Page 20 of The Desert King's Kidnapped Virgin
As susceptible as any other woman was to him, and always had been.
He would do well to remember that.
She was staring at the great bed that stood at the far end of the room, in its own kind of alcove so massive that the posters that surrounded it seemed to go nearly up to the ceiling itself.
“Will we get right to it, then, after all?” she asked the same bright voice. “Is this more of an immediate total immersion situation or is it better to ease our way in and see what the water’s like...?”
He raised a brow, finding himself perhaps too pleased when she flushed again. “If that is your wish. I assumed that perhaps we might share a meal,omri. But by all means, if you would prefer to begin offering me the gifts we discussed before...?”
She laughed, but this time the sound seemed tinged with the faintest hint of hysteria. Something he found he also liked, because unlike the dryness and the arch amusement, a touch of hysteria in these circumstances seemed appropriate. For her.
“As a matter fact, I find I’m starving.” Her gaze found his, again. “I am slightly concerned that this is part of your plan. Making me hungry to the death.”
Cyrus could have told her that was, indeed, part of his plan. But he did not mean to ignite the hunger she was talking about.
“I am delighted to offer you a stay of execution,” he told her instead, though he wasn’t sure why he was bothering. Not when, clearly, the notion of rolling about on his bed was all she could think about. But then, he could use that to his advantage.
He could use all of this to advantage. And wasn’t that the point?
Cyrus led her out from the bedchamber into the rest of his apartments, leading her up the small stone stairway that climbed a wall on the far exterior side, then wound its way out onto the fortress’s roof.
On either side of the fortress, the battlements stood and were manned by his guards. But this was the King’s personal watchtower. Too many of his ancestors had stood here before him, gazing out at the mighty desert that provided the Aminabad people with their wealth and staved off their challengers in turn. His own father had viewed this tower as a retreat. The one place he could come and get himself right with the desert that made them all.
Tonight Cyrus had ordered his people to prepare the very top of the tower, surrounded by its thick walls that allowed a man to keep safe while he viewed the onslaught of attacking armies, for an intimate dinner.
He saw at once that they had outdone themselves. It was an Arabian Nights fantasy come true, as ordered. There were rugs on the floor, colorful pillows tossed this way and that, and too many candles to count. In the center, on low, round tables, a feast to feed an army had been laid out on gleaming platters.
And despite what she’d said below in the bedchamber, Cyrus had watched this woman stuff herself on the plane. He had spent his formative years with a woman who had professed herself full to the gills if she ate an entire salad, and he half expected Hope to do the same sort of thing now. To take one look at the platters piled high with roasted meats, cheese and honey, dishes containing savory and sweet pastries alike, and confess that she was not quite so hungry after all.
But that was not Hope.
Because unlike his mother, who had viewed all food with suspicion and particularly tempting food with outright horror, Hope made a small sound that sounded a great deal like a squeal at the sight of the feast awaiting them. Then she flung herself down on one of the cushions and did not wait for him to join her as she dug in.
This was a good thing, because he found he needed a moment to compose himself. For there was something wildly erotic about watching a woman indulge her appetite so thoroughly. So recklessly. And with such merry abandonment.
What would it be like, he found himself wondering, to take a woman with an appetite such as this to his bed? Was this the reason why she had found herself incapable of keeping her promises to him? Was she so voracious, so carefree and enthusiastic in all things, that she could not be contained by a vow to a single man?
Even though the very idea was anathema to Cyrus in practice, there was something about the notion that got to him anyway. A woman whose art was sensuality itself, in whatever form it took. A woman who deserved appreciation, for such an art was a gift in truth.
A woman who it would be some kind of sin to lock away forever, starving her of all the materials she needed to create her masterpieces—
But he shook that off. Cyrus was not a man who could allow himself to indulge even the faintest hint of weakness. Not even if it first came to him in the guise of something else entirely—and maybe especially not then.
He ordered himself to eat sparingly, and with no particularsensuality.
And it was only when she was finished, when she sat back and made a lusty sort of sound that set everything in him alight, that he decided it was time to remind them both why they were here.
That her appetites were to be used against her, not indulged.
Not even by him.
“I regret to inform you,” he told her coldly, the better to keep the bulk of his fury hidden because a leader did not lower himself todisplays, “that the man you wished to marry today did not tear apart the Italian countryside in pursuit of you when you were taken. He did not even follow you out of the chapel. I am to understand that what he did instead was gaze about the assembled witnesses until he could choose a different woman to wed in your stead. They were married within the hour.”
Across the low table, gleaming in the golden candlelight, Hope paused in the act of licking honey from her fingers. Yet Cyrus could not read the expression in her gaze. He only noted some emotion or other before she looked back down again.
He did not like that much at all.
“Have you nothing to say?” he growled at her. “Or is it that you do not wish to show me, the man you have betrayed so terribly, what it feels like to be betrayed again in turn?”
