Silver Angel (17 page)

Looking around her, Chantelle realized that she had eaten more at this sitting than she had in weeks, but she wasn’t thinking of keeping her weight down any
more. It was too late for that. She would have eaten another full course or two, anything to keep the meal from ending. But it was ended. The servants who had streamed in with their heavily laden trays now took everything away.

Jamil’s hookah was brought, but he made no move to partake of it. He was reclining on several pillows, propped on one elbow facing her. His black hair was in disarray from the slight breeze that worked its way over the walls, several locks falling over his forehead. She hadn’t thought he would have such thick, luxuriant hair, what with having to wear a turban constantly. She wished he were wearing the turban now. He looked too English by half.

As if his own thoughts were running along the same vein, he said, “I want to see if your hair is as silky as it looks. Will you come nearer, Shahar, and let me feel it?”

It would have been churlish to say no. But it was such a simple request, how could she refuse? She came around the table on the pillows, stopping on the one next to the one he leaned on.

His right hand reached toward her immediately, first removing the jeweled circlet that had rested on her forehead and still supported the longer veil that only half covered her unbound hair. He tossed this aside, and then she felt his fingers sliding along her scalp, but only for a moment. He raised his hand, letting her hair glide slowly through his fingers for at least a foot’s length; then he twisted his wrist, catching a handful, but he didn’t tug on it.

Chantelle turned her head to see him rubbing her hair between his fingers, and she was mesmerized for a moment. It seemed such an intimate thing, those dark fingers caressing her hair, and that was what he
was doing, caressing, memorizing the feel and texture of a single lock. She was leaning toward him to give him an easy reach. She had the option to move back at any time—or so she thought.

“I was wrong,” he said, drawing her attention back to those dark green eyes. “It’s even softer than silk. Is your skin the same?”

Oh, God, did he want to touch her now? She tried to sit up straight, but he was still holding her hair and wasn’t letting go.

“Come, Shahar, slide onto my pillow,” he coaxed her. “You may rest your head on my knee.” When she didn’t budge, he added, “You must get used to lying next to me, but it is only your skin that interests me at the moment. And you have enough exposed that I will not ask you to remove any clothing.”

That should have relieved her, but it didn’t. She knew she couldn’t really deny him these little requests, because her body belonged to him. He didn’t have to ask for anything. He could just take. Whether she could let him plunge his “thing,” as Vashti had called it, into her when the time came, without any resistance on her part, she didn’t know, but she had no need to panic yet, not until he suggested they go inside.

For a man who had wanted her here immediately, he was certainly taking his time with her now. She was grateful for that, and that today, he seemed nothing like the man she had first met.

“Shahar…” he prompted, not impatiently, but to let her know she was not reprieved by her hesitation. He was waiting.

She moved, twisting to slide over his pillow in front of him. But she couldn’t lay her head on his bent knee as he had suggested. That was too intimate by far.
She rested back on her elbows instead, aware that this position thrust her breasts forward, but unable to help it. She didn’t have large breasts, though she didn’t think they were that small either. But in comparison to those of his other women, they were small, and so she hoped he would not even notice them.

He didn’t. He was staring at her midriff, and Chantelle groaned inwardly. She supposed it had been too much to hope that when he had mentioned her exposed skin, he was thinking of her bare arms. He wasn’t. His hand dropped slowly toward her belly, and when it finally rested there, she sucked in her breath, for it felt so hot she imagined herself branded.

“What?” he asked, and her eyes flew to his face, finding his eyes had been drawn to hers with the sound she had made.

“Nothing,” she squeaked and, hearing the sound, groaned in embarrassment.

“You will come to no harm under my hand, Shahar, but you must relax.”

“I—I can’t.”

“Why?”

His fingers had spread wide over her belly, covering nearly the entire area. And his hand moved now, in a slow, soothing circle. But it wasn’t soothing. Her muscles were contracting, as if they could jump away from the contact of his flesh on hers. Even her insides seemed to be leaping in an attempt to escape….

