A Thorned Rose in the Sand Read online

  He rasped a carrot when in the corner of his eye, a human shape slid out of the tent, stretched, and moved toward him.

  “Hey.” Stevie’s voice, soft and hesitant.

  He tensed, hadn’t anticipated that she’d come out and talk.

  “What are you making?” she asked, sitting on a cushion on the other side of the fire.

  He looked up. Flames danced in her face, red and wild, like her. She stared at his working hands.

  “A tajine. It’s a traditional dish.”

  “Smells good.”

  “It’s not cooked yet.”

  “It still smells good,” she insisted, not meeting his gaze but sounding like she wanted to please, wanted to reconcile.

  His heart thudded. He looked down again and concentrated on cupping the rasped carrot in his palm and forming a ball that he placed on top of the other vegetables. “There. Then, cumin.” He picked some yellow powder from a cup and spread it on the dish.

  “Don’t you use saffron?” she asked. She’d done her homework.

  “Too expensive.”

  “Where do you find food? Do you trade with other tribes?”

  “We usually go to the nearest town, but it can take a day to get there.” Glad to be talking about other subjects than what plagued his mind, he continued, “We don’t really worry about shopping. If we can do it, it’s good, if not, it’s not a problem. That’s how it is in the Sahara. We’re content with little.” He placed the cone-shaped lid over the pot, killed the fire with a stick, and set the pot in the glowing embers.

  “So, you’re happy here.”

  “Our animals like it.”

  “And you?”

  He turned to a bowl of water on the carpet and washed his hands. “It’s beautiful here. Clean air. No pollution. We couldn’t live in a village.”

  “But are you happy?”

  He paused. What was she getting at, insisting like that?

  “Ragab,” she said.

  His name pronounced with her voice provoked a pain in his chest, as if he’d strained a muscle. He kept his head down, didn’t know how to react.

  “There’s something I need to tell you.”

  He swallowed a breath, choked on it, coughed, cleared his throat. “Me, too.”

  “Okay. You go first.”

  “No, you.” He hadn’t prepared any fancy speech. But he did have many things to say.

  She hesitated. “I had a bad experience with a guy in college. That’s why I’m acting a little strange around men. That’s why I’m joking that I don’t want to get married. I just wanted you to know it. You know, to explain…” She didn’t finish her sentence.

  The hair on the back of his neck stood. He imagined too well what a selfish man could force a young woman to do to satisfy him. He stared at her. “What did he do?”

  She didn’t reply, kept her gaze lowered and fiddled with her hands.

  “Did he touch you?” Her long silence drove him mad. “Did he make you touch him?” Since she still didn’t answer, he rose to his feet and loomed over the fire. “Stevie, answer me! What did he make you do?”

  She looked up then, tears causing her eyes to shine like the brightest stars at night.

  Blinding anger rolled through him. He growled and nearly kicked the full tajine to send it tumbling across the camp.

  Wiping her wet eyes, she whispered, “He made me take him in my mouth. But it’s okay, I’m over it. Honest. What is it you wanted to tell me?”

  He fought to control his rage. Clenched and unclenched his fists. No matter what she’d done during the dromedary ride, whether she’d pressed her breasts to him or not, he was at fault. He’d held her without shame or consideration, his hard dick pointing to her, sending the same message as that guy who had forced her to swallow him…

  Gah, I’m the lowest of the lowest.

  His head spun, filled with blackness. He spat out, “I loathe myself for what I did to you earlier. Sorry isn’t enough to…to…express how I feel about it.”

  Chapter Nine

  The nomad sat down on the carpet with another growl of anger. Now that he’d wrapped his blue turban around his face again, only his eyes were visible, reflecting reddish light from the setting sun. How sad—he signaled he’d pulled back into himself and wouldn’t let her in.

  Stevie stood from her cushion, circled the fireplace, and knelt by him to put a hand on his arm.

  He swatted at her. “Don’t touch me!”

  “Oh, sorry.” She jerked back.

