The Playboy Sheikh's Virgin Stable-Girl (7 page)

He was pressing against her now, pushing her down onto the cushions. Almost arrogantly, he had splayed his hand over one breast and—both shamefully and delight-fully—Eleni could feel that breast reacting to his caress. It was growing full and tingly and achy—and, inexplicably, she found herself longing for him to touch it more, and much harder.

‘Highness!’ she gasped as she felt the royal tongue licking its way deliciously over her lips. ‘Oh, Highness!’

‘Mmm?’

Fighting every instinct in her body, Eleni detached her mouth. ‘We must stop this,’ she said weakly.

‘No!’ he growled, tiptoeing his fingers over the growing bud of her nipple and groaning as it peaked through the silk gown. Increasing the urgency of his mouth, he felt her lips open and Kaliq began to ruck the silk of her dress up over her ankles. Ah, the sweet firmness of her ankle with its soft, silken flesh! And beyond? What treasures lay undiscovered there? ‘Not yet.’

‘Yes!’ Eleni knew little of the ways of love—her sexual education had been one hasty class at school and a peep at an ancient art-book shown to her by her favourite teacher before it had been confiscated by the school’s head. She knew that sex was sacred, secret and forbidden—and yet, now she was sampling her first taste of it, she could see how tempting it was, too.

Kaliq was playing with her aching breast and sliding up her silken gown and she was lying there and just letting him—even though she knew it was wrong!

It was like dragging herself back from the edge of paradise, but Eleni knew she had to get herself out of such a dangerous situation with such a highly experienced and powerful man. Get out now—before it was too late.

With a strength she didn’t know she possessed—a strength forged from years of hard, physical work in the stable—she pushed the sheikh away from her, surprising a series of conflicting emotions on his face as she did so.

She saw frustration and a dark smouldering kind of anger, but more than any of these things she saw astonishment.

‘What in the falcon’s name do you think you are doing?’ he questioned, with silky menace.

Eleni’s breathing was so erratic that it took a moment before she could speak, and even then, she felt odd—as if she were sickening for something. Dizzy. Disorientated. Her blood boiling in her veins and her head spinning.

‘I am guarding my honour!’ she cried out, not caring now about protocol.

Kaliq’s mouth twisted. ‘Your honour?’ he questioned acidly, as if she had just invented a new word. ‘What are you talking about?’

Eleni couldn’t really move—and in truth she did not think she would be able to. But she knew that things needed to calm down and that somehow she must help the sheikh lose that look of pure fury on his face. Because surely once he understood the truth of her predicament—then he would understand?

‘You do not think that I have a reputation that I guard fiercely?’ she demanded hotly. ‘That my honour is not worth preserving?’

‘Your honour?’ he echoed again as he tried to ignore the fierce throb of hunger which pulsed through his body.

‘I may be a simple country girl—but even I know that such an act between two people who barely know one another would be wrong.’

Frustration made him want to ask her whether she was holding out for dinner first—but he suspected that irony would be lost on her, quite apart from the fact that he bet she’d never been taken out for dinner in her life.

‘But I, as your sheikh, want it,’ he argued, quite reasonably. ‘So how can it be wrong?’

Eleni took the opportunity to wriggle back a little on the bank of silk cushions, trying to steady her still-ragged breathing and wishing that her heart would slow down. But that fractional increase in the distance between them made all the difference.

‘I would lose respect,’ she said.

‘Whose? Mine? I can assure you that your surrender will make me respect you more,’ he murmured, lifting his hand to brush away a lock of silken hair which had escaped.

Eleni looked at him, trying to ignore the instinctive thrill she felt when he touched her. She didn’t believe him, not for a moment. He reminded her of her favourite stable cat—a sleek and beautiful creature, but one who would happily trail after anyone who happened to feed her. But of course she would not do anything as stupid as calling the sheikh a liar.

‘It would be unsuitable, Highness,’ she continued implacably. ‘And ultimately it might distract your attention from Nabat.’

For a moment he didn’t have a clue what she was talking about, until he realised that she meant her wretched horse. For a moment he wanted to exclaim that the horse could go to hell for all he cared—that her sweet young body excited him far more—but even he recognised that this would not do his case any good.

