Special Deliveries: Heir To His Legacy: Heir to a Desert Legacy

Her only family was Aden. The reminder of why she was doing this.

Poles were raised along the aisle, white silks wrapped around them, draped between them, blowing in the wind. It was utter perfection in its simplicity, the waves on the shore the only music, with few decorations to mar the natural beauty of the sand and surf.

She raised her eyes and saw Sayid, standing at the head of the aisle, the wind blowing the silks, partially obscuring him from view. But for a moment, their eyes locked and held. Darkness, heat, crackled between them. She looked down. It was traditional for the bride to keep her eyes down anyway. To keep herself from smiling. To not appear too eager.

Which was good, because not-smiley and not-eager, were coming easily at the moment.

She kept going until she saw his shoes, half-buried by sand, come into her field of vision. Then she looked up. He was dressed like she was, simple, not entirely in the Attari tradition, but not entirely Western, either. His shirt was white, loose over his muscular frame, as were his slacks. His shoes were white as well, simple, embroidered with gold thread.

The strength of his masculine beauty, the impact that it had on her, was shocking. She would have thought that after yesterday, after those bold, awful, yes they were totally awful, things he’d said to her, she would despise the sight of him. But she didn’t.

And part of her didn’t think the things he’d said had been so awful, either.

Part of her had been intrigued. And wanted to hear more. Had wanted him to show her just what he’d meant.

It was so not the time to be having those thoughts. Though, there would never be a good time for those thoughts. Ever.

Sayid stood facing her, but not touching her, the distance between them welcome.

The ceremony started in Arabic and Sayid leaned in, her heart stalling out as he drew near to her. Then he began to translate softly, the words husky, smooth. So unlike the way he’d spoken to her yesterday. And no less impacting. These were words of commitment, of caring not of lust or domination. About the meaning of marriage, the soul deep bond of it. A meaning she had never before witnessed, but that something deep within her ached to have.

When it came time for her to say her vows, she repeated them as best she could, with no idea of what she was promising to do before the officiant and all of the witnesses. She knew her Arabic was clumsy and very likely completely unintelligible, and she just hoped that the headline tomorrow wasn’t about the new sheikha who had garbled her vows.

As soon as she spoke the last word, she nearly sagged with relief.

But then it was Sayid’s turn to take his vows. And he chose to repeat them in English.

“I will not leave you, or turn back from you,” he said, his voice strong, his focus somewhere behind her. And for that she was grateful, because she was certain that eye contact was beyond her at this point. He still didn’t touch her, didn’t reach for her hand. “Where you make your home, I shall make mine. For without you there is no home. Your people are now my people, as mine are yours. Where you die I will die. And there they will bury me. May God deal with me severely if anything but death separates us.”

Chloe tried to breathe, the sea air suddenly too harsh, too salty. Her chest ached, ached with a need so fierce she feared it would choke her.

She wished the vows had stayed a mystery. Wished she had never heard the promises they’d made to each other in a way she could understand. Because when they’d been foreign, it hadn’t felt real. Hadn’t truly felt like vows.

Now, though, now she felt the weight of them. It was as if an invisible thread had been wound around them, binding them together. As if they were linked now, in a way that was completely beyond reason or logic.

And as the bond tightened between them, she felt the ties to her old life being cut away, until all that remained was this. Was Attar, and Aden and Sayid. The weight of it, the sadness, the certainty in it, was almost enough to bring her to her knees.

None of this is real. She tried to remind herself, tried to shift her focus back to the reasons behind the wedding. The practicality of it. Tried to stop the vows from echoing in her mind.

The officiant picked a bowl up from a small table that was between Chloe and Sayid. It was filled with honey. He began to speak, loudly and for the guests, while Sayid translated for her ears only. “It is an Attari tradition, for the bride and groom’s first taste of marriage to be sweet, that our life may always be sweet.” He took her hand in his, and dipped her pinkie finger into the honey, then lifted it to his lips, closing his mouth around it, sucking the honey from her skin.

His lips were hot, his tongue slick. The intimate touch sent a shiver through her body. Violent. Unsettling. It left her shaking, aching.

He lowered her hand, then repeated the action with his own finger, extending it to her, touching his fingertip to her lips, requesting entry. She complied, opening her mouth for him.

