The Spymaster's Protection (34 page)

It was a grim future that she contemplated before her bedroom
window at the end of the week. Her mood and her thoughts were made even darker
by Lucien’s long absence. The day after arriving at the smithy’s house, he had
left. He had not told Gabrielle or his friends where he was going; only that he
would be away a few days. Gabrielle had thought a
few days
might mean
two or three.

She understood now that he had brought her to this house to be
safe, in addition to making her arrangements for the orphans, while he went
about his job of gathering information. But where could he have gone that it
took six days? She had stopped being able to sleep much three nights ago.
Tonight, she looked out over the city, sick with worry. Had something happened
to him? Would he ever come back to her?

She was a woman who had been unprotected and unloved nearly
all of her life— until Lucien de Aubric had entered it. If she had to, she
could find her way home on her own, but how could she leave the city without
him; without knowing what had become of him? He was in enemy territory. If his
true identity was discovered, he would be captured and imprisoned, maybe even
put to death. He would never link her to himself. No one but the Mansurs would
know about her. And what had happened to Omar and Nephrim? Gabrielle hadn’t
seen either of them since they had arrived in Damascus. She did not know how if
they still were in the city, and she wasn’t sure if she should try to contact
them. Surely the Mansurs would let her know if something had happened to
Lucien.

She wanted to ask Farouk and Nahla if they’d heard anything,
but she did not think they knew Lucien’s true purpose in the city. They’d never
dropped a hint that they even knew he was a Templar. If they did, they surely
would have thought it strange that he was with her. Still, if he did not return
soon, she would have to go to someone for help, either to find Lucien or to go
home.

As they had so many times in the past few days, tears rose in
her eyes and began spilling down her cheeks. Moving away from the open window,
Gabrielle unbelted her robe and sat down on the edge of her bed. The ropes took
her weight with a squeak.

She turned at the waist and looked back at the pillows. She
could lie against them all night and sleep would elude her, she was certain.
Still, she supposed she must try.

An hour later, she was out of bed and pacing the room in her
bare feet and night shift when she heard a barely audible noise coming from
across the corridor. It was so faint she thought her ears had deceived her
until she heard it again, closer this time. Someone was definitely outside her
room.

Thinking it must be a servant, she pulled open the door and
peered into the unlit corridor. Wearing nothing more than an unbleached linen
undertunic and a pair of loose-legged trousers, Lucien met her in the portal
and gave her a devastating white-toothed grin.

“I did not think you would be awake.”

Her first reaction was one of overwhelming relief. Anger
quickly followed, but it did not overrule her first emotion. She gave into
impulse and flung herself into his arms. As he chuckled and bent to kiss her,
she pulled him into her room, stepping backwards with her arms locked tightly
around his neck.

“Oh God, Lucien!” she groaned. “Where have you been? I have
been so worried!”

He put a little space between them and looked into her
glistening eyes. “I am sorry I worried you, sweet Gabi. I….”

“I don’t care!” she decided as she grasped the end of his
tunic and began to lift it over his head. Dear God, right now all she wanted
was to touch him; to make sure he was whole and uninjured!

Beneath the thin fabric, she heard a smothered chuckle, but
she had him stripped of the garment within seconds despite his superior height
and width. The instant his chest was bared to her, she began kissing him all
over. Not an inch of his dark golden skin escaped the passionate caress of her
mouth.

Her fingers swept through the sprinkling of dark hair on his
chest. It was soft as a cat’s fur. Beneath it, she explored the contours of his
powerful muscles, mapping the corded sinews that swept down from his neck to
his arms, kneading the swells with her whole hand. He was a powerfully built
man, tall and strong enough to chase away her anxieties.

Gabrielle bent forward and replaced her fingers with her lips
again. She placed scattered kisses everywhere her mouth could reach, and
finally settled on the hard button of one male nipple. Beneath her cheek, she
heard a deep groan rumble through him. The vibration of it mingled with his
accelerated heartbeat.

“Aw, Gabi, you missed me,” he whispered as he hooked an arm
around her and bent to nuzzle her loose curly hair.

