The Desert Lord’s Bride

Six

Dreams had never been like this.

Dreams had been drab and nonsensical, forgotten even as they blipped their disjointed patterns over the gray landscape of unconsciousness. The ones momentous enough for her to follow, that left a mark on her memory once oblivion lifted, had been filled with replays of loss, of frustrations that would forever echo unresolved.

Now her dreams were vibrant and full of splashes of emotion and gusts of excitement. Blinding in clarity, transporting in delight, open fields of possibility and impossibility, where she flew, soared, right alongside her knight of the desert.

Now they were taking a new turn, for the tangible.

Pleasure rained all over her from warm, gentle caresses, spiced with the scent of maleness, accentuated by the rumbles of cosseting. She filled her arms with the dream, held on. It expanded, pulled back on a lazy purr. “It’s incredible to have you devour me in your sleep, ya gummari, but I’d rather have you do it awake.”

Panicking, she reached out to catch it, and in her alarm, opened her eyes. And something far better than any dream filled her vision, blocked out the world. Shehab.

She moaned his name. The most wonderful thing she’d ever heard or had on her lips. “Shehab…”

The smile he gave her, the indulgence he poured over her made her feel as if she’d melt into the bed beneath her.

He tickled her nose with a lock of her hair. “Are you awake this time, or are we having another sleep-talking session?”

“I love it when you tease…oh.” She stormed up to her feet, jumped over him and onto the floor. He too shot to his feet, alarm starting to form on his lips. She squealed, “Bathroom.”

He laughingly if urgently pointed at a door at the far end of the expansive room. She hurtled there.

After dealing with the emergency, she was thankful for the chance to freshen up. She’d never woken up with another person, wasn’t having any interaction with him-the epitome of mouth-watering freshness-before she was squeaky clean.

She was so acutely aware of his presence outside she barely took in the opulence of the all-marble-and-gold-fixtures bathroom as she tried to fix her appearance. Her self-consciousness at being all sleep-swollen and wrinkled increased when she came out to find him, a being out of oriental fables in an outfit made for the desert and sharing its hues and textures, propped up in her bed with his endless legs crossed at the ankles. The one thing that reassured her was that he was looking at her as if she was a hot gourmet meal and he was starving.

She approached him, feeling intensely gauche, her heart stumbling over a thousand insecurities. And incredulity.

God, she was really here. Halfway across the world. On his island. And he was waiting for her to join him in bed, an inexorable magnet when she was a helpless pin. Could this really be happening? She, Farah Beaumont, the ultimate misfit, understood and appreciated, hungered for by this man she hadn’t dared to dream existed?

She faltered, looked around dazedly. He’d opened the blackout curtains and light was seeping through the drapes, giving the room that dreamscape quality. How many hours had she slept? Not many, since sunset was around 7:00 p.m., and she’d gone to sleep as soon as he’d left the room, around 1:00 p.m…

One of his hands patted the space beside him, ending her confusion. She jumped there, curled into him like a cat.

“Now that was an emergency,” he drawled, amusement staining his magnificent baritone.

Just what she’d thought. She chuckled. “Yeah, which is weird, come to think of it. Say…” She sat up. “Don’t you have to go to work, take care of the crisis?”

“I did, for today. I flew out this morning, was in meetings and negotiations for six hours.”

“What do you mean six hours? How can you-this morning…?” Then it dawned on her. “God, how long have I slept?”

“Do you want the interval in hours, or in days?”

“Days!” She flopped back in his arms. “No wonder there was an emergency.” She sat back up, poking him. “Now stop making fun of me with me and tell me exactly how long I slept.”

Making a visible effort to keep a straight face, he examined his watch. “Considering you’ve been awake for exactly fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds now, you slept exactly twenty-six hours, three minutes and…forty-three…four seconds.”

She poked him, kissed him, groaned against his lips, all at once. “It’s all your fault. I never sleep more than six hours.”

He surrendered to her, his hands restless on her back, his groans rising as her lips landed anywhere on his face. “I plead guilty. I whisked you away from your world, kept you up for over a day. I should have insisted you got some sleep.”

She drew back, ran her hands over his robe-clad shoulders. “There was no way I could sleep while you were awake. But you weren’t knocked for a loop staying up so long like I was. You even put in a full day’s work with flights and fights involved.”

