by Cerys du Lys
I could feel my cheeks growing hot.
“I’m trying to keep my promise, but I don’t need the provocation of you stroking my body.”
I twisted against him, hating that it was so hard to prevent myself from just melting into goo. “You’re the one who keeps grabbing me.”
He released me and I fled to the open window, letting the evening breezes soothe my burning cheeks. But the room was small, and I could sense the heat of his flesh just inches away. I knew that if I so much as hinted that I was willing, he would carry out his threat. I was willing. I wanted him. I wanted this lean, lovely man to lie down with me and fuck me until I screamed for mercy.
“Ellie.” His tone was low and hoarse, but even his voice drew me. “I’m not myself around you.”
I felt compelled by the raw feeling in him, the emotional force he was usually so successful at concealing. “Who are you, then?”
“I don’t fucking know. Someone dark. Someone I hardly recognize.”
I turned back to the window, squeezing my eyes shut. I heard his step behind me. I felt his warm hands slide once again over my shoulders. He pulled me back against his body; his arms moved down and encircled my waist.
His hands slipped down and clamped onto my hipbones, pulling my ass more firmly against his pelvis. Oh shit. He surged against me, hard as iron, his arousal blatant and so damn tempting. I thought about dropping down, as he so frequently ordered, and taking him out. Rolling my tongue over the head. Sliding my lips along the length. Sucking him hard. My pussy muscles tightened and pulsed and I had to swallow a moan.
He turned me on so much. Damn, I hated the way he turned me on.
“It is going to happen,” he said. “You know that, don’t you? We can postpone it, maybe, but that will only make the obsession grow. It’ll build and build until we can’t control it anymore.”
I shivered, lost in my desire for the man who had kidnapped me. I wasn’t even asking myself anymore what was wrong with me for wanting him. I just wanted. Needed. It was becoming unendurable.
“It’s time for dinner,” he said, breaking the spell. “They’ll all be there, drinking raki and getting rowdy, but we’ve got to face them.” He paused, taking my chin in his hand. “Don’t let me down. Do you have a dress you can wear?”
“Wow, you mean you’re going to let me wear clothes? I have a dress, yes.”
“Put it on.” He brushed back the hair that was framing my face. To my surprise, he ran a long lock of it through his fingers, brought it to his lips, and kissed it. “I love your hair. And I want to show you off.”
I swallowed. He loved my hair? That made me all feel all melty. “What about this thing?” I indicated the rope collar around my neck.
“That always stays on, slave.”
Chapter 16
Ellie
A little later, dressed in a silky dress made of synthetic fabric that traveled well in my backpack and a pair of sandals, I accompanied Nick downstairs to dinner. As we walked, he kept his hand locked around my wrist like a manacle.
Sir Avery and his henchmen ate in a large central room that was smoky, windowless and dark. It reminded me of the great hall of some medieval keep.
There must have been a generator somewhere on the grounds to produce electricity for cooking and lights, but the wattage in the room was low. I noticed that the dark encouraged the men’s stares. My dress was flattering, revealing my slim legs and nipping in about the waist to lend my hips a flare that wasn’t entirely natural. It didn’t do much for my small breasts, but the neckline was flattering, and sweeping my hair up into a knot had given me a little extra height. It also revealed the rope collar circling my throat, which the males in the gathering eyed with dark interest.
I felt uncomfortable. I was content to stay close to Nick. His warnings about my being the only female among a group of men had just been words on the yacht, but now I sensed the testosterone simmering as they stared at me. There must have been close to twenty guys in the room. The only friendly face I saw was Metin, who sent me an encouraging grin. He was seated near the other end of the long table, though, so I couldn’t talk to him. The rest of the men lounged around, smoking cigarettes and drinking raki, the powerful, anisette-flavored liquor favored all over the Mediterranean region. The more they drank the noisier they became. They also got braver about gawking at me. I kept my eyes down. No one actually touched me, and I kept pretending to understand no Turkish, although some of the muttered comments made me flush.
