The Sheikh's Impetuous Love-Slave (3 page)

She felt alive. She felt liberated. She felt…she felt distracted. By the perfume wafting up from the petals and oils which Prince Khalid had strewn into the bathwater. By the tingling sensation his kiss had left on her lips. By the way her body heated, her skin too hot, all her senses accentuated. By the man himself, once more turning his attention towards her. He had discarded his cloak, his weapons, his headdress. His hair was black, midnight-black, just like hers. Without the formal clothes, he looked much younger. Much more attractive. Much more dangerous. Much, much more dangerous. He was no longer an aloof prince, but a man.

She had never really thought of herself as a woman, but now, because he so obviously did, so too did she. Compared to his lithe body, the compact power in his muscles, the very potency of him, she felt vulnerable, soft, exposed. Her will seemed to have fled. She was oddly inclined to do as he bid her, oddly excited by the prospect.

‘Take off your clothes.'

One thing to imagine, quite another thing to actually do. Juliette clutched at her tattered robe. A blush stained her cheeks. ‘
Non!'

But it was no use. His hands were already dealing competently with the few remaining fastenings of her practical cotton gown. The shoulder seams gave way as he eased it over her body. The skirt crumpled to the floor. Her corsets followed. Clad only in her chemise and pantaloons, Juliette panicked. She had never looked at herself naked in a mirror before. She wasn't sure she relished the thought of her body, reflected endlessly in those mirrors. ‘No, please, I….'

If he gave himself time to think, he would stop, so he refused to think, because for one of the few times in his life, Khalid was giving rein to his own desires. He took the worn linen between his hands and ripped the chemise from neckline to hem. The shift fell to the floor of the bathing chamber. Juliette clutched her hands over her breasts. Shocked at his own actions, Khalid simply stared at her. She was beautiful. Voluptuous, with a slim waist and perfect breasts, the nipples dark against her creamy flesh. Her hips were pleasingly rounded, her legs, in the strange-looking undergarment, delightfully shaped. He pictured them wrapped around him, and blood rushed to his groin.

It was only when he made to cut the ties of her last remaining piece of clothing that he realized how forceful—unnecessarily forceful—his actions might seem, and halted abruptly. He did not want her to be afraid of him. That was the last thing he wanted.

Wrapping his arms around her, he stroked her hair back from her brow. ‘You know I will not harm you.' She was trembling. Of course she was trembling. How foolish he had been, thinking to break her by force of will. How foolish he had been to forget that behind that defiant demeanour lay an innocent. There were other ways, much more pleasant ways, to tame her. Khalid stroked the knotted line of her spine, holding her firmly to him. Her skin was icy cold. He stroked her back, the delicate wings of her shoulder blades, the flaring curve of her bottom, nestling her closer so that the heat from his body warmed her, until she stopped shaking. Then he tugged her pantaloons free and picked her up, placing her gently into the warm, soothing waters of the sunken bath.

Juliette closed her eyes, trying to concentrate on the blissfully soothing water, the delightfully heady scents. After a month spent bound and filthy in cramped conditions, the bath should have been a luxurious pleasure, but it was no use—she couldn't relax. She couldn't help being aware of Khalid's presence, his almost tangible potency. The abrupt change in him, from prince to man, from commanding to gentling, had broken down the last of her resistance. His plain blue tunic was damp from the bath waters. It clung to him like a second skin as he rolled up his sleeves, lavishly soaped an enormous sponge and simply dropped into the bath beside her, pulled her to her feet, and began to put the sponge to use.

He started at her shoulders, her neck, her back. She closed her eyes and tried to pretend it was happening to someone else, some other Juliette, but the gentle sweep of the soap-filled sponge over her skin, the brush of his fingers, the swish of his soaking tunic, the soft fall of his breath, conspired to make her aware, incredibly aware, of his proximity. His scent was delicious, clean and spicy and warm. Male, distinctively male.