  He shook his head and lowered his voice. “No, I am sorry. I’m on edge. I didn’t mean to snap.” He snuck a hand into his tunic and brought a pack of Marlboros out. “But from now on, Stevie, there’ll be no more touching, you understand? No riding bikes or dromedaries together, no holding each other, no nothing. Is that clear?”

  His anger pained her. On one hand, it was comforting to know he cared so much, reacting like her overprotective brothers would, but she had this small crush on him and didn’t want a stupid sex issue to destroy their mutual attraction. “Listen, it’s okay. You didn’t do anything wrong.” She sat back on her cushion.

  His brows furrowed. “In my eyes, I did, and it’s inacceptable.” He lowered his turban, put a cigarette to his mouth, and lit it, the harsh smell of tobacco drifting to her.

  Old memories hit her, of Mom sitting on the porch at home, smoking and coughing her lungs out into the late hours. Until one day her chair on the porch was empty.

  “Why do you smoke?” she asked him, scrunching her nose.

  He blew out a puff. “Am I not allowed one single sin?”

  “It’s just that you boast about living out in clean air and all, yet you expose your body to poison.”

  He squinted and studied her.

  “My mother died of lung cancer,” she explained matter-of-factly, though the terrible loss tore her apart in the same painful, merciless way as on the day they’d buried Mom. She’d never gotten over the grief. Ever since, Dad and her four brothers had been adamant about staying healthy and doing sports.

  Moves quick, Ragab flung his cigarette, then the whole pack, into the fire. They blew up with a whoof. “I’m sorry for your loss.” He gazed at her, really connected with her. “Very sorry.”

  “It’s okay.”

  “When are you going home?”

  “I have a plane in Rabat in three days.”

  “What are you going to do in the meantime?”

  “I talked to the rally organizers in Erfoud yesterday, after taking your brother to the hospital, so tomorrow, I’m going to Fez and playing tourist for a coupla days. But I’m gonna miss this place.” She swept the darkening camp and mountains behind with her hand.

  A sliver of the red sun had ducked under the horizon. The dogs had gone to sleep. Neighbors sat nearby chatting low around a fire. One of them raised a stainless-steel pot high in the air and poured a steamy beverage into glasses with a drippling sound. “What are they having?”

  “Mint tea.”

  “Why is he serving it from that height?”

  “To create a foamy top. I’ll make you some, if you want. It’s not just a drink. It’s a social event.”

  “Nice, I’d love it.” She gave Ragab a smile. “Everything is so easy and relaxed here.”

  “What I like most is that the sky is so clear, you can see all the stars at night. Every single one of them. And they shine brighter than I’ve seen them do in Europe.” He looked up, and she followed his example.

  Above sparkled a myriad of tiny lights fixed on a majestic dark purple canvas. So many blinking points, near and far, some forming geometrical figures. And according to astrophysicists, this went on forever. It never ended.

  “God, I have a feeling if I look too far, I could lose my look in that infinity.” Mesmerized, almost breathless, she glanced back at Ragab and caught him staring at her. His pupils sparkled, too.

  Something intense passed between them, tightening her chest. She couldn’t put it in
to words, but… Hadn’t he warned there would be “no nothing”? She lowered her gaze and curled her bare toes in the soft sand, which had chilled during the evening.

  She didn’t want to leave tomorrow. Too soon. Regardless of what was going on with Ragab, she wanted to explore this amazing place more. “I could get used to this life,” she whispered, more to herself than to him. “There’s no stress, no rush.”

  “What do you do at home?”

  Her heart jumped. She refocused on him, delighted he still wanted to talk.

  His dark eyes had softened. “Do you study, work…?”

  “I work as a delivery girl in a small town south of San Francisco. It’s a manhunt. And it’s not well paid at all. That’s why I compete in motorcycle rallies—I’m good at what I do, I can shine among the tough guys, and I want to win not for the trophies but for the money.”

  “I understand.” He nodded. “I race because I love it and it boosts my pride, but also because I bring money home. We don’t produce enough to be self-provided.”