The sweetness of the honey burst over her tongue first, warm and sticky, a shot of pure sugar. Then it faded, dissolving, giving way to the salt of Sayid’s skin. Without thinking, she slid the tip of her tongue up the side of his finger, taking a taste of him that wasn’t covered up by anything. A pure shot of Sayid that was as intoxicating as any alcohol.

She was almost reluctant to release him, which was as strange as anything that had happened to her since she’d agreed to marry him.

And now they were married. There were cheers from the guests, and blinding flashes from the photographer. Aden was sleeping through it, cradled closely by one of his nannies in the front row.

And then Sayid took her hand, the gesture distant in its way, formal. The way he did it, his forearm pressed against hers, his fingers curved around her hand, spoke of tradition. And yet, her body didn’t seem to have gotten the memo.

A shot of heat fired through her, a sort of bone-deep longing she could scarcely identify. The truth was, she didn’t want to identify it, because she knew what it was.

Because she knew that, no matter how much she wanted to pretend she didn’t like the things he’d said to her yesterday, no matter how much she wanted to deny that the taste of his skin had made her heart beat faster, had made her breasts ache, it didn’t change the fact that she did.

Like any scientific discovery, once something was found, once a hypothesis was introduced, it was impossible to close the lid on it again. It was there. It could never not be there again.

And she was curious by nature. A requirement of her field. She had to know things, had to know not just how they worked but why, and when, and for how long.

But this couldn’t be the same. She couldn’t follow this problem to a solution. Because this wasn’t something she could sit and figure out on her whiteboard. There was no logical equation to Sayid. No set pattern of steps to work with to answer the question of what it would be like to have his lips on hers, to feel all that raw male passion directed at her, poured onto her with no restraint, with no denial on either side.

No. There was no way to figure that out with a whiteboard and a pen.

And the other option was simply not open for consideration.

CHAPTER NINE (#u8c8e8ecd-f3db-5ae3-ac67-0175a2185bbc)

THE RECEPTION FEAST HAD been laid out in a lush, silk tent. Punched tin lanterns hung from the supports, casting stars onto a rug-covered floor. Low tables were situated inside with silk pillows placed around them for the guests to sit on. Every table was full. Servants from both palaces were in attendance, celebrating with their sheikh. Celebrating the future.

Every tribal elder in Attar was there, seated at the table heads, along with diplomats and serviceman. As low-key as the wedding had been, the reception was anything but. A party in the truest sense of the word. Too bad Chloe wasn’t in a party mood.

She and Sayid were sitting at a table on a raised pedestal, making it so that all eyes could easily be on them. There was music, laughing, talking. And Chloe was afraid that her head might burst from tension. It might not have been so bad if the vows hadn’t been playing on continual loop in her mind.

If anything but death separates us…

Except sixteen years and the coming-of-age of Aden was meant to separate then. And they were never intended to be joined, not truly. Not on the kind of deep, spiritual level spoken of during their wedding ceremony.

Sixteen years. Sixteen years with the man beside her. Sixteen years away from her home.

Except thinking of Portland, of the green, rain-drenched landscape, didn’t fill her with any sort of longing. Didn’t make her ache with a need to be there. She didn’t even feel a connection anymore. But Attar wasn’t her home, either.

So when her marriage to Sayid was over, when Aden was grown, where would her home be? She already knew she couldn’t go back. Because going back would be living as if this, as if Aden, as if Sayid, had never happened. As if she could be happy with the things she’d wanted before.

She knew she couldn’t be.

The truly frightening thought was, whether or not Attar would be home in the end. If Sayid would be home.

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye. He was so handsome, his posture rigid, black eyes fringed with dark lashes focused intently on their guests. His skin was smooth, bronzed perfection, his cheekbones prominent. His lips… curved. Sensuous. She knew they could be cruel, too, she’d been on the receiving end of harsh words and sneers. But she also knew, with a kind of intuition that was born into her, that they would also be soft for a lover. Giving. Demanding.

No. She couldn’t think about him that way. That was just craziness. Illogical on every level.

But no matter how illogical, part of her wanted to draw closer to him. To see if he was as hot and hard as he appeared. To see if his lips tasted as sweet as honey.

She sucked in a sharp breath and looked back down at her empty plate. She hardly remembered eating the lamb and lentils, but clearly, she had.

The drumbeat increased, became louder, the dominant sound in the room now, and one of the tribal leaders seated at the head of one of the long tables stood, speaking loudly in Arabic, his voice carrying over the music.