“I’m glad you don’t wear a bra,” he said, nuzzling her throat like an affectionate puppy. “Is it because I asked you not to?”
“I’d like to give your ego a lift and tell you it was,” Billie said, her violet eyes twinkling. “But the truth is, I never wear one. I find them uncomfortable and I’m not big enough to really need one.”
“And I thought it was because you liked my hands on you,” David murmured, lifting and weighing her gently. He looked down at the mounds in his hands. “That you liked me to look at you.” He chuckled mischievously as he saw the unmistakable tautening and swelling, and bent to kiss one breast tenderly before nestling his head against her contentedly. “You smell of lilacs too.”
“I should; you put enough of it down there,” she said, remembering with a sudden tingle of heat the way he’d stroked the crystal stopper of the vial of perfume teasingly over her bare breasts before bringing her close to rub against her with lazy sensuality.
“I like lilacs,” he said logically, “and warm, sweet breasts, and soft, sensitive lips, and—”
“I think I get the message.” She laughed.
“And I think you like me, too, don’t you, windflower?”
How could she help it? she thought, with an odd tightening of her throat. He was so dear. Part mischievous little boy, part sage, and all golden, virile male. “You have your moments,” she said huskily.
“And so do you,” he said, his arms going around her and pulling her close. “And this is one of the special ones for both of us.” He brushed his lips against her temple. “Let’s just lie here and hold each other for a while. Doesn’t this feel wonderful, Billie?”
“Wonderful,” she agreed softly. The smell of lemon, musk, and spice; warm, strong arms; the crisp feel of the blue, oxford-cloth shirt beneath her cheek; the rich blur of Oriental rugs in the dim room…it was all so beautifully evocative, she could have stayed forever. “You’re right. This is much better than the coppersmith’s. Do you suppose we could stay here for an hour or so, or do you think Hassan would get suspicious?”
He didn’t answer, his arms tightening about her with a possessiveness he’d never known. Always before when he’d cared for people, he’d been able to understand their need for personal freedom. He’d been able to let them go and let them flourish and develop and he’d known a joy just watching them grow and gain serenity and contentment. Bree, Alex, Karim, his parents—he’d never wanted to shackle them. Why, then, did he have to force himself to overcome an almost irresistible urge to possess and hold this woman in his arms, the one person who’d fight against that restraint more fiercely than anyone else?
Lying so docilely against him now, it seemed impossible to remember what a wary, independent, wild thing she really was. Yet even while she was here in his arms and he could feel the warm, loving tenderness of her reaching out to him, he knew she would panic and fly away if he didn’t move with the greatest of care.
But he would move with care. He couldn’t do anything else. Because he’d realized in that first moment what Billie was going to be to him. Recognized. Yes, that was the word. It was as if he’d known she was out there somewhere waiting for him, and when he’d finally caught sight of her on that hilltop, he’d felt a deep, serene sense of completion. It hadn’t even surprised him. It was all a part of the beauty and rhythm of life. Part of the cycle that was as natural as growth and love itself. He’d just have to be patient and try to teach Billie the value of what they’d found together.
But he needed time, and he couldn’t be sure when that wariness in her would trigger the restlessness that he knew was his worst enemy. At times he wondered if he should have taken her that first night and wrung at least a sexual commitment from her that might have bound her for a time. No, they both deserved more than that, and if he could channel desire and desperation into patience, they had a chance of getting it.
His clasp loosened reluctantly, and he pushed her away from him. “Much as I’d like to test old Hassan’s patience to the limit. I’m afraid we’re going to have to get back to the Casbah, sweetheart.” He sat up and began deftly buttoning her shirt. “I’m expecting a package to be delivered by Karim’s Marasef Express this afternoon and I’d like to make sure there’s no slipup.”
“Marasef Express?” Billie sat up and tucked her shirt firmly in her jeans and began to tidy her hair. “What on earth is that?”
“There’s a helicopter landing pad on the grounds of the Casbah, and Karim has dispatches and deliveries arriving every few days from Alex and Bree”—his eyes twinkled—“as well as from sundry informants and corporate board members. So much for his so-called abdication.”
“Clancy said he couldn’t resist wheeling and dealing.” Billie said. “I didn’t know about the helicopter pad, though.”
“How could you? You’ve been so busy running me ragged exploring Zalandan, you haven’t had time to tour the Casbah and grounds.”
“Tomorrow,” she promised cheerfully as she took his hand and was pulled to her feet. “I gather you’ve had your fill of shopping for the time being?”
“Not necessarily. I think I’m developing a taste for it. Now which one of these rugs would you like?”
“I took the lilac perfume. I’m not about to accept a handwoven carpet,” she said firmly.
“You wouldn’t take the copper samovar either,” he said sulkily. “I don’t see why not. It couldn’t have been all that valuable with that dent in it.” He shrugged. “Oh, well, maybe I’ll send it to Bree. She can always use an extra samovar.”
“She can?” Billie asked skeptically. “Just what does one do with a samovar in this day and age?”
