Chapter Thirty-Seven
Ethan
T he party starts the minute we have the pot safely secured in the storage locker where we keep the finds, despite how frail the students are still feeling. This is a cause for celebration transcending a dodgy belly.
“Where have you been?” Riley asks as we clamber aboard the Doma , hours later than usual.
“Sadie made a find,” Simon shouts, racing to the cooler and grabbing a handful of beers and passing them around. “And it’s spectacular.”
“A completely undamaged pot. Amarna blue. It’s gorgeous,” Garret chimes in.
“I’ve never seen anything like it outside a museum.” Jeremy chugs the better part of the beer Simon hands him.
“And Sadie found it?” Riley asks. The boys all nod.
“Ha. Of course she did.” Riley’s tone is so snide everyone stops talking for a moment.
“Put the claws away, Riley. Nobody’s interested. This is amazing news for the dig,” Bart says, and as one, they all turn to Sadie, who seems unfazed by Riley’s nastiness.
“Let’s party,” Jeremy yells.
Most of the Egyptian workers have followed us back to the boat, some of them bringing musical instruments. Marwa and Noha pull together a last-minute feast, and the eating, singing and dancing go on for hours.
And so it should. Finding an intact artefact is not as common as you might imagine, and this one is a particularly fine specimen. I only wish Sadie had found it before her father had visited. What a joy it would’ve been to see his face then.
By the time the workers have all wandered back to their camp, Garret and the Cambridge boys are passed out on the back deck, and there’s no sign of Riley, who disappeared shortly after we arrived back, disinterested in celebrating Sadie’s find. There’s only one lone figure sitting on a cushion at the front of the boat, gazing out over the almost full moon reflected off the dark, glassy surface of the Nile. You’d be hard-pressed to find a more romantic setting.
“You did well today. You should be very proud of yourself.” I drop to the deck next to Sadie and hand her a fresh bottle of beer, lifting mine for a toast. This is the first moment we’ve had to talk about what happened today.
She taps the mouth of her bottle against mine and takes a long gulp.
“I can’t believe it. I came here to experience Egypt. I never thought I’d find anything. I mean, maybe a bit of broken pottery or a couple of beads. But a whole pot? And it’s so divine,” she whispers, her voice full of awe.
I remember the feeling of my first find. It’s euphoric. Sadie’s pot being so beautiful and unbroken makes it all the sweeter.
“I found absolutely nothing on my first dig.” I laugh, remembering my disappointment. “Very few people do. Even fewer find anything as remarkable as that vessel.”
“I don’t want to go to Asyut tomorrow. I want to stay here and keep digging.” Sadie turns to me, eyes shining with excitement. “If one pot survived, there could be more.”
Jesus. She reminds me so much of myself. Before.
Before I lost that passion. Before it was buried in the guilt and the grief and the anger. I hadn’t realised it, but to a large extent, even here in Egypt, I’ve been going through the motions for the past few years. Until this dig. Until I was seeing it all through Sadie’s fresh eyes. Sadie’s passion. Sadie’s thirst for knowledge and experience and life.
I don’t want to go to Asyut either. I want to stay and dig. Beside Sadie. But I can’t let the rest of the students go off unsupervised. And I can’t stay here alone with Sadie.
“I get it. But it needs to be a group decision. We’ll talk to the others in the morning. See how everyone feels.”
Sadie sighs. “I can tell you how Riley will feel, and it won’t be good. You saw how she reacted when we got back and she found out about my pot.”
“Let’s not think about her right now. You should be basking in the glory of your find.”
Leaning back on my elbows, I stretch my legs out and cross my ankles.
“What was the first hint you had that you’d found something?” It’s all I need to say to open the floodgates.
Hearing Sadie talk about it takes me right back to the first thing I ever found on a dig, although it was nowhere near as extraordinary as the pot she found today. She talks and talks. Until she finally runs out of superlatives. Then she hesitates.
“You’re going to think this is weird …”
“Try me.” I’ve experienced some pretty weird and profound stuff in Egypt. I saw the way the Pyramids affected her. The way the tiny hairs were standing up on her arms as she uncovered that pot today. I doubt I’ll be surprised.
“When we arrived in Bangalay, and you went into the barn to see Will and Freyja, Diana said something to me.” She pauses, picking at the fraying label of her beer bottle. “I didn’t understand it at the time. But now I think I do.”
“Will says Diana is a psychic, so I’m not surprised. What did she say?”
“She said I’d know when I found it. That it would call to me.”
