The Sheikh's Destiny (Harlequin Romance) (7 page)

‘You don't find the sight of the mangled flesh—repulsive?'

That crazy skier had just flown straight off a cliff, and the
ice surrounding her heart cracked, letting out steam. ‘I hate the endless agony of burns. I wish there were some new way invented to heal the scars, stop the pulling of the flesh, limiting movement. I
hate
that almost everyone who has suffered extensive burns no longer feels human.' She continued the movements of her hands over his skin, slow and steady, deep and soothing…healing his body as she looked in his eyes. She saw the seething mass of self-revulsion inside, and her heart lurched and sloughed that ice right off, leaving only honesty. ‘But, no, I don't find anything about you repulsive—except the ugliness that comes from your mouth.'

The shimmer of his eyes, before they closed, told her how much he felt as he said, ‘You have no idea how I regret what I said.'

‘What hurt most was that you meant it,' she said quietly—and she was amazed how good it felt to say it, to say to him what she hadn't been able to say to her father.

‘Only because of this,' he replied, his hands moving to hers, stilling them, and she caught her breath at the intimacy, at the look in his eyes, so stark and unashamedly vulnerable. ‘It isn't you, Hana. If I could take the words back—'

She shook her head, shivering in a breath. ‘But you can't, and I can't forget.' She moved her hands until he took his away. ‘I can't give you the absolution you want.'

‘But you give me what I need—and right now, what I deserve,' he said softly, lifting one oil-soaked hand in his, and kissing her palm—not in sexual intent, but in reverence, and tears rushed into her eyes as her foolish heart leaped of its own accord, whispering the words her mind refused to accept. ‘You're honest with me, Hana. You don't defer to me, to what I am.'

She pulled her hand away, and lifted her chin. ‘What you were. You're what I am now, a runaway helping others to try to forget what we left behind.'

‘No matter what position we hold in life when we're born, we all spend our lives trying to prove we're worth something, or better than others believe we are.'

The dark heart of all she'd tried to achieve since she'd fled to Africa lay before her, exposed and bleeding. She couldn't answer but turned from him, wrapping her arms around herself in a pitiful attempt at comfort. Her wet, oily hands soaked into her shirt, and the restful lavender drifted up. She wondered why it made her feel so sad.

‘Sweet Hana.' The soft murmur came close to her, and she shivered in uncontrollable yearning. ‘Strong Hana, who's always giving to others, always saving them…but who comes to Hana when she needs a saviour? When was the last time anyone held you, or saw how alone you are in your strength?'

She couldn't breathe. The jagged lump of tears filling her throat stung her eyes.

‘Muddy angel,' he whispered, so close his warmth touched inside her shuddering soul. ‘You're more beautiful in your honesty than any woman I've seen in diamonds and silk.'

Tears splashed down her cheeks. ‘Stop. I want to hate you.'

Closer, inch by inch, until his arms covered hers, crossing over from behind, and at last she felt strong, no longer alone, if only for a moment. ‘But you can't, can you?'

Slowly, she shook her head—and that hurt most of all, that she couldn't hate him. ‘I—I don't know you well enough to hate you.'

‘Was it Omar Khayyam who wrote that when souls entwine, they're never strangers, though they know each other only moments—and when souls repel, they'll never know each other in a lifetime?' he whispered behind her ear.

She dragged in a breath. ‘I don't know the poets. I'm only a miner's daughter.'

‘You're a queen in a nurse's skin.' He drew her stiff form
back, caressing only her hand, until her body relaxed. ‘You're my Sahar Thurayya, my brave, beautiful dawn star. I'm so glad you can't hate me—but can you forgive me for my self-absorbed stupidity?'

Millimetre by millimetre, she moved until she leaned into his warm strength, rested her head against his shoulder.

‘Give me one final chance, Sahar Thurayya—a chance for you to trust me again. I want that one chance more than I've ever wanted anything.'

She turned to look up at him in wonder. How did he know? How could he guess the words she'd heard in her head a thousand times, with her father's voice? Could he know what
healing
it brought her, hearing them while she rested in his arms?