At least the food was good. “Who’s the cook?” I asked Nick’s grandfather, who was seated near me in his wheelchair. The broiled fish, served with its head and tail intact, one dead eye staring opaquely, was tender and fresh. I tried the grape-leaf dolmas, filled with a succulent mixture of rice, currants, pine nuts and mint, and the barbunya beans in olive oil. These, too, were delicious.
“Mustafa,” Sir Avery answered, nodding to a burly, grinning man who was sitting on the other side of the table. “In the beginning everyone took turns, but that was a disaster. Mustafa lost his wife years ago and has been making do for himself ever since. He enjoyed his food, so he was forced to learn to cook.”
“Now that your girl is here, she can cook,” someone else suggested.
“I don’t think so,” Nick said easily. “I doubt she can equal Mustafa’s culinary skills.”
“What’s the matter, doesn’t she fill your belly with tasty delicacies, Nicholas bey?” someone else shouted. “Or are you and she too busy tasting life’s other pleasures in bed?”
“None of your business, Ahmet,” Nick retorted to the skinny young man who’d produced the taunt. He went on to joke with them, while I strove to maintain the quizzical expression of one who doesn’t understand what is being said. Nick translated none of this, showing no special consideration to his “slave.” At least he didn’t make me kneel at his feet, which I had half-expected. He drank raki with the rest of them and laughed at their increasingly coarse and suggestive remarks.
I was introduced to several of the other men who were sitting around Sir Avery and seemed to be particular friends of his. Erdal, a strong but scholarly-looking man who had apparently worked with Nick’s grandfather for years; Aslan, whose name meant lion, which seemed appropriate, since he had long hair and a thick reddish beard that made him resemble one; and Engin, a pleasant-faced young man in his twenties who knew some English and seemed eager to practice it with me.
I avoided engaging the six men at the far end of the table. “They’re Nigel’s crew,” Nick told me under his breath. They gave me sinister stares and did not speak to me.
I could tell Sir Avery’s men were fond of Nick. My captor was not as expansive and charming as the always smiling, always hearty Nigel, but he was warm to the men, and he took their teasing with good grace. Why not? He was one of them. A smuggler, a crook. I wondered if they knew he’d once been a teacher of Latin and ancient Greek. I tried in vain to mesh that image with the sight of him, slouched and whiskery, downing milky-white raki while he sucked on a pungent-smelling Turkish cigarette.
The more Nick joked with his friends, the more Nigel tried to single me out. As the meal finished and fruit was served, people stood up, moved around, changed places at the table, and Nigel had moved closer to me. Keeping my eyes down so I didn’t have to see the lust blazing in his, I pretended to be awed and tongue-tied so I could duck most of his questions.
The raki had the most noticeable effect on Sir Avery, who became more talkative. “Did my grandson explain to you about my difficulties with the government of Turkey?” Sir Avery asked me, sounding peevish.
“No, sir, he didn’t.”
“Some years ago they accused me of removing objects from a site near Izmir. It was not true. I had never dreamed of doing such a thing—then.” He paused and I noted the ripples of unease that crossed his face. “I didn’t need to. I had an adequate income and the means to pursue my research. I also had the use of my legs. But now, as a result of
my unfortunate accident, I can no longer be much use at my own excavations.” He glared down at the blanket that covered his legs. His wheelchair had been brought to the table, but it didn’t look too comfortable. “The good Lord played a rare trick on me when he didn’t allow me to die in that cave-in.”
I shuddered. I couldn’t think of anything more horrible than dying in a cave-in.
Except being alive in a cave-in and waiting to die.
Sir Avery adjusted the hearing aid as he continued, “Despite my misfortunes, my enemies continued to hound me. They threatened my reputation. They told lies about me. Soon the grant money began to dry up.” He sounded bitter. “Despite my decades of scholarship, I had no income. I have given much to the science of archaeology over the years, but what have I received in return besides criticism and neglect? Why should the work I have supported all these years not support me in return?”
This was his justification for his current activities. I didn’t dare argue. Again, I found it convenient to stare submissively at the floor.
