‘I want you so much. So much.’ Was that his voice?
More kisses. She was so hot and wet and tight. More kisses. ‘I want you more than words,’ she said in that husky voice that gave him goose bumps.
He lifted her to straddle him. He slid into her so sweetly that he thought he would come instantly. ‘Wait. Wait.’ Deep breaths. But the sight of her on top of him was too much. ‘Stephanie.’
He pushed himself deeper inside her wet, tight, heat. She moaned. He lifted her. She needed little encouragement. Moving on top of him. The frisson of her clinging withdrawal, the tightening when she sank on to him, drawing him inside her, arching her back, making him gasp at what it did to him.
She rode him, faster, held him tighter, until the first ripple of her climax set him over the edge, and with a hoarse cry he lifted her free just in time, and spent himself, pulsing, shuddering, shaken.
Afterwards, he reached for her blindly, pulling her close. He could feel her breathing slowing with his own. Only then did he realise how near he had been to losing control completely. What was he doing? What was he thinking?
Rafiq rolled himself free. He picked up his tunic and pulled it over his head. He couldn’t look at her. He couldn’t risk looking at her. ‘I’d better get out to the training grounds,’ he said more brusquely than he meant.
‘Yes, of course.’ He could hear the rustle of her clothing as she dressed.
‘Rafiq?’
He turned reluctantly.
‘Thank you,’ Stephanie said. ‘For trusting me. For taking my side again.’
Her lips were swollen with their kisses. He curled his toes inside his riding boots, as if that would stop him crossing the courtyard to wrap her in his arms. ‘Jasim gave me no option,’ he said.
Her smile became brittle. ‘Go and practise, you have a race to win.’
* * *
Stephanie tried to go about her business. She thanked Fadil for his courage and support, and discovered to her surprise that with a few notable exceptions, the stable hands were actually relieved by Jasim’s dismissal. Their trust in Rafiq’s ability to win the Sabr for them with or without Jasim was unquestioning.
She was restless. Her emotions were simmering just below the surface, waiting to erupt. She kept a lid on them by keeping busy. She had no right to be upset by Rafiq’s abrupt departure. She would be a fool to read too much into their lovemaking. Simply because it hadn’t been planned, because there had been no pretence that this was another experiment in pleasure, did not mean that it was profoundly different.
Unable to find anything in the stable to occupy her, she wandered through the cool of the palace in the heat of the afternoon, using the map which Rafiq had had drawn up for her. So many rooms, some guarded, others not. So many confusingly similar names. The Courtyard of the Princes, for example, which was a simple space containing a plain fountain and nothing else. The Princes’ Courtyard, on the other hand, was like the harem, an enclosed suite of rooms which, Aida informed her, had in the distant past been the domain of the unfortunate sons of the reigning Prince’s concubines. Here, the poor boys were confined for the duration of their lives, for it was thought too dangerous to allow them to leave the palace, lest they attempt to usurp their father. So legend had it, Aida had said.
Though she tried to hide it, Aida resented the removal of the harem’s lock and sentry. In Princess Elmira’s day, it would have been unthinkable to expose the future mother of the royal family to the risk of intruders. When Stephanie pointed out that any intruder would first have to pass through the fortress-like walls of the palace, Aida stubbornly refused to accept that it made any difference. The harem was a secure place. She never could understand why Princess Elmira wished to spent so much time at the stables. Though towards the end, the Princess had embraced the sanctuary of the harem as a princess ought.
Stephanie pushed open the door of what, according to her plan, was the Royal Banqueting Hall, only to find herself in yet another courtyard. This one looked abandoned. The water in the fountain was foul and stagnant. Weeds grew up through the cracks in the mosaic floor. The avocado tree had grown so tall that it reached over the courtyard wall. Withered green fruit and brown pits were strewn around its circumference.
Elmira, the Bedouin nomad, had learned to love the harem, according to Aida. Stephanie wasn’t convinced. She had heard some of the mystique of the Bedouin for herself at the horse fair. They considered themselves the aristocracy of the desert. Like Rafiq’s horses, the ancestry of each tribe could be traced back to a single person. As Rafiq had told her, they had a strict and unique code of conduct, and they prided themselves on being answerable to no one, though willing to co-operate with all, on their own terms. The desert was the Bedouin’s heart and soul, freedom to roam the desert defined him. Elmira was a true blue-blooded Bedouin. How could such a woman readily endure the confines of the harem?
Stephanie perched gingerly on the edge of the mossy fountain. The surface of the fetid water was alive with strange little swimming insects.
‘She paid the price for contaminating the stables,’ Jasim had said.
But this morning, Rafiq had been unquestionably on Stephanie’s side. Or had he simply been acting to protect his authority? ‘I should have rid myself of the man long ago,’ he had said. ‘There is a pattern, after all. If I had acted the first time...’
What price had Elmira been forced to pay? And what crime had she committed that required a price be paid?
Stephanie slapped at one of the swimming insects, which landed on her arm. Its long proboscis had pierced her skin, drawing blood. The bite was already swelling up into a hard lump. She stood up, thinking that she had better find her medical chest and get some ointment, when something else Rafiq had said popped into her head. Something about biting insects and water.
‘The stallions’ oasis!’ Forgetting all about treating her bite, Stephanie ran for the stables.
* * *
‘Are you sure?’ Rafiq looked quite incredulous.
‘I know it’s difficult to believe, but it’s the only explanation,’ Stephanie said.
‘Biting insects, who hitch a ride in my stallions’ manes for the whole journey between the oasis and the stables, and who then leap from the stallion on to the mare which it is covering.’
‘That’s it exactly.’
‘It’s—unbelievable.’
‘Yes, but, Rafiq, nature...’
He held up his hand. ‘I know how wonderful nature is, and how ignorant we are of it. How can you be sure? Why don’t the insects bite more of my stallions?’
‘I think they probably do, but you see, your stallions are accustomed to them.’
‘Accustomed?’
‘Immune. In the way that milkmaids are immune to smallpox, because they are regularly exposed to cowpox and somehow this allows their bodies to resist the effects. You see...’ She launched into an explanation that was far-reaching and all-encompassing. Rafiq, seated behind a large desk on the first proper chair Stephanie had seen since arriving in Arabia, listened attentively. ‘But ultimately,’ she concluded, ‘I can’t prove it, without forcing one of the insects to bite one of your mares, or a mule, and even in the name of science, I couldn’t bring myself to do that.’
‘So what do you propose we do?’
She smiled at him. He smiled back. He was still dressed in the clothes he wore to the training ground. His white shirt was dusty, open at the throat to reveal a smattering of hair. His chin had the bluish shadow of the day’s growth. This morning, when he kissed her, he had been