The Call of the Desert (5 page)

“If we had met at any other time we wouldn’t have been available, and yet this desire would still have blown up. It would have made a mockery of the fact that twelve years had gone by. And of our marriages.” He went on, his deep voice mesmerising, “But we’re both free and single now, two consenting adults.”

Julia knew she should run—and fast. Get away and pray to God that she never saw Kaden again. But her feet wouldn’t move. The way he’d casually reached out to tuck her hair behind her ear had broken something apart inside her, bringing with it an onslaught of memories of so many moments when he’d done that. It had been the first physical gesture he’d made to her.

Fatefully, knowing that on some level she was making a momentous decision by
not
leaving, Julia couldn’t seem to turn away. She felt curiously lethargic—as if she’d been running towards something for a long time, only to have finally reached her destination. She wanted this man with a hunger she’d known only once before … for
him
.

She’d fully expected that if they ever met again that he would act as dismissively as he had earlier … and yet here she was. He wasn’t pretending not to know her now. He was looking at her as if she was the only woman on the planet. That elusive feeling of home and connection that she’d only ever found with him whispered to her like a siren song, calling her to seek it again.

Desperately she fought it—going that way again could only end in worse devastation. Clinging furiously to some last vestige of pride, to the illusion that she had
control, she backed away. “Just because we’ve met again, it doesn’t mean anything, Kaden. It doesn’t mean that we have to end up … in bed.”

For a long tense moment they just looked at each other, and then, after another ear-splitting crack of thunder, the electricity went off.

Julia gasped and Kaden cursed. “The storm must have outed the power. Wait here. I’ll get some candles.”

Julia felt Kaden move away from her and took a deep, shaky breath. The darkness seemed to envelop her in a cloak of collusion. It made her want to forget the outside world, forget to remember their history. To give in to what he was offering. She wanted him so badly she shook.

Desperately she tried to remember the awful excoriating pain of the moment when he’d coolly informed her that all they’d shared had been a summer fling, that he had a life of responsibilities that didn’t include her. But it was like trying to hold onto a wispy cloud. All she knew was the exhilaration rushing through her blood, the heightened awareness of desire.

Through the silence of the apartment she heard a crash somewhere and a colourful curse. They were sounds that
should
have been restoring her sanity, making her more determined to leave. But instead they were only firing her desire. She heard a movement and saw flickering light. This was it.

Kaden came back into the room, and in the soft glow Julia could only look at him and marvel at the shadows which made his face seem even more mysterious, his eyes two dark pools. He put down the candle and came closer and closer, until his body was just inches away from hers. His heat enveloped her, along with his exotic
masculine scent. It made her think of hot nights in the desert, and of even hotter things.

“Julia, I don’t want to analyse why this has happened like this. I don’t want to discuss the past … I just want you.”

She looked up at Kaden. So many feelings were rushing through her like a torrent, but one above all others. She wanted him too. She’d dreamt for years of seeing him again. He’d cast her out without a moment’s hesitation, and when she’d heard about his nuptials something in her had died. So she had given in and accepted John’s proposal, believing it was futile to love a ghost.

But he wasn’t a ghost any more. He was flesh and blood and standing right in front of her. And then he reached out a hand and cupped her jaw, his thumb stroking her cheek. She was undone. When he pulled her closer she didn’t resist. Because she couldn’t.

K
ADEN
found himself relishing the other-worldliness that enforced darkness imposed, surrounding them in this cocoon. Julia’s eyes were huge, her breaths coming short and rapid, and as he lowered his head so that his mouth could drink from hers he felt an inalienable sense of rightness. It was too strong to deny or question or rail against. His mouth settled over Julia’s, his arms pulled her close, and when he felt her breasts crushed against his chest he was lost.

The outside world—the lashing rain against the windows and the intermittent thunder and lightning—all faded into the background as flames of heat started licking around them.