‘What are you doing?' To her chagrin, her voice sounded every bit as breathless as she felt.

Khalid laughed, a throaty chuckle which made her toes curl. ‘I told you. Preparing you. You have beautiful curves, Juliette. You should not be ashamed of them.'

He turned her round, prising her hands from her breasts, tracing the contours of them, running the sponge down the valley between them. The gentle abrasion made her nipples tingle. She felt them pucker and harden.

‘
Belle,'
Khalid whispered.

No one had ever called her beautiful before. But then no man had ever seen her naked before.

‘
Très belle,'
Khalid said, as if he had read her mind. ‘See what you do to me.' He pulled her against him, allowing the hard length of his erection to nestle against the gentle curve of her bottom.

It was ridiculous to be so gratified, so excited by his response, but she was. He thought her beautiful, and for now, she chose to believe him. Inside her, warmth spread, as if she were a rock heated by some internal sun. The sponge stroked and soaped. Down into the dip of her waist. Round to the base of her spine, the slope of her bottom. His breath was sharper, faster. Her own, too, became more rapid.

Down, over her bottom, before sliding round between her legs, the shockingly intimate touch making her gasp, causing a frisson of pleasure. Juliette bit her lip, but a small moan escaped her. She blushed deeply, feeling foolish. Risking a glance, she saw fierce concentration on Khalid's face, his eyes dark and smouldering. His chest, under the clinging silk of his tunic, rose and fell sharply. The soapy sponge dipped between her legs. Another frisson, and a resultant tightening inside her, like a winepress being slowly, inexorably turned, releasing the heady juice of her passion.

‘Stop thinking, just feel,' Khalid whispered to her urgently. He nudged her against the side of the bath, encouraging her to use it for support. ‘See how beautiful you are,' he said, nodding at the mirrored tiles now blurred by condensation.

She looked, and saw a sensual creature who must be her, skin streaked with suds and bubbles, hair clinging in damp curls to her arms, her breasts. She, who had always been encouraged to think and talk and act like a man, was being forced to take on the role of a woman. A woman whose body looked more voluptuous than Juliette had thought possible. Her curves, in the steamy light of the bathing chamber, looked lush and ripe, blooming like the flowers in the overgrown garden. It all added to her sense of unreality. This wasn't, couldn't be happening.

Instinctively, she arched her hips towards the sponge, where Khalid soaped between her thighs with long, languorous strokes. The tightening feeling inside her increased. Her nipples began to throb, a steady aching thrum that yearned for the same touch, too. The throbbing was taken up inside her. Another tiny moan escaped her as she braced herself against the tiles, eyes tight shut, wanting this exciting, excruciating feeling to go on and on forever, and at the same time wanting it to come to some sort of juddering conclusion, some aching crescendo. The water lapped tantalizingly at her thighs. She arched her back more, unwittingly thrusting her rosy-peaked breasts upwards, in the classic pose of abandonment.

Khalid caught his breath at the sight. So devastatingly, innocently, wantonly beautiful. He had not meant things to go this far. He had not meant things to get so out of hand. Beneath the soaking wet tunic, his erection thrust itself upwards, engorged and insistent. He should stop. He would stop, but not yet. Not until she cried out for him. Not until she begged him. From the flush suffusing her breasts, from the hard darkening peaks of her nipples, he could tell it would not be long. He wanted to abandon the sponge. He wanted it to be his hands, his mouth, which brought her to the edge and over the precipice, but that would be to break his own self-imposed rules. He cupped her, squashing the sponge flat between her sex and his palm, and felt the hard nub of her. Juliette moaned, a throaty, harsh sound that made his erection swell. He rubbed just a little harder, just enough for the exquisite combination of friction and lubrication from the soap, from her own arousal, to make her shudder. She was close. By the gods, she was close, and so too was he.

