“With you,habibi,pretty much,” he chuckled.
She tried to hide her pleased grin at his response but finally gave up. Instead, she reached over and ran her hand along his leg up to his groin. He flashed her a heated glare.
“If it makes you feel any better, making love to you is one of my favorite things to do, too,” she confessed.
She ignored his strangled curse, enjoying the feeling of stroking his growing hardness under the thin fabric of his tan cargo pants. If he could torture her with thisAlmukhtarthing, then it only seemed fair that she gave him back a little of the torment she was feeling.
Besides,she silently mused,what else do I have to do for the next three hours?
Sixteen
Midnight’s breath froze in her throat when she caught sight of the spectacular house built into the desert canyon. She had not been expecting something so modern to be in the middle of nowhere. She slowly emerged from the Hummer, staring at the sandstone and glass building. A solar array was set up a short distance away, protected on three sides from the desert sands by the steep canyon walls while remaining in a central part that wouldn’t get much shade.
“This is incredible,” she breathed.
“It is an oasis in an oasis,” he admitted. “I discovered this canyon when I was a boy. It was my hide-away. When I graduated from medical school, I built this home.”
She shielded her eyes and looked up at the top of the canyon. It reminded her of pictures she had seen out west in Arizona and New Mexico. Lush green bushes and palm trees dotted the sides of a long, winding pool that disappeared into the side of the cliff. She walked onto the wooden bridge.
“Is this natural?” she asked, looking down at the shallow, twisting body of water that led from the Hummers to the house. She was surprised to see tiny fish swimming among the algae. Colorful rocks glistened in the sunlight.
“Yes. The house is eco-friendly and completely carbon neutral. Everything is recycled and anything that can’t be composted is taken back to the city to be recycled there. All power comes from the sun. Power walls store energy for use at night. The water comes from an underground river that runs for hundreds of miles through this valley. There are several places where it flows near the surface. This is one of them,” he said.
“How did you find it?” she asked.
He joined her as they crossed the bridge. A stone path, edged with native plants, dotted the landscape along the pool. The house would be shaded at different times of the day by the cliffs, but would always have a wonderful view of the sky. The canyon was actually a pleasant temperature considering they were in the middle of the desert.
“My brothers think I'm the boring one out of the four of us, but I’ve occasionally pulled some stupid stunts. When I was twelve, my father took me on one of his many diplomatic trips to a Bedouin tribe. Their home is about twenty kilometers from here. After listening to their dazzling tales of courage, I decided that I was going to run away from home. I took a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter, some apples, my horse, some Gatorade, and rode out into the desert to prove that I was a true desert sheikh,” he said with a wave of his hand.
She looked at him as if he had lost his mind. He chuckled and nodded. He threaded his fingers through hers as they walked along the path.
“Did I mention that a horrific sandstorm blew in by late afternoon?”
She laughed. “You didn’t check the weather before you decided to take your daring adventure?”
He scowled at her. “I was twelve.”
She giggled at his offended expression. “So, what happened?”
He looked around the canyon and his expression softened. “Yahya followed me, thank goodness. He was the son of the Bedouin sheikh’s head guard. He decided at twelve that he would be like his father. We became hopelessly lost. Three days later, with our horses half dead and us not far from it, we saw the most amazing sight. At first, we thought we were hallucinating,” he murmured, lost in his memories.
She ran her fingers along his jaw. He looked down at her and smiled, his eyes filled with excitement.
“Well, what did you see?” she demanded.
“Juniyaat alsahra' tarqus fi daw' alqamar.Desert fairies dancing in the moonlight,” he said.
It was only then that she noticed darkness was falling around them and tiny bioluminescents were glowing in the water. It took a moment for her to realize that the tiny green lights were actually the fish. Her lips parted in wonder and she stepped closer to the bank to watch the lights moving around.
“We found a magical canyon that gave us everything we needed. The dates from the palms to eat, water for us and our horses, shelter from the sand and the sun,” he said, waving his hand around him before he looked up. “And finally, the stars to give us light and the direction we needed to find our way home.”
“How long were you here?” she asked.
“Almost two weeks. It was hard to go home when we had a wonderful playground. A herd of wild camels comes through here. Their dried dung makes for good fuel. There was grass for the horses and endless caves to explore.”
“Your parents must have been out of their minds with worry,” she said with a shake of her head.
He grimaced. “Well, yes. When we showed up two weeks later as if nothing had happened, both of our fathers were furious. I could handle that. What I couldn’t handle was their grief... my mother and brothers… especially Jameel. He refused to talk to me for six months. The pain in my mother’s eyes when she thought I had perished still haunts me to this day.”