After what seemed like an aeon had passed Kaden pulled back. Julia was stunned, her limbs jelly-like. Her mouth felt swollen and her heart was hammering as if she’d just run half a marathon. Her hands were around Kaden’s neck, his breath was harsh, and she could feel the hard ridge of his erection against her belly.

He just said coarsely, “Julia.”

She didn’t stop him when he shifted slightly so that he could pick her up into his arms. “Take the candle,” he instructed roughly.

Half in a daze, Julia looked down to see the flickering candle on a table. She reached down to pick it up in its stand and then Kaden was striding out of the room, the soft light guiding their way to a door which he all but kicked open. In the shadowy half-light Julia could pick out a huge bed and unmistakably masculine furnishings. Kaden’s bedroom.

A sliver of sanity returned, and Kaden must have felt her tense, because he looked down into her face and said implacably, “There is no going back from here.”

Her breath was suspended for a long moment, and then the enormity of meeting Kaden again struck home. How fleeting this night would be. The weight of her yearning for this man was heavy on her shoulders, and it was too strong to deny, much as the tiny sliver of sanity she had left might be urging her to. Slowly. Fatefully, she shook her head. “I don’t want to go back.”

He carried her over to the chest of drawers, where she put down the candle, then let her slide down his body, his hands touching her from shoulder to waist to hip. He pushed some of her hair back over one shoulder and bent his head to her neck, pressing a kiss there. Julia’s head fell back. It was too heavy to hold up. Her blood was hot as it pumped through her veins.

Kaden’s fingers came to her shirt and he started to undo the buttons in the slippery fabric. She shivered slightly when the air whispered over her bare skin. Soon her shirt hung open. Kaden drew back and stood to his full height.

He was downright intimidating in the dusky light, with no help from an obscured moon, but he was also
thrilling
. He was a big man all over. Julia watched with a drying mouth as he coolly started to open his own
buttons. Part of her wanted to be as bold as she’d once been and brush his hands aside so that she could do it. But this wasn’t the past. She was more cautious now, no matter how time seemed to be blurring here tonight.

His shirt was open, and with an economy of movement he pulled it off, revealing his awe-inspiring chest. It was broad and tautly muscled, and he had filled out since she’d seen him last. Coarse dark hair covered his pectorals, leading downwards in a dark line to just above his belt.

A finger to her chin lifted her face back up and Julia flamed guiltily. She’d all but been licking her lips at the prospect of seeing him fully naked for the first time in years.

Instead of pushing her shirt off her shoulders and arms, Kaden’s big hands came to her waist, spanning it easily. His action pushed the shirt off her breasts, revealing them to his incendiary gaze. She could see a pulse throb in his neck and her belly quivered. Hot, wet heat moistened her sex in readiness.

Kaden breathed out. “So beautiful … you’re so damn beautiful.”

He cupped one fleshy weight in his hand and a thumb moved back and forth rhythmically over the tight peak. Julia moaned, and didn’t even realise she was pushing her breast into his hand to increase the friction.

With a languorous movement he brought his thumb to his mouth and sucked it deep, before moving it back and repeating the action, moistening the hard tip. Julia moaned even louder, her breath coming short and fast. Excitement was building, ratcheting her inner tension upwards.

“Kaden … please.”

“Please what?” he asked, almost casually. “Do you want me to put my mouth on you? Do you want me to taste you?”

Julia was almost weeping. “Yes …”

Kaden’s head came down and his mouth closed unerringly over her already deeply sensitised nipple. Silky hair brushed the hot skin of her breast, adding to the exquisite sensation. He sucked so hard that Julia cried out, her fingers arrowing through his hair, holding him in place. His other hand was moulding and cupping the flesh of her other breast, readying it too for his ministrations.

His mouth moved to the second peak and Julia’s legs all but buckled. Ruthlessly, with an arm around her waist, Kaden clamped her to him, not letting her fall, all the while subjecting her to something on the knife-edge of pleasure and pain.

