The Sheik Retold Read online

  I was fully sensitized to the scent of manly musk as I drew closer and pressed my lips to his warm, hard flesh. Experimentally, I kissed the smooth head, and began working my way down the side of his shaft with lingering kisses. My gaze sought his as I darted out my tongue to lick him all the way back up. Ahmed's pupils flared, and his fingers tightened on my nape, a reaction that excited and filled me with an odd sense of power. Incited to explore his reactions more deeply, I continued to stroke with my hands while I plied my lips and tongue slowly up and down his length, basking my senses in his smooth skin, musky smell, and tangy salt-tinged taste.

  I grew bolder yet, adding short flicks and long swirls of my tongue, alternating these until his hips rocked and his other hand slid deeper into my hair. He made a guttural sound that excited me even more. "Open your mouth."

  Once more I hesitated, but there was a note of command in his voice that I could not ignore. I closed my eyes, forcing myself to breathe, fighting off the reflex to gag, as he advanced by slow inches into my mouth. The experience of him, hot, pulsing, and filling my mouth, sent ripples low into my belly and made my inner muscles convulse. I didn't quite know what he expected until he began to move in and out. I then understood that he wished to use my mouth the same way he used my chatte.

  I had learned to squeeze my sheath muscles to enhance his pleasure and used my lips the same way. His initial thrusts were gentle and shallow, but as he grew more excited, he became rougher, with his hands tightening on my head and his fingers fisting tightly in my hair. I snaked a hand up and down his hard thigh, loving the slightly abrasive feel of his hairy skin beneath my fingers. I fondled his heavy sac and then caressed my way to his taut buttocks, clasping and squeezing them with the ebb and flow of his flexing muscles as he slid himself in and out of my mouth.

  His motions became more frantic and his thrusts deeper. His hands tightened in my hair, and his breathing became ragged. I knew his release was imminent even before he told me.

  "You will swallow."

  His taste was no longer strange to me, but the idea of swallowing his seed was. Still, I refused to balk. It was obvious that he had come to me determined that I should take no pleasure in this experience. He expected me to satisfy him while receiving no reciprocal gratification—but he was sadly mistaken. I refused to give him that kind of satisfaction. I refused to act as a mere receptacle. No, as before, he would give and I would take exactly what I wanted from him, and what I wanted most was the control he had sought to take from me.

  I felt the same as when I had initiated my first kiss. The taste of him had only sharpened my hunger for more. Much more. I willed my throat to relax, to open, to take him as far as I could. With a constant sucking motion, I drew him in until he filled my mouth to the back of my throat. With my hands on his buttocks, I urged him deeper still.

  His hips jerked with a low and panting groan. "Grand Dieu! Just like that, swallow me whole."

  I was growing dizzy with the pure headiness of taking control, of the power I had usurped from him. Nothing existed for me outside of commanding his pleasure. It was mine to give or to withhold. I cupped his sac, finding him rock hard to my touch and ready to spend. I swallowed harder and squeezed his arse, willing him to give me his release.

  He threw his head back with a cry and bucked his hips wildly in a hissing stream of Arabic. I shut my eyes as his hot liquid surge hit my tongue and the back of my throat, continuing to suck and swallow until I'd milked every drop from him. When I released him from my mouth, his hands were braced on my shoulders, and his body trembled. He appeared dazed, depleted, and for the first time, utterly vulnerable. When he finally opened his eyes to look into mine, I perceived intense satisfaction, but there was something more, something else I had never seen before.

  "Mon Dieu," he groaned. "You will destroy me."

  I had given willingly, eagerly, losing myself in his pleasure, until it had become my own. I had shocked us both with my brazenness, and the knowledge took my breath away. His expression softened. He drew me to my feet and bent his head toward me. We were close enough that the heat of his mint-scented breath caressed my face. Still, lower and lower he came, until his lips were a hair's breadth from mine. I closed my eyes in anticipation of the tender kiss that I still so fervently craved—but he denied me once more.

