LITMIR.BIZ

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home in Muscat, the capital city, but my father usually went there on business alone.”

      “Do you miss your country?”

      “Sometimes.” He looked at her and an odd expression crossed his face. “It’s a strange confession for me to admit that.”

      “Why?”

      “I’ve lived here for many years. I left Oman at age twenty-one under circumstances that made me wish never to return.” Hooded eyes gazed at the fire as his quiet, controlled voice mingled with the crackling flames. “I’m accustomed to a life of exile.”

      “Don’t you miss your family?”

      “My parents are dead.” A flicker of emotion passed over his features and Sara battled the urge to ask more about them. It wasn’t her place.

      “Do you have siblings?” She couldn’t imagine growing up without the companionship of her brothers and sisters. While her parents sniped at each other and tore each other down, her siblings had carried her through. She was the youngest and they’d brought her up to be the woman she was today.

      Each of them had given up opportunities to help support the family and raise her after their dad had died. While they all wanted to help, she and her brother Derek were the only ones with enough income to make a serious dent in the debts from their mom’s cancer treatments, and Derek had given up so much for Sara already. It was her turn to give back, and she’d better remember that when she was tempted away from the path of reason.

      “I have two brothers.” Elan glanced up from the fire, his eyes black, unreadable in the darkness. “I barely know them now.”

      The sadness in his voice clutched at her. He turned his head to look back at the fire and the flames danced over the hard edges of his profile.

      “What are their names? Do they still live in Oman?” She wanted to draw him out, to learn more about him. But as his eyes met hers in surprise, her simple questions sounded like unseemly prying. Her stomach tightened. Once again she’d overstepped her bounds.

      He looked at her for a moment, an oddly vulnerable expression in his eyes.

      “My younger brother Quasar is a financier in New York. He’s wild, the baby of the family. He was always getting into scrapes as a kid—challenging me to races on our father’s priceless camels, hiding insects in the women’s robes to make them scream.” A smile flickered across his mouth. “He’s still up to his crazy tricks, though now I read about them in the papers.” His expression turned wistful, then serious as he leaned forward to tend the fire. “I’d like to see more of him, but we’re both busy.”

      He brushed against her as he reached across the blanket and she sucked in a breath as a shiver of awareness fired her nerves. Sparks leapt as he blew softly on the wood. Sara struggled to pour sand on the sparks that crackled inside her as the tang of his alluringly male scent assaulted her in the night air, an exotic blend of soap, clean sweat, horses and expensive wool.

      She wrenched her eyes from the powerful forearm revealed by his rolled-up shirtsleeve. Elan seemed mercifully unaware of the thrall he held her in as he settled back on the blanket.

      “My older brother Salim took over from my father when he died.”

      “In the family business?”

      “Yes.” He wiped a hand across his mouth and looked out into the darkness. “I suspect he would rather have remained in America.” He glanced at her. “He came here for college—we all did. But he has a strong sense of duty and is not one to shirk his responsibilities. He’s a good man, and again, a busy one. I grew used to being away from my family while I was in boarding school.”

      “Your brothers weren’t sent to the same school?”

      “No. Quasar went to school in Europe, Salim had a private tutor at home.” Once again he leaned forward and blew on the fire, his angular features silhouetted against the halo of orange sparks that pierced the darkness.

      As he rested the weight of his body on his strong arms she couldn’t help a stray wish that he’d take her and hold her tightly, as he’d done when she fainted.

      Get hold of yourself, Sara. You’re just lonely—and your boss’s arms are not the place to seek comfort.

      “Does it take long to get used to being away from your family? I miss mine so much.” Her voice cracked. “It’s only been a month, I know, but…” She bit her lip, not wanting to cry. She was tired, emotionally overwrought after the long day.

      “You’ve never been away from home before?”

      She shook her head. She knew tears shone in her eyes as she looked at him.

      The tender look in his eyes almost undid her completely. “I cried every night for a long time,” he said softly. “I felt like a page ripped from a favorite story. A jumble of words and images that no longer made sense without its companions. In my country family is everything. We live very close, eat together, sleep together. To be separated from the people I spent all my days and nights with—I don’t exaggerate when I say it nearly killed me.”

      “Oh, gosh.” Tears pricked at her eyes and she shook her head, braced against a surge of emotions threatening to engulf her. “I can’t even imagine how hard that must have been for you. At least for me it was a choice. I left because I wanted to make my own life.”

      “I understand.” His low voice curled around her like smoke from the fire, warming her. “I made that choice myself when I left my homeland again as an adult, to settle in America. In some ways it hurts more—you can blame no one but yourself for your isolation.”

      He shifted slightly, turned his head to gaze again at the flames. The flickering tongues of light danced over his features, obscuring them. “In time, a scab grows over even a self-inflicted wound.”

      But the haunted expression in his eyes belied his words. And in that moment she could see Elan’s loneliness was a torment that would likely never leave him.

      On instinct she reached out and touched his forearm. He jerked as if stung and she pulled her hand back but he deftly grabbed it and held it firm.

      His eyes burned dark fire as he looked into hers. “Loneliness is the curse of man. Once he leaves his mother’s womb he’s doomed to wander the earth, seeking that comfort he once enjoyed.”

      He raised his fingers to her face and she gasped as he cupped her cheek with his hand.

      “There is no comfort to be found, only solace.” He said it slowly, his voice hushed.

      She parted her lips to reply but no words formed on them. Her thoughts tangled and scattered to the desert wind as Elan’s hot, urgent mouth closed over hers.

      Her head tipped back as he leaned into her and seized her in his arms. Her moan escaped into his mouth as her hands flew to his neck.

      His arms circled her torso, strong and hard as steel, vibrating with dangerous urgency. She shuddered with the intensity of her own longing, and with fear—of wanting too much, wanting more than could ever be given.

      But fear evaporated in the desert air as Elan’s arms embraced her. In his fierce kiss she lost herself and claimed the primal closeness her body and soul ached for.

      Her skin hummed beneath her clothes as his hand burrowed under the jacket of her suit, fingertips pressing into the muscle of her back through her thin blouse.

      She arched her back, bending like a willow under the force of his touch. They inched closer on the blanket, their bodies drawing together, meeting in new places as the distance between them diminished to nothing. Shoulders met, hips bumped, knees shuffled into each other as they wound their arms around each other, banishing any space that separated them.

      Her fingers groped up into his thick hair, pulled him to her as their kiss deepened. He licked the inside of her lips. His hunger echoed through her and she gasped as he sucked her tongue.

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