Maisey Yates - Midnight on the Sands - Hajar's Hidden Legacy / To Touch a Sheikh / Her Sheikh Protector

He tightened his hand into a fist and denied the impulse, letting her simply follow him.

“I haven’t been out to the stables yet. I didn’t … I wasn’t really sure if it might be off-limits to me.”

“And yet you find my bedroom a nice place to pass time in the evening.”

“Well, I was looking for you. And I … I know I’ve made a mess of some things here, Zahir.”

“The mess was already made, Katharine,” he said, having to force his words through his tightened throat. “Why do you do that?”

“Why do I do what?”

“For a woman with such confidence, you seem to take on more than your share of fault.”

“I just … I want to be useful.”

“Is that all?”

She was silent then, no witty comeback to that response. For the first time, he felt sorry for her. She was doing what she felt was right, what she felt she had to do, and yet, by her own admission, this experience was comparable to being in a darkened tunnel. And she was waiting for the light. That moment when she could be free. Of all this. Of him. Of the disaster that he was.

“Perhaps,” she said, finding her witty comeback, he assumed, “you see it in me because the same tendency lives in you.”

“I have earned every ounce of my guilt.”

“No,” she said, “you haven’t. The guilt belongs to other men, Zahir. The men who attacked your family. All for what?”

“Money,” he said. “Power.”

“All things you don’t seem to care about. Or even want. I don’t see how you think you have a stake in this.”

“Because I am left. I had to have committed a sin to manage that,” he said.

“Or maybe you were blessed.”

“That’s the last thing I feel, latifa .”

He opened the door to the outside and relished the feel of the cool evening wind on his face. This was when he felt normal. Alive. Otherwise he just felt … nothing, either that or a crippling guilt. Well, he could add lust to the list now. Nothing, guilt and lust. It was a small step, but it was a step.

The horses, one bay and one black, were waiting just outside the barn, tethered to the fence. He walked over to the larger, black mare and stroked her nose. The horses didn’t fear him. “This is Lilah. You can ride her. She’s very gentle.”

“The sentiment is appreciated, but I don’t need gentle.”

That statement made a dark cascade of erotic thoughts spin through his mind, made him pause for a moment as he thought of all the hidden meanings her statement could possess.

“Noted,” he said, jaw clenched tight.

“And who’s your handsome gentleman there?” she asked.

He put his foot in the stirrup and swung his leg over his mount. “Nalah doesn’t appreciate being called a he.”

“Sorry. I assumed—” she pulled herself up onto Lilah “—that a big strong man like you would ride a stallion.”

“Oh, no, definitely not. Not a good idea to have two stallions together, you know?”

She laughed, a shocked burst of sound that echoed through the paddock. “Did you just call yourself a stallion?”

He felt a smile teasing the edges of his lips, such a foreign feeling, even more so the small bit of contentment that accompanied it. Such a strange thing to talk to another person like this. To find that barrier of fear and uncertainty absent. Pride grew in him, mingling with the surge of warmth that was trickling through his veins. He had made her smile, after she had looked so sad.

“I did,” he said.

“Mmm … quite the ego.”

“If you can beat me to that last fence post over there, the one just in front of the large rock formation, you might just put a dent in it.”

She grinned at him and urged Lilah on with her feet, not waiting for further word from him. Fine as far as he was concerned. He could watch her shapely backside rise and fall with the motion of the horse, and then pass her at the end, of that he had no doubt. He couldn’t drive safely, couldn’t walk without a limp, but on the back of a horse, things were seamless. Easy.

The sand pounded beneath Nalah’s hooves, a beat that resounded in his body, in his soul. It made him feel complete. Healed in some ways. The sun dipped completely behind one of the few flat mountains that dotted the Hajari skyline and bathed everything in a purple glow.

He could still see Katharine clearly, pale ankles and face visible in the dim lighting. She had such a delicate look to her, and yet nothing could be further from the truth. Delicate, she was not. She was strength personified.

But she wasn’t going to win the race.

He overtook her at the last moment with ease and she let out a short, sharp curse word when she came to a stop just behind him, her hair wild around her face, her breathing labored, cheeks flushed pink.

“Oh, you knew you were going to do that, didn’t you?” she said, gasping and laughing at the same time.

“Of course I did.” He slid off of Nalah, grimacing as pain shot through his thigh when his feet made contact with the hard ground. The sand was thinner here, the terrain a bit rockier, and his muscle noticed the lack of extra cushion.

Katharine dismounted, too, and shook her main of coppery hair out, sending the faint scent of vanilla into the air, into him. It was like a sucker punch straight to his gut.

“Fair enough. If we’d been on my home turf, I would have done the same to you.”

“Speaking of home turf,” he said, ignoring the tightness of desire that was making itself felt at the apex of his thighs, drowning out any muscle pain he’d been experiencing. “I want to show you something.”

This hadn’t been part of the plan, but now that they were here it seemed logical somehow. She would want to see this. She’d been connected to Malik, too. There were so few people in his life that were.

There were so few people in his life, full stop. But it suddenly made sharing this seem vital. If someone else knew, then the memory would have a better chance at living. And maybe it wouldn’t feel quite so heavy on him.

He led Nalah to the post and tethered her to it, more of a precaution than he probably needed to take, but he didn’t chance things with his horses. Katharine followed his lead.

“All right, lead the way.”

“This way.”

Katharine followed Zahir, her heart still pounding, from the exhilaration of the ride, and from the intense adrenaline high that came just from being with him. Zahir was an experience all on his own. Infuriating, fascinating, arousing. She’d never known anyone like him.

Certainly Malik hadn’t been like this. He’d been fun. Easygoing. Truthfully, five years ago Zahir hadn’t even been like that. He’d been more of an enigma, always a bit more serious than his brother, but nothing like the man she’d got to know over the past week.

She followed him to the outcropping of rocks that seemed to have been placed there, everything around it flat and desolate for miles.

There was a small space between the rocks, just big enough for them to pass through.

“What is this?” she asked, looking at the green surroundings. The rocks curved inward and offered partial shade, and water trickled down the side of the natural walls.

“ Amal , the Oasis of Hope. This was what drew the first band of my people here to Kadim. Hajar is mostly flat and shelter from the elements is hard to find. They had been walking through the desert for weeks with no reprieve, and they found this outcropping. There was water, shelter.”

“And eventually a palace nearby. And a city,” she finished.

“The city came first. But this has always been a special place to my family. Malik and I used to come here as boys. A place we could play, escape the heat and the indoors.”