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drivers, waiting for the sear of pain that said he was hit, welcoming it, if only his death would
come while he was running free in the desert night. But no shot came. Instead he heard the
honking cry of a camel, the rhythmic beat of its great splayed feet, so much more suitable than his
for sand. He turned just as it galloped past him. There was the sear of pain but it was from a
truncheon wielded by a man leaning from the camel s back. Light flashed in Ian s head like a
thousand stars and he dropped to the sand, dazed.
Hands pulled at him, shouting. Blows fell about his shoulders. He stumbled, was dragged up, back
to the pool. Hands shoved him into the water. He fell to his knees. The water was only to his chest.
Two of the camel boys scrubbed him with a rough cloth until he was raw. They held him down and
took a razor to his beard, pulled him out, and dusted him with lime to kill lice. His senses began to
return, along with a mighty ache in his head. Then it was into the water again, strong lye soap,
dried roughly and delivered naked to the flap of the embroidered tent. The angry keeper, a weal
across his face, unbolted Ian s shackle and replaced it with a hemp rope. He was about to deliver
a fisted blow when the tall Arab raised his voice.
 Do not damage him! The keeper fell back reluctantly and the tall Arab gestured Ian through
the flap.  English, it is your time. He looked sorry.  Your rebellion will please her.
Ian straightened. What could one woman who probably didn t weigh nine stone possibly do to a
man who even still weighed fourteen? What indeed? Something inside him shuddered so deeply he
thought he might faint.
Inside the tent, lamps burned in a soft glow, their flames flickering on the red fabric of the tent
walls. There were the carpets that were rolled every day and put across a camel s back, unfurled
now in sumptuous luxury, and soft cushions, fabric that hung from the tent pole in shades of
orange and magenta and burgundy. In the center of the room a low carved table was set with
plates of dates and sweetmeats.
She lay across a low couch, her body draped insou-ciantly over cushions embroidered in gold. She
wore a diaphanous gown that hid nothing, clipped at the shoulders with gold brooches and held at
the waist by a girdle of worked gold. Her lips were painted gold, and her toenails. She was
barefoot, her leg up to her thigh bared by the slit in that transparent fabric. He could smell her
scent. Ambergris. That was what it was. She smelled like cinnamon and ambergris.
 If you think I m going to service you like some bullock at a town fair services the local heifers,
you re damned well mistaken, he said through clenched teeth. Let her have him beaten to death.
He didn t give a damn. He expected shouting, a call to someone to punish him. Even if she knew
no English, she could not mistake the tone.
She smiled. A cobra might smile like that when it saw a rat that thought it could avoid the
inevitable. The smile grew, showing even white teeth. She was so beautiful and so sure of it in that
flickering lamplight; the black eyes, the skin that never saw the sun, creamy and soft looking. She
raised a hand and beckoned to him. He sealed his lips and stood where he was.
A low chuckle escaped her, as though she enjoyed his resistance, his battle with his fear. She
beckoned again, only this time her eyes seemed to glow in the lamplight. It was the strangest thing
he had ever seen, like cats eyes in the glow of a lantern, only red. He found himself taking a step
toward her. He tried to stop, tried to look away, and he could do neither. He felt strangely distant
from himself as he took step after step toward her. Then he was kneeling beside her. He could feel
what she demanded of him regardless of the difference in language, and there was no refusing. He
did not even want to refuse her. He wanted her, lusted after her as he had never lusted after any
woman in his life. He saw his hand reach out and run his palm up the smooth skin of her calf, up
the back of her knee, and so on up to her thigh. If only she would allow him to pleasure her& He
felt the throb in his loins and knew that he was hard and ready for her. She leaned over him. He
raised his face to hers that he might gaze deeply into those red, shining eyes. Her breasts hung
almost within reach. She wanted him to touch them, so he did, feeling the heft, thumbing her
nipple. She put one hand, with those incredibly long nails, at the back of his neck under the fall of
his newly washed hair and lifted his lips to hers while her other hand raked across his back, the
nails scratching lightly over his most recent welts, threatening. Her mouth was soft, supple. She
opened his lips with her tongue and caressed his mouth from the inside. She wanted his tongue as
well, and he slipped it inside her mouth and drew it across her teeth. Her canines were sharp. She
moved her lips over his face. His eyes closed briefly. She lapped at his temple where a trickle of
blood from the truncheon blow wound down toward his cheek. This seemed to excite her and she
grew more urgent.
Somewhere he knew that he was not his own man in this moment. Even his cock was not his own.
She pressed herself against him and wrapped her fingers, with those long golden nails, around his
shaft. He was hard as he had ever been. Lava pooled in his balls, ready to spurt. He gave a moan
as she pulled on his cock, lightly and then with more force. He thought he would burst. But she
would not let him burst. She bade him look into her eyes, and with that one look she bottled his
lust up inside him. She controlled him, mind and body. The horror of that realization began to
work on him. She pulled aside the diaphanous red cloth and bared her breast to him. He bent to
suckle it. He tried to pull away, tried with all his soul. She chuckled, low in her throat, and bared
her other breast. He bent over it in answer to her demand. Her palms cupped his buttocks, her
thumbs feeling the raised welts of the whip across them.
At last she lay back against the back of her low chaise and pushed his head down to where her
gown was split to the waist. She wanted her pleasure from his tongue and not his cock. He gave a
groan and found her nub of pleasure. She tasted salty and warm. He was sweating lightly in the
heat of the tent. He knew what she wanted, exactly. He did not know how he knew. He lapped in
long strokes and then flicked lightly, back and forth, on and on, easing her by stages toward her
climax. When it came, she pressed him against her with surprising strength and bucked against
him, moaning. Her image seemed to waver for a moment, soft around the edges; then she popped
back into hard-edged focus and went limp.
She released him and wriggled into her cushions like a kitten. Ian sat back, his own need [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]