The Desert Bride

‘Now...now!’ she pleaded.

‘I must—’

Her glazed green eyes collided with smouldering golden ones; she felt him begin to pull away and then she remembered—remembered what he must not be allowed to do. ‘No need...it’s safe,’ she gasped unevenly, hanging onto him with both hands in case he didn’t get the message.

‘Safe?’ he groaned uncertainly.

‘Absolutely...’ Hoping to take his mind off the idea altogether, she lifted herself up to him and found his gorgeous mouth again for herself, and so enjoyed that rediscovery that she quite forgot why she had deviously embarked on it.

The fierce heat of him burned her as he spread her thighs. She was at a pitch of excitement beyond bearing and, at that first driving thrust, cried out in ecstasy, her eyes closing, her head falling back. Then he was moving on her and in her, answering a need as old as time with the hard, primal force of his sexual possession.

Her response was mindless, drugging in its completeness. There was nothing but him and the wildly torturous drive for satisfaction, and when one final electrifying spasm of delight pushed her over the edge she gasped his name and went spinning off into hot, quivering ecstasy. He shuddered violently over her and climaxed with a hoarse shout of pleasure.

They subsided in a damp tangle of limbs. She was in heaven, didn’t ever want to descend to earth again. A tidal wave of love and tenderness flooded her, making her eyes sting. She curved her head into his strong brown throat and a long sigh escaped her. ‘I have never felt so happy,’ she whispered dazedly because it really did feel so strange.

‘Nor I.’ He released her from his weight and rolled over, pulling her with him so that she lay sprawled on top of him. ‘Safe?’ he queried lazily.

Bethany tensed, not having been prepared for so immediate an enquiry.

But Razul was not tense. Indeed he was totally relaxed. He skimmed a teasing forefinger along her sensitive jawbone. ‘I feel I should warn you that what I suspect you regard as safe is not a remarkably reliable method of birth control.’

‘I’m on the Pill,’ she lied.

‘The contraceptive pill?’ he questioned incredulously, and closed his hands on her forearms to tip her up so that he could look at her. ‘But why would you be taking such a precaution?’

‘S-skin problems,’ she stammered, flushing scarlet.

‘Your skin is flawless.’

‘I got a rash,’ she said defiantly.

‘You should not take such medication for only a rash.’

‘What is this...the third degree?’

‘I think you should consult Laila...I will mention—’

‘Don’t you dare!’ Bethany cut in, aghast. ‘Is nothing sacred?’

‘Your health is.’ He dealt her a wry look of reproof. Her colour fluctuated wildly. All of a sudden she felt horribly guilty for setting out to deceive him. She dropped her head again. He thrust an arrogant hand into her tumbling hair and tilted her reddened mouth up, his breath fanning her cheek as he caressed her lips tenderly with his. ‘You are a very precious woman,’ he told her gently. ‘I would protect you with my life. Do not deny me the pleasure of looking after you.’

Nobody had ever wanted to look after Bethany before. Nobody had ever been too bothered about what might happen to her. Razul might as well have put a hand on her heart and squeezed it. She was unbearably touched and unbearably saddened too. To meet with such tender caring and know that she would lose it again tortured her, but she closed out that awareness with all the strength that was the backbone of her character. One day at a time, she reminded herself fiercely.

‘It troubles me that you have had no communication with your parents since our marriage,’ Razul remarked wryly.

A finger of tension prodded Bethany’s lazily reclined body. Her brows pleating, she looked out over the desert from the vantage point of their cliff-top eyrie. With canvas walls on three sides, the structure was a highly realistic replica of a traditional Bedouin tent, and it was permanently sited on the edge of the palace gardens. Rich carpets, fabulous cushions and a coffee hearth distinguished its cool interior. Over the past weeks she had learnt to appreciate how very much the desert was still home to Razul. This was where he came to relax towards the end of a long day and recoup his energies, disdaining all the many magnificent rooms in the palace.

Conscious that he was patiently awaiting a response, Bethany shrugged uneasily. ‘We’re not close.’

‘That is something of an understatement,’ Razul remarked after a sizeable pause, and passed her a tiny cup of coffee. ‘For an Arab, the family is everything. It is the very foundation of our culture and such strong loyalties impose often painful decisions and duties.’

Her face shadowed. Was their lack of a future the most painful duty he had ever faced or did she deceive herself? Since that day she had cried in his arms Razul had not made any reference to the subject of their eventual parting. Not once had he again revealed the smallest hint of tension or concern on that point.

The past three weeks had been the happiest weeks of Bethany’s life, yet to maintain that glorious contentment she had had to suppress rigorously every thought of what tomorrow might bring. Was Razul following the same unspoken rule or was it simply that he had already reached a stage where he could think of her leaving without emotion? Was indeed their whole relationship just some pleasant little fling which he could calmly accept as having an inevitable end?

‘Bethany?’ he prompted.

‘Oh, my family.’ She grasped his meaning abstractedly, her fingers tightening tautly round the cup as she struggled to repress her fears. ‘Well, I have a slight relationship with my mother and a non-existent relationship with my father, and that really doesn’t bother either of them.’

‘I find that hard to believe.’

She gave him a rueful smile. ‘I suppose you do. Let me explain. My mother believes that having me almost wrecked her marriage—’

‘But why?’

‘My father’s first infidelity coincided with my birth. If you knew him you would understand why. He has to be the centre of attention, and naturally a new baby interfered with that need. But, looking at his track record over the years, it’s obvious to me that he would have been unfaithful anyway.’

‘He was persistently unfaithful?’ Razul studied her face with a frown.

‘He was forever walking out for some other woman.’ Bethany shrugged again. ‘And then he would roll home again and Mum would greet him with open arms. As I got older and understood what was going on I hated him for the way he treated her. It took me a long while to appreciate that, in accepting his behaviour, Mum was and is a willing victim. He’s a very attractive man...physically,’ she adjusted grimly. ‘But he just uses her. She’s his port in every storm.’

‘Do you still hate him?’

‘If I think about him at all, I guess I’m ashamed of him,’ she admitted. ‘He’s got nothing but that surface charm to recommend him.’

‘I had no idea that you had endured such a childhood,’ Razul sighed.

‘It wasn’t that bad,’ she said ruefully. ‘It’s just that I was never very important to either to them. My father isn’t interested in children. If I’d been an absolutely adoring daughter like his absolutely adoring wife, maybe it would have been different, but, you see, I couldn’t hide the way I felt about him...I couldn’t pander to his ego as my mother did and I made him uncomfortable and resentful. He doesn’t like me. Frankly, when I left home for university it was a relief all round.’

‘I am sorry that I questioned your lack of contact with your parents. I did not understand the circumstances. But I wish I had known these things sooner. I would have better understood your resistance to me.’

‘I wish I still had some of that resistance.’ She was sinking helplessly into the depths of those dark, intense eyes which were trained on her.

‘I do not wish it,’ he responded with very masculine amusement, reaching forward fluidly to dep

rive her of her cup. ‘This is how it should be between lovers.’