  “How did you pay for your studies?”

  “I got a scholarship from the government. When I said I wanted to be a doctor, they didn’t hesitate.” He leaned forward to lift the lid off the tajine pot in the embers.

  Steam wafted to her nose with mouth-watering smells of cooked meat, vegetables, and exotic spices.

  “Ready,” he said. “Let’s call my mother and sisters.”

  Hours later, in what had to be the middle of the night, Stevie lay on the carpet inside the quiet tent with her rally jacket covering her shoulders. It was dark, so she couldn’t discern who was sleeping where among the sparse furniture and personal belongings.

  She hadn’t slept. Not because she froze, but because she’d had a too-long nap in the afternoon, and a wealth of memories, thoughts, and emotions kept her awake.

  They’d had a lovely family dinner, with Ragab’s mother in a better mood and the adorable twins trying to learn English, to everyone’s amusement. And Ragab had served Moroccan mint tea, a deliciously sweet yet fresh-tasting, scalding hot drink Stevie had loved and made her new favorite. All in all, a great evening.

  But this thing between him and her, this connection they had on several levels, had also intensified. Every time he spoke, she concentrated more on the sound of his voice than on his words. Whenever his gaze rested on her, the shine in his almond-shaped eyes made her heart flutter. He never gave them the chance to touch again, but she longed for physical contact, longed for more attention. How depressing that she had to travel in the morning! When she thought about it, her stomach hurt, as if she’d swallowed something foul.

  Well…

  Needing to pee, she discreetly got up and slipped out of the tent opening. The moon hung high, casting white light over the dark terrain and creating strange shadows.

  She tiptoed to a side of the camp, careful not to alert the animals, and wandered into the deep dunes. The sand glided soft and chilly between her toes like water on a beach, and her heels sank with each step.

  After she’d done her business, she continued walking. The immensity of the surroundings called to her. She couldn’t go back to the tent just yet, needed to breathe in the cool, clean air, listen to the overwhelming silence, and take in all the visual impressions. As long as she didn’t go too far and knew the direction back to the camp, she could stay out all night and absorb everything the desert had on offer. Too soon, she would have to get on her bike and say good-bye to this wild, majestic world.

  And to Ragab.

  Chapter Ten

  Having found a discreet spot far from the camp, far from anyone’s curiosity (one didn’t get much privacy in such a small community), Ragab took off his tunic, folded it into a cushion, and put it on the ground. He glanced around. Big, wavy sand dunes flanked him, and the only witness to his sin—he’d lied to Stevie about having “one single sin,” although now that he’d sworn never to smoke again, it was true—was the big, white moon above, and it didn’t care much what he did.

  He sat on his tunic, legs spread, and unbuttoned his pants.

  Hours ago, unable to sleep, he’d snuck out and paced here and there for a long time, pondering about his attraction to her, weighing the pros and cons. It hadn’t been easy, but he’d concluded they were both better off if he stayed away from her and she returned to her life in America. She was going to in any case, and not come back unless she participated in motorcycle rallies, but how often was that, once a year? Yes, he had to forget about her, even though it hurt, before she hurt him more.

  He closed his eyes with a reluctant sigh and pulled his cock out of his pants. Too much tension had built during the day. It’d started with worry, then continued with lust, anger, more lust… And he’d been hard half of the time. There was only one way to release some of that strain and get his mind off the different subjects messing with him, and he’d waited long enough.

  He stroked his stiffening cock gently at first, base to top, conjuring up the familiar image of the faceless woman whose sexy body had driven him to explosion in the past years. Sometimes she spun to him, full breasts with perky brown nipples swinging as she did an alluring belly dance to Arab music, and sometimes she turned to show her generous ass, bending forward with her sex leaking arousal and begging him to fill her.

  Tonight, he preferred to take her from behind. It was more distancing, less personal. He wasn’t in the mood for romance or sensual dancing. He wanted a quick penetration and a stress-releasing climax.

