Forsaken (The Djinn Wars Book 5) (18 page)

He smiled. “If you would prefer it, of course.”

So they went out of the suite and down the stairs — all nine flights of them. Once or twice, Qadim gave her a sidelong glance, as if to see whether she was still enjoying doing this the “old-fashioned way,” but Madison didn’t say anything. After all, they were going down, not up. Anyway, she used to hike and run and bike all the time. A few flight of stairs was no big deal. And with the way Qadim seemed prepared to feed her, she knew she’d better keep herself active or she’d start to spread out like an amoeba.

The restaurant was spotless when they entered, with absolutely no sign of their feast from the night before. Yes, Qadim had said he’d taken care of everything, but somewhere in the back of her mind, she hadn’t been completely convinced. However, there wasn’t a single crumb left on the tabletop, and when she went to the refrigerator to take a peek, she saw that all the uneaten food really was carefully packaged in plastic containers, ready for the next go-’round.

“You look surprised,” Qadim said as she shut the refrigerator door.

“I do?” Madison shrugged. “As I mentioned before, this is all going to take a little getting used to. But it’s okay. I’ll get it figured out eventually.”

In response, he came over and kissed her, proving another important point about djinn — they didn’t seem to get morning breath. He tasted warm and just the slightest bit sweet, and she knew if he kept kissing her like this, she was going to make him take her right there on the counter.

His gaze slid over to the shining metal surface, as if he’d somehow read her thoughts. With a quirk at the corner of his mouth, he said, “It does appear to be about the right height.”

For a normal-sized human, maybe not. For a six-foot-six specimen like Qadim….

She didn’t say anything. She didn’t have to. In the next instant, he’d lifted her to the counter and was untying the sash on the robe. His hands closed over her bare breasts, and she shut her eyes in ecstasy. Yes, she’d always been sensitive, but there was something about the djinn’s merest touch that made her feel as if he was about to send her over the brink at any second.

Turnabout was fair play, though. She pulled at the drawstring of his trousers, then slid them over his already impressive erection. As if by its own volition, her hand went to grasp him, to move slowly up and down as she felt the silky softness of his skin, a shocking contrast to the iron-hard flesh beneath. He made a growling sound far back in his throat, black lashes sweeping down as he shut his eyes for a moment. Then those dark eyes opened again, and Madison thought she could see a reddish, lustful flame in their depths.

His fingers slipped into her, skillful. She was already wet, but his touch only made her that much wetter, moans coming from her throat as he caressed her. But she didn’t forget herself enough to neglect him; her hand still slid up and down his shaft, wanting to bring him to the edge — just not over it.

It wasn’t very long before he let out a sigh, then took her hand away. And in the next second, he was grasping her by the hips and pulling her toward him. He slid into her, and she wrapped her legs around his waist to pull him in further, the angle at which he filled her almost unbearably erotic.

God, I’m letting a djinn fuck me on a kitchen countertop,
she thought, but after that she couldn’t really focus on anything except the sensation of his cock driving in and out of her, the way he leaned close so his long hair slipped over her shoulders, still covered by the borrowed bathrobe she wore. Underneath her hands, which she had planted flat to keep herself semi-upright, she could feel the cool steel of the counter, such a contrast to the heat of Qadim’s body.

This time the orgasm was so intense that she screamed out loud, the sound echoing off the walls. Good thing there wasn’t anyone around to hear except Qadim, and, judging by the feral grin he wore, he didn’t seem to mind a bit. Just a second or two later, he let loose as well, a groan escaping his lips as he spent himself in her. Then he bent and kissed her breasts, first the left and next the right, all while she was doing her best to remain propped up instead of falling over right where she was.

Very slowly, he drew away, and Madison tried to pull her robe closed — with limited success, since she was sitting on part of it and it really didn’t want to budge.

Qadim took mercy on her and lifted her from the counter. “You looked rather stuck.”

Well, she supposed she could have jumped down. But that would have jarred a few things loose. As it was…. She went over to where a paper towel dispenser was fastened to the wall and gathered a bunch, then wiped up as best she could before pulling her underwear back on.

Behind her, Qadim said, his tone carefully neutral, “Perhaps it is time for some coffee.”

“That’s a great idea.”

No messing around with a coffee pot this time — in the next instant, he held two white mugs, both of which were filled with some amazing-smelling Italian roast. He extended one to her, and she took it gratefully. At the same time, though, she lifted an eyebrow at his open robe, at the way everything was on display.

