CHAPTER TEN
CHAPTER TEN
T HEIR LAST MORNING and she didn’t want it to be. Even before her eyes had opened she was dreading this day.
And then all her sorrows were dimmed by a new agony.
From her neck to her toes, Violet ached.
More than ached.
Somehow, she made it to the loo—and there was fresh agony there. It felt as if she was burning...
‘Okay?’ asked Sahir as she hobbled out, and there was nothing worse than feeling dreadful and being met by the sight of Sahir’s toned body, naked apart from a black towel tied around his hips, on his way to bathe.
‘I can barely move...’
‘I warned you,’ he said. ‘I’ll prepare you a bath.’
‘Where’s Bedra?’
‘Morning prayers, probably,’ he said. ‘Do you want a bath or not?’
She nodded, and just had to stand as he poured jug after jug of water into the beautiful stone bath, with far more speed than Bedra. Like some doctor, he peered at various bottles and added oils and gorgeous scents, then bent over and beat at the water with his hand.
‘It’s quite warm...’
‘I’m sure it will be perfect.’ She forced a smile. ‘Thank you.’
‘You want me to leave?’
‘Of course.’
‘So you’re going to get over the bath edge with the same dexterity you showed on the horse yesterday?’
He managed to sound practical even as he dripped sarcasm—enough so that she was cross enough not to blush as he helped her off with her nightgown.
‘I’m so sore...’
‘I know that you are,’ he said. ‘Check the temperature.’
She dipped her hand in and the water felt divine.
There was just one problem. Violet was so sore that she honestly wondered if she could get her leg over the edge, even with his help.
Sahir did not even attempt to solve that mystery. He just scooped her up and lowered her, bottom first, into the bath, trying not to remember when they’d bathed together. He recalled her protestations of discomfort that time...when she’d been sore for very different reasons.
‘It’s not funny,’ she said, as he sat on the edge and pondered for a while.
‘I’m not saying a word.’
He was watching her, wondering how it was possible to be this close to another person and to care this much, and yet also be a bit cross with them too, and annoyed with himself.
‘It was foolish,’ he said.
‘Very,’ Violet agreed. ‘And now I can’t move.’
More than that, nor could he move his heart. And he could not close it.
Foolish, indeed.
After he’d let her luxuriate in the warm water for a while he picked her up and carried her to the entrance to her own chamber. He lowered her down.
‘You’ll feel better soon—just move around.’
He gave his best advice and left, but then heard her moans as she tried to put her knickers on.
‘Violet?’ He called out to warn her that he was there. ‘Can I come in?’
‘Yes.’
‘Where does it hurt?’ he asked.
She was about to say everywhere , but the bath had in fact helped.
‘My back...my thighs...’
‘Where else?’
‘My bottom.’ She wasn’t going to tell him about the bits in between. ‘I had no idea. We only walked the horses.’
‘Do you want a massage?’
‘I’m not going to fall for that,’ she shot back.
‘Violet, I am offering to help with your pain, not to bed you.’
‘ Bed me...’ she huffed. ‘I should have known you were from the Dark Ages when you said that.’
‘Do you want me to sort out your pain?’
‘Yes.’
‘We’ll go to my room.’
‘What’s wrong with here?’
‘Have you ever had a sports massage?’
‘No.’
‘It’s far from sensual—and, believe me, I would fall off that little bed.’
He was so tall and wide she believed him.
‘Fine,’ she said.
And then she was being carried into his bedchamber, although on less sensual terms than she’d hoped. Certainly the poems she’d read hadn’t prepared her for this.
He lowered her onto his bed and it was like falling into a cloud and being caught by angels.
‘Your bed...’ She sighed, but then her eyes narrowed. ‘Shouldn’t I be on a firm surface?’
‘If you prefer, we can go on the floor—though I have found my bed has always sufficed.’
She felt jealous, wondering how many beauties had massaged his aches away right here, and wondering even more so as he reached to the bedside table and poured some oil into a dish.
‘Is that your sex oil?’
‘It’s just oil,’ Sahir corrected, taking off her towel, and instructing her to roll onto her stomach.
She was relieved that she had managed to get her knickers on.
‘I’ve told you. I come here only to reflect.’
Violet wanted to verify if that meant he’d never brought a lover here. If that meant she was the first woman in this bed. But she decided it wasn’t the time to ask.
He was being very formal.
Very much the Sahir she had first met.
‘It might hurt a bit,’ he told her.
‘Okay.’
He started low on her neck and shoulders and it was far from sensual. His hands were almost rough as they worked on the knots. Then deftly he worked on her torso, and either side of her spine. Then he focussed on her tailbone for what seemed like for ever.
‘Ow!’
‘I know...’
Sahir closed his eyes, took a breath and found he was very grateful for his teachings—because he knew when he opened his eyes his voice would be stern as he told her to turn, and he was confident his features would be impassive.