“It gives me no pleasure that I won’t be able to report my find if the treasures of Troy do turn up here on the island. If I were to claim the fame that should be my due, I would be detained for excavating in Turkey without the necessary permits. I’m far too old and unwell to spend my twilight years in a Turkish prison.”
“That would be horrible,” I agreed.
“Be careful what you say,” Nigel said to his grandfather in Turkish. “You talk too much.”
“Nonsense,” said Sir Avery in the same language. “Have some raki, my dear,” he invited. Over my protests, he poured me a glass, adding three ice cubes, which made the clear liquid turn white. “And forgive my lapses into a foreign tongue. I’ve spent so many years here. My second wife was a Turk—did you know that? Our daughter—Nick’s mother, that is—spoke Turkish as her mother tongue and learned no English until she was in school. She taught Turkish to Nick when he was a child.”
With that, he wandered off onto the subject of the family history. I wasn’t averse to hearing it. With Nigel riding shotgun on Sir Avery, I didn’t dare offer any opinions about the treasures of Troy.
Sir Avery had been married twice, first to an Englishwoman, who had divorced him after bearing one son, and then to his Turkish wife, who had lived with him until her death a number of years ago. Nigel was the child of Sir Avery’s British son, Nick the child of Sir Avery’s half-Turkish daughter. Nick and Nigel were only half-cousins, I realized. But they’d been raised as brothers, shuttling back and forth between archaeological digs in the Mediterranean and private schools in England and the States after the deaths of all four of their parents in a plane crash in Brazil.
“Poor orphan lads, I didn’t know what to do with them,” said Sir Avery. “Nigel was twelve, Nick only ten. I’m afraid I didn’t do a very good job bringing them up.”
I refrained from commenting. Nick had switched seats to chat with Metin and some other guys. Maybe he figured his grandfather would watch over me.
“Nick was clever. He managed to acquire a fine education,” Sir Avery went on. “As for Nigel, he doesn’t have all the fancy academic credentials, but that’s never prevented him from getting ahead in life, has it, my boy?”
“I have my business. I don’t need degrees,” Nigel agreed.
“What is your business, sir?” I asked.
“I’m an international art broker.”
How convenient.
“Nick wanted to be an archaeologist like me,” his grandfather continued. “As a child that’s all he ever talked about. He had talent, too, and far more patience than Nigel. That’s what it requires, you know, endless patience and persistence. Good instincts, too, of course.”
“What happened to make him change his mind?”
Sir Avery looked puzzled. “He didn’t change his mind. He’s quite well known in his field.” I must have looked surprised, because Sir Avery smiled and nodded. “He hasn’t told you? He’s never been one to toot his own horn. He’s a highly skilled translator of ancient texts. That’s his specialty. It would be difficult to find an ancient script that Nick is unfamiliar with. I was never good at that sort of thing myself.”
I tried to factor this information in with what I already knew about Nick. His scholarly resume kept getting longer.
“Ellie.”
Maybe his “training” had worked, because the sound of Nick’s voice in my ear caused my entire body to leap to attention. He was standing behind my chair. When he placed his warm hands on my shoulders, his touch set off a riot of sparkles along my nerves. I tried to counter it with a large sip of raki, but I could still feel desire burning me all the way down to my bones.
Nick raised a glass to me. “Sherefe, hayatim,” he said, Turkish for cheers.
“Sherefe,” I repeated, mangling the accent. Hayatim? That was an endearment. He must be drunk.
The rest of the evening passed in a haze. I gulped raki, which helped to push away my fear and confusion. When the fruit was eaten, the men moved the table aside. Out of the shadows appeared a tabor, then someone produced an oud, and a third man came out with an ancient violin. They began to play, not well or tunefully, but with great enthusiasm. As the music swelled, several of the workers got up and began to dance.
“Come, Nicholas bey, join us,” someone shouted.
Nick rose. Someone handed him a battered wooden instrument—a crude flute. He played upon it while weaving in and out of the line of dancers, moving to the music of Turkish folk dances he’d probably been taught in his youth. The instrument was a poor one, but he seemed to take pride in making it sing. I watched, transfixed. There was a kind of magic in him.
