“Wow, I can see that went well,” she said dryly as Minarra entered the book-cramped space—ever so much smaller than Malcolm’s—and slammed the door.
“Mac Macallister is leading the expedition.”
Sonya popped her head up from her book. She was somewhere in chapter four, the part about the ideal society. “You don’t mean the Mac Macallister, do you? Mr. Mummy Hunter and all that from TV?”
“The one and only,” she sighed. Minarra had never actually seen any of his television shows. The fact that he had been voted one of the Top 100 Sexiest Men in America by Hot Shot magazine was all she needed to know about the level of his current scientific work.
“Oh.” As one of her few real friends, Sonya was quite familiar with the Mac saga. “Well doesn’t that just restore your faith in the goodness of the universe? Seriously, though, you want me to hold a séance and rustle up some bigger mummies to kick his ass?”
Minarra laughed in spite of herself. It was a typical Sonya remark.
The rail-thin, short-haired ash blonde with a complexion and wardrobe that would put a vampire to shame was a great fan of dark humor. She was also very bad about keeping her hair to a color anywhere near a human shade. Today, by her own account, it was day-glow pink, a hue that had looked bad enough the first time around when it had been used to make peace symbols on sixties protest signs.
“Thank you,” Minarra said. “But I’m more than capable of slogging through this one on my own.”
Sonya closed the Plato, unconvinced. “You really think you can deal with being around him again, though? After all that happened?”
“I have to don’t I? If I want to see Shera-Sa.”
Sonya’s coal-black eyes narrowed like laser beams. The effect of the younger woman’s worry and concern was warming, almost exciting. If Minarra were a lesbian like her, she would no doubt begin a steamy love affair posthaste. “There’s something you’re not telling me, Priestess.”
Minarra winced ever so slightly at the reference to her name. Over her mother’s objections, she’d been named after the legendary last high priestess of Shera-Sa who had presided over the city in its final days before being mysteriously swallowed into the desert.
As always, Sonya was reading her with as much ease as that ancient tome on her lap. How was it that Sonya managed to see through her so easily, causing her to lose all her carefully built defense mechanisms?
“I’ve been having the dreams again,” Minarra said.
Sonya pursed her lips. The dreams had been plaguing her off and on for the last month, ever since the mysterious map had surfaced at a bazaar in Madagascar, of all places. An antiquities dealer had found it and, understanding its value, had brought it to the university. It was the first concrete proof of Shera-Sa’s existence outside of the legends. Minarra’s imagination and spirit had been reborn at the first sight of it. It felt like the greatest blessing of her life to be able to study and understand its inscriptions, but it soon showed a darker side. Just three days after first taking possession of the map, she’d had her first nocturnal experience of the city. And its strange inhabitants.
Chief among them was Komen-tah. The last prince of Shera-Sa, its final blood ruler. Over and over, she would dream of being led to him after being brought into the city by a hooded man in a white robe. The man would take her to the guards in golden breastplates, with swords as clear and sharp as diamonds and shields as round and polished as freshly minted pennies. Stone-faced, they would lead her to the palace and from there to the throne room. She would ask questions, even try to object, but they would never listen.
Sometimes there were others in the throne room—nobles, slave girls, extra guards—sometimes it would be only him. The mysterious prince. Whatever the variation, the man would seek to control her. So far she had managed to escape, running from his golden throne room before he could catch her, but with each dream, she could feel him coming closer to his objective of stripping, chaining and possessing her.
She’d spent a good amount of time lately speculating about what might happen if he ever did. Would it become reality? Would she end up paralyzed, or mad? Was there some black magic in this? Certainly that was one of the legends—that the inhabitants of Shera-Sa had somehow angered the gods with their sorcery and been punished by having their city swallowed whole and the surrounding land turned to desert.
One thing was certain, the prince called her Minarra, as he cried out to her, and the way he looked at her with painful familiarity, gave her the odd feeling that it was the first holder of the name and not her that he was after. But wasn’t that just like assuming there was some reality to the dreams, to the prince?
