Night Child, page 7
She amused him. She angered him. She entranced him. She was awakening tender feelings he'd kept suppressed so long he'd forgotten he'd ever felt them.
Smooth and gleaming faintly with oil, Dawn's mouth was curved into a gentle smile, as though she were very content to lie in his arms, as though she had no reason not to feel safe and protected there. Her long black hair streamed in soft waves over his arms. He wound his fingers in the jet strands, liking the way they slid across his skin.
She was lovely, and he knew his need for her was growing with every day that passed. It shouldn't be happening. He didn't want it to, but in some mysterious way she was setting her hooks into some deep part of him. Maybe that was just because he'd never known a woman anything like her. Maybe it was simply that he hadn't taken her yet.
She adjusted her body to his, moaning ever so softly in her sleep. Her fingers brushed the dark fur of his chest, tickling him. Then the tiny hand stopped and curled around his waist and awakened every nerve ending in his belly.
Soft fingertips curved into the inside of his navel and made a hot quiver of desire dart through him. His body went rigid, and he balled his hands into fists, jammed them against his sides and stared straight up into the darkness, terrified of losing control.
She slid her leg across his thigh and made a sound like a contented purr. She was soft as velvet, and she made him feel as hot as flames.
This night was both heaven and hell, and Kirk wanted it to end. He wanted her to wake up. He wanted an end to this hot, steamy flow of his emotions and desire. But her body felt infinitely sweet pressed into his. He hadn't slept with a woman in a long time. He had forgotten how good it could feel.
He wanted to hold her forever, even if he died with longing.
She had said she was a virgin, and as he lay wideawake in the darkness, savoring the full rounded softness of her breasts against his chest, he considered that. For all his experience, he had never taken a virgin.
Suddenly he knew that when she was better, before he took her home to New York and Mercedes, he was not going to be able to stop himself from having her.
She would be his first virgin.
He would be her first man.
An even trade.
The world famous ballerina and the Texas cowboy. His mouth twisted cynically. Never before had his taste run to fancy things. Nor to fancy women with tastes for fancy things.
She was not his kind of woman. He knew it in his bones. No matter how much they were attracted to one another here where they were far from their own lives, inevitably they would part and return to their own worlds. She was a city girl, used to living in that insane beehive called New York City where brilliance mingled with mediocrity, fabulous wealth alongside direst poverty, fame with despair. She was used to bright lights, to a city pulsing with nervous excitement, to sophisticated people and their parties. He had lived many places. One week in a human zoo like New York made him as jumpy as a caged bobcat. He craved the peace and quiet and wildness of flat, open country. He liked people that didn't know so much, that didn't care so much, that didn't talk so much.
He didn't want her glittering life any more than she would want his solitary one. They would have to part, or they would destroy each other.
Yet he knew this wanting was different. It was like a fierce thirst, and even a long drink wouldn't be enough to satisfy him. He would want her again and again.
There would be a last time to hold her, a last time to taste her lips, to take in the sweetness of her body. A last time to make love to her—the worst last time of all.
He would have to make every moment they had together count.
At the thought of that last goodbye, a bittersweet pain tore through him, intensifying until it felt as though some vital organ had been ripped out.
He pulled her closer, laid his cheek against her hair, running his hand soothingly along her neck, down the length of her back.
It no longer bothered him to hold her, to want her. Every moment with her seemed infinitely precious.
He knew that some part of him would never want to let her go.
But he was a man used to letting go, a man used to losing everything he ever loved.
The next morning Dawn was better. When she stirred, Kirk shut his eyes and pretended to be asleep so she wouldn't feel embarrassed. She got up slowly, like a goddess awakening. Shimmering sunlight sifted through the folds of the tent and splashed her slim back with golden glowing fire. She was pale, ethereal, like a creature from a lovely dream.
