by Olivia Gates
He’d shed one layer of clothing after another, was now down to the bandages she’d changed an hour ago and the second-skin black pants fitted into black leather boots. With his back to her, she was finally free to study him, to realize something.
He was perfect.
No, beyond that. Not only couldn’t she find fault with him, but the more she scrutinized, the more details she found to marvel at.
He seemed to be encased in molten bronze spun into polished satin ingeniously accentuated by dark silk. His proportions were a masterpiece of balance and harmony, a study in strength and grandeur. She’d never thought a man of such height and muscular bulk and definition could display such grace, such finesse, such poise. How could such a staggeringly physical manifestation combine such power and poetry of motion? And that was when he was half-buried under the backpack and tethered with the sled’s harness. And that was only his body.
His face was a testimony to divine taste, hewn beauty in planes and slashes of perfection. In the dimness, his eyes had dominated her focus, but now, as she saw his face from every possible angle, she found something new to appreciate with every self-possessed move of his head. Between the intelligence stamped on the width of a leonine forehead, the distinct cut of razor-sharp cheekbones, the command in the jut of a sculpted jaw and nose and the humor and passion molding sense-scrambling lips, she couldn’t form an opinion on a favorite feature. Not when so many other things vied for her favor. The eyebrows, the lashes, the neck, even the ears.
And then there was the hair.
Since dawn’s first silvery fingers had touched it, she’d become fascinated with it. But it had taken full exposure to the desert’s merciless sun to highlight its wonders.
The color seemed to have been painted from a palette of every earth color in creation, forged from resilient gloss and blended with trapped solar energy. As he walked ahead, the undulating silk seemed an extension of his beauty and virility, transmitting the same power and purpose. Every few minutes, when he turned to check on her, the mass seemed to beckon to her numb fingers to come revel in its pleasures for themselves.
Just then he turned to her again, and that curtain of luxury swished around, catching the nine-o’clock sun, leaving her gulping down her heart. And that was before he gave her that look, that amalgam of encouragement, solicitude and challenge that injected willpower into her veins and pumped it to her limbs. And she realized something.
This was what the Prince of Darkness should look like. To seduce without trying, to enslave into eternity, to induce all sorts of unrepentant sins. To have a woman believe her soul was a trivial accessory.
And she must be starting to hallucinate from exhaustion.
Maybe she should call another time-out before she collapsed.
Problem was, she was exhausted, but nowhere near collapse. Which meant all those thoughts were originating from an unwarped mind.
She tore her eyes away from his hypnotic movements, tried to document the subtle yet rich changes every mile brought to the awesome desert terrain. This place might be a trekker’s nightmare, but it was any geologist’s, artist’s, or nature-lover’s dream.
There was so much to delight in as the landscape shifted from magnificent sand dunes to endless gravel-covered plains to sinuous dry lakebeds and stream channels and back again to dunes. The sky, too, transformed from a fathomless ink canopy studded with faraway infernos to a stratus-painted, multicolored canvas to a blazing azure void as the sun rose and incinerated all in its path.
As the heat and glare intensified, she felt so thankful for the sunglasses he’d had on board—the one undamaged pair that he’d insisted she have—and the cool cotton cloth he’d fashioned into a head cover for her.
At 10:00 a.m. sharp, he stopped.
Though all she wanted was to sit down and never rise again, when he turned to her she rasped, “I can go on.”
He shook his head and took off his harness and bag. “No use going farther only to exhaust you so you’ll need longer to rest. Or worse, be unable to go on altogether.”
“You’re the one with the gunshot wound. And I’m used to being on my feet for days on end in my work.”
He only took her bag, his smile adamant. “You’ve gone through the equivalent of four of your grueling days in the last twelve hours.” Before she could protest again he overrode her. “But since it’s against your principles to be catered to, you can help me set up the tent.”
She nodded reluctantly. She was dying to rest, but she wanted to get this trek over with more.
He handed her the tent. Then she found out why he’d offered it to her. Because he knew there was nothing for her to really do. Once she unfolded the thing, it sprang into existence with very little adjustment.
After gathering supplies for the next hours, he led her inside and she was even more impressed. It was big enough to accommodate ten people, and he could stand erect inside it. The sand-colored fabric was tough and cool, the floor’s insulation total, the openings sealed once zipped and the ventilation ingenious.
But it was still hot. Too hot. And most of the heat was being generated by her smoldering hunk of a companion.
She looked up from gulping water and found him staring down at her with eyes that flared and subsided like fanned coals.
“Take off your clothes.”
She jerked at his dark murmur, a geyser of heat shooting from her recesses to flood her skin.
His eyes left hers, traveled down, as if looking for the origin of the flush that rose to take over her neck and face.
And that was before he added in a will-numbing whisper, “All of them.”
She stared at him, at a loss for the first time since she’d seen him. This was the last thing she…she…
Then his lips twitched, one corner twisting up devilishly, belying the seriousness in his voice when he elaborated, “If you don’t, you’ll sweat liters we can’t replace.”