Did she not realise that there wasn’t a woman alive who had ever turned down the opportunity of such sensual pleasure with Prince Kaliq Al’Farisi? Did she not realise that there could be dire consequences from incurring his royal displeasure? Dropping his hand from the pure oval of her face, he gave a click of irritated frustration.

‘I’m not interested in the damned horse!’ he snapped, unable to stop himself.

Eleni’s expression exhibited nothing but interested enquiry, even though her heart was racing like a piston beneath the expensive robe she wore. ‘But I thought that was your reason for bringing me here, Highness.’

He met her innocent gaze with a frown. Was it simply his imagination—or was there a teasing challenge in the depths of those green eyes? If he told her that her courage and youth and arresting eyes had played their part in bringing her here—then would that not put him at a disadvantage? Did she not realise that he could have any woman he wanted and that she was lucky that he had deigned to pick her? Well, she would discover it soon enough!

‘Then we will discuss the horses,’ he drawled, stifling a yawn—as if he had grown bored with the conversation.

For a moment, Eleni wondered whether she had gone too far—but what choice did she have? She would have acted in the same way no matter who had attempted such a casual and quick seduction. And just because Kaliq was a sheikh did not mean that he should be treated any differently from any other man, did it?

It was true that no one else had ever made her feel like that—as if she had just discovered what a woman’s body had been designed for—but surely that itself was dangerous? Imagine if she got used to a sheikh’s caresses and began comparing everyone else to him. That, of course, presumed that there was ever going to be anyone else, which was looking increasingly unlikely as she headed unmarried towards thirty—as the sheikh himself had rather cruelly pointed out.

She gave him a bright smile. ‘Does the sheikh not drink mint tea after dinner?’ she questioned softly. ‘I always find it very relaxing.’

For a moment Kaliq did not know whether to laugh or explode or whether to send the impudent minx packing back to her hovel of a home and her drunk of a father. But the challenge of her defiance was proving almost irresistible and he conceded that she did have a point and so he lifted his hands and clapped them to order tea.

But as he did so the silken sleeves of his robe fell back to reveal his arms and Eleni’s eyes widened as she bit back a gasp. For there, just at his wrists, were deep, ugly and livid scars.

‘Oh, Highness!’ she exclaimed softly—all thwarted passion forgotten at the shocking sight of his injuries. ‘Who has dared hurt you?’

CHAPTER SIX

WITHOUT thinking Eleni leaned forwards and brushed her fingertips over one of the angry red ridges which scarred both the sheikh’s wrists and Kaliq’s mouth tightened.

Truly, her impulsive gesture was an imposition—for how dared a commoner touch a prince in such a way? Yet considering he had been touching her only moments before—he was disinclined to stop her. Even if the feel of her breast was infinitely more pleasurable than the feel of her fingers. Although…

He frowned. Her touch was oddly distracting. It was soothing—almost healing. Was that why she was so wonderful with horses, he wondered—because she had the gift of softness about her? And if he allowed her this touch then wouldn’t it lead them down the path of sensual pleasure? Only this time—with her sympathy engaged—she would be less likely to stop him. He gave a cynical half-smile. Women were very predictable.

‘What happened?’ she asked quietly, her fingertip automatically questing over one of the hardened and raised red ridges as she saw his black brows crease into a hard line.

‘You are very impertinent, lizard,’ he drawled. But he didn’t move his hand away from the comforting caress. ‘To ask your sheikh such a question.’

Biting her lip, she let his wrist go. ‘Forgive me.’

But strangely her question did not trouble him as much as protocol demanded. Now why was that? Was it because women always asked about these marks—only he was usually naked when first they noticed them? And the scars on his back were much worse—making these seem almost trifling in comparison.

Sometimes he explained them away by saying that an over-enthusiastic partner had got slightly carried away during a sex-game. Sometimes they believed him—depending on their own experience and worldliness. Even when they clearly didn’t believe him they rarely challenged him—because they were too busy clicking into whichever fantasy they thought he wanted from them. They tried to be everything he wanted in order to please him—and in so doing they ended up being nothing.