Through the curtain of his thick lashes he watched her pull the white cotton gown over her breasts. It fell in heavy folds past her ankles, swallowing her like a little girl putting on her mother's dress. In the shapeless white gown, with her raven hair spilling to her waist and her waiflike eyes shining shyly, she was exquisite.
But he wished she was still naked.
When she looked at him, even though he shut his eyes again, he felt his skin heating.
She came to him, lay down lazily beside him, draped a hand across his belly and waited for him to wake up.
"I'm awake," he murmured huskily.
She touched his cheek with feather-light fingers, tracing the smooth hard line of his clean-shaven jaw very tenderly.
"I know," she whispered.
His mouth quirked. "How..."
"You were watching me." There was no embarrassment, no shyness in her expression. "And you were blushing."
He blushed again, and then smiled sheepishly, charmingly. "I was?"
She bent over him caressing his cheek. "I thought you didn't like skinny girls, macho man."
His eyes burned her like fire. He caught her hand, held it prisoner in his long dark fingers before sliding his palm against hers, bringing hers to his lips, and blowing a warm kiss against her wrist. "I was wrong."
She shivered.
"And I thought you didn't like macho-men Neanderthals," he taunted with an insolent grin when her pulse leapt beneath his nibbling lips.
She hesitated, and he watched the warm tide of color rise in her cheeks.
"I was wrong, too," she admitted, thinking that without his beard to mar the fine-chiseled lines of his dark face, he was stunningly handsome. "You're beautiful," she whispered with glowing eyes.
"That's supposed to be my line, princess."
"Then why did you let me beat you to it?"
"Maybe I don't like to rush a girl," he drawled in a low, soft tone.
She traced a fingertip across his belly. "And do you have—a girl, Mr. Macho cowboy... Lots of girls?" she drawled, sexily mimicking his Texas accent.
His other hand folded over the one on his stomach so that he held both her hands. His fathomless eyes were dark and seeking. "There's one—I want to have."
As his hands tensed on hers, and he started to draw her closer, her bones turned to water. Dawn was too conscious of that long bronzed body, of the intimacies they had shared and of her own nudity beneath the white gown.
They were in bed. Every night since she'd know him, she'd gone to sleep in his arms.
His handsome face was darkly flushed. The emotions he normally kept under iron control were surging to the surface.
Blood pounded in her head like a desert drumbeat. Warily she licked her dry lips. Never before had she known a man like him. Without the desert robes to conceal the power of his sun-darkened male physique, he seemed bigger, more dangerous. He exuded male virility. It didn't matter that only minutes before she'd awakened naked in his arms and found that she'd crawled on top of him once again like an uninhibited wanton, that she'd probably lain that way for hours. It didn't matter that she could still feel the burning imprint his hard warm body had left on hers.
Suddenly she felt young and very unsure, not at all the uninhibited creature of the night. She began to tremble. "K-Kirk...I-I..."
She was at a loss.
"Honey," he whispered tenderly, soothing her hair. "You don't have to be afraid.. .of anything. Not from me." He kept stroking her hair, and slowly her rapid and uneven breathing eased. But she avoided his eyes.
An awkward long-lasting silence enveloped them.
"W-what happened to our camel?" she blurted at last in an uncertain, childish tone. Then she blushed at the stupidity of her question, at her incredible awkwardness with him.
"The... camel?" He smiled faintly and released her hands, glad in a way that she was releasing him from the bonds of sexual tension. "I can't imagine why you'd ask about that miserable, flea-ridden beast.''
Strangely, the minute Kirk let her go, she longed for him to hold her again. What was wrong with her? Why did just being near him confuse her so?
"B-because he nearly died carrying me," came her soft, mortified voice.
"He's been tended to. I thought he was finished, but it's impossible to kill anything as foul humored as that he-devil. One long drink and he tried to bite my arm off."
She relaxed.
"I can see that you understand that instinct."
"Oh, don't tease me about that! Please! I-I would never, never bite you again!"
"I might not mind.. .a nibble or two.. .under certain circumstances," he said softly, his white grin bold.
