* * * * *
Minarra had never done anything like this in her life. Crawling on her hands and knees, in her own office, retrieving a vibrator she had every intention of using. Halfway across the carpeted floor, she thought of turning back, but it was too late. Not with her soaked panties and throbbing nipples, not with the fantasies racing through her mind. It was Mac she imagined doing this for. She was going to let him watch, giving him a show as she played with herself to climax.
The fact that such behavior in real life would be maximally degrading and humiliating seemed somehow to add to the mental thrill. Had she uncovered a streak of masochism in her soul or was she merely trying to prove something to herself—namely that she could get as close as she wanted now to that old Macallister fire and not be hurt again?
Don’t fool yourself, said the old ghost, standing over her, hands on his hips. You’re still mine and you always will be. Why do you think you can’t be with another man? I own you, Minarra.
She shook her head. “No,” she gasped, though she was thinking yes as she snatched up the tiny egg vibrator.
This is a good thing, she told herself. I’m manipulating him now, using him just how I want, to get off. And by the time I’m done, there will be nothing left of the past.
Shall I say what you want me to, Minarra? He was naked, the age he was now, and his body just as she knew it would have to be. The ribbed abdomen, the biceps and triceps, perfectly preserved. The only changes were the crow’s feet around his eyes and the slight weathering of his skin, the barest concession to gravity and heat and time. Shall I be your mouthpiece? Your bogeyman puppet? Very well. Lie on your back, then. Spread wide and I’ll tell you what you meant to me, the real Mac Macallister.
Minarra lifted her ass, digging in her heels. Up came the skirt, and down went the panties. She clawed at the material, needing to feel the open air on her bare crotch. She was so ready. So close.
You were a convenient lay, Minarra. How’s that for a sweet dark nothing whispered in your ear? I used you, and you let me.
Minarra shivered, touching the vibrating egg against her clit. The sensations were complicated, rich and contradictory. Just like her thoughts. She wanted this and she didn’t, and that made her want it more than anything in her whole life.
That’s it. Show me what a female is good for. I got all I wanted from you and I moved on, and now I’m going to use you all over again. You like this, bare-assed on your carpet? Behaving like some kind of little tramp?
Minarra reached for her breast, grasping at the nipple beneath her blouse. She pinched it. Hard. Mac was laughing in the background. Taunting her.
This is all you’ll get. Not my body. No matter how much you beg. Though you’re welcome to try. You always were a good little beggar, weren’t you?
Minarra arched her back, waves of shame pouring over her, white-hot and deliciously deep. Where was it all coming from? She’d barely had any sexual drive at all in years. “Going to…come…” she grunted softly, as though she were not alone.
Go ahead, that’s why I’m here.
The smooth, rounded surface of the egg was shaking her to the core. Her clit was swollen like a tiny cock. Her sex was gaping, the walls of her vagina spasming as though the man were thrusting in her hole, even now. Every muscle in her body tensed and released, pulsed, like electricity racing up and down her spine. She wanted to tear off the rest of her clothes, she wanted to throw open her door, she wanted the rest of the world to see.
Freedom…an end to all these years of dark loneliness, of being frozen inside, her only dream that of a city full of ghosts, older than mummies, a thousand years before the time of the Pyramids. A city of which she dreamed, and in which there was a man who wanted her. Very badly.
Minarra had to put her hand over her mouth. Her hips were gyrating, rocking, moving in rhythm with the orgasm. It wasn’t just one orgasm, but three, rising peaks, one after the other. So much pent-up energy, so much latent desire. Hands on her body…mouths on her skin. Cocks filling her…
Her breath rose to panting. Now she imagined herself in that throne room of her dream with the mysterious Prince Komen-tah. He was naked, his bronzed body the envy of any god, his erect cock a scepter to be worshipped by the alabaster maidens fawning at his feet. There were young men, too, the makings of an orgy, laughing and dancing amidst the stories high, marble-columned, silver-domed chamber, grapes being dipped into tipped back mouths, wine pouring into throats and bodies being handed about amongst the highborn elders, the sexy slaves writhing on the golden floor.
Minarra groaned. The details—how would she know such things that went beyond the scholars’ records? How could she create this? The smell of incense and liquid lust, the heat of flaring nostrils, the bull god statues lining the walls, breathing the air, the distant blare of trumpets and the roll of drums, like thunder. An empire such as the world has never known again, all congealed in a single moan…
It was so real, as though it was the fantasy having her and not the other way around…
Greedily, craving more, Minarra kept the vibrator in place for yet another climax, raising the stakes, causing the sweat to bead on her skin, the blood rising to the surface, hot to the touch. She was Icarus, flying up to the sun. She cried out, but no sounds came from her throat.