Oh. Of course. She bit her lower lip, nodded, dispersing the ridiculous alarm and temptation that had slammed into her.
Problem was, in a usual “all of them” clothes-removal scenario she would have kept her underwear on, which would have amounted to a conservative bikini. But with only a man’s undershirt over her now undone corsets, she’d be down to her boxer shorts. And she didn’t know what mortified her more. That he’d see her topless, or that he’d see how ridiculous she looked in them.
Oh, right. And that was grounds for risking dehydration?
She nodded, exhaled a tremulous breath. “Any hope you’ll turn your back?”
He gave her a mock-innocent look. “Why?”
Then he began to take off what little clothes he had left. He started with yanking off his boots, then straightening to undo the fastening of his pants. Her eyes were glued to his every move, her tongue darting to moisten suddenly desiccated lips. It was only when she realized her eyes were sliding lower with her mouth open as she anticipated the big revelation that she felt fury spurt to douse her mortification and abort her daze.
She met the master-tormentor’s gaze defiantly, then started to undress herself. If he thought she’d swoon at the sight of his endowments, that she’d turn around for modesty or try to shield her nudity with virginly arms, he could think again!
As she prepared to yank off the short-sleeved undershirt, Harres stretched and manipulated something at the ceiling. A heavy cloth partition snapped down between them.
She froze, staring at the opaque surface inches from her eyes, until his amused drawl from the other side roused her.
“I did say ‘quarters,’ plural.”
And she cried, “You…you…weasel!”
“Now we move from the farm to the animal kingdom at-large.”
The mixture of relief and chagrin choked her as she threw off the rest of her clothes to the sound of his teasing chuckles and tackled her thin matttress as if it were him.
But if she’d thought she’d toss and turn with him inches from her with o
nly flimsy fabric between them, she was mistaken. She felt nothing from the moment she became horizontal, to the moment she came to. To his caresses.
She blinked up in confusion. He was kneeling beside her, running his hands gently over her hair and face and arms.
For a long moment she could only think what a wonderful way this was to wake up.
Then the wonder factor rose exponentially when he smiled down at her. “I called. And called. I even poked you through the partition, to no avail.”
She blinked again, looked down, found herself covered in a light cotton blanket. But since he was the one who’d covered her, he must have seen everything. Still, he had covered her so that he wouldn’t infringe on her. She struggled with the urge to throw her arms around him and bring him down to her, thank him for being so thoughtful. And more.
Instead, she croaked, “What time is it?”
“Sunset.”
She jackknifed up in alarm. “But we were supposed to move out two hours ago!”
“You needed to rest. Now we’ll move faster.” Before she could reprimand him for not sticking to their schedule on account of her alleged delicacy, he ruffled her hair and winked. “Hop to it, my dewy doc.”
She huffed as her heart fired against her ribs. He was suddenly treating her like his kid sister. And it still turned her insides into a mushy mess.
As she began to reach for her clothes, he turned back to her.
He took her undershirt away from a hand gone lax. He pulled it over her head, guided her flaccid arms through it, managing not to drop the blanket from where it covered her breasts. He drew it away only once the undershirt was securely in place.
Just when she thought she might suffer a coronary, his intent and serious expression turned incandescent with a surge of something dark and driven. Then he leaned down, opened his lips over the junction of her neck and shoulder.
The feel of his tongue and teeth there was like being prodded by lightning. She lurched under the force of sensations that thundered through her. Then he made it worse.
He glided to the tip of her shoulder, scraping her flesh with his teeth, gathering the sweat beaded on it with his tongue.
He growled against her skin, sending a string of shock waves through her with every syllable.
She thought he said, “A reward…an incentive…”
Then he pulled back and disappeared into his compartment.
She flopped onto her back, gasping, before she forced herself up and into her clothes. Then she crawled to his side to check his wound before they resumed their grueling trek.
She’d have hours to contemplate the meaning of his words.
And the feelings he’d ripped from her depths.
By the end of the second day, their water supply had dwindled even though they drank only when absolutely necessary. They were losing gallons in this weather and with the exertion.
After midnight they stopped for their hour’s rest.
As she drank, she noticed he didn’t. She stopped, insisting he drink, that he was the one losing the most fluids handling ten times the weight she was. He only insisted on taking her up on her offer of IV fluids.
He hung the saline bag on his jacket so that she wouldn’t have to stand and hold it for him. She protested the inefficiency of this maneuver, and he calmly unrolled a mat from the sled, propped it against the sloping edge of a dune, tossed a few blankets beside it, then caught her hand and pulled her down on it with him.
Before she knew what hit her, Harres was lounging with his back to the dune, his endless legs open with her between them, her hips in their V, her back to his chest, her head on his right shoulder. Then he cocooned them both in the blankets and crossed his arms over her midriff, plastering her to him.
After the first stunned moment, she tried to fidget away.
He tightened his hold, groaned in her ear, “Relax.”
Relax? Was he insane?
