Protecting the Desert Heir

That face of his she felt was stamped inside her, somehow, like a brand.

Sterling felt made new. As if he’d taken her apart and put her back together, and she would never be quite the same. She felt deeply and irrevocably changed. Altered, as if she might not recognize herself in the mirror the next time she looked.

She felt as if he’d taught her how to fly.

And she couldn’t tell him that. He couldn’t know. It was a slippery slope—

“Sterling.”

She jolted back to him, to that curious light in his eyes and that little curve to his deliciously full mouth.

“Rihad,” she said, and she wondered if his name would always sound like that to her now. Like a poem.

“I want to ask you a question.”

“Anything.” She meant it. Especially if they could keep doing this. Just a few hundred more times, she thought, and that might take the edge off.

He shifted closer to her, propped himself up on one elbow and smiled into her eyes.

“Tell me one thing,” he said, in that voice of his, so low and now intimately connected to something deep inside of her, as if he could simply flip a switch and she would long for him. She did. His dark gold eyes gleamed. “How is it possible that you were a virgin?”

Sterling went very, very still. He reached over and pulled a long strand of her hair between his fingers again, and this time, he tugged. Gently enough, but it seared through her anyway.

“That’s ridiculous,” she said, though her voice sounded faint—or maybe she couldn’t hear it very well, over the clatter of her heart against her ribs. Because what else could she say? “Who’s ever heard of a virgin my age?”

His gaze held hers, steady and direct. “I didn’t ask you whether or not you were a virgin, Sterling. I know you were.” His lips curved into something tender if not quite a smile, and it pulled at her. “Hail Sterling, full of grace.”

“It’s true,” she whispered, because the thought hadn’t occurred to her, really. Not fully formed anyway. “I accidentally performed a virgin birth.”

“I asked you how.”

“The usual way.” She blinked when his eyebrow arched. “By which I mean IVF, of course. I did tell you that your brother was gay.”

“Yes, thank you.” His voice was as dry as the desert all around them. “I gathered that, as I saw no heavenly host hanging about the pool just now. How were you a virgin in the first place, Sterling? You’re not a nun, virgin birth aside.”

She had to clear her throat, because she couldn’t get up and run. He would catch her in an instant and she’d end up answering anyway, just with a greater display of his superior strength to be awed by when she did. She had absolutely no doubt.

“Well,” she said after what felt to her like a very long while, though he didn’t seem to move a muscle throughout it, “it wasn’t a plan. It just happened.”

“How does such a thing just happen?” His gaze moved over her, and some heretofore unknown romantic part of her thrilled to that expression on his harshly beautiful face then, as if it really was tenderness. And oh, how she wanted it to be. “You were a beautiful girl on her own when you went to New York. A cautionary tale, really.”

She opened her mouth to tell him another lie, but she couldn’t, somehow. It was as if everything really had changed, whether she liked it or not. It wasn’t only the sex. It was the baby. The way he’d saved her from herself when she’d been out of her mind on hormones and guilt. It was that he hadn’t hit her—had seemed astonished she’d thought he would. It was his gentleness now. It was the way he’d taken over her body so completely and yet still left her wanting more.

Who was she kidding? It was him.

And Sterling didn’t want to think about what that meant. She thought she knew—and that was truly insane. But she couldn’t lie to him, either. And there were different levels of the truth.

“My foster parents were the nicest people,” she told him, smiling slightly as if that might make these things easier to talk about. As if anything could. “That’s what everybody always said, in case we weren’t grateful enough. They were kind. Giving. They took in kids like me who’d been otherwise completely abandoned. They had their own kids. They were active and responsible members of the community. Everyone adored them.” She couldn’t look away from him, though she wanted to. “And why wouldn’t they? My foster parents never left any marks. Sometimes they just hit us and other times they liked to play elaborate games, using us as targets. They practiced their aim with cigarettes, cans. Sometimes forks and knives. But there were never any bruises anyone could see.” She saw that dark thing move in his gaze and smiled again, deeper and harsher. “They always told us we were welcome to tell on them, if we dared. That they’d enjoy ripping little nothings like us apart in public. Because no one would ever believe a word we said about the saints of the neighborhood, and they were right.”