The Sheik Retold(35)

I ground my teeth to think he intended to deny my pleasure and gratify only himself, but that appeared precisely the case. Nevertheless, my extreme pique was quickly supplanted by rapt fascination as he began stroking himself. His verge grew in length and breadth before my mesmerized eyes.

"Take it off," he repeated.

I raised my hips and wriggled out of the dress. I now wore only my lace-trimmed French knickers. The bearskin was soft and luxurious against my exposed skin. The stillness in the tent was broken by his accelerated breaths and the soft slapping of his flesh.

"The rest of it." He jerked his head, commanding me to remove my knickers.

I tore my gaze from his to lie on my back again, quietly staring at the canopy of canvas above me. The night air was cool on my skin, causing ripples of gooseflesh, but still I burned. I heard music, the distant wail of a tadghtita, the Algerian bagpipe, accompanied by the rhythmic and persistent drumming heard in the camp every night. The drum beat echoed the sounds of my heart and the blood pounding sluggishly in my veins. I was growing more frustrated by the second—fevered by my own lust. But I still would not go to him. Yet in my rising desperation of desire, I thought perhaps there might be room in our battle of wills for an arbitration of sorts…a compromise.

"Ahmed," I whispered his name, making use of it for the very first time. "Please, come to me."

"What was that, my dove?"

I slanted a gaze back to his face. There was a triumphant gleam in his eyes. One corner of his mouth curved upward. I shut my eyes and bit back an inward curse that he would make me repeat myself.

"Ahmed, Monseigneur, I want you. Please come to me."

It was definitely not a full concession on my part, but a compromise. I had not gone to him at his beckoning but had told him what I wanted. Supposing a bit more inducement wouldn’t hurt, I raised my hips and slowly removed the knickers. Waiting and watching through slanted lids, I plucked at my nipple with one hand and toyed with my nest of curls with the other. If he refused me and insisted instead on self-gratification, two could certainly play that game.

To my satisfaction, I didn't have to wait long.

He rose abruptly, venturing toward me with his customary tiger-like stealth. He quickly shed his shirt and trousers and knelt on the skin beside me. He kissed me only once, long and deep, but with a bruising passion that left me breathless.

"On your knees," he commanded the moment he released me.

Although he had deigned to come to me, it was clear the rest was to be on his terms. But I burned with a feverish lust and didn't care. He turned me away from him, pressing my chest down and onto the rug with my hips and buttocks raised. When he positioned himself from behind, I understood that I was to be taken as a mare to a stallion. The idea excited me. Tremendously.

But rather than the fierce fury with which he had entered me on the first occasion, he now took his time. He caressed my thighs and buttocks and then stroked his hot tongue down the length of my spine and back again with little nips on each vertebra. I moaned and shivered in my growing frustration. I could stand his teasing no longer. I thrust my backside into him.

"You grow impatient, my huntress?" His chuckle sent ripples into my belly. Suddenly, his sharp teeth sank into the junction of my neck and shoulder, and his verge plunged inside me—simultaneous pleasure and pain that made me cry out.

"Perhaps I give you more than what you want?" He growled low against my ear as he withdrew and slammed back into me.

"No," I moaned back. "I want it all." I arched up to meet his next thrust. My lust was a living force that refused to be denied any of him.

"Greedy one," he replied with a note of satisfaction.

There were no more words after that. We had neither use nor breath for them.

His fingers dug deeply into my hips as he pounded himself into me. I squeezed my eyes in intense concentration, milking him with my inner muscles and listening, enthralled, to the sharp and erotic echo of flesh slapping against flesh. I didn't last long. My orgasm didn't build slowly but roared through me like a wildfire. As soon as I cried out, his hands were in my hair jerking my head back with his next explosive thrust, followed by a guttural groan that shook him. His body trembled against mine as he withdrew to spill hot liquid spurts onto my back.

I was at first appalled and thought myself ill-used by this repeated practice, but then I understood and was glad of it. I was a mistress, not a wife. He would not chance his seed taking root inside my womb. It was a small sacrifice for him, a tiny act of self-denial, but to do otherwise would have chanced enormous consequences for me. I was thankful he would sire no bastards upon me.

While I lay prone on the rug, breathless and spent, he rose and went into the next room, returning with a wet cloth. He washed my back and then his hands were on my hips, helping me to my feet. Wordlessly, he took my hand and led me back to his bedchamber where we copulated twice more before daylight.

After days of misery, we had finally achieved a mutually agreeable and highly satisfying truce.





CHAPTER EIGHT


The next three weeks passed so unlike the first. The couriers and random comings and goings to and from camp had not altered, but Ahmed's mood and attitude toward me had changed utterly. When he entered our tent at the end of the day a warm, almost-ebullient smile would light his face. The relaxation he sought in the privacy of his own tent meant more to him than he would ever admit, more than perhaps he even knew. I was growing in the certainty that he secretly desired a willing mate. It was no easy thing to rule his wild followers, and he was human, after all. Although he still had his periods of taciturn reflection in which I would leave him in peace, his conversation with me was now more relaxed and voluble.