Lord of the Desert (17 page)

It seemed like an eternity until she heard Philippe's voice outside the chamber. She sat up, feeling half dressed and unbearably shy when he pulled the curtain aside and joined her.

He, too, had bathed. He was wearing a white silk
thobe
with gold embroidery and a slit down the front to his collarbone, showing a thick patch of black curling hair. He wore those same odd pants under it. His hair was still damp. He looked handsome and very dangerous, and altogether different from the man she'd met and thought she knew in Morocco.

There was a difference in the way he looked at her now. There was a faint smile on his lips, and his black eyes glittered with possession. He stood aside to let Leila in with a tray of food and hot tea. She gave Gretchen a speaking look and grinned at Philippe as she darted out again. He closed the flap behind her and threw himself down on the cushions beside Gretchen.

“Here,” he said, popping a small flaky pastry into her mouth.

“Mmm,” she murmured as she chewed and swallowed. “It's delicious.” She poured tea into two cups, loving the smell of mint that rose from it. She handed his to him and gave him a shy glance. “Are you still angry with me?”

The corner of his mouth went down. “I should be,” he replied. “You could have been killed. From now on,
madame,
when I give an order, obey it!”

“So speaks the master,” she said with a wicked grin.

He caught her arm and pulled her down onto him, rolling her under him with a graceful movement. He smiled at her consternation. “I am the master here,” he said in a deep, soft tone. “In every way, now.”

She searched his dark eyes. “The women bathed me.”

He nodded. He touched her hair lightly. “It is a tradition among my tribe. That, and the saving of the bridal sheet.” His eyes glittered. “It is proof that you came to the marriage bed a virgin and that any child that comes of it is mine.”

Her eyes were sad. “I wish there could be a child, Philippe,” she said genuinely. “I would have loved having a son with you.”

His face went hard as he looked at her. “One miracle in a lifetime is enough, don't you think?” he asked quietly. “So you felt what happened to me?”

She flushed. “Oh, yes.”

He brushed his fingers over her mouth. “It was…unexpected. I knew that I could remain aroused long enough to pleasure you. But I didn't realize that I could take pleasure from your body as well as give it.” He bent and kissed her tenderly. “You made me a man again,” he whispered. “It is a gift I will cherish all my life.”

She smiled under his hard mouth, her hands tangling in his damp, thick black hair. “Can you, again, do you think?”

He looked vaguely worried. “I don't know,” he said honestly. He smiled a little stiffly. “The combination of danger, relief, desire, the aftermath of violence…it would be difficult to recreate such circumstances.”

She traced the scar down his lean cheek and to the corner of his mouth. “I suppose so. But you didn't think you could at all, before.”

“That is true.” He bent and kissed her again, softly. “Nine years of celibacy, Gretchen,” he said roughly. “And in a space of weeks, you gave me life all over again.”

Her arms linked around his neck. “Only because you let yourself go with me,” she pointed out. “Perhaps that was what was missing all along. You thought you couldn't, so you didn't even try.”

“You realize that our marriage is binding only in Qawi?” he asked, just to make sure she understood.

Something went out in her soft eyes. She pulled her arms from around his neck. “Yes, I remember what you told me,” she said, moving away. She forced a smile to her lips. “I'm starved. This looks good.”

She began to eat, subdued now. He watched her absently while he, too, ate, his eyes bold on the soft contours of her body that were visible in the light from the ornate hanging lantern above them. She was beautiful in her way. And her body aroused him as no other body ever had. He felt himself tense with the same inexplicable stabs of pleasure that had sent him running to her bed earlier.

She wasn't noticing his preoccupation with her figure. She was thinking that he was anxious to send her packing, now that he was whole again. He probably had some other woman in mind to share his throne. Perhaps this Brianne Hutton wasn't as happily married as he made out, and he had ambitions in that direction. She had a picture of a beautiful blond woman with Philippe straining her to his powerful body. She swallowed and put down the last bit of a flaky roll that she couldn't manage.

She sipped what Leila called “fizzy water” absently until she noticed that Philippe had called the servant to take the tray away, adding another curt command that she couldn't hear. But she noticed that the big tent flap was quietly secured in place behind the servant.

Philippe's black eyes cut into hers in the sudden silence of the chamber. He got up without another word and lowered the chain that secured the hanging lantern so that he could extinguish the flame.

He hung it once more, secured the chain, and then bent to draw Gretchen to her feet and tug her along with him to his bedchamber.

With her heart shivering in her chest, she felt him search for the hem of the
gellabia
and strip her out of it. She was bare underneath, as his lean hands quickly discovered. They slid easily over her soft curves with the delicate scent of the powder Leila and the other women had dabbed on after her bath.

“You feel like warm silk,” he murmured, drawing her to him. He bent his head and began to kiss her slowly, softly, tenderly. “I ache for you. Is it too soon? Do you need time to recover from the first time?”

“No.” She linked her arms around his neck, eager for whatever he wanted of her. She was still a little sore, but not enough to discourage her from the pursuit of more delicious intimacies.

“Wait,” he said gently. He moved away from her and there was another sound of fabric sliding away from skin.

When he came back to her, she felt his nudity in close, thrilling contact with her own and she gasped with pure delight, reaching up to draw herself even closer to that power and heat.

His hands slid down her long back to her hips and drew her hungrily to him. As he felt her against him, his body began to tauten and swell, and he laughed with delight, with pure joy in his returned manhood.

Her arms went around him and she returned his soft kisses with equal pleasure, lingering on the soft contacts as he taught her to prolong the slow giving and taking of caresses that kindled raging fires.

