The Panther and The Pearl (27 page)

“Sarah,” he said, his voice almost unrecognizable.

“Yes,” she said. “Now.”

He rolled her under him, positioning her, and he would retain the memory of the way she clung to him trustingly, giving herself up to him completely.

He meant to be careful, to take her slowly and gently, but he had waited so long and he wanted her so much. He plunged into her too quickly, too deeply and she froze, gasping. He stopped, his arms rigid and trembling as he held himself poised above her.

“I’m sorry,” he gasped. “Are you all right?”

“Yes,” she said in a small voice, but she felt stiff and unyielding in his arms. He withdrew and cradled her against him.

“It often hurts the first time, I should have told you,” he said soothingly, kissing her reassuringly, cursing himself. It was many years since he had taken a virgin, and he had never in his life been so emotionally involved with the object of his desire. It made more of a difference than he could have anticipated.
 

Despite what seemed an eternity of thinking about it, he really wasn’t prepared for this.

 
“I knew that,” she said, not wanting him to feel responsible for her pain.

“Should I stop?” he asked, as his body urged him onward, impelling him to do just the opposite. She had fit him so well, the sensation of entering her had been so fulfilling, that his offer to end the pursuit when the quarry was so near was costing him every shred of restraint he had left.
 

“No, no,” she replied, wrapping her arms around his torso, feeling the wide shoulders tapering to the slim waist, the silken mat of black hair on his chest pressing her breasts. “I want you so much, and I want it to be you.”
 

“It?” he said, lifting her against him.

“My first lover,” she said shyly.

“Only,” he replied fiercely. “Your only lover.” He began to stroke her thighs, slowly, luxuriously, until she was weak with need, opening her legs invitingly for his more intimate caress. It was some seconds before she said, in a slurred tone, “Again.”

He poised above her. “Sure?” he said.

She reached for him, encircling him with her fingers, and he groaned helplessly.

“Please,” she said.

This time when he entered her his throaty sound of satisfaction was echoed by hers.

“Yes?” he said, beginning to move slowly within her, barely able to speak.

“Oh, yes,” she sighed, wrapping her legs around his hips and digging her heels into the backs of his thighs.

He dropped his head to her shoulder and closed his eyes, taking her along with him on the ancient journey of discovery.

“Let’s never leave this place,” Sarah said dreamily. “Couldn’t we stay here forever?”

Kalid didn’t respond. She lifted her head from his shoulder and peered into his face.

“Are you asleep?” she demanded.

His eyes opened. “Not any longer.”

“It’s the middle of the afternoon!”

“I’m tired.”

She smiled. “Are you saying that I’ve worn you out?”

He sighed and adjusted his position more comfortably. “Draw your own conclusions.”

“Well, you’ve disappointed me. All you did was rescue a fair maiden from a band of evil gypsies and then deflower a virgin. That should be an easy day’s work for the Pasha of Bursa.”

“That’s all very well for
you
to say,” he intoned in his best British accent, and she giggled, then stretched like a satisfied cat.
 

“I think I’ll start a new career,” Sarah said.

Kalid grinned. “As what?”

“Your lover.” She turned her head and kissed his shoulder.

He lifted her hair off her neck and wound it around his hand. “I always knew it would be like this,” he said quietly.

“How could you tell?”

“From the way you looked at me.”

“How did I look at you?”

“With a very hot eye,” he said, smiling.

“I thought you were the most beautiful man I had ever seen.”

He snorted. “Men aren’t beautiful.”

“You are.”

“What about all those investment bankers back in the United States?” he asked.

“What makes you think I would want one of them?”

He took her hand and held it to his lips. “Some people would say a man like that is more appropriate for you.”

“I know what I like,” she said, tracing the full lines of his mouth with a fingertip.

“It took you some time to admit it.”

“I’m stubborn. You’ve said so yourself. In fact, you isolated me so that I could think about it.”

“I’m sorry I locked you up in the harem,” he said softly. “I was afraid that you would get away before...”

“Before this happened,” she finished for him.

“Yes.”

“It’s all right. It was almost like being in a convent. Or a girls’ school. Safe and boring.”
 

“No one bothered you there?”

She knew he was referring to the sexual play she had seen with Roxalena in the Sultan’s harem.

“No, that was the one advantage to being the hated foreign ikbal. Everyone left me alone.”

“Everyone left you alone because I made it known through the khislar that anyone who even approached you would be answerable to me.”

Sarah stared at him. “I see.”

“I wanted to keep you for myself,” he said.

“You did.” She ran her hand along the hard line of his thigh, roughened with dark hair. “I guess we have to forgive each other for quite a few things.”

“I forgive you for driving me to the brink of madness,” he said piously.

“And I forgive you for Fatma,” she said promptly.

“Fatma?”

“I think you remember her,” Sarah said.

“There’s nothing to forgive.”

“Kalid, please. You were sleeping with her while I was under house arrest in the harem.”

“I was not.”

Sarah sat up and glared at him. “Are you going to lie about it now? Memtaz told me you were sending for her. I saw her vest in your room!”

“I recall the circumstances vividly,” he said dryly.

“Well?”

“I saw her, yes, and she brought that thing she was embroidering with her and left it behind. But it wasn’t sexual. I was consulting her on another matter.”

“What?”

“I wanted her to mix a love charm for me.”

