Strong, Hot Winds

by Iris Johansen

  “Loneliness.” Cory scoffed. “Good Lord, the man’s surrounded by adulators. It was positively sickening how everyone bowed and scraped to him when we landed at Marasef and after we arrived here. Do all the sheikhs of Sedikhan command that kind of power?”

  Selim shook his head. “Damon is the Sheikh of the El Zabor. His position is … different.”

  “How different?”

  “The El Zabor are bedouin tribes that still wander the desert. They’ve developed a complex culture in which the sheikh is regarded with almost superstitious worship by his followers.”

  “How pleasant,” Cory said caustically. “That must be a real ego trip for Damon.”

  Selim shook his head. “Rarely pleasant. Damon pays his dues.”

  “Judging from this palace, he must keep a large percentage of those dues for himself.”

  “Kasmara is oil-rich, and Damon inherited a huge fortune from his Tamrovian mother as well.” He gazed at her in surprise. “Didn’t you know that? I find it curious that you know so little about Damon when you were so obviously—” He paused before adding deliberately, “Intimate.”

  “Intimate wasn’t exactly the way to describe our relationship. It wasn’t the usual—” She stopped and tried again. “We didn’t talk much.” She saw that Selim was trying to suppress a smile and made a face at him. “Well, we didn’t.”

  “No doubt you were occupied with other means of communication.”

  “No doubt.” Cory frowned. “But that isn’t important now. What’s important is that Damon has taken my son from me and I have to get him back. Clearly, you’re a reasonable man, Selim. Surely you can see that this is criminal?”

  “Not in Kasmara.”

  “That’s ridiculous.” She blinked rapidly to banish the tears of sheer frustration that were threatening. “Are you telling me that he can do anything he pleases?”

  Selim nodded. “No one would dare dispute his word. It would undermine our entire system of justice.”

  “Justice? Do you call this justice?” she asked huskily. “Help me, Selim. I want my son.”

  “I’ll help you where I can.” Selim looked troubled. “But I can’t dispute Damon either. I, too, am of the El Zabor.”

  “Who are clearly lost in some kind of time warp,” Cory said bitterly. “I feel as if I’ve stepped back into the day of Saladin.”

  “Damon is struggling to change that, but it’s not easy to fight against centuries of tradition.”

  “Particularly when he has the same mentality.”

  Selim stopped before a richly carved mahogany door and turned to face her. “You’re right. Part of Damon is pure El Zabor, and he sometimes reacts impulsively and violently like a naughty child. But if you could understand the kind of pressures he faces, you might—”

  “Taking Michael was not ‘naughty,’ it was criminal and I’ll never forgive him for it.”

  “Then don’t forgive him.” Selim opened the door. “But try to understand him. He makes mistakes but—”

  “Kingsize mistakes.”

  He nodded. “Granted. But he’s also a man who cares, Cory. I’ve never met anyone who cares as much as Damon.”

  She drew a deep breath. “I don’t want to understand him. I only want my son back.”

  He smiled faintly. “Perhaps one could lead to the other.”

  “It’s not likely,” Cory said. “His goal is to punish me.”

  “He’s angry and hurt, but once that passes he’ll try to be fair. Justice is important to Damon. It’s part of his training, it’s part of what he is.”

  Cory grimaced. “A lawless sheikh?”

  He turned to go. “No,” he said softly. “The Bardono.”

  Before she could reply he was striding down the hall in the direction from which they had come.

  Cory stood looking after him and was tempted to call him back and question him. Bardono was how Hassan and Abdul had addressed Damon, and she had assumed it was only a title indicating respect. It evidently had another significance.

  She turned and entered the suite and shut the door. Questions could wait. Everything could wait until she had rested and regained some of her strength. It was clear it wasn’t going to be a simple matter to get herself and Michael out of Kasmara; she would need to call upon all her reserves of wit and energy. Perhaps Selim was right and she should try to submerge her resentment and anger and consider all sides of the situation to see if she could find a way out of this cage in which Damon had locked her. Maybe there was something in what Selim said about understanding being the way to defeat Damon.