Julia was fast losing sight of any reality. She was made up of sensations, a slave to this man and his touch. He was so much more confident than she remembered. He knew exactly what to do, where she ached to be touched.

As abruptly as he’d started torturing her with his mouth he stood back again, and with his hands clamped on her waist he drew her into him with an urgency that sent blood rushing to her pelvis. His head bent, mouth finding hers, tongue delving deep and seeking hers. The friction of her sensitised breasts against his chest was delicious torture. Through the haze of desire and excitement Julia felt a wild surge of exhilaration at being with this man again. It was as if now she’d given in to it she could fully appreciate the experience.

Blindly obeying the deep call of her blood, Julia let
her hands seek and fumble with Kaden’s belt and zip, undoing them with a feverish intensity. While their mouths still clung, Julia pushed his trousers down over his lean hips. She could feel Kaden step out of them and kick them away. And then her hands were on his boxers.

He drew back at that, and she could see his eyes glittering. Her breasts were heavy. Her blood was on fire. Not taking her eyes off his, she put her fingers between his hot skin and the material and pulled them down. It was only when they snagged that she looked. The bulge of his erection was formidable. Running a finger around the rim of his boxers, unaware of the look of torture on Kaden’s face, Julia stopped just where she could feel the smooth head of him.

Slowly she pulled the boxers out, free of his erection, and then they too were slid down over his powerfully muscled thighs. It reminded Julia again of the national sport that Kaden so loved to play, which had broken his nose at least once. It had looked barbaric to her: men stripped to the waist, using a crude form of shortened hockey stick to whack a ball between two goals. Part of the play was to crash into one another and divert each other from the ball. It was visceral, exciting and undeniably violent. And Kaden excelled at it.

But now she couldn’t take her eyes off his impressive erection, springing free from the cradle of black hair. Moisture beaded the tip enticingly, and she could feel her own body moisten in answer.

His voice broke the spell. “I’m feeling a little under-dressed here.”

Julia’s wide gaze clashed with his as he pushed her shirt off her shoulders, down her arms, from where it slithered to the floor in a pool of grey silk. Then his efficient
hands were on her jeans, flicking open the button and pulling down the zip. Julia barely had a chance to get her breath before she felt him tugging them down over her hips and thighs.

Any embarrassment because the jeans were too small was lost when she saw how his gaze roved hungrily over her body. She sucked in a shaky breath when he took her by the hand to lead her to the bed. The candlelight and the dark, ominous sky outside made everything seem even more unreal. But the heat between her and Kaden was very real.

As he pushed her back onto the bed she realised with an illicit thrill that his touch was all at once familiar and yet that of a stranger. He was truly a man now, and she sensed a hunger in him that hadn’t been there before, an easy dominance.

He joined her on the cool sheets and all rational thought fled. Pulling her into his body, touching her chest to chest and down, he kissed her again, deeply, as if he couldn’t get enough of kissing her. Julia sank back into the covers, relishing the latent strength in Kaden’s powerful form. His hand smoothed its way down, over her chest and to her belly. Fingers seeking even further until they encountered her pants.

With a perfunctory movement they were dispatched, and Kaden pushed her thighs apart, his hand seeking between her legs to where her body told of its readiness for him.

One finger stroked in and out of her moist heat. Julia’s hands gripped Kaden’s shoulders. She couldn’t breathe, and almost arched off the bed when one finger was joined by another one, opening her up, stretching her, preparing her for his own body. Julia’s hand sought
his erection and wrapped around it, squeezing and moving up and down—a silent plea for him to stop torturing her. She couldn’t speak, couldn’t articulate anything.

Kaden shifted and was moving down her body, pressing kisses along her belly until his mouth was at the juncture of her legs and his tongue was tasting her as he’d once shocked her by doing all those years ago. She gasped, but ruthlessly he held her thighs wide apart, baring her to his mouth and that wickedly stabbing tongue.

