She sighed and shook her head at herself. The light breeze whispered through the palm leaves above her, snickering. An unknown bird tittered at her.
It grew dark quickly, but the nearly full moon rose shortly after. The trip had been organized around the fattest moon as that was the likeliest time for the Bedouins to visit the oasis. The waxing orb’s glow turned the landscape a pale blue and a velvety breeze caressed her cheek as she walked her dishes back to the outdoor kitchen.
Later, after she had brushed her teeth, she put herself to bed early. She’d had a long, active couple of days, she told herself, even though she could hear the children laughing over music from a stringed instrument. No one else was turning in yet. They were visiting and having fun.
Sociology classes had taught her this sort of camp built the relationships between members of a tribe. The servants were certainly in good spirits, teasing one another and making jokes. Zafir’s coming together with his neighbor, Ra’id, had strengthened relations between their two countries in ancient ways, even if they only traded gossip. Corporations called something like this a “team-building exercise” and paid small fortunes for their employees to attend.
Fern was the luckiest person in the world to be able to experience this.
She told herself.
As she held her eyes closed against an inexplicable sting.
She had absolutely no reason to feel lonely in this wide bed. Miss Ivy would enjoy hearing about all of this when Fern had an online connection again.
Make some notes, she cajoled herself, but didn’t move. Instead she mentally wrote something entirely different, something that belonged in an erotic novel. It was a scene where Zafir came to her tent and touched a lot more than her cheek.
* * *
It was the worst night of her life. She tossed and turned, unable to shut off her mind from conjuring fantasies of making love with Zafir.
She didn’t even know how it was properly done! Obviously she knew the mechanics, but she’d been firmly sheltered from any sort of expressions of sexual passion. Her mother hadn’t allowed her to go to sexy movies or watch any of those daytime serials on television. The romance novels at the library had been read from an angle under the desk. Guilt always assailed her for enjoying those stories and more than one academic friend had shamed her for picking them up, but Fern couldn’t help wondering why was it so bad to like stories about love and happily-ever-after?
Because of the sex, her mother’s voice said in her head. Heaven help any woman who gave in to her hormones. That only brought heartache and disappointment.
Fern being the disappointment in question, she had long ago surmised.
Yet here she was, indulging her own hormones with imaginary banquets of kisses and caresses. It wasn’t the first time she’d lain in bed and imagined she wasn’t alone, but she’d never been quite so explicit with her fantasies or had a particular man in mind.
It had to stop.
Throwing off her light sheet, she quietly unzipped her tent and stepped into the cool of predawn. The camp was silent, the stillness only broken by the relentless pounding of her pulse.
Dressed in her knee-length cotton nightgown, she walked down to the beach and sighed as her feet found the damp sand at the water’s edge. The burning inside her began to ease. This was what she’d needed. A cold shower.
Was that why Zafir had come to the water yesterday?
No. No more daydreams that he fancied her. He’d only been washing off travel grime.
Still, she found herself tracking to the place where he’d stood in the water. It felt deliciously cool as it closed over her feet and climbed to the backs of her knees.
Drawn forward, she sucked in a breath as the pool deepened quickly, soaking through to weigh the fabric of her nightgown. Chilly water hit her loins, then her navel. She sucked in her stomach, got as far as her breasts and held her breath.
She dipped until the cold water closed over her and stayed under a moment, nose plugged, letting the chill seep to her bones. Then she titled back her head and rose, baptized into a creature of this foreign yet intoxicating world.
The thought made her smile naturally for the first time since arriving here. Oh, she felt a million times better!
Which was silly. One little plunge into a spring couldn’t wash away a lifetime of baggage and misgivings, but she wished it could be that easy. Her mother’s shaking finger always seemed to follow her, though, undermining her ability to enjoy the simplest sensual experience. She would no doubt criticize her for... Well, everything. Her mother wouldn’t approve of anything Fern had done since the service. Ever in her life, really.
At least she wasn’t burning with desire for a man beyond her reach anymore. She thought she could sleep now and escape all her disturbing ruminations about Zafir.
Turning, she marveled at how clear the water was, completely entranced by its perfection, feeling mammalian and part of the universe as she watched her feet. Not all creatures were herd animals, she reminded herself. Many lived alone most of their lives, only seeking another of their kind to mate—
Bare, tanned feet stood on the beach before her.
Her heart stalled and her soggy nightgown clung like a skin of dread. Her feet halted and her knees locked in denial.
How? No one else was up.
Her gaze climbed athletic shins to where unbleached linen board shorts ended at his knees.
Leave it to him to wear drawstring shorts that were still the epitome of class, tailored to hang low across his brown hips in the most disreputable yet erotic way. He wasn’t wearing a shirt and he was a perfect specimen of the human male. His tense, flat abs were bisected by a line of hair that flared across his brown chest. The pattern accentuated his broad shoulders and the relaxed muscles of his upper arms.
His mouth was set in a grim line, the stubble on his jaw dark making him look even more piratical and dangerous than the first glimpse she’d had of him. He had black hair, she noted. Trimmed close to keep it tight against his scalp.
His brows stayed heavy over those remarkable, glittering eyes as he opened a towel with a flick. She hadn’t noticed he was holding one. He beckoned her with two bent fingers, then hissed a word in Arabic that she’d heard Amineh use to hurry the girls.
“Now,” he said in a stern whisper. “The guards don’t need to see you like that.”
Like what?
She glanced down to see her nightgown was plastered to her front, her nipples standing out from the high curves of her breasts like traffic cones. Her lack of underwear was flagrantly obvious.
The light was coming up fast with the sun. She couldn’t approach him looking like this!
Her tent looked miles away from here, however, and... Oh, help me. He didn’t wait. He waded into the water and snapped the towel around her back, barely giving her a chance to lift her arms out of the way before he closed it across her chest and tucked it tight.
She grabbed at it to finish the job herself, then brushed his hands away and glared up at him, even though she was the idiot who’d gotten herself into this mortifying position.
“I didn’t think anyone else was awake,” she hissed.
“The guards patrol around the clock.”
She scowled at the surrounding area, right up to the top of the jagged wall of the canyon, seeing no one. “Well, I wasn’t planning to swim when I came out.”
“Good thing I was.”