  Oh, she just didn’t know. She couldn’t think straight. She leaned back against the door, her gaze wandering over the high-ceilinged room. For Pete’s sake, she thought, this place looks like a blasted seraglio.

  Rich Persian carpets patterned in jade green and delicate ivory spilled over white marble floors. Sheer white draperies looped over the wide, low bed that was covered in jade satin and heaped with white silk cushions. Two pillars of malachite supported a graceful archway that presumably led to the bathing area. The white fretwork on the floor-to-ceiling windows was carved in lacy patterns that permitted only fleeting glimpses of the hard blue sky beyond. Everything about the room was exotic, luxurious … and different from anything in her experience. She suddenly felt very much the stranger in a strange land.

  She straightened away from the door and squared her shoulders. She had been in strange lands before and had always survived very well indeed. This was no different. All she had to do was get a little rest and she’d be fine.

  Cory stopped just inside the door of Damon’s suite and gazed at him in surprise. She had never seen him garbed in anything but the most elegant and conventional of Western clothes, usually business suits. Now black jeans clung to his muscular thighs and rode low on his hips before disappearing into knee-high black boots whose soft leather was both worn and scuffed. His white cotton shirt was left open at the throat and the sleeves rolled casually to the elbow.

  He turned away from the French doors as he heard her enter the room. One brow raised quizzically as he saw her expression. “What’s the matter? Have I suddenly grown horns?”

  “Not suddenly.” She came forward, her gaze narrowed on him. “I’m sure you’ve always had them together with cloven hooves and a tail. You just kept them well hidden.”

  “Ah, yes.” He smiled mockingly. “Satan incarnate.”

  “I was just surprised to see you dressed so casually. You always looked like an ad for Giorgio Armani. Now you look like—” She stopped, studying him.

  “Rudolph Valentino in The Sheik?” he suggested sardonically.

  She shook her head. “Maybe a Texas cowboy.”

  “I assure you I’m not trying to impress you with my romantic image. This is what I usually wear when I’m not—” He stopped abruptly.

  “Not what?”

  He met her gaze. “Trying to keep from scaring off wary New York ladies.” He shrugged. “But now I don’t have to worry about that, do I? Now it’s your duty as a kiran to dress to please me.” His gaze traveled from the filmy pink scarf draping her throat and floating behind her to the deep pink bandeau covering her breasts and finally to the voluminous extravagance of the matching harem pajamas. “And you do please me tonight.” His gaze returned to the silky ripeness of her breasts overflowing the bandeau. “And later you’ll please me even more.”

  Cory felt the familiar heat ignite and then begin to move through her as she gazed at him. She quickly averted her eyes. “Did you think it would annoy me to wear this silly outfit? Why should it? I’m not what I wear.” She shrugged. “Besides, the maid Selim sent me left me little choice as to what I was going to wear. She pulled this out of the closet and wouldn’t put it back. Liande is evidently as much a fan of yours as everyone else around here. She looked as if she’d burst into tears if I did anything to make you angry.”

  “Sensible woman.” For a moment there was a ghost of a twinkle in Damon
’s eyes. “You might learn a great deal from her attitude.”

  “About being a doormat?” Cory shook her head. “No, thank you. I’ve already taken that course.”

  He frowned. “I never treated you as a doormat.”

  “I wasn’t talking about you. I’d already graduated from that particular school before I met you.”

  “I suppose you wouldn’t care to tell me who—” Then as he saw her expression become shuttered he smiled lopsidedly. “No, I didn’t think so.”

  “It doesn’t matter.” Cory moved forward to stand beside him at the French doors, her gaze on the starlit brilliance of the night sky. “Selim gave me some advice earlier today.”

  “Selim is always giving advice. He thinks he can run the world.”

  “He’s not the only one,” she said dryly. “It must be a characteristic acquired by osmosis.”

  “Selim never tries to emulate me. He’s strictly his own man. That’s why I value him.”

