Secrets of the Oasis

Quickly she quipped, ‘Sounds like it’ll be a bit overcrowded, with you there, too.’

‘Touché.’ That hint of bleakness in his voice sounded down the line, and Jamilah instantly felt chastened. But she didn’t have time to think about it because he was saying, ‘Do you know what I’m thinking of right now?’

More huskily than she wanted, she said, ‘I don’t think I really want to know, Salman. In fact I’m quite tired—’

He cut her off. ‘I’m thinking about you lying there with your hair spread out, in a T-shirt which reveals your midriff and exquisitely shaped waist and hips. I’m thinking of how it’s stretched tight across your breasts, and how your pants cling to your hips. I’m thinking of how I’d like to pull your T-shirt up so that I can bare your breasts to my gaze, see how your nipples harden and pout for my touch, for my tongue…’

‘Salman…’ Jamilah said weakly, as a liquid heat invaded her veins. Her hand was on her belly, and of its own volition was sliding down towards her pants.

‘Salman, what?’ he asked huskily. ‘Stop? You don’t want me to stop. You want me there, to suckle on your breasts until your back is arched, while my hand descends to spread your thighs apart, before coming back up to slide aside your pants and explore, to find where you’re so wet and aching…’

It was Jamilah’s own hand almost touching the spot he spoke of that brought her back to cold reality. She jackknifed off the bed and slammed the phone down into its cradle. When it rang again almost immediately she yanked the cord out of the wall.

And only when the waves of heat began to subside did she manage to fall into a fitful sleep.

The following day Jamilah was clinging onto her resolve, which felt like a flimsy life raft in a choppy sea. More notes had arrived that morning, but Jamilah couldn’t even look at them now. She sent them back unopened to Salman, with the bemused maids.

So later that day, when she heard the arrival of a Jeep in the main stable courtyard, she whirled around, heart thudding ominously. He’d come—he wanted her so badly that he’d come to get her. And treacherously her resolve was already dissolving fast.

Salman stepped out of the Jeep and she felt weak with longing. He was tall and dark and she felt as if she hadn’t seen him in months. And the look on his face was so determined it made her tremble all over.

But she couldn’t give in. She couldn’t.

He just stood there for a long moment. An unspoken dialogue hummed between them. Finally he articulated it. ‘Come up to the castle with me, Jamilah.’

She shook her head and backed away, even as every cell in her body was urging her to go with him. At that moment one of the stablehands led a horse out of a stall just a fe

w feet away. She saw how Salman’s eyes veered wildly to the horse and then back to her.

He’d gone deathly pale in the space of a heartbeat, and he gritted out, ‘Damn you, Jamilah. I’m not ready for this.’

And then he was back in his Jeep and screeching out of the stableyard, and she felt as if she’d just done something unutterably cruel. For the first time since she’d seen him again she got a sense that she had the power to hurt him, and it made her reel.

She was still standing there, slightly stunned, when she noticed Abdul by one of the stables. He just looked at her, and then shook his head slowly, and Jamilah felt even worse.

She barely slept a wink that night; not surprisingly there had been no more notes or phone calls from Salman after he’d left. Her head was whirling with guilt and her resolve not to give in to the almost overpowering pull to go to Salman.

She started work in a daze the next day, and was exhausted by four p.m., when the phone rang in her office.

It was a call that made her want to weep with weariness, for it meant that she had to take the chopper to a remote Bedouin oasis village, deep in a mountainous valley. Considering the time of day it was, and the way Bedouin hospitality worked, she’d more than likely have to stay overnight.

Apparently a horse was having trouble foaling, and its owner feared for its life and that of the foal. The stables’ resident vet was away for a few days, and Jamilah had studied veterinary science, so she had the necessary expertise when things like this cropped up from time to time. She gathered her things and called the chopper pilot, then made her way to the launching pad behind the castle. As she drove by the castle she resolutely veered her mind away from the man inside…somewhere.

They flew over mountainous and rocky terrain, and Jamilah’s heart clenched with emotion for this sometimes inhospitable country. It was these local Bedouin people who had risen up and fought back against the invaders all those years before, who had saved the Sheikh and his family from their incarceration. Who had saved Salman.

Jamilah could see the village now, down far below in the crevasse of a deep valley. Mountain springs kept it verdant and lush, and it was like a tiny green pocket of paradise within a lunar landscape. It was only as they got closer that Jamilah saw a Jeep waiting and felt the first prickle of suspicion, but she told herself she was being ridiculous.

When she got out a driver was waiting, and he helped her into the Jeep. They were heading for the village, but she couldn’t see any villagers, or any children waiting for their treats which she always brought. She reassured herself that it was late, dusk was closing in. These valley people were traditional and had probably retired for the night.

But before they got to the village itself Jamilah saw a tent set up by a palm tree and a picturesque pool, set back in its own enclosure. It was the kind of tent that was set up for Nadim whenever he travelled into the country. Her skin prickled ominously when the driver stopped the Jeep outside it. She got out, and at that moment heard the helicopter taking off into the distance.

Before she had a chance to register the significance of that, someone stepped out of the tent. Someone tall and dark and imposing, dressed in ceremonial Merkazadi robes. As if she didn’t already know…Salman.

CHAPTER NINE

THE jeep was already turning around and heading away. Jamilah stared at Salman, and an awful yearning rushed through her. Even though she’d seen him just the day before, she’d missed him. And a wild excitement was making the blood rush through her veins. She wanted to walk up to Salman and hit him and kiss him all at the same time. The sheer gall of his gesture made her breathless, but its sheer romanticism made her weak with longing.

Damned if she was going to let him know. She had to resist him—had to. For, as surely as night followed day, he intended to walk away from her again and she would never get over him. Not now. How could she when she now knew the secret behind his dark essence? His vulnerability?