HE FROWNED at her carefully planned desert wardrobe when she climbed into his Jeep.
Cool capri pants, a T-shirt and flat pumps were clearly not what he had been expecting her to change into.
‘See if your sister has robes.’
‘I’m not wearing them!’ Georgie said. ‘Anyway, on the tour guidelines it said—’
‘That was for a play date. This is the real thing,’ Ibrahim interrupted. ‘You’ll get burnt.’
‘I’ve got sunblock on.’
‘Don’t come crying to me then at 3 a.m.,’ Ibrahim said, and then he changed his mind, gave her a flash of that dangerous smile. ‘Well, you are welcome to—just don’t expect sympathy.’ And Georgie swallowed, because they were flirting and a day in the desert, a whole day alone with him, was something she hadn’t dared dream of and certainly not with him looking like that.
He was dressed for the desert and it was an Ibrahim she had not once glimpsed or envisaged. The sight made her toes curl in her unsuitable pumps, for if her mind could have conjured it up, this was how she’d have envisioned him. A man of the desert in white robes, his feet encased in leather straps and a black and white kafeya that hid his hair from sight and allowed more focus on his face.
‘What?’ Ibrahim asked, as he often did to silence.
‘Bring it back,’ Georgie said, and they were definitely flirting because he smiled as he registered what she meant.
‘Consider it packed.’
They drove for miles, until the road ran out. Then Ibrahim hurtled the Jeep over the dunes, accelerating and braking, riding the dunes like a surfer on a wave. He had been wrong to fear it, Ibrahim decided, because all it was was fairy-tales and sand.
He parked near a vast canyon, with a few clusters of shrubs and not much else.
‘Is this it?’ Georgie asked, curious at her own disappointment.
‘This is it,’ Ibrahim said. ‘You take the rug and I’ll bring the food over.’
‘Where?’
‘To the picnic table,’ he teased.
‘Ha, ha,’ she said as she stepped out. She knew she was being a bit precious, or just plain shallow—she didn’t want belly dancers or for Ibrahim to produce a hookah. She’d just dreamt of it so, built it up to something majestic in her mind, and all there was…was nothing. She felt the blistering heat on her head and she scanned the horizon, trying to get her bearings, to see the city and the palace behind, or the blue of the ocean that circled the island, but there was nothing but endless sand.
‘What direction is the palace?’
‘That way,’ Ibrahim said, spreading a blanket at the side of the Jeep for shade. She sat down and accepted some iced mint and lemon tea, but her eyes could not accept the nothingness.
‘You want camels?’ He grinned.
‘I guess,’ she admitted. ‘And I’d love to see the desert people.’
‘We might come across some. But most are deeper in the desert.’
‘What is this illness that the Bedouins are suffering from?’ Georgie asked.
‘A virus,’ Ibrahim explained. ‘It is not serious with treatment, and most have been vaccinated. Most in Zaraqua anyway, but out of the city…’ He looked out to the horizon. ‘Beyond the royal tent there is nothing to the west. It is accessible only by helicopter. There is no refuelling point, no roads…’
‘What if they need help?’
‘It is how they choose to live.’ Ibrahim repeated his father’s words, though today they did not sit well in his gut. ‘Ten years ago there was talk, contractors were bought in, proposals made, but the elders protested they did not want change and so, instead we concentrated on the town, the hospital and university.’
He watched her wriggle on the blanket, her capri pants and linen shirt uncomfortable now and her cheeks pink. Instead of saying ‘I told you so’, he headed to the vehicle and retrieved a scarf, which he tied for her, and it was bliss to have relief.
‘Here.’ As he sat down he pulled something from the sand and he handed her a shell. ‘You are protected—that is what they mean.’
‘There really are shells? From when it was ocean?’
‘Maybe,’ Ibrahim said. ‘Or maybe a small animal. There are more questions than answers.’ He smeared some thick white cheese on bread and offered it to her, but Georgie took a sniff and shook her head.
‘I don’t like goat’s cheese.’