“Why?” he repeated with more insistence. “Have I given you reason to fear me?” Then he added with a touch of annoyance, “Today?”

She thought about it for a moment, but there was only one answer that was truthful. “No.”

“Then what is wrong?”

Everything, she thought, but said only, “No man has ever put his hands on me like this before.”

“I know,” he said, surprising her. “Your innocence is why we are here instead of in there.” He nodded toward his bedchamber.

Chantelle immediately took hope that the day of reckoning had not actually arrived, that this meeting was for her to become used to him and no more. He was quick to disabuse her of that notion.

“Do not mistake me, Shahar. We
will
go inside—when you are ready.”

She would never be ready. She almost told him so but thought better of it. What would he consider readiness on her part, anyway? She wasn’t going to appear so, whatever it was.

He sighed then and caught the hand that rested next to his side, pulling it out from under her. “You cannot relax unless you lie back.”

“I don’t want—”

“Lie back, Shahar.”

It was an order, given in such a tone that she obeyed it instantly, afraid to do otherwise. And what else could she do, anyway, with him so close that he could easily
make
her obey him? But if he thought she could relax, he was crazy.

She laid her head on the very edge of his knee, keeping as much distance between them as possible. She was acutely aware of his hips so near her shoulder, and one of the things Vashti had taken particular delight in telling her about pleasuring him came to mind, and with it a scalding blush. But his position didn’t change. His hips were nearly flat against the pillow. Only the upper portion of his body was twisted to face her.

“I am going to taste you now, Shahar.”

That softly murmured warning caused her to bolt straight up, only to have him push her right back down. Visions of him biting her flashed through her mind, and she tried frantically to remember if she had seen the scars of his teeth on any of his other women. But before the thought was even finished, his hand moved to grip her side and his mouth opened on her navel. She jerked, a scream welling in her throat, only to feel his tongue, not his teeth.

She relaxed so completely then that he chuckled. “Did you think I meant to devour you, little moon? I must confess I do have the urge to, though I promise you it would not hurt. Another time, perhaps.”

His mouth returned to her navel, making her desperate to leap up and away from him. But she couldn’t, not with his right arm lying across her rib cage with enough pressure to keep her from rising off the pillow. She tried closing her eyes and concentrating on something else. Her eyes popped open immediately, for with them closed she felt his tongue too intensely. But even so, there was a wealth of agitation just beneath his mouth, as if she were trembling deep inside.

She didn’t recognize the sensations he was causing her to experience. She wanted to push his head away. She wanted to hold it to her. Irrational—God, what was wrong with her?

She heard his sigh, deep and fanning over her wet skin, making her shiver. “You still won’t relax, will you?”

“I’m sorry, but I can’t,” she nearly wailed, afraid of his displeasure after being warned never to cause it.

“If I stop tasting you here”—and his tongue delved
once more into her navel—“will you accept my lips in a more conventional place?”

“Yes.” Anything to get his mouth away from her belly.

Too late did she wonder where that more conventional place was, and there was no time to ask. Before she could even draw another breath, he had scooped her up and placed her in his lap, covering her lips with a scorching kiss that was painful in its intensity. She couldn’t lessen the pressure, for his hand had slipped up beneath her hair to hold her head still for this ravishment.

And then, seemingly from far off, she heard him groan and was terrified again that she had displeased him, or hurt him somehow, when she was the one hurting, his kiss was so passionate. But he didn’t stop what he was doing. On the contrary, his other arm tightened around her back, smashing her upper torso against his chest until she became light-headed from lack of breath.

And then, abruptly, all pressure ended. “I’m sorry, Shahar, but you cannot know—”

Derek stopped when he realized what he was saying. Christ, what was wrong with him? Jamil would never have apologized, for any reason, and he was supposed to be Jamil in every way.
She
was not to know otherwise, yet he hadn’t truly played his role since she’d walked into the room.

