The Sheik Retold(60)

"Mon Dieu," he groaned. "You will destroy me."

I had given willingly, eagerly, losing myself in his pleasure, until it had become my own. I had shocked us both with my brazenness, and the knowledge took my breath away. His expression softened. He drew me to my feet and bent his head toward me. We were close enough that the heat of his mint-scented breath caressed my face. Still, lower and lower he came, until his lips were a hair's breadth from mine. I closed my eyes in anticipation of the tender kiss that I still so fervently craved—but he denied me once more.

He abruptly drew back, the ephemeral flicker of love I thought I had glimpsed in his eyes replaced by his former ferocity. "Once more you have learned very quickly what pleases me. Whoever would have imagined the heartless Diana Mayo would make such a magnificent whore? Alors, it seems the king of the desert has melted the queen of ice."

His mocking laugh rang ruthlessly in my ears. I cringed at his cruel and degrading words that befouled something beautiful and transformed my joy to humiliation.

"Why are you doing this? Why do you persist in this ugliness? This cruelty?"

But even as I asked the question, I knew the answer. He had let his guard down, had left himself exposed to me, and this weakness enraged him. Now he would once more punish me for it. "Do you take greater pleasure in your cold cruelty than you did in my willing arms?"

His gaze narrowed, and his expression hardened, but he made no answer. If I had thought to press him into confessing his feelings, I was wrong. Still, I continued my impassioned outpour. "I have withheld nothing from you, Ahmed. We both know I was willing enough—at least when you were kind to me."

One corner of his mouth lifted. "Willing puts it mildly, ma belle."

I flushed heatedly, but could not deny it. I had never lacked passionate enthusiasm when he had shown me the least consideration. Even now, my defenses would evaporate like a rain shower in the desert if he took me into his arms with any tenderness.

My heart ached like nothing I had ever known. I had given him every possible opportunity to tell me he cared, but he still denied me. Though I might beg and plead, only in delirium would he ever profess his love. He would always fight what he felt for me—until the resentment eventually supplanted even his desire. If he could not love me, he must let me go. I refused to let him keep me here only to kill me slowly by small degrees.





CHAPTER THIRTEEN


The next day Raoul announced that his visit could be protracted no longer and that he must resume his journey to Morocco. His haste in departing almost suggested flight. I had noticed the growing tension between the two men in the last days and strongly suspected I was the source of it.

Ahmed agreed to ride with him as far as the market town of Bou Saada, where Raoul would continue to Oran, and then on to Tangier by steamer. I rose early the morning of his departure to see him off and wondered at the sadness in his eyes and his unusual lack of words. What was left to say? I could see the struggle between his loyalty to Ahmed and his chivalrous nature, but he was helpless to aid me without betraying his best friend.

For me, Raoul's departure meant the hastening of a crisis that could be avoided no longer.

"We will speak tonight when I return," Ahmed had ominously declared on our parting.

He referred to my attempted escape. He had said nothing of it until now, but I could see the impending reckoning in Ahmed's eyes and felt it brewing in the air. It was only Raoul's presence that had kept it at bay, but now Raoul was gone. With the buffer of the vicomte removed, I would be at Ahmed's mercy. I was not fool enough to think my blatant act of disobedience would be either forgiven or forgotten. Ahmed's return would seal my fate—whatever it was to be. What did he intend to do? In what mood would he return? I asked myself these questions over and over.

That night was unusually hot, and the atmosphere in the tent increasingly oppressive as the hours wore on. I had no appetite and could not sleep, so I reclined in bed waiting. Wrapped in a thin silk kimono, I lay propped high with pillows holding a book I was not reading. It was Raoul's latest work, but I could not concentrate on it. My thoughts had drifted far away, and the book slipped to the floor.

The stillness of the desert seemed almost sinister tonight—and the silence so intense that the squeal of a stallion in the distance made me start with a madly racing heart. Earlier in the evening a drum had been going persistently, and later a native pipe had shrilled in monotonous cadence, but I had grown accustomed to these. They were of nightly occurrence and soothed rather than irritated me. When they stopped the stillness was so unnerving that I would have welcomed any sound. I was restless and excited. I longed for him passionately and at the same time, dreaded his return.

The little shaded lamp threw a circle of light around the bed but left the rest of the room dim, filling the dusky corners with odd new shadows. Hangings and objects took on fantastic shapes until I brushed my hand across my eyes with a self-deprecating laugh.

When had I become such a coward?

With detachment, I recalled the last few months that had changed my life— that had irrevocably changed me. I had never had any illusions about myself and had never attempted to curb my obstinate self-will and haughty pride. My mad trek into the desert was solely the outcome of an arrogant determination to have my own way in the face of all protests and advice. Dully I wondered why I did not hate him more for having done to me what he had done, for having made me this new creature I had become. My old logic and new emotion warred within me, but it was a short battle—love proved a formidable force.