Her bosom was
golden in the candlelight, and he felt like an ancient tomb robber
who’d come upon a pharaoh’s treasure. He bent and kissed
the silken skin and heard her first startled gasp slide into a sigh.
He brushed his thumb over one tautening nipple, then brought his
mouth there. She gave a little cry. Then her fingers were dragging
through his hair, holding him, pressing him to her, and the quiet
pause ended.
Heat and need
flooded back, demolishing thought, and he was tearing off his shirt,
then hers, and pulling her against him, skin to skin. It wasn’t
close enough, not nearly.
He grasped her
buttocks, crushing her against his groin, against his swollen cock,
but that would never be enough. In a moment, he’d found the
knot of her trouser string, and in the next it was undone, and the
trousers were sliding over her hips, down her beautiful legs. He
dragged his hands over her bottom and hips, over the swell of her
thighs.
Her skin was hot
velvet. She trembled under his caress. He stroked upward, to the
feathery triangle between her legs. So soft here, so very delicate.
Again, the wild storm of need paused. He took his time, took care,
caressing gently, so gently, drawing his fingers lightly over the
place.
“
My God,”
she said. “
My God
.”
He nuzzled her
neck. Her mouth was soft against his ear, her voice a husky whisper:
“Oh, it’s… yes. Oh,
yes
.”
He stroked more
deeply, while his thumb caressed the sensitive nub. He knew what to
do. He knew how to please women. But she was hot and wet, and “
Yes
,”
she said.
A storm swirled
into his mind, and he couldn’t remember anymore what ought to
be done. Mindlessly he tore at his own trousers. The fabric fell
away, and his rod sprang free. He caught her under the thigh, lifting
her leg up. She wrapped her leg about his waist, and he thrust into
her. She cried out, “
Oh
. Oh, my God.”
He would have
echoed her, but he was long past words.
He was lost in her
and in the need for her. Desire was a raging thing like the
sandstorm. It was a juggernaut, unstoppable. He thrust again and
again, and heard her cry out and felt her body shudder to climax. But
it wasn’t enough. More. More. More. Hard, desperate strokes, as
though he could get to the beginning and end of her, have all of her.
She held nothing
back, riding him with the same ferocity, vibrating with one climax
after another. Finally, she grasped his face and kissed him hard, and
then it rushed through him, the flood of pleasure. And with it came a
strange exaltation, like the pillar of light soaring up from the
Egyptian horizon at sunset. It was only in the very last instant that
awareness sparked, and he pulled from her. His seed spilled against
her thigh, and release came, and the quiet darkness.* * *
DAPHNE SAGGED
AGAINST him, her naked leg sliding down along his. She stayed there,
waiting for her heart to stop pounding and her breathing to steady.
She let her head rest upon his big chest and listened to his heart
gradually slow. She held onto him, her arms circling his taut waist.
She didn’t want it to end quite yet, and her uncertain heart
gave a flutter when she felt his chin rest upon her head. She
remembered how he’d kissed the top of her head during the
sandstorm, and the swell of feeling within her at those light
caresses, so terribly like affection.
She didn’t
want to think about the surge of feeling. It was more frightening
than the sandstorm. She’d left his side a little while ago
because it was the only way to keep from tucking herself into his
arms while he slept, and burrowing against him, and pretending he was
hers and she was his.
She’d taken
refuge in the scenes adorning the tomb walls. She’d wondered
who the ladies were and what their flowers signified, so there
wouldn’t be room in her head for thinking about him and how
attached she’d become to him—though she’d known
from the very beginning, perhaps from the moment she’d first
heard his voice, that he was made to break women’s hearts.
She’d worked
so hard to keep from being hurt again.
Now look what she’d
done.
He stroked her
head, his long fingers sliding down to her neck. “No weeping,”
he rumbled.
Her head came up,
and she would have pulled away, but he held her there, his hand
gentle but firm against the base of her neck.
“
I was not
weeping,” she said indignantly. “I am not a weepy sort of
woman. I am not emotional. I am not…” To her dismay, a
tear spilled from her eye.
“
I knew it,”
he said.
“
I am not
weeping over
you
,” she said. “Or over what
happened… just now.” She lifted her chin. “Apparently,
it was inevitable, the result of prolonged proximity and excessive
emotional upheaval. I have heard of such things, desperate acts after
a close brush with death.”
“
Ah,”
he said. “That was a desperate act?”
“
Yes,”
she said.
“
Really.”
“
Yes.”
She brushed the tear away. “It means nothing. It is a kind
of—of instinct, perhaps. A primitive reaction. Quite
irrational.”
He wrapped his arms
about her and crushed her against him. “Don’t be daft,”
he said. “It was nothing of the kind.”
It took her a
moment to collect her wits. They wanted to wander: to the hard chest
against which her breasts were squashed, and to the agreeable
sensations accompanying being squashed in that way, and to the humid
awareness of the contact further down.
Oh, his body was
magnificent. Godlike. She oughtn’t think such impious thoughts,
but they flooded in, along with the recollections. He might as well
be a god, because he’d taken her to paradise and back half a
dozen times. Those hands, those wicked, clever hands…
And then, “It
wasn’t?” she said. She drew her head back to look at him.
Shadows flickered over his handsome face, impossible, as always, to
read. But laughter seemed to gleam in the black eyes.
