Mirage (Mirage #1)(66)

“We shouldn’t—” I started.

“We haven’t done anything,” he said. “You won’t read any to me? Not even in Kushaila? Poetry is meant to be read out loud.”

“Not even if your life depended on it,” I replied.

I could feel his laugh, vibrating under my palm in his chest, and puffing over my cheeks. One of his hands had come to rest against my ribs, and the thumb swept small arcs. He hadn’t moved, and when I blinked my lashes brushed his cheeks.

The verses echoed in my head, inescapable, on the tip of my tongue. I’d never been filled with such sharp want, tantalizing the palms of my hands. I should not have—my hands rose from his chest to his cheeks, and the wooden frame of the couch dug into my back. He was over me, blocking out the world, his face angled in such a way—

“Amani.”

His hand tightened against my ribs. The look in his eyes made my toes curl, the flush deepen, the twisting thrill sharpen against my breastbone. I wanted it to end, wanted the poetry forgotten or consumed with something else.

“Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what you want.”

I shook my head, unable to speak. I had never felt the stranglehold of my want so strongly. I wanted—Dihya, I wanted everything, as I always did. My skin, the palms of my hands, my mouth—all of it was pricked with want, with the need to press as close to Idris as I could, to pull desire from him as he would pull it from me.

He sat up and came to lay beside me.

The difference between every touch before and every touch today was the leisurely way it seemed to unfold. I’d not forgotten the sharp twist of desire in my blood, nor had it faded away. But it had the time now to figure out the best way to heat, and where best to entrench itself inside me. When Idris drew me down to his side I felt a soft tremor and a deepening flush everywhere. Idris was unchanged, but I was aware of more of him; aware of the lazy thumb tracing shapes on my arm, of his broad shoulders. And I could see him watching me, noticing where my eyes wandered before looking away.

“My father used to recite poetry whenever my mother was upset with him,” he said. He’d leaned back just a little so that there was space between us. “My mother used to say to him that if he used it more sparingly, it would be more effective.”

“She was upset with him often?”

Likely not, if Idris’s smile was anything to go by.

“No,” he replied. “Or at least, not as often as he would recite the verses he liked best.”

I didn’t expect Idris to recite them himself. My hand pressed just over his heart as the words tumbled out, rough and beautiful.

“I thought you couldn’t speak Kushaila.”

“It was my mother tongue until I was ten, Amani,” he replied, looking up at me. “I have forgotten how to speak it. Most days, I’ve forgotten how to hear it, too. But I remember those lines. I just can’t remember what they mean.”

“She sways and pearls dance at her throat, she steps and anklets cut her delicate skin,” I began softly. “The sun nursed her beauty, though she walked veiled and hidden from its light. And her cheek seemed a talisman, a mirror to heaven, beautiful and shining.”

“Now, how did you translate that so quickly?”

I lowered my gaze. “It’s a popular love poem. That’s only a piece of it.”

He sat up just enough that our eyes were level with one another. He could not read Kushaila, of that I was certain, not enough to understand the poetry in his mother’s collection. He didn’t need to, I thought. He only needed to see what it had wrought on my face, to lean forward and let the slow-burning fire spread. His kiss was gentle, questioning, as though I might pull away at any moment. My hands didn’t move, and when he pulled away I thought he might stop.

And when I am with you …

I drew him to me with a sigh, my hands on his shoulders, fingers bunched up in his shirt. I didn’t need words. A hundred women had already spoken for me.

Would that the sun never rise nor the moon set …

A frisson of shock went through me. We’d never given in, I realized, not truly. Every step, every touch, every breath had been watched and measured and reined in. I’d never let my hands roam over his shoulders and arms, nor had I pushed back or demanded anything from him. Here, now, I did and I did and he gave as much as he took.

Had Itimad seduced her husband thus? Had she filled his blood with the words of bygone women and claimed him when she knew he would be unable to resist? Had she waited for the air to thin in his lungs, for the world to seem strange, for every touch to set fire to his skin as Idris did to mine?

Would that the stars remain fixed in heaven …

I wanted Idris, and the feeling of featherlight touch trailing over my throat and his hands on my waist. I wanted the stars to keep this secret, as they had kept the poetesses’, to protect us against those who wanted us apart. I pulled him down with me and watched the sunlight play in his hair, saw the broken-up reflection of a girl flushed to the brim in his eyes.

This was not a half life, I thought when he kissed me again. I belonged to him and he belonged to me—we had made the choice. Nothing had felt as real as this since I’d come to the Ziyaana. All choices had been taken from us, and still we’d found a way to forge paths independent of what our masters wanted.

He pressed his forehead against mine and breathed. My eyes closed, and my hands looped around his neck. Outside the world continued, but for now there was only the two of us and what we felt for one another.