Bliss River

by Thea Devine

  Chapter Thirteen

  Now there was firelight sending an orange glow into the tent as Rashmi cooked the evening meal.

  They lay side by side on the blankets, neither speaking. He was too shaken by the depth of his orgasm; she was simmering at his willful waste of it.

  "This could have been for us both," she said finally.

  "You aren't comprehending, khanum. This is not about me and my needs, and since you have had enough pleasure to fill a well, I can't understand your irritation."

  "My irritation is in the fact that there is so much plea­sure to be had."

  "But those were not my terms, khanum, I want what I want, irrespective of what my body thinks it wants."

  "You are not stronger-willed than your penis."

  "Trust me, I am."

  "Not today."

  "No. Not today." But that didn't negate his desire to keep their bargain, or his rising need to possess her again. To mark her breasts as his own. "But I will keep trying; a man's will should be able to override his penis."

  Rashmi's voice sang out.

  "The food is cooked," Charles translated. "You needn't dress. I'll bring the plate to you."

  He was a desert brigand, she thought as she watched him duck out of the tent. Tall, dark, brooding, bare-chested, bold. And this, no matter what might happen after, was the adventure of her life.

  And dear heaven, after was not that far off; her adven­ture would be over, soon.

  Not to think about that. There was still the delights of the night to come. And tomorrow, and five days beyond that.

  Forever, it seemed, now.

  The evening meal of overcooked lamb, lentils, and tea did not enhance the mood. "Well, he is a guide, not a cook," Charles pointed out. "And we will feast on so much more before the night is out."

  She felt that little trill of anticipation. "And we need not break camp in the morning?"

  "No," Charles said slowly, "just this once, we need not break camp in the morning."

  They spent the night in a gluttonous haze, exploring how much sensation she could feel through her nipples, until she was wrung out and aching and just a little raw. In the morning, there was coffee, dried bread, fruit, served early, and then a whole morning and early after­noon of nuzzling and nibbling as orgiastically voluptuous as anything he'd done yet.

  He had never known a woman like her. Never known a body like hers, so ripe and so willing, to try, to feel, to ex­plore. She was a true child of the Valley, because no other woman anywhere would have welcomed his attentions like that, and given herself over so completely, so fully, so wantonly.

  It begged the question of what it would be like if he were to fuck her. If there were any kind of full-blown liai­son between them.

  But that was impossible. There was no fantasy involving her that ever culminated with her by his side. She was a born courtesan, not a consort, not a mate, not a wife. And once he had that clear in his mind, it would be easy to let her go.

  Would it?

  He stared down at the cup of water in his hand. He had told her that his father's people marked their women, that he wanted to mark her breasts as his own. He felt adamant about it, more possessive than ever about it. In spite of his feelings about her and what would ultimately become of her.

  And that was because their desert sojourn was another world where all things were possible, and everything he said, everything he wanted was true, and nothing was a lie.

  And he owned her breasts.

  He'd purchased two items in the souk at Sefra she knew nothing about: a little pot of henna powder and a brush, and a tiny glittery diamond suspended from a silver fila­ment.

  These he brought to the tent the evening of their overnight stay in this wellspring oasis and he settled him­self on his haunches in the tent, and began mixing the water with the henna until it attained the consistency of ink.

  She watched avidly, wondering what he was going to do with the thin brush and little pot of ink.

  "Now, khanum, according to our agreement: to do with as I wish . .. give me your left breast."

  Her heart thumped. "As you will, cadi," she whispered coming to stand next to him. He rose up with his little pot of liquid henna, dipped the brush into it and began paint­ing her breast, around the nipple and areola, making elon­gated half ovals that looked like the petals of a flower. Eight petals, with her nipple at the center, to be fed on by his hummingbird tongue.

  It was the most erotic thing he'd done yet. Her body liq­uefied as she looked down at him painting her breast; it aroused her intensely that he had claimed her in this way, and the thin feathery feeling of the brush at the edge of her nipple made it stand out even more prominently. More erotically.

  He laid her down so the henna would dry without a smear. And even that innocent gesture sent his imagination careening, and made him breathless with desire.

  Heaven help him, he wanted her right now, and again after. The feeling roared deep inside him, almost out of control. To see her lying there like that...

  Almost he wanted to fuck her.

  Almost he wanted to spill his seed inside her body, outside, on the breasts, in her mouth, and all over the tent.

  Almost.. .

  Too, too dangerous. And yet, he would go one step fur­ther in his growing obsession with her breasts: the silver filament.

  And if he adorned her with that, then what? All his life he would imagine her wearing it, wearing it not for him ei­ther, but for whatever men she would take into her life once they left their tight isolated world in the desert.

  The desert was her life, and his will and desire, for these ensuing five days, and he felt almost irrational about it, that he must mark her any way he could to make her his.

  "Take me," she entreated him, as he stood looking at her, at the petals that framed her nipple, at her naked body so restive and needy.

  He ignored that. "I have something for you."

  "How can this be? Is this adornment not enough?"

  "Apparently not. Do you want to see? Come to me now."