“
You’ve
been in lust with me since the moment we met,” he said.
“
That is not
at all—”
“
And finally,
after behaving in the most deranged manner for this last age, you did
the logical, rational thing.” He slid his hand down her back
and over her bottom.
Her completely bare
bottom.
Daphne became
aware, then, of her trousers, in a heap at her ankles. One trouser
leg was still tied under her knee. She ought to be mortified. She
wasn’t in the least. On the contrary, she felt an almost
overpowering urge to giggle.
“
What
happened was, you finally came to your senses,” he said. “At
long last, after deluding yourself with every sort of puritanical
poppycock, you admitted the truth: I’m irresistibly
attractive.”
She was about to
object to this conceited pronouncement when he clapped his hand over
her mouth.
“
Mmmph,”
she said.
“
Hush. I hear
something.”
Chapter 15
WHAT THEY HEARD WAS
THE DONKEY. SHE sounded agitated, though it was hard for Rupert to be
sure. Sound carried oddly in here. Small wonder that Mrs. Pembroke,
with her mind in ancient Egypt, hadn’t heard him calling
earlier.
“
Something’s
frightened Hermione,” he said. He did not want to let go of the
woman in his arms, so soft and yielding. But he could not risk the
donkey breaking loose and bolting. She’d provide transport if
either of them became injured or sick. She’d provide food if
the situation grew desperate.
Gently he set Mrs.
Pembroke aside. “I’d better see what the trouble is.”
He bent and collected his trousers, pulled them up, and started out,
tying the waist string as he went.
“
Wait, wait,”
she said.
He turned. She was
stumbling after him, naked from the waist up, tugging up her trousers
with one hand, holding the candle in the other. “Take the
candle. I’ve another.”
By Zeus but she was
a magnificent specimen of womanhood, he thought regretfully as he
hurried out to the hysterical Hermione.* * *
DAPHNE WAS NOT far
behind him. She had her
kamees
on by the time she reached the first chamber, where Hermione was
making a fearful row.
“
I thought it
was a snake,” Mr. Carsington called over the braying. “But
there’s nothing moving that I can make out. No snakes,
scorpions, or other alarming beasties.”
Daphne crouched
down and moved her candle slowly to examine the floor of the chamber.
“I see nothing alive, either,” she said. “Bits of
rock and plaster. Rusks or dried reeds or dried animal dung or…
oh.”
Mr. Carsington was
crooning to the donkey. “Come now, my dear, it’s all
right. We’re here now. You were afraid of the dark, I daresay,
poor girl. We abandoned you, and you started imagining there were
monsters.”
“
I think it’s
this,” Daphne said. She picked up a long, pear-shaped object,
slightly mangled. It was composed of a familiar brown substance.
Hermione raised
loud objections and tried to back out of the tomb, dragging Mr.
Carsington with her. While he struggled with the donkey, Daphne
retreated to the opposite end of the chamber.
Hermione quieted
somewhat, though she was still restless, still complaining.
“
What the
devil is it?” Mr. Carsington demanded. “I’m not
sure,” Daphne said. She dripped wax onto the stony floor and
set her candle onto it. Then she squatted Egyptian style, to study
the object in the light. “An animal or bird of some kind. They
mummified cats, you know. And hereabouts, wolves and jackals.”
“
Mummy,”
he said. His voice was cold, distant. “I should have guessed.
Are you sure it isn’t human?”
“
Reasonably
so,” she said. “It’s still in the wrappings, but
it’s too small and the wrong shape for a human, even an infant.
I collect Hermione stepped on it. Or sniffed it, looking for food.
She is remarkably squeamish, is she not? You’d think an
Egyptian donkey would be accustomed—”
“
Perhaps you
could put it somewhere,” Mr. Carsington said in the same cold
voice. “At a distance. Where she can’t smell it.”
Daphne’s mind
flashed a recollection: Mr. Carsington gazing at the detritus on the
ground near the Pyramid of Steps at Saqqara… the grim
expression… the rapid ascent of the sand slope.
“
Are you
squeamish, too?” she said.
“
Certainly
not,” he said.
“
Amazing,”
she said. “I thought you were utterly fearless.”
“
I am not
afraid of a lump of petrified matter,” he said stiffly.
“
Come here,”
she said.
“
I’m
trying to keep Hermione calm,” he said.
“
She’s
calm,” Daphne said. “It’s far enough away not to
worry her. Don’t you want to look? It’s very interesting.
I’ve never seen an animal mummy before, at least not in one
piece… more or less. It’s only a bit dented.”
“
Hermione is
not as calm as she appears,” he said. “We’d better
not give her an excuse to bolt. If she runs away—”
“
You’re
afraid,” Daphne said.
“
Don’t
be ridiculous,” he said.
“
Then come
here,” she said.
He petted the
donkey.
“
Come here,”
Daphne said.
He muttered
something to Hermione about “silly females.”
“
Mr.
Carsington,” Daphne said, “come here.”
He stroked the
donkey’s head and began to whistle softly.
“
Rupert,”
Daphne said.
At last he turned
to look at her.
“
Ta’ala
heneh
,” she said.* * *
TYPICAL, RUPERT
THOUGHT.
Make love to a woman, and she thinks she owns you
.
Well, maybe she
did.
Rupert, she said,
unprompted. She called him by his