Desert Rose

by Laura Taylor

  On the advice of the ambassador, who’d wished them a safe trip after he’d shaken hands with David and accepted a hug of thanks from Emma, they performed their roles as mid–level diplomats. David gripped Emma’s hand throughout the journey to the airport.

  Their role–playing continued as they entered the sprawling airport complex. They chatted with their fellow passengers through encounters with armed soldiers at various vehicle and document check–points, finally making their way into the international cargo terminal almost an hour later. It was an ear–splitting and congested building populated by a variety of nationalities, all of whom seemed inclined to speak at once.

  Forty–five minutes later Emma could barely contain her shock that they’d outwitted the airport officials with their false papers and their pretense of membership in the Canadian diplomatic community. Sinking into one of several metal seats that lined opposite sides of the aircraft’s cargo hold, she buckled her seatbelt and exhaled a sigh of relief.

  David joined her a few minutes later, quickly securing his seatbelt. She felt him settle back into his seat as the aircraft began to lumber down the runway. Glancing at him, she noticed the grim expression on his face and felt the tension still rolling off of him in waves. She didn’t question him, because she sensed that the true definition of freedom for him would be the airspace beyond the border of this hellhole of a country.

  When David didn’t look at her or speak to her during the entire flight to an Israeli military base, Emma told herself it was because of the excessive noise of the cargo plane’s engines. She did attempt to engage him in conversation after they changed planes and boarded an American military aircraft dispatched to fly them to Germany, but he shook his head and remained unresponsive.

  A lump of dread settled in her chest as the plane took off and eventually reached level flight. Without a word of warning, David unbuckled his safety belt and left his seat. He made his way to the cockpit to join the flight crew, abandoning her to the attentions of an enlisted man who supplied her with multiple cups of coffee, snacks, and a warm blanket.

  Hurt and bewildered, Emma didn’t understand David’s withdrawal from her, which extended throughout the long flight. She felt unmoored, like a tiny piece of flotsam subjected to the vagaries of a turbulent sea. Even when he returned to sit beside her for their landing in Germany, he remained uncommunicative.

  He silently escorted her from the airplane to a helicopter for the fifteen minute ride from Rhein Main Air Force Base to the American Hospital at Wiesbaden. She learned from the helicopter’s crew chief, a burly sergeant with kind eyes and a gruff manner, that it was the first destination of most American citizens, military and civilians alike, who’d been injured or held against their wills in the Middle East before transition to the United States.

  She stared at David as he turned to her once the helicopter touched down on the grounds of the hospital. "Take care, babe. I’ll… I’ll see you." His hungry gaze swept over her face—as though to memorize each and every feature—as though he might never see her again.

  Even more alarmed now, she grabbed his arm as he began to move away from her. "What are you doing?"

  He hesitated and then hunkered back down in front of her. Gripping her hands, he tightened his hold when she tried to free herself. "What’s best for you, Emma."

  "You haven’t said a word to me since we left the embassy. Was that best for me, too?"

  He flinched. Then, he nodded.

  The expression on his face was so bleak, Emma very nearly wept. "David, I don’t understand what’s going on, and it’s obvious you’re not willing to tell me. You’re making an impossible situation even worse, and I don’t know why. When your brain starts working again, you owe me an explanation." She broke off then, unable to continue as a surfeit of emotions closed her throat.

  He cupped her cheek with his broad palm, his thumb tracing the width of her lower lip. Tears swam in her brilliant blue eyes. He muttered a harsh word, withdrew his hand, and surged up to his feet. And then he turned away from her for the second time in as many minutes.

  Too stunned to move, Emma watched him exit the helicopter, pause to salute the American flag rippling in the breeze on a nearby flagpole, and greet the cluster of Marine Corps officers waiting nearby.

  She instinctively reached out to him as he walked away from her. She saw him stiffen and then pause in mid–stride. She held her breath, praying that he would turn around and come back to her. But he resumed that long–legged stride of his, spine stiff and hands fisted at his sides as he moved farther and farther away from her. Then, he disappeared from sight.

  Her hand dropped into her lap. She sucked in a sharp breath, fighting to steady herself.

  The frowning crew chief freed her from her shoulder harness, gently helped her to her feet, and patted her shoulder. "It’ll be alright, Miss."

  She met the man’s sympathetic gaze, her own still reflecting her shock. "I don’t think so."

  Despair lodged like a boulder in her chest. Emma wanted to scream herself hoarse and then pummel something with her fists. She did neither. Instead, she gathered her wits, summoned her pride, and jumped down from the helicopter with the crew chief’s assistance.

  Waiting for her was a team composed of various medical personnel. An orderly hustled her into a wheelchair, despite her repeated assurances that she was perfectly capable of walking on her own. The man wheeled her into a state of the art medical facility, everyone around her chattering about her ordeal.

  A physician informed her that she would undergo physical and psychological examinations before she left the hospital to resume her journey home. No one said a word about Major David Winslow of the United States Marine Corps. And with every surreal moment that passed, Emma struggled to understand why he had abandoned her.