  He abruptly drew back, the ephemeral flicker of love I thought I had glimpsed in his eyes replaced by his former ferocity. "Once more you have learned very quickly what pleases me. Whoever would have imagined the heartless Diana Mayo would make such a magnificent whore? Alors, it seems the king of the desert has melted the queen of ice."

  His mocking laugh rang ruthlessly in my ears. I cringed at his cruel and degrading words that befouled something beautiful and transformed my joy to humiliation.

  "Why are you doing this? Why do you persist in this ugliness? This cruelty?"

  But even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. He had let his guard down, had left himself exposed to me, and this weakness enraged him. Now he would once more punish me for it. "Do you take greater pleasure in your cold cruelty than you did in my willing arms?"

  His gaze narrowed, and his expression hardened, but he made no answer. If I had thought to press him into confessing his feelings, I was wrong. Still, I continued my impassioned outpour. "I have withheld nothing from you, Ahmed. We both know I was willing enough—at least when you were kind to me."

  One corner of his mouth lifted. "Willing puts it mildly, ma belle."

  I flushed heatedly, but could not deny it. I had never lacked passionate enthusiasm when he had shown me the least consideration. Even now, my defenses would evaporate like a rain shower in the desert if he took me into his arms with any tenderness.

  My heart ached like nothing I had ever known. I had given him every possible opportunity to tell me he cared, but he still denied me. Though I might beg and plead, only in delirium would he ever profess his love. He would always fight what he felt for me—until the resentment eventually supplanted even his desire. If he could not love me, he must let me go. I refused to let him keep me here only to kill me slowly by small degrees.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  The next day Raoul announced that his visit could be protracted no longer and that he must resume his journey to Morocco. His haste in departing almost suggested flight. I had noticed the growing tension between the two men in the last days and strongly suspected I was the source of it.

  Ahmed agreed to ride with him as far as the market town of Bou Saâda, where Raoul would continue to Oran, and then on to Tangier by steamer. I rose early the morning of his departure to see him off and wondered at the sadness in his eyes and his unusual lack of words. What was left to say? I could see the struggle between his loyalty to Ahmed and his chivalrous nature, but he was helpless to aid me without betraying his best friend.

  For me, Raoul's departure meant the hastening of a crisis that could be avoided no longer.

  "We will speak tonight when I return," Ahmed had ominously declared on our parting.

  He referred to my attempted escape. He had said nothing of it until now, but I could see the impending reckoning in Ahmed's eyes and felt it brewing in the air. It was only Raoul's presence that had kept it at bay, but now Raoul was gone. With the buffer of the vicomte removed, I would be at Ahmed's mercy. I was not fool enough to think my blatant act of disobedience would be either forgiven or forgotten. Ahmed's return would seal my fate—whatever it was to be. What did he intend to do? In what mood would he return? I asked myself these questions over and over.

  That night was unusually hot, and the atmosphere in the tent increasingly oppressive as the hours wore on. I had no appetite and could not sleep, so I reclined in bed waiting. Wrapped in a thin silk kimono, I lay propped high with pillows holding a book I was not reading. It was Raoul's latest work, but I could not concentrate on it. My thoughts had drifted far away, and the book slipped to the floor.

  The stillness of the desert seemed a
lmost sinister tonight—and the silence so intense that the squeal of a stallion in the distance made me start with a madly racing heart. Earlier in the evening a drum had been going persistently, and later a native pipe had shrilled in monotonous cadence, but I had grown accustomed to these. They were of nightly occurrence and soothed rather than irritated me. When they stopped the stillness was so unnerving that I would have welcomed any sound. I was restless and excited. I longed for him passionately and at the same time, dreaded his return.

  The little shaded lamp threw a circle of light around the bed but left the rest of the room dim, filling the dusky corners with odd new shadows. Hangings and objects took on fantastic shapes until I brushed my hand across my eyes with a self-deprecating laugh.

  When had I become such a coward?