He smoothed his hand down her hair. “I sleep little by nature. But with you around, insomnia will enter a new dimension.” His eyes fixed on her lips, pulling them by sheer will toward his. Just half a breath away, he whispered, “How about a ride?”

She pulled away, her eyes rounding, a hundred images crashing into her mind. Sculpted flesh, moist with exertion, hard with arousal, beneath her, around her, hands spanning her waist, moving her up, down…“Huh?”

He’d seen everything that had played in her mind, just as clearly as if it had played on a widescreen. She was certain. In response, his lips crooked at one corner, the roughening of his voice the only indication that reading her thoughts had affected him. “Do you ride? Horses?”

Oh. Oh. “Uh…umm…” She croaked. “Not since I got my scar. It was the last straw. Mom had a fit and insisted that Dad never take me to the ranch again.”

“The last straw, eh? So you’d given them one too many scares. But not to worry. I’ll give you my most accommodating mare to ride.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “But first, something to eat. You must be starving.”

And she was. For him. But he wasn’t, for her? She’d thought he’d postponed making love to her because she’d been exhausted. But she was overcharged now. So why wasn’t he…?

He pulled her to him, buried his face in her neck, bringing her between his legs, leaving her in no doubt of the extent of his hunger, amazing her once more with his restraint. He groaned when she ground her core into his hardness, unconsciously trying to assuage the ache pounding there. His answering thrust felt as involuntary, riding what sounded like a pained rumble, before his hand on her buttocks ground her harder into him, stopping her from moving and maddening them both further.

His voice was tight with control when he murmured, “We’ll spend what remains of the day roaming the island. What we don’t cover today, we will in the days to come.” His voice dropped an octave. “We have all the time in the world.”

He’d read her mind again. And this was his answer. Showing her that he was starving for her, too, with the incontestable evidence of his body. But his words were equally clear.

When he’d said they’d go slow, he’d really meant it.

And suddenly it scared her.

She’d thrown away her wariness at Shehab’s first touch, would have braved any recriminations or repercussions to be one with him, once, in those gardens. When he’d offered slower, more, she’d snatched at the offer that was so much better than what she would have happily settled for.

Even when he’d invited her here, she’d had no expectations beyond the satisfaction of her unstoppable desire for him. She’d been ecstatic that someone like him existed, that she provoked the same desire in him, delirious at anticipating what she’d given up on ever experiencing, a man who set her every cell singing with life. She hadn’t hoped for a second the affair would last for longer than it took for him to move on. She’d accepted it without the least resentment or longing for more. It would have been enough to last her a lifetime.

But now he was offering her what she’d never dreamed any man would-time. And not just time spent seducing her, but time to savor her, her, not her body. As he’d promised, as she hadn’t understood, or believed. As she now did.

And she knew what that time would do.

Time would destroy the simplicity of the equation. She wouldn’t be satisfied with the purity of a physical and transient relationship. If she got to know the man inside the male, undiluted by physical involvement, she might start to think there could be even more. This was a hurt she wouldn’t come back from.

She wanted to beg him not to compound the addiction she could already feel taking hold within her, not to set her up for frustration. For devastation. But for once, something stopped her from confessing her thoughts, her vulnerability. She had no right to burden him with her fears and frailties, to demand that he modify his behavior to observe them. But she could modify her own behavior. If she were sane, she’d lay down her rules and leave if he refused them. But she’d lost her mind…

She should still try to change his.

She slid up his body, rubbing against his unyielding steel, tasting his neck, biting into the sculpture of his lower lip, groaned her plea when he opened to her on a growl of pleasure. “We can explore tomorrow. Today, I only want to explore you…”

He stemmed her entreaty, thrusting into her recesses, draining her until she sagged in his arms. “And you will explore me. And I will explore you, claim you, do everything to you.”

He surged up, sweeping her around and beneath him and her eyes stung, filled, with relief. And disappointment. There’d be no more waiting. There’d be no more.

But he rose from the bed, in one impossible movement scooping her up in his arms and striding to the other end of the room, entered a huge, exquisitely outfitted dressing room.

He laid her down on a sofa facing a wall-to-wall mirror before heading to the closets paneling the walls. Through a sliding door he gathered clothes that looked like replicas of his, and came back to her. Then he kneeled in front of her. He held one foot after the other, slipped off her sandals, then, as in the gardens, he pressed one to his heart. This time when his lips hovered over her flesh, they descended, made contact.

