He felt his chest tighten. He could not imagine her in a harem. She was too independent, too curious and headstrong. She would quickly grow bored with a life within the bounds of some stifling walled compound. She would pick fights with the other wives just for sport! Worse, she might seek her comfort in vials of milk of poppy, as many concubines did. Not that it was any of his concern.
His concern was to get them across the Big Sandy to the Isle of Abu, then up the river to Nubia. To do that he needed her full cooperation. He needed to show her that he held the reins. And yet there she was, walking ahead of him, actually holding the reins.
After several hours they arrived at the edge of the large Dakhla Oasis. The sprawling lowland was abundant with date palms and fig trees, and there was enough water to support small crops of millet and wheat. A small town had taken root amongst its abundant shade—a place where traders could rest their mules and quench their thirsts and find a woman to massage their weary shoulders.
But Tahar divulged none of this to the woman. Instead they stopped on the outskirts of the oasis, where a small, inviting pool beckoned.
‘Ah!’ the woman exclaimed, staring at the moonlit waters. ‘This is lovely.’
With Khemetian soldiers and Libu raiders about, it was too risky for Tahar to show his scarred face in town. Besides, there was no need for them to seek the comforts of civilisation. They carried plenty of meat and grain, and the pool offered a perfect place for them to bathe and take their rest. What more did they need? They would stay here and gather their strength until the following evening, when they would skirt the perimeter of Dakhla and begin the difficult trek across the Big Sandy.
The air was still and swelteringly hot. The crickets sang their ancient song, though it seemed louder, more urgent this night. A slight breeze tickled the palms, but it took none of the edge off the stifling heat. A full moon rode high in the sky, shining like a sparkling path of light upon the small central pool.
Tahar began to unpack the horse and make camp.
‘I shall drink,’ the woman stated, sweat beading on her forehead. She was standing beside the pool. ‘And then swim.’
‘You should not drink from the pool, for there is a well here,’ said Tahar. ‘The well water will be sweeter—and safer.’
‘And where is the well?’
Tahar held his tongue. ‘First tell me your name.’
‘My name?’
‘Aye.’
‘My name is... Hathor.’
Tahar chuckled in disbelief. ‘You are named for the Khemetian Goddess of Love and Abundance?’
‘You think it strange?’ the woman said, affecting offence. ‘It is an honour to bear such a name.’
‘I do not believe you, but I will call you Hathor if you wish.’
‘You do not believe me? Why?’
‘Because only highborn Khemetians may bear the names of Gods, and you are not highborn.’
Tahar watched the blood of anger flood into the woman’s cheeks. ‘You know nothing about me.’
‘I know much about you.’
‘Ha! You know only what I wish you to know,’ she said, and she set her jaw in the air.
‘You might be surprised by what I know, Hathor, for I am very observant.’ He approached her.
‘I doubt that very much,’ she said, stepping backwards so that her feet skirted the water.
‘I know that you can move silently, like a spirit, but you cannot milk a beast. I know that you can fight like a man, but are unaccustomed to a man’s eyes upon your skin.’ He stepped closer. ‘I know that you are faster and stronger and cleverer than any woman I have ever known, and yet until I captured you, you had never ridden atop an animal.’
He was standing directly in front of her now.
‘I know you can steal a blade from beneath a man’s wrap—’ He wrapped his hand around her head and pulled his own blade out from beneath the folds of her tattered headdress. ‘But you are unaccustomed to a sky so full of stars.’
He wedged the blade beneath the belt of his tunic and motioned to the stars above them.
He leaned down so his face was just inches from hers. ‘You tilt your head in the self-satisfied way of a highborn,’ he said, tracing the length of her chin with his finger, ‘but you bear a labourer’s calluses upon your hands.’
On an impulse he reached out and found her hands. He ran his thumbs across the small hardened mounds at the bases of her fingers. His heartbeat quickened. As he moved his thumb up and over each rough mound it was as if he were exploring some forbidden part of her.
The woman’s chest began to heave with her breaths, but he could not tell if they were breaths of yearning or of fury. He pressed his thumbs more forcefully against her palms and his desire begin to spike.
Tahar released her hands and stepped backwards, dazed. Streams of sweat dribbled down the sides of his face and he wiped them away with the fabric of his headdress. The woman, too, seemed to snap awake. He watched her expression change from trance-like stupor to bitter resentment as she recalled that her pride had just been bruised.
She gathered herself, folded her arms, and gave a small harrumph. ‘Well, I assure you that you are wrong, trader,’ she said. ‘For I am almost as highborn as they come.’
Gods, she was sweet. He had never thought he could enjoy the sound of a woman’s lies so much. He enjoyed them almost as much as the way she smelled, which was incredible. Even after days of travel she exuded a delicious earthy scent that was vaguely floral and unmistakably woman. He wished he could get closer to her neck to catch some more of it.
‘Where is the well?’ she asked again.
Tahar was relieved when he discovered the small, rock-lined hole in the ground a dozen paces from the edge of the pool. He removed the woven palm leaf cover and peered down into its depths.
‘The water level is high,’ he announced. ‘Please, drink... Hathor.’
