The Lord's Inconvenient Vow

But she’d never stopped wondering why those brief, girlish embraces had meant so much. They’d marked her so potently she’d consciously set out to erase them with every man she’d kissed that foolish year in Venice before she’d finally accepted Ricki’s courtship. She’d tried to replicate the way Edge’s kiss connected with every parcel of skin and ran through every bone and made everything tingle and ache. She kept searching for that same flash of truth, that sense of Yes. This! And found not a whisper of it.

Until now.

Though even as his lips moved against hers, he wasn’t even truly kissing her, just exploring her mouth with his, almost curious. His hand was doing the same to the lines of her cheek and throat, learning her as a blind man would something he feared was fragile. Or dangerous.

It was gentle, but it wasn’t at all. Each sweep of his lips on hers, every stroke of his fingers, was fire trailing over abraded skin. He applied no pressure, but it both hurt and made her strain towards him, trying to feed or relieve the strange inner cry. She planted her hand on his chest and discovered the lie—there was nothing gentle or soft about his pulse—it was harsh and faster even than hers. Whatever he showed on the surface he was on fire inside and in a second her whole body went up in answering flames and her lips parted with a whimper under his, her tongue touching the smooth warmth of his upper lip.

For a moment she thought they were falling again, the way his arms gathered her to him, crushing her against his body. He could have pushed her off the cliff and had less of an impact. He wasn’t gentle any longer, his mouth hard and demanding on hers as his hand sank into her hair, his other drawing one long line down her back to close on her behind, pressing her against him and making her shudder and rise towards him as if trying to reach something or escape it. She moaned as his tongue withdrew to trace her lips, burning and defining them. Her body was alight, on fire, every inch of her wanting its turn. Her hands were fisted in his shirt and she dragged it up and slid her arms up his back and moaned at the sheer pleasure of feeling him. She’d never touched him like this, but it felt like coming home.

This was so very, very wrong.

He must have thought the same because he suddenly froze with something between a curse and an expelled breath. Slowly she sank back on to her heels and he disentangled himself and stepped back. Lord Edward Edgerton was back.

‘We should return. It’s been a long day and we are both tired.’

Chapter Three

The Jackal sniggered, pawing at Gabriel’s torn shirt. ‘Only a fool would ask the River God the same question twice and expect the same answer. Leila would know better.’

‘Leila is gone,’ Gabriel snarled, and turned towards the water once again.

—Temple of the River God,

Desert Boy Book Two

‘They went where?’

Janet looked up from pitting dates alongside Aziza in the shade of the small courtyard.

‘To the temple of Senusret, my dear. Poppy has been itching to see it again after all these years. Since we cannot expect any news until later in the day it is best the men occupy themselves. They haven’t our patience, you know.’

‘The men,’ Sam huffed and Janet smiled.

‘Yes, my dear, I know you haven’t the patience either. But I noticed you did not sleep much last night and so I chose not to wake you. Come help us with the dates. I want to watch so I can show Ayisha when we return to Qetara in autumn.’

Aziza looked up from her significantly larger stack of pitted dates.

‘I have six older brothers, Najimat al-Layl, and I know what it is like to wish to follow where they lead. Even to lead where they might follow. Sometimes I think it is best not to have daughters, the world is never fair to them.’

Sam moved closer, picking up a cured date and splitting it with her fingers. The sticky, fibrous meat gave way and she resisted the urge to sink her teeth into its warm sweetness.

‘I want a daughter and I want her to do more than I dared to do.’

‘That is a good dream. One day you shall have just such a daughter.’ Aziza nodded, pitting five to her one.

Sam’s stomach closed like a fist around the stab of pain at the memory of Maria, her hair a tumble of dark curls about the plump face, her eyes wide as she listened to the story Sam was reading. Perhaps in time Ricki might have stopped trying to punish her for not loving him and perhaps in time she’d have learned to care for the sulky boy that hid under the boisterous exterior, at least enough to open herself to his advances again, perhaps even welcome them. But that possibility died when Maria drowned because of Ricki’s drunken callousness. And then again, definitively, three years later when Ricki drowned as well.