  There was a note of absolute sincerity in Damon’s voice that caused Cory to turn and study his face. “It’s hard for me to believe you don’t find all this hero worship gratifying.”

  “Then don’t believe it,” he said curtly. “You were going to tell me the advice Selim saw fit to give you.”

  “He said to try to understand you.”

  He laughed harshly. “It wasn’t your understanding I wanted when I brought you to Kasmara.”

  “Then tell me why you did bring me.”

  “I thought I’d made myself crystal-clear on that point.”

  “I thought you had too.” She met his gaze directly. “You’re angry and you want to punish me. Is that all?”

  “Isn’t that enough?”

  “It would be enough if you were as one-dimensional as I tried to convince myself you were four years ago. But now I’m not so sure.”

  “Should I be flattered that you no longer consider me as transparent?”

  “I didn’t say that,” she said calmly. “I’ve just realized you may be an unknown quantity, and it’s important that I not go up against an opponent I know nothing about. So I’m going to find out everything I can about you.” She smiled through her teeth as she added, “So I can take my son away from you and make sure you never get near him again.”

  “Sweet understanding,” Damon said ironically.

  “I don’t feel sweet toward you, Damon. I feel bewildered and mad as hell.”

  “And you want me.”

  She met his gaze fearlessly. “Yes, I want you. I won’t lie to you. I’d be stupid to try when we both know what you did to me on the plane. Now it’s time for you to tell me the truth. What else do you feel for me?”

  “So that you can use it against me?”

  She nodded. “So that I can use it against you.”

  “You must think I’m an idiot to—” He stopped and gazed at her broodingly for a long moment before he said grudgingly, “Hell, maybe I am an idiot. What are you to me? You’re a raging thirst. You always were. I could never get enough of you.”

  “So you didn’t get your fill of me in your bed four years ago and thought you’d continue our affair on your own terms. Is that correct?”

  “Damn, you’re cool.” Damon turned on his heel, strode across the room, and jabbed at the intercom button on the sofa table. “I feel as if I’m on the witness stand being cross-examined.”

  “I’m not cool.” There was the slightest quaver in her voice. “This isn’t easy for me. I want to scream and beat my fists on the wall and do all the stupid, childish things that would make me feel better and accomplish absolutely nothing. Instead, I have to try to understand what makes you tick. I have to think logically and analytically.” She drew a deep breath. “And I’ll do it, dammit.”

  “I think you will,” he said slowly. “I never realized you were this—”

  “Aggressive?” She finished for him. “I have a moderate amount of aggressiveness. Every career woman has to be assertive these days or she ends up at the short end.”

  “That isn’t the word I would have chosen.”

  “I’m almost afraid to ask what word you did have in mind.”

  “Strength,” he said softly. “I thought it was only stubbornness and determination, but it’s strength.” His eyes were intent as they searched her face. “Perhaps I didn’t want to recognize it as strength.”

  “Then maybe you need to understand me as much as I need to understand you.” She raised her chin with a touch of defiance. “Shall we call a truce?”

  “To probe each other’s weaknesses?”

  “And evaluate each other’s strengths.”

  He stood looking at her for a moment, and she thought he was going to refuse. Then he gave her a smile of surprising sweetness. “Why not? It might be interesting to discover if you can see me as I am without running for cover.”

  The door opened and a damask-covered table was wheeled into the room by two white-coated servants who bowed obsequiously to Damon.

  He motioned toward the French doors and snapped his fingers. The table was immediately wheeled to the place he’d indicated, and the two servants began to tidy up the table settings.

  “Do you always snap your fingers when you want service?” Cory asked.

  “Did I do that?” He made a face and suddenly looked like a little boy caught in mischief. “It’s the custom, but I’ve been trying to break myself of the habit. It was pointed out to me that it’s a rude gesture, the gesture of a barbarian.”

  “I agree,” Cory said. “I can’t believe they actually obey you when you do that.”