She arched on a spasm of emotion, at the sight of him, the feel, the very idea of him kissing her foot.

“I’ve never waited for the gratification of my desires, ya galbi.” His voice was gruff, driven as he dragged his lips and tongue over the arches of her feet, the backs of her calves, the insides of her thighs. She was quaking, begging when he withdrew, swept the clothes over her lap. “But I can wait if it’s for you. I can wait until everything is perfect.”

Just perfect.

Farah glowered at the Byzantine-style woodcarving that hung at the entrance to Shehab’s stables. The thermometer nestling in its intricacy stood at 112°F. In the shade. She wondered if it was reading the atmosphere’s temperature or hers.

Even an hour after that episode in her bedroom, after a perfect meal and a real shower and a change into the clothes he’d picked out for her, she was still sizzling. Everything he did or said kept her simmering. Before leaving her to go and deal with some details, he’d urged her to go inside the stables out of the heat and given her a kiss that had her a breath away from meltdown.

She stumbled into the interior, seeking its coolness. The sun was merciless even during its descent, but Shehab had made sure she was protected from all its dangers. Cool, flowing clothes, constant hydration and her every exposed part covered in sunblock. He’d seen to that himself, with meticulousness that had left her feeling more burned than any ultraviolet exposure could have caused. She’d assured him from distant memory that she’d always handled sun and heat well. He’d countered, not sun like this. She hadn’t been built for it, hadn’t been drenched in it from birth like he had been. He had to acclimatize her to it gradually, would never forgo any precaution. He couldn’t be too careful with her.

She thought he could be. He was. Too careful with her. And it was starting to mess with her sanity.

She pushed her sunglasses over her head. As her vision adjusted, a silver mare materialized out of the gloom, patiently standing in the aisle wearing a saddle and bridle. She was looking straight at her, and, Farah could swear, was stunned to see her. In the next second she whinnied and tossed her head. And, wow, what a beauty.

She’d seen enough Useel, purebred Arabian mares, in her father’s stables to recognize one. This one was remarkable even by his fanatical standards. Which figured. There was no way Shehab had anything but the best. The horse stood at least 15 hands, with an impressive depth of chest. Her short head had a beautiful concave profile, a broad forehead and wide jowls.

Farah’s admiring scrutiny faltered. The mare was trotting toward her, ears tucked, nostrils flared, snorting an unmistakable threat…

“Ablah.”

At Shehab’s admonition, the mare at once stopped and perked up her ears, her prominent eyes all but grinning sheepishly.

Farah swung around to him. “I hope that’s not your most accommodating mare.”

“Actually, she is.” He caught his lower lip in his teeth, his face ablaze with wickedness. “I like my horses spirited.”

“Yeah, and it seems you train them as guard dogs, too.”

“She doesn’t usually see strangers. She was probably wary of you.”

She smirked. “She didn’t seem wary to me, and I’m no longer sure I want to reprise my long-bygone equine experience.”

He gave her a considering look, then turned to the mare. “Ablah…ta’ee hena.” Ablah trotted to him at once, nuzzled him in the shoulder. He held her face in his hands, murmured in Arabic. Ablah shifted uncomfortably, looking positively shamefaced.

Farah was incredulous. “What did you say to her?”

He gave Ablah a stern look. “That I was upset with her because she wasn’t nice to you, that you’re the woman I crave.”

“That’s supposed to make her more amenable toward me? I bet that’s why she wasn’t nice. She’s jealous as hell.”

He huffed a chuckle. “She’s a horse, Farah.”

“She’s a mare, Shehab. I bet you have females of every species swooning within a hundred-mile radius.”

He flashed her a smile that left her wanting to flip down her sunglasses. “Though I’d be appalled to think every female rat and shrimp around were wiggling their whiskers at me, I’ll snap this up as the compliment I’m sure you meant.” She narrowed her eyes at him, stuck out her tongue. He laughed, pinched her cheek softly. “I can assure you Ablah won’t try to get rid of the competition. But if you’re not comfortable, I’ll ride her, and you can ride Barq.” He patted the neck of the other horse, which a stable hand had just led up to them, placing the reins in Shehab’s hand. “He’s taken with you.”