She was slippery and warm as he turned her, and then his oiled hands came to her calves and her inner thighs, and he tried not to look at her breasts.
He even lifted her leg, like a physiotherapist, bending it at the knee and then doing the same with the other.
‘Your hips are tight,’ he said.
‘Yes.’
He again refused to look at her breasts, or at her soft stomach, or even to focus too much on her face. Her eyes were tightly closed, and she gave just the occasional grimace, but then he felt her hips loosen and saw her slight smile.
‘Better?’
‘Somewhat...’
At least she was moving her legs now, and her back looked less stiff, though he knew she would not be telling him that she’d just found out what ‘saddle sore’ really meant.
Sahir knew, of course. And knew she must be in agony. But he would not be offering to sort that out. It was just nice to see her more relaxed.
‘Walk around,’ Sahir suggested. ‘Loosen up.’
‘I feel loose,’ she said.
Too loose and limp to move. Though she made a half-hearted attempt to put her arm over her breasts, but then gave in and let it fall by her side.
‘I don’t want to move.’
‘Then don’t,’ Sahir said. ‘But I won’t be offering to move you to the lounge.’
She gave a half-laugh at the very notion and he lay down beside her.
‘You might get a couple of bruises; your shoulders were very tight.’
‘I’ll forgive you,’ she said, feeling all floaty from his hands, and perhaps too relaxed to be subtle as her mind flitted like a lazy butterfly to the next topic. ‘If your parents slept apart, how did your father notice your mother’s bruises?’
‘Perhaps they had the occasional...’ He nudged her. ‘Please don’t make me think about that.’
She laughed a little, then they both fell quiet.
Soon it would be time for goodbye.
‘What time do we leave?’ she asked.
‘Sunset.’
They lay listening to the wind, and she could feel her eyes getting heavy. She loved nothing more than the thought of dozing in his arms.
‘We’ve never actually slept together,’ she said, and smiled.
‘We’re sleep virgins,’ Sahir said.
Then together they laughed at his little joke and it seemed to startle them both.
They turned their faces to each other.
‘Sahir...’ she grumbled, and he saw her pretty lips pouting.
That gesture had always annoyed him in the past. Seriously. Usually he did not like sulking or pouting. And yet with Violet it felt more like a code...a secret only he knew. Or was it the subtle shift in tone that alerted him to more than her pretty mouth?
‘I’m so sore,’ she said.
‘I know.’
‘I don’t think you know where...’
‘I said nothing would happen.’
‘Please take it back.’
And it would have taken a will greater than any Sahir possessed not to lower his head and briefly kiss her.
The kiss was light, and yet she felt its soft weight. And although he did not linger, the contact lasted a second too long to be considered brief. There was just enough weight to his mouth that when he removed it she felt the little buzz of contact remain, and his kiss had allowed enough time to deliver its sensual intent.
His head hovered above hers and she stared into his eyes, trying to work out if they were a deep brown or a dark navy or were they both? Like a deep ocean that changed with each view.
His chest was above her own, not touching, but his hip was over hers and she wanted to arch, to feel the hair of his chest and the warmth of his skin. She longed for Sahir to kiss her again, but he just hovered, and waited, and looked down at her mouth.
She was not a petulant person—or she hoped she wasn’t—and she never complained. But there was a new Violet that Sahir allowed to emerge when she was this close to him.
‘I’m very sore,’ she reiterated. ‘In a place I’d rather not say.’
‘Poor Violet,’ he said, and gave her a sad smile.
She blinked, as if there were real tears in her eyes.
‘Can I help in any way?’ he asked.
‘I don’t know...’ She sighed bravely, gallantly. ‘I’m sure I’ll be okay...’
His eyes swept down her pink chest and his hand lightly brushed one breast as it moved to her stomach. Then his gaze returned to her face and met hers completely as that hand moved down to stroke the blonde hairs peeking from the top of her knickers.
‘Is it sore here?’
‘Not quite,’ she admitted. ‘But you’re close.’
‘I see...’
He was very serious, moving her aching thighs apart just a little—though she might have helped with that—and then he cupped her through her knickers, his hand warm and gentle, but really quite firm. It really was rather lovely.
‘How’s that?’ he asked, his voice gravelly.
‘A bit better.’
‘Why don’t I take a proper look?’
He slipped off her knickers and oiled his hand, and she almost cried out as he touched her swollen and tender body.
‘It will go.’
He stroked her inner thighs again, and then he cupped her—and, gosh, she hadn’t known how nice it was to feel the soft oil and his touch.
‘Distraction might help,’ he said, and now he kissed her, softly still, but not briefly, and her hands moved into his raven hair.
And he really was the most excellent distraction, for she was pulling him closer, encouraging him to move over her. And now she felt the bliss of his chest, and then he knelt, and she felt so fluid.
He moved her down the silk sheet and carefully took her. ‘Does it hurt?’