Jamil would never have waited this long to carry her to his bed. He would have done so the moment he felt the urge, and Derek had felt it even before she had arrived. But he hadn’t acted on it, not completely. He couldn’t bring himself to rush her through this experience, her first experience with a man. Her innocence demanded more consideration from him than
that. And yet he didn’t consider waiting until another day. He couldn’t deviate from Jamil’s character that much—or so he told himself.

He had also told himself that he was doing this for the girl. True,
he
was the one benefiting by her dilemma, but he wasn’t going to lose too much sleep over that, for she would benefit, too, in the long run. He had thought long and hard about it the first night he’d seen her, and had finally concluded that if he didn’t take her for himself, Jamil would when he returned. She would then be just one of so many, a circumstance that he knew any Englishwoman with a lick of pride would find utterly abhorrent. Then, too, Jamil’s heart was already taken. Derek just couldn’t see such an exquisite beauty taking second place to anyone. She deserved to be loved and cherished, and this way she would be found a husband for herself. Derek could insist it be a man with no other wives. He could do that much for her.

But that was for the future. Right now he had probably just frightened the daylights out of her, and he wanted nothing more than to explain that it wasn’t intentional, that he had simply lost control of his passion. Only, Jamil wouldn’t explain his actions, especially not to a woman. But Derek could make amends in other ways.

He sighed and bent his forehead to hers. Her breathing had quieted, but she was stiff in his arms.

“Shall we try this again?”

She immediately strained against him. “No, please—”

“Shh, little moon. I can be gentle, too. Put your arms around my neck and I will show you.”

“I don’t want—”

“Do it, Shahar.”

He regretted the tone that made her leap to obey him, but Christ, this was pure torture, denying himself for so long. Much longer, and he was going to forget his good intentions. He had to reach her. He had to make her want him, now, before his natural inclinations took over.

Chantelle braced herself for the onslaught of his mouth again as it lowered toward hers. She felt his breath instead, and then his tongue, whisper-soft, smoothing over her upper lip, then the lower, soothing the soreness from his previous kiss. One hand was holding her head again, but the other had come up to warm her cheek.

He leaned back and she caught the full potency of his emerald gaze. For some reason, it made her feel strange this time, almost as if his mouth were still pressed to her belly, causing that trembling inside.

And then his forefinger was tracing the same path his tongue had. “Open, Shahar. I want you to feel what it is like when a part of me is inside you.”

“But—”

His finger slipped inside her mouth the moment she opened it to protest. Her natural reaction was to close her lips against it and try to push it out with her tongue.

“Be still.” His lips rested on the corner of her mouth. His finger was moving against her tongue, acquainting her with the salty taste of it. “I want you to suck on it…no, Shahar, don’t question my motives. Forget what you have been told in training. It is my tongue I want you to accept in your mouth, no more than that. But you must know what to do with it when it is there.” At her groan, he smiled. “No one has instructed you about kissing yet, have they? I imagine they were only concerned with one thing.
But kissing comes first, Shahar…or would you rather we move on to the lessons you
have
learned?”

She immediately began sucking on his finger. She heard his deep chuckle but didn’t care. And then, before she knew it, his mouth had covered her lips and she was sucking on his tongue instead.

“Gently,” he said after a moment. “Yes, now try to catch it.” He began plunging his tongue in and out and around, so she couldn’t get a grip on it. “Now give me yours.”

The sounds she was making deep in her throat only he heard. She was obeying him mindlessly, caught up in something she had no control over. How long it lasted she didn’t know, but finally she was aware of something other than the rushing, roiling maelstrom inside her. She was aware of his hand where it shouldn’t be.

“How is it you were able to keep this soft bush, little moon?”

She moaned in embarrassment, trying to hide her heated face in his shoulder. And she felt the fingers delving into the curls, touching that most intimate part of her body. It was too much. She went cold, suddenly remembering everything about him that she despised. How
could
she have let him do these things to her? She should have resisted from the very beginning, and the devil take the consequences.