He reached one hand up to find her breast and rolled a nipple between his fingers. Without anything to cling onto, Julia felt her body tighten in a spasm of pleasure so intense she didn’t even notice when Kaden moved again, so that his huge body now lay between her legs.

Shattered from the intensity of the strongest orgasm she could remember having, she could only lie there in a stupor as Kaden took himself in his hand and stroked the head of his erection back and forth against her moistened sex. Her body was already greedy for him, her muscles still clenching as if trying to suck him in. At some point he’d had the sense to don protection, and Julia was exceedingly grateful—because all concerns for practicalities had gone out of the window.

Torturously he let himself be sucked in slowly, sheathing the head in her heat before pulling out. Julia moaned softly, her eyes glued to Kaden’s harsh face. He looked so stark, like a pagan god stripped bare of all civility. And then he leaned over her on both hands and with one cataclysmic thrust seated himself in her fully. All the way to the hilt. Julia gasped at his size, but the fleeting pain quickly morphed to an intense pleasure, as if her body recognised him and was rejoicing.

“You …” he said roughly. “You are the only one who has ever made me feel like this …”

Julia asked brokenly, “Like what?”

“Like I’m not even human any more.”

And with that he started up a remorseless rhythm, stroking in and out, his thrusts so long and full that Julia pulled up her legs to allow him to slide even deeper. There had not been one second of hesitation on her part in allowing him into her body. It had taken her husband months to woo her, for her to trust him enough to sleep with him. She’d still been so shaken by what had happened in Burquat … But here with Kaden it felt so natural and right she couldn’t fight it.

The tremors of her last orgasm were still dying away as new tremors started up, even more intense than the last time. Sweat beaded her brow and dampened her skin. And Kaden still moved between her legs and inside her, as if he wanted to wring out this pleasure for as long as possible. Julia knew she wouldn’t last. Head flung back, she arched upwards and splintered all over again, just as Kaden’s thrusts increased, and when the storm in her body abated he gave a guttural groan and sank over her, his huge body stilling.

During the night Julia woke briefly to see that the storm had finally died away. The candle had gone out and she was tucked against Kaden’s chest, his arms tight around her like a vice. The moon peeked out from behind a cloud.

The storm outside might have abated, but another storm was starting up inside her.

What on earth had she done?

Her thoughts must have made her tense, because she
could feel Kaden stirring behind her. He shifted them so that she lay on her back, looking up into slumbrous long-lashed eyes. She felt extremely vulnerable. She’d never expected to see him again, much less—

“Kaden … I—”

But he cut her off by putting a finger over her mouth. He shook his head, a lock of silky black hair flopping over his forehead, making him look sexily dishevelled. “Don’t say a word. I don’t want to hear it.”

He took her mouth with his, and within seconds the conflagration that had burnt them before was starting up again. Julia’s mind was screaming at her to stop, but the call of her blood was too strong. Kaden didn’t even move over her this time. He gently shifted her so that she was on her side and lifted up one of her legs, pulling it back over his thigh. She gasped out loud when she felt him surge up and into her from behind, his arm snaking around her midriff and holding her firm as he thrust upwards.

His other hand cupped a breast, trapping a nipple between his fingers, and Julia helplessly fell into the fire all over again.

When Julia woke next she knew it was morning. She could sense the bright sunlight on her face. She was replete and lethargic. And at peace.
At peace?
The words resounded in her head as she registered her nakedness and the pleasurable ache throughout her body.

Almost superstitiously, she didn’t open her eyes. She didn’t need to; the pictures forming behind her closed lids were too lurid. Images formed into a set of scenarios: seeing Kaden at the top of the stairs after he’d been announced at the club; standing in front of him and registering
that sardonic coolness; the rain; coming back here; the lights going out … and then heat. Nothing but heat. Maybe it had all been a dream. God only knew she’d had a few like it …