His hands caressed her soft, firm breasts lazily until he bent and his warm mouth replaced the silken caresses of his lean fingers. She lifted, catching her breath, to coax his lips even closer, to increase the soft suction that made her shiver with delight.

He parted her lips with his and his hands contracted on her upper thighs, lifting her, pressing her down on him, so that they were suddenly in intimate contact. She gasped as she felt the hard probing of her softness, and the immediate invasion of herself in one long thrust that her body protested.

She clung to his neck, shivering, lifting herself away because she was sensitive to this sort of invasion, and he seemed even more potent than he had the first time.

“You flinched,” he whispered. “Are you sore?”

“Not…inside,” she replied, glad that he couldn't see her flush. “But you seem…more potent,” she added shyly.

He inhaled sharply. “I am,” he murmured against her mouth. He eased her down onto the thick pallet and stretched out on her taut body, nudging her thigh aside to admit the slow descent of his masculinity. “Try to relax,” he whispered as his body fenced lazily with hers and began to probe it. “Your body clenches so tightly that it resists me.”

“I'm sorry. It isn't that I don't want to, you know,” she whispered. “I love being with you like this.”

He lifted his head and kissed her eyelids, his body resting intimately against hers. “I had forgotten the difficulties,” he murmured enigmatically, and a deep chuckle sounded at her forehead. “Especially with an inexperienced lover.”

Her breath caught. “Difficulties?”

“Never mind.” He nudged her long legs into parting even more and he moved sensuously between them, teasing her body in a new and very arousing way, so that she began to lift toward him. “I must be more patient, that is all. Here…”

He moved her lazily from side to side while his mouth fed on hers. She moaned as the motions took her from one surge of hunger to the next, higher, one.

She felt him move, lowered himself slowly onto her yielded body, coaxing her long legs to bend and lie close to his, so that they were cocooned together in the most poignant intimacy they had yet shared.

Her breath was audible when he began to rock her under him, his tongue probing her mouth as his body tenderly probed hers.

His hands were under her, between their locked bodies, touching her in ways he hadn't before, making her shiver with little surges of quick pleasure.

She wanted to touch him, too, but she was wary of it since their earlier conversations, so she contented herself with tracing lazy patterns on his shoulders while his body brushed hers in an increasingly arousing way.

“Here,” he whispered, repositioning her. “There?” he asked tenderly when she stiffened and moaned. “Yes. Don't be frightened,” he whispered, and then he began to move again with skillful, quick motions that had her nails biting into his shoulders and her breath suspended in her throat as a new and alarming sensation began to build in her body. He moved closer and she felt her body accept the invasion of his with delight, felt herself lift to entice him even closer. The pleasure became violent, like jolts of high voltage, and the contact, even so intimate, was suddenly not intimate enough. She arched up to him with a harsh little moan.

“Philippe!” she cried quickly, almost panicked by the surge of explosive pleasure, far greater than anything they'd shared before. “It's not…close…enough!” she sobbed, clinging to him urgently.

His hand shot out and grabbed a cushion. He lifted her abruptly and placed it under her hips and when he moved again, she cried aloud and shuddered.

“Even this,” he whispered deeply into her ear, “is hardly close enough, is it?” He moved sharply and groaned as she shivered again. “I've never possessed a woman this completely,” he bit off. “I've never wanted to go so deep…!!”

His hands hurt her hips as he tilted them and pushed down fiercely. His body arched with a pleasure that was almost painful. He shuddered and groaned into her open mouth. He felt her sharp little teeth biting into his shoulder and he laughed, deep in his throat as he moved more violently. “Yes, bite me,” he ground out. “Bite me, claw me…!”

She lifted up to him with her last sane impulse, straining for the elusive pleasure that suddenly shot through her like silver fire as her sharp nails bit into his hips. She sobbed, her voice breaking as she stiffened and then convulsed under his powerful body, feeling him cover her mouth to silence her as he brought her to ecstasy.

His own body rippled with the sensation of unbearably sweet tension. It climbed into a fierce spiral and suddenly snapped in explosions of pure delight. He felt the rigor lift him, arch him down into her own straining body. He whispered her name harshly, like a prayer, over and over again until finally he groaned it and his body shuddered rhythmically with the most exquisite fulfillment he'd ever had from a woman.

He lay on her with his full weight, feeling himself pulse helplessly, feeling her around him, under him, part of him. His hands tangled in her cool, disheveled blond hair and his mouth searched hungrily for her own. He tasted it in an exhaustion that left him vibrating with the strain.

Her mouth was against the hard arm she'd bitten. She was soothing it with her lips and her tongue in a silence that throbbed with spent pleasure.

“I felt your teeth,” he whispered, lazily brushing his mouth over her parted lips. “Did you feel mine?”

“Yes. Is it normal?” she asked hesitantly.

His mouth smoothed over her eyelids, closing them. “If we have pleasure from it, yes.”

She moved and shivered with the tiny little spasms that seemed never to end. She moaned. “It goes on and on,” she whispered.

“Rarely,” he replied. His hips moved deeply and he laughed as she shuddered under him. “Yes. We could satisfy each other continually now with no more than these tiny movements.” He drew in a shaky breath. “And I am selfish enough to want that. But your body is raw and exhausted. It will make you very sore if we continue much longer.” He kissed her once more and slowly pulled away from her, noticing her tiny flinch when he rolled over onto his back and stretched lazily.

She couldn't see him in the darkness, but she heard him slip back into the
thobe
just the same. It had been heady and sweet to hold him in her arms like that, with nothing between them. But he was far too self-conscious about his scars to do it in the light, and she would have to accept that.