Midnight in Arabia

He moved over her body, reminding her of the stalking lion he’d been named for. “I would have you beyond amazed.”

“What, you want me passed out from pleasure?” she teased.

“It has happened before.”

Yes, it had. “Be my guest.” She waved languidly with her hand, as if it didn’t matter one way or another to her.

But they both knew it did. She’d never been indifferent to him. She never would be, but maybe, just maybe she would learn to move on from him.

“You have a serious expression I do not like,” he said with a frown. “You are not thinking of me.”

“Of course I’m thinking of you. Who else would I be thinking of while I am in your bed?”

He looked away, telltale color showing on his cut cheekbones. “I used to wonder.”

“What? Why?”

“You were not a virgin when you came to my bed the first time.” He met her eyes then. “I thought it mattered.”

Yes, he had, though she hadn’t known it. “If I recall correctly, it was my bed we used the first time, and I was as close to a virgin as you can get.”

“What do you mean?”

“Did you think I’d had a string of lovers before you?”

“I preferred not to know details.”

Arrogant, possessive sheikh. Even though he’d had no intention of staying with her, he didn’t like to think of anyone else with her, either. He didn’t deserve the truth, but maybe she deserved for him to know it.

Six years before, she’d thought her innocence obvious and had only learned otherwise when they broke up.

“I lost my virginity on a bet.”

“That is … a bet …” For the first time ever, she saw Asad bin Hanif al Sha’b Al’najid lost for words.

It made her smile despite the topic under discussion. “For my high school years, my parents placed me in a coed boarding school known for its science programs.”

At least they’d cared enough to take the advice of her middle school counselor on that.

“Yes?”

“There were the typical geeks and jocks, though most of the athletically gifted were highly intelligent, as well. It wasn’t easy to get placement in the school and required high marks on the standardized tests.”

“I imagine you did very well indeed.”

She had, but book smart didn’t equal people smart as she’d learned unequivocally her sophomore year. “I was the bookish, shy student who didn’t make friends easily.”

“Because you were afraid to let them in.”

“Partly.” And partly because she was socially awkward.

He gently tipped her head back toward him. “I would have been your friend.”

It was a nice thing to say, but she couldn’t stifle her laughter. “No, you wouldn’t. You would have been one of the popular people. You couldn’t have helped yourself. You wouldn’t have even noticed me.”

“I noticed you in college and you had not appreciably changed by then I think.”

“True.” Why was she sharing her past again when he wasn’t going to be in her future? “Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s old news anyway.”

“Tell me about this bet.”

“The year I was a sophomore, the senior boys had a bet going on for who could bag the most virgins.”

“Bag?”

“Get in the sack … have sex with.”

“I see, and clearly at that age, you were a virgin.”

“I was. When the senior boy who decided to make me one of his conquests started flirting with me, I had no clue what was going on. It was only the middle of the school year, but by then, most of the students knew about the bet, so girls were wary of these boys.”

“But you are not a gossip and you pay little attention when it goes on around you.”

“Right. So I didn’t know. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I thought he just wanted to be my friend. And the funny thing? We ended up enjoying each other’s company a lot. He became my best friend.”

Asad winced. “Then you had sex.”

“Yes. Despite my naïveté, I wasn’t an easy mark—simply because the idea he’d want sex with me was so completely outside my thought process.”

“And sex would have been an intimate encounter for you, something you’d already learned to avoid.”

“You understand me so well.” She bit her lip. “So did Darren. We finally had sex the week before graduation. It only happened once. I didn’t like it very much.”

“He was harsh?”

“No. He tried to make it good for me. He kept asking me if I was okay. He wasn’t a cruel boy, not really. But it was my first time and I wasn’t doing it because I wanted him. I never desired anyone that way until I met you. I just wanted to be close to him.”

“What a little bastard.”

“No. Selfish and thoughtless? Yes.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know about the bet until two days later when one of the other boys in the competition came up to me and complained about how he’d had it in the bag until I won it for Darren.”

“The little prick.”

“Yes, he was. He wanted me to hurt, to know the sex hadn’t been about love, but in that, the joke was on him. I never thought Darren loved me.” She’d thought he was her friend and she’d felt enough betrayal from that, though they’d worked through it in the end.

“Yet you had sex with him.”

“He was leaving.”

“So you gave him your virginity?”

“I don’t expect you to understand.” Darren had, though. He’d known how hurt she was by the bet too, even though she’d pretended indifference. “Darren’s guilt was way worse than my embarrassment.”

“Don’t tell me you forgave him?”

“He’s one of my dearest friends.” Though they hadn’t seen each other more than a handful of times in the intervening years, they stayed in touch with email and telephone.

He’d invited her to his wedding and introduced Iris to his wife as the girl who had made him the man he’d come to be. That bet had had a transforming influence on Darren, changing forever the way he related to others and decimating the power of peer pressure in his life.

He’d told her once that she’d freed him. She’d told him he was an idiot, but knew deep down that in a way he was right. Only it had been his own deep regret at hurting her and the other girls that had truly set him free.

“You cannot be serious.”

“I can. Darren learned not to use people.” Iris hadn’t been so lucky. She hadn’t learned not to be used, not then anyway.

“You cannot be this disgusting boy’s friend. I forbid it.”

She laughed, finding the telling easier than she’d expected it to be. “Too late. And he’s no longer a boy. He’s an adult man, married with two children and working in the diplomatic corps.”

“I will see about that.”

“You will do no such thing. Darren hurt me, but he didn’t abandon me, not like you did. The boy who told me about the bet? Darren disowned their friendship.”

“He was quite the tarnished knight,” Asad said with heavy sarcasm.

“He apologized. We moved forward.”

“I too apologized.”

“And I’m lying here in your bed. What more do you want, Asad?”

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