The Sheik Retold(33)

"You had better have shot me." I laughed bitterly.

"Perhaps. You would have been easier replaced. There are plenty of women, but that mare was almost unique." I winced at the cold brutality of his tone, a quality that made me reckless, that made me want to somehow hurt him back.

"If you do not love the women whom you bring here, do you give your love to your harem? You keep a harem locked away somewhere, I suppose?" I braved him with a scornful voice, but I had only set myself up for more of his contempt.

He reached out his hand and dragged me down into his arms with a laugh. "And if I have, are you jealous? What if the nights I spend away from you are passed in my harem—what then?"

He had struck a nerve. I lashed back at him, "Then may Allah put it into the heart of one of your wives to poison you so that you never come back."

"Allah! So beautiful and so bloodthirsty." He strained toward me hungrily, as if my impassioned reproof had awakened the sleeping fires within him. He tried to kiss me, but my resentment burned equally hot. I averted my head and struggled against the pressure of his arm.

"So cold?" he chided. "Kiss me, little piece of ice." Part of me, the perverse and passionate part, longed to kiss him back, but I knew he would only despise me for it, so I forced indifference into my eyes and a mutinous pout to my lips. "Still disobedient?" His black brows drew together slowly. "I thought you understood."

He was reminding me of the horse and that his will would always prevail—one way or another. I responded to his command with the dumb obedience he demanded, but without passion. No, I would never allow him to command my passion in such a tyrannous manner. Did he wish me to crawl abjectly to his feet so he could take pleasure in his contemptuous spurning of me? I paid the merest lip service instead, brushing his tanned cheek with a swift, cold kiss.

He laughed. "Bon Dieu! What happened to my huntress?"

"Do you expect to receive from me what you refuse to give?" I asked.

He cursed beneath his breath and then flashed an amused smile. "I have no harem and, thanks be to Allah, no wives, cherie. Does that please you?"

"Why should I care? It is nothing to me," I replied sharply, but my defiance had somewhat softened.

He chuckled and swept me into his masterful grasp, covering my face with fierce, burning kisses that instantly awakened my desire. I clung to him passionately, returning kiss for hungry kiss with an absolute abandon until we were both panting and breathless. But instead of carrying me to his bed as I expected…as I wished he would…he abruptly let me go.

He rose from the divan and drew his hand across his eyes. "You go to my head, Diane," he said thickly, in a voice that was half anger.

I gazed at him in bewilderment. What did he mean?

Suddenly I understood. He wanted me but regarded his desire as weakness within himself. He had already confessed that I was not like his other women, that he wanted me more than he had wanted the others, which further disturbed his peace. The strength of his desire filled me with warmth and self-satisfaction, yet my happiness dimmed.

His passion was powerful—like a falling star that burned hot and bright while in the heavens— and just as fleeting. I knew his lust for me would extinguish as abruptly as that star that fell to earth. I doubted any woman alive could keep him happy for long. The conviction made me even more surly and ill tempered, bitter, jealous and insecure. Yes, I was possessed of many new and unfamiliar demons. Pandora's box had sprung wide open.

Gaston shortly entered, bearing a little tray with two filigree-cased cups of coffee. He set it on a low table beside the divan. He spoke a few words in Arabic to his master, after which the sheik took up a cup, swallowed the boiling coffee, and hastily went back out—without a word of explanation to me. I struggled once more to suppress my resentment of this negligent disregard.

The valet moved about the tent with his usual deft noiselessness, gathering up cigarette ends and spent matches and tidying the room with an assiduousness that was peculiarly his own. I watched him peevishly. Was it the influence of the desert that made all these men cat-like in their movements, or was the servant consciously or unconsciously copying his master? In an irrational fit of childish pique I flung out my hand, sending the little inlaid table with the tray and coffee cups flying. I was ashamed of the impulse even before the crash came.

Gaston immediately moved to clear up the debris with anxious eyes. "Perhaps madam prefers tea?" He spoke in tones of deepest distress and with a gesture that conveyed a national calamity.

In my naiveté I had believed that our shared passion of last night would bear fruit, that the sheik would somehow be changed in his manner toward me. Why else would I care if he spoke to me? Where he was? Or that he was not with me?

What had come over me? Had one night in his bed beset me with the same idiotic feelings of infatuation and petty jealousies that I had scorned so long in others? I was an even greater fool than all of them to allow any tender feeling for him to take root.

It was his callous indifference toward all of those around him that struck me even more than his mockery and capacity for cruelty. He ruled his unruly followers as a despot and thought it was obvious that they loved him and feared him, equally. I had even seen Yusef, his young lieutenant, cringe from his heavy scowl. I had deluded myself that he would ever come to respect and treat me as his equal, even after we became lovers. No, he seemed to demand from me the same unquestioning deference to his moods and whims as he expected from everyone else. The only person whose devotion seemed completely devoid of any conflicting sentiment was the French valet, Gaston.