The Sheik Retold Page 6

  He read my thoughts, or maybe just my expression. "No, cherie," His voice was almost gentle, as if he chastised a disobedient child. "I have told you that approach is not my preference. Nevertheless, you must be taught."

  I suppose I had been prepared for anything but this nonchalance. My body stiffened, my hands clenched. "Wh-what are you going to do?" I demanded.

  Ignoring the question, he crossed the room and rang a bell sitting upon a console table. He then retrieved a cigarette from a silver case and stood there, watching me. He lit it, his gaze narrowing at the first pull. I thought I would scream as he slowly drew the aromatic tobacco into his lungs.

  Finally his summons was answered by a neat little man whose appearance strongly bespoke European origins. His legs were slightly bowed, and he stooped a little. His appearance was that of a jockey, but he had the manners of a valet. He bowed curtly to the sheik, never looking in my direction as he received his orders in rapid Arabic. The servant bowed again and swiftly disappeared. I noted the almost awe-filled respect manifested in all of his servants, proof of his claims that he reigned supreme over his lawless tribe.

  The sheik flung himself onto a low divan, where he smoked in silence. He studied me with a boldness no other man had ever dared to adopt. His long limbs stretched out indolently, and one hand was clasped behind his head. His gaze alone unsettled me, and I cursed myself for a coward. Only yesterday I had not known the meaning of fear, but in the past several hours I felt I had lived through years of such emotions.

  The servant returned with something in his hands that I could not see. He gave it to the sheik and then swiftly departed. When the curtain closed behind him, the sheik rose, moving toward me with a deliberate and catlike grace that I found equally fascinating and frightening.

  "You will undress for me now."

  I shut my eyes in rebellion, refusing to move or even look upon his face. He drew closer. His strong hands slid down my arms, pulling them behind my back, a position that thrust my breasts against his chest.

  "Cherie," he said softly, "I have tired of this ridiculous rebellion. The time for defiance is at an end."

  He held both of my wrists in the iron grip of one hand and removed his dagger from the folds of his waistcloth with the other. I recognized the ivory-handled blade as a jambiya, a small, curved, double-bladed, and extremely lethal weapon.

  I squeezed my eyes shut, driving my teeth into my lower lip to keep back the hysterical sob that rose in my throat. I only hoped he would do it quickly. But instead of the slash of his knife across my throat, I heard the sudden and steady pop of the buttons from my blouse. Bewildered, I opened my eyes to look into his.

  He lifted a brow over his mocking gaze. "You thought I would kill you?" He chuckled. "No. I would not waste such beauty as yours—unless you forced my hand. You comprehend me?"

  I nodded dumbly. I knew I had already lost. I told myself I didn't care. I never intended to wed. My virginity held no great value to me. Of itself, it meant nothing—only that it was mine, to give up or to keep as I saw fit. But he would take this choice from me. Like a thief, he would steal from me this thing that young women were taught from the earliest age to safeguard. He was one of the vile breed of men who would claim a maidenhead as the greatest of prizes, only to later discard the woman as no further use—in the same manner one might pluck a ripe piece of fruit, only to cut down the tree.

  I jutted my chin and asked point blank. "Will you let me go when you are finished with this business?"

  "I will let you go when I have tired of you," he answered in a bored drawl.

  His gaze then slid from my eyes to my mouth and then to my breasts, bound by the Symington Side Lacer that I wore to achieve a fashionably girlish bosom. "What is this?" he asked with a look of disgust, followed by a clean slice of the jambiya through the laces. "Do you abhor your womanhood so very much?"

  His question rang a peal in my brain. It was true. I despised being a woman to the depths of my being. "Yes!" I cried. "And never more than in this very moment!"

  With my arms pinned behind my back, I could do nothing but endure his lazy inspection of my nakedness. He replaced the dagger and jerked my blouse from my shoulders, releasing my wrists long enough to remove it completely. Although my hands were free, I tamped down the instinct to cover myself. Instead, I met him stare for stare.