  She rose up in a fluid motion, her flower breast tempting him almost beyond endurance to touch and feed. Endur­ance, yes, a man must have the endurance, the stamina of an elephant with a wanton like her.

  And none of that diminished his rampaging desire for her breasts. Nothing he knew about her destroyed his ever-raging need for them.

  Dangerous, so dangerous. And now he was walking an even thinner line—a boundary between sanity and en­slavement—and he didn't care.

  He held out his hand. At the end of one finger, the fila­ment dangled, the speck of diamond glimmering in the dimming light.

  She licked her lips. "Where is it worn?"

  He lifted her right breast and slipped it over her nipple. She could barely feel it, and yet it was there, the diamond dangling from a circlet of silver appended to it. It was so there, her nipple tightened still more.

  "Wear this under your robes for me. Let me imagine, as we travel the whole day long, this filament of silver sur­rounding your nipple in place of my fingers and my de­sire."

  His words made her shudder, made her juices flow. "I will wear it for you, cadi, but it will never replace the feel­ing of your fingers fondling me."

  "Nor should it. It is meant only to remind you and keep you ready for the delights to come."

  Her body quickened. It was barely late afternoon, and there surely were more delights to come this day. "In that spirit, I will wear the gift."

  He nearly came in his trousers just looking at her. So dangerous. It was one thing to use her breasts to ease the boredom of a desert journey. It was quite another to raise her expectations by putting his mark on her, by giving her a gift that was a sensual enhancement.

  He was in deep trouble with her, and the only saving grace was the fact he hadn't fucked her.

  He had five more days to plan how things would go once they were on their way to England.

  Things would be different once
they reached Dar el Rabat. Their desert world would be as if it had never ex­isted. The nipple petals would fade. She would put aside the filament, and she would never be naked and free like this again, because she would never have this kind of pri­vacy and isolation from society ever again.

  Five more days—and everything would change. Only five more days of those naked nipples and breasts ... how would he go on without them? Of course he would. It was just a woman, a particularly enticing, intox­icating woman, but a woman nonetheless and the same as dozens of women and their breasts whom he had known. Five more days. Then there would be many changes. She would change. She would understand there were things she could do, and things she could not do. And one of those things was, she could not offer her breasts to strange men. And another was, she had to conduct herself properly, modestly in her father's house.

  She would understand that every man was not fair game, and that every man would not want to fuck her. And that every man was not infatuated with her breasts.

  Would she?

  She would figure it out, once they were away from this fantasy desert world.

  But until then—oh, until then, her breasts belonged to him and he intended to feed on them until the very last minute.

  Four more days ...

  They'd left the wellspring oasis after that night, having bathed, rested the camels, let them drink, taken on more water, and buried whatever food had spoiled.

  They'd walked the first ten or so miles, and rode the re­mainder, while she tried to keep the filament balanced on her nipple and maintain the proper submissive posture.

  It was impossible.

  They'd spent the succeeding night in the middle of nowhere, aware that time was growing short. That their world was suddenly subject to time, and that he had no time at all to play with her.

  And that they were tired, all of them, from the tedious journey.

  Three more days ...

  Slow the journey down; make the time last. Pretend they weren't heading for Dar el Rabat and England. Tell Rashmi to take them to some other place where they could continue to experience endless nights of delights she would never speak of, never tell.. .

  Two more days ...

  Not enough time, not—even he wanted to prolong the nights, the mornings, the mere hours that were left. They were awake all night, the pleasure of him at her nipples utterly indescribable and edged with the terrible knowl­edge that within the next day and a half, there would be no more.

  So because of that, there must be as much as possible. And more.

  She was wrung out in the morning, coated with him, sinking into it, wrapping herself in it as she got ready to forge through the desert sand.

  Everything would change in not even a day ...

  He just couldn't help himself; all he'd wanted to do the previous night was spew all over her until he was bone dry. And he was—dry as the desert, and still hard as a bone, and in hours it would make no difference whatso­ever.

  It was over. Everything was over.

  Dar el Rabat, the coast, and the end of their desert idyll, was just beyond the horizon.

  Dar el Rabat sat perched at the end of the ocean, with fleets of ships bobbing in the curve of the harbor, and mud houses rising up on tiers and ridges from the waterfront.

  It was a city of tradesmen and merchants, fishermen and sea captains. There wasn't an hour that a ship wasn't steaming in or out of the harbor to fish or to trade.

  It was the gate to the Gold Coast of West Africa, the golden door through which came the curious, the idle, the greedy, the rich.

  And when you came to it from the desert, it was the gateway to freedom, afloat in the sea of a grassy plain, bordered by palms and camel-thorn bush, and rising up suddenly on the horizon as if it were a mirage.

  They came to Dar el Rabat early the next morning and into streets already bustling with mules, camels, and the babble of a dozen languages and travelers of all nationali­ties.

  Even in the morning. Time did not stand still in Dar el Rabat. Of that Charles was keenly aware. And that to fur­ther his purpose was now the order of the day: he would take care of Rashmi first, and everything else after.

  Rashmi's services cost fifty krans, and he took charge of the camels, which he would take back to Sefra within the week.