“I know you’re still having them,” Sonya said. “I’ve been picking up the vibes all week. But that’s not what’s bothering you at the moment.”
“Go away,” Minarra teased, making a cross of her index fingers in front of her. “No telepathic witches allowed.”
“You can’t get rid of me for at least a decade,” she quipped. “You’re my thesis advisor, remember?”
“Must you remind me?”
“Yes. I must. Now for the last time, spill the beans or I shall be forced to use my powers to conjure evil spirits to write bad reviews for your next research article.”
“Fine. But if I tell you, you promise to leave me be?”
“Witch’s honor.”
“It’s about Mac Macallister.” She took a deep breath. “I mean, I do hate him and all…but I’m afraid…”
“Afraid?”
“Yes, afraid.” Minarra ran the events of the past hour through her head, ruthlessly analyzing her own behavior. Everything about her strong reactions spelled unresolved emotion. “I think I may still have feelings for him,” she confessed.
Sonya grinned. “I knew that, I just wanted to hear you say it.”
“Wench.”
“You know it,” she winked, rising to her feet.
Minarra watched her fish through her purse. A moment later she produced a small, battery-operated vibrator. “Here,” she put it on the end of Minarra’s desk. “This will help you, while you’re figuring out just how much you hate the Mummy Hunter. It’s my spare. Mint condition—never used. Money back guarantee if you’re not coming like a crazy woman in half an hour.”
She sat there for the longest time after Sonya left, just staring at the vibrator. Thoughts were racing through her mind, and sensations too, strong ones. Underneath her skirt, between her legs, below the protective barrier of her cotton panties.
Minarra was moist. Thinking about Mac and his naked body and how he had looked coming toward her in the moonlight. Perfect and shimmering, not an ounce of fat, the muscles perfectly developed, his hair—longer then—swept back over his shoulders like a lion’s mane. He was so hard. She hadn’t been able to keep her eyes off his cock, though it had made her feel like such a brazen wench.
“It’s all right,” he’d told her, knowing as always, just the right thing to say. “You’re supposed to want to look…and to touch, too.”
Minarra licked her suddenly dry lips. Her heart pounding, her arm moving as if of its own accord, she reached across the desk. For the vibrator. For the pleasure she’d denied herself for so very long. Parting her thighs in anticipation, she released a small, jagged sigh.
I’ll do it to forget him, she told herself. To get him out of my system, once and for all.
It was a good argument, logical even. The trouble was, the heart was not a logical organ. Nor was the pussy. Having this small taste now, would it not want more and more, and eventually the real thing?
Minarra impulsively tossed the thing across the room.
A moment later, she went to retrieve it, inextricably drawn…on her hands and knees…
* * * * *
“Mac, I’ve no idea what’s gotten into her this time,” Malcolm fretted as the two men sat alone in the office after Minarra’s abrupt departure. “I feel I owe you an apology.”
“N
ot at all,” Mac shook his head gravely. “Neither one of you owes me a thing.”
If only the kindhearted professor knew how true those words were, Mac thought. There was nothing unwarranted or rude in Minarra’s anger. If anything, she’d been too easy on him—given what she’d been through and what she had assumed he’d done to her. It made no difference what his motives had been or his true intent. The bottom line was the same. He’d broken her heart. Shattered it into a million pieces. Nothing left but shards, like ancient artifacts, the desiccated fragments she’d spent her life studying.
Leaving Minarra had been the hardest thing he’d ever had to do in his life. There had been only one thing that could have made him take such a course, and that was the iron will of her father. The inscrutable, unforgiving Roger Hunt.
That morning he had left the camp, an hour before dawn, his clothes in bedrolls, one week’s worth of water and gasoline in the spare Rover. He’d been on autopilot. He’d had no desire to live, or even to breathe.
Roger had stood there, a monolith, his sixty-year-old face craggy as a Pharaoh’s tomb, his pointed beard sharp as the spear of a Roman legionnaire.
“What can I tell her?” Mac had wanted to know.