  He raised a hand to my face, brushing the strong fingers down my cheek, but I still refused to look away. His caress continued, a lazy finger down my throat, his thumb circling the indentation between my collarbones, the backs of his fingers descending to the valley between my breasts. He grazed his long, strong fingers underneath and then along the outsides of my breasts, inciting from me an involuntary shiver. His gentle touch was a new torture—invoking equal parts revulsion…and pleasure. A smug smile pulled at the corners of his mouth at the hardening of my nipples.

  I knew that escape was no option and resolved to endure his touch with stony stoicism. He might take his pleasure from me, but I would offer nothing in return. I rationalized that if I would be as cold and lifeless as a corpse, he would quickly become tired of me and either kill me or let me go. I would rather the latter, but in that moment, even death seemed preferable to my enslavement as his mistress.

  "Take off the boots and breeches," he commanded.

  Only hours ago I would have balked, but now I woodenly obeyed him. He watched with a half-smile as I sat on the edge of the bed struggling with the boots.

  "So I am to be relegated to valet after all." The sheik knelt and gave one solid yank on the heel, freeing one foot from the tight leather, and then the other. He then stood me up and unbuttoned my breeches, peeling them slowly over my hips, nuzzling my belly with his lightly bristled face as he worked down the length of my legs. "So soft…so white," he murmured hotly against my skin.

  Beneath the breeches, I wore French knickers. It was a secret indulgence of mine. They were surprisingly comfortable, and I liked the feeling of the silk against my bare skin. He slid his hands up my thighs and reached his fingers easily beneath the silk to touch my hidden nest of curls. "Your hair color is from nature, is it not, my lamb? I wonder if your fleece here," I suppressed a shiver as he stroked over my mons, "is naturally golden as well."

  Willing myself to remain steady and stiff, I said nothing, but his words had both appalled and excited me. He skirted both hands up the backs of my thighs, and under the knickers to graze over my bottom, while he gripped the waistband of my knickers…with his teeth.

  I was breathless. Nothing about this was what I had expected. It was hardly the brutal ravishment I had prepared myself for. His actions were inexplicable and bewildering, making me feel like a helpless mouse under the paw of a great lion who wished to play with it.

  "Please!" I cried. "Will you stop toying with me and just get the business over with!"

  He laughed and ran his tongue across my belly. "But that is not my wish, ma chère. No indeed. It is my desire to make you bask in what you most despise. You wished to be a boy, but I intend to teach you the untold delights of being a woman."

  I could not hold back my retort. "Your conceit is unbearable. How could I ever feel any pleasure when the very thought of joining my body with yours fills me with nothing but disgust? Your touch alone reviles me!"

  "Is that so, ma belle?" He chuckled softly. "Perhaps it is time I put your claims to the test?"

  He spun my body so that my back was at his chest. His arms encased me so that I was once more immobile, and then there was the sensation of a soft rope encircling my wrists. He tightened them slowly, binding them together. "They are silken hobbles, custom made by my design," he explained. "I use them to train my finest horses, but they are also meant to restrain. Do not fight, cherie, for they will tighten if you struggle."

  The coolness of his words was like a dash of cold water. I stared at him in patent disbelief. He smiled back at me. Slowly. Wolfishly. "You have made your own bed, my dove…and now you most assure
dly shall lie in it."

  Once more I had tempted fate. I had crossed the line. Now he would punish me. You have made your bed… But it was his bed that he pushed me back upon with those ominous words.

  He had earlier shed the customary thawb in favor of Turkish trousers with a long shirt of fine white linen. I watched as he discarded his dagger, placing it on the bedside table. If only my hands were free, I swore I would plunge it into his barbarous black heart.

  Once more, he read my thoughts, shaking his head with a tsk. "I think not, ma belle."

  His body came over mine, crushing me into the downy mattress. I could feel his arousal, large, thick, and hard—like a staff—pressing against my hip. He brought my bound hands over my head. It was now I noticed a large brass ring mounted in the center of the headboard, the kind found on old hitching posts. In my ignorance, I had thought it purely ornamental, but as he secured my hands, I realized its menacing purpose.

