Night Child, page 5
He knew the exact minute when she fell asleep. Her head drooped on his shoulder, her lips touched the pulse beat of his throat. She was so close he could feel the whisper of every warm breath beneath his unshaven jaw, the tremble of her every heartbeat. Her scent enveloped him and it was sweet despite all she'd been through.
Almost unconsciously his hand came to rest on the curve of her hip and slid softly up her flat stomach. He marveled again at how tiny she was, how perfectly formed, even if her figure wasn't of the lush voluptuous variety he'd always preferred. His two hands could span her waist. She was built delicately with small bones like a bird, as though she were meant to soar. She was lovely just as she was.
Gently he brushed his lips against her hair, then her closed eyelids and pulled her closer. Though he hated admitting it even to himself, he wanted her beside him. Had she remained on the other side of the room, he would have ached to hold her in his arms.
It was dangerous to become involved with her, a danger to both of them.
But she was a comfort. Maybe his last.
* * *
Four
A fierce desert sun streamed through the window, dabbing the squalid walls with patches of brilliance. A stray red beam flashed across Dawn's face. Lazily she tried to twist out of its reach. Kirk grabbed her arm, and she stirred in annoyance.
She rubbed her eyes and yawned, slowly becoming aware of several unpleasant facts. There was a new stiffness in her neck because her head had rolled from his shoulder and lay crookedly against the hard wall. Her face and eyes were covered with grit. Worse, in the night she had become intimately entangled with Kirk's rock-hard body. His long black robes had ridden up, and to her horror she discovered that he was wearing almost nothing beneath them. Heat glued their clothes to their bodies, stuck bare skin to bare skin.
Her ankle was throbbing because a naked, hairy leg was sprawled on top of it. She blushed when she realized his hand was casually draped across her breast and his legs jammed tightly between her thighs. If they had been lovers, they could not have been more inseparably coiled.
Then the coldhearted brute jostled her arm again, and she jumped, furious.
"Time to get up, princess," he drawled in a huskily velvet male tone.
Warm fingers on her breast moved possessively, just a little, and she felt a tingling awareness from his touch.
She remembered the way he had so callously rejected her.
"Don't you dare shake me again!"
"Since you're awake now, there's obviously no need."
Her eyes focused on the harsh lines of his dark, unrepentant face. He had removed his kaffiyeh, and she saw that his hair was thick and black and cut ruthlessly short except for an errant lock that fell rakishly across his brow. Despite his dark growth of beard, he had the kind of bold dangerous beauty her ballerina friends would have found irresistible. Most scoundrels as good-looking as he, knew their appeal and made the most of it. All the beautiful men she knew in the dance world certainly did. They went from woman to woman.
He read her sour expression, knew she was thinking the worst of him, and he winked at her roguishly. "Do you always climb all over your lovers at night?"
"How dare you imply—"
"Oh, I wasn't implying," he replied cheerily. "You don't leave a man alone. Why, at one point you climbed on top of me and even touched..."
He seemed quite pleased by these events. A horrified breath caught in her throat as she realized that one of her hands was at that very moment still curled inside his naked thigh. She yanked it away.
"W-would you shut up!" she stammered, shaken. "You don't know when to keep quiet."
She heard his low chuckle. "Neither do you."
His bold hot eyes were devouring her. It was obvious he thought her a man-hungry wanton. Her cheeks flamed. "I never... I mean not once..." She broke off helplessly. Oh, Lord. What was the use of trying to make him believe she didn't sleep around?
"It was damned hard to sleep," he murmured, "with you all over me." His hand on her breast moved ever so slightly again. "Besides that, you snore, princess."
"I do not!" she whispered in a burst of stung vanity. She shoved his hand and his leg away and flounced grumpily to her haunches.
He was studying the delectable curve of her spine and those rounded haunches intently. At least she wasn't skinny there. His warm amused eyes rose languidly to her face, and she found that even though she wanted to ignore him and try to recover her ravaged dignity, she could not look away from that insolent, jewel-dark gaze.