  With detachment, I recalled the last few months that had changed my life— that had irrevocably changed me. I had never had any illusions about myself and had never attempted to curb my obstinate self-will and haughty pride. My mad trek into the desert was solely the outcome of an arrogant determination to have my own way in the face of all protests and advice. Dully I wondered why I did not hate him more for having done to me what he had done, for having made me this new creature I had become. My old logic and new emotion warred within me, but it was a short battle—love proved a formidable force.

  The heat was intense, and every moment the tent seemed to grow more airless. The Persian hound in the next room whined from time to time, until he pushed his way past the curtain and stalked across the thick rugs to nuzzle his shaggy head against my knee, whimpering and gazing plaintively up at me. When I finally took notice of him, he reared up, thrusting his wet nose into my face. I caught his head in my hands and rubbed my cheek against his rough hair, crooning over him softly. Even the dog was comfort in my loneliness as we waited together for the master.

  I pushed him down at length, and with my hand on his collar, we went into the other room. A solitary lamp burned dimly. I crossed to the doorway and pulled aside the flap, and a small, white-clad figure rose up. "Is that you, Gaston?" I asked.

  Normally the question would have been unnecessary, as he had always slept across the entrance when the sheik was away, but I was not aware until now that he had risen from his sickbed. Although Gaston's devotion to the sheik had been extended to me almost from the start, his loyalty and unvarying deference astonished me. He had always treated me with unfailing respect and had never betrayed by a single word or look that he was aware of my real position in his master's camp.

  "A votre service, madam," he replied.

  "How are you feeling?" I asked.

  He smiled. "Happily, I am well enough to serve you again, madam."

  "I never thanked you properly for all you did—"

  "It is nothing." He flushed in embarrassment. "Please let us not speak of it." For a few minutes Gaston stood silent. "Madam is not tired?"

  "It is so hot. The tent was stifling. I had hoped for some air."

  "Madam, veut du cafe?" he suggested tentatively. Gaston's devotion was of a kind that sought practical demonstration, and coffee was his universal panacea, but in the heat it sounded almost grotesque.

  "No, it is too hot."

  Gaston heaved a tragic sigh. His own nerves were steel, and his capacity for imbibing large quantities of black coffee at any hour of the day or night unlimited. "Une limonade?" he persisted hopefully.

  I felt a hysterical desire to laugh, which nearly turned into tears, but I checked myself. "Thank you, Gaston." I conceded to let him bring the cool drink more for his pleasure than for my own.

  It was still very airless, even out of doors. I peered into the darkness, but there was little light from the tiny crescent moon. I moved a few steps forward from under the awning to look up at the brilliant stars twinkling overhead, and a stab of pain went through me. I had gazed at them so often from within Ahmed's arms. Would I ever again watch them sparkling against the blue-blackness of the sky, with the curve of his arm around me, and the steady beat of his heart under my cheek? Would anything ever be the same? A weary sigh broke from my lips. "Monseigneur is late," I said, straining my eyes again into the darkness.

  "He will come," replied Gaston confidently. "Kopec is restless. He is always so when Monseigneur is coming."

  I looked down at the dim shape of the hound lying at the man's feet and then with a last upward glance at the stars, turned back into the tent. Gaston, the embodiment of practical common sense, had soothed my nervous apprehension more than he could ever know.

  I picked up the fallen book and forced myself to read. Although my eyes followed the lines, I could comprehend nothing. All the while my ears strained to catch the earliest sound of his coming.

  At last it came. Only a suggestion at first—an intuition. I started with expectancy, hardly breathing, listening intently. For a moment there was a confusion of voices, a jingle of accoutrements; one of the horses whinnied, but the stir caused by his arrival died away quickly.

  In the ensuing silence I heard him approach. There was a murmur of conversation, the sheik's low voice and Gaston's quick, animated tones. I waited motionless, my hands gripping the soft mattress until my fingers cramped, breathing in long, painful gasps, as I tried to slow the labored beating of my heart. In spite of the heat, a sudden coldness crept over me. My gaze fixed anxiously on the curtain dividing the two rooms.