When she went red to the ears, his grin faded instantly. "Are you okay? Do you feel all right?"
"I feel like I'm starving."
"You probably are. It's way past time I got up and fixed you something to eat."
She stretched languidly. "And like I could sleep two whole days."
Because it was so tempting to lie beside her, Kirk arose abruptly. He was wearing nothing but red briefs, and he stood before her without the slightest degree of modesty. She could look or not, for all he cared.
Since he was a safe distance away, and she didn't think he was watching her, her eyes devoured him. Her shy gaze traced his large male body that was dangerously honed by smooth teak muscle, noting that there was no part of him that was not muscle, no part of him that was not dark. There were two purplish scars on his back. He'd told her that he'd been shot in Mexico and nearly died trying to rescue two kidnap victims.
As he moved, stooping down to pick up his desert robes, she noted the ripple of muscle, the beautiful raw grace of his movements.
All dancers admired beautiful bodies, male or female. Her glance traveled approvingly down his scarred back to his waist, down his legs. Kirk, who was secretly basking beneath her shining gaze, was watching her covertly.
Then her eyes froze in horror. Her mouth gaped open. She clamped it closed and looked away, hoping he hadn't seen her bitter disappointment.
But he had.
"What's the matter now?" Kirk demanded, his male vanity stung that anything about his body might displease her.
"Nothing," she murmured, but he knew she was lying when she refused to look at him.
He strode angrily over to where she was reclining.
"Tell me," he commanded.
"It's not your fault," she murmured dismally, lifting her white face to his dark one for a moment and then bowing her head once more. "The last thing I want.. .is to hurt your feelings... after all you've done."
"Just tell me what part of me fails to come up to your standards," came his deep, cold voice.
Her eyes were glued to his feet. "Oh, dear..."
"Tell me!"
"Oh, I can't... Oh... The most important parts!" Her tone was a dying whisper.
He sank down beside her, their despair now mutual. "No woman has ever complained before," he ground out unhappily.
"You've got flat feet!" she wailed. "How could such a beautiful man have flat feet?"
He couldn't believe what he was hearing. "Is that all?"
She was nodding forlornly. "To a dancer that's everything."
He grabbed her and crushed her to him, bursting into a rowdy rumble of relieved laughter.
"Don't you understand? I could never, never love a man who had flat feet," she whispered.
He was still laughing, his good humor fully restored. He lifted her face to his.
"Princess, there's a first time for everything."
"But good feet are the single-most important attributes a man could have."
"You have a great deal to learn about men," he murmured on a low chuckle, "and I would think it an honor if you choose me to be the one to teach you all you'll ever need to know."
Then he kissed her, slowly, softly and thoroughly, filling her with such sensual warmth and wildness, she decided languorously that maybe, just maybe, he knew what he was talking about.
Kirk stayed with Azid two days. He hadn't wanted to stay so long. He knew how quickly Aslam could track them and kill them if he decided they were worth the trouble. But Dawn needed to rest and eat and regain her strength, and Kirk hadn't the heart to force her into the desert again so soon.
On the third day they set out, fresh from a long night's rest. This time they had two good camels, and they had only ten hours across open country before they'd reach a safe house in a mountainous village near the border.
The trip was uneventful. They passed an ancient fortress city ringed by four miles of thick ruined walls, a vast temple of the sun. The terrain changed as they climbed higher into hills covered with a brown nap, as soft as velveteen. Beneath them dark green streaks marked the canyons where there was water. As they climbed ever higher to three thousand feet, the air grew delightfully cool.
They reached a whitewashed, two-story house at dusk. Dawn couldn't believe that there was a garden behind the house with chrysanthemums, asters, hydrangeas and snapdragons. Kirk was immediately on guard, but to Dawn, after the desert, the charming house with the green mountains behind it, the quiet courtyards, the overhanging balconies, the oriel windows and closely woven screens of carved wood, all seemed a picturesque paradise. Despite her enthusiasm, Kirk was wary, studying it from afar for a long while.
