With her essence still lingering on his lips, Simon claimed her mouth with the kiss he’d earlier denied her, a kiss of agonizing sweetness and infinite tenderness, sliding his tongue over her injured lip before gently sucking it into his mouth. When he released her, her lips curved into a slow and satisfied smile. “You do know very well what pleases me, Efendi.”
Give me thy heart, Juliet, give me thy heart!
I have a need of it, an absolute need,
Because my own heart has thus been long dead.
-Wilfrid Scawen Blunt
Chapter Ten
Simon rolled over with a sleepy moan. Last night had changed everything. They’d made love over and over, filling the air with the exquisite echoes of soft suction, and the sultry sounds of pleasure, until they were both past the point of exhaustion. Yet he’d never wanted it to end. Already throbbing to be inside her again, he reached out blindly to … emptiness.
He opened his eyes to the glare of the noontime sun spilling into the room and an empty place in the bed—Salime was gone. He bolted upright, his pulse racing in panic. Had it all been just a dream? A wild fantasy conjured by his sex-starved brain? The combined musk and jasmine scenting the bed linens confirmed that it had all been very real.
But bloody hell! Where was she?
He leapt naked from the bed to ring the servants’ bell, in his distraction, nearly forgetting to cover himself when Winchester answered the summons. “Madam Salime,” Simon began urgently, “do you know where she is?”
“In the hammam, sir. She left instructions not to disturb you.”
“Thank God.” Simon shut his eyes on a sigh of relief. In the course of three days she’d become as essential to him as air.
“Can I get you anything?” Winchester inquired. “The cook is nigh beside herself with idleness.”
Simon’s stomach rumbled at the mention of food. Aside from a few pieces of fruit they’d eaten in bed, he couldn’t recall his last meal.
“Yes, Winchester. Pray instruct the cook to prepare a great deal of whatever delights Madam Salime likes best.”
“As you will, sir.” The servant made a curt bow followed by a brisk departure.
Simon didn’t bother to dress, but padded barefoot in his banyan back to DeVere’s bedchamber and down the private staircase leading to the hammam.
Crossing the threshold through the arched doorway, he was at once struck by the heat and humidity. He then took in the interior of the chamber, covered from floor to domed ceiling in vibrant colored and intricately painted mosaic tiles. A gurgling fountain sat at one end, and a raised marble table commanded the room’s center like a throne. It was as if he’d been transported to a Sultan’s palace.
“There are three interconnected chambers.” Salime stood in the entry to the next room wearing only a robe. She came slowly toward him. He was relieved to see she’d forsaken the veil, at least in private. “This is the sıcaklık,” she explained, “a hot room for massage; the next is the warm room for washing, and the last is the soğukluk, the cool room for bathing. Have you been to such baths before, Efendi?”
“One time in my youth I went to a public bagnio called the Turk’s Head. It was nothing like this.”
Salime shook her head with a smile. “No. It would not be. My Lord DeVere is a wealthy man and most enamored of all things Eastern. He brought these tiles back with him from Constantinople.”
“Is that where you met him, Salime?”
“Yes.”
Simon raked his hair with a frustrated sound. “Even after last night, is that all you have to say? Will you still tell me nothing about yourself?”
“I will answer any question you ask me… within reason.”
“But you volunteer nothing? I must ask you like some kind of guessing game?”
“I am sorry if this distresses you, Simon, but I do not like to speak of my past.”
He instantly softened at the pained look in her eyes. He sensed that there were many unpleasant things in her past. He would have to be more patient.
She took his hand. “Please, come. There is something I wish to do for you.”
To his surprise, the tiled floor was remarkably warm underfoot. She answered his curious look. “It is heated by a furnace from below. This room is designed to facilitate the removal of all impurities from the body.”
“I can see that,” Simon remarked, wiping the beads of perspiration from his brow.
“Will you disrobe for me now?” she asked.
“You want me naked?”
“Yes, and then to lie upon the slab. I wish to give you a Turkish massage. I believe you will find much enjoyment in it.”
“I find immense enjoyment any time you put your hands on me, Salime, but you do not have to attend me like a servant.”
“But I wish to do this. Please do not deny me.”
“My dearest love, I pledge until my dying day to deny you nothing that is within my power to give you.” He stripped off the robe and flung it to the floor.
She shook her head. “One does not live in the future but in the present.”
He still held her hand. “But you are my present…and a priceless one.”
She arched a brow. “Ever the golden tongue?”
“I don’t flatter you, Salime. I worship you. You are my new religion. Henceforth my Bible, dear, shall be thine eyes. My rosary thy lips. My prayers thy constancy. My heaven thine arms… Eternity thy kiss.’” He brought her fingers to his mouth, murmuring against her warm skin. “I have not composed a bloody line of verse in over a decade, but now my mind floods with it. You alone have awakened me.”
He had done the same for her, but what Simon had stirred within her was unfamiliar…and terrifying. He’d awakened her from the lethargy of a loveless lifetime. His poem made her heart flutter. His words of love and tender caresses sparked a hope that there could be more. He made her heart ache for something she could ever have, for more than any man could ever give her.