“Fill it with fruit? How do I know?” He made a face. “Bree will think of something.” He was scanning the carpets hastily. “I think I’ll take that ivory-and-slate Hariz. We’ve got to thank old Hassan some way for the use of his back room. I’ll send it to my mother, in Texas. She likes that shade of blue.”
“Your parents are still alive?” Billie asked, surprised. She couldn’t remember his speaking of them at all the last three days. He’d been open and affectionate, sharing his memories and experiences with Alex, Bree, Karim, and the Rubinoffs as if he wanted her to know and love them as much as he did. But they were all experiences that were rooted in Sedikhan. It seemed he’d never lived any other life than the one he’d known here.
He nodded. “They still live on that ranch in the Rio Grande valley where I grew up.” He took her elbow and was pushing her gently toward the paisley door hanging. For a moment there was a shadow on his face that could have been pain. “We don’t get together much anymore.” Then the shadow was gone and he was grinning down at her. “You’re sure you don’t have a use for one slightly dented samovar? Where else could you get one with a personalized head print? I might even be persuaded to autograph it for you.” His nonsense continued, and soon she was chuckling so hard, the memory of that fleeting pain on his face was lost in the sunlit spell he wove so well.
Yasmin was waiting in her suite when she arrived a little over an hour later; a worried frown on her usually serene brow signaled definite trouble. She was no sooner in the room than the housekeeper bustled forward, took her shoulder bag and packages, and gave her a nudge toward the bathroom.
“You must hurry,” she said briskly. “I have laid out the dress you wore the first night you were here. You have only twenty minutes to bathe and change before he arrives.”
“Before who arrives?” Billie asked blankly.
“Sheikh Karim,” Yasmin answered, urging her through the door. “He sent word an hour ago that he wished to speak to you and would call on you in your apartment at six. He will be most displeased if he’s kept waiting. It is not the custom, you understand.”
“I can’t see what the hurry is now,” Billie said dryly as she unbuttoned her shirt and shrugged out of it. “The man’s made no effort to see me in the three days I’ve been here. In fact, I’ve gotten the distinct impress
ion he’d be delighted if I disappeared into the woodwork.”
“That is not fair,” Yasmin said, troubled. “The sheikh is a very conscientious host. If Lisan had not insisted on having you to himself and dining in his suite, I’m sure he would have done his duty.”
“Duty,” Billie repeated with a bittersweet smile. “Remind me to tell you how much that particular word turns me off. No one has to do their duty by me. Not anymore.” She was stripping quickly, Yasmin picking the clothes up as quickly as she discarded them. “And I’m not going to put on that dress again even to please your precious lord and master. The only reason I wore it was because I didn’t have anything to wear. Now that I have my own clothes again, that’s no longer necessary.” She was carefully going down the three marble steps to the sunken tub. “If you want to help me dress, lay out something that belongs to me.”
“There’s nothing suitable.” Yasmin sighed. “Sheikh Karim doesn’t approve of women in trousers, and you have nothing else. I have never seen a woman without one dress in her wardrobe.” She was almost wringing her hands. “It is most unseemly.”
“I like jeans,” Billie said with simple logic. “I’m comfortable in them, and I’m not the type of person who would tuck away a glamorous little black dress for that occasional night on the town. I don’t even like dressing up and going out.” Then, as Yasmin’s despairing expression didn’t change, she melted. She genuinely liked the dignified, if slightly autocratic, housekeeper, and she knew Yasmin would consider the blame hers if Billie wasn’t presented in what she considered respectable attire. “Oh, all right,” she said crossly. “I’ll wear the blasted dress, but only until the sheikh leaves. Then off it comes. I’ll dine with David, in my jeans, as usual.”
However, she’d only finished her bath and was slipping on a beige-and-black-striped jellaba she’d bought in the bazaar when Yasmin was back. “He’s here,” she hissed, hurriedly buttoning the loose robe herself as if Billie were a small child. “And very impatient.” She smoothed Billie’s tumbled curls frantically. “Hurry!” She gave Billie a push whose momentum sent her through the diaphanous curtains of the door.
“Charming.” Karim Ben Raschid’s voice was a silky purr as his eyes raked over her with the sharpness of a blade. He was standing by the filigreed doors that led to the little private balcony, and their fretted delicacy only accented the power and dominance of his robe-clad figure. “I’m sure you disapprove of compliments as much as you do hypocrisy, Miss Callahan, but I’m sure David has told you how much that jellaba suits you. It makes you look like one of the small children clamoring for coins in the bazaar.”
Was there an insulting double-entendre in that? Probably, but she wasn’t about to decipher it now. “I don’t object to compliments,” she said calmly as she came forward. “People like me need all they can get. I just insist they be founded on honesty.” She gestured to the ivory-cushioned cane chair by the balcony door. “Why don’t we sit down and get comfortable? I have an idea I may need all the support I can get.”
He smiled, his strong white teeth a gleaming slash in his bearded face. “You may indeed, Miss Callahan,” he said softly. “By all means make yourself comfortable. I believe I’ll stand, however.”
“As you like.” Billie crossed to the bed, plopped down on the end, and crossed her legs tailor fashion. Her feet were still bare, she noticed wryly. No doubt that was an added touch of lese majesty. “I gather this is not a social call.”