She bent over the well, and as she did a gap appeared in the addax-skin dress he had made for her—a cleft between her small, plump breasts. A pang of lust vaulted through Tahar’s body and he fought to look away, but he could not. There they were, and they were perfect. They hung like ripe fruits that he wished to pluck with is mouth.
She plunged her hands into the water and splashed her face. The droplets dribbled down onto her skin and soaked her chest. Tahar felt himself stiffen. She scooped up another handful of water and brought it to her wine-dark lips.
Those lips.
He needed to regain possession of himself. Or, better, he needed to say something that would cause her to push him away, for clearly he could not move away himself. What could he say to make her spit her venom? Facts! Khemetians hated facts. They believed only what they wanted to believe. He would ply her with a fact that no Khemetian—nor most Libu, for that matter—had ever believed, and she would walk away in fury.
‘In fact,’ he began, ‘the well from which you drink is larger than you can imagine, and much older.’ He spoke loudly and confidently, for he knew his certainty annoyed her. ‘The ancient well lives below the sands. It is thousands upon thousands of years old.’
Tahar braced himself for her Khemetian indignation—a full frontal assault.
‘The well water was above the ground once. It was an ancient sea. It covered the Red Land and the Black Land, too.’ And I remain in control of you and of this situation.
‘Really? That is wondrous.’ She stared up at him with her big dark eyes.
‘You do not doubt the veracity of what I say?’ he asked.
Never in his life had anyone believed his theory of the ancient sea, yet he knew it to be true. He had seen the evidence in his travels—the bones of ancient sea creatures buried in layers of sand and rock. Tahar was certain that the creatures had swum across the desert once, before their watery hom
e had disappeared beneath the ravenous sun.
‘I believe you,’ she said. ‘Your ocean is like the water from the Cave of Wanderers. It is...water from another time.’ With two hands she scooped another handful of water and held it up to him, like an offering. She spoke softly and sweetly. ‘Now you drink... Tahar.’
Tahar froze. What strange spell had the moon cast this night that the woman now wished for him to drink out of her very hands?
Reverently, he lowered his mouth and drank.
‘And now I shall drink from your hands,’ she pronounced. ‘That is the Libu custom, yes?’
Indeed it was. He bent to the well and dipped his hands into the cool waters, then lifted them to her waiting lips. When she had finished she did not immediately lift her head. Instead she kissed each of his ten fingers, one by one.
She looked up at him. Her eyes danced in the moonlight and her copper skin shone with an otherworldly glow. ‘I am going to swim now,’ she said.
She cocked her head shyly, then turned and walked towards the oasis pool, loosening the leather straps that held her addax wrap in place. In the distance, a jackal let out a lonesome cry.
Tahar wiped his brow. He had begun to sweat profusely, as if it were the middle of the day and not the deepest part of the night. Why had she kissed him in that way? Each one of his fingers—with such tenderness?
Soon he heard the delicate complaint of disturbed water. He approached the oasis pool and beheld her entering its depths. She had completely disrobed. Her short black crop of hair was almost boyish, but her long, delicate neck and soft curves were all woman. He traced the length of her back with his eyes, studied its lovely dips and bends and fixated upon her firm, round buttocks. An eruption of lust plugged his throat.
He must have sighed, for she turned towards him, revealing her erect nipples. He shivered with desire. She scooped water and splashed it upon her chest several times, until her breasts glistened in the pearly light.
He was struck dumb. If he’d been able to think he might have wondered why her feelings had so suddenly changed. He might have asked her—Why me? Why now? But he could not think. He could not even speak.
I have lost control of the situation.
She beckoned to him. Come. And in that moment her true name did not matter, for she was Hathor, Goddess of Love and Abundance, and she had bewitched him.
Chapter Sixteen
When she saw him unwrapping his headdress and stepping out of his long tunic she knew she had overestimated the power of her own will. He stood to his full height and gazed at her from the bank, and already she yearned for him. His luxuriant mane hung about his face in thick, wavy ropes, and it was the only thing he wore.
He was a man. That was clear.
Stunningly clear.
But as she appraised the whole of his body she realised that he was also a god. Every chiselled bit of him radiated strength and masculinity. There was not even a hint of the softness of age or leisure, not a single inch of fallow flesh. He was as taut and ready as a drum.
And he was coming for her.
The strong sinews of his lower legs tensed as he stepped barefoot into the water. He began to walk towards her and his upper leg muscles bulged and contracted, creating rings of small waves that radiated out from his body. Those waves travelled slowly across the pool, and when they crashed into her body they made her shiver.
He walked towards her slowly and deliberately. If she had seen him among the tomb workers she would have thought him a loader. She pictured him bare-chested and sweating in the sun, lifting some large boulder onto a cart, his dense muscles flexing. He would have been the most irresistibly handsome loader that ever was.
And he wanted her—nothing could be clearer.
She had thought that she repulsed him. Both times he had responded to her—in the pool and then in the cave—he had made his regret known. Now it seemed he was making the opposite known. She noticed his thick member, which stretched to an alarming length before it disappeared under the water.
Just the sight of it made her heart thump wildly.