  10

  Despite a taxing day of travel, medical tests, an interview with the hospital’s psychologist, and a lengthy phone conversation with her parents, Emma couldn’t sleep. She slouched against the pillows plumped behind her, the covers drawn up to her waist, and she stared into the semi–darkness.

  The quiet of Freedom Hall, the section of the hospital reserved for newly liberated Americans in transit to the United States, seemed deafening in contrast to the violent sounds she’d grown accustomed to during her imprisonment.

  Emma loathed the isolation of her private hospital room. And she ached for David, which made her feel pathetic and stupid when she forced herself to recall his apparent change of heart now that they were free.

  Emma reminded herself yet again that being free—of actually being able to resume her life—should have been enough of a blessing for her, but she knew she was lying to herself every time the thought crossed her mind. It wasn’t enough. It never would be. The feelings of grief that had built up inside of her throughout the day persisted, leaving her with a shattered heart and a distrust of her own instincts.

  How could she have been so wrong about David? She sank lower onto the bed and closed her eyes, her mind racing a hundred miles a second as she tried to make sense of what had happened.

  How, she wondered, could he have told her he loved her and then treated her with such casual disregard? After what they’d survived together, why had he retreated into himself and then walked away from her without even a backward glance? She closed her hands into fists, struggling not to surrender to the urge to wail like a wounded animal.

  "Why? Someone please tell me why?" she whispered, hot tears seeping from her eyes. "I don’t… understand."

  Frustrated with herself, she swiped at her tears. She pressed a button on the bed’s control panel, wincing against the faint illumination provided by the light on the wall behind her bed. She lifted her hands to her temples and massaged the throbbing area with her fingertips. When the pain failed to abate, she decided to make her way to the nurse’s station down the hall and ask for some aspirin.

  Straightening, she threw back the covers and slid to the edge of the bed,
but she went perfectly still when the door to her room swung open.

  David stood in the doorway.

  The shock of his sudden appearance made her heart pound like a jackhammer. Emma remained poised on the edge of the bed, staring at him in disbelief.

  He stepped into the room, shut and locked the door, and then moved toward her. He paused less than a foot away, his expression intent as he studied her. "How are you feeling?" he asked after a long minute of contemplation.

  Her temper ignited, sarcasm and anger edging her voice when she spoke. "Terrific! Couldn’t be better, Major. But I’m not your problem any longer, so you can leave now."

  "You couldn’t be a problem even if you tried."

  She heard his fatigue, but she steeled herself against responding to it. "What do you want?"

  "You."

  She blinked in surprise. "Why?"

  "I need you."

  "And I needed you today," she countered, "but you walked away from me without a word of explanation."

  "I know."

  Her anger faded when she heard the bleakness in those two words. "Why?" Her voice cracked, but she forced herself to continue. "Why, David?"

  "Everything that’s happened…" He paused and gave her a searching look. "Everything that will happen…" He shook his head, seemingly unable to continue.

  Emma felt an unexpected calm settle over her, and she couldn’t fathom why. "It’s a shock to be free, isn’t it?" she asked, the anger and hurt absent from her voice now.

  He nodded.

  She felt desperate to understand his state of mind. "The reality of it must have hit you like a ton of bricks."

  He blew out a hard breath. "Something like that."

  "So you’re wrestling with what’s happened, and you’re trying to come to terms with it," she reasoned softly. "Is that why you pulled away? Is that why you wouldn’t talk to me?"

  "That’s part of it," he conceded.

  Hope lurched to life inside of her. Don’t be a fool, a small voice in the back of her head advised. "We’ll both be alright, David, but only if we’re patient with ourselves and with each other. We can… share what we’ve…"

  He cut in. "I still need you."

  His admission nearly stopped her heart. She reached out, clasped his hands, and tugged him closer. Words failed her even as her emotions threatened to choke her.

  "I’ll always need you, babe. That need won’t ever go away," he confessed, that tender and all too familiar roughness back in his voice.

  Emma stared up at him. Disengaging one of his hands, he lifted it and cupped her cheek. She covered his fingers with her own, turned her head, and brushed her lips across his palm.

  "Forgive me?" he asked.

  She held her breath for a long moment. Then, she nodded. The hand cradling her cheek trembled, and the remaining threads of hurt and resistance within her snapped. She wanted him as badly as he seemed to need her.

  Now. It was all that mattered, she told herself. Now.

  Whatever happened in the future, she would deal with it. Whatever the cost to herself, she would pay it.

  With her gaze fixed on his rugged features, she tugged at the ties of her nightgown and peeled it from her body. David stripped out of his robe and pajama bottoms. Extending her arms, she welcomed him into her bed and her heart.

  And although she briefly wondered how long he would remain with her, she set aside the thought and the worry it caused. Stay in the now, she cautioned herself. Do not think about anything but right now.

  His hands shook as he drew her into the heat and power of his already aroused body. Emma sucked in a sharp breath, feeling scorched by their skin–to–skin contact.

  "Love me, David," she whispered.

  "I do, Emma. God help me, I do."

  Sinking back against the pillows, she wrapped her arms around him in the same split second that she found his mouth. Eager to absorb him into her flesh and ravenous for his taste, she pressed frantic kisses to his chin and mouth before delving past his parted lips and teeth to drink in his essence.