Farah looked at Barq, a magnificent black stallion who looked decidedly more docile than Ablah and who was checking her out with interest. She looked back into the mare’s eyes, almost saw the impish challenge there, then she shook her head. “Nah, I think I’ll get acquainted with Ablah. I’m sure we can come to an understanding, one lady to another.”

His smile brightened with approval. “That’s jameelati, always doing the unexpected.”

“Yeah, let’s just hope I don’t really do the unexpected and spend my sabbatical in traction. Say, what does Ablah mean?”

“‘Perfectly formed.’ Barq means ‘lightning.’”

Farah eyed the magnificent mare, then sighed. “And she knows it, too. And if Barq’s name is also descriptive, I’d say it’s a good choice I opted to ride Ablah.”

He gathered her to him, tilted up her face to his. “You do know I wouldn’t propose riding either if I wasn’t certain you’d be totally safe?” She nodded, smiled her total trust up at him. His smile widened as he half kneeled beside her offering a leg up. “Up you go.”

She put her foot in the stirrup, grabbed the saddle and let him boost her up only for Ablah to give a distressed whinny when she landed on her back.

“Oh, c’mon. So I’m no lightweight, but your master outweighs me by…” she eyed him hungrily, gave her lips an involuntary lick “…seventy pounds, at least. So quit pretending you’re about to keel under my weight.”

Ablah snorted, swished her tail. Shehab laughed at the dialogue between woman and mare. Then he bent to Ablah and murmured in her ear, his eyes on Farah. “Et’addebi.”

Ablah fell silent at once, stood motionless and stared ahead, like a soldier, all obedience and steadfastness.

Farah giggled. “What was that? A magic word?”

His eyes glittered pure onyx in the declining sun slanting through the wide-open doors. “Behave.”

She wanted to cry out that she was behaving, had already used up her courage in propositioning him, would never make a move again. Then she realized he’d just been translating.

But, no. He was also warning her not to try again to end the time he was bound on having together without sexual intimacy.

Before she could say anything, he swung up on Barq’s back and leaned toward her, lowered her sunglasses over her eyes, put his on, pulled Barq’s reins, rapped Ablah’s rump lightly, and the two horses fell into step with each other.

Shehab kept within an arm’s reach of Farah for the first few hundred feet, murmuring directions and encouragements until she was whooping in unbridled joy as she gained confidence, began to rise and fall with the rhythm of Ablah’s medium sustained gallop, the wind weaving its hot, dry fingers through her hair, sending it flowing behind her like living bronze fire.

And he again had to acknowledge that it was nothing short of a miracle. That he was out here, taking her on a tour of the island, instead of back in her bed, taking her, period. That he’d taken her riding, instead of having her ride him.

And she’d wanted to, had entreated him to let her.

The only way he’d accessed the unsuspected power that had enabled him to say no was that this torture had a flipside. In prolonging her seduction, he found himself reveling in the bittersweet anticipation, the burgeoning arousal.

Exhilaration bubbled inside him in answer to her unfettered enjoyment. He shouted to her over the whipping of wind and the staccato of hooves, “You’re a natural horsewoman, ya saherati.”

“It’s Ablah who’s a natural rookie mare,” she shouted back, giggling. “You were right. She is riding herself, so to speak, keeping me miraculously glued to her back.”

From then on they kept exchanging smiles and shouted comments, laughing at anything the other said.

He gave her a thorough guided tour, and she was the perfect tourist, gratifyingly interested and impressed. Then at the highest point on the island where both its sides could be seen, he brought them to a stop, carried her down from Ablah and to the spread beneath the shade tent he’d had erected for them.

He sat down, took her across him, one knee supporting her back, her breasts pressing against his chest, her buttocks against his erection. He took the lips she offered, thrust into the sweetness she surrendered, drew back only when torment lost the sweet edge, the bitter side beginning to cut deep, looked down into the emerald eyes that truly rivaled the crystalline shores of his island. So willing, so giving, so trusting…

No. Willing, yes. Giving, no. She wanted only to take. He must never lose sight of that.

Snatching his eyes away from her spell, he continued her education. “On that side of the island, the water is knee-high for over two miles before deepening very gradually. On the other, the depth drops hundreds of feet at once.” He cocked his head at her. “Do you swim?”

“I haven’t swum in over ten years, but I was quite the fish when Dad was alive…” She stopped, bit her lip.