‘Neither do I,’ Ibrahim said, ‘when it is from a high-street store. Try it.’ He held it to her mouth and it was a gesture Georgie usually could not tolerate. Despite her healing, still there were boundaries and unwittingly he had crossed one. He held the morsel to her lips, told her what she should eat, only his black eyes caressed her as they did so, and there was, for the first time in this situation, the absence of fear. ‘Try,’ he teased, ‘and my apologies if it is not to your taste.’
It was to her taste; there was a note to it that she could not detect and he watched as those blue eyes tried to work it out.
‘The goats graze only on thyme,’ Ibrahim explained. ‘It makes this a rare delicacy.’
And she tasted other things.
Fruits she had never heard of that had been dried by the desert sun. She felt cool beneath the scarf. She felt brave in his company and not scared of the silence when they lay back on the rug for a while—and she knew he would not kiss her, knew, despite the energy that thrummed between them, that their day must end soon. They had driven for hours and there was only half a tank of fuel, but she wanted something else from the desert.
She wanted more.
‘You would get a greater sense of it if I left you alone.’ He spoke to her as he looked at the sky.
She smiled at him. ‘I’d be bored out of my skull.’
‘No,’ Ibrahim said. ‘That is how they make you fear it.’ His face turned to hers and they lay on the rug, just talking, sure that they would play by the rules. ‘When I was four or five, my father brought me. I was the same as you. Bored with the picnic…’
‘I’m not bored.’ Georgie corrected. ‘I’m not bored with you.’
‘Bored,’ he said. ‘That was how I felt, and unimpressed really, and then my father climbed into the Jeep and his aide drove off. I thought they had forgotten me, that it was a mistake, but, no, it was done to all of us.’
‘They left you here.’ She was appalled.
‘They watch you apparently from a distance, but you don’t know that. It is to make you strong. When it is just you, when you are alone, then you are in awe of it.’
‘And did it make you strong?’
‘No.’ Ibrahim grinned. ‘I cried and I sat down and I cried some more, I cried till I vomited and then I cried some more when my father whipped me for being weak, which I was.’ He shrugged. He told the truth because he would never let them shame him for how he had felt, and that was what had angered his father most. ‘I wanted my mother.’
‘That’s so cruel.’ Georgie couldn’t believe it. ‘That won’t happen to Azizah.’
‘No.’
‘What if they have a son?’
‘Could you imagine Felicity?’ He laughed at that thought and so too did Georgie. ‘I think we can safely say any future nephew will be spared that particular induction. Do you want me to drive off now?’ he asked. ‘To leave you alone with it for a while?’
‘No,’ Georgie said, because the thought made her shiver, but she did still want more from the desert. ‘Can we wait for the sunset?’
He turned his face skywards.
‘Sunset is hours away.’
‘Can we stay?’
And, no, they could not sit in the desert for hours—he could, for he had done his time in the land, but she was fair underneath the scarf and not used to the heat. He was about to tell her so but then something more fleeting than a thought changed his mind.
‘We can go to the tent,’ he offered. ‘We can wait there for sunset. There are horses we can ride if you wish. I will find you a docile one. I can refuel. Bedra, the housekeeper, will be there with her husband. It is a royal tent, it is ready always for the princes or the king.’ And he sounded very confident, as if he were suggesting they stop off at a café for coffee on the way home. Yet he had not been back to the tent in years and it was not a prospect he usually relished—but for reasons unknown even to himself he wanted to show her.
‘What if Felicity—?’
‘Why do you need her permission?’ Ibrahim asked, a bit irritated now, but not at her, more at himself for his stupid offer. He had no desire to go to the tent and was rather hoping she would refuse. ‘You are your own person. Do you want to come or not?’
‘Please.’
She did not really understand the change in him, for he whipped up the blanket and threw it in the vehicle, threw the remains of their food for the unseen wildlife and Georgie took off her scarf. They drove in tense silence and maybe it was because of too much sun because she certainly wasn’t relaxed in his company now. Still, she must have nodded off because she woke up with her head against the window to find his mood not improved by his unresponsive passenger or the increasing winds that threw sand against the windscreen and screamed around the vehicle. Inside the car it was almost dark, the sky bathed in browns and gold, and he had the sat-nav on. Ibrahim glanced over briefly as she stirred beside him.
‘We’re in a sandstorm?’