Those glorious eyes held her spellbound, stripping her, probing to her very soul. She felt the heat of him, the dangerous wildness pulsing just below the surface. Sleeping with her had stirred him. She who had lived such a disciplined, circumspect life had never known man-woman wildness before this moment, had never wanted to know it. But it was coursing through her veins now, as he cast those devouring liquid eyes on her. She sensed the extraordinary depth of his male sensuality, the extraordinary depth of the female sensuality she had never known she possessed until he had so effortlessly aroused it in her. She began to tremble, not just from fear but from her utter helplessness to deal with this new inexplicable susceptibility.
"You do too snore," he taunted, but his voice had softened and was almost tender. "Just a little." Feeling her shiver, he drew her back into the circle of his arms because he was too hot-blooded to resist doing so. "I guess all your lovers have been too gallant to tell you that. You should try sleeping on your stomach. I've heard it helps."
"For your information, I know I don't snore, and I'm not promiscuous the way a scoundrel like you probably is. And... I—I don't even have one lover. I've never..."
She felt his muscles tense as he brought her closer, staring into her eyes. She could feel his heart pounding where her fingers grazed his chest.
His emerald eyes touched her mouth and the jutting swell of her breasts with a suggestive look that sent the blood rushing to her cheeks again.
"I thought all dancers in New York City," he murmured, "especially famous ones... took lovers."
His nearness, his eyes, the heat of him, the shared intimacies of the night, the expert fingertips that traced a line along her throat, that sensual low voice of his, all these things, intensified her discomfiture.
"Well, you thought wrong!" she said, stumbling over the words.
"Not that it matters—to me," he replied casually, "how many you've slept with.. .or haven't." She stiffened with hurt even as she felt the strong grip of his hands harden possessively on her arms, pulling her closer, belying his indifference.
She closed her eyes, wishing she had more pride than to let him draw her once more into his arms. Thus, she didn't see him gazing down at her soft frightened face framed by the flowing wildness of ebony waves, his desperate expression that of a man who knew he was lost despite his powerful will.
It was with pleasured surprise that she felt his hard mouth caress her temples, his breath warm against her skin. When his lips met the solitary tear that glazed one eyelash, he tenderly kissed it away.
His fingers curved along her slender throat, turning her face toward his. She held her breath, not daring to breathe for fear his lips would cease exploring her. When his mouth closed over her parted lips, she could taste the faint saltiness of that single tear he had kissed.
She sighed in utter surrender, but as her fingers curled into the silken thickness of his ink-black hair, Kirk ripped himself from her, placing his hands on her arms, his iron muscles keeping his body apart from hers.
She opened her eyes dazedly and met the fury of midnight-dark eyes blazing from beneath the thick fall of black hair that tumbled across his brow.
"Kirk?" She murmured his name in startled confusion.
His chiseled features were a carved bronzed mask. Hers were soft and flushed with desire.
He tore his gaze from the trusting innocence of her beautiful face.
"Don't hate me," she whispered brokenly. "Please..."
A muscle twitched in his jaw. "If only I could, princess," he breathed out roughly. "If only I could."
A chill ran down her spine. She felt caught in a vacuum of boundless despair.
He kept looking at her, his eyes burning fiercely, his heart pounding just as fiercely. Slowly he got a grip on his dark mood and pulled her to her feet.
"Look out the window," he commanded.
Outside the village was coming to life. Men were strolling out of their tents and huts in answer to the call for prayer. Aslam Nouri was drawing an arc in the sand with the end of a glinting saber while his men knelt before him, all of them facing toward Mecca.
The mere sight of the dark Arab made Dawn cringe closer to Kirk. She couldn't take her eyes off the dagger-curved nose, the cruel lips of her former captor. She scarcely saw the other armed men taking their ritual splashes of cleansing water, going through the motion by sprinkling sand over their shoulders. She was too terrified to hear the ancient chant when it began, "Allah akbar, Allah akbar.,." God is great, God is great.
