Heart of the Desert by Carol Marinelli Page B

believe in the tradition, tonight he would respect it.
    He headed out to the lounge area. He wanted to eat and wondered what was taking her so long, because he was ready and had
prepared
dinner too. But every moment of waiting was worth it as, looking just a little bit shy but definitely not awkward, she came to him.
    ‘You look …’ He did not finish, he could not finish, because not only did she look beautiful as she stood with her long blonde hair coiling as it dried, her skin flushed from the warm water, somehow she looked as if she came from the desert. Somehow, despite her pale features, despite it all, she looked as if she belonged here, and Ibrahim wondered if this night, together but apart, was more than he should have taken on.
    Wondered how far he should tease her.
    Her eyes were very blue in her pale face. She had none of that kohl that sharpened them, just a shimmer of silver on her lids that glittered each time she blinked. It was her mouth that had been painted, in the same blood red as her dress, and it trembled a little as his eyes fell on it, and it killed him that he must wait till tomorrow to kiss it.
    She sat on the floor at the low table and Ibrahim did the same. He had seen her a little nervous around food, but now her eyes were just curious. The nerves, he knew, were for another reason, for long before she hadsat down he had seen the leaping pulse in her throat, the glitter not just on her eyelids but in eyes that shone with arousal.
    ‘Here.’ He handed her a heavy fruit, which looked like a cross between a peach and an apple, and selected one for himself. As she went to take a tentative bite he shook his head. ‘It is marula, you drink it.’ He squeezed the heavy fruit between his fingers and she watched as sticky goo ran between them. He selected a straw and plunged it into the fruit and he took her mind to mad places, because the fruit was her flesh and she held her breath as he pierced it.
    ‘You,’ he said, and she broke the skin of her fruit, not as easily as him but it worked and she drank from it. Though the fluid was sweet and warm and delicious, somehow she wanted to lean and lick the moisture still damp on his fingers.
    She ate, and it was different, because she was thinking about food again, about every morsel that slid down her throat, but it was far from with loathing, because each swallow of her throat was watched by him—and she wanted his mouth there.
    She wanted their tongues to meet in one half of the pomegranate, but he offered her only her share and then ate his.
    ‘No spoons.’ Ibrahim said, and made eating seem debauched, but in the most thrilling of ways, and for the first time there was regret that a meal was over. As they moved to the couches, she wanted back at his table.
    And Ibrahim knew.
    But it was safer on the sofa and she sipped sweet coffee gratefully and had another cup to help her sober up, because that was how he sometimes made her feel.
    ‘The trouble with antiques,’ Ibrahim drawled, filling her cup with the jug that had been used since his childhood, ‘is that nothing gets thrown out. Nothing changes. Always it is the same.’
    ‘You hate it here?’
    ‘No.’ Ibrahim said, and then went on, ‘Not always.’ He saw her confusion. ‘I know every corner of this tent. We came as children—it was good then.’ He didn’t want to talk, he wanted to slowly seduce, he wanted her wanting him in the morning, but somehow she demanded, without him always realising, more from him.
    Sometimes he found himself talking with her, not about things that teased but things that tortured. He heard his voice saying things he had never said before, and she didn’t just listen, as others would have, she did not agree but partook.
    ‘When your mother was here? Was it after she left when it changed?’ she probed, and he closed his eyes, but her question remained and he thought about it, because when his mother had been here, it had been different. Then his father