The Panther and The Pearl

by Doreen Owens Malek

  “Kalid, please. You can’t go riding—the jouncing might open up your shoulder,” Sarah said breathlessly from the entrance, leaning against the doorway.

  “I’m just going to canter around the paddock,” he replied. “Khan needs the exercise.”

  “Let one of the grooms exercise him,” Sarah said.

  Kalid turned to face her. He was wearing the loose cotton shirt and twill trousers he used for riding; with the knee-high boots, the clothing gave him a vaguely piratical air.

  “Why don’t you come with me?” he said reasonably. “You can ride Ousta and make sure I don’t overdo it. The head groom tells me you’ve been out here practicing riding while I was ill, so you should be able to keep up with me by now. The shalwar are just like pants, so you can ride astride without having to change.”

  Sarah knew he was humoring her, but she was concerned enough to go along with his suggestion. By the time they were riding slowly around the huge ring of the paddock, she was glad she had accompanied him; it was a beautiful day, cooler than usual with a crisp breeze, and the fresh air would do them both good.

  “How am I doing?” Kalid asked, teasing her.

  “You seem to be all right,” Sarah conceded, cantering slowly at his side.

  “If I fall out of the saddle, be sure to call for help. I don’t think you can lift me by yourself.”

  “I lifted you many times when you were injured,” Sarah replied, looking at him.

  He glanced away diffidently. Clearly this was a subject he did not wish to pursue.

  “Everyone falls ill at some time or other, Kalid,” Sarah said gently. “I never thought you were superhuman.”

  “You don’t think I’m human at all,” he retorted, pulling up on Khan’s bridle.

  “What is that supposed to mean?” Sarah inquired, slowing her horse also.

  “You think I can be around you all the time without wanting to make love to you,” he said bluntly.

  Sarah said nothing.

  “Come on back to the stables,” he said, dropping the subject. “Khan’s had enough, and I ordered lunch for us in my quarters.”

  “You were pretty sure I’d show up when I heard you were going riding,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “I’m sorry I’m so predictable.”

  “You’re not predictable at all, kourista. You are just an excellent nurse.”

  They returned the horses, and as they walked past the gardens Kalid said to her abruptly, “I don’t think I ever thanked you for saving my life, Sarah.”

  “I didn’t save your life, Kalid, I just—”

  He stopped walking and took hold of her shoulders, spinning her around to face him.

  “Kosem told me what you did,” he said. “You saved my life. It’s not easy for me to express gratitude . . .”

  “Yes, I know,” she said quietly.

  He sighed and pulled her toward him. “But I am grateful, and I want you to know that,” he said, enfolding her. She rested her cheek against his chest and heard his heart beating under her ear.

  “My little American,” he said tenderly, stroking her hair. “How could I know when I saw you at the Sultan’s palace that you would become so important to me?”

  Sarah wrapped her arms around his waist as she felt the burning of tears forming in her eyes. He was so many people; she didn’t get to see this gentle side of him very often.

  “You fit against me very well,” he said, a smile in his voice. “Just shoulder high.” She felt his fingers moving through the mass of her hair, settling on the nape of her neck, caressing.

  She buried her face against his shirt, inhaling the piney fragrance of his soap, and clutched him tighter.

  “What is it?” he said, holding her off to look at her.

  “I was just thinking about what might have happened to you if I hadn’t been here when you were shot,” she whispered.

  “Don’t think about it,” he said briskly, taking her hand. “Now let’s go. I’m hungry.”

  When they reached his apartment, a gilt table in his inner chamber was laid with dishes of lamb cutlets, goat cheese borek, and rice pilav, as well as eggplant and other vegetables roasted slowly in olive oil. Kalid dismissed the servants and then poured them glasses of wine. Sarah left her goblet of bright yellow liquor untouched while they ate until he said, “Taste the retsina. You might like it.”

  Sarah took a sip and made a face. “It tastes oily.”

  He nodded. “It’s resin wine, from Greece. An acquired taste, but now I like it.”

  “I don’t think I want to acquire that taste.”