“A love charm?” Sarah was dumfounded.

“Yes, she was skilled in such things. All the people in her area of the Caucasus study the effects of potions and philters.”

“And poisons. But you don’t believe in love charms, do you?”

“I was willing to try anything,” he said shortly.

“To win me over?” Sarah asked softly.

“Yes.”

“You wanted me that badly?”

“You like to hear me say it, don’t you?”

“I do.”

“Then yes, I wanted you that badly.”

“But Kalid, don’t you see how cruel it was to bring Fatma into it? She was in love with you herself, and you were asking her to dream up an elixir to help you win me!”

“I was desperate,” he said.

“But that’s why she treated me so badly, can’t you see that? That’s why she eventually poisoned me. You must have driven her wild with jealousy.”

“I know I handled it badly. I wasn’t thinking clearly. I don’t know what else to say.”

“Why didn’t you tell me what was going on when I saw that piece of her underwear in your room?”

“I was angry, frustrated and disappointed, not to mention in physical pain. I saw no reason why you shouldn’t suffer a little too, kourista.”
 

“I suffered a lot, imagining you entwined with Fatma while I was playing mah jonng with Memtaz in the harem.”

“I never touched Fatma, or anyone else, after I met you. You have my word on that.”

“Fatma worked very hard to make me believe otherwise. I was completely miserable thinking that you had resumed your affair with her.”

“And all I wanted from her was a little piece of magic,” he said in reply.

Sarah leaned against him and kissed his cheek. “Actually, I think it’s very sweet. Consulting her for a love charm, I mean. It’s very...Turkish.”

He closed his eyes. “Yes, my gullibility is
so
charming, so amusing, isn’t it?”

“Why, Kalid? Why was it so important to win me? Why did you want me so much?”

He looked down at her, his dark eyes full of feeling. “I don’t know.I have learned not to question such things. We here in the east believe in fate.”

“Yes, I know. Kismet.
”

“Why do you say it so scornfully, kourista? Isn’t it possible that we were destined for one another? Why did you come so far from your home to wind up in the Sultan’s harem? Why were you there at the precise moment I came for my state visit? Don’t you ever think about it?”

“I think about it,” Sarah admitted.

He kissed her. “Kismet, Sarah. Surrender to it or it will destroy you.”

“I surrender,” she whispered.

He guided her hand to him and closed his eyes as her fingers encircled him.

“Are you all right?” he said thickly, as she caressed him. “Are you still bleeding?”

“I’m just fine,” Sarah said. “Do you want to make love to me again?”

“What do you think?” he said quietly.

She moved across his body to straddle him and said softly, “Show me how to do it this way.”

He lifted her hips and eased her onto him. She made an animal sound and fell forward, tucking her head into the curve of his shoulder as he set his cheek against her hair.

“You learn quickly,” he said, as she moved sinuously in his arms.

“I want you to teach me everything,” she replied, running her tongue along his collarbone.

“Everything,” he said, and began another lesson.

When Sarah awoke this time it was evening and the sun was setting. She and Kalid were curled up like puppies under the tree, the darkening sky above them streaked with purple and crimson and gold. She felt sticky and sweaty and in need of another dip in the river.
 

As she sat up Kalid’s long fingers encircled her wrist.

“Where are you going?” he said.

“Just to rinse off in the river.”

He got up and ran his hands through his hair, looking very tall and very male and very nude. Sarah suddenly felt embarrassed, standing there with both of them stark naked, as they had been all day. She ran the few steps to the river and plunged in, gasping as she hit the chilly water. When she raised her head Kalid was next to her, and he took her in his arms.

“Don’t pull back from me,” he said softly. “Sex is natural. You can’t think back on what we’ve done and feel skittish about it, there should be no shame.”

Sarah clung to him, wondering how he could read her thoughts so accurately. When he took her by the hand and led her back to the riverbank she followed obediently, looking up at him in the fading light as he handed her items of her clothing.

“Much as I hate to see you get dressed,” he said, “it is turning colder and we have to think about getting back.”

“Now? It will be dark in an hour.”

“Aren’t you at all hungry?” he asked, thumbing his hair back from his face. It sprung into ringlets when wet, later drying into thick waves.

“Starving.”

“Well, Khan is tied up about two miles from here and my pack with all the food I brought with me is on his back. If you want anything to eat tonight we have to find him. We’ll go the rest of the way in the morning.”

“Can we ride double on the bedouin horse?”

“That’s the plan.” He handed her the wide sleeved blouse she’d been wearing when she was kidnapped and then grasped her arm, holding it aloft.

“Your skin looks translucent in this light,” he said softly. “Like mother of pearl.”

“My real name means ‘a pearl’,” Sarah replied, buttoning the blouse.

“Your real name?”

“My given name is Margaret Sarah, but from childhood everyone called me Sarah, to distinguish me from my mother. She was Margaret too.”

“And so what does ‘Sarah’ mean?” he inquired, fastening his trousers.

“Gift of God.”

“A God given pearl. I like that.” He draped his shirt over his shoulder and put his arm around her, kissing her forehead. “Come along, pearl, it’s time to eat.”

She walked at his side back to the horse.

Chapter 12

“Captured by the bedouins,” Roxalena moaned. “Oh, no. What will become of my American friend?”

“Kalid has gone after her,” Osman said.