Her face was white with shock and fear. She was remembering Aslam's hands on her throat and thinking that if he found them, he'd kill them and relish doing so, and tomorrow he would pray again at dawn. Her hands circled Kirk's lean rangy waist, and she clung to him with a long racking shudder.
His anger forgotten, Kirk edged his body closer to hers and lowered his chin to the top of her head, hoping he could comfort her by his proximity. He felt her slender body quivering against his. Poor woman, she was scared to death. She kept seeking closeness with him; he kept pushing her away. She didn't snore; he'd merely said that to annoy her. He felt a twinge of pity for her. She was only a woman and hardly more than a child, at that. There were black bruises on her throat and arms where that bully had brutalized her. Never before had she known the terrors of war, of murder, of death. He thought her almost courageous when he considered that.
On the whole he'd never had much use for women. It was part of the reason he distrusted the powerful feelings she aroused in him with just a look, a word, a touch. In his experience, women were trouble-makers, the lot of them. Hadn't his mother, whom he'd adored, run off and left him without so much as a goodbye when he was just a kid? She'd broken his heart and taught him that no female could ever be trusted. His father hadn't been much good at anything after she'd gone, either. What with his old man's gambling and drinking, the family had ended up with nothing but a few scrap acres of their once sizeable ranch. Then his father had gambled even that away. Their family pride had been obliterated. Kirk's baby sister, Megan, had grown up half-wild, and if ever there were a female born to get herself into jams he was supposed to bail her out of, it was Megan. Luckily she'd finally married Jeb Jackson, and it was Jeb's problem to tame her now.
Kirk had become sufficient unto himself years ago. He didn't need a woman, didn't want one... for anything except the obvious. Unfortunately he was too sexual, and the need tormented him with an awful regularity. Because of this weakness, he had fallen in love once or twice and gotten his heart smashed all over again. He was through with women and the games they played, through with closeness and tenderness and emotional pain. This woman might seem different than the rest, but she wasn't.
Inside the houses, the women said their prayers silently.
Soon the chanting ended. A boy began rhythmically pounding freshly roasted coffee beans, the stone pestle hitting the side of the brass mortar like the clapper of a bell. The women came out of the houses to rekindle the previous night's fires by throwing twigs from desert bushes and dried camel dung on the embers.
Kirk groaned. "I hate camels. More than anything, I hate camels," he muttered, puckering his nose, as the thick acrid smoke curled toward them. "I'd rather smell a ripe skunk on a hot Texas highway, anytime. Let's eat breakfast while we can still breathe."
Breakfast was spare—a few dates, more of the terrible camel's milk laced with bourbon, and two thin slabs of stale, unleavened bread. When they finished eating Dawn was still hungry, but she didn't complain. He was bigger than she was and probably hungrier, too.
"Clean everything up," Kirk ordered briskly. "A date seed in the dirt could mean the difference between life and death."
Quietly she obeyed, but when she opened his satchel to put the seeds inside, she drew back astonished. The satchel bulged with an arsenal of guns, knives, wires and dynamite, but what startled her was the money. Stacks of neatly bound one-hundred-dollar bills were crammed into the bag.
"Where did you get all this money?" came her breathless question.
He looked up from his gun. "I was sent over here with a million dollars to negotiate your release," he said tersely.
"Who sent you?"
Silence.
She picked up a packet of bills and thumbed through them. "You didn't even try to negotiate."
"Sure I did." His savage gaze glittered briefly. "I negotiated with that Nouri bastard last night outside your cell when I kicked him in the guts." Kirk tucked a gun into his belt. "I'm negotiating now."
Her knuckles were white from the death grip on the wad of bills. What was going on? "By just taking me out in some stupid macho way, one man against hundreds. Who do you think you are, Rambo? If you'd talked to them, maybe they would have just let me go."
"Yeah, maybe," he agreed, his own temper flaring. "But in case you haven't got things figured out, it's way too late for that now, princess."
"Oh, that's great! Just great! We'll probably both die because of your stupidity."
He shot her a derisive look. "Because of yours, sister. Neither one of us would be here at all if you and your pretty pink toe shoes had stayed in New York where they belonged."
