The Sheikh and the Surrogate Mum

by Meredith Webber

‘Quail tonight—but in the past the birds hunted to feed the families who bred and kept them. There’s very little food in the desert and often whatever the birds caught was the only protein the families ate. Now it is sport, but back at Najme for sport we use small stuffed bunnies and birds that are flung from a bow to give the bird the impression of movement.’

  The bird had returned, dropping the quail at Khalifa’s feet and returning to perch on his gauntlet.

  ‘I’ll feed her now and then she will fly without hunting, fly just for the delight of it, to feel the air beneath her wings and the air currents carrying her upwards.’

  He took the two birds back towards the shade, and Liz sensed he regretted letting her see the kill, as if it—or her reaction to it—had changed something between them.

  She followed him and watched, understanding that she couldn’t judge either bird or man. The bird had followed its nature, it had been born knowing it had to hunt to eat.

  ‘I do understand,’ she said, squatting awkwardly beside him, wanting more than anything to recapture the closeness they’d shared at the well.

  Wanting him to kiss her again? her head asked.

  Probably, was the honest answer.

  Her meal finished, the falcon hopped back on Khalifa’s arm and he held it high until the bird took off again.

  ‘Do you want to catch her?’ he asked, pulling off the gauntlet and offering it to Liz.

  ‘Would she come to me?’

  He dug in his pocket and produced a whistle.

  ‘Put on the glove then blow this and hold your hand up high.’

  Excitement rose as Liz pulled on the heavy leather covering, then put the tiny whistle to her lips. It made a sharp, high-pitched sound, barely heard, yet the bird turned in the air and as Liz raised her arm, it dived straight down, alighting, not at three hundred and fifty kilometres an hour but as lightly as a feather on the glove.

  ‘Oh!’ she whispered, this time in utter wonder, for the bird, close up now, was even more beautiful than she’d first thought, the soft feathers gleaming in the last rays of the sun, the proud head turning this way and that.

  Khalifa guided Liz’s hand down towards a stand. The bird stepped onto it and looked around, her bright eyes taking in her surroundings.

  ‘Will she stay there?’ Liz asked.

  ‘I’ll attach a leash to her jesses, the little strings that hang down from her anklets, and fix her there so she’s safe. But I don’t think she’d fly away unless she was startled by something.’

  ‘She’s amazing,’ Liz said, spellbound by the beauty of the bird.

  ‘She is,’ Khalifa said, and he put his arm around Liz as she stood looking, and the arm made her wonder if he was still talking about the bird.

  He guided her towards the tent.

  ‘Will you relax inside, or should I bring some pillows out to the rug beside the fire?’

  It was such an ordinary question Liz forgot about there being subtext in his conversations. He was nothing more than a kind man, and his touch was simply supportive, while the kiss…

  Well, the kiss could have been nothing more than happiness at being back in his special place in the desert and wanting to share his delight.

  ‘Outside, please,’ she replied. ‘I could sit and watch the desert change for ever.’

  He turned towards her as if to say something, then shook his head and ducked into the low tent, returning with one of the padded mattresses and a couple of big cushions in his arms.

  ‘Sit!’ he ordered when he’d arranged them to his satisfaction on the rug.

  He held her arm, supporting her weight, while she sank down onto the ground, then he insisted she make herself comfortable, helping adjust the cushions behind her back.

  ‘A drink? I’ll check what Saif has left us, but there is sure to be some iced tea, and I would think pomegranate juice if you’d like something more exciting.’

  Liz smiled up at him.

  ‘I think pomegranate juice is appropriate for the desert,’ she said, stretching back against the cushions and smiling to herself as he disappeared into the tent.

  ‘You are happy?’ he asked when he returned.

  She had to pause and think about it, then answered honestly.

  ‘I am,’ she said. ‘Right now, this very minute, all my problems seem so far away, and being pampered, offered drinks, being waited on—that’s special.’

  He squatted beside her to hand her the drink, his dark gaze scanning her face.