  I felt helpless, like a trapped wild thing. I had sworn to myself I would not fight him, but to be bound as a sacrificial virgin to the gods of pleasure—it was too much! I kicked and writhed, but it was no good. He soon had my ankles bound to the bed posts as well. I fought him to exhaustion until my whole body was one agonizing ache, until my spirit was crushed. He had already declared his will as law, and he had willed my total and complete subjugation. And he had won. He had broken me. Utterly.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Sick with apprehension, I watched as he bent over my luggage, rummaging around until returning with a silken scarf that he wrapped around my head and over my eyes. I wanted to scream and sob aloud, to grovel for my release, but I knew it was pointless. My courage had faltered; even my pride had finally failed me. A feeling of despair came over me and with it a sense of unreality, for the truth seemed too impossible, the setting too theatrical.

  Blinded and bound to his bed, I lay quiet and still, as silent tears scorched my cheeks. I was supremely defenseless, and I hated and feared this utter vulnerability.

  "Doucement, doucement," he repeated in the same soothing tones he had used on his fretful horse. "It is not what you think, ma chère ."

  I could not think at all. I trembled. I raged. I wept. But rational thought was far beyond me. My brain was completely numb, but my senses seemed only to sharpen. I was tense, drawn taut, every nerve thrumming on full alert, keenly aware of him—the soft tread of his feet, the rustling of his movements.

  With my vision hampered, I was more acutely attuned to every scent—the smoky smell of burning lamp oil and the hints of nighttime in the Sahara, accompanied by the sweet pungency of desert flowers. Most taunting of all to my nostrils was his unique, musky bouquet—a distinctly mysterious and masculine essence hinting of ambergris, sweet incense, and tobacco that combined to simultaneously attract and repel me.

  I also felt everything more intensely—the vibrations in the air at his approach even before his weight sunk into the mattress. The gentle touch of his hands on my feet. The pads of his thumbs massaging the ball of one foot and then the other. A sharp scraping sensation on the arch of my foot that the moist fan of hot breath confirmed as his teeth. The smooth sweep of his fingers over my calves, followed by the light abrasion of his beard bristle. The sensation of his hot, wet tongue lapping the hollow place behind my knees.

  I was no longer afraid, but drank in every sensation. My body was on fire. I could not help myself given my voluptuary nature. I had lived my entire life indulging my senses with all things beautiful—art, music, food, wine, perfumes. I had never refrained from handling anything or feeling whatever I chose. Nothing had been out of bounds to me. My wealth allowed me these singular privileges, but I had never before indulged my receptors to another's touch. I had long ago shunned the need for such physical contact as a contemptuous feminine weakness, but he had forced my submission to it.

  I told myself I was only too weary to fight him, but the truth was that his all-out sensual assault had made me a victim of my own senses—of my own suppressed nature. And now awakened, I was starving for more. I relaxed by degrees as he moved up my body. My anticipation had become impatience fired with an eagerness I fought to hide while I drank it all in—secretly reveling in the fluttery feeling of his fingertips, the moist heat of his open mouth, the scoring sensation of his teeth across my skin. I burned. I ached. A haze of helpless need settled over me, causing me to throb deep inside.

  I was not ignorant of the mechanics of coitus, but I had never before experienced even an inkling of sexual desire. I had believed it nonexistent in me. But now it grew in response to him, blooming inside, making me breathless, blurring my mind of all but the ceaseless ache in my loins.

  A puff of hot air blew over my mound. His voice was muffled in my nest of curls. "Yes, it is as I suspected. My lamb has the loveliest golden fleece." He nuzzled deeper, and a whimper emerged from my throat. "Is this your revulsion that cries out, ma chère?"

  I could visualize the mocking twist of his mouth. He plied that same mouth to my flesh, working hot open-mouth kisses low across my belly from one hip bone to the other, skirting just above my mons. My body quivered. He raised his head from me. "Shall I desist all this nasty unpleasantness now?"

  My skin was damp with perspiration, but my mouth was parched. When I tried to respond, a soft, strangled noise emerged. He had sworn to make me revel in that which I most despised, and once more, the power of his will had proven superior to mine. Yet I still swore to deny him the satisfaction of this knowledge.