“You going to put that away anytime soon?”

“I wasn’t sure if you still had need of it.”

Madison gave him a jaundiced look, then blew on her coffee. She heard Qadim chuckle, and a faint clink as he put his mug down so he could climb back into his pants.

“Better?” he asked as she turned around.

“I’m not sure ‘better’ is the right word,” she replied. “But definitely less distracting.”

He grinned, a flash of white teeth against the darkness of his beard. Then he retrieved his coffee and took a sip while she blew on her coffee a few more times.

“So, what’s on the docket for today?” she said. “More xeriscaping?”

“Actually, my plan was to create a spur off your Rio Grande so we might have a creek running past the hotel. I thought it would be pleasant to have water flowing here — and it will help to encourage some of the larger trees.”

By now, maybe she should have been more used to the casual way in which he announced that he planned to do seemingly impossible things. “Just like that, huh?”

His expression grew puzzled. “How else would I do it? Yesterday I went and inspected the river due west of here to see if my plan was feasible. There are no real impediments, as far as I can see. It will take even me some time to create the channel, but after that….” He shrugged and drank some more coffee.

“Where do you plan for this water to go, though? That is, I thought most streams and rivers had to empty into another body of water.” Since her own coffee seemed cool enough now to drink, she took a sip, then added, “Anyway, I thought you were an earth elemental. Can you really make a new river?”

“I am an earth elemental,” he said calmly. “And that will stand me in good stead as I create a new channel for the water to flow through. But I will not be summoning the water, or creating it from nothing. As for where it will go, I thought a pond or small lake over there would complement the park area I left standing.” He gestured with his free hand in the general direction of the location where the convention center had once stood.

“Oh.” Madison had to admit to herself that she didn’t know much about rivers and streams, or their general characteristics, since bodies of water of any size were something of a rarity in New Mexico. But Qadim sounded confident in his ability to take on the project, and it did sound as if it would be lovely to have a stream flowing past. She’d always found the sound of running water to be soothing, had had one of those tabletop fountains in her studio so she could listen to it as she worked. The djinn was watching her, clearly waiting to see what else she had to say. And she liked that. She liked that he wanted to hear her input.

“Well,” she said. “I guess we’d better have breakfast. Then we can get to work.”

F
or some reason
, Qadim had not expected Madison to take such an interest in his work. He knew many women of the djinn who would have laughed at him for trying to make an oasis out of such a desert. But Madison didn’t think it laughable. She thought it a challenge.

True, she was an artist, and as such probably wanted to surround herself with things of beauty, to create symmetry and grace where there had been none. Back in her jeans and T-shirt, she went with him to the river and watched as he made one last survey before he began the real work.

The earth would obey his command, and so he told it to part, to create a channel approximately four arm’s lengths across and about half as deep. At once the sandy soil flowed out of the way, and the waters of the Rio Grande rushed in, following them as they walked ever eastward and the deep furrow in the ground grew longer and longer.

“How does the water not rush past where you’re working?” Madison asked.

“Because it knows not to,” he said simply.

Her brow puckered at that reply, but she didn’t say anything. After only a few days together, she’d already begun to understand that some elements of djinn magic were almost impossible to explain. They simply
were
.

The two of them walked along, the wild October wind catching at both their hair, his a blur of dark brown, Madison’s a shimmer of pale copper. And before them the ground continued to open up to receive the Rio Grande’s waters. They were making good time. He had feared that this task might require several days, but it seemed he would be done before the sun set.

They were quiet after that initial exchange, but Qadim did not mind. He needed to concentrate on what he was doing, and Madison seemed to sense that. But he realized something else as they made their slow and steady progress toward the hotel.

He was content.

True, some measure of that contentment could be attributed to the way his body had been sated by the woman who walked along next to him. Her appetite surprised him, but he certainly wouldn’t change anything about that. Indeed, it was refreshing to find someone who was so responsive. That the woman who was such a close match to his needs had turned out to be human was perhaps the strangest part of the entire situation, but Qadim thought he could learn to accept that.

But his had always been a restless spirit, never entirely satisfied with anything he had. No doubt that restlessness was another reason why he never lingered with any one woman for too long. And though he told himself that the scant few days he’d been with Madison was certainly not a long enough span of time to change him, he did find himself rather astonished that he should find himself so at peace. As one of his former lovers had once sourly remarked, he was not an easy man, in any sense of the word.