  ‘I imagine you are far too independent to accept much pampering,’ he said, easing into a sitting position beside her—close but not too close.

  She was about to agree, then remembered.

  ‘Actually,’ she admitted, ‘I was showered with pampering when I first became pregnant. Bill and Oliver couldn’t do enough for me. It was all I could do to take off my own shoes when I stayed overnight for a visit.’

  Khalifa took her free hand and squeezed her fingers, although this was the first time he’d heard her speak of her brother and his partner with sadness but not deep pain in her voice.

  ‘Everything will be all right,’ he told her, and although it was an empty promise when so much in her life was in limbo, she accepted it with a smile and lifted her glass towards him.

  ‘Cheers!’ she said.

  ‘Shucram!’ he replied, lifting an imaginary glass and touching it to hers.

  ‘Shucram? Is it Arabic?’

  ‘It is what we say as a toast. You like the word?’

  ‘I do,’ Liz agreed and raised her glass again. ‘Shucram!’

  It was a nothing conversation, words passing back and forth, but something else was passing back and forth as well—awareness.

  Or was it only one-way traffic, he wondered, this tingling in his skin, the rush along his nerves, the tightening of his body?

  She was pregnant!

  Yes, but try as he might to reject the thought, he was beginning to believe that he found her pregnancy just as sexy as the rest of her. At first he’d thought it was just the hair, and then the way she laughed, and her creamy skin, and her eyes behind the glasses. But the pregnancy definitely wasn’t offputting, and the more he got to know the woman inside the outer shell, the more the attraction grew.

  ‘Are you not having a drink?’ she asked, and he heaved himself off the rug and headed for the tent, not for a drink but to collect his thoughts.

  He fished around in the cool boxes and found that the ever-reliable Saif had packed snacks, even labelling the flat platters with a sticker—’Use these for snacks’. Saif really did think his boss was an idiot.

  Idiotic right now.

  He wasn’t even sure if he was reading the signs of a mutual attraction—kissing him back, pressing her body into his—correctly.

  He put the snacks onto the platter, removing the sticker first, then poured himself a glass of juice and returned outside.

  Liz was lying back, looking all around her, wide eyes taking in the beauty of the desert as the shadows grew longer and the sinking sun left the dunes black-shadowed and mysterious. But the sky was brightening in the west and soon the colours of the sunset would be reflected in the crystalline sand, so they’d be afloat in a sea of red and gold and orange, even vermillion and saffron, these last two better words because they held some of the beauty of the colours.

  It held them silent, the nightly transformation of the desert sands, and only when the colours faded and dusk fell about them did Liz move, putting down her glass on the platter and turning to lie on her side, looking at Khalifa.

  ‘I can see why you stayed an extra year,’ she said quietly. ‘As well as its spectacular beauty, this place brings a sense of peace, doesn’t it?’

  ‘It’s because you can’t fight it and win,’ he told her. ‘You can only survive in the desert if you learn to live with it, learning all its many moods, bending to its will rather than trying to bend it to yours. The road we followed to the oasis and the well is a great example. It was b
uilt by my brother to open up the desert, but slowly and surely the desert is reclaiming it. Not that it matters when we have vehicles that can traverse the sand, but no man can tame the desert.’

  ‘Neither should they want to,’ Liz said. ‘We’ve already tamed too much of the world’s land, and we need these wild places to—would it sound silly if I said to replenish our souls?’

  He moved the tray so he could touch her face.

  ‘Definitely not silly,’ he said.

  He wanted to touch more of her, to feel his hands slide over her skin, to lift her hair and kiss the nape of her neck beneath it, to lie with her so their bodies learned the shape and texture of each other.

  ‘I’ll get our dinner. Knowing Saif, he’ll have stuck to cold meats and salads so I don’t have to show my lack of cooking prowess, but as it’s getting cool, I’ll light the fire anyway.’

  He edged away from the distraction of Liz and lit the fire, then went into the tent and lit the lantern and the candles Saif had left for them.