She pulled her hand from his grasp. “It is beautiful, your verse, but I don’t wish to hear such talk.”
“I only confess what is burning in my heart, sweet Salime. I have dreamt of you my entire life. I was only half alive before I knew you.”
“One does not fall in love in a night.”
“It has been four counting my arrival,” he corrected. “Yet I feel as if I have known you my entire life. Please, Salime, I will not ask you again. Do you feel nothing for me?”
“You ask too much of me, Simon. I will stay here with you. I will dance for you. I will tend you here in the hammam. I will give you pleasure beyond your wildest dreams. It is what I know. What I do. But anything more from me is only a dream.”
“I don’t believe you, Salime. Why will you not trust me?”
His shattered expression pierced her heart. He had already suffered so much, but she could never allow him to know her true feelings. “I cannot give you what you want, Simon…I cannot love you.” She added softly, averting her face, “Love is as an ocean with the shores you cannot discern…a wise person can never swim in such a sea.”
“Bollacks!” he cried. “Only cravens fear such waters.”
“Or those who cannot swim.”
“It’s not enough for me, Salime.” Simon sprang up, snatching at his robe.
“You are leaving?” she cried. “After all your professions of love, you scorn me once again? Why can you not be satisfied with what I have to offer? Do you value me so little?”
“Value you? Damn it! I wish to treasure you, cherish you. It is you who scorns me.”
“Think what you say, Simon! Fate brought us together. We have been given tonight. Maybe tomorrow. And perhaps the day after. But next week? Next month? There is no future beyond this time. Can you not see that?”
Last night he had shown her the third heaven, but she could never let him rule her like that again. It was far too dangerous to believe his honeyed words and sweet promises. She reminded herself that mutual pleas
ure was all they could share. She continued softly, “Why can’t you accept this thing between us for the gift that it is?”
He froze. A thousand emotions seemed to pass over his face at once. Although faint lines still lingered about his eyes and mouth, his expression softened. Then, with a groan, Simon swept her into his arms. “I cannot help myself, Salime. I am consumed by you. I can’t stand not to have all of you…” His mouth claimed hers, soft and possessive, in a true lover’s kiss, gently nibbling the flesh of her lower lip, and then sucking it into his mouth before slowly releasing it. “But it would kill me to have nothing at all.”
His words were a puff of wind to a smoldering fire and his kiss all too easily fueled it, but she resisted with all her will. “Then you must learn to accept that which I can give you.”
He’d declared himself in no uncertain terms only to be heartlessly rebuffed?
Maybe it was true, and she had no heart after all, but her misty eyes belied her denial of deeper feelings. Although his pride stung at her rejection, he refused to deny either of them what she offered. If she wished to give him nothing more than mindless pleasure, he was of a damned good mind to accept it—at least for now.
Lying face down, the heated marble quickly suffused Simon’s body with warmth. He heard the swish of dampened silk as Salime approached. Turning his head in her direction, he watched her every movement as she shed her robe and then coated her hands with oil. He was already tumescent with anticipation and shifted his hips to relieve the pressure.
She began at his feet, kneading and rubbing, sending random sparks of sensation straight to his cock. She worked her way up his legs with firm and confident hands, skirting past his buttocks to begin again at his neck and shoulders. Her hands were almond-scented and heavenly. The tension eased, flowing slowly from his body like water from a leaking bucket.
She moved slowly downward, lingering at the dimples of his lower back with strong, deft circling thumbs, working her way slowly southward, squeezing and kneading the cheeks of his arse. She stroked into the cleft. Simon sucked in a breath then clamped down tightly at the deeper exploration of her fingers.
“What the devil are you doing?”
“You must relax and trust me, Simon. There is intense pleasure for many men in stimulating the bezi.”
“Perhaps not all men are so adventurous. I am a simple man, Salime, content with simple pleasures.”
“But My Lord DeVere—
Simon jerked instantly into a sitting position. “Are you saying that you did these things for DeVere?”
“I told you I have tended him many times in the hammam.”
Had she massaged him? Washed him? The thought of her hands on DeVere made the blood roar in his ears. Simon exhaled a long stream of expletives.
Salime jutted her chin. “You have no cause for anger. I have made no secret of this. I told you from the start.”
“Were you his lover, Salime?”
“No.” She scowled. “I told you I have had no other lovers.”
“Let me rephrase that. Did you ever provide him with sexual gratification?”
“When he desired it of me.”
Simon growled another epithet. “What kind of gratification? What did you do for him?”
“Do you truly wish to know these things?” She faced him hands on hips. “You said you did not care about my past.”
“Bloody hell, Salime!” He grasped her shoulders, fighting the urge to shake her in his fit of jealousy. “Why not just get one of DeVere’s swords and gut me with it? How can I ever look at my best friend knowing he has bedded you?”
“Please stop this,” she cried, tearing out of his grasp. “He never bedded me.”
“What do you mean? You just said—”
“I said I have given him pleasure, but Lord DeVere has never been inside my woman’s sheath. Will you please cease such questions now?”
