Call of the Trumpet (29 page)

Though the
Shamal
had not gathered its full force, Matthew hurried, almost able to sense the strange disturbance in the air. The going was slow, however, the camels laden with the spoils of their hunt. There was
hubara,
antelope, and gazelle, even a few stingy hares.

The camel’s plodding gait began to annoy him. Turfa trotted ahead, carefree, and Al Chah ayah walked behind, patiently. But Matthew felt neither patient nor carefree. He wanted to be back in camp. To see her, hear the sound of her voice, know she was near. The strange tension that had existed between them was electrifying, stimulating, mystifying. He needed it.

Turfa paused, pricked her ears, and set off at a lope. Camp must be near, Matthew thought. Beyond the next dune perhaps. It was difficult to tell exactly in this sea of frozen swells.

But camp was not what Turfa had scented. Matthew saw as his camel topped the ridge, and his jaw tightened in response to the hammering of his heart.

She knelt at the foot of the dune, lap filled with
at-tita
bulbs. Turfa romped about her, joyfully, pausing occasionally to lick at her cheek. Unaccountably irritated, Matthew halted the camel and glared down at her. He said nothing until the other riders had filed around them and disappeared over the next dune.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he growled. “Out here all alone?”

Cecile glanced at the bulbs in her lap and said nothing.

“The
Shamal
regathers,” Matthew continued. “You’ve seen the way it blows the sand. And you have been caught in a sandstorm before. Or had you forgotten?”

Cecile shook her head and returned his hard, bright blue gaze. “I have forgotten nothing. Go back to camp and do not worry on my account.”

Oddly, the retort died on his lips. A gust of wind sent a skitter of sand from the crest of a dune, and Turfa edged away in the direction of camp. Without another word, Matthew urged his camel on and followed his hound.

But he felt her watching him until he crested a dune and disappeared beyond it. And was overcome with a nearly overpowering urge to return to her. Yet he would not, could not. Gritting his teeth, Matthew continued on.

“Oh, my husband, I am so happy to see you!”

Aza had knelt at his feet the moment he stepped through the tent flap. Now she raised her adoring eyes and said, “I will unpack the camel and tend to your mare, then rub your feet as you like. Will this please you?”

Matthew smiled down at the young and lovely woman he had taken as his wife. He cared for her, deeply. So why did he feel so overwhelmed with guilt?

“Tend to the mare, Aza. Thank you,” he replied at length. “But … but leave the camel for awhile. You can tend to her later.”

He wasn’t even sure why he had said it. When Aza had departed, Matthew flopped against a cushion, found he could not sit still, rose, and began to pace.

The tent flap whipped widely, caught in another gust of wind. Sand swirled through the opening. The
Shamal
builds, Matthew thought. He whirled and paced the length of his tent once more, thumbs hooked in his dagger belt.

He halted when Aza reappeared. “How may I serve you now, O lord of my tent?” she inquired softly, timidly. “Would you like something to eat? Water, perhaps?”

Her head was bent, her shoulder bowed. He could not endure the sight of her gentle subservience another moment. Ignoring the startled cry, Matthew threw aside the flap and strode from the tent.

She was not where he had left her. He wasn’t surprised. Nothing, in fact, surprised him anymore. Not even what she had done, or what he was in the process of doing. Sensing which direction she had taken, he prodded the camel onward.

He caught sight of her at the top of a distant dune. She hesitated, the wind billowing her
towb
as if beckoning. Then she turned and disappeared.

Slowly, inexorably, the wind resculpted the dunes. The ridges became sharper, more narrow, as the sand scattered away, whirling through the air and tumbling down the slopes. Windblown gusts of it skated through the troughs and stung his camel’s knees. She knelt, willingly, and he dismounted.

Cecile made no move except to pull the
makruna
away from her face. She wore no veil. The
Shamal
tangled her braids and clinked the copper bracelets at her wrists.

“Come back with me now, Dhiba. Come back to the tent. Please.”

Cecile shook her head, swinging the earrings against her slender neck. A half smile curved on her lips.

The expected surge of anger did not come. Because the exchange, Matthew realized, both his request and her response, had already been written. They now merely acted their parts, playing the game as it must be played between them. And it was her move. Hands on his hips, feet splayed, he waited.

Her smile never faltered, nor did her gaze. She unwound the
makruna,
let it trail for a second from her fingertips, then dropped it. It blew away, twisting and turning through the trough, and was gone.

The copper bracelets tinkled as she unplaited her braids. One by one they were loosed until her hair whipped about her like a tattered satin banner. Then, with exquisite laziness, she lifted the hem of her
towb,
drawing it up and away from her body. The act was accomplished with such innocent sensuality that it stunned him.

She stood naked before him. Nothing moved but the wind and the raven tendrils of hair that curled and twined about her body, caressing it.

He was paralyzed, limbs immobile as the blood thickened in his veins, burning him. Her name on his lips, but he could not speak it. One small bare foot moved, then the other, closing a fraction of the distance between them. She halted.

Now he saw the scar, the mark of the she-wolf curving jaggedly across her breast. “Dhiba,” he whispered hoarsely, finding his voice, and banished the remaining space between them.

Still they did not touch. The
Shamal
lifted her hair and tangled it about his own shoulders now, binding them.

