An Ellora’s Cave Romantica Publication
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Master’s Thief
ALL RIGHTS RESERVED
Master’s Thief Copyright © 2009 Nicole Austin
Edited by Shannon Combs
Cover art by Syneca
Electronic book Publication July 2009
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This book is a work of fiction and any resemblance to persons, living or dead, or places, events or locales is purely coincidental. The characters are productions of the authors’ imagination and used fictitiously.
Master’s Thief
Nicole Austin
Chapter One
Jamillah glanced around the red sand dunes, noting only the watchful presence of a spiny-tailed lizard to witness her act of thievery. A cold chill raced along her spine. She was painfully aware of the punishment for taking such action. It was well within King Achmad’s power to order a thief’s hand be chopped off.
In the eight years since her mother had died, Jamillah had done well taking care of herself. It shamed her that she now had to resort to stealing. And yet, she had no choice other than take from the rich king to ensure her survival. The well from which she obtained her drinking water had gone dry. With the extreme temperatures, her body had become as depleted of moisture as the vast sandy desert she called home.
She had nothing while the king had so much. A large palace, filled with wondrous treasures, built around an oasis, his stables overrun by hundreds of prized horses.
Al-Aziz did not mind sharing his water as she had once shared her own with the horse. The majestic black stallion had been her friend for many years. At one time, the horse had escaped and wandered the desert. Upon finding him, Jamillah had fed, watered and cared for the beautiful animal. She’d cried when the king’s men had found Al-Aziz, and despite a fierce battle, he’d been recaptured. To this day, no one she knew of had been able to ride the spirited horse. No one other than Jamillah herself.
She stroked his soft muzzle, meeting his intelligent gaze. “And so we’ve come full circle it would seem, and it is I in need of your generosity, my friend.”
Aziz nudged her toward the large trough. Giving in to her fathomless thirst, she thrust both hands into the water, pulling up streaming palms full of the cool, refreshing liquid. She drank greedily, swallowing huge, gasping mouthfuls. Water trickled down her chin and along her neck to be soaked up within the folds of her dress. It was a shameful waste of a precious resource, but she could not help herself.
Aziz’s big body tensed and his head snapped to the front of his stall. Jamillah looked up in time to see the horrified expression on the stable hand as he began to yell for the guards.
Oh God, she’d been discovered. With her hands held protectively behind her, Jamillah backed into the corner, her eyes frantically searching for an escape route. The only way out of the stall was the gate where the guards now gathered.
As the barrier was opened, Aziz gave an equine scream, rearing up to stand on his hind legs. Several men took their chances in entering the chamber, but none could get past her protector. They came at him with whips and crops. Even though the strikes caused Aziz to cry out in pain, he kept her shielded behind him. Safe for the moment.
Above the commotion rose a sure yet gentle voice. A masculine voice, speaking in soothing tones to the frenzied animal, and somehow reaching a place deep inside her soul. Her heart pounded in her chest and her body tingled.
Aziz seemed torn. He settled back onto all four hooves, but remained tensed, ready to fight for her.
Jamillah peered around his rump to see the man brave enough to enter the stall. His steady stream of soft spoken words did nothing to calm her. Nor did his dark, penetrating gaze—the only part of his face visible beneath layers of blue cloth. The stranger’s eyes seemed almost familiar.
“He’ll kill you,” someone warned. “Please, Prince Zahir…”
Her heart actually stopped beating for a moment. Zahir? It couldn’t be. Yet it was. She’d never forgotten the beautiful eyes of the sweet boy she’d spent time with while her mother worked in the palace.
Her thoughts wandered back to one of many conversations with her mother.
Jamillah, you must be respectful. Zahir will one day be King.
I’m going to marry him—
Shh! Don’t speak such nonsense aloud. The future king will choose a more fitting bride than a servant’s child.
But I love him! she’d protested.
She had been punished for even having such thoughts. When the friendship continued to grow, she was taken away from Zahir, and her family moved into the untamed portions of the desert, away from their home among their people.
She’d been only six, but had never forgotten her handsome prince. Quite the opposite. Jamillah had dreamed of him ever since. Prayed that one day he’d come for her and together, they’d ride off on the back of a powerful stallion.
Her father died when she was fifteen, and her mother had moved them closer to the palace, accepting the assistance of friends. Everything was fine until Jamillah’s path had crossed with Zahir’s in the bazaar one day. The deep connection between them had still been firmly in place and the attraction was immediate.
Once again she’d been whisked away. No amount of crying or pleading had worked. Her mother had been frightened of what would happen should the king discover his son to be in love with a servant’s daughter.
Her mother passed on when Jamillah was nineteen, and she’d had to become a desert shadow. Under their law, without the protection of a parent, women living alone can be claimed by a man as his wife, even if it went against her will. She’d gone into hiding to avoid such a fate. Her heart would only accept one man—her handsome prince.