  An interference occurred, like when a television image blurred and another image transposed. The one of a real woman. Not just her sexy body, but her face. Stevie’s face…

  No!

  He shouldn’t think of her, shouldn’t. She was a mistake!

  And yet the erotic picture occupied his mind—the red-haired beauty he’d become attracted to in the course of a day, washing by the well in the torrid desert, daring him with her wild greens while offering a generous feminine figure of sweet, velvety skin and perfect round butt cheeks, and, as she leaned forward, her open, welcoming sex.

  No! Stevie had been scarred by another man, remember?

  Stupid, stupid.

  He refused to touch her, refused to hurt her. If it took interrupting his masturbation in order not to have anything to do with her, so be it. He wanted to keep his conscience clean.

  The vision stayed, though, vivid and capturing.

  “Go away!” he told her, squinting his eyes shut. “Go away!”

  But she taunted him to play, snaking a hand between her thighs, sliding a finger along the slit of her dark pink, glistening lips, and fingering the tiny nub at the end in circles. So hot, so beautiful, so wanton.

  Heat built in his cock. His balls tightened.

  Gasping, he stroked harder, pulling the foreskin back and forth over the bulbous head of his shaft.

  She inserted two fingers into her wet vagina and rubbed a spot inside. He’d never seen anything so sexy. He wanted to stick his tongue in and taste her, but she was giving such a great show, he preferred watching like a fascinated spectator while building his own climax.

  With a squeal, she closed her eyes and tensed, her inner thighs trembling, and juices sprayed out from beneath her clitoris. Her vagina walls contracted around her fingers, and she jerked her pelvis back and forth, loud moans of ecstasy filling his ears.

  He grabbed his balls with his free hand and rolled and squeezed them in his palm, increasing the tension. Everything in his groin sizzled, burned, waited to erupt. Just a little more stroking of his stone-hard cock and kneading of the nuts… Just a little more… Right on the edge…

  Something warned him to open his eyes.

  Grimacing from the near-pain of his impending orgasm, he turned to the disturbance.

  She stood bathed in moonlight, on top of a dune about ten meters away, watching.

  He didn’t believe the sight. It was a mirage, a wish his mind produced to trick him. He’d become so infatuated,
he saw her everywhere.

  But she covered her mouth in shock.

  Alarm shot through him. She was real!

  He had to hide, had to stop his release. But he was already exploding. The orgasm swept over him, brutal and unstoppable like a freight train. While he spun aside, heat rushed through his cock and came out as long spurts of semen into the sand, over his fingers. He panted and groaned and cursed, letting go of his spraying length because it hurt too much. Then he sat up, grabbed the tunic from under his ass, fingers clumsy, and tugged on it to cover his crotch. He turned to her, wanting to yell something, but what, an accusation? An excuse?

  She had already run away, disappeared into the night.

  Ugh…

  Embarrassment welled through him, shook him to his core. Tormented, he leaned down onto his side and dug his face into the sand.

  Chapter Eleven

  After Stevie had hurried back to the camp, she’d been unable to find sleep. A never-ending bombardment of troubled thoughts and feelings had kept her uptight into the early morning hours.

  One thing was to see the erotic scene of the gorgeous, young Bedouin man in a simple t-shirt and pants pleasuring himself in the dunes. It had been both shocking and awe-inducing. Since her abuse episode in college, she’d been wary of anything sexual, but watching Ragab pump his stiff, engorged dick until he came lit something in her—a fire, a need. In that moment, she’d known he could teach her to enjoy lovemaking, and she didn’t want any other man to do it.

  Another positive thing that’d happened as a consequence was her willingness to go back into the past, relive the abuse she’d suffered, and rationalize it. This had led her to a point where, in order be freed from the bastard who had forced her to blow him, she would need to forgive him. And once she’d done that, she’d discovered she could move on in her life and actually want a man, something she’d refused to do—or been unable to—until now. Ragab had done that to her: He’d set her free and given her desire. An incredible gift.