LITMIR.BIZ

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to end, never wanted to feel alone again—

      The realisation was as wonderful as the sensation of his body moving in hers, and as her body finally gave itself up to the spiralling pleasure and the joy she found that at last, now, she felt free. That she knew who she was.

      What she’d been meant for.

      The aftermath, she thought as Aarif rolled away from her, was as eerie and silent as that of the storm. Aarif lay on his back, one arm flung over his face. The silence that had wound its seductive spell around them moments before now stretched taut as a wire, and just as sharp.

      Kalila was suddenly conscious of the sand in her scalp, the stickiness on her thighs. Moments before she’d felt only joy, and now it was replaced by something far worse. Something sordid. She felt used and cheap and dirty, and she didn’t want to.

      Yet, a whisper within her mocked, isn’t that just what you are? You just betrayed your fiancé with his brother.

      She closed her eyes, felt the flood of remorse that she’d kept at bay while pleasure had reigned in her body and heart, still turned her bones to runny wax. She felt the regret wash over her in engulfing waves, and could only imagine how Aarif felt.

      Aarif…a man bound by duty and honour. A man with whom responsibility weighed heavily, endlessly. What could he be thinking now?

      She sneaked a glance at him and saw he hadn’t moved. Only moments ago she’d touched his skin, kissed him, loved him.

      Love.

      Could she love Aarif? Did she?

      She barely knew him; he was unforgiving, unemotional, unpleasant, and yet when she’d held him in her arms…

      When he’d touched her as if he knew her, not just her body, but her heart. Her mind.

      When he’d smiled.

      Kalila swallowed. She couldn’t possibly love Aarif, yet what had happened between them was real, it was something—

      ‘Aarif.’ Her voice came out in a croak. She had no idea what to say, where to begin—

      ‘Don’t.’ The one word was harsh, guttural, savage. Aarif rolled up in one fluid movement, his face averted from hers, and with a vicious jerk he peeled the tape away from the door. Kalila watched him, her heart starting to pound with a relentless anxiety, and a deep misery settled coldly in her bones.

      Another jerk and the tape was off; he flung it to the floor before pushing through the flap and out into the desert’s darkness.

      Kalila could hear the crunch of his bare feet on the sand, the low nicker of one of the horses and Aarif’s soothing murmur back. Tears—stupid tears—stung her eyes. He was kinder to the horses than he was to her.

      And yet, that insistent whisper protested, the horses didn’t do anything. They are innocent. You are not.

      Innocence. So prized, so precious. So important for a woman like her, a woman poised to marry a king, and she was innocent no longer. Instinctively Kalila glanced down, saw a faint rusty smear of blood on her thigh. In another age that bit of blood would have been proof of her innocence, her purity, her whole reason for being a wife. It would have been displayed with bawdy jokes and satisfied smiles. In another age, she realised, swallowing down a hysterical laugh, she would have been killed for what she had just done.

      Her innocence was gone.

      And yet even so, despite the regret and shame and even fear coursing through her, she couldn’t forget the feeling of Aarif in her arms, in her body. She couldn’t forget, and she didn’t want to.

      What kind of woman did that make her?

      She took a shuddering breath, tried to calm her racing thoughts, her racing heart. She needed to think, to plan. She needed to speak with Aarif.

      With a bit of water from the canteen she cleaned herself up as best she could and dressed, combing the tangles from her hair with her fingers.

      Then, taking another deep breath for courage, she slipped through the flap and out into the cool night.

      The air was cold and sharp, the sky glittering with stars. The sand dunes were cast in silver by the moonlight, and the air after the storm was perfectly still.

      Signs of devastation could be glimpsed, shadows of broken rocks, twisted roots. Briefly Kalila offered up a prayer for the rest of her party, sheltering at the airport. She prayed no one would lose a life because of her own folly.

      Her own selfishness.

      She moved gingerly across the sand to Aarif; his back was to her, one arm braced against the rock overhang. His head was bowed, every taut line of his body radiating anguish. Anger.

      She stood a few metres behind him, her arms creeping around herself in the cold, and waited.

      What could she say? What could he say?

      What, she wondered distantly, could happen now?

      A long moment of silence passed; the horses shifted fretfully and a slight breeze stirred the hair lying limply against her face. Then Aarif spoke.

      ‘What we’ll do,’ he said in a cold, flat voice, as if they were in the middle of a conversation, ‘is tell everyone I found you this morning. You sheltered here alone, and I found a protected place of my own. Then at least your reputation will not be called into question. I don’t think there is anyone in the party who wishes to cast doubt on you or this marriage union.’

      Kalila heard his words echoing relentlessly through her, but they didn’t make sense. He was sticking a plaster on a wound that required major surgery.

      ‘That’s all very well,’ she finally said when she’d found her voice, ‘but it hardly addresses the real situation.’

      ‘I hardly think you want your father’s staff knowing what happened,’ Aarif replied, his voice still cold and so horribly unemotional. ‘I am trying to salvage this mess, Princess.’

      ‘How? By lying?’

      ‘By protecting you!’ Aarif turned around, and Kalila took an instinctive step backwards at the anguished fury twisting his features. ‘God knows I made this mess, and I will be the one to clean it up.’ He spoke with such a steely determination that Kalila quelled.

      ‘How?’ she whispered.

      ‘I will have to tell Zakari.’

      She closed her eyes, not wanting to imagine that conversation, or what it meant for her. For her marriage. ‘Aarif, if you do that, you will ruin my marriage before it even begins.’

      ‘I will tell Zakari that it is my fault—’

      ‘And you think he will believe that? That you raped me?’ She shook her head, disbelief and disappointment warring within her. She didn’t want this, this sordid discussion of what had just happened between them. She couldn’t bear to talk cold logistics when her heart cried out for him now—still—

      ‘I was responsible,’ Aarif insisted in a low voice. ‘I should have stopped, turned away—’ He shook his head. ‘I accused you of being selfish, Kalila, but it is I who have been the most selfish of all.’ He muttered something under his breath and stalked away, his body so taut his muscles almost seemed to be vibrating with a seething self-loathing.

      Kalila took a few tentative steps towards him. She wanted to touch him, to reach him, yet every instinct told her she couldn’t. He had shut himself off completely, walled himself with his own sense of responsibility and guilt.

      Still, she tried.

      ‘Aarif, I could have protested. I could have stopped. We are both to blame.’ His back was to her, and he said nothing. Dragging a breath into her lungs, she forced herself to continue, to lay her heart open to him as her body had been. ‘The truth is, I didn’t want to. I wanted to be with you, Aarif, from the moment you touched

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