Something was wrong. He felt it in his gut.
It was different from before.
At last he decided to reveal himself and bring Dawn and the camels.
An Arab and his wife rushed out to greet them. They were overly friendly and their accent was not of the desert or the mountains.
The old couple who'd lived in the house before were gone. Where? Why?
Kirk's gut twisted, but he made no outward show of his uneasiness. They had seen him. It would be certain death to try to cross the mountains at night. He yanked on the nose rope of the camel Dawn was on, pulled him to the ground and lifted her off.
As Kirk led Dawn inside, he knew they were walking into a trap.
* * *
Six
Kirk paced restlessly out onto the balcony and studied the jagged darkening mountains soaring thousands of feet against a violet sky. The house was enveloped in an ominous quiet.
Slitted eyes slowly, carefully scanned everything. The courtyard and gardens seemed peaceful enough.
Kirk sensed danger in every pore in his body.
It was important that he not show it—even to Dawn. They were being watched. He could feel it.
Dawn was enchanted with the house, its setting, the smell of roasting lamb and sweet tea bubbling over a samovar that drifted up from the kitchen. She felt very far and very safe from Aslam. She was thinking, tomorrow they would be truly safe. But then Kirk might put her on a plane by herself back to New York and disappear out of her life forever. Tonight might be their last night together.
The Arab couple had assumed they were married and had given them only one room. Dawn had gone into the bedroom first, and Kirk had followed her, closing the door, leaning his great body against it until she turned. Her startled eyes had gone from the double bed to his dark unreadable expression, and she had blushed as though aware for the first time of the intimacy of sharing a real bedroom with him. His own body went still and hot and tense. Abruptly he had looked away and stalked past her to the balcony.
Dawn was now filling a brass bathtub with water from steaming kettles that the Arab woman had heated over the fire and brought upstairs. Kirk came back inside from the balcony and silently watched the process for a time. The kerosene lamp made her skin glow like gold.
Her slightest movement was filled with infinite sensual grace. Suddenly he felt uncomfortable. Never before had he been forced to live so intimately with a woman. He had never wanted such closeness. Somehow this woman had opened a door to some secret place inside him, a place he'd wanted locked forever. Five days alone with her, and she was a devouring fire in the center of him; a stark, vivid longing that consumed his every thought, his every emotion.
She was a beautiful, gentle creature, an innocent girl in a hostile, barbarous land. He felt an awesome responsibility toward her. He couldn't fail her. At the thought, his face went grim. He had to keep his hands off her, his wits sharp.
When the tub was full he offered to leave so that she could bathe in privacy. He needed to go out, to check on things, to get away from her.
She glanced at him, her upturned face rosily flushed from her task, the flickering golden light lambent in her luminous eyes. He wanted her, and to conceal his feelings, he hardened his expression.
Uncertainly she caught her lower lip with her teeth. "I'd feel safer with you here," she whispered.
So she sensed it, too, he thought silently, knowing he couldn't leave her, no matter how much he wanted to. Not if she was afraid.
She began to unhook her gown, and he forgot the danger. All he could think of was the woman. As he watched those golden fingertips descend, peeling white cotton from her long, beautiful throat, a sudden tremor shook him. Dear God! What did she think he was made of—stone? Her fingers hovered at the last hook between the creamy swell of her breasts. Kirk closed his eyes and took a deep breath.
Then, as if she felt the intensity of his burning gaze, her eyes rose slowly to his again, and for a long moment they stared at one another across the room through the mist rising from the steaming tub. A sudden quick heat flamed in his body, and he shifted his weight uneasily from one foot to the other. She blushed, twisting her hands and then clasping them shyly behind her back. A muscle ticked in his cheek. Raggedly he ran a hand through his tousled hair. Then quickly he crossed the room, turned his back and threw himself into a chair so she could complete her undressing.