He continued towards her, his narrow hips sinking beneath the velvety water, his muscular arms stretching out to caress its still surface. With the moon above him, the contours of his massive chest cast shadows upon his pale skin. It was as if he had been carved in alabaster: a temple relief showing the picture of an ideal man. Only this man was real—very, very real—and he was advancing towards her.
Everything is going according to plan, she told herself, though her whole body trembled. Her goal was to seduce him. To drive him so mad with desire that he would unwittingly take what he valued most about her—her virginity. Yet it seemed that she was the one going mad, for suddenly her body ached with a need that she had never felt before—a need so powerful it made her confused and afraid.
It was his eyes that scared her the most. They held her gaze in their deep blue snare—probing, searching, penetrating. They seemed to smoulder with something like anger. Or was it hunger?
Gods, what had she unleashed?
She felt her nipples tighten as he approached. Her whole body was flushed with heat. I remain totally in control, she told herself, though she could not slow her breaths. He was only a few arm’s-lengths away from her now. His chest heaved and his jaws clenched, as if he were experiencing some terrible intensity—the very same intensity she felt pulsing through her own body.
No.
Yes.
He was so close now. Kiya knew that somewhere under the water his desire had stretched to its engorged length. Her body quaked with a riotous mix of fear and desire. Her womanhood ached.
He is doing just what I hoped he would do, she repeated to herself, trying to stay calm. I’ve got him right where I want him.
Still, she stepped backwards, terrified of him, of her own desire, of what she had started and was now unsure how to finish.
‘Tahar—’ she began, but could not remember what she’d been going to say.
She felt herself falling backwards. She was almost completely immersed underwater when he caught her in his arms and pulled her to the surface. She felt herself trembling. She feared his touch even as her whole body cried out for it.
‘It’s all right,’ he said. He pulled her against him and held her tightly. ‘I mean you no harm. You are safe.’
His words were solace to her soul. His body felt so good against hers. Her breasts pushed against his stomach, just beneath his chest, and her arms wrapped comfortably around the flanks of his lower back. Her head rested upon the bulging muscles of his chest as if upon pillows. His desire throbbed softly—safely—against her stomach.
She sighed. It was as if their bodies were meant to fit together in their embrace. Or perhaps she had finally found a lost part of her own body. Whatever danger she’d read in his eyes had dissolved with his touch. She buried her head in his chest and felt as if she could stay like this for ever. She felt safe. She felt desired. She felt...grateful.
‘You have shown me amazing...things,’ she said. ‘I am—’
Chapter Seventeen
‘Shh. Don’t speak,’ he said. He had spent a week trying to convince her to talk, and now he wished only to communicate with touch.
He pressed his finger against her soft lips, then traced their contours. His need throbbed painfully against her stomach. To touch her like this, to feel her skin against his, was driving him mad with lust.
He smiled and raked his fingers through her short, dark hair, reminding himself of her inexperience. She was as lovely in the moonlight as she was in the light of day. Water glistened against her honey skin, gathering in tiny rivulets that he wanted to taste.
He pulled her back into his arms. He could not restrain himself any more. He wanted all of her. He had felt it at the first oasis, when she
had seated herself upon him in the pool, daring him to move. And in the cave, when he’d sucked the soft flesh of her thigh and been so close to her paradise that he had almost been able to taste its sweet nectar.
But even before those moments, even when he had first seen her lithesome figure running across the plain, he had felt it. She was like no woman he had ever known. Fiery and changeable. Wilful and strong. Restless and impossible to tame. He had captured her, and yet deep down he knew that she would never be truly caught. And that, more than anything, was what made him want her so badly.
He cradled her head in his hand. Gently, he tilted it back. He hovered over her mouth, letting her feel his hot breath upon her lips. Then, tenderly, he pressed his lips to hers and parted them. He felt her body stiffen. She pursed her lips, then let them loose, her awkward motions revealing her inexperience in even this, the simplest act of love.
Could it be that a woman as lovely as she had never shared the tenderness of a kiss? It seemed impossible, but there was much he didn’t know about her. Perhaps she had disguised herself among men for so long that she had forgotten her power over them. More likely she had never even known she wielded such power.
He would show her now—but gently. Softly. He coaxed her mouth open, kissing her top lip and then her bottom lip. He felt her body relax into his once again. She closed her eyes, and he could see her slipping completely into the invisible space they shared. He probed her mouth with his tongue until he felt her timid tongue begin to respond in turn. How deliciously tentative she was!
His hands were like thieves. They crept down her back and looted the contours of her beautiful round buttocks. They slunk across her waist, raiding her lovely curves, taking everything they wanted. He could feel her heart beating rapidly against his own chest. His kisses grew deeper, more intense. She brushed her fingers down his back and the gentle uncertainty of her touch made him want to howl.
Her mouth began to move in rhythm with his. Her lips were so large and soft he wanted to devour them. He felt the mound of her womanhood push against his firmness, felt her desire transforming his own into a kind of desperation. He only knew what he wanted: to fill her with himself, to feel her as near to him as possible.
Enslaved by the Desert Trader Page 9