  He smiled. “More lamb?” he said.

  She shook her head.

  “You don’t eat very much,” he said.

  “I’m still trying to get used to the food here,” Sarah replied. “I think I take in just enough to keep going.”

  He reached across the table and encircled her upper arm, visible through her sheer sleeve, with his fingers. “I could snap you like a dry twig,” he said musingly.

  “Sometimes you have wanted to,” she replied.

  He left his couch and came around to hers, kneeling before her. “No longer,” he said quietly. “Now I just want to caress every part of your body and make it mine.”

  Sarah watched, entranced, as he unbuttoned her blouse and then leaned forward to kiss the skin he had exposed, his eyes closed, his arm slipping around her waist deftly. When he drew her to him, she hesitated, aware that she should stop him, but then gave in and went willingly, gasping as he ripped open the gauze waistcoat she wore beneath the blouse. His mouth searched hungrily for one nipple as his free hand closed over the other breast. She did not resist as he moved again, pulling her sleeves off and dropping her blouse, then removing her vest, leaving her naked to the waist.

  Kalid buried his face between her breasts and locked his hands behind her, his soft hair and his soft mouth brushing her lightly, tantalizingly. She lay back as he turned his head and placed his burning cheek against her belly, her eyes closing again in luxurious abandonment. When he sat back to stand, she reached for him and he lifted her bodily, carrying her to a rug strewn with cushions and setting her on it. Then he flung himself down next to her and embraced her immediately, kissing her tenderly, moving his mouth surely over hers, pressing, then drawing away, until Sarah reacted as he intended, clutching him closer. She pressed against him and kissed him back urgently, parting her lips to admit his tongue, responding to his increasingly ardent caresses until she was weak and enervated in his arms. Then he dragged his open mouth along the supple line of her throat down to her breast again, sucking, nipping, laving her with his tongue as she dug her nails into his scalp, feeling the dense, wavy hair curling around her fingers as her pleasure increased to the point of near pain.

  Sarah gazed down at him as he made love to her, at the thick, blue-black hair disarranged from her caresses, the deep flush staining his dusky cheeks, his red lipped mouth moist and swollen from her kisses. His teeth were stark white against his dusky skin. He moved his head, and his tongue found her navel, exposed by the low waist of her trousers. Then she sighed her loss as he moved back, standing quickly to pull off his shirt, not bothering to unbutton it but yanking it over his head.

  When Sarah saw him naked to the waist she reached up for him with a small, helpless sound, overcome by the need to feel his bare skin against hers. He dropped to his knees and embraced her again, letting her take the lead as she kissed his neck, his chest, the pink and shiny skin of his healed wound, then took his flat nipple in her mouth, imitating him. He moaned and pushed her flat on her back, looming over her, his dark eyes filling the world.

  “I knew you didn’t hate me when you saved my life,” he said hoarsely. “Why would you save the life of a hated captor?”

  “I don’t hate you,” she whispered. “I never did.”

  He slipped his arm under her and she rolled against him, twining her legs with his. The strength and force of his whole bod
y pressing hers was a shock; she felt him rigid against her thighs, and she stiffened. Sensing her reaction, he ran his hand down her spine, gentling her, and she relaxed as he kissed her again, stroking her breasts, rasping the nipples with his thumbs until she arched her back and moaned, returning the pressure. Then he worked his fingers under the waistband of her trousers, tugging them down toward her feet.

  She lifted her hips to help him; she was far too excited to resist. The harem women wore no underwear, and as her golden triangle was revealed, he drew the flat of his hand across her abdomen, seeking the soft mound below it. Her skin was dewed with perspiration, her eyes half closed, her breathing audible; she was more than ready. As he drew his seeking fingers over her slim thigh she arched herself toward him, anticipating his touch.

  He gave her what she desired, slipping his hand between her legs. She started, gasping, but then sighed and her legs fell apart to admit him. He caressed her repeatedly, expertly, and she moaned deeply, flushing, turning her face away from him to hide her helpless pleasure.

