The Sheik Retold(18)

"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 assuredly 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.