“More than I shall burden you with.” With a wicked smile, she
too hooked an arm around his waist, while her other hand floated slowly
downward. It stopped at the corded tie to his loose trousers. She had it
unknotted in a few heartbeats. The much washed cotton fell silently to the
floor.

Lucien gasped as her long elegantly tapered fingers found his
swollen shaft and circled it. Maybe he had taught her too well, he mused with
another groan as she applied all the skill she had learned. When she cupped and
fondled the heavy sacks beneath his cock, he dropped his head back and
shuddered.

Gabrielle whispered something husky he did not catch, then
sank to her knees before him. Desire slammed through his gut and pooled in his
loins as her full lips opened over him and took him against the hot slide and
swirl of her clever tongue.

Her hands rose to his hips, and her fingers molded themselves
to his taut buttocks.

Matching the rhythm of her mouth, they squeezed and released,
kneaded and fondled, pulling him closer and closer to the hot shuddering climax
that threatened his very sanity. God have mercy! He could not restrain himself
much longer if she continued.

His hands swept into her hair and fit themselves to her scalp.
With a wild groan, he pulled her mouth off of him and drug her to her feet. He
made swift work of the gauzy night shift he had given her, wondering how he had
enough restraint left to refrain from ripping the gown.

The instant the cloth barrier between their flesh was gone, he
pulled her feverishly into his arms, crushing her full tightly budded breasts
against his chest. He felt wild, and on the verge of losing all control. He
buried his face in her hair and took several long droughts of air, breathing in
her fresh lavender scent. It soothed the raging beast inside him.

He cradled the firm flesh of her buttocks and again felt her
hands in the same place on him. She squeezed, and he rubbed against her,
rotating his hips in a shuddering circle against her downy soft fleece.

It was too much. He could not keep an iron hand on his desires
much longer. This woman unraveled him like no one had ever done. It took no
more than a look from her to make him hard, but since discovering that he loved
her, all his feelings for her, emotional and physical, had intensified a
hundredfold.

“Lucien, I’ve never done that…” she murmured against his
shoulder wondrously.

His befuddled brain did not understand her comment. He
couldn’t resist fondling her plump breast as it rested against his chest.
“What, my sweet?” he asked distractedly, fingering her nipple.

“Put my mouth on a man’s…. Well, you know.” Gabrielle felt
herself burning with embarrassment. What was a proper word for a lady to use,
she wondered. “I never would do that for Reynald. It disgusted me. My refusal
was the source of several punishments.” Lucien moved his hand to her velvety
soft hip and simply looked down at her as she tilted her head back to gaze at
his reaction. “I just wanted you to know that you were the first, and that I
wanted, truly wanted, to do that to you. Did you like it?”

The innocence of her question and the heart-wrenching nature
of her confession made him grin in a mixture of tender amusement and deep love.
“I liked it very much, Gabi— too much. In another moment, I would have lost my
wits and spilled my seed inside your…. Well,” he amended with an embarrassed
flush of his own. “I would rather be inside your body when I come.”

“You do not think me too wanton?” she asked shyly.

“Never. You always make me feel special.”

“I love you, Lucien de Aubric.”

“Oh, Gabi, words cannot adequately tell you what you mean to
me.”

Stepping onto her toes, Gabrielle locked her arms around his
neck and captured his lips, sweetly invading his mouth with her tongue. The
firestorm she reignited was made evident by the tremors that racked his big
body. Gabrielle reveled in it, but stopped him from pushing her backwards onto
the bed.

“The bed ropes squeak very badly.”

Lucien growled, then swept her up into his arms. As she gasped
and giggled, he grabbed a fistful of bed coverings and strode toward the door.

“Is your bed quieter?” she whispered in the dark corridor
between their rooms.

“No. It too squeaks.” He looked down at the naughty laughter
in her eyes and kissed her on the forehead. “What say you about going to the
rooftop?”

“I would say that would be very romantic to make love beneath
all the beautiful stars out tonight, but you have left me nothing to come back
downstairs in.”

He nodded toward the bed coverings she clutched. “I will
return you safely to your room before the household wakes.”

