‘Shh. Don’t speak,’ he said. He had spent a week trying to convince her to talk, and now he wished only to communicate with touch.
He pressed his finger against her soft lips, then traced their contours. His need throbbed painfully against her stomach. To touch her like this, to feel her skin against his, was driving him mad with lust.
He smiled and raked his fingers through her short, dark hair, reminding himself of her inexperience. She was as lovely in the moonlight as she was in the light of day. Water glistened against her honey skin, gathering in tiny rivulets that he wanted to taste.
He pulled her back into his arms. He could not restrain himself any more. He wanted all of her. He had felt it at the first oasis, when she had seated herself upon him in the pool, daring him to move. And in the cave, when he’d sucked the soft flesh of her thigh and been so close to her paradise that he had almost been able to taste its sweet nectar.
But even before those moments, even when he had first seen her lithesome figure running across the plain, he had felt it. She was like no woman he had ever known. Fiery and changeable. Wilful and strong. Restless and impossible to tame. He had captured her, and yet deep down he knew that she would never be truly caught. And that, more than anything, was what made him want her so badly.
He cradled her head in his hand. Gently, he tilted it back. He hovered over her mouth, letting her feel his hot breath upon her lips. Then, tenderly, he pressed his lips to hers and parted them. He felt her body stiffen. She pursed her lips, then let them loose, her awkward motions revealing her inexperience in even this, the simplest act of love.
Could it be that a woman as lovely as she had never shared the tenderness of a kiss? It seemed impossible, but there was much he didn’t know about her. Perhaps she had disguised herself among men for so long that she had forgotten her power over them. More likely she had never even known she wielded such power.
He would show her now—but gently. Softly. He coaxed her mouth open, kissing her top lip and then her bottom lip. He felt her body relax into his once again. She closed her eyes, and he could see her slipping completely into the invisible space they shared. He probed her mouth with his tongue until he felt her timid tongue begin to respond in turn. How deliciously tentative she was!
His hands were like thieves. They crept down her back and looted the contours of her beautiful round buttocks. They slunk across her waist, raiding her lovely curves, taking everything they wanted. He could feel her heart beating rapidly against his own chest. His kisses grew deeper, more intense. She brushed her fingers down his back and the gentle uncertainty of her touch made him want to howl.
Her mouth began to move in rhythm with his. Her lips were so large and soft he wanted to devour them. He felt the mound of her womanhood push against his firmness, felt her desire transforming his own into a kind of desperation. He only knew what he wanted: to fill her with himself, to feel her as near to him as possible.
The force of his attraction to her verged on the overwhelming. She was a woman in full, unfolding before him like a lotus flower. He stared down at her face in awe. ‘You are the most beautiful imposter that this world has ever seen,’ he said, and then he moved his lips close to her ear. ‘I want you so badly...’
Days later, Tahar would go over and over that moment in his mind, wishing he had never said those words. It had been hearing him voice his desire, he realised, that had reminded her of her own desire. It had wrenched her from the dream. The impossible, impractical, unreasonable dream of their love.
He felt her body stiffen. ‘Then take me,’ she said, but her voice was flat and without feeling. ‘Yes, take it.’
She opened her eyes and he saw that they had changed. They were not rolling with ecstasy, but aware and steady. Her lips were no longer chafed and reddened with the evidence of his kisses. She held them in a thin, colourless line.
Take it, she had said, and it was as if all the desire had been squeezed out of her words so that only a hollow kind of fear remained.
She opened her legs wider and turned away. ‘Go ahead,’ she said. She drew in a breath and closed her eyes. ‘Take it.’
He felt as if he had been snapped in two. Take it. She was referring to her maidenhood. She did not want him—not at all. This was a trap. Now her strange, probing questions of hours before made sense. She did not want him. She did not wish for his touch. She wished for him to take her virginity. She wanted to be rid of the thing that gave her so much value to him.
Tahar stepped backwards, stunned. ‘You do not want me,’ he choked. ‘You seek to trick me.’
‘I seek vengeance against he who would sell me for profit,’ she said, her lips quivering. ‘I seek justice.’
He dragged himself from the pool, the pain of his unfulfilled desire making his whole body ache. She stayed in the water, and he could see that she was sobbing.
How could he have been so foolish? How could he not have seen the obvious signs? Her sudden interest in him, her impulsive flirtation, the brazen boldness of her touch...
‘Ha!’ he shouted in bitterness. He was like the Khemetians, believing only what he wanted to believe—that she could want him, could love him, even—and not the truth that was right in front of his nose: that she hated him more and more each day.