Doctor Hunt’s usually stony features hardened a notch further. “Go,” he pointed toward the horizon. “Don’t look back.”
Like Lot…threatened with transformation into a pillar of salt. Except Mac had been already dead inside. Funny how no one had noticed that, all these years. He’d been able to remake himself into the perfect adventurer, the perfect enlivener of all that was seemingly dull and arcane in the world of archeology. But for everything he brought to life, he only felt the emptiness that much more in himself.
He’d assumed it was a lifetime sentence. And then had come that incredible, totally unbelievable invitation.
If Minarra thought she was shocked to see him show up here, she ought to have tried being in his shoes the day Malcolm had called asking him to head an expedition to find Shera-Sa. With Minarra Hunt.
Just like old times…
Except there was no Roger this time, to interfere, to keep control. Going over it in his mind, Mac had sometimes wondered if that wasn’t part of the thrill. Seducing the daughter of the great and powerful Hunt. The Rasputin of the archeological world. The mad genius who had managed in his day to uncover three new temples and a pyramid. If it hadn’t been for his obsession with Shera-Sa, he would have gone down as one of the great scientists of the twentieth century.
As mercurial and possessed as the man was, his only daughter had been beautiful beyond measure. Roger had called her the spitting image of her mother, but Mac thought her even more breathtaking than the woman in the old pictures. It had been love at first sight. Or at least lust. By summer’s end, he’d vowed, he would bed the woman, eight years his junior. He’d met his goal a month and a half ahead of schedule. Never had he experienced anything so delicious, so entirely satisfying. Minarra, the shy bookworm, had turned into a tigress in his arms. A writhing cat whom only he could tame. The look in her eyes when finally he would pin her, his hands holding her wrists overhead, the combination of defiance and surrender, wonder and lust—she was all woman. The most purely female being he had ever known.
To this day, he could not be with another, or even enjoy the pleasures of his own flesh without thinking of her. Her face, her body, conjured and superimposed over any other, real or imagined.
He’d hoped that seeing her today would put to rest that old dream. Unfortunately, it had had the opposite effect. One look at her and his pulse had quickened. The blood was pumping from his heart straight to his cock. He’d wanted Minarra, right there in the office. He’d wanted her on the desk, that navy blue skirt up around her waist, her panties down around her ankles, or better still in torn shreds in his hand.
So they couldn’t talk anymore, so he’d betrayed her—he still would have fucked her. Would she have objected? Resisted his desires? With her he had never felt a moment’s doubt. Her body had belonged to him from the moment he’d seen it. He’d proven it, too, giving her night after night of ecstasy. Mac was no braggart, and he’d be the first to voice any shortcomings with women, but with her, he’d done it right. Five, six orgasms in a session…minimum.
Mac squirmed on the chair. He was having a hard time paying attention to Malcolm. All he could think of was lovely Minarra, on that desk, her legs spread, her gorgeous, naked pink pussy lips fully exposed and ready. Powerless to resist, wanting it as badly as he…
Their bodies slamming together, his shaft fully immersed in her warm heat. That was the only way…to make sense of it all. Or at least to put off the agony of his own failure for a few precious minutes. She’d wrap her ankles around his back…her strong legs… He’d press his chest forward, flattening her breasts. He’d sink his teeth into her neck. She’d hiss at him to get on with it, to complete her conquest, make her come, right there in front of Malcolm. Out of his mind with desire, he’d rear back, pulling as far out as he could without actually withdrawing, and then he’d plunge, for all he was worth, driving her into the desk. She’d cry out her encouragement and he’d do it again. And again. Working up a heat and friction that could set all these old books on fire. Enough combustion to burn down the entire Social Sciences Building. But still, he’d want more, the moans from her soul. And the words. Words of surrender…and devotion.
His mouth, attached to her breast, his semen spurting forth in mind-blowing orgasm, holding her tight and close, for dear life as she bucked and rocked with her own climax…
“Mac, are you quite all right?”
Mac blinked. Malcolm was eying him, his head angled, his brow furrowed.