He shook his head. “We’ve already established that you dislike observing the amenities,” he said. “I never repeat a mistake.”
“Don’t you?” Billie asked flippantly. “That must make you almost perfect by now. It must give you a great deal of satisfaction.”
Karim’s eyes narrowed. “Are you laughing at me, Miss Callahan?”
“Perhaps a little,” she said, suddenly weary. “I have a tendency to laugh at what I’m afraid of. You’re a very intimidating man, Sheikh Ben Raschid.”
There was a flicker of surprise in his face. “You admit to weakness? That could be a very grave tactical error.”
“Tactics are used in game plans,” she answered, holding his gaze steadily. “I told you I don’t play games.” She tossed her head with barely restrained impatience. “Look, could we just get down to cases? I don’t think you’re here because you crave the pleasure of my company.”
“I don’t know why you should assume that.” Karim lifted a mocking brow. “David seems to find your company pleasurable, even positively enthralling. Why should I not?”
“Oh, David.” Her voice lowered to a guttural, tough-guy snarl. “But you know how it is, Pops. We hoods always have to set up our hits. We lull them into a false sense of security and then…” She pointed an index finger and pulled an imaginary trigger. “Gotcha.”
“I don’t regard that as amusing.” The sheikh’s tone was definitely chilly. “Not when it pertains to David.”
“Neither do I,” Billie said with a shiver she tried to hide with a careless shrug. “I told you I always laugh at things I’m afraid of. I’m sorry you didn’t like my little charade.”
“I’m sure you did it very well,” Karim said coolly. “You appear to have a wide acquaintance with all strata of society, so I’m sure the vernacular came quite easily.”
Billie stiffened warily. “Would you like to elaborate on that?”
“I’d be delighted.” He moved a few feet to the cane chair and picked up an ivory folder that had blended in so well with the color of the cushion, she hadn’t noticed it. “Shall we start with your appearance at the Simon Hardwicks Children’s Home twenty-three years ago, or do you want me to zero in on your latest escapade at the location site at Marasef? It all makes very colorful reading.”
“You’ve had me investigated.” Billie’s eyes widened. Why was she so surprised? It was a natural course of action for a man like Ben Raschid. Nevertheless it gave her a sense of being violated. “I’m glad my biography proved entertaining.” She lifted her head proudly. “And I don’t believe you’ve discovered anything particularly reprehensible. I’m not as dangerous as you supposed, am I?”
“Because you have no criminal record?” His smile was enigmatic. “On the contrary, you could be even more dangerous than I thought.” He opened the folder and glanced at it. “You’re an extraordinary woman, Miss Callahan. My investigators are extremely competent men, and even they had a great deal of trouble filling in all the blanks. Your childhood was fairly easy. There were orphanage records substantiating the date you were turned over to them. You were a foundling, were you not?”
“Yes, I was,” Billie answered steadily. “I’m not ashamed of my birth, Sheikh Ben Raschid. I believe it’s what we make of ourselves that counts, not what we start out with as basic raw material.”
“I meant no insult.” The sheikh shrugged. “I have similar beliefs, Miss Callahan. It’s what you’ve made of yourself that holds my entire interest.”
He scanned the page before him idly. “You were in several foster homes over the years. You ran away from two and were returned to the orphanage once for rebellious and uncooperative behavior. You ran away from the orphanage itself when you were fifteen. After that the trail becomes considerably more muddied.”
“Sorry about that,” Billie said ironically.
“Practically all the people you worked for, individuals whom you befriended, clammed up on my investigators,” Ben Raschid said thoughtfully. “You seem to have the ability to attract enormous affection and loyalty in an amazingly short space of time.” His eyes narrowed. “Because you’ve never stayed anywhere for more than a few months, have you, Miss Callahan? You’ve been a gas-station attendant, a file clerk, a cook in a lumber camp, you’ve picked apples in Oregon, worked on an Indian reservation in Washington. The list appears to go on forever. You even went to college for a semester in California. You scored very high on the entrance exams, and your professors describe you as hard-working and exceptionally bright.”
“The key phrase is hard-working,” Billie said. “I may be a gypsy, but I’ve never been out for a free ride, and there’s nothing in that report I’m ashamed to admit to.”
“It was a surprisingly innocuous report for such a busy young lady,” he said calmly. “No sexual liaisons, a few mischievous pranks, but nothing malicious. Nothing in the least suspicious until you arrived at the movie set in Marasef.”
She straightened. “Desert Venture?” She shook her head. “You’ve been had, Sheikh Ben Raschid. Your boys must have decided to do a little fabricating to earn their fee. The only thing criminal about my work on that movie was the money I stole for my terrible performance.”
“Not criminal, just suspicious,” he said, closing the folder. “It seems you’re a very brave lady, Miss Callahan. At some risk to yourself, you rescued a certain bordello bouncer by the name of Yusef Ibraheim from three toughs who were allegedly trying to slit his throat. You then set up a ménage à trois with this Yusef and a stunt woman, Kendra Michaels, in a two-room cottage and maintained the relationship for a number of weeks.”
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