Every time she mentioned the man she’d lived her life believing was her real father, her mood plunged. He wanted to probe, was burning to hear her version of why she’d so vehemently rejected the new father fate had sent her.

But no. At the merest slipup, she’d sensed she was being manipulated. He couldn’t afford another mistake.

He gathered her closer, cupped her breast. “So you’re a mermaid for real. I knew it.” He succeeded in distracting her as she melted in his hold, thrust her firmness in his hand for him to do what he would with it. He groaned as the dual-bladed weapon he used on her cut deeper into him. “It’s another perfection, ya aroosat bahri-my mermaid. By daylight, I’ll take you to the deep end, plunge you into the dimension of the coral reefs, and by moonlight, we’ll roam the shallows, soak in them.”

She shuddered at the images he evoked, and he moved to the next step in her sensory overload. He cleaned his hands, produced refreshments from the hamper he’d arranged, poured her some, put the tiny crystal hourglass-shaped glass to her lips.

She took a sip, moaned appreciatively, “Mmm-what’s that?”

“The famed Arabian coffee…a brew of lightly roasted special beans and cardamom. For best effect you eat this with it…”

She unquestioningly opened for the dried date he put to her lips, moaned as she described the incredible chewiness, the caramelized flavor. After he had her finish three cups and half a packet, he began fondling her lips, prodding her to lick his fingers clean of the stickiness. She was soon sucking him in earnest, every pull lodging in his erection, where he almost felt those lips performing the same abandoned ritual. He pulled his fingers out of her mouth, clamped her between his knees, stilling her movements before he exploded. “I said behave.”

The eyes that had gone smoky jade with arousal turned a disconcerted bottle-green at his growl.

It made him rush to add, “If you do, I’ll take you to see the burst of flowers and grass that followed the outpouring of rain a couple of weeks ago, before the green carpet dries and dies under the blistering sun. We might catch some of the island’s inhabitants taking a snack, wild rabbits, gazelles…”

She lurched in his arms, her forlorn expression burning away in a blast of delight. “Gazelles? You have gazelles here?”

He nodded. “A population of over 300 roaming freely.”

She whooped, spilled from his arms, jumped to her feet, pulled at him. “Get up, get up. Let’s go see them.” Her face fell again as soon as he stood up. “Oh, man, I don’t have a camera, not even my phone.” Her brightness dimmed completely as she exhaled. “They’ll probably run away when we approach, anyway.”

He produced his phone for her. “Capture everything to your heart’s content. And, no, they won’t run. They’re used to me and the horses. You can even feed them, if you like.”

“If I like?” she squeaked. “If a gazelle eats from my hand, I’ll just die, and die happy!”

“Adjust that to live and live happy, and I’ll make certain you feed gazelles, ya gummari, today, in their natural habitat. Then I’ll bring a few to the mansion for you to feed regularly.”

She bounced up and down before smothering him in exuberant hugs. “Thank you, thank you…for giving me this.” She withdrew, threw her arms open wide. “And all of this.”

He stared at her. Could this woman who was in ecstasies at the idea of hand-feeding gazelles be real? How could she coexist with the one who’d manipulated her aging lover into agreeing to her leaving on her latest fling, into even apologizing for being upset about it and begging for an assurance that she’d miss him? An assurance she’d given as she’d devoured him with her eyes?

His smile felt like it was digging into his flesh as he struggled to keep it pinned on. “I’ve done nothing yet, ya galbi. I want to give you the whole world.”

Her eyes became mossy-green. “Oh, Shehab, it’s wonderful of you to say that. But what would I do with the whole world? I’d take gazelles to pet and feed over that any day.” With that she whooped again, swung away, ran back to Ablah.

He was determined not to rush to her. Never giving her what she wanted when she wanted it was the only way to stop her from winning the battle she didn’t know they were having.

Then she turned to him, a fantasy out of his land’s richest fables, shimmering in the flowing robes of its deserts, incandescent in her excitement, overpowering in her eagerness.

And he gave in, obeyed. He rushed to her.

“…with slow, graceful wing movements, the black-backed manta ray flew through the water like a giant alien bird.”