  I set my teeth and stiffened my limbs, but my body betrayed me, belying my sham of repugnance when he slid his fingers between my legs to find the inside of my thighs damp with desire. I was wet with undeniable and unadulterated want and shuddered with ripples of pleasure as he dipped into my wetness and stroked the length of my nether lips.

  He chuckled lowly, a smug and self-satisfied sound. "Say it, ma chère," he softly demanded. "Tell me you want this above all things. Tell me you want me."

  I did. Desperately, but it was only the fleeting lust of the flesh that I craved—not him. Never him. "You have forced this upon me," I hissed in a rage of frustration. "This means nothing—proves nothing."

  "As you will…I can be a patient man—when I choose to be."

  His weight shifted away from me, and then it was gone from the bed. He removed the blindfold and gave a single tug on the silk cord binding me to the bed. My arms instantly released from above my head. Just as suddenly, he freed my legs.

  I scrambled to my knees, dragging the silken coverings up around me as if their thin shelter were a protection. "Are you finished with me now?" I asked breathlessly.

  "Finished?" His expression was mixed mockery and mirth. "Par bleu! I have hardly even begun, but for now, I shall leave you in peace." He strode to the curtained doorway only to turn back to me with a sardonic bow. "Bonne nuit et doux rêves, ma chérie."

  He left me alone. Alone in a state of dazed bewilderment and intense sexual frustration—for I knew damned well what I was feeling—and it made me want to screech and claw and rail.

  The man was a mystery, an unfathomable enigma. My mind could not reconcile his barbaric ways with the evidence of his education and refinement. I had noticed a dozen incongruities in him—his cultured speech, the well-worn books in the tent, the elegant and fastidious order of his appointments. His cruel words and contradictory tender touch crowded my recollection until my head reeled, yet I was too tired to puzzle it out, too spent in mind and body.

  I did not know what would come on the morrow but gave in to my exhaustion and sank into a cocoon of covers. In the course of a single day, my entire being had irrevocably changed. At long last, and with the greatest possible resistance, I was learning obedience and humility—at the hands of this incomprehensible savage.

  ***

  It was midday before I awoke. I had slept the deep and drug-like sleep of one who is utterly drained in body and spirit. Surprisingly, I was neither bleary nor befuddled by my su
rroundings when I opened my eyes but had instant and complete remembrance of everything. It seemed already years ago, when the poor, silly fool Diana Mayo had ridden blindly into the trap from which her boasted independence had not been able to save her. I had already paid heavily for my determination to ignore the restrictions of my sex, and the payment was not yet over. I shrank at the thought of confronting him again. I lay there for I don't know how long, living again every moment of the past night, until any more thought of it was unendurable.

  I finally rose and found my robe laid out neatly upon the bed. It must have been Zilah. The timid girl was little more than a creeping shadow. I jerked my arms impatiently through it and then tied the sash. There was movement beyond the curtains. I hesitated, cursed myself for a craven, and then boldly drew them aside.

  A man stood with his back to me. I froze again, but the short, slim figure in European clothes bore no resemblance to the tall Arab I had expected. This was the same man from the night before, the servant with his narrow, alert, clean-shaven face, sleek black hair, and dark, restless eyes. Suddenly awakened to my presence, he turned to me with a quick little bow. He spoke rapidly in a light and pleasant tone.

  "I am Gaston," he introduced himself. "Madam is doubtless ready for lunch?"

  With movements as quick and efficient as his speech, he pulled out a chair for me. Within minutes I had before me a lunch that was perfectly prepared and as daintily served—a salad of tomato and coriander accompanied by a cucumber and yoghurt soup, some goat cheese, and a loaf of crusty French bread. He poured me a cup of Etzai, the mint tea favored in this region. As I sipped it, I recalled the faint flavor of mint when the sheik had kissed me. I shook it away with a shudder, not wishing to dwell on any remembrance of him.

  Gaston hovered about with an eager solicitude, attending me with dexterous hands and watchful eyes that seemed to anticipate my every need. He seemed to me such a curious adjunct to the household of an Arab chief.