But Eleni was different. Probably because she was low-born. Did she not realise how preposterous it was for a humble stable girl to have tenderly stroked the raised weals at his wrists?

But perhaps your kiss made her think that all such contact was appropriate.

He studied her as suddenly her inexplicable refusal to allow him more than a kiss made sense. ‘Are you a virgin?’ he demanded.

She shrank back against the silken cushions. ‘Highness!’

His black eyes glittered like jet. ‘You asked me an impertinent question and now I am asking you one in return. What do you say—shall we exchange intimate knowledge, lizard? That seems only fair to me.’

Eleni bit her lip. It seemed a terribly personal thing for him to want to know—but perhaps if she told him then he might not try to seduce her again as he had done this evening.

Even if you want him to? taunted a voice in her head. Even though the touch of his lips made you feel more alive than you’ve ever done in your life?

Swamping down her rogue thoughts, she nodded her head reluctantly. ‘Yes, I am a virgin, Highness,’ she said quietly, her cheeks flaring scarlet.

Kaliq seized on the information with a feeling of triumph. So that was why she had done the unthinkable and resisted his advances. But he could feel the renewed beat of excitement, too. A virgin. A sweet, green-eyed virgin. How the gods must be looking down on him—and how good it would be to enjoy such a gift for his own.

‘I cannot believe that you have never known a man’s love,’ he observed, his mouth drying at the thought of initiating her into the art of love-making. Of piercing through her tight maidenhood. Of having those soft breasts in his hands and those firm thighs wrapped tightly around his back. ‘I thought that you country girls sometimes took lovers out of wedlock.’

‘Perhaps some of them do, Highness, but not me,’ said Eleni disapprovingly.

‘Yet you might die and never know the pleasures of the body.’

‘Then I will gladly accept my fate,’ she answered fiercely.

He laughed at her feistiness. ‘Ah, but you are missing out on a great deal, Eleni—one of the greatest wonders of life,’ he said softly. ‘More than you will ever know if you do not try it for yourself.’

His eyes had softened, as well as his voice, so that they were more like molasses than jet and again Eleni was reminded with shocking clarity just how potent his kiss had been. And that strange and bewitching sensation of the sheikh’s tongue entering her mouth and…and…

‘Perhaps what you say is true, Highness—but I will not attempt to control my own destiny by lying with a man. To seek to shed my virginity simply for the sake of it is not how a well-brought-up girl should behave!’

‘And you are a well-brought-up girl, are you, Eleni?’

She heard the mockery in his voice and she wanted to tell him not to confuse her with her father—that her mother had brought her up to behave as much like a lady as was possible when living in such basic conditions. But, of course, she could not boast about her own qualities at the expense of her father’s reputation.

‘Yes, Highness, I am. I know the difference between right and wrong and if it is not meant to be, then I accept that. After all, no-one can possibly have everything in life,’ she answered carefully. ‘And since I’ve answered your question—is it not fair to now answer mine, Highness? How did you come by these terrible scars?’

How bold she was, he thought admiringly with a renewed kick of lust at his groin. And how outrageous of her to interrogate him in the light of her refusal to let him bed her. He could order her to go to hell…

But how long since he had talked about that terrible day when his world had changed for ever? It was a subject off-limits, even with his twin who shared the awful guilt. A dark secret which had been hushed up by the palace apparatus like so much else. A stain on the family of Al’Farisi.

Yet secrets became burdens which could grow in weight until they became intolerable—and suddenly the innocent and green-eyed young stable girl seemed as welcoming and as unthreatening as a newborn falcon chick.

‘You know about my brother?’ he demanded.

The royal family of Calista was an endless source of fascination to its people. Even without mass communication, gossip about the ruling clan was always available—it was swopped in the market place or spoken of outside the school gates, just as it was the world over.

Eleni knew that there had been five brothers—one of whom was his twin, Aarif. And she knew too that there was some terrible tragedy surrounding the youngest. Hadn’t he gone missing—when he was just a child?

‘You mean…Zafir?’ she ventured nervously.

Kaliq flinched. She was one of his subjects, simply answering his question—yet it resonated painfully to hear Zafir’s name spoken aloud and a pang of remorse shot through him. How long since he had thought of his black-eyed little brother?