  She moaned, a throaty sound that sent a shudder through him—a shudder that she felt and absorbed. After frantically tangling her tongue with his, she sucked the tip between her teeth and worried it with tender bites.

  Emma drew up her knees, her hips surging against the hard shaft trapped between their lower bodies. Her body became moist and pleading and painfully needy in her desperation to have him buried deep inside of her. He responded without hesitation, thrusting into her, withdrawing almost completely, and then thrusting even more deeply. All the while he caressed her breasts and teased her nipples to hard points of fire–filled desire.

  Tightening spirals of sensation enveloped Emma, exploding like colorful starbursts. She expressed her pleasure with gasping little cries and clutching hands as a sensual storm consumed her.

  David advanced and retreated, advanced and retreated. Again and again his invasion of her body possessed the power of a proclamation etched in granite as he claimed her for himself. Wildly aroused, Emma writhed beneath him, the emotional highs and lows she’d experienced that day and well into the night now set aside. Not forgotten, though, despite her best efforts to banish them from her mind.

  Relentless in his quest to pleasure her, he increased his pace, driving her past coherent thought, beyond sanity, and then into the ecstasy of a stunning climax. She clung to him, breathless, heart racing, and her body quaking with reaction in the lingering aftershocks of fruition.

  David soothed her with stroking fingertips and gentle kisses. Stunned by what she’d just experienced and lulled by his tenderness, Emma lay spent and trembling beneath him.

  He unexpectedly shifted partway down her devastated body, startling her when he filled his hands with her still–tingling breasts. She groaned as he closed his mouth around one of her nipples and rolled the other one back and forth between his fingers. As she watched him, she realized that he hadn’t allowed himself to reach completion yet.

  David stoked back to a roaring blaze the after–sparks of her first climax. She trembled beneath the sensual assault of his skilled hands and mouth, finally collapsing back against the pillows as her desire for him threatened to incinerate her.

  Moaning, Emma savored each nip, each sucking pull, and each swipe of his tongue. He provoked a flood of searing sensations that sent molten heat streaming through her veins. She throbbed deep inside, and her legs shifted restlessly beneath his onslaught, his sensual generosity very nearly overwhelming her.

  "Please," she whispered, too shaken by her desire to feel him inside of her again to manage anything more than that one word.

  He lifted his lips from her beaded nipples and swollen breasts, his expression tender and filled with the promise of fulfillment. Sitting up, he stroked her cheek with his fingertips, then trailed them from her lower lip to her chin, on to the valley between her breasts and across her quivering belly before he reached the sultry depths of her swollen sex.

  Drawing Emma forward a few moments later, he drew her long legs over his thighs. They faced each other, his hands bracketing her hips as she sat atop his strong thighs. She edged closer, seeking connection, needing connection just as much as she needed air to breathe.

  "Christ, you’re so damn beautiful, Emma."

  She smiled—a wholly feminine smile that promised him every pleasure imaginable. She reached down to stroke him, the searing heat of his pulsing sex branding her fingertips.

  David drew her closer still. Their bodies touched, the head of his shaft pressing against her throbbing sex. Their bodies exchanged a devastatingly intimate kiss.

  Emma shivered. She felt swollen and wet and incomplete. She needed him inside of her. She tightened her grip on him and stroked. Then, she changed tactics, skimming her fingertips up and down his thick length. An inarticulate sound of raw need spilled out of him. Meeting his gaze, she silently pleaded with him to take her.

  "Now, babe?" His voice resonated with the rawest
kind of need.

  She sighed. "Now, David."

  He lifted her and penetrated her sheathe with a forceful thrust that left her trembling in his embrace and gripping his shoulders. His mouth swooped down, demanding, ruthless, and thoroughly carnal. He ate at her lips, his hunger for her voracious, and then he plunged his tongue into her mouth.

  Emma responded to his consuming passion without inhibition. She wrapped her legs around him, her world pitching and tilting, her skin scorched by his body’s heat, her senses flayed by devastating need. A tidal wave of desire swamped her, threatening her grasp on reality.

  She felt his fingers dig into her hips. His sex swelled deep within her, and she heard the low groan that began in his throat. Sensing he was near the edge and feeling the pressure building higher and higher within her own body, she whispered her love and relinquished herself to the imploding sensations that heralded her own climax. She held nothing back. As a result, she went spinning into a series of starbursts that utterly ravaged her senses.

  At the pinnacle of her release, David thrust high and hard and deep. When a hoarse cry escaped him, Emma greedily drank in the sound. He stiffened suddenly, his sex pulsing, his seed spewing hotly into her, his mind and body shattering in the maelstrom of orgasm.

  Sometime later, Emma slumped against his broad chest and rested her forehead against his shoulder. Too spent and too breathless to speak, she pressed her lips to his perspiration–slick skin.

  David eventually found the strength to lower their still–joined bodies to the narrow bed. Gathering her into the shelter of his embrace, he held her as their respiration calmed and their hearts beat in unison.

  He made no false promises to Emma. He simply held her close and watched over her as she drifted off to sleep.

  ** ** **