His dagger belt dropped to the ground. She fell on her knees and removed his boots, then gazed up at him, eyes wide and questioning. He answered by lifting her to her feet. He did not release her arms.

They sank to the sand together, remaining on their knees. He traced her scar with the tips of his fingers. She unwound his
khaffiya
and laid it aside. The wind billowed his robe as he pulled it over his head. His black hair blew about his neck and against his cheeks. She smoothed it from his face.

His chest was darkly matted. Cecile touched its softness and caressed the knotted muscles of his arms. His hands cupped her breasts. Neither noticed that the wind had died. They did not feel the electricity in the air, for it already crackled between them. Far to the northwest the sky reddened. Matthew closed his eyes and kissed her.

The air was suddenly very still and hot. Cecile felt the moisture start on her skin, and when she pressed against him their wetness mingled. She moved, undulating, reveling in the slipperiness of their bodies. Then her lips parted, and his tongue explored the exotic sweetness of her mouth. Their limbs twined, and they sank upon the sand.

T
HEIR LIPS MET AND A STILLNESS AS TOTAL AS
that which now blanketed the desert overcame them. Passion too long denied strained between them, clamoring for release. The pain of it was so exquisite that it held them clutched in its spell, motionless. When their lips finally parted, there was no sound but the ragged whisper of their intermingled breath, no sensation but the thudding of their hearts. Their bodies were numb, their senses overloaded.

Reality became a dream. They were lost, floating in a time and space all their own. Like innocent children who had awakened to find themselves in a world of fantasy, they were dazed and full of wonder.

The exploration was instinctive, the mutual touching not meant to excite but to reveal. As Cecile lay on her back, hands still resting on Matthew’s shoulders, he leaned over her and traced the contours of her body with the tip of his finger. He followed the curve of her jaw to her chin and down in a straight, searing line from her breasts to her navel, across her flat, hard belly to the soft, secret place between her thighs.

Something jumped and quivered within her. Cecile sucked her breath in sharply, but the touch did not linger. With the whole of his palm now, Matthew retraced his finger’s journey, feeling her smooth and supple flesh, the hard ridge of her breastbone, the velvety soft hollow of her throat. He briefly cupped each small, firm breast, then reached into the glistening lengths of her hair, spread about them on the sand like a pool of deep dark water.

A mild shock coursed through him as he gathered a mass of it into his hand and lifted it to his face, experiencing its silken softness through the sensitive flesh of his lips. Then he released it, uncurling his fingers slowly, and watched it slither across his palm to lay on her breast.

Cecile felt each strand as it fell, skin so alive it ached. Shuddering with the intensity of the sensation, she raised her hand to his head, bracelets clinking as they slipped down her arms, and entangled her fingers in his thick, black mane. The urge to pull him down to her was almost more than she could bear.

For she was aware of all of him now, the entire length of his naked form pressed against her side. She felt the stiffly curling hair of his long, muscular legs against her calf and thigh, and felt a throbbing pulse from some where deep in his belly where it flattened against her hip. Supported on his elbow, the broad chest loomed above her tantalizingly. Yet she knew exactly how it would feel when she finally drew him to her breast. The soft, springy hairs would crush against her, and the smooth line of down reaching toward his navel would be like velvet caressing her flesh.

Her flesh burned, alive with a fire that threatened to consume her. It had started in her breast, igniting on emotion too long pent, and traveled downward to her belly, where it raged and spread.

There was only one thing she could feel now. Its urgency throbbed against the smooth curve of her flank, its heat the center of her body’s inferno. And she was lost, drowning in waves of sensation that tossed her dizzily from crest to crest. Her vision blurred as incomprehensible tears filled her eyes, and she clung desperately to arms that suddenly surrounded her.

A strange exultation filled him. Lowering his head, Matthew kissed away her tears, tasting their saltiness. She closed her eyes, and he kissed the delicate flesh of her lids, the feather of her lashes, the tip of her nose, and the hollow of her throat. He moved a hand to the small of her back, supporting her, pressing her more firmly to him until their hip bones ground together painfully.

Their lips did not meet gently this time, but with a passion so violent it rocked them. A muffled sob died in Cecile’s throat as the thrust of his tongue parted her lips and explored the damp warmth of her mouth. Her hands clutched at him hungrily, kneading the flesh of his back, feeling the muscles bunch convulsively as his encircling arm gripped her more tightly. Then she was lifted.

It happened with dizzying swiftness. In one smooth motion, Matthew had drawn them both upright into a sitting position. Holding her against him, suspended just above his hips, he freed one arm to guide her legs about his waist. Then he gently lowered her.

The first touch was tentative, but it sent a bolt of lightning through her. Eyes wide open, they gazed at one another. Their lips brushed, and she moved against him. They quivered there a moment, poised on the edge of a passion that would devour them. Cecile closed her eyes.

An explosion of pleasure-pain seared through her body. A storm of emotion raged in her heart. Her spine arched, her head fell back, and a shuddering cry burst from her throat.

He answered her, moving against her, feeling her strain to receive him, absorb him, to draw him so deeply into her body he might touch the wings of her soul. And they hovered there a moment, locked in the embrace of a desire so pure and powerful that it left them reeling. They were barely even aware of the motion of their bodies, grinding together in elemental rhythm, leading them to a culmination that was shattering in its intensity. They were lost in each other, engulfed at last in the sea of their longing.