Khalid squeezed the sponge again, and saw the rippling and tightening in her stomach. He rubbed harder, and at the same time took one of her delightfully hard nipples into his mouth, sucking greedily. Juliette gasped. Khalid sucked again; he slid the sponge over her sex and before he could stop her, before he could stop himself, she came, with a harsh, sharp cry, pulsing onto him.

She felt as if she was being twisted and spun in a maelstrom before being flung out to float to the surface. Crimson lights flashed behind her lids, sparks seemed to heat her blood. Another twisting tightening sensation, and it happened again, more powerfully this time. Helpless, she cried out, slumping back against the side of the bath, panting, shaking, clutching, squirming as it happened yet again, and she couldn't stop it.

She shuddered. Flesh, hard flesh, held her. She clung tight, afraid that if she did not she would drown. The shuddering died away, rippling and eddying, leaving her feel light-headed. She opened her eyes, momentarily forgetting where she was and what had happened. When she finally did, she pushed herself free of Khalid's embrace and retreated to the opposite corner of the bath, crossing her arms over her breasts.

What had happened to her?

Something irrevocable, she knew that instinctively.

What must he think of her?

She wasn't sure. Something had changed between them; he was looking at her quite differently. He might as well have been naked, for a start, the way his tunic hugged his body. He was staring at her through hooded lids, his eyes dark with suppressed passion. His face was fierce, but not with anger. His hair stood up in rumpled spikes. There was a sprinkling of black hair on his chest, at the opening of his tunic. He was aroused. Juliette's eyes widened as she took in the bulge. Very aroused.

‘No.' She said it instinctively, without any expectation of being heeded, meaning it more for herself than for him, knowing that at this moment she would not be able to deny him. He had prepared her, just as he had promised, and though it shamed her to admit it, Juliette could not ignore the fact that he had prepared her very thoroughly indeed. Whatever he wanted from her, her body was ready to grant him.

She waited, anticipation mingling with shocking excitement. She waited for him to pull his robe over his head, for him to lay her down on the tiles and to take her. She was not the only one who was prepared. His manhood arced up under the damp of his tunic, hard and thick and proud. She waited, her breath coming hard and fast, but he made no move towards her. Instead, he turned away and slowly ascended the short flight of steps out of the bath. Disappointment, absurdly acute, welled up inside her. She stared at his retreating back, telling herself it was a welcome reprieve, quite unable, for the moment, to believe it was happening. As Khalid turned to look at her, she bit her lip, desperately trying to wipe her face clean of emotion.

It had taken all his resolve not to plunge his shaft into the sweet depths he had so delightfully prepared. Even now that he had put some distance between them, the vision of her there, damp and hot and sweetly ripe, was almost too much for his self-control. ‘I could have taken you but chose not to. Remember that,' Khalid said.

Mortified now, Juliette glared up at him, wishing he would just go, go and leave her to her shame. As he picked up his cloak, throwing it carelessly around his shoulders, obviously in as much of a rush to be away from her as she was now to have him gone, a small object clattered to the floor and rolled across the tiles towards the bath.

She caught it just before it fell into the water. It was gold, lying heavily in the palm of her hand. ‘Shal'aal,' Juliette exclaimed, forgetting her embarrassment as she looked at the little idol in astonishment.

Khalid looked surprised. ‘You know her name?'

Juliette smiled down at the little goddess, tracing the idol's voluptuous curves with her finger. ‘She's one of my favourites.' A fertility symbol. The connection jolted in her mind and she blushed violently, thrusting the artefact back at Khalid, avoiding his gaze as she scrambled in an ungainly way out of the bath, hurriedly covering herself with a large drying sheet. ‘She's usually found much farther north and west of here,' she babbled, still avoiding his eye, gratefully grasping at the familiar topic in an effort to recover a little of her composure. ‘Usually she's made of clay. Girls were often given one when they reached puberty, and childless women quite often wore them around their necks.'

‘A fertility symbol,' Khalid said, torn between the vision of the damp, inadequately draped female before him and the little goddess he held in his hand.