‘I want a second chance with you more than anything but one thing. You know what that is,' he added, low, and the endless anguish made the mirror of their self-hate melt like a final barrier. He was speaking of his grief, of his brother.

‘Yes, I know.' Her voice cracked. She couldn't give him stumbling words that wouldn't comfort, or platitudes that wouldn't help. Only he could come to terms with Fadi's death and find peace…but there was one thing she could give him, and she found it wasn't as hard as she'd thought it would be. Her forehead rested on his shoulder. ‘Alim…'

The darkness in his voice lifted like the sun rising behind them. ‘Thank you.'

Neither moved to leave each other's arms.

After a long time, Hana twisted in his arms to touch the scarred flesh on his shoulder and chest. ‘Some time you're going to need more surgery,' she murmured, not massaging but caressing him. Strangers' souls entwining with the touch.
Trust
.

‘Yes,' was all he said in reply, his hand lifting to cover hers, and he smiled.
Healing
.

 

Hana woke with a start in a shallowed-out rut in the creek bed. Once more she felt the heat and weight of Alim's arm around her waist; but the warmth of his body against hers, and the sweat running down her skin from the late afternoon heat and his closeness, wasn't what disturbed her the most. Something was wrong.

Then she heard the voices, two men speaking in Swahili coming closer—

By the tension in Alim's body, she knew he was awake. Slowly, he parallel-lifted his legs, keeping them tense and straight. He pushed her legs up with the movement of his, until their legs rested at a ninety-degree angle to his hips. It was intimate, shocking in its sensuality, and necessary to keep them alive. Their bodies were out of the revealing sunlight, backpacks pushed against the curve of her belly.

He rolled them both until she sat on his bunched-up knees. ‘Get up and flatten your body against the wall,' he whispered in her ear as he rubbed his back against the damp sides of the creek bed. ‘Get in as far as possible, take the backpacks with you and don't breathe out loud.'

She nodded, and, looking down at the ground first for any rocks that could move under her feet and give them away, she moved with agonising slowness until she stood beneath the small overhang of the creek wall, holding the backpacks in shaking hands. She pushed into it until she moulded the mud, turning her face so she could breathe.

The top of her head was against the overhang. Alim was too tall to hide.

Anxiety for him overwhelmed her. She rolled her head to the other side, until she could see him—and wanted to laugh. He lay flat against the thick mud, in the worst patch of mud, stinking with rotting plants and animal droppings, his face turned into the wall. His rolling had turned his hair, and the
few remaining clean patches of his clothes, the hue between sand and mud.

He was nothing but a few lumps of mud—as was she.

The warlord's men moved like snails along the creek. Her heart pounded so hard she wondered that the men seeking them couldn't hear her uneven breaths. The men talked almost right above them; one flicked a still-smoking cigarette into the creek bed behind them. Hana, who could never stand the smell, had to fight against choking or coughing. But finally the men moved off, searching further down.

Alim nudged her with his foot, pushing her closer in, and she knew what he wanted.
Stay still a bit longer.
Back aching with the unaccustomed inward curvature of her spine, breathing in more mud and nicotine smoke than air, she held to the wall a few more minutes.

They waited until the sound of an engine gunning up and roaring off told them they were alone. ‘I thought I'd choke if I had to breathe in any more of that.' Alim rolled over and flicked the cigarette away, then drew in a deep breath. ‘Ah, the delight of fresh—well, muddy-fresh air.' He grinned, his teeth a bright dazzle between the ruthless sunshine and the mud coating him.

She wanted to giggle at his comical appearance, but the fear still walked too close; she was close to shivering in forty-degree heat. ‘We can't afford to wash until we reach that waterhole, but would you like to smear some lavender and peppermint oil on, to ease the stink?'

He smiled. ‘I think I was lying in warthog droppings, so, yes, I'd love that, thanks.'

Hana stared at him. His smile—it was different. Something inside it—the look in his eyes—made her catch her breath, almost forgetting their recent danger.