  Kalid was lost; he could hold back no longer. Her response was more abandoned than he could have imagined, more sensuous than he had anticipated in his most feverish dreams. He had to have what he most wanted, what he had longed for from the first time he touched her. He put his arms around her hips and lifted her to his mouth.

  Sarah went rigid, shocked, and tried to push him away. But then the pleasure began again, even more intense than before, and she went limp, unable to resist. His mouth was relentless, hot and wet, his lips soft and caressing, his tongue hard and thrusting, as he stroked her toward a peak that she never seemed to reach. She felt the pleasure climb and climb and was helpless before its rushing warmth. She dragged her fingers through his hair, writhing silently, incapable of making a sound. His fiery skin seared her inner thighs and his powerful hands held her steady as he played her, slowly, deliciously, like an instrument.

  Sarah was almost swooning; she had never felt like this before in her life, melting, so connected to a man as the source of her pleasure. She finally shuddered to a powerful climax, then lay spent, her eyes closed, as he tore of his trousers and then moved over her again, pulling her legs around him.

  Sarah wound her arms about his neck, lifting up to meet him. His nakedness was welcome now, the texture of his skin and hair against her a joy. She felt him, stallion ready between her thighs, as she shifted position instinctively to accommodate him. He groaned, and she heard for the first time that unique, helpless growl of full male arousal. She reached down and touched him, tentatively, curiously, opening her eyes to see him as he dropped his face to her shoulder in mute gratification and pulled her to him more tightly. Sarah looked past his head dazedly, her lids falling, and saw the table where they had dined, and next to it, his sleeping couch.

  And draped across the back of it was a brocade undervest that she recognized.

  It was Fatma’s.

  Sarah’s eyes flew open and she stiffened, but he thought it was timidity and held her down, murmuring soothingly.

  Sarah’s mind, drugged with sexual lassitude, tried to deal with what she had seen. In seconds he would be inside her, and although she wanted him desperately, could almost feel him there, she knew that all would be lost if she let it happen. She was nothing to him, no more than a sexual toy like Fatma and the other harem women. And if she gave in to her craving to be joined with him, she might get pregnant with the child of a man who did not love her, who thought of her as chattel.

  “Kalid, no!” she said urgently, pulling back from him suddenly, trying to throw him off her.

  He was almost too far gone to stop; he raised his head and looked down into her face, disbelieving, a pulse pounding in his throat. Then his expression tightened and he pinned her arms, letting her take his full weight. He was going to ignore her.

  “Kalid, please. Don’t force me. I’m a virgin,” Sarah gasped, turning her face away from his.

  He paused for an eternal second, then vaulted off her so abruptly that his sudden absence was a shock. Sarah scrambled to cover herself with a cashmere shawl from his sleeping couch; when she was able to steal a look at him, he was sitting on the divan where he had eaten lunch, bent double, his head in his hands.

  “Kalid . . .” she began.

  He held up one hand to quiet her, otherwise maintaining the same position. It was several minutes of total, drumming silence before he stood and pulled on his pants, then threw her a silk robe, hitting her in the face with it.

  “Get out of my sight,” he said tersely, as she belted the robe around her. “Now.”

  Sarah tried to run out of the room, but his fragile control snapped and he seized her as she shot past him, shaking her roughly.

  “I should beat you within an inch of your life,” he said, through gritted teeth. “In my language we have a word for a woman who leads a man to the brink and then refuses him. It is not a nice word.” He was so enraged that the tendons stood out on his neck like cords of rope.

  “I didn’t mean to do that,” Sarah replied, trying futilely to pull away from him. His arms were like steel; no one would believe that he had been ill so recently.

  “What are you saying?” he demanded.

  “I meant to stop you right at the beginning, but . . .”

  “But?” he said, searching her face.

  She looked at him with such naked longing that he felt himself begin to respond sexually again, in spite of his fury.

  “I want you,” she said softly. “You’ve proved that, and it must give you a great deal of satisfaction. When you touch me, I find it impossible to resist you.”

  “Not completely,” he said darkly, “or we wouldn’t be having this conversation.”

