The Dreaming Of... Collection. Оливия Гейтс

must.’

      ‘I must?’ He glanced at her again, bemused. ‘Why must I?’

      ‘Everyone has a favourite colour.’

      ‘I don’t.’

      She let out a laugh, half-exasperation, half-amusement. ‘You decorated your dining room in red. You wouldn’t have chosen that colour if you didn’t like it—’

      ‘I didn’t choose it. I had someone decorate it for me.’

      Of course. She couldn’t quite see Ammar looking at paint samples. And yet he’d chosen her clothes. ‘You told me you liked bright colours—’

      ‘On you.’

      ‘So perhaps a bright colour is your favourite,’ Noelle suggested helpfully. ‘Orange? Baby-blue? Or pink, like me?’

      His lips twitched. ‘None of the above.’

      She sat back in her seat, arms folded. ‘All right, I’ll choose a colour for you.’

      He arched his eyebrows, a tiny smile hovering now about his mouth. She loved his smiles, even the small ones. Each felt like a victory, a blessing. ‘And what colour will you choose?’

      Noelle considered. ‘Yellow,’ she finally said. It was the colour of sunshine and mornings and freshness. The colour of hope. And she needed some hope.

      ‘Yellow,’ Ammar repeated and she nodded.

      ‘Yes. Yellow.’

      ‘Well, there’s plenty of yellow in the desert,’ he said after a moment. ‘So perhaps it is my favourite colour after all.’

      ‘Maybe that’s why you chose to live here,’ Noelle said, a teasing lilt entering her voice. ‘Even without the ocean view.’

      The corner of his mouth quirked upwards. ‘Even without.’ Then he shook his head slowly, a frown drawing his brows together. ‘But the realtor promised ocean views.’

      She let out a sudden burst of laughter. ‘For a second there, I almost believed you.’

      ‘I know I don’t joke very often.’

      ‘I like it,’ Noelle said quietly. ‘I like when you smile, and especially when you laugh.’

      His glance flicked to her, his smile softening his features, every trace of harshness gone. ‘You always brought that out in me.’

      ‘I did?’

      ‘From the moment I met you. You made me laugh, even when I had nothing to laugh about.’

      Noelle’s heart seemed to turn right over. Silently she reached for his hand and Ammar laced his fingers through hers. Neither of them spoke, but they didn’t need to. The silence was a golden thread drawing and binding them together.

      Eventually Noelle leaned her head against the seat and closed her eyes. Sitting there with the sun on her face and the breeze blowing over her, she felt an easing inside, an unfurling and blossoming of a long-dormant seed, a seed of happiness. Of hope.

      ‘We’re here.’

      She must have dozed, for Ammar nudged her gently and she realised she was leaning against his shoulder. She felt the heat of him, inhaled the tangy, spicy scent of his aftershave and scrambled to a seated position.

      ‘Sorry. I was lulled to sleep by the Jeep, I suppose.’

      ‘More like jolted to sleep,’ Ammar said with a little smile. Three smiles today, Noelle thought, and counting. ‘Let’s take a look around.’

      The oasis was still and lovely, a placid little sea of blue fringed by palms, flung down in the desert by an almighty hand. Noelle bent down to trail her fingers through the warm water.

      ‘There aren’t any creatures in here, are there?’ she asked a bit belatedly.

      ‘Just a snake or two, but they tend to be shy.’

      She jerked her hand back before she realised he was teasing her. ‘You’re actually joking,’ she said. ‘Again.’

      He raised his eyebrows. ‘Must be a good day.’

      ‘A very good day,’ she agreed. She straightened, smiling. ‘You did find my toc-toc joke funny, back in the day.’

       ‘S-cargot.’

      A thrill ran through her, that he’d remembered. ‘It was pretty dreadful, I know.’

      ‘No, no, it was good.’ He smiled—that made four now, and this was a proper one—his hands in his pockets as he tilted his face up to the sun. ‘Very good. I don’t like to eat them, though.’

      ‘Eat them?’ Noelle repeated rather dazedly, for the sight of Ammar’s smile had plunged her into a sudden spinning void of lust. He was an unbearably attractive man, even with the buzz-cut and the scar. She would never grow tired of looking at him, of gazing at the hard angles of his cheek and jaw, the sexy, sculpted pout of his lips, the lean, powerful lines of his chest and shoulders. And, more than that, she would never tire of the way his eyes lightened to bronze when he smiled, and how that single, simple curving of his lips made her feel as if she’d scaled Everest, as if she were on top of the world.

      Ammar turned and caught her looking at him and Noelle knew every emotion was reflected in her eyes, visible on her face. ‘Snails,’ he clarified huskily, and Noelle scrambled to make sense of what he was saying, which was exceedingly difficult when all she could think about was how wonderful he looked and how much she wanted to touch him.

      ‘Snails,’ she repeated, still dazed, still filled with desire. Ammar reached for her hand. His own face was inscrutable as always, yet his eyes blazed intent. Or was she just hoping they did, and that he felt the same tidal wave of lust that was crashing over her? He’d felt it last night, she knew he had, and this morning, too—he’d wanted her. She had to believe that. She just didn’t know why he’d stopped.

      ‘Come on,’ he said. ‘I’ll show you the ruins.’

      She let him take her hand and lead her to the ruins a little way from the water. At first the remnants of the medieval city looked like no more than boulders scattered in the sand but, as Ammar led her through, pointed out the foundations of a house, the still straight line of a road, she saw the order of it, a civilization lost for centuries.

      ‘What happened?’ she asked, turning in a circle as she stood in what Ammar had said was most likely a shop. He braced one hip against a weathered piece of wall, his eyes narrowed against the sun’s glare.

      ‘No one knows for certain, but archaeologists believe a sandstorm covered the entire town about six hundred years ago. Destroyed everything in a single day.’

      ‘Wow.’ Noelle swallowed and studied the remnants of that day. I know what that feels like. She didn’t say it, didn’t even want to think it. For once she didn’t want the pain of the past to interfere with the present. The sun was shining, Ammar was smiling and the day stretched before them, promising, maybe even perfect. ‘Show me the rest,’ she said, and he reached for her hand again.

      They wandered through the rest of the ruins hand in hand, stopping to pace out a house or examine a doorstep or window well. It was amazingly relaxed, natural even, in a way that made Noelle’s heart sing. She wanted this day to go on for ever.

      Eventually Ammar led her back towards the oasis, to a sheltered spot where a couple of palm trees shaded them from the relentless sun. She watched as he spread out a blanket, desire spiralling inside her once again as she gazed at his lean brown arms, powerfully corded with muscle, the T-shirt he wore clinging to his washboard stomach. She sucked in a breath as he glanced up at her, his amber eyes seeming to burn into her. He must know how he affected her, she thought. He must. She only hoped she affected him the same way.

      ‘Come here,’ he commanded huskily and, with a thrill