The dream shattered into a million pieces under the harsh reality of her current situation. Now a grown woman of twenty-seven, caught stealing the King’s resources, the evidence dampening the front of her dress. Zahir would order a severe punishment.
His eyes may be the same, but his body had changed in the past decade. Broader around the shoulders, he seemed to have acquired more muscle, but the layers of cloth hid most of his physique.
Dropping to her knees, Jamillah lowered her head to the ground and begged for leniency. “Please forgive me. It’s been days since I had water and I was so thirsty. I meant no harm.” She stayed that way, listening as Zahir calmed the horse and dismissed his men.
She gasped as warm hands cupped her head, lifting her face until they were eye-to-eye, Zahir kneeling before her. The gentle touch sent white-hot pulses of heat through her body. Her breasts swelled and moisture spread between her legs.
“It cannot be.” His voice had lowered to a mere whisper, and she read a wealth of confusing emotions in his expressive eyes. Shock, wonder, longing and…love?
No. She had to be reading him wrong. Yet hope blossomed in her heart.
“I searched far and wide for many years only to find you here, in my father’s stables.” His fingers roamed the contours of her face as if he were a blind man, seeing through touch. “Is it you?” He wiped away the tears from her cheeks, which Jamillah had not realized she shed. “Your name? Please, I beg of you. Tell me your name.”
“I-it is not important, and will not erase my trespass, Zahir.”
“I will decide what is and is not important,” he corrected. “And you will call me Master!” The tone of his voice became deeper, commanding. “Answer my question. Put me out of more than eleven years of misery.”
Zahir did not believe his eyes. Could this beautiful desert rose be the girl he’d always desired? Ah, but this was no girl. She had grown and bloomed into the most stunning woman he had ever seen.
She lowered her gaze and long, dark lashes fanned out over smooth skin. Her full lips parted as if she would speak, but then closed again. He wanted to drink from those beautiful lips, capture her sounds of pleasure in his mouth. Sensual sounds she would make only for him.
He pushed the hood from her head and ran his fingers over the silken length of midnight black hair, remembering his fascination with her tresses as a child. He would stare into her wide, dark chocolate eyes for hours on end while brushing out her hair. And here she was, within his reach but refusing to confirm her identity.
Zahir felt so frustrated that he wanted to shake her, force her to break the illusion. At the same time, he felt such joy and need. He longed to whisk her away on Aziz’s back, take her somewhere private and make love to her all night long.
He would not take her to his rooms at the palace where they could be disturbed. No, he would take her to his tent, lay her down on the most luxurious silks, piled high with plush pillows, and finally claim his beloved. He wanted to spend hours tracing the delicate contours of her face. Days learning every rolling hill and valley of her lithe body. Years sating himself in the warm welcome of her flesh.
“Tell me. I must know!”
She glanced up and he was immediately lost in her eyes until the sensual tones of her voice teased his every nerve ending to a heightened state of awareness.
“My name is Jamillah, Master. Daughter of your most humble servant, Nadra.”
“Oh, sweet Jamillah. My love! At last…” Zahir’s words drifted off and she stared as his head dipped closer. With their lips almost touching, he spoke her name, again and again; afraid to believe it was really her.
He closed the last fraction of an inch between them, brushing their lips together. Jamillah’s lips parted on a sigh and he sealed his mouth to hers, groaning as his tongue slid into the warm cavern. Paradise.
Her sweet taste filled his senses, more wonderful than anything he’d ever known. His hands roamed her lush body and he knew there would be no stopping. He had to have her. All of her.
They broke apart, gasping for breath. “You will never leave me again. I’m going to make love to you, Jamillah.” Her eyes grew wide, frightened, and she nervously chewed on her lower lip. “I will claim you, make you mine. Thrust my cock into you and bind us together.”
“No,” she gasped. Jamillah jumped to her feet, glanced about, frantic to escape. “I must go.”
She turned to flee, but he would not lose her. Grabbing her around the waist, Zahir pulled her into his body, the round cheeks of her ass wiggling against his erection. He groaned and pulled a piece of rope from the wall. In moments he had her wrists bound behind her, and he lifted her onto Aziz’s back, making easy work of mounting the horse without the benefit of a saddle.
“Master, no. We cannot.”
“Shush, my love. You have no choice in the matter. You were caught stealing and it is up to me to determine what is to be done with you.”
He reached around her, tangling his fingers in the horses mane and gave a firm squeeze of his legs to get the stallion moving. He pushed her forward, ducking her head as they exited the stable to the astonished gasps of his men. Without a backward glance, Zahir deftly guided the horse over the sand and away from the palace.
“Al-Aziz allows you to ride him,” she gasped in astonishment.
Jamillah lost track of time, distracted by the solid wall of muscle bracketing her body, his chest to her back, his legs caging her own. Eventually, they rode into a small oasis encampment met by surprised glances. Riding up to the largest tent, Zahir slid from the horse in one graceful, fluid motion, then grasped her waist and handed her down. The warmth of his touch spread through her like wildfire.
