24
“What’s our strategy here?” Jan asked as she stared at the strange desert plants that grew all the way down to Noor Island’s sandy shoreline. “I don’t see a dock or jetty, and you’ve just dropped anchor about a hundred yards away from the island. Are we swimming? So now this is a cross between Jaws and The Cabin in the Woods?”
Ephraim grinned and shook his head, and Jan smiled as she watched the wind play with his long black hair, waving it like a battle flag. “The good Sheikh Darius will come get us, my lady,” he said, and there was that mocking undercurrent to the way he called Darius the good Sheikh.
It occurred to her that Ephraim had never answered her question about that, but this wasn’t the time to ask, because when she looked out toward the island again she saw Darius.
“Oh, God,” she whispered to herself when she saw the taller Sheikh standing on the island, his muscular frame immediately bringing back the memory of how he’d taken her, of how hard he’d made her come. Then she glanced over at Ephraim, and the memory of how hard he’d made her come whipped through her mind. “Oh, God, I’m a whore,” she muttered as she shook her head. “A stupid whore at that. This is a game, and they’re going to rape me, drown me, and head back to their kingdoms laughing like it was all a good joke.”
“You said something?” Ephraim asked, turning back towards her from where he was leaning over the front of the boat to make sure the anchor was firmly rooted.
“Just that this is the stupidest thing I’ve ever done.”
Ephraim grinned wider, looking her up and down as she stood there in a black top, a gold head-scarf, a long blue skirt, and pink running shoes that she’d insisted on wearing.
“You mean the stupidest thing you’ve ever done apart from that outfit?” came the voice, and Jan whipped around to see Darius approaching on his dinghy, smiling wide as he stared up at her, his handsome face throwing her into a state of such utter confusion that she seriously considered diving head-first into the oasis and swimming in the other direction, fresh-water sharks and man-eating snakes be damned. “Four days with Ephraim, and you are already dressing like a gypsy rebel. What happened to the elegant, sophisticated Professor Johansen with her suit and spectacles? Do you have contact lenses now?”
“Nope. But I’m too afraid to wear my glasses, because then I might see what a mess I’ve gotten myself into,” Jan replied quickly, feeling the tension dissipate almost immediately from the cocky confidence of Darius’s quip.
Ephraim grinned as he straightened up and squinted at Darius. It really did seem like these two men were friends—or at least like they could be friends. The energy was strange, surreal, even seductive. She felt herself smiling too, and for one glorious moment, as the sun beamed down on the waters of the Golden Oasis, all three of them were smiling wide.
“Ephraim,” said Darius, reaching out his arm as he pulled the dinghy alongside the boat.
“The good Sheikh Darius,” said Ephraim, grabbing Darius’s arm.
Both Sheikhs wore short sleeves, Darius in white linen and Ephraim wearing black, which seemed to be his color. Jan watched as their brown arms flexed and glistened under the sun, biceps bulging, veins popping as the two Sheikhs held the grip for a long moment, both of them grinning, each Sheikh’s green eyes searching the other’s face as if looking for some weakness, some way to get the upper hand.
“Getting soft in your old age, I see,” Ephraim said when Darius bounded up onto the deck of the boat from his dinghy.
“Better than getting soft in the head,” Darius shot back, pulling down the bottom of his shirt, which had crept up to reveal his washboard abs above his low-cut linen trousers.
“This was your idea, I should remind you. Though perhaps I am getting a little soft in the head if I agreed to actually show up here. You know, the logical thing would be to assassinate me right now and take your woman back to civilization where you can live happily ever after,” Ephraim said, his smile changing form, eyes narrowing.
“Is that your plan, Ephraim?” Darius said, his own smile transforming as he stood to full height and looked down at Ephraim. “Shall we have it out, then? Guns, knives, or bare hands?”
“Ah, you know me, Darius. I am a man of delicate finesse. Poison in your sweet tea, and then I will watch you sputter and choke while I get a manicure.”
“Why don’t you two just kiss and get it over with?” Jan said, shaking her head as she watched the back-and-forth between these two Sheikhs. She could feel the tension in the air, but it wasn’t an anxious tension. It was the other kind of tension. The good kind. The hot kind. The wet kind.
Both Sheikhs turned to her at the same time, and for a moment Jan wondered if her joke was a bit too much. She thought about what Ephraim had said to her, about how this was a different world, a different culture, with a different history.
But Ephraim just grinned and shrugged. “Ah, if that was to happen, it would have happened years ago. Right, Darius?”
Darius smiled and ignored the quip. It wasn’t that he was bothered by it, Jan could tell. No, it was because his attention had moved from Ephraim to her. And now it was all on her.
“Jan,” he said softly as he walked over to her, his green eyes narrowed to such an intense focus that Jan couldn’t for the life of her hold the eye contact. “Oh, Jan.”
“Darius,” she whispered as her insides swirled with emotion, the memories of the passion they’d shared mixing with those moments when she’d stared into Ephraim’s eyes as she came, all of it making her unsure of what she felt, of what she wanted, of whom she wanted. “Oh, God, Darius. I . . . don’t know what to . . . what to say! I don’t know what to do! I just . . .”
“None of us knows what to say,” Darius muttered as he came close, so close she could smell his musk once again, the aroma taking her back to that place where the “good” Sheikh Darius had shoved her panties in her mouth and grabbed her by the hair and taken her so hard and deep she swore she could still feel him between her legs. “But I know what to do. Because there is only one thing to do, Jan. Just one thing.”
And before she realized what was happening, before she could say another word, he grabbed her by the hair and pulled her head back. Then, with the sun shining down on the waters, with Sheikh Ephraim standing in the background, Darius kissed her full on the mouth. By God he kissed her.