  “As I said, it’s the custom and one I hardly expect an independent lady like you to appreciate.”

  “But you must not appreciate it either if you’re trying to change.”

  “In many ways I’m just as primitive as the El Zabor.” He smiled cynically. “And sometimes it’s a case of doing as I say not as I do.”

  “And do they do as you say?”

  His face was suddenly shadowed with remembered pain. “Most of the time. It’s only on occasion that they—” He broke off. “You wouldn’t be interested.” He gestured toward the table. “Sit down. You must be hungry. You barely nibbled at your food on the plane.”

  “I was upset. I can’t eat when I’m upset.” She moved toward the table, carefully avoiding his gaze. Upset and on fire and hungry for something other than food.

  “Then you must be upset a hell of a lot of the time.” He gazed at her moodily. “You must be a good fifteen pounds thinner than when I first knew you.”

  “I developed edema after Michael’s birth and lost the weight then. Since then I’ve been on the run so much I’ve never put it back.”

  “You were ill?”

  There was such sharpness in his tone that she glanced at him over her shoulder in surprise. “It could have been worse. They diagnosed it in time to start treatment at once.” She made a face. “I wouldn’t want to go through it again though. I don’t like to feel that weak and helpless.”

  “No, you wouldn’t.” He started toward her, his gaze holding her own with a strange intensity. He stopped before her. “I’m … sorry,” he said haltingly.

  She gazed at him in bewilderment. “For what?”

  “That my child caused you to become ill.” His fingertips touched the hollow of her cheek with exquisite gentleness. “And that I wasn’t there to help you through it.”

  The world seemed to be narrowing around them in a velvet web of intimacy.

  Dangerous intimacy. Cory pulled her gaze away from his with something resembling panic. “You forget, I gave you no choice in the matter. It wasn’t your responsibility.”

  “A man’s woman is always his responsibility.” His voice softened. “And his joy, Cory.”

  A stream of warmth was pouring through her that was sweeter and deeper than desire. No, she mustn’t feel like this, she thought frantically. This was what she had fought against so desperately four years ago. “I’m responsib
le for myself.”

  He didn’t seem to be listening as his fingers moved from caressing her cheek to her hair with the same gossamer touch. “Your hair is different too. I wasn’t sure I liked it at first, but now I think it suits you.” His index finger twined around one bouncy curl. “Wild and alive and full of sunlight.”

  He was touching her only with the heat of his body and the gentleness of his hand on her hair, yet she felt more possessed and invaded than she had when he had explored her with more intimacy on the plane. She could smell the soap and aftershave clinging to him and she suddenly wanted to move closer and be enveloped in the scent and heat and the unusual sweetness he was offering her. She tried to laugh. “It’s more practical. I just shampoo, mousse, and forget about it.”

  “It smells like marigolds.”

  “It’s the shampoo.”

  His fingers returned to her cheek and traced the faint shadows beneath her eyes. “You look tired. I didn’t notice these before. You always seem to have so much energy. Didn’t you rest at all?”

  “A little. I was too keyed up to sleep.” Her voice was uneven and so was the pounding of her heart. She had to get away and break this dark spell he was weaving around her. She took a step back. “I believe I’m hungry.” She sat down in the chair held by the white-coated servant and reached for her napkin, spread fanlike on the eggshell delicacy of her plate. “Could you tell them to begin serving?”

  He stood looking at her a moment, his expression enigmatic, and then slowly crossed to the table and dropped onto the chair opposite her. He started to snap his fingers and then stopped when he saw the frown on her face. “So I forget,” he said sulkily. “No one is perfect.”

  His expression was so like Michael’s when he had been scolded for some bit of mischief that she experienced a wave of overpowering tenderness. She quickly lowered her lashes to veil her eyes. “No one is perfect,” she agreed. “Do you suppose you could find a way to communicate to them that I’m starving without treating them as if they’re Pavlov’s dogs?”

  “I don’t treat them—” He turned to the servant hovering at his elbow. “Please be so good as to serve dinner.”