‘Obviously,' Juliette replied, striving for a business-like tone, irked by the breathiness in her voice.

He had not really believed her to be the expert she claimed to be, but obviously he was wrong, as he had been wrong from the start about almost everything to do with Juliette de Montignac. She was an enigma, a myriad of contradictions, all of them intriguing. He desired her, and admired her, and he wanted to soothe her and reassure her, and at the same time he wanted to make passionate love to her, and to pick her clever little mind and kiss her mindless.

She was edging nervously away from him now, and he couldn't blame her—he couldn't predict himself what he was going to do next. Taking a deep breath, Khalid tried to focus his mind. Get out of the bathing chamber. Eliminate one distraction, at least. Motioning Juliette into an adjoining room, he sat down at a careful distance from her on a divan. ‘Tell me what else you know about Shal'aal,' he said, handing her the idol again.

Tugging the towel closer, Juliette tried very hard to concentrate. It should be a relief to turn her mind to such safe territory, but discussing goddesses with a damp prince while she was wrapped only in a towel, and he had just—they had just….

Think!
‘As I said, she's never been found this far east.' His thigh was too close to hers. She could feel the heat from it through the linen of the towel. Juliette shuffled a little farther over on the velvet divan. ‘I found a reference to her in a papyrus document once,' she said, addressing the floor. ‘At least, I thought it was a reference to her, but Papa disagreed. He thought my theory nonsense. The scroll dated from about the fifth or sixth century, and mentioned a city which was then already more than two thousand years old.' Realizing she was babbling, she came to an abrupt halt.

‘Do you remember the name of the city?' He asked more from a desire to keep the conversation going, a reluctance to leave, though he knew leave was what he should do.

‘Persimmanion.'

‘Are you sure?'

His startled tone made Juliette lift her eyes from her study of the mosaic floor. His whole body seemed to have tensed. ‘Persimmanion. I am certain of it,' Juliette replied, unnerved by his piercing gaze, ‘but I have never come across any reference to it again.'

‘What did the scroll say about the goddess?' Khalid asked cautiously, trying desperately not to betray his excitement.

‘Only that the city was founded for her, that its riches were a gift from her. Where was she found?'

‘That need not concern you. What else do you know?'

‘Nothing. Except—it has just struck me, the similarity between her name, Shal'aal, and the name of your kingdom.'

‘Lash'aal.' She was right; there must be some connection. He must think. There were books he must consult. ‘I am indebted to you for shedding some light on her origins. I will take her back from you now, if I may.'

Bewildered by the sudden change in him, feeling unaccountably bereft at this sudden switch from sensual male to imperious prince, Juliette held out the goddess. As he took it from her, his fingers brushed hers, and a frisson of awareness shivered between them. Instead of letting her go, Khalid pulled Juliette to her feet. Her body bumped against his. The towel which clad her began to slip, revealing one rosy nipple.

Khalid touched the goddess to it, rolling the idol's round belly over the hard peak. The gold was warm. Khalid's fingers were warmer. Looking into his eyes, she knew, a fraction before he did, that he was going to kiss her again. When his lips covered hers, she had no thought of resisting. He kissed her softly, his tongue touching hers, tantalizingly brief.

‘I am an honourable man,' Khalid muttered to himself. She may well be in his harem, but Juliette was no concubine. Desirable as she was, tough as she believed herself to be, she was also an innocent who knew nothing of the world. He would not compromise her. Though he wanted to make love to her, more passionately than he had ever wanted to make love to any woman, he admired her too much, respected her too much, to consider it. There was also the simple fact of her virginity. An inviolable rule here in Lash'aal, where a woman's purity was perceived to be the ultimate gift to her husband. Any man who took without intending marriage was shamed. Sometimes honour came at a very high price. ‘
Bonne nuit, ma belle Juliette,'
Khalid whispered regretfully.