‘We have been for the last hour,’ Ibrahim said. ‘We will just refuel and then leave. You wouldn’t be able to see the sunset anyway. I will have Bedra prepare us some refreshments and then we will head back to the palace.’
‘Isn’t it dangerous?’
‘If you don’t know what you are doing,’ Ibrahim said. ‘We’ll be fine.’ Even though he sounded confident, he wasn’t so sure. Visibility was extremely low and worsening and could change to zero in a matter of seconds. Really, unless the storm passed they would have to wait it out at the tent. He had even considered halting the Jeep but if the storm worsened they could find themselves buried, so he had decided to head for the tent and assess things then.
Ibrahim had listened to the warnings before they’d left, would never have brought her out here had he known a storm was building, but even listening to the radio now, tuning in for updates, still there was no mention of this storm. He glanced as her hand fiddled with an air vent. ‘Leave it closed,’ Ibrahim barked, and then checked himself. She really had no idea just how dangerous this was.
‘Why have we stopped?’
‘Because we are here.’
They were. Beyond the curtain of sand Georgie could just make out material billowing a few metres away.
‘Wait there,’ Ibrahim said. ‘I will come and get you.’
She didn’t need him to open her door and ignoring him Georgie climbed out herself and immediately realised Ibrahim hadn’t been being chivalrous. The sand tore at her hands as she moved to cover her eyes, the scream of the wind shrilled in her ears, filled her mouth and nose and in a moment, in less than a moment, she was lost, completely and utterly lost. The vehicle was surely just a step or two behind her, the tent somewhere in front, but it was like being spun around in blind man’s buff. Completely disorientated, she felt something akin to panic as she glimpsed for the very first time the might of the desert, and then she felt a wedge of muscle, felt Ibrahim’s thick white robe and his arm pulling her, smothering her face and eyes with his kafeya. He guided her from the screaming wind, every step an effort, until she felt the wall of the tent in front of her and then the bliss of relative peace as he pushed her inside.
The peace didn’t last long.
She coughed out sand. He lit an oil lamp and his expression was less than impressed when it came into view in the flare of the flame. Her coughing died down.
‘When I tell you to wait—you wait.’
‘I was trying to…’ To what? Her voice trailed off. To show him she didn’t need her door opened? To show her independence in the middle of a storm? There wasn’t a single appropriate response.
‘I’m not sure if you’re naïve or ignorant.’ Ibrahim was furious. ‘You could have died.’ He showed no mercy and neither did he exaggerate. ‘In the time it took me to get around that vehicle, you could have been lost. Listen to me!’ he roared. ‘In a storm, and one as severe as this one is becoming, you can be lost in a moment—or choked by the sand. It is that simple.’
‘I’m sorry…’ she said, but Ibrahim wasn’t listening.
‘Bedra!’ He shouted. ‘Where is everyone?’
He strode into the darkness, lighting lamps as he went, revealing more and more beauty with each flare of light. The floor a scatter of rugs, the tent walls hung with them too, and there were ornaments, instruments she didn’t recognise. It was the desert she’d dreamt of and she wandered in quiet appreciation as Ibrahim grew more irate, walking down white corridors that led to separate areas. He called down them all.
‘There’s a note.’ Georgie found it as Ibrahim searched for the staff. ‘At least, I think it’s a note.’
She handed it to him and watched his expression turn to one of incredulity as he read it. ‘Why would Bedra and her husband be out helping with the sick? Their job is to tend to the desert palace—they should be here at all times.’
‘Well, given that she is a doctor, maybe her skills were better needed elsewhere,’ Georgie responded, and then instantly regretted it, because from the frown on his proud features she realized, he didn’t know. Felicity had told her about the secret desert work that she and Karim did for the Bedouins, the mobile clinic they ran, how Bedra was so much more than a maid. She had assumed that even if the king didn’t know, Ibrahim would—he was Karim’s brother after all—but clearly he hadn’t been told.
‘She’s not a doctor,’ Ibrahim said derisively. ‘She’s a housekeeper. She should be here.’
But as they explored the empty tent, clearly there were things that Ibrahim did not know, because beyond the servants’ quarters, where royals would never venture, was a treatment area as well stocked as any modern doctor’s surgery.