She did not know how to respond; she was sore, and swollen, but deep inside she was soaring.
‘Oh, please...’
She stared at his face as he looked down, as he refused to give her what she needed—what their bodies demanded, but what she would certainly regret.
For Sahir, the restraint was more than erotic. Here in the desert he was taken by her pleasure. Captivated, he watched her, and there was almost a physical shift within her. He did not change his slow, deep rhythm. Something important was building...something impossible to contain.
‘Violet...’
His voice summoned her from a dreamy delirium and she saw something new, something that told her the world as she knew it had changed...
She inhaled sharply, bit her bottom lip, and then she just stared back as he took her slowly, precisely...
She felt just the slightest feather touch of him against her sore vulva, over and over as he moved deep inside. Even the increasing speed of his thrusts, the deepening intensity that brought little pinches of tension to her thighs, that had her sex tightening, her back arching, were almost secondary to the feel of her heart opening to him.
The game had stopped, and she put her arm over her eyes because she knew now that she loved him.
‘Help me,’ she said.
Because she did not want it to be true, and she did not want it to end.
And then she really was helpless, just a writhe of knots and this orgasm that would almost hurt if he did not hold her steady—that would be agony if he did not spill into her with the same precision and slight distance with which he’d taken her.
‘I can’t—’ she choked, feeling him pulse inside her, trying to tell herself she could not love this man when soon it would be time to say goodbye.
‘I know.’
She pulled back her arm as he carefully pulled out. She wasn’t sore—or possibly she was, but this deep revelation was certainly a distraction.
‘Better?’ he asked as he laid her down.
She summoned her most flirty smile and nodded. ‘So much better.’
And then they were back to the game—but not quite. Because she lay in his arms and it was almost as before, his hands moving her hair from his face, then moving down to her arms and holding her, and yet she could hear the click of her thoughts in the silent air, and hoped he could not hear them too.
‘That was bliss,’ she said, trying to speak as she once had, to tone down the song in her heart.
She thought her world had changed when she’d met him. If she’d asked herself, she’d have named it as being then. But now, hearing the sound of his ragged breathing, seeing the look they were sharing, she felt as if they’d stumbled upon a new language. One only they knew or understood... And yet neither acknowledged it or denied it.
It hadn’t been at the wedding.
Nor on boarding the plane.
Not even being alone in the desert.
For Violet they were all ‘before’.
Now it was ‘after’.
For the first time in her life she was completely in love.
And love made you brave.
‘Can I stay?’ She closed her eyes. ‘I mean...’
Sahir felt her stiffen, as if braced for rejection, and from all she’d told him, from all he knew, he realised that Violet hadn’t ever dared ask that question before.
‘Just for a few more days?’ she said.
He thought of her at the restaurant that first night, putting up her hand, not wanting a farewell speech. How she’d been prepared to leave that first morning.
She’d been forced to be independent. Had been let down over and over again. And he felt a great sense of responsibility as she now held out a piece of the heart that had been broken by so many.
‘I can’t leave you alone here,’ he told her.
‘I know.’ She sat up. ‘It was a silly idea. I was just...’ She shrugged.
‘Come to the palace.’
She swallowed.
‘You would have to have your own wing, and it would be very different to here, but...’ He refused to hide her—or, worse, send her away. ‘I have to see King Abdul tomorrow. But we could meet for breakfast; you could have a day in the hammam...’
‘Won’t it cause problems?’
‘You’re a very nice problem to have.’ He looked at her. ‘Get dressed. I don’t want the staff to find us in bed.’
As she climbed out, he couldn’t help but smile at her oiled body and how she still hobbled a bit.
‘Violet,’ he said. ‘You are my guest. Expect to be treated well.’
She gave a tentative nod, and as she went to her room to hurriedly dress he wanted to call her back. They needed to speak properly before they left for it would be impossible at the palace.
And it was impossible now, for he could hear their transport arriving.
Then it dawned on him.
He knew how they could speak.
His mother had taught him well...
Violet could hear terse conversation as she packed. She didn’t need to be fluent in the language to know that Aadil was not best pleased.
Then all was silent, and she was terrified Sahir had changed his mind.
She picked up the poetry book, clutching it to her chest like a shield as she stepped out, but the tent was empty.
She went to replace the book in the trunk, but then knelt instead, picking up the Christmas menu she had found, turning it over, wondering if she should ask Sahir about it, or...
She felt too tumbled to think, so she just slipped it inside the book—then started when Aadil stepped into the living area.
‘We depart shortly.’
‘Fine.’ Violet stood. ‘I’m just going to say goodbye to Bedra.’
She went to walk off, but Aadil spoke again.
‘It would be easier on him if you left.’
She said nothing.
‘Just so you are aware.’
‘I’m more than aware.’ Violet turned around. ‘You’re the one who brought me here, Aadil.’
‘At the King’s command.’
Violet swallowed.
‘Here in Janana we follow the rules.’