The Sheik Retold(26)

Immaculately groomed, he was very different from the half-naked and disheveled savage of an hour before. I shot a nervous glance at him. He appeared grave, but not angry, as he looked me over, stroking his lightly bristled chin. I waited in vain for him to speak.

He gripped my shoulders and spun me away from him. His long fingers grazed a shiver-inciting caress over the bare skin of my spine, stopping at the place just above my buttocks. "You wear no undergarments?" he asked in a husky voice.

"This gown permits none," I replied flippantly.

I felt as much as heard his sharp intake of breath and the press of a burgeoning erection against my bottom. Fumbling slightly, he slipped a long jade necklace over my head and stepped back from me.

Had I unnerved him with my confession? The idea amused me, but then I gazed down at the necklace resting upon my breast. For a long moment I just looked stupidly at the thing. It was a lovely piece, intricately made and pure in color. I fingered the cool stones, but then the symbolism of it suddenly struck me.

"How dare you?" I spun around with a gasp. Tearing it from my neck, I flung it at his feet.

"You don't like it?" His brows tented in surprise, but his tone was unruffled. "It matches your dress." His long fingers touched the folds of green silk swathed across my breast. "Pearls are too banal and diamonds too cold for you," he said. "You should wear nothing but jade. It is the color of the evening sky against the sunset of your hair."

He had never spoken like that before or used that tone of voice. It was poetic and it baffled me. It was this changeability, his swift transition from ferocity to gentleness, that I could not fathom. His complex nature was beyond my understanding.

He picked up the jade necklace and offered it to me again. "Take it. I wish it," he urged quietly. I still made no move to accept it. "Perhaps you prefer diamonds and pearls?"

"No. I don't want your jewels. You have no right to think that I am that kind of woman."

"You do not like them? Bon Dieu!" He laughed. "None of the other women ever refused them. On the contrary, they could never get enough."

"Other women?" I repeated blankly, a dull horror settling upon me. In my self-conceit I had never considered that I was only one of a succession of mistresses, taken and discarded at his whim.

"You didn't suppose you were the first, did you?" His candor was sharp and brutally cutting. "Don't look at me like that. They were not like you. They came to me willingly enough—too willingly. Allah! How they bored me! You are nothing like the rest, my dove."

"I hate you, do you understand?" I cried out almost hysterically. "I hate you!"

"So you have already told me, but with reiteration your remark becomes less convincing." The hateful mockery had crept into his eyes. "You will wear the necklace to please me. Yes, to please my artistic soul. I have an artistic soul even though I am only a savage."

I flung up my head, and my lips sprang open to retort, but he drew me to him swiftly, laying his hand over my mouth. "I know, I know," he said coldly. "I am a brute and a beast and a devil. You need not tell me again. It commences to grow tedious."

His hand slipped down to my shoulder, his fingers gripping my arm. "How much longer are you going to fight? Would it not be wiser after what you have seen to recognize that I am master here?"

"You mean that you will treat me as you treated the colt this afternoon?" I whispered.

"Indeed. You are much like my horses, ma belle, as beautiful and willful. But just as I bend them to my will, you must also bend."

"And if I do not?"

"Then you will break. Is that what you wish?" His hand tightened on my arm, and a muscle twitched in his jaw. This cold quiet of his was infinitely more sinister to me than if he raged or blustered. His forehead was drawn together in a heavy frown, and there was no softening in his eyes as he awaited my answer. He was not threatening idly; he meant what he said.

"Then why not just kill me now?" I demanded.

"That would be to admit my defeat," he replied. "I do not kill a horse until I have proved beyond all possible doubt that I cannot tame it. With you I have no such proof. I can tame you, and I will. But it is for you to choose and to choose tonight if you will obey me willingly or if I must make you. I have been very patient—for me," he added with an odd smile. "But my patience is exhausted." He took my chin in his fingers and jerked my head up sharply, making my teeth jar. He tilted my head farther back, bending his own down until his lips were nearly touching mine. The heavy scowl had smoothed away, but the fierceness lingered in his eyes. "Choose quickly, Diane." He stared into me as if he were looking into my very soul.

I shivered. I wrenched my eyes from his and snatched the necklace from his hands. I was humiliated and hurt, but I was still at his mercy. "I'll wear your damned necklace."

"Good." He smiled ironically and released me. "Our dinner awaits."

***

Gaston proved himself as masterful in culinary as he was in equestrian arts. Our dinner was elegantly laid out with fine china and gleaming sliver upon blinding-white linen. Once the sheik sat down opposite me, he returned to the role of the dispassionate and courteous host that he had adopted when he first came in, but throughout the meal, I was aware acutely of his constant surveillance. I flicked my own furtive glances frequently to his face, and always his fierce eyes were watching me with a steadiness that wracked my nerves. I was reminded of an exhibition I had seen in Vienna, where a lion tamer ended the performance by dining in the lions' cage, surrounded by her savage, snarling beasts of prey.