and fear-spiked awareness that she wanted things from him he could never give her. This was futile, but irresistible.
And so exquisite. When his tongue dashed deeper against her inner lips, both daring and deliciously stimulating, she touched her own to his. He tasted smoky and spicy, not like cigarettes, but like open fires and exotic foods. He was remarkable. The sensations he provoked in her were so sweet she wanted to moan aloud. She was drowning—
It hit her that they were still standing in the pool where anyone could see them.
Stricken, she jerked back with a splashing step.
He steadied her, mouth tightening to a harsh line as he scanned over her head. When his searing green gaze came back to hers, his eyes were brimming with frustration.
“Let’s take this to my tent,” he said in a graveled undertone.
Her heart exploded inside her chest like an overinflated balloon, bursting into ragged pieces. Hookups were just that easy? Women were, she supposed. For him. He obviously thought she was.
“Just like that?” she asked breathily, anguished that she’d dropped herself so low in his estimation.
He cocked his head, expression cynical. “You don’t want to?”
His tone was full of the knowledge that she’d kissed him back, making it doubly hard to claim she didn’t want to. Her chest was still rising jaggedly and her vision was full of a naked chest she longed to touch. She swallowed.
“I happen to like my job,” she said, hating herself for not being able to honestly say she wasn’t even tempted. She was. Deeply.
“They don’t have to know,” he said, flatly brushing that away.
“Look.” She must be glowing redder than the sky at the horizon. “I can do the math. You don’t have many options here.” She used her chin to indicate the camp. “I suppose it’s a good offer, that I should feel flattered, but I’m not in your league.”
It was a detail she’d been using in her head to counter her longing and it didn’t seem to sway him any better than it did her.
His expression hardened with derision. “We’ll be on exactly the same level once we’re horizontal.”
Nice, she mentally scoffed, taking that remark like a sword in the gut, while the thought of being horizontal, with him atop her, shorted out her brain.
She startled at the way his hand gentled on her arm as it moved in a light caress that raised prickling sensations across her shoulders and up the back of her neck. He was making no effort to temper his sexuality and was quite overwhelming. Everything about him made her heart race with both apprehension and excitement. His touch was so possessive and strong that every little caress of his thumb against her skin would stay with her for the rest of her life.
“You really want me to believe you don’t want to?” he chided.
“Of course I want to,” she admitted painfully. There was no point in denying it. She was lousy at dissembling. Stronger people walked all over her because she had few natural defenses. It made her great with children and hopeless when it came to a captivating man like him.
So she realized what a chance she was taking in revealing how attracted she was to him. If he took it into his head to pursue her, she’d have no way of stopping him.
“Then let it happen.” His reassuring caress became something more, something drugging and inducing. “I’m not going to hurt you, Fern.”
“I’ve been given to believe differently,” she protested with the caustic sarcasm she hated resorting to, but her back was to the wall. “Apparently it does hurt. The first time.”
So there, she told him with a pointed look into stunned aqua eyes. Her face ached. Yes, she mentally transmitted. No one had ever wanted her enough to take her virginity. It was lowering and painful, but it was true.
Now her feet found the ability to propel her away to somewhere dark and small. Chest aching, she let her shaky legs carry her back to her tent.
* * *
Her plan was to shamelessly use the children as deflective shields if Zafir approached her, but he didn’t.
Which was unconscionably disappointing.
But what did she think? That she was irresistible? With this bedhead?
She’d woken from a deep sleep that had been an escape from a desire to cry. If an unfamiliar towel hadn’t been lying in a heap next to her still damp nightgown, she might have thought she’d dreamed the whole thing.
Sadly she hadn’t. And now Zafir knew she was a virgin. One who was inordinately hot for him.
Funny how Mother was always right. Lust did make you miserable. Fern supposed she ought to be glad it hadn’t also got her pregnant, kicked out of her home and abandoned by the father. She wouldn’t be so busy trying to make ends meet and raising a burden alone that life would pass her by in an astringent blur.
“Excellent!” Tariq declared, making Fern look up from kneeling next to Bashira as she helped the girl focus the microscope.
“What is?” she prompted, but a tickling shiver chased up her spine and she knew without following Tariq’s gaze over her head.
“My father is coming to take us for a walk.”
Standing, she pivoted to face Zafir, taking a breath to argue, but he stole her ability to speak simply by arriving and casting a respectful eye over her overturned wicker basket and tablet, which showed pictures of water bugs.
The girls leaped up to fetch proper shoes.
“Why...?” she asked, feeling persecuted.
“You’re safe, Fern,” he assured her, one hand lifting to calm her as he held his distance.
She didn’t feel safe! Not when his sweeping gaze seemed to visualize her nude beneath a soaked gown. She crossed her arms, hiding that her nipples prickled into points and trying to protect the fragile ego squirming like a wisp of smoke behind her breastbone.
“I shouldn’t have presumed this morning.” A mixture of compunction and frustration flashed in his expression. “If I frightened you, I apologize.” He sounded sincere. Looked it, even though his gaze was now penetrating hers in a way that was extremely uncomfortable. “It won’t happen again.”
Well, that certainly told her how irresistible she was. Her eyes grew damp with a startling mixture of frustration and longing. She lowered her lashes to hide her completely misplaced disappointment.
“Lust is bad,” she managed to say, stating it for her own benefit, hoping to soothe this sting of rejection by making it sound like she wouldn’t go to bed with him even if he wanted her to.
His mouth twitched, the corners deepening with a pained and secretive smile. “Says the woman who doesn’t know what she’s talking about.” He sobered into the man she had read was a determined leader of a troubled populace. “But in this case, yes. The consequences aren’t worth it.”
A