  Charles then spent the morning selling off everything they'd bought for the trip for another five hundred krans to a half dozen different merchants in the city's several souks, which gave them enough money to book passage to Cameroon, scheduled the following afternoon.

  Georgiana followed several paces behind, utterly dumb­struck by the sights, by the sounds and the scents, by the vast expanse of water as limitless as the desert. This was only a part of the world beyond the Valley.

  So now she was truly in his hands, waiting, watching, dizzy with the kaleidoscope of all she was absorbing that she had never seen before.

  After he finished conducting business, he took her arm forcefully and they prowled the crowded streets, seeking inexpensive accommodations for the night.

  The dream journey was over. There was a certain grim-ness in him now, laced with the knowledge that England was the goal, and deliverance to her father, whatever that might mean, the means to the end, and anything else was out of the question.

  He must treat her like a fragile virgin.

  Dear God, was there anyone ever less a virgin than she?

  Although, shrouded in her abeya, she looked like the most chaste of the chaste, her eyes down, her head cov­ered, her stance properly restrained.

  "I hate this place," she muttered, as they traipsed down side street after side street, sloughing off the curses of those who got in their way. "It is too crowded, too noisy, too dirty, too busy ..."

  It struck Charles all at once that this conceivably was the first city she had ever been in, and that it was the first time she would have even seen a body of water like the ocean. Or even this many people in one place. Or had been to a market. Or gone on a boat.

  Dear heaven, Georgiana Maitland was a virgin. It al­most knocked the breath out of him as he comprehended that things of common experience to anyone who traveled were wholly foreign to her.

  And she had wanted so badly to escape the Valley.

  How on earth would she cope with what was to come?

  Sympathy. Damn. The devil's tool. He ought not to have any sympathy for her; she could very well take care of her­self. She'd gotten this far by wit, guile, a certain hard-headed pragmatism, and the seductiveness of her breasts.

  And she still had his money.

  She was not an innocent in a den of wolves. And his obligation to her only went so far. Some might even say he'd already amply repaid her for helping him escape the Valley.

  By the terms of their bargain, he had only to take her to England and to her father's house. The rest... well, the rest was none of his business.

  Like bell.. .

  This trip through the Kalahari was just the beginning. They would have a week on the steamer to Cameroon, possibly two or three days there, another week on the ocean to Sierra Leone, and two more weeks on a steam­ship to England.

  And that was the best timetable, if the connections were made. So this end of the journey could take as much as a month—or more.

  And then, she couldn't possibly go ashore in Grey-bourne dressed in her desert garb. And there would be arrangements to be made from there to get her to Aling, wherever that was.

  And none of this took into account where Moreton was.

  God, Moreton. He hadn't thought of the bastard in the past two weeks, not once. Sick, slick, sanctynonious Moreton. What if he were on his way to England as well?

  Could he be? With all he had to lose? He'd be better paid staying where he was. Georgiana would never betray him, and for himself, he just didn't care.

  Just the beginning...

  He shook off the thought. "You're hungry," he said. "We'll get some fresh fish. We'll dine in style."

&n
bsp; "I don't want to eat. I want you to eat."

  He left that remark floating in the air for a long mo­ment. The thing was, he couldn't turn off the need either, but he sure as hell was going to try.

  "That part of the journey is over," he said finally, tightly. "It's not possible to be that way in civilization. It's just not possible to go on that way anymore."

  "Why not?"

  She would ask that. And she would not understand. In her world, all things sexual were the norm. Naturally, she wouldn't comprehend the constraints, especially since, to all intents and purposes, they were still in the desert.

  "We need to ready ourselves for the next part of the journey," he said brusquely. "No distractions now. It will be arduous enough without that."

  "You don't want my nipples anymore?"

  "Look around you, kbanum. There are hundreds of things of interest besides your breasts."

  "You didn't think that last night. Last night, they were the only thing in the world."

  "The only thing in that world, absolutely. That world is gone now."

  She looked around them at the busy street, at the mud-daubed buildings, at the mules and drays inching along the narrow way, "Well, I don't like this one. I want to go back into the desert with you, and I want to stay there forever. And then maybe you'll fuck me, too."

  He shook his head. "I told you, no fucking."

  "You came so very close, cadi. I wear your essence all over my nipples and my naked body, you came that close. So why can't you—?"

  "We made a bargain: You held up your end. And now I m taking you to your father. And I could not face him if I had fucked you across all of South Africa and beyond."

  "I see. But you can face him having spent yourself all over my nipples for two weeks."

  "That was the price for taking you, khanum. And I spent you well."

  "Yes, you did. You deliberately did. You spent me so well, I want nothing more than to be awash in your cream all day. And I can't because you won't, and I don't under­stand why."

  "The price of taking you to England was my owning your breasts for two weeks. Nothing more, nothing less. I made no other promise to you. I did not fuck you. I did not swear undying love to you. So now you make your choice. If you will continue, we get something to eat, and we find some rooms for the night. If not, Rashmi might take you back to Sefra for another fifty krans, and you can set up there and cater to the trade. You will have no end of men clamoring to fuck you and pay you well for the privi­lege of doing you. And in that way, you might, in time, get to England anyway."