‘I’m not sure,’ Georgie could not resist as Ibrahim surveyed it, ‘if you’re naïve or just ignorant.’
She wondered if she had pushed him too far, but he conceded with a slight shrug and a shake of the head. ‘Clearly I’m ignorant,’ he said. ‘She’s really a doctor?’
‘I shouldn’t have said anything. I hope I haven’t got Karim into trouble.’
‘As if I’m going to tell on him. So that’s why he was always out in the desert? I was wondering what his problem was—how much contemplation one man needed?’
He did make her laugh, but it changed into a cough and Ibrahim was still cross with himself for placing her in danger. ‘I checked before we came out…there was no indication of a storm as big as this one. It seems to have come from nowhere.’
‘Are there lots of them?’
Ibrahim nodded. ‘But this is severe.’
‘Could the tent blow away?’
Ibrahim just laughed. ‘They are designed for these conditions.’ And then he went into engineer mode, talking about vents and rigging, but Georgie had other things on her mind.
‘Will Felicity and Karim be all right?’ She thought of them out there and her heart started racing.
‘They will be fine,’ he assured her. ‘Karim will know exactly what to do. They will be waiting it out like us. They just won’t be able to fly back.’
‘Felicity will be frantic.’ Georgie closed her eyes. ‘I should have stayed at the palace and looked after Azizah.’
‘In case her mother got caught in a storm?’ Ibrahim shook his head. ‘You can’t think like that.’ The wind screeched a warning and Ibrahim knew when he was beaten. ‘We will stay till it passes, but I think we are here for the night.’ They headed back out to the lounge area and he stood as she roamed, watched her expression as she looked at the wall hangings and her nosy little fingers picked up priceless heirlooms and weighed them. He would never have planned this. Would never have bought her here if he’d know they would be alone.
Her cheeks were pink from the sun and her arms just a little bit sunburnt. Her clothes were grubby and her hair wild from the sand and the wind. And how he wanted her. Though he would not blatantly defy the desert, he would follow the rules while he was here, but his way.
Ibrahim did not have to chase, all he had was the thrill of the catch. He had never had to want or wait or been said no to—except once.
And here she was.
With him tonight, and now he didn’t want to wait till London.
Tonight he would sample the thrill of the chase; tonight he would make certain that she would not refuse him again. He would romance her, feed her, turn on every ounce of his undeniable charm—he would ripen her with his mind and let her simmer overnight. They would rise early, Ibrahim decided, she could see the sunrise and then he would take her to a hotel and bed her, take her ripe and ready and plump and delicious. And he wouldn’t even need to reach out. She would fall into his hands without plucking.
In fact, he decided with a smile, she would beg.
‘What?’ Georgie asked, seeing a smile pass over his face.
‘I was just thinking. You will have your authentic desert experience. Bedra will have left food, the table is set, we can feast tonight, and tomorrow, and when the storm is past you can rise early and see the sunrise.’ He saw a flicker of a frown on her face, but he moved to relax her. ‘We must have separate rooms. Come, I’ll show you the guest quarters.’
They walked through the lounge, the air thick and warm, and she glimpsed a large curtained area with a bed so high and deep you would almost need stairs and a springboard to dive into it. The room was heavy with scent—musky, exotic oils that aroused, to ensure future generations, and the bed throbbed with colour, drapes and cushions. He let her eyes linger for more than a moment, made sure she had seen it, and then gently he took her elbow.
‘That is mine. Your room is over here.’
It was thirty-four steps away, she knew because she counted the distance between their rooms. Ibrahim knew she would be counting them again in her head later, for though hers was absolutely beautiful, for royal guest, not a princess, and just that tiny bat of her eyelashes told him she knew.
‘It’s lovely,’ Georgie said, because it was.
It was!
Apart from the palace, it was absolutely the nicest room she had ever been a guest in, and she told herself that again as she enthused and thanked him, but her mind was somehow in his room, with heavy silk spreads and a bed you could drown in. ‘Here.’ Ibrahim was supremely polite. ‘Make use of the guest quarters as you please.’ He pulled back a drape and the space pulsed with colour and rich fabrics.
‘I can’t just wear someone’s things.’