  The light was soft, but it was enough for him to discover his guess had been right. Inside the largest of the cool boxes were platters of meat, already laid out, and salads in bowls. The last of the cool boxes held an array of fruit. That, he’d leave until later.

  He brought out food, setting it beside his guest so she could reach everything with ease. Plates followed, and damp napkins in a thermos flask so they were still warm and faintly scented.

  ‘A feast in the desert,’ Liz murmured as she filled her plate with bits and pieces of salad and meat, trying everything as he’d been sure she would because this was a woman who lived for new experiences.

  Yet she’d given up nine months of her life to produce a child for her brother? How much she must have loved him!

  How great her capacity for love!

  ‘You’re not eating,’ she told him, pointing at him with her fork.

  ‘Thinking,’ he said, and she smiled.

  ‘Thinking makes me hungry,’ she said, then laughed at herself. ‘Actually, everything makes me hungry these days. But I’d feel a lot better about stuffing myself with food if you were at least nibbling on a lettuce leaf.’

  He filled his plate and ate, enjoying the food, enjoying the company, enjoying most of all the desert, his spiritual home.

  Liz wondered what he was thinking. Probably not how sexy she was, although his sexiness was one of the main topics of thought running through her mind. Something about the man stirred bits of her that had never been stirred before and she wasn’t entirely certain it was all physical attraction. The more she saw and learned of him as a man—the way the people obviously loved him, the way he never spoke down to anyone, his tenderness with his grandmother—the more attractive he became.

  While she was the very opposite—fat and even clumsier than usual, her life in chaos—no redeeming features at all, so why he kept on kissing her she had no idea.

  Kept on kissing her? It had happened, what, twice?

  But even thinking of the kisses had her body stirring, her breasts growing heavy, her skin going coming out in goose-bumps.

  She set down her plate, afraid she’d start trembling, and looked at the dancing flames of the fire in front of them.

  Fire, heat, burning…her attraction to this man could lead nowhere, so why get burnt?

  Because I want to?

  She hadn’t really expected an answer to her silent question, so when it came it shocked her. What was she saying? That she’d like to make love to this man for the sheer physical pleasure of it?

  Knowing nothing would come of it?

  Knowing it would probably be a one-off experience?

  Knowing she’d have something to remember him by—that was the real answer—a memory of a special night in a very special place with a very, very special man!

  ‘Are you attracted to me?’

  The question popped out without much forethought.

  Klutz!

  She could feel the heat rising in her cheeks, burning there, but at least he was smiling.

  ‘You have no idea how much,’ he said softly, then he moved the platters and plates and shifted so he sat beside her, his body close but once again not touching her. ‘But you are in a strange place, both physically and mentally. If we do something about this attraction, are you sure you won’t regret it?’

  She turned towards him and this time she touched his face.

  ‘I won’t regret it,’ she said quietly, then she leaned forward and kissed him on the lips, tasting remnants of the pomegranate drink, tasting him.

  The kiss was slow and easy, not tentative but definitely the beginning of a voyage of discovery. His tongue delved, invaded, starting the fires within, nothing more than glowing embers at the moment, but Liz knew they’d flare soon.

  She slid her hand beneath his shirt to feel his skin, and heard his murmur—of pleasure? Of approval?—then felt his hand against her breast, felt her nipples growing hard, and raised her hand to touch his, to brush against them, gently, teasing the tight buds.

  His murmur became a growl and now his lips had moved from hers, searching along her chin, finding skin to tease beneath her hair, shivers running down her spine. His tongue flicked against the hollow of her neck and this time it was she who murmured—cried out really—wanting more, so much more.

  ‘I will take care of you.’ He breathed the words against her skin and before she could protest that their satisfaction should be mutual, his hand had sought the very centre of her being and with one hand on her breast and the other brushing gently but insistently against her panties, she found herself squirming with delight and need, squirming and breathing hard, wanting more yet wanting him to stop what was becoming torture.

