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She would make a difference, Antonia determined, idly swishing her hands in the water to keep her afloat. Turning towards Ra’id’s beautiful pavilion, she started swimming towards it. This was a scene that belonged in one of her fantasies, but if it had been she could have engineered a happy ending rather than this travesty: Ra’id and Antonia trapped in the middle of a drama of their own making, a drama that should have ended well before they made love…
But thank goodness it hadn’t ended, Antonia reflected, caressing the still-flat planes of her stomach as she waded out of the water.
He watched Antonia until she was safely out of the water and dressed again, and then, without her seeing him, he returned to the campfire he had lit earlier. Should he show her what he had found in her mother’s room? Was she ready for it, or had she suffered enough emotional upheaval for one day? Would it be better to throw it on the fire? While Antonia had been scooping something off the floor, he’d been too—something that had dropped off her mother’s dressing table, another pathetic, hand-scribbled note.
‘Ra’id!’Antonia exclaimed, drying her hair with a towel he’d laid out ready for her. ‘You’re cooking fish again.’
‘In anticipation that you will fillet it for me again.’
‘I might,’ she said, her lips curving at the memory, though she hunkered down a good distance away from him. ‘Of course I will!’ she exclaimed now, as if some thought had suddenly occurred to her. ‘If you promise I can have that water.’
‘A filleted fish in exchange for my precious water-supply? Do you think I’m mad?’ He might as well have added ‘Do you never give up?’ But he knew the answer to that already.
‘Shake on it?’ she said boldly.
He looked at the tiny hand stretched out to him, and just in time remembered how the desert affected him. It was another magical setting, where they could be anyone they wanted to be while they were here—the only difference now was they both knew there were consequences to embracing that freedom.
‘You’re smiling,’ she said as he ate the morsels of fish she had prepared.
‘Am I?’ He frowned.
‘What’s wrong, Ra’id?’
He wasn’t about to share his thoughts with her. He had concluded that the enemy to duty wasn’t self-indulgence, but love. He wasn’t sure he had the weapons to fight that enemy off. ‘Why don’t we have a swim?’ he said, badly in need of a change of scene.
‘It’s too soon,’ she cautioned him.
‘Then we can stroll round the oasis, and when I judge the time is right I’ll throw you in.’
She was off like a hare from the traps. ‘Not if I see you first,’ she called back to him, laughing.
They didn’t make it to the water. The restrictions of the real world had been lifted again and nothing stood in their way. She was young, seductive and he wanted her.
She was fine until Ra’id brushed against her. He’d kicked sand over the fire and helped her clear everything away. She had identified the thick, nobbly palm-trunk behind which she intended to leave her clothes, and he was at the water’s edge when something frightened her, a crawling thing…
A harmless lizard, Ra’id reassured her as it scuttled away.
‘Okay, so I’ll get used to them,’ she said determinedly.
‘If you intend staying in the desert, I’d definitely advise it.’
There was humour in Ra’id’s voice and warmth in his eyes. She didn’t imagine it. She had been hanging on for a sign that he would mellow so they could discuss the future together, and it turned out the desert had cast its spell over him again. In the capital he was the undisputed king, but the wilderness was a leveller that stripped everyone’s position in life away. And Ra’id came out of that well…
Very well, Antonia reflected, feeling increasingly aroused as he continued to stare at her. There was so much strength in his dark gaze, so much wisdom and understanding of her needs.
‘You’re aroused,’ he murmured.
‘Am I?’ she whispered, making it sound like a challenge.
‘So aroused, if I touch you you’ll come.’
She was too shocked to answer, by which time she was in his arms. He carried her into the pavilion and laid her down on the freshly laundered cushions. She was enveloped in the scent of sandalwood and sunlight as she sank into their scented folds. Moments later she was naked, and so was Ra’id; he had judged her level of arousal perfectly.
‘You greedy girl,’ he murmured as she abandoned herself to the onslaught of pleasure.
She was whimpering, open-mouthed in surprise that such levels of sensation were possible when he eased her legs over his shoulders. Being back with him was like a miracle, and so was the speed with which he could coax her into readiness again.