She thought she could hear the sound of male laughter…more than human. Komen-tah, is that you?
Some minutes later—or was it hours—she opened her eyes and attempted to move. She was still alive and Mac’s ghost was definitely gone from the room, along with the bogeymen she kept conjuring from Shera-Sa. It was time to go back to work, she sighed. Time to stop all this emotional nonsense. If there was one thing she would not be it was what her father called a “hysterical woman”. By which he meant any woman who did not behave precisely as would a man.
There were a million things to do. Months of research to complete in one week. And scads of packing. Just making the list would take an hour or more. At the top of that list would be ignoring Mac Macallister to whatever extent she could manage. She would neither hate nor love him. She would not even acknowledge his existence, save the bare minimum required to plan and execute the expedition. He’d be an object, a neutral component and nothing more.
Her emotions might balk a little, but it was a matter of simple discipline. Prioritization, execution and follow-through. That’s what her daddy had always said. This mission would be for him. And once it was over, regardless of the outcome, she would walk away from Mac Macallister, cured forever of her pain.
Chapter Two
Minarra’s plan to avoid Mac worked well over the next week. She kept busy, translating the map, preparing the necessary materials. Sonya chided her for not stopping to eat and sleep, but frankly she did not want the time to either think or dream. There’d be time for that later, after she got back home, after the research results were all tabulated and she’d written her landmark book. She could take a nice sabbatical and laze around a cabin in the mountains.
The map translation went well. There was a code employed in the legend and designations, based on a variation of binary numeration. Employing the template, she could make a pretty good guess where Shera-Sa would have been.
Where it was, still.
The value of the map alone could not be underestimated. The binary code was also matched to a reference grid on the reverse side, which showed equivalency symbols in Egyptian hieroglyphics as well as in the Sumerian alphabet. It was the closest anyone had come yet to providing proof that the Near Eastern civilizations had a common ancestor.
Had she wished, she might have made a career of this study alone. But that was not her purpose in life. Her father had left her his own legacy, the much bigger mantle of finding the ruins of the proto-civilization itself.
No one had ever been closer. She wished he could have lived to see it. Her only hope was that she would live up to his expectations. That she would be hardheaded, rational and iron-willed. As he wo
uld have been.
Minarra’s confidence rose to a peak as she boarded the airplane. Mac had been back in her life for a week now and she’d withstood him like iron. It was like a test, a dry run for the mission itself, and she was virtually certain she could handle anything that the man might throw at her.
She was done with him emotionally. Really done.
What she hadn’t banked on, however, was having him as her seatmate on the plane ride to Alcazara. Twice she looked at her ticket, frowning. “There must be some mistake,” she said icily, noting his occupation of the first class window seat next to hers on the aisle.
“Is there?” Mac pulled his own ticket from the inner pocket of his tweed jacket. He was wearing an oxford shirt, his body freshly scrubbed and smelling of musk. She gripped the edge of the seat, her knees dangerously weakened. The sight of him, mildly dressed up, all that masculine power and energy thinly disguised under a veneer of polite society had always done something to her insides, something that could only be resolved with hot kisses, with her hands fervently trying to unbutton, her eyes begging attention…conquest.
She wasn’t the only woman he had this effect on. Be it a roomful of high society types or a class full of coeds hearing one of his “awesome” lectures, Mac Macallister reduced them all to elemental females, on display, estrogen surging.
What made him most hot was that he wasn’t trying to impress. He kept himself in tiptop shape for his own reasons, and he kept his own agenda and goals. She’d seen that this week, watching him interact with the students, teachers and staff at the university. It was the same old Mac—and yet he seemed sadder, somehow. Weighed down…
“No. I believe I have the right seat. See for yourself.”
Her nostrils flared at the scent of him as he raised his arm. The musk was mixed with a clean, soapy smell. A man smell. It made her want to nuzzle and snuggle and touch…
There was no way she’d make it all the way to freaking North Africa like this.
“That won’t be necessary,” she refused his invitation to inspect his ticket. “I’m sure you’re right. I’ll just switch with someone else.”
“Suit yourself.”
Minarra gritted her teeth. Suit herself? The nerve of the man. He was the one who’d wronged her—he should be getting up. Apologizing for taking up part of her row, for breathing her air, for daring to still be on the same planet.
“Is something wrong, Minarra?”
The man was messing with her head. He had to be. Well she’d be damned if she’d turn tail and run. Let him be the one to sit and squirm across the Atlantic.