‘These are for guests who arrive unprepared.’ He slowly looked around the room. ‘Nothing changes…’ There was a pensive note to his voice, but he didn’t elaborate. ‘I will leave you to bathe, just help yourself to anything. Perhaps dress for dinner?’
‘Dress?’
‘You wanted an authentic desert experience, well, let me give you one.’ He watched her swallow. ‘I’ll prepare the lounge.’
Despite the ancient ornaments and artefacts, there was every modern convenience and Georgie filled the heavy bath with steaming water and chose from the array of fragrant oils. After several hours in the Jeep and the grit and the sand she had accumulated, it was bliss to stretch out in the warm, scented water. She could have lain for ages, except she really was hungry.
Georgie had had no intention of selecting clothing from the guests’ wardrobe.
A charity cupboard stocked for inappropriate guests she did not need, and she wasn’t keen on the idea of playing dress up. Except maybe she was, because she thought of Ibrahim in his robes in London and there were still angry red marks on her waist where her capri pants had cut into her, and the pale fabric that had looked so cool and elegant on the hanger in the high-street store was now crumpled and rather grubby.
Georgie flicked through the wardrobe: vast kaftans that would swamp her delicate frame. And what was it with Zaqar and shades of yellow? Yet her first brisk hand movements grew slower, her eyes drawn to the intricate beading and embroidery, every piece a work of art. They were in decreasing sizes too, she realised, for there near the end was a slim robe in a dark blood red with small glass beads on the front and a dance of gold leaves around the hem—it was nothing like something she would ever choose for herself, but was perhaps the most beautiful article of clothing she had ever seen.
The fabric slid coolly beneath her fingers, the finest of silks. It beckoned, and she closed her eyes in bliss as she gave in and slid it over her head. It skimmed her body. As she looked in the mirror and saw a different Georgie, her stomach tightened in strange recognition at the woman who met her gaze. Not a girl or a young woman but a woman with all awkwardness gone, and it bewildered her. It was as if the fragrant bath had surgically removed that awkwardness, because she liked what she saw and wanted to enhance it. Her eyes glanced down to the heavy brushes and flat glass containers filled with rich colours to perfume bottles, and she pulled the stopper from one and inhaled the musky scent, she wanted to dress for him. She wanted her night in the desert.
* * *
Ibrahim’s catering skills ran to ringing his favourite restaurant and telling them the number of guests. His kitchen in London was stocked and maintained by his housekeeper. At the palace, occasionally at night he wandered in and chatted to the overnight chef, who would prepare Ibrahim a late-night or rather pre-dawn snack, but here in the desert things were different—here, a young prince was left for a period to fend for himself. Not that he had to this evening, for Bedra was both a doctor and royal housekeeper. When he opened the third fridge, there were platters fit for a king, or should a reprobate prince happen by, and there were jugs too, all lined up and ready, that had herbs measured and prepared. All Ibrahim had to do was add water and carry trays through, but he was pleased with his handiwork. He even lit some candles and incense and turned on some music to soften the noise of the wind. Then he headed to his quarters to bath and change.
Ibrahim shaved, which he did not normally do in the desert, but his face was rough and as watched the blade slice over his chin, he thought of Georgie’s cheeks, of her mouth and her face and, yes, deny it as he may, he was preparing himself for her.
Preparing himself for tomorrow, Ibrahim warned himself, because this tent was a place you brought your bride. This was a place where the union was sealed and even if he didn’t strictly believe in the tradition, tonight he would respect it.
He headed out to the lounge area. He wanted to eat and wondered what was taking her so long, because he was ready and had prepared dinner too. But every moment of waiting was worth it as, looking just a little bit shy but definitely not awkward, she came to him.
‘You look…’ He did not finish, he could not finish, because not only did she look beautiful as she stood with her long blonde hair coiling as it dried, her skin flushed from the warm water, somehow she looked as if she came from the desert. Somehow, despite her pale features, despite it all, she looked as if she belonged here, and Ibrahim wondered if this night, together but apart, was more than he should have taken on.
Wondered how far he should tease her.
Her eyes were very blue in her pale face. She had none of that kohl that sharpened them, just a shimmer of silver on her lids that glittered each time she blinked. It was her mouth that had been painted, in the same blood red as her dress, and it trembled a little as his eyes fell on it, and it killed him that he must wait till tomorrow to kiss it.