She'd
never
forgotten the danger she'd been in since
arriving in Africa. But though the threat was more real now than at any other time, her pounding heart was not in fear, but in the strangest, pulsing excitement…

She could barely look at him as she handed him the bottle; but when, in handing the bottle back for her turn, his fingers brushed hers, she wanted to see his face, to know if he meant that look, that slow-burning desire. If he—

‘We should move on,' she said when she was done. She cursed the breathlessness in her tone—it must give away the aching in her eyes. What was it about this man that turned her into this aching mass of
need
, living for the next time he looked at her, touched her? Was it because he was out of reach? Or that he was right here within her reach?

After a moment, he shook his head. ‘No, this isn't the time.' The laughter had vanished from his eyes; they'd turned dark, sombre. ‘We should wait here until dark.' As he'd done from the hour they met, he was reading more into her simplest words than she wanted him to.

Seeing inside her soul…

‘Whatever you say, boss,' she quipped, handing him a canteen of semi-clean water. ‘What I wouldn't give for a camera now.'

He frowned, asking without words.

She pointed at him, grinning with the teasing that was her best cover against self-betrayal. ‘This is how the sheikh of Abbas al-Din hides from the world: he seeks oil in new and foreign territories in his own special way.'

He broke out into soft laughter.

Hana stared at him, riveted by the mud-encrusted, strong, beautiful face. Despite it being her joke, she couldn't share his laughter; she could only watch in strange, burning hunger. He laughed as if he meant it. He laughed as if he hadn't truly laughed in a very long time.

She couldn't drag her gaze away even when he looked up
and the laughing words he'd been about to utter dried on his tongue. He looked at her and she wasn't fast enough, couldn't hide what she was feeling. His eyes widened for a moment, then turned soft with languorous intent. ‘Hana, don't look at me like that unless you mean it.'

She couldn't answer, couldn't turn away, just kept looking at him, aching, wishing, hoping. She forgot all the reasons why she could never give herself to any man, let alone this one. All she saw was that look in his eyes…

Ah, he was on his feet…one step, two—and his hand lifted, reaching out to her. Asking, not demanding—but, oh, the look in his night-pool eyes compelled her. Of its own volition her arm lifted, her hand rested in his.

A smile curved his fine, sensitive mouth, those fathomless eyes. ‘Lovely Hana, always giving to others,' he murmured, his fingers moving over hers, and she was lost. ‘You brought me from death and darkness, gave me a second chance at life. Isn't it time you learned to live?'

His thumb slipped between their linked palms, and caressed.

Her eyes fluttered closed as her body wandered the maze of the rush, the overwhelming rush of her blood, the soft singing of feminine desire swelling to a chorus in her. ‘Alim…' She couldn't breathe. The lightest touch and he'd wrapped her inside the sweetest, most heady chains she'd ever know.

‘I love the way you say my name, as if you mean it,' he whispered.

‘Ah,' she whispered back, unable to say more. Her hand moved in his, asking, pleading.
Just keep touching me
.

His thumb brushed her palm, a hardly-there touch that sent her hurtling into a magnificent
aliveness
she'd thought she'd never feel, or understand: the exquisite beauty between man and woman. There was nothing but here and now, and Alim…

A butterfly caress over her lower lip, the single touch of
his finger, and her knees trembled. She gasped in a shaking breath. She buried her face in his chest. ‘Alim, please…'

‘What do you want?' he murmured into her hair. ‘Ask me, just ask me, and it's yours.' His body brushed hers and she made an incoherent little cry of need.

‘I—I don't—more,' she whispered, her body moving in time to his. ‘Oh, please, more.'

Ah, those strong arms were around her, those fine-fingered hands on her back, bringing him close to her, so close his body warmth filled her soul, his light chased away the years she'd spent hiding in darkness. ‘I was wrong. Your name does suit you,' he murmured.

The scent of mud and his man's heat and the oils he wore intoxicated her. Her breathing turned erratic again as she raised heavy-lidded eyes to his. ‘Why?' she whispered, not because he waited for her answer, but because he waited for her. From somewhere deep inside the pounding, the delicious throbbing controlled her.

Could he see it? Did he know how
much
he affected her?