Her tongue, like wafer. “Tell me in the morning, we’ll talk tomorrow. You need—”
“You and me, this is something. Something hot.”
Bile in her mouth. “You should lie down. You need to sleep.”
“Sleep?”
“Yes. Come into the tent.”
He twisted on his hips, back and forth. Then he said, “I’m off,” and turned toward the jeep.
“No!”
“No, really,” he said, still in that casual, devil-may-care manner. “I’d be the death of you, honestly. I do that to people. Kill them and stuff.”
“Is that what happened to Prudence? Did you kill her?”
Thea froze. Where had that come from? Was that her voice? It didn’t sound like it. She looked around. Who said that?
“You don’t look very dead to me.” Gabriel pulled open the door.
Thea lurched, grabbing him. “Don’t go!” But which was the greater danger—Gabriel or the desert? What exactly had he been on the point of telling her? Was the bad, bad deed more than what they knew? Was it in fact what Kim had suggested in Nizwa?
He turned slowly, and ran his hand along her arm, over her shoulder to the side of her neck. “I can’t stay. I can’t . . . hold back.”
“I’ll come. Wait till I grab my passport.”
“You can’t come where I’m going.”
She couldn’t risk breaking their contact. “Gabriel! Stop this. Please.”
He stroked the side of her face.
“I’m coming too,” she said cautiously, trying to move past him to get into the jeep. To hell with her passport. She’d go without. But he moved in front of her, so that she stepped into him, against him; his breath warmed her neck. His hands fussed around her elbows, then gripped them. They were in the very place where she had seen him moments before with . . . he’d said it. She knew it now. She was the woman she’d seen. By the jeep. Near him. Talking.
Time in a tumble.
She pressed closer to him. “I’m cold, Gabriel,” she said, her lips on his neck.
“Me too.”
Her hand slid down to his belt. A deep sigh, human and recognizable, escaped him. It was working. She was bringing him back. But at what cost? At what pleasure?
With a backward step, she yanked him away from the jeep. Second by second, he was becoming the Gabriel she knew best—earthbound and seducible.
“I won’t resist,” he said.
Another pull on his buckle and they were near the tent. If he would just lie down, she thought, he might sleep. She kissed his cheek.
“Won’t resist,” he said, kissing her neck. “Can’t.”
The back of her fingers felt the bulge of keys in his hip pocket. She crouched at the tent and pulled him toward her; he fell in, landing across her. Squirming beneath him, she found his mouth. He responded. She sucked on his tongue, determined to keep him going until she was safe, until they were both safe. It was easy, though. He pushed up her T-shirt; she pulled his shirt over his head and pressed her hand into his crotch, rubbing, pushing, the keys right there, an odd, jagged shape above her thumb. If she grabbed them too quickly, he might revert, click back. She must not do the stupid thing—be impetuous and hasty, like heroes in bad movies. In the real world, there could be no mistakes. Calm, measured, slow. Slow, like his hand between her thighs and his breath heavy in her ear. So simple. Rambling incoherently moments before, and now a mere man, making the right moves, arousing her. Fear become desire. Focus, she thought. Focus! She opened his buckle, his zipper, burrowed into his clothing and curled her fingers around his erection, kissing him again, because she wanted to; had wanted to since, in that intimate way, he had nodded at her by the Bimmah Sinkhole and something warm had shot up from the ground. He moaned. Get them. . . . Her knees lifted. Keys. Jeep. Keys. Safety. Danger. Kissing so good, so well, and Alex far away, asleep, unconscious, so unconscious that this wasn’t even happening.
Gabriel moved down, his mouth on her ribs, her hip. At any moment, he would push off his jeans. Clear thinking was drifting beyond reach. Should she grab them now or were the keys best left in his pocket until he fell asleep? No. If things went wrong, it would be too much of a scramble to get them from his discarded jeans, so she interceded, leaned over to undress him. With a whimper of anticipation, he lay back. . . . She hadn’t thought of it, but there it was, right by her cheek, so she took him in, her mouth working so well he wouldn’t have known or cared that her hand was searching his pocket. She gripped the keys tight in her fist, her mouth tightening also, too much, because he pulled her off, saying it was too soon, too soon. She moved her arm back, behind her. Nothing to hide them under, nowhere to conceal them, no nook or fold. His tongue flicked her nipple, slid to her navel. Fuck the keys, she thought. Fuck me. Careful not to let them tinkle, she could feel only bare canvas, as bare as Gabriel’s shoulder beneath her palm. If he rattled them in the upheaval, or leaned on them, he might realize that the seduction had been a ploy. There would be no convincing him that it was both ploy and pleasure.
Her legs jerked; he was taking her apart. No one could see them. No one knew where they were. Only the dunes heard her cry out, as the keys dug deep into her palm.
A dome of light. The canvas was beginning to reflect the brightening sky. Gabriel was still sleeping, Thea still awake, failing to adjust to her new status: adulteress. It had gone too far. She had intended to seduce him only to a point, until she got the keys,
