The Sheik Retold(37)

My anger and resentment surged. "It is too much! You cannot expect me to play ‘lady of the manor’ to your friends in this barbaric camp!"

His gaze narrowed. His lips compressed. "You will be cordial to my guest."

"Please, Ahmed." I clasped his bicep. "Have you no pity? Will you not spare me this ordeal? Do you not understand what it would mean to meet someone from my class, from my world? It would be too degrading. I cannot stand it!"

"You exaggerate," he said, impatiently brushing my hand from his arm.

"I do not! I could never face…" I buried my head in my hands. "Please, if you will only this once—"

He cut me short with a fierce oath. "If?" he echoed. "Do you think to make bargains with me? Have you so much yet to learn? Besides, you speak as if you plan to return to them. Do you still not understand I shall never let you go?"

"Then I am nothing but a slave to you! If that is so, when is it required of a slave to be cordial towards her master's friends?"

"A slave!" He threw up his hands and cast his head back with a roar of laughter. "Then by Allah, you are a spoiled one! Maybe you don't know that slaves are taught obedience with a whip?"

"Is that a threat, Ahmed?"

His mirth abruptly ended. His expression blackened, and with it the old cruelty surfaced. "By Allah, you know I do not make idle threats. I demand obedience. You will do as you are told!"

It was true. He did not make idle threats. He had shot his own horse when it refused to obey him. Later, I had seen him chastise a man who had been brought before him for judgment. While I did not understand precisely what the man's crime had been, the punishment seemed out of proportion to any offense I could conjure short of murder. I had watched, fascinated with horror, until at last he tossed away the murderous whip and had left the limp, blood-stained heap huddled on the ground. The sight had sickened and haunted me.

The sheik's new tenderness toward me had given rise to a hope that our relationship had become more than mere physical attraction. Although I had become so intimately a part of his life, it seemed I had deluded myself to think that he was even capable of something finer and better than the primitive desire I aroused in him. No, deep and lasting affection seemed to be beyond his ken—except of course for Raoul.

I suddenly hated this Frenchman in advance. In addition to the deep humiliation I would suffer at his coming, I was fitfully jealous of the affection my sheik had for him—the affection he had withheld from me. A great unrest and a dull aching entered my heart, followed by a terrible feeling of depression. Had the ramifications of my meeting his friend never even entered his mind, or had it just made no impression? After all this time, did he still have no regard for my feelings? Did he care so very little? I did not care how much I angered him. I refused to let him humiliate me. If I could not persuade him to spare me out of affection, perhaps he would act of out possessiveness, out of jealousy, instead.

"And your wish, your idea of obedience, is for me to please this Frenchman?" I said. "Have you changed so much, Ahmed? Not long ago you trusted no one but yourself to climb to my balcony in the hotel and now…did you wish me to please Raoul in the same manner I please you—in his bed? Is that what you want from me, Ahmed?"

The look that blazed in his eyes sent a shiver of terror through me.

I had sworn to rouse all the demons his jealous nature possessed, and by Jove, I had! But the triumph was like a knife in my heart. For weeks I had known wild happiness, at least in our moments alone. The black scowl I had learned to dread had not been directed at me, and the fierce eyes had only gazed at me with amorous passion shining in their dark depths, but now I had roused another passion altogether—a fearsome fury.

His tone was icy. Glacial. I had never seen such cold rage. "By Allah, you will never belong to another man. I would kill you first."

I winced as if he had struck me. All the gentleness of the morning had vanished, revealing only the savage, tyrannical despot underneath. But I knew that it was my own fault. I had knowingly and deliberately taken a stick and stirred the viper's nest.

"I have branded you as mine. You are for no other than me! Do you understand?" His fingers gripped my shoulders, digging deeply, painfully, into my flesh. "Perhaps you need a reminder, ma chère, lest you forget in my absence?"

He shoved me back upon the bed, and his mouth came down on mine, but there was no tenderness, no gentle lover in this kiss. It was brutal and bruising, bringing the taste of blood from my lips to my tongue. I did not resist, but neither did I respond. I merely submitted.

I refused to shrink as he came over me, as his intense blue gaze bored into mine, as he drove himself into me with a single ferocious thrust that impaled him to the hilt. Passive and subservient, I lay beneath him, as stiff and cold as stone.

"Is this what you want, Ahmed?" I whispered. "Is this the kind of obedience you crave?"

He hissed a curse I could not understand. "Allah! You know it is not!"

"You cannot command my emotions. You cannot treat me like this and expect my lo—"

The word froze on my lips. He stilled, buried inside me. His pupils flared, but he said nothing. Neither did I. For a long moment we lay there joined, but perfectly still. We didn't even breathe. Our combined heartbeats filled the silence, mine producing a dull ache in my chest. Perverse creature that I am, I knew that I was falling in love with him. Maybe I already had, for the word had only moments ago lingered on my lips. It lingered even now.