And he wasn’t only that, he was rubbing his lips against the top of her head, inhaling her and rumbling enjoyment as he talked. “Rest. Get warm. It’s far colder than yesterday.”
“W-we have enough blankets,” she protested weakly. “We can roll in them separately.”
“This is the best method of body temperature preservation.”
“And to think I reminded you of that!”
His chuckle, reverberating beneath her ear, sent more waves of distress crashing through her. “Conserve your energy, my Talia. Sleep, and I’ll wake you up in an hour, maybe two.”
“I—I don’t want to sleep.”
“I don’t either. I’d rather be awake, experiencing this with you.”
And though she was far from cold, a tremor rattled through her.
He’d just put into words what she felt.
Though his arms were pressing beneath her suddenly aching breasts and her buttocks were pressed to what she suspected, if couldn’t credit, was a massive erection, it wasn’t sexual. Or not only so. She’d never felt this close to anyone. This intimate. Even during her now almost-forgotten sexual encounters, she hadn’t been any closer to experiencing what she did with Harres than she was to one of the stars above.
She sighed, feeling as if her bones had turned to warm liquid and the rest of her senses had melted in the sluggish heat of her blood. “Stars. They are still up there.”
He nuzzled her cheek with his lips. “You don’t see them much where you live, eh?”
She sighed in deeper contentment. “Make that don’t see them at all. Not for years. But even when I did, I never saw so many. I didn’t think there were so many. Scientifically speaking, I know there are endless numbers of them in our galaxy alone. But I never thought we could actually see them. There are millions of them.”
Her voice sounded intoxicated to her ears. And she was. With the overpowering mixture of the virility enfolding her and the desert’s magnificent menace.
His voice poured directly through to her brain, frying more synapses. “Actually, only about eight thousand are visible to us poor earthlings in any given hemisphere, no matter how clear the skies are. And you won’t find any clearer anywhere in the world.”
That piece of info she hadn’t known. She turned in his arms languidly, looked up at him. “Don’t tell me you counted them.”
“I tried. Then had to borrow good scientists’ findings.”
“They seem so much more. But I’ll take your word for it. I’m just glad they all showed up tonight.”
“I ordered them to be present especially for you.”
Coming from any other man, that would have sounded like an outrageous—and annoying as hell—line. But somehow, from Harres, this force of nature who seemed to be as one with the powers of this land, his land, it didn’t seem far-fetched. She did feel as if he had an empathy, an understanding with their surroundings, as if they let him divine their secrets and share their strengths. And then, coming from the man who’d risked his life to save her, who’d lavished such care on her, showed her such admiration and restraint and solicitude, she could easily believe his wish to please her, to gift her. So even the sentiment behind the claim seemed right, sincere. Profound.
And if an inner voice told her it was his need to learn her secrets that fueled all of the above, she couldn’t listen. No one could be that good at hiding ulterior motives. And she had experienced him through the worst that could be thrown at a person. He’d shone through with gallantry and resourcefulness, with kindness and control.
She at last sighed again. “I wouldn’t put it past you. So they’re your subjects, too?”
“Oh, no. They’re just old friends. We have an understanding.”
Just as she’d thought. “I sort of believe you.”
“I could get used to hearing you say that.”
The rolling r’s of the accent that caressed his perfect English thrummed that chord of ready desire that seemed to have come into existence in the core of her being. Instead of agitating her, it lulled her. She suddenly want
ed to sleep. Like this. Ensconced in his power and protection.
She yawned. “You’re comfy.”
“I certainly am not comfy.” His chuckle vibrated through her. But it was the powerful jerk against her buttocks, what she could no longer doubt was his hardness, seeming to be getting bigger, if that was possible, that lurched her out of her stupor.
He pulled her back against him. “Don’t move.”
“But you’re…you’re…”
“Aroused? Sure. I’ve been hard as steel since I laid eyes on you. And no, I’m not like that by default. But I don’t mind.”
“I thought men didn’t mind anything more.”
“I’m not ‘men.’ And even though it started out as uncomfortable, veered into painful and is now bordering on agonizing, I’ve never enjoyed anything more. I’ve never felt so alive.”
She squirmed with his every word, only to be struck still when she realized it only made him harder. She’d never known mortification like this. Or arousal.
Her heart rattled her frame, until he pressed her closer to his body and whispered against her cheek, “I’ll never do anything you don’t invite me to, Talia. Beg me to.”
She believed him. And she sagged back, savoring the way their bodies throbbed in unison. She’d probably be horrified later. But who cared about later when now was here? And like this?
She melted into him, felt her breathing and heartbeats match to his.
Endless minutes of shared tranquility and silent communion later, he kissed her forehead and sighed. “See that star? The one winking azure-blue? I’ll call her Talia.”
She nuzzled into his kiss, inviting a few more down her cheek, her core now so hot, so drenched and cramping she was breaths away from inviting more. Begging for it.
She pressed her thighs together, alleviating a measure of the pounding, and choked a thick murmur. “It must already have a name.”
“I don’t care. It reminds me of your eyes.”