She sat on the floor at the low table and Ibrahim did the same. He had seen her a little nervous around food, but now her eyes were just curious. The nerves, he knew, were for another reason, for long before she had sat down he had seen the leaping pulse in her throat, the glitter not just on her eyelids but in eyes that shone with arousal.
‘Here.’ He handed her a heavy fruit, which looked like a cross between a peach and an apple, and selected one for himself. As she went to take a tentative bite he shook his head. ‘It is marula, you drink it.’ He squeezed the heavy fruit between his fingers and she watched as sticky goo ran between them. He selected a straw and plunged it into the fruit and he took her mind to mad places, because the fruit was her flesh and she held her breath as he pierced it.
‘You,’ he said, and she broke the skin of her fruit, not as easily as him but it worked and she drank from it. Though the fluid was sweet and warm and delicious, somehow she wanted to lean and lick the moisture still damp on his fingers.
She ate, and it was different, because she was thinking about food again, about every morsel that slid down her throat, but it was far from with loathing, because each swallow of her throat was watched by him—and she wanted his mouth there.
She wanted their tongues to meet in one half of the pomegranate, but he offered her only her share and then ate his.
‘No spoons.’ Ibrahim said, and made eating seem debauched, but in the most thrilling of ways, and for the first time there was regret that a meal was over. As they moved to the couches, she wanted back at his table.
And Ibrahim knew.
But it was safer on the sofa and she sipped sweet coffee gratefully and had another cup to help her sober up, because that was how he sometimes made her feel.
‘The trouble with antiques,’ Ibrahim drawled, filling her cup with the jug that had been used since his child hood, ‘is that nothing gets thrown out. Nothing changes. Always it is the same.’
‘You hate it here?’
‘No.’ Ibrahim said, and then went on, ‘Not always.’ He saw her confusion. ‘I know every corner of this tent. We came as children—it was good then.’ He didn’t want to talk, he wanted to slowly seduce, he wanted her wanting him in the morning, but somehow she demanded, without him always realising, more from him.
Sometimes he found himself talking with her, not about things that teased but things that tortured. He heard his voice saying things he had never said before, and she didn’t just listen, as others would have, she did not agree but partook.
‘When your mother was here? Was it after she left when it changed?’ she probed, and he closed his eyes, but her question remained and he thought about it, because when his mother had been here, it had been different. Then his father would laugh and the children would play and spend a whole day searching for one rare wild flower for the maid to put on their mother’s breakfast tray. He and Ahmed would play in a cave a morning’s walk from here and the servants would find them at dusk, but the scolding had always been worth it.
Then there had been no fear when he had been with Ahmed, just the arrogance of youth, for surely nothing could harm the young princes.
‘It just changed,’ Ibrahim said.
‘After Ahmed died?’
She had gone where no one should, where not even he dared.
‘For him I would have been king.’ He was beyond angry, his voice was raw. ‘Had he just asked me, had he even bothered to tell me his fears. Instead…’ He could not forgive his brother, and that killed a part of Ibrahim too, and he could not linger on it either, so he spoke of other things instead. ‘It changed for many reasons. For a while it was a playground, but at seventeen you spend a month alone before you go to the military. It is a time of transition. For a month you wander and then return to the tent.’
‘No staff?’
‘None,’ Ibrahim said. ‘You remember the fear when you were left as a child, but there is no one watching this time. So slowly you build up for the walk home.’
‘You walk home?’ She could not keep the shock from her voice—that a teenager would be left to fend for himself then walk for miles. ‘And then you get to join the army—some reward!’
‘No.’ Ibrahim shook his head. ‘First you become a man. There is a very good reason to find your bearings and keep walking back to the palace. There, waiting, is your reward.’
Georgie blinked and as his eyes never left her face, as realisation slowly dawned, her pale skin darkened. ‘That’s disgusting,’ Georgie spluttered.
‘Why?’ He was genuinely bemused. ‘I am a royal prince—the woman I marry must be a virgin. It is my duty to be a skilled lover.’
‘To teach her!’ Georgie spat.