  By his passing shadow I knew he was pacing up and down, as he always paced when he was deliberating anything. Once he paused near the communicating curtain, and the scent of his tobacco filled my senses, causing my heart to give a wild leap, but then he moved away. His restlessness made me uneasy, especially when he had been in the saddle since early dawn.

  I gave a quick, impatient sigh. In spite of his renewed strength and his laughing protests, I could never forget how he lay helpless as a child, too weak even to raise his hand. Nothing could ever take the remembrance from me or the fact that in his fevered delirium, he had confessed his love. The thought gave me a moment's fierce pleasure, but it faded as suddenly as it had come. I had seen no evidence of tender feeling in weeks.

  At last the divan creaked under his weight, and Gaston brought in his supper. His first words provoked an exclamation of dismay from the Frenchman, which was hastily smothered with a murmured apology. Then other voices were in the room. I recognized Yusef talking volubly, half in Arabic, half in French, but lapsing more and more into the local vernacular, as he grew excited. I could picture him squatting before the sheik, scented and immaculate, his fine eyes rolling, his slim hands waving continually.

  At last he went, and the aroma of boiling coffee filled the tent. I could imagine Gaston's deft fingers manipulating the fragile glass and silver appliance. I could hear the tinkle of the spoon as he moved the cup, the splash of the coffee as he poured it, the faint click of the cup being placed on the inlaid table. Why was Ahmed drinking coffee when he always complained it kept him awake? At night he was in the habit of taking mint tea. Surely, tonight he had need of sleep. It was the hardest day he had had since his illness.

  For a few moments longer Gaston moved about the outer room. Then he asked, "Monseigneur desir d'autre chose?"

  The sheik must have signed in the negative. "Bon soir, Gaston," he dismissed his valet, and I drew a quick breath.

  While Gaston was still in the adjoining room, the moment for which I had been waiting seemed interminable, but now I wished he had not gone. For the first time since Raoul's arrival, I was alone with him. There was no buffer between us anymore. Only a curtain separated us, a curtain I could not yet bring myself to pass. I longed to go to him but still did not dare. I was torn between love and fear, and for the moment fear was in ascendance.

  I recalled another night when he had ridden in late, a night that was fast becoming a wonderful dream. After Gaston left, I had gone to him, flushed and bleary-eyed with sleep. He had smiled and pulled me down onto his knee, where he held me in his arms with my head on his
shoulder. He had then told me all the incidents of the day's visit to one of the other camps, speaking of his men and his horses, until drifting almost insensibly into plans for the future. It had seemed the intimate confidences of a husband to a wife, and the mingled pain and pleasure of it made me shiver.

  When I declared I was cold, he had carried me inside where he proceeded to warm me in every possible way. I wanted so badly to lie in his arms again with my cheek against his heart. I was starving for his kiss and the touch of his hands—but that man was not the one who waited in the next room. No, he was the cold stranger who had come to me last night seeking his own pleasure and nothing else—the one who tormented me afterward with his cruel words.

  There was silence except for the strike of a match that came with monotonous regularity followed by the familiar scent of his smoke drifting through the heavy curtains. The pungent perfume of Turkish tobacco alone forced a hundred recollections.

  Why didn't he come to me? Did he know how he was torturing me? Was he so utterly indifferent that he did not care?

  I choked down the sobs that rose to my throat, pressing closer into the silken coverings. A while later I raised my head to look at the traveling clock beside the reading lamp. It was an hour since Gaston had left him. Another hour of waiting would drive me mad. I had reached the limit of my endurance.

  I struggled to my feet, drawing the thin wrap closer around me, but even then I stood irresolute with my eyes fixed on the clock, watching the hands drag slowly around the dial. Another quarter of an hour crept past. It seemed the quarter of a lifetime. I stole a breath and brushed my hand across my eyes to clear away the dazzling reflection of the white china face with its long black minute hand. No sound of any kind came from the other room. The silence was driving me frantic, but anything seemed better than my perpetual state of perdition.

  Finally, I pushed the curtain aside. I did not go far, however, but stood in the doorway waiting, forcing him to acknowledge me. His gaze met mine, hard and uncompromising.