When he and Madison came closer to the hotel, he had the new stream veer slightly to the south so it would skirt the edges of the small park-like area with the red rocks and trees, the only human-made thing still standing in the downtown area except the Hotel Andaluz. And there it waited while he moved the earth to create a pond nearly fifty meters across and twice as long. That earth he set aside for later use, and as soon as it was gone, the water rushed into its new home, filling the cavity he had opened in the ground.

As the sun began to dip to the west, it painted the surface of that new lake with gold and amber. The wind ruffled the water, and off to one side, the cottonwoods and mesquite trees he had planted shimmered in the warm light as well.

“It’s beautiful,” Madison said. She had stood next to him in silence as he worked, and now she slipped her hand into his. He liked the feel of it, the touch of her warm, slender fingers. They seemed to fit perfectly around his own fingers. “You know, as we walked, I was thinking.”

“About?” he asked, hoping she would not bring up Los Alamos again. Yes, she’d retired the subject the night before, but he couldn’t get rid of the idea that the town, with its population of human survivors, still held some sort of unhealthy allure for her.

“What you’ve done so far is amazing,” she said. “But I just remembered how Clay had stocked the servers back at the bomb shelter with all sorts of horticultural information, a lot of it about native plants and the sorts of crops that can be sustainably farmed in this part of the world. I know you’re not from around here” — she flashed him a quick grin, one so irresistible that he was forced to smile back at her in response — “and so I thought maybe I could go back to the shelter and see what I could dig up that would help. It’s beautiful, but it probably would help to start growing some actual crops. Not now,” she added quickly. “Winter is just around the corner, and it can get kind of brutal in northern New Mexico, although Albuquerque usually doesn’t get hit too hard. In the spring, though….”

Her words trailed off then, and Qadim thought that the flush in her cheeks wasn’t entirely from the wind. Perhaps she thought she might be presumptuous in assuming that the two of them would still be together when springtime came.

Perhaps she was presuming things, but at the moment, he had to hope that she was correct in her assumption. All things came to an end; he knew that much. And yet he did not want to think about what it might be like for her to be gone, for him to never see her again.

When it happens, it happens,
he told himself.
It could be sometime in the spring, or a year from now. I will worry about it when the time comes.

“That is a very good idea,” he said gravely, and was gratified by the way she seemed to relax slightly. “If we gather that knowledge now, then when spring comes around again, we will be prepared. But,” he added when it looked as if she was about to speak, “you can go to gather that information tomorrow. The sun is setting now, and I think we have put in enough work for one day.”

“You mean you’ve put in enough work,” she remarked with a small quirk of her lips. “Mostly I watched.”

“It went easier, having you there.”

That comment made her smile, so he led her into the hotel, where the fountains still flowed, and the large fixtures overhead still sent forth the illumination necessary to light up the lobby, even though the power companies that had once supplied their electricity were long gone.

“Why don’t we eat in here tonight?” Madison said, pointing to the one casbah with the wall fountain of glimmering translucent tile. “It might be fun. Intimate.”

Qadim thought he liked the sound of that. His labors had wearied him somewhat, but not enough that he wouldn’t be able to rise to the occasion, so to speak. A meal of small plates, tasty morsels as they served in Spain. He thought that would do very well.

“Yes, but let us change for dinner.” A glance down at the human attire he wore told him that he had gotten somewhat grubby during his exertions, and while Madison had fared better, he still would prefer that she wear something more elegant. He would have to make sure she had a few surprises waiting for her when she went upstairs to get out of the T-shirt and faded jeans she was wearing.

“So formal,” she teased, but he could tell she really didn’t mind all that much. “Should I go now, or do you need me to help you? It seems as if cooking on top of all the work you did today might be pushing it a little.”

“No, I will be fine,” he said. He didn’t bother to add that he planned to use his powers to create the entire meal, something he normally did not do. But he was rather weary, and since they really hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast, it would be far easier and faster for him to magic up their meal.

Her expression told him she was somewhat dubious, but she didn’t argue any further, and instead went on her tiptoes to give him a kiss on the cheek before she headed off for the stairs.

The sensation of her lips pressing against him seemed to linger on his skin long after she had disappeared. Qadim thought he could get used to this.

And that, he thought, was exactly the problem.