‘Of course.’ Ibrahim said. ‘But even a teacher first has to be taught.’
‘You make it sound so clinical.’
‘When?’ He challenged. ‘You interpret it as clinical—I assure you it was not.’
‘You can’t teach it…’ she flared but right there her argument started to weaken, because in his arms she had learnt so much. ‘It isn’t just…’ she tried again, but words failed her. ‘Some things,’ she attempted, and then closed her eyes in defeat, because how could she admit that it wasn’t just his skill that brought her to frenzy, it was him.
That just the curve of his arrogant mouth and the scent of his skin prompted vigilance, that if he sat there now and did not move, if all he did was stay still as she leant over and kissed him, if all he did was lie there as her hands roamed his body, it would be every bit as good as her recall. It wasn’t Ibrahim’s skill her body craved—it was him. ‘When we…’ Georgie swallowed. There was something she needed to say. ‘When I stopped you, it wasn’t because—’
‘I don’t want to discuss it,’ Ibrahim said, because it would be too dangerous here to recall that night. Going into the details of their time together would not help.
‘Please. I want—’
‘You heard what I said.’
He could be so rude. Annoyed at him, angry at how he just closed off whenever it suited him. She refused to drag conversation out of him. She wandered around the lounge and there was much to amuse and interest her. She ran her fingers along one instrument and another and for the first time in her life she actually wanted to dance. She wanted to turn up the music and turn to him, and she felt as if she was fighting insanity, wondered just what it was in the fruit, because the desert made her dizzy with freedom from inhibition. She forced herself to explore rather than linger, picked up a heavy glass bottle and pulled out the stopper, but Ibrahim came over.
‘They are not for cosmetic…’ Ibrahim shook his head, took the glass jar and replaced the stopper. ‘They are medicinal.’
‘I know,’ Georgie answered, irritated. ‘This is what I study.’
‘These are potent.’
‘I do know!’ She saw the dismissal in his single blink. It was a reaction she was used to, yet from Ibrahim it annoyed her. ‘Just because you don’t believe in my work…’
‘But I do.’
‘So why are you so scorning?’
‘I am not…’ His voice trailed off, because in truth he was. ‘There are thousands of years of learning, of wisdom in these oils, our ways—’
‘That can’t be learnt in a four-week course!’ Stupidly she felt like crying, not at his scorn, not at his derision, but because she felt there was truth in what he was saying. It was a question she had asked herself. She had sat in a classroom and later with clients wondering if she was worthy of imparting such ancient knowledge.
‘Do you believe in what you do?’ Ibrahim asked.
‘Of course,’ Georgie said. ‘Well, I do, but I know there is more, much more to learn.’
‘Always there is more to learn, for ever there will be more to learn,’ Ibrahim said.
‘So you don’t think I should practise.’
‘I did not say that. I go for my massage in London. There are practitioners like you…’ He said it without scorn. ‘They work with the oils, but their minds are not present.’ How could he explain something he did not fully understand himself? But Georgie understood.
‘Mine is,’ she said, and took the bottle back from him. She held it a moment then took off the stopper, placed a drop of oil on her finger and moved it to his throat. He stood rigid as her finger slid down to his throat and in tiny circular motions massaged over his thymus—that area held past issues and his was full. She could smell the frankincense, the bergamot and a note she couldn’t identify, and still her finger circled and her mind was present. It was Ibrahim who pulled back.
‘This is what you do for a living?’ He captured her hand.
‘You make it sound like I’m running some seedy massage parlour. It’s about energy and healing and relaxation.’ She gave an impatient shake of her head. ‘I don’t have to explain to you what I do.’
He dropped his grip and still her finger circled. ‘Show me,’ Ibrahim said, which normally would have been a dangerous tease, an extension of his game, but it was more than that. He could feel the tiny flickers of her pulse in the pads of her fingers, and he also wanted some of this peace she talked about. ‘Show me,’ he said again.
He was used to massage—a keen horseman, there was all too often a hip or a shoulder that had taken a beating. He used massage just for physical ailments but wanted more. Often in London he found himself face down on a table, but no matter how skilled the hands, no matter how they relaxed his body, his mind did not quieten, and it was that he craved—some peace and clarity, for conflicting thoughts to still so he could assess them. For a second she had given him that quietness and he wanted more.