Her legs wobbled a bit, and her arms had lost sensation due to their awkward positioning. Taking her by the elbow, Zahir walked with her into the tent, turning quickly at Aziz’s scream. “Leave him be,” he bellowed at his men and raced back out. Then his voice dropped into that soothing monotone as he calmed the agitated stallion.
Left on her own, Jamillah’s eyes scanned the interior of the tent, searching for something with which to cut the rope. She had to get out of there before Zahir returned.
Chapter Two
The breath caught in Zahir’s throat when he entered his tent. Jamillah sat with her back against a thick wooden pole, wiggling her lush bottom and struggling with a large knife. The hem of her dress had slid to mid thigh, revealing most of her slender, toned legs to his hungry gaze.
So beautiful!
His pulse raced and his cock began to lengthen.
“Trying to escape already?”
Upon hearing his voice, her movements ceased and the knife fell from her hands. “I must go, Master.”
“Ah, but I have not yet administered punishment for your crime.”
Her chin lowered to her chest as he circled her petite form. “Look at me, Jamillah.” She reluctantly lifted her head and stared over his shoulder in defiance.
“Do you not wish to know how I have decided to punish you?”
“Y-you wouldn’t,” she cried.
Zahir knelt next to her hip and reached around her waist. With a flick of the wrist, he freed her hands then began rubbing warmth into her chilled flesh. He should not have left her tied for so long.
“You stole from me. It is my right, my duty, to see you punished.”
She didn’t speak, didn’t plead for mercy, just nervously chewed on her lip.
He rubbed her chaffed wrists, ashamed to have marred her beautiful skin. “I will not take your pretty little hands. Instead, I will have all of you. Forever. You will be my sex slave, taking my cock into whichever part of your body I desire, whenever I desire you.”
Her shocked gaze shot to his. “B-but, Master—”
“Be quiet unless I tell you to speak, Jamillah. Understand?”
She nodded.
“Good.” Moving between her feet, Zahir caressed her bare legs, fingers moving slowly from ankle to knee. He scooted closer, dragging his hands along her inner-thighs, raising the dress higher, inch by inch. “You have grown into a beautiful woman, Jamillah. I have waited to take you for so long.” He pushed the dress over her hips to uncover her sex, slick with arousal. “Do you desire my touch?”
Her head fell back and she moaned as his fingers slid over her damp folds, gathering her warm cream.
“Look at me,” he commanded.
Her head snapped forward, along with her hips, when his finger circled her swollen, sensitive clit.
“Zahir.”
Bringing his fingers to his mouth, he greedily licked them clean, never breaking eye contact. Her whimper delighted him. “Have you dreamed of me? Imagined my touch? Fantasized about how good it would feel to have my cock pounding into that sweet pussy?”
“Oh, Zahir. Master…no! It is forbidden for someone like me to have such thoughts about a prince.”
He lifted the dress over her head and tossed it away. His cock throbbed at his first glimpse of her naked body, wonderfully curved in all the right places. “Oh, Jamillah. You’re even more beautifu
l than I imagined.” She trembled under the weight of his stare.
Jamillah had died and ascended to the heavens. There was no other explanation. Either that or she was in hell since having the man she desired was not possible.
Zahir removed his layers of clothing and she nearly wept. Lean and muscular, his body was a sight to behold. Broad shoulders, chiseled chest with a light dusting of dark hair, and a rippling abdomen. He had narrow hips and thickly muscled legs that looked powerful. Then her gaze locked on his long, thick erection, jutting proudly from a dark nest of hair. A small drop of fluid rolled along the head of his heavily-veined shaft.
She did not realize her hand had moved until her fingers closed around his cock, mesmerized by the soft skin containing rock-hard flesh. His raspy groan made her feel bold and confident. She stroked from base to crown, tightening her grip in response to the shudder that ran through corded sinew.
He grasped her wrist, stilling her movements. “You can play later. I need to be inside you.”
“We cannot. It is forbidden!”
“You are mine, and will not deny me!” The harsh command thrilled and terrified her.
He repositioned Jamillah flat on her back, ensuring her comfort by placing more pillows beneath her hips. Zahir joined their bodies, making sure not to put all his weight on her. He stared into her eyes for long moments then held her face still with his large hands. She expected a hard, frantic kiss. Instead, the tender brush of lips across hers pulled her further under the seductive spell he wove around her.
His hips slid forward, and Zahir groaned, anointing his erection with her arousal. “So hot and wet,” he praised.
Could they really be together? Was their love no longer prohibited? With a flex of his hips, he positioned his broad head at her entrance. A look of primal possession flashed in his dark eyes.
“Tell me you will always be mine. Only mine!” he demanded. “Tell me you desire me, sweet Jamillah.”
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