Chapter 14 · Untitled Chapter

The gray light of Riyadh at dawn came through the high slits above the drapes without sound, cutting across the stone floor in narrow, pale knives. In the desert outside the perimeter walls, the heat was already gathering its weight, but inside the private wing the air remained cold, smelling faintly of old cedar and the smoke of midnight oud that had settled into the wool of the carpets.

Saud rose before the call had completely died away. He moved without the hurried caution of a man trying not to disturb a sleeper; he simply moved as if the room had always known his tread. He pulled on a fresh white thobe, the stiff collar snapping shut beneath his throat, clean and immaculate as though the long, unbroken hours of the night had never touched him.

I sat against the headboard, watching him through the dimness. My hair hung loose over my shoulders, heavy and tangled against the cotton of the sheet, and every muscle in my back remembered the weight of his hands, the exact pressure of his mouth when he had taken my jaw to look into my eyes before he pulled me under him.