* * *

M
adison went
up to her suite, since that was where all her personal items were still stored. The opportunity really hadn’t come up for her to ask whether she should take her things into Qadim’s penthouse suite. Maybe that was presuming too much. Yes, they’d been intimate, and yes, they were more or less spending every waking moment together, and yet that might still not be enough reason for him to make their cohabitation a bit more formal.

Just as well, she told herself. She’d always been used to having her own space. Jacob had made hints about moving in together, but they hadn’t progressed beyond the talking stage before he got the offer to go to Bellingham, and that was the end of that.

Well, at least Qadim had repaired her blush-toned tunic and pants, so she’d have something to wear. When she opened the closet, though, her eyes widened in shock. Instead of that one dressy outfit and a few shirts, she saw a veritable rainbow of clothes, silks shimmering with metallic embroidery and beadwork, each one more exquisite than the next. And on the floor of the closet were shoes to match, some little beaded flats, some jeweled sandals.

Qadim, of course. Apparently he’d wanted to give her a little variety in her dress-up wardrobe. It still shocked her, the way he could just pull things out of thin air for her, but in this instance, she was all too happy that he possessed those djinn powers.

She rummaged through the rack of clothes, trying to decide which outfit she should wear first, and then finally decided on a white tunic decorated in teal and gold beadwork, the yoke composed of heavily embroidered flowers in glass beads and metallic threads. The teal up near her face brought out the green in her eyes and seemed to make her red hair appear a little deeper and richer in tone than it usually was, and she smiled at her reflection after she applied some lip gloss and mascara. She didn’t look anything like the windblown woman who’d walked into the room a half hour earlier.

The clothing wasn’t the only surprise he’d left her, though. Just as she was about to head out the door, Madison noticed a large wooden box sitting on top of the dresser. Curious, she went closer and raised the lid.

Inside was a veritable king’s ransom of jewelry — heavy, intricate pieces in both silver and gold, picked out with precious stones in shades of green and red and blue and purple. She was no expert, but she recognized emerald and ruby, sapphire and amethyst, and many more. A pair of dangling earrings in gold set with opals seemed the perfect complement to her outfit, so she took out the plain silver hoops she wore and put in the gold earrings. There was a ring that seemed to match, and then a set of gold bangles that had a definite Bollywood vibe.

All put together, the ensemble was quite impressive, and she tossed her head a little, feeling the earrings brush against her neck. Normally, she would never have worn anything so extravagant, and the effect made her feel a little wicked.

She’d have to see what Qadim thought.

Her jeweled sandals slapped against the metal stairs as she hurried back down to the ground floor. As she came out into the main section of the lobby, she paused and looked up in awe. Qadim had taken the same fabric he’d used to decorate the rooftop bar a few days earlier, and this time had draped it from one side of the mezzanine to the other. Underneath, a number of wrought-iron candelabras glowed with numerous pillar candles. All of the casbahs, however, were dark — except one. The little alcove with the water feature on one wall had more candles gleaming on every side, and on the table in the center was a number of small plates, each with a different but equally delicious-looking item placed on it.

And there was Qadim, standing outside the entrance to the casbah, obviously waiting for her. Madison’s breath caught at the sight of him, because instead of his usual somber robes, he had on garments in dark wine-colored silk. Wide bands of gold covered both his wrists. The effect was not feminine, though — really, the exact opposite. With his heavy dark hair falling down his back, he had a sort of barbaric splendor, and Madison could feel her heart begin to beat faster at just the sight of him.

“You are stunning,” he said, coming forward so he could get a better look at her.

“So are you,” she replied. “I like the new outfit. And mine, too,” she added hastily. “That’s some wardrobe you conjured for me.”

“You needed more clothing that would suit your beauty. While I understand the need for the utilitarian nature of some of your things, there is no reason why you can’t have something more elegant for the times you are here in the hotel.”

True, there really wasn’t a reason why she shouldn’t get dressed up while she was here. She wouldn’t wear these things while she was out with Qadim, helping him with his reconstruction of Albuquerque. That just didn’t make sense. But she liked the idea of making their dinners together something of an event, one that required clothing far more formal than her usual attire. Back in the day, people had dressed for dinner. It would be fun to reinstitute that custom.

“Well, they’re beautiful,” she said. “And the jewelry, too. I don’t think I’ve ever seen anything this impressive outside a museum, or maybe some of those really high-end stores up in Santa Fe on the plaza.”