Simon felt himself slowly diffusing. “What is he to you, Salime? Why did you do this for him?”
“Because I owe him my life and should have been his slave. Please, let us finish here and then tonight I promise to answer all of your questions.”
Hours later, after bathing and eating a feast of eastern delights, Simon lay once more on the cushions beside the hookah. But this time Salime was wrapped in his arms, holding the stem for him. It was as if he’d left his old life behind to become cocooned in some erotic idyll.
“How do you wish to be entertained?” She took a draw on the pipe. “Shall I dance for you again this night?”
“No. You promised to tell me your history.”
When she’d asked his forbearance earlier, he hadn’t continued to press her, but now his patience, and her reprieve, was at an end. It was time for answers.
“What do you wish to know?”
“To start with, how you came to be here.”
“That is simple enough. By ship and then by coach.”
“Bloody hell.” Grasping both of her wrists, he rolled her beneath him, caging her body with his. “The time for childish games is at an end, my dear. You are not going to evade me a moment longer. No more secrets, Salime. We are lovers now. I will have my answers.”
She arched a brow. “If you are not happy with my responses, perhaps you should ask different questions.”
“Very well. Have it your way.” He released her with a huff of exasperation. “You told me you come from Constantinople. Why did you leave there?”
“Because I was cast out.”
“What do you mean by cast out? And from where?”
She heaved a reluctant sigh. “From the harem of the sultan at Topkapi Palace.”
“You lived in a harem? As a concubine?”
“No. I was an odalisque to Mihrişah Valide, the sultan’s mother, the most powerful woman in the Ottoman Empire.”
“What is an odalisque?”
“It is a position of servitude, much like a slave.”
“A slave?” Simon was aghast. “How did such a thing happen?”
“I was taken from my home when I was very young. It is a common practice by Corsairs to prey on the coastal towns.”
“What of your family? Were they also taken?”
She shook her head sadly. “No. My mother died in childbed as she tried to deliver a son, but neither survived. And my father was killed at war. I barely remember them.”
“So you were raised in the serail?”
“Yes,” Salime answered. “From the age of ten. I lived among a hundred other young girls who were educated by a Kalfa, a senior maid. We were taught many things—to read and write, to sing and dance. The harem is not as Westerners imagine it. It is the private residence of the most venerated women in the empire, the wives and concubines of the sultan, and a place of training. Even a slave has a chance for a better position in the harem if she is possessed of beauty and talent. When I proved to be the best of the dancers, I found favor with the Valide Sultana, who selected me to be presented to the sultan. Curiously, it is often the Sultan’s mother who chooses his concubines.”
“Such arrangements are not so different in this country,” Simon remarked dryly. “As the younger son, I was fortunate to have avoided an arranged marriage, but now my brother is gone.”
“He has passed away?”
“Yes, two years ago from a lung fever, which now makes me the heir.”
“So you are from a noble family?” Salime remarked with surprise.
“Only if one can count the Irish among the nobility,” Simon said dryly.
“I, too, carry Irish blood—what you English would call the ‘Black Irish’. My paternal great-grandfather was named Seamus O’Brian.”
“Seamus O’Brian?” Simon laughed outright.
“Yes.” She grinned back. “There is a centuries-old blood connection between the Irish and the Spanish. Perhaps you do not know this history? According to legend, Ireland was first settled by the Milesians from Spain. Even today Irish immigrants in Spain are treated with eq
uality by the Spanish king.”
She sat up and poured a glass of wine. She took a sip and then offered it to his lips. “No thank you my dear. I’d rather taste it from you.” He then pulled her back into his arms, surprising her with a kiss.
“Tell me more of your lineage, Simon.” She asked when he released her.
He shrugged. “There’s little to say. It’s an old Barony with moderate estates in County Cork and a smaller one in Westmoreland to the north of England. I have never been to the one in Ireland and barely remember Westmoreland.”
“But how can this be? Is it not your home?”
“The sons of English peers are not reared in the home but by the institutions of higher learning.”
“So like me, you were raised and groomed by others?”
“Yes, Salime. Aside from brief holidays at home, I attended Westminster School from the age of six until eighteen when I was sent to the army. You already know how that ended. I think you know a great deal about me. Yet, you remain very much an enigma. Why were you cast out from the harem?”
“It is a long story.”
“We have all night,” Simon insisted.
“Very well.” She sighed. “I told you I was a superior dancer. One evening the sultan summoned a dozen slave girls to entertain some foreign dignitaries. I was among those selected. I had hope of catching the sultan’s eye and being chosen as a concubine, but the harem is a dangerous place, full of intense rivalry. That night I was drugged by a rival,” she traced the long, jagged scar, “who also cut my face.”
“The next morning I awoke in an alley far across the city. I had no money and could not have found my way to the palace even if they would have taken me back in. Worse, I had no protection. I was discovered by a slave trader who raped me, then took me to a brothel to sell me into prostitution. It was there that my Lord DeVere saw and recognized me, as he had been among the sultan’s guests the night before. He arranged to buy me instead.”
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