"I bet you didn't talk to them because you just wanted to keep all that money for yourself. You probably don't even care if I get killed or not—so long as you get to keep the money."
Low, harsh laughter came from his throat, but his eyes were bright pools of anger as he stared at her, his face so hard and bitter that she shifted uncomfortably. "Oh, that's good," he whispered roughly. "That's good. Just what I need—a woman who reads me like a book. Get dressed, princess." He tossed her a black bundle and a pair of sandals. "No more time for chitchat. We're leaving."
"Now?" Her eyes rounded with fear. "You can't mean we're just going to walk out—you, me and a million dollars, when they're all outside. Aslam Nouri—"
"Now!" he ordered.
She fumbled with the bolt of black cloth, spilling it to the dirt floor. "What is this thing, anyway? What are you putting on?"
He was dropping a black tentlike dress that completely covered his head and body. Within seconds even the slits for his eyes were almost veiled.
"This is the veil," he said, "known in different countries by different terms—the abeya, the chador... Originally it was designed to protect the modesty of Arab women. Lucky for us, the custom still prevails here."
"You mean, we're simply going to walk out..."
"No man would dare molest the honor of women under Aslam Nouri's protection," he murmured, with an acidic touch of irony.
She pulled the black fabric over her head and adjusted it so she could see out the slits.
"Believe me," Kirk said, "through the centuries, men have often worn the veil for all sorts of dubious purposes— to get into harems, for assignations. If it gets us out of this jam, I for one will always be one hundred percent for the custom."
"And have you ever used it to get into a harem or get close to an Arab girl?"
There was an awkward silence, and she suspected that he had.
"You're awfully tall and long legged for an Arab woman," she said dubiously, as he towered over her. "I'm surprised they didn't find you out and cut you to ribbons."
"So I'm good at mincing with my knees bent."
"I never would have guessed you were a man whose talents lay in that direction."
"Only when my life depends on it." His patience was being stretched. She could hear it in his terse tone. "Ready, princess?"
He handed her a basket filled with coarse shirts and hand spindles and skeins of yarn to complete her disguise so that she would seem like a Bedouin woman on her way to sell handmade goods in the bazaar.
A shiver of apprehension raced icily over her flesh. No, she wasn't ready to go out there among all those terrorists with nothing but a thin, black bit of cloth to protect her! But as she watched Kirk stuff his satchel into a woven basket and retreat toward the rear of the stable, she dashed after him.
Outside she had to walk on her injured ankle without limping, but because she was a dancer, disciplined to perform with debilitating injuries whenever necessary, she did so with stoic valor. Because of their cumbersome veils, Kirk couldn't see that, after only a few steps, her lips went bloodless from pain.
Armed men, with cartridge belts laced across their chests, were everywhere. Every dark male face with a hooked nose brought back her terror and a forboding chill at the prospect of being recaptured.
Her teeth chattered with fear when Kirk made no attempt to avoid the most crowded part of the village. She could have gladly bashed him as he headed boldly for the thickest cluster of soldiers. With a flurry of flying feathers, chickens squawked and scattered before them as they walked along the dusty streets. There were donkeys and goats in the yards, the smell of roasting sheep, the scent of leafy vegetables aboil.
Men were hunkered down beside the small, adobe-colored houses shelling pistachios. Women in black, dressed exactly as Kirk and Dawn, scurried everywhere. From crude, tented stands, people were selling leather sandals and belts, trinkets, copper and pottery.
Kirk made his way through the bustling throng to a crowded fruitstand and began to bargain with the seller for two watermelons.
Watermelons! There were soldiers everywhere! Why was he stopping to bargain for watermelons?
If his mere stopping wasn't bad enough, he made it into a long drawn-out, nerve-racking process, thumping on melons, bickering over prices. All the time he haggled, Dawn's heart was pounding like a drum in her ears. Was his Arabic really as good as he obviously thought it was? Wouldn't the fruitseller notice how unusually low his voice was for a woman?