“Yeah, just some jet lag,” he rubbed the back of his head. He was tempted to ask how long he’d been out, daydreaming about making furious love to his supposed colleague.
“I can only imagine, as much traveling as you do.”
“It can get wearisome,” he admitted. “Listen, Malcolm,” he switched gears. “There’s something we need to talk about.”
Actually, there was quite a lot, but for now there was one pressing concern on his mind.
“You needn’t say it,” Malcolm sighed. “I can already guess. You are concerned what the effect will be on Minarra if—or more likely when—this mission turns out to be a dead end.”
Mac nodded. “Frankly, I’m a little surprised you’ve managed to get funding.”
“It was Minarra’s doing. She’s a very persistent young woman, as I’m sure you know.”
“That’s an understatement,” he said dryly.
Malcolm chuckled good-naturedly. “I remember when she was about seven. Roger was in Aran-ra. He’d just uncovered the pyramid of Gheeshazar II. Minarra threw a tantrum because she wanted a pyramid of her own. She threatened to run away and dig in the desert with her little shovel until she died of heat exhaustion. Her father finally appeased her by naming the work site after her.”
Mac smiled. He’d always soaked up stories about Minarra, trying to fill in the missing pieces of her life in his mind. It was his way of covering the void left by their breakup.
“She wasn’t so different the summer I knew her,” he observed. “Just a little more grown up.”
Malcolm stroked his curly red beard, half gray now, along with his shock of receding Einsteinian hair. “You know, I’ll admit, from the few times I saw you two together during my visits to the digs there, I had the impression you might make an interesting pair.”
Mac’s jaw tensed. “We’re oil and water, Malcolm. I just want to make sure she doesn’t get hurt. That’s why I’m taking this job. Contrary to certain views of me, I am neither a publicity hound nor an ancient UFO chaser. Shera-Sa is dead to me. As dead as the sand out there. What are alive are the Mashutu rebels. Hell, I’m not even sure it’ll be safe to take her out of Porto Sayeed, much less go digging around the desert looking for lost cities full of gold.”
Malcolm sighed deeply. It was
a lot of passion that had just been thrown at him, more than Mac had realized he had inside himself. Could it be there was more here than met the eye? Was it only guilt that had brought him back into Minarra’s life to keep her safe, or was it something else?
“Perhaps we oughtn’t let her go at all,” Malcolm speculated.
Mac shook his head. He wasn’t sure of a lot of things in this world, but he knew how Minarra’s mind worked. “She’d only find another way, and then we couldn’t keep an eye on her. No, it’s got to be this way. I’ll keep her contained. And if it gets hairy, well, they’ll have to kill me to get to her.”
“You’re a good man,” declared Malcolm.
“Not really.” Mac was on his feet. “Just one with a lot to atone for. You’ll have your expedition. Come hell or high water.”
Mac went straight from the archeology office to the restroom. Locking the outer door, he went to the toilet. His cock was hot and hard and pulsing in his hand as he stood over the open bowl. Inside Minarra…he was inside Minarra. Filling and pleasing her, teasing and taking her, making her moan, thrusting to the hilt. Home, after six years of wandering.
Minarra…the rose in the desert. Oasis from which he drank, moist and sweet. The sweet taste of her nipples, her lips, the fragrance of her melting sex. Clenching his eyes tightly, he forced everything but her from his mind. With a single grunt, he released himself, his cock swelling against the pressure of his fingers. His white-hot semen spewed forth. Wasted, fucking wasted. No turning back, he milked it out, running his finger along the vein underneath, soaking up the last bits of pleasure, riding the descending arc, back to ordinary reality.
The act provided him little release, and barely any comfort. If anything, he was angrier now. At himself. At the world. Splashing water on his face, he made the necessary resolutions. He would do his job. He would take Minarra to the desert and cure her once and for all of her foolish obsession. And while he was doing that, god help anyone who tried to harm a hair on her head. Because he would kill them. Without remorse, or mercy or forethought.
Prisoner of Shera-Sa Page 2
