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He quirked a hard smile. ‘I told you once before I admired your honesty. Lying doesn’t suit you.’
Jamilah pulled her hand free and continued eating, even though her appetite had spectacularly fled. She was burning up from the inside out. Very aware of Salman lazily feeding himself, imagining his tongue snaking out to catch the juices from his morsels of food, just as hers had to do.
But, save running out of the tent and causing a furore by seeking sanctuary with one of the village folk, she was stuck. She didn’t know or care where Salman would go tonight, as long as he wasn’t here, but she had a sinking feeling that he’d made no such alternative preparation, despite her assertion.
She put d
own her napkin and finished the last droplets of sparkling liquid in her heavy glass. The sheer opulence of this whole scene stunned her anew, and she wondered how Salman had got everything here and prepared. She quashed her curiosity, affected a yawn, and stood up, ready to restate her intention to sleep alone.
Salman stood smoothly on the other side of the table and held out a hand, which Jamilah predictably ignored. Salman quashed the dart of anger and frustration. ‘You know I’m not going anywhere, Jamilah.’
She looked at him, and underneath the defiance he saw something else—something infinitely more vulnerable that he hardened his heart to. He didn’t want to deal with that. He just wanted Jamilah. And she wanted him. That was all he needed to know.
He walked over to the sumptuous bed and started to disrobe.
‘What are you doing?’ Jamilah’s voice came out as a panicked squeak, and she cursed herself for not sounding more in control.
Salman turned around, supremely confident. ‘I’m getting ready for bed.’
‘But where will I go?’
He indicated with a hand. ‘There’s a perfectly good bed right here.’
‘Yes,’ Jamilah hissed, ‘but not while you’re in it.’
Salman ignored her, and turned away to continue disrobing. In the light of the hundreds of small glowing lamps, bit by bit his impressive body was revealed. And Jamilah could only stand and watch, until he stood there with his back to her, long, lean and powerful. And gorgeous enough to make her throat dry. His back was impossibly broad, and led down to the taut muscular globes of his bottom, and heavily muscled powerful legs.
It felt like the hardest equation in the world to work out why she had to get out of there so badly. And then he slowly turned around, and her world contracted to this tiny spot on the planet and this tent. And this man and this desire thrumming between them. The air seemed to be hotter, redolent with scents and whispered desires.
‘Jamilah…’
Jamilah was finding it hard to raise her gaze from where it had dropped to take in his impressive erection. A pulse beat through her blood with gathering force. And as she watched, and faintly heard Salman groan, he wrapped a hand around himself, as if unable not to.
Her legs nearly buckled at the sight of his hand moving back and forth slowly, how the silky skin slipped up and down over the strong shaft and, worse, she could imagine how it felt and was jealous.
‘Jamilah…you’re torturing me. I need you.’
Her gaze lifted with an effort. She felt all at once heady, languorous and energised. It was a combination that had her insides fizzing. But even as she felt her traitorous feet move towards Salman she shook her head, struggling to make a stand, not to give in.
‘I…I can’t. I won’t do this. I can’t do this again with you, Salman.’
On a broken sob which was torn from deep in her chest she turned around to block out the provocative view, to block out temptation. She was shaking all over with reaction, and just knew that if Salman succeeded she would never have a chance to get over him.
Big hands settled on her shaking shoulders with surprising gentleness and turned her around. To her chagrin she could feel tears prick her eyes, threatening to overflow.
Salman sounded tortured. ‘Please, Jamilah, don’t cry…’
A vivid memory of that day by their parents’ graves struck Jamilah then. How Salman had told her not to cry, to be strong. She looked up at him, past and present morphing into one. Her heart beat fast. She loved him. She loved this man with an intensity that eclipsed anything she might have felt before. And it was already way too late to be saved or helped.
As the tears overflowed and slid down her cheeks at the acknowledgement of that truth, she felt something give way inside herself. How could she walk away from this now? When perhaps this was all she would have to remember? This oasis in the rocky desert, this moment in time…
Salman’s face looked tortured, his eyes dark with some emotion that made her head reel; it was an emotion he hadn’t revealed before. He said gutturally, ‘I won’t make you do this if it’s going to upset you so much. I never wanted to upset you. I just thought you wanted me as much as I want you…but were fighting it to pay me back…because you know how much I need you.’
His tenderness undid her completely, and the fact that he wasn’t being autocratic, wasn’t forcing her, made her even weaker against his pull. She trusted him. She trusted that he actually meant what he said—that if she were to ask him to leave her alone he would. He’d walk out of there and let her have the tent to herself. Suddenly it was the last thing she wanted.
This was what she’d been afraid of—that it would be impossible to resist him now that she knew his deepest darkest self, because she ached so much to take that pain away. Jamilah shook her head on a reflex. He believed that she’d been trying to get some sort of revenge on him? That that had been behind her reluctance to continue the affair? She shook her head again, and put her hands up to Salman’s face and jaw, caressing him. His breath hitched and his body tensed.
‘No. That’s not what I was doing, Salman. But I don’t care about that any more. I don’t care about anything but right here and now, and I can’t keep resisting.’