He danced, whirling, one with the music, one with the night. As I watched him, my mind also whirled. His beauty assaulted me, spearing me like jagged lightning. With that nimbus of gold around his head and those long, tan supple limbs, there was none to touch him for pure masculine grace.
Like Pan now, not Apollo, his piping summoned me to join the revels, share the dance. My raki was finished, my head was light and my blood throbbing in my veins. I put down my glass and was moving toward the charmed circle when I felt the weight of Nigel’s hand on my shoulder. He was not gentle. I shuddered as I felt his fingertips dig into the flesh of my shoulder. “He neglects you,” his suave voice murmured near my ear. “Leave him and come with me.”
He probably believed his voice was seductive, but to me it sounded sinister. He was probably thinking about my anal virginity! “You hate your cousin, don’t you?”
“How I feel about him has nothing to do with this,” he assured me, smiling in that weird-ass kindly manner of his. I noticed that he, too, had dressed for dinner. He was wearing different clothes, including a different white shirt and even a dinner jacket. Different shoes, too—even more stylish than the ones he’d been wearing a few hours before. There was a thick gold ring on one of his fingers and an expensive watch on his wrist. “But I might be able to offer you a pleasanter and more opulent life than he can.”
“How extraordinarily kind of you,” I said, not even trying to disguise my sarcasm. “But I have zero interest in ever becoming your fuck toy.”
His handsome face darkened. I’d made a mistake. I’d just broken the docile submissive code of behavior. Damn my wayward tongue! And damn the raki—I’d drunk too much of the stuff.
“I see.” His strong, tan face was thoughtful, predatory. The hand on my shoulder moved to my hair. With a jerk, he grabbed the knot of hair at the back of my neck and pulled on it until my scalp stung. Most of my hair slipped free of the knot and tumbled to my shoulders, where he caressed it as if he had a right to do so. I wanted to pull away, or maybe slap him, but Nick’s warnings restrained me. I was playing the role of a slave, and slaves didn’t stand up to assholes like Nigel.
“Maybe Nicholas will tire of you. I hope I’m around when he does. You need to be taught some manners.”
Burn in hell, asswipe.
> Avoiding his gaze, I turned my head just in time to catch Nick’s eye across the smoky room. He must have noticed that Nigel had his hand on me. He laid aside his flute and left the dance, moving swiftly to my side. I watched him come, exulting in his easy stride, which was unimpaired by all the raki he’d consumed.
He stopped beside me, not yet touching me, but claiming me so obviously that Nigel’s features dissolved into a scowl. “Trying to move in, are you?” Nick’s words came out in a drawl, but there was a biting undertone.
“Your redheaded slave is disrespectful,” Nigel said. “Either devote more time to her training, or turn her over to someone with a firmer hand.”
Nick smiled an indulgent smile at his cousin, but I saw something flash in his eyes that warned me. “On your knees, slave,” he ordered, and the reflex he had painstakingly planted in me kicked in. I dropped to the floor, not even thinking how ridiculous I must look. Nick’s hand moved into my hair, which was falling down my back now that Nigel had pulled it loose. “Were you disrespectful to my cousin, girl?”
“I was rude, Master.”
“Prostrate yourself before him and apologize.”
What? No way. If he thought....The fingers in my hair wound a little tighter. From the hush that had fallen over the room, I knew everybody was watching. And listening, no doubt.
Swallow your protests even if I tell you to do something you hate. This will be tested, you can count on it.
Okay. I could do this. I swiveled in the direction of Nigel, who was facing off against Nick. I leaned forward. I could see his beautiful and no doubt expensive shoes under his perfectly-pressed trousers. I bowed my head toward the freaking shoes. When I didn’t bow low enough, I was mortified to feel Nick’s much less elegant work boot settle on my back and press me down to the floor. “My humble apologies, sir,” I said, trying hard not to sound sarcastic. Let’s face it, I didn’t do humble well, but, on the other hand, it was hard to sound anything else but humble when your face is pressed to the floor.