Shehab’s words caressed her nape as he helped her put on her wetsuit. She sighed, let it all wash over her. His heat and presence, his yacht’s gentle undulations, the early morning sun’s warmth, the salty breeze’s purity. It all coalesced into this incredible new world he’d let her enter, let her share in its adventures. He kept telling her of the many that she hadn’t been there to share before the last glorious two weeks-weeks that had washed away a lifetime of city dwelling and aloneness, had taken over her memory. She could barely remember her life before them.

Hypnotized, she hung on every syllable of his latest tale.

“It was over twenty-five feet across and I could have swum into its mouth as it gaped to sieve plankton-laden water.” He turned her, smoothing her suit, raising her zipper and her longings. “Then it stopped in front of me. Its huge eyes gazed at me for a moment, then with an elegant flip of its wings, it banked away. I was nine and it was my first plunge into the coral reef. Meeting that gentle monster gave me a taste of the underwater world I knew would take me a lifetime to explore. I never wanted to leave, but it took me almost two decades to realize my boyhood dream, when I finally owned this place.”

She exhaled, almost in tears at imagining him as a boy falling under the spell of this island’s diverse magic. “And it’s magnificent. I feel privileged you wanted to share it with me.”

And she felt more than privileged. She felt blessed.

Two weeks ago she’d been scared that emotions would consume her. But this was too glorious. She’d live it at any cost, wouldn’t wish for more. For what more could there be? This was everything. The man of beyond her dreams, patiently lavishing his care on her, even as hunger escalated. The last time he’d drawn back from the precipice, she’d wept, and his distress had been as deep.

But soon, he wouldn’t draw back, and she’d be his. She already was. She’d be his forever. It didn’t matter how long he remained in her life, the life she’d thought she’d live inert, undiscovered. He’d recognized her, unearthed everything that had lain dormant and useless inside her and brought it to life.

She loved him. Would always love him. And her love would always be the best part of her life, the one to give it meaning.

And when his path swerved from hers forever, she’d be happy she’d had that much. The lifetime’s worth of wonders he’d shown her, in the reef, in the air, on land. But the true wonders had been what he’d shown her of him, the companion, the playmate, the incomparable man. She couldn’t wait for the next wonder.

She ran her hand over his sculpted torso in the confines of his own wetsuit. “What will you show me today?” He’d been teaching her to dive since the second day they’d been there.

“Today we dive a little deeper. If you think you’re ready.”

“Oh, I’m ready.”

And she was. Ready for anything at all with him.

After he helped her with her diving gear, double-checked everything, they dove into the luminous green waters. He’d told her it was now infinitely more beautiful to him for echoing her eyes. Their descent was like slow-motion skydiving, a sublime philosophical experience, a plunge into an alien world.

Once they were hovering in a blue-green nothing where she could see neither surface nor bottom, she saw something huge moving in the distance. She clutched his arm in alarm. He soothed her, gestured for her to watch as the shape began to resemble a compact swarm of bees. It turned out to be a school of striated, anchovylike fish. He tugged at her, and they flowed smoothly toward it only for a tunnel to open up in the wall of fish, engulfing them. Her heart thundered with excitement as he hugged her and they swam in what felt like a cave with moving walls as the uncountable fish moved as one all around them as if guided by a single brain, turning the fusion of their own limbs into a dance of oneness she’d never imagined could exist.

He guided them out and gestured for her to watch. He suddenly kicked toward the fish and the school packed itself into a giant ball. The moment he touched it, the ball exploded.

Exhilarated at the fish fireworks he’d treated her to, she clapped as he swam back to her. He made a theatrical gesture, accepting her adulation before clamping her to his side and propelling her up slowly, his light revealing an explosion of color from the fan coral that grew out from the reef wall, their stunning, feathery tentacles constantly performing a rhythmic dance, opening and closing in unison like beckoning hands.

Their legs tangled in their short wetsuits, rubbing in the silk of the fluid dream they were enveloped in. And she couldn’t bear it anymore. She’d beg him for an end of the waiting today.

Suddenly she saw a striated red, yellow and black lionfish hovering behind him, incredibly beautiful fins flowing, long spines separated and-and…poisonous.

The certainty of this once-learned knowledge flooded her with panic as the fish approached Shehab’s back, bending its own like a snake. She pounced on him, swept around him, exchanging places. The next second pain shot between her shoulder blades, as if she’d been skewered by a red-hot poker.

Her scream gurgled into her regulator.