  “I’m sure I’m not the first woman you’ve affected that way,” she went on, as if he hadn’t spoken. “It’s your trump card, isn’t it?”

  “Trump?” he said, puzzled.

  “It doesn’t matter,” she said. “I’m not giving in to it.” She was near tears, fighting a losing battle to hold them back.

  “Why won’t you relent and give us what we both want?” he said in exasperation, his hands still on her shoulders. It was the eternal question he always asked; was self-denial for a principle so unexpected in a woman?

  “Because you don’t love me, Kalid!” she answered, crying openly now. “You want to overcome my resistance with your seductive powers, prove to me that you can make me give in to my baser desires. You simply want to win.”

  He said nothing, his hands falling away from her.

  “That’s all this is for you, a contest of wills,” she added, wiping her eyes with her fingers like a child.

  He turned his back deliberately, so she couldn’t see his reaction to her words.

  “And if I did love you?” he said quietly.

  “If you did love me, you would know that I have to be the only lover in your life. If I sleep with you, I must see that you value me as much as I value you. I will not be used interchangeably with any other woman who happens to take your fancy.”

  He whirled to face her. “What the devil are you talking about?” he said sharply.

  “I know that you summoned Fatma every night while I was confined to the harem,” she said quietly, pointing to the delicate undervest draped on his couch.

  Kalid guarded his expression, his face blank, feeling a secret surge of hard earned triumph. So that was why she had refused him. She was jealous!

  He smiled insinuatingly. “Fatma knows how to please a man,” he said, driving the knife in deeper.

  He saw the thrust reach its target as she flinched.

  “Wonderful,” Sarah said icily. “I hope you’ll be deliriously happy together. In the meantime, what happens to me? Are you going to lock me up again?”

  “I don’t want to lock you up,” he said in a tired voice, running his fingers through his hair. “I would have you go or stay as you please, but I fear you would go, so . . .” He spread his hands.
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br />   “Why is it so important to seduce me?” Sarah said, equally wearily. They were both worn out from this struggle. “Am I the only woman who has ever resisted you this long?”

  “You are the only woman who has ever resisted me at all,” he said flatly, his arms folded belligerently, the newly formed scar on his shoulder standing out in stark contrast to the smooth, amber toned skin surrounding it.

  “I suppose that’s because you bought all of them, right?” Sarah said bitterly. “Like dogs, they want to please their master.”

  “I bought you, that doesn’t seem to be influencing the outcome with us,” he shot back.

  “I was not for sale, donme pasha. You still seem to be confused about that.”

  “Nevertheless, you are here. And I could stop a passing gypsy caravan at any moment and trade you for a more compliant bedmate. Bear that in mind.”

  He strode to the outer door and pounded on it. Achmed appeared instantly, with two other eunuchs hovering in the background.

  “Take the ikbal back to the harem,” Kalid said shortly.

  Achmed bowed and ushered Sarah, still dressed in Kalid’s robe, out the door.

  Chapter 8

  “The Sultan will see us shortly,” Danforth said to James Woolcott, who didn’t look very happy.

  “I don’t understand why we’re wasting time here when we know that Sarah is in Bursa!” James said heatedly.

  “It’s protocol, Mr. Woolcott, you must trust me on this. It would be considered a grave insult if we contacted the Pasha of Bursa without seeing Sultan Hammid first.”

  “I’m not interested in protocol, I just want Sarah back,” James said, annoyed.

  “Well, the Embassy is interested in protocol, and we do it this way or not at all,” Danforth replied, beginning to show a little pique himself. This was a messy business, women being carried off into harems; it offended his Puritan sensibilities. Danforth privately thought that Woolcott and his foolish cousin were the architects of their own misfortune; anyone who got involved with the locals usually lived to regret it. The Under Secretary considered the Ottoman Empire barbaric and the Embassy an oasis of sanity in the midst of a desert of turbaned savages. But it was a choice posting, since there was little to do except attend teas and entertain visiting dignitaries on their way to India or the Far East, and he was next in line for Europe if he could only acquit himself handsomely here.