing the two guides to hell for interrupting them but knowing deep down—very, very deep down—that the interruption was for the best.
It was one thing to lust after her business partner. It was quite another to actually make love with him and to share the physical satisfaction they both obviously craved. Even if it was the best sex of her life, once they broached that final intimacy, there would be no going back.
But what if the thing you can’t undo is better than what you had?
She ignored the whiny voice in her head and drew back even more from the tempting man only a few inches away. She dusted the sand from her shoes and pulled them on, then started to gather up the pieces of her pallet. It took Wolfe a moment, but soon he was doing the same, getting himself ready for the trip back into Marrakesh.
Now that she wasn’t completely absorbed in Wolfe and the promises of his hard and tempting body, Nichel
le realized that the camp was already bustling with activity. A few yards away, a young boy was tending to the camels. The older man who had brought them dinner—and she assumed he was the one who’d set up the two large tents—stood nearby with his pale robes billowing in the breeze. He held a cell phone to his ear.
Mahmoud and Kareef came from their tent fully dressed and smiling.
“Good morning.”
It was as if they had been waiting for Wolfe and Nichelle to wake before approaching the already ashen fire.
“Did you sleep well?” There was no hint of a smirk, no double meaning in his voice, for which Nichelle was extremely grateful.
“Yes, we did. Thank you.” Wolfe answered for both of them.
“Don’t worry about those pallets.” Mahmoud handed them bottles of water. “A Jeep will be here for you in a few minutes to take you back to the hotel. It’s faster than the camels.”
“Why the rush?” Nichelle asked, although she assumed that getting back to their hotel via camel by ten was just not going to happen.
Mahmoud shrugged. “I do not know the minds of the rich. There is a meeting, they say. It is soon.”
“Yes.” Wolfe glanced at his watch. “Is there a place where we can wash up?”
“Inside the tents you will find everything you need, and an area behind it to tend to everything else.”
Nichelle thanked Mahmoud and made her way toward the tent. When the car came for them, she felt gritty from the sand, but prepared. The night in the desert had loosened her up in ways she hadn’t anticipated. She was still nervous about Quraishi’s decision, but she didn’t worry about it as much as she would have before. Instead, she was thinking about Wolfe. About being with him in every way. She ached with curiosity and with need. But she also knew that she’d have to leave both those things unsatisfied. For now.
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