“And did it?”
“Yes. At first, it was like at the Pyramids. A kind of buzzing feeling and white noise in my head. Then, all of a sudden, I could hear a voice. It was faint, and distant, and in a language I didn’t understand. But it was calling. To me. That much I knew.”
We’re lying side by side, facing one another on the deck in the light of the setting moon, our voices no more than whispers.
Maybe she expects me to scoff, but I know better than to imagine I have the answers to the mysteries of the universe. If she says she heard a voice, I believe her.
“I don’t think it’s weird. I think that pot was waiting for you. Finding it was fate.”
Sadie’s eyes are glowing, her hair falling across her cheek, raining down the forearm her cheek is propped on. Her breathing is light and fast. She smells of dust and the shampoo I made use of only a few nights ago. The warmth of her body reaches out to me across the narrow space between us.
I’m only human. There’s only so much temptation I can resist. And this is too much.
I don’t know the mysteries of the universe, but I do know Sadie is my fate.
I don’t plan it. I don’t even think about it. Somehow, my lips are on hers. Somehow, her lips are opening. Somehow, she’s kissing me back. My hand slides into her hair, and we roll so she’s stretched out beneath me on the deck cushions.
“Resisting you is getting harder and harder, Sadie,” I whisper into her ear, keeping my voice low. I can’t control the flex of my hips.
“I can tell.” There’s a giggle in her voice. Of course she can tell. You could probably see my erection from the space station. Without the aid of a telescope.
“I want to respect your decision to be nothing more than colleagues. But in the same way I believe finding that pot was your fate, I believe you’re mine.”
Her breath catches and her hand clasps the back of my head, tangling in my hair, pulling gently.
“I don’t want to resist you anymore, either.”
“We shouldn’t be doing this. I don’t want to compromise you. Or the dig.” But my hands aren’t listening to my words because they wander her body in search of a sliver of bare flesh, finally finding it between her dusty work pants and her T-shirt.
“I know. But I need …” Her words trail off.
“Need what?”
“I need to feel. I’m so full of … of buzzing. I need to feel something .” She shakes her head. “No, not something. You. I need to feel you.”
Her words, her expression, are all the invitation I need.
“We can’t do this here. Someone could see.” I stand and hold my hand out to give her a boost up. We make our way silently to my cabin. I spare a relieved thought for us both being barefoot. There’s nobody around. No sound other than the normal creaks and groans of the old boat as I close the cabin door behind me and twist the antiquated lock.
Sadie is pressing against me before I even have a chance to turn on the light.
“Shh. We need to be quiet.” My hands are unzipping her trousers. Her hands are unbuttoning my shirt. And suddenly, we’re naked. “We can’t use the bed. It squeaks.”
I dig around in the toiletry bag on the little desk and pull out a condom. God knows why I put them there. Okay. That’s not true. I put them there with subconscious hope. Because as much as we’ve both said this would not be happening, it was inevitable.
I can’t think about that now. All I can think about is the eager body under my fingertips.
Sadie pushes me into the sturdy old wooden chair in the corner and, swiping the pillow from the bed onto the floor, drops to her knees.
I bite my bottom lip, but a quiet hiss still escapes as her tongue slides up the length of my dick before she kisses the tip and then takes me deep into her mouth.
My fingers tangle in her hair, and I luxuriate in the bliss of her lips and tongue for as long as I dare. Which is not long because she’s very good at this, and I’m very desperate to be inside her.
Easing her head back, I tear open the condom and roll it on. Sadie knows what she wants. She’s rising from the ground, straddling my lap and sinking onto me, wet heat engulfing my cock, in seconds.
I’m deep, and she’s rocking back and forth, rising and falling on my length. Eyes closed. Lips clamped tightly together. Chair quietly creaking.
I bring a hand up off her hip and gently grasp her hair, tipping her head back. My lips trail down the sensitive flesh of her neck, over her delicate collarbone, across the smooth slope of her breast, tasting the saltiness of her skin until I’m sucking her nipple into my mouth, flicking it with my tongue. My other hand dips between us, and I find her clit hot and swollen. A whimper escapes her, and she nods. Keep going. Don’t stop.
A tsunami couldn’t stop me. I know. Because my feelings are a tsunami. Swamping me. Drowning me. Washing away my doubts and fears. My crushing guilt has been eclipsed by my feelings for Sadie. Leaving me with only one thought as her back arches, her thighs tremble, and her muscles clench mine in climax.
This is my woman.