  But she, too, could tease, so she felt for him and found the hardness pressed against his jeans, finding the tip of it and running her fingers lightly over it.

  ‘Clothes,’ he gasped, and they separated, but though she longed to see him naked, she was less inclined to reveal her own body in all its swollen glory.

  ‘I have seen pregnant women before,’ he said gently, obviously reading her reluctance to disrobe.

  And with that he lifted the loose top she wore up and over her head, then with seemingly practised ease he dispensed with her bra before reaching down and sliding off her long trousers and panties.

  ‘You are beautiful,’ he said, pushing away the arms she had wrapped around herself. ‘Radiantly beautiful.’

  ‘Fat,’ she retorted, ‘while you…’

  He’d shucked off his own clothes and knelt beside her, the light from the flickering fire dancing on his naked skin.

  She touched him, more in awe than anything, but he took her hand and kissed her palm, then drew her thumb into his mouth and suckled it, taunting her to distraction before turning his attention to her breasts, teasing at one with his tongue, at the other with what seemed to her like magic fingers.

  The slow dance of foreplay began again. Liz finally relaxed, telling herself it was for the memory, and that she had to grab as much enjoyment as she could from it. But conscious thought soon disappeared, her body revelling in sensation, her brain numbed by delight. Unhurried by some unspoken but mutual consent, they explored each other’s bodies, learning the shape of them, the taste and texture of the skin, the places where the slightest touch stirred the embers of desire, making them flicker until suddenly they became flames.

  He lay behind her now, pleasuring her with his hands, building the tension in her body to gasping point then easing back until he was certain she was ready. Only then did he slide into her, gently and carefully, but still touching and teasing so she was lifted to another plane then burst apart, coming with a shuddering sob, then coming again as he, too, climaxed and held her tightly to him.

  They lay together, the crackling of the dying fire the only noise in the empty desert, the stars above so bright Liz felt she could reach out and touch them, pull them down and hold them in her lap in the same way she hel
d the happiness their lovemaking had given her.

  ‘No regrets?’ Khalifa whispered in her ear, and she snuggled closer to him.

  ‘How could there be?’ she queried softly. ‘This is an experience that I’ll treasure for a lifetime.’

  His arms tightened around her, then one hand slid down to rest on her belly where the baby kicked obligingly.

  Had it been mine, I would never have to let her go, her or her baby, Khalifa thought, then he wondered where the thought had come from. This woman could never be his, for all he was fairly certain he might love her.

  Love her?

  An even more bizarre thought to be having. What did he know of love?

  Yet melancholy enfolded him as he held the woman in his arms, and melancholy was something he never felt out here in the desert.

  Did love always lead to sadness?

  ‘Thank you,’ the woman in his arms whispered softly, the words like a benediction.

  He wanted to thank her, too, to talk about his feelings, but he didn’t know how to start because men of his tribe didn’t do that kind of thing.

  ‘Talk to me,’ she said—reading his mind.

  She had turned so she faced him, resting her hand on his chest as if she needed to maintain physical contact with him.

  ‘About what?’ he countered, not certain enough of love to talk of it.

  ‘About you,’ she responded. ‘About your wife—your feelings about the baby?’

  She patted her naked belly and added, ‘I’ve been so determined not to feel anything about this poor wee soul’s arrival, I’ve no idea how a pregnant woman might feel, let alone a man. Were you pleased? Excited? Would you marry again? Have another child?’

  Was there a shadow of pain behind her questions? Or was he imagining he heard it?

  He didn’t know, but she’d asked and now he wanted to answer her, to talk about Zara and his child as he had to no one else.

  ‘My wife was over the moon, totally absorbed in her pregnancy, but me…?’

  He hesitated.

  ‘You will think this very silly, but to have a pregnant wife, somehow it is a confirmation of a man’s virility. I was proud.’

  Again he stopped, partly distracted by a finger drawing whorls around his nipple but also uncertain how to proceed.