He pulled off his robes and lay on the cushioned floor. Just a sash covered him and it was Georgie who was awkward as she prepared her oils from the vast selection. It was she who was facing the biggest test, she wondering how to remain professional because he was utterly and completely exquisite. She was used to shy, fragile women, and there could be no greater contrast. His back gleamed with muscle and awaited her touch, but there was a pertinent problem and as she prepared her dishes and vials she tried to keep her voice matter-of-fact.
‘You need to lie on your back.’
She watched his shoulders stiffen, watched his expanded chest still as he held air in, then he turned round and she covered him, because this was not about sex, this was about something more.
But for Ibrahim any hope of relaxing, of merely enjoying a feminine touch, was dashed then, because lying like this with her kneeling next to him, it would take every ounce of concentration he possessed to ignore her, not to give in to the natural response of his body. He must lie there now and think of things, anything other than the woman who was moving down to his feet. He must not think of the hands she rubbed together to warm in preparation and he was about to roll over, to tell her not to bother, but as she captured a foot her fingers were so silky and oiled he lingered.
She had felt him resist, felt him fight, but as her hands slid to his feet and she stroked his sole, there was a tentative surrender that she recognised, a shift when a mind handed itself over to you. She wasn’t sure if that trust was merited. Just a ping of doubt went through her as she thought of a four-week course versus the arts of the desert, then she knew what to do, and there was no more trepidation. She felt as if the roof had lifted from the tent, felt as if it was daylight again and the wind was gone, that the sun was beating directly into her head, spreading through her body and warming her fingers. Her hands knew what to do, and Georgie gave in to the healing along with Ibrahim and did what the desert told her.
She oiled his feet with lavender and spruce, worked slowly up past his calves, and when his legs were oiled and his body relaxed, her mind with his, she oiled her fingers and moved to his navel. There was a brief hesitation as her fingers hovered, and then it was only about him and she worked gently there with jasmine and neroli. She moved to his chest, small clockwise motions around his heart, and she couldn’t hear the wind, just its message, and she worked on forgiveness with geranium and other drops of different oils, but she still felt resistance, his urge for her to move on. She moved to his stomach again. She worked on release, with ylang ylang and blue tansy, but he would not give in to it.
She added melissa, the fragrance he had smelt on her that night on the balcony, or as he called it—Bal-smin. It was the chief of oils and Ibrahim met his match in it. She saw his eyes close tighter, and if it had not been Ibrahim, so proud and removed, she would have sworn it was a man fighting back tears. Then she felt the release, felt the pain slide out beneath her fingers as he freed Ahmed. And then she went to his heart again, which didn’t need her hand now because he had forgiven, and her hand slid down his body, down his legs, then to his feet to finish.
And it was more than intimate, it was more than sex, it was the closest he had ever been to another person, and when she had finished, when he opened his eyes, he willed her to go on. But she could hear the music and see the man before her now, and it wasn’t her vocation that led her—it was instinct. She watched her own fingers as they dripped oil low on his stomach, and it was the woman she had only today first seen in the mirror that peeled back the sash. Her warm hands slipped around him, stroked him while she looked at him, slid both palms around in a skilled motion she had never so much as attempted before, and he looked into eyes that were wanton and a red mouth that in moment would take him—and how he wanted it to.
‘We cannot be together here.’
She could feel him sliding through her fingers, could feel the beat of her heart in her throat, and it was him and only him that made her bold.
‘No one would have to know.’ He watched her lips part in a smile. ‘What happens in the desert stays in the desert.’
Ibrahim’s fingers moved up her chin and slid into her hair and how he wanted to guide her head down, rather than wait till the morning. He wanted to break a rule, but he was stronger than that, or was he weak, because he could not defy the desert.
‘This is how you work?’
He watched colour flood her face, ached unfulfilled as her hands released him.
‘Of course not.’
‘Go to bed.’ he stood and pulled her from her knees to her feet and felt guilty for shaming her. He fought a rare need to explain himself, that it was safer if they were apart. ‘Anyway, you might change your mind again at the last minute. Just go to bed, Georgie.’