“Perfect.”

And it was. The dark rooftop patio was lit only by the
brilliance of all the stars twinkling overhead and the shimmering arc of the
crescent moon. The profusion of the delicate bougainvillea flowers scented the
air to mingle with Lucien’s freshly washed body.

Gabrielle buried her nose in his soft chest hairs and nuzzled
him with a sigh as he set her on her feet. Turning away for a brief moment, he
swept the blankets and linens out to make a bed for them under the stars.
Together they sank down onto the warm soft nest.

Gabrielle tumbled backward with a gentle shove from Lucien,
then giggled again as he stretched his big hard body over hers.

“I’m feeling a little bold tonight, Templar,” she teased him. Then she
thoroughly surprised him by squirming out from under him and climbing on top of
him. “I think I shall bind you to me tonight, Sir Aubric.”

Having been so frightened for him for days, she needed to
imprint her body and soul on him, though what she really wanted was to blend
into one being with him so that nothing would ever separate them.

There was too much desperation in her loving, but Lucien
seemed not to notice as Gabrielle poured her whole being into their lovemaking,
fiercely driving away her fears.

Lucien accommodated her masterfully, giving her the control
she seemed to want. Her fervor delighted him. In response, he suckled on her
breasts and stroked her everywhere that he knew drove her wild. The feel and
taste of her was maddening, and when she impaled herself on him, he recognized
the end of his forbearance.

Gabrielle felt him teetering on the edge of his control and
rocked backwards, then forwards, dragging her long hair over his body. With a
shuddering growl, he rolled her smoothly beneath him. She giggled, pleased that
she had tormented him to the point of such desperate need.

When he slipped one hand between them and began fondling her
most intimately, she very nearly burst into flames herself. Upon hearing the
aroused little moans she could not hold back, Lucien thrust home with one sure
stroke. After that everything was a blur for Gabrielle.

Lucien built both of their pleasure to a piercing crescendo.
The tremors racing across her flesh matched his. She was soon whimpering with
need as he pumped into her over and over, gripping the soft flesh of her
buttocks to cushion the increasingly powerful thrusts of his muscular body.

Gabrielle cried out when the convulsions finally seized her in
that little death she so loved. Lucien soon followed her with a hoarse cry of
his own as he bucked and shuddered violently. The moment he spilled into her,
Gabrielle locked her legs tightly around his narrow waist and rode the storm
out with him, gasping and shivering in his arms as he collapsed atop her.

Beyond his broad shoulders, the glittering blanket of stars
twinkled back at her in all their heavenly glory, branding her soul with their
grace and beauty.

CHAPTER
17

If one stood on a hill overlooking the great city if Damascus,
one would see a vast sprawl of buildings, sprinkled with slender towering
minarets and blue green bulb shaped domes. The glittering pinnacles of stone
and tile defined the character and the culture of the Middle Eastern trading
center, but maybe not as well as the streets of the ancient capital.

Below the assortment of rooftops, the cultures of many worlds
met. For centuries, Damascus had been a major trade center; a beginning, a
stopover, and an end. Traders from India, the Far East, Africa, Egypt, and the
Western Continent traveled the overland routes and passed through the city
gates, leaving goods from the far corners of the world.

Thousands of people relied on trade, and merchants thrived
from the exchange of goods. Caravans made up of thousands of camels, drivers,
and merchants converged on the city regularly. Following the ancient trade
routes of the Silk Road, the Spice Road, and the Incense Road, they brought
silk and jade from China, cotton, rice and sugar from India, and spices from
ports along the Mediterranean and beyond.

Precious incense from Africa blended with the smell of clove,
cinnamon, and nutmeg from Asia. Horses, leather, carpets, dates, and coffee
came from the Arabs themselves, weaving their own unique odors among the rest.

Damascus was a melting pot, especially in the large market
sectors of the city. Any nationality, religion, or skin color could be seen on
its streets. There was nothing one could not purchase for the correctly haggled
price. There was no such thing as an illicit commodity. Everything was for
sale, including information from any region of the world.