“Not a thing,” she smiled broadly, plopping herself down. “I’m as happy as a lark.”
He cast her a puzzled look, pure male. “If you say so.”
“I do,” she said icily. “And I’d appreciate it if we passed this trip in silence.”
Mac shrugged and took out a pair of reading glasses. They didn’t suit him somehow. Too academic, maybe? Three times in the next half hour she complained about the noise he was making with his newspaper, though honestly, a mouse could not have been quieter.
Feeling cranky and tired as hell, Minarra refused her dinner of filet mignon in favor of a pillow and a sleep mask. Taking off her shoes, she curled her skirt-clad legs underneath her, turned to her side—away from Mac—and went to sleep.
* * * * *
Mac had never felt so perplexed in his life. He knew he ought to have done something. But what? Would she have been insulted if he’d offered to change seats? Was it better to just play it cool by staying put? And why in hell couldn’t he bring himself to talk to her like he’d been wanting to.
There was so much he wanted to explain. But the emotions just got crammed up in his head. The way they’d been doing for all these years. His fans called him brave, for daring to break into cursed tombs and search hostile jungles for lost artifacts. In truth he was a coward when it came to the most important thing in his life.
Hiding behind a newspaper only made it worse. And every time she barked at him, he only felt more like a complete cad. He should have anticipated this might happen. As expedition leader, he ought to have personally arranged the seats, so she wouldn’t have to sit with him. Now it was too awkward for either one of them to change without tipping off the others that there was something between them.
Dinner was a welcome break. So was her decision to go to sleep. The steak was delicious, and he devoured it, ravenous. It was dark by the time he’d finished and he was more than happy to turn down the lights for a quiet rest. The sounds of the cabin were relatively calming, and he was hopeful he might get a little sleep himself. He knew he would have to hit the ground running when they landed in Alcazara.
They would go by bus from the airport to Porto Sayeed, the sprawling, thief-infested coastal city through which flowed most of the goods, legal and illegal for this rough and violent desert country. It would be his responsibility to hire guides, and extra gunmen, in the event of trouble. He would also negotiate for supplies. Camels, water and other basics. The main challenge, beyond avoiding getting his throat slit, would be to keep the ever curious and feisty Minarra out of harm’s way.
She seemed innocent enough asleep. Leaning across, he flicked an errant curl back from where it had strayed over her eyelid. This small, beautiful woman had always managed to trigger such emotions in him. Protectiveness. Jealousy. And at times, rage. It was an incident involving such passion that had led indirectly to his banishment from Hunt’s summer digs at Maleeka. Because of her father’s strict rules about fraternization, not to mention his fierce feelings of possessiveness toward his daughter, they had kept their affair a secret. The need to do so had fueled their young passion and allowed them to play all manner of sexy and dangerous games.
One time, for example, he’d fucked her from behind in broad daylight, sneaking up on her while she’d stood hanging clothes on the line to dry.
“Just act natural,” he’d pulled her shorts and panties down to the bottom of her ass.
“Mac, don’t,” she’d pleaded.
Mac had found her wet and receptive. She was always that way for him. Without exception. “Why not?” he’d teased, plunging his cock deep inside her. “I’m just exercising my property rights.”
She’d melted against him, her breath ragged. It was a big turn-on for both of them when he talked this way, about ownership and control. Over and over she’d ask for stories—what did he know about the female slaves he’d seen and what did it feel like to touch a brand on a woman’s thigh?
Minarra was far from a slave herself, though. She enjoyed teasing him, especially if it made him want her all the more. What Minarra didn’t understand was how the minds of other men worked. More than one of the workers saw her confidence, her blossoming sexuality. The new attention she was getting seemed innocent enough to her, but Mac knew better. Especially when it had come to Kalid. On more than one occasion he’d seen the man watching her across the dining tent, his dark eyes hungrily studying her in her shorts and tank tops, the way her body naturally moved, so spunky and sensual, so deliciously female. Her moves and her bright smiles had been for him, but Kalid had thought he could cash in.
He’d thought wrong.
Mac’d had a little man-to-man talk with him late one night, behind the latrine. With a few simple words, the man’s back pushed against the wooden wall, Mac had made his case clear.
If he ever got wind of Kalid so much as looking at her funny again, he’d cut his balls off and feed them to the camels. Kalid was a muscular man, but he’d had no stomach to fight the American. Instead he’d gone straight to Roger and told him that Mac was screwing his daughter. The irony was that Kalid hadn’t even known this for a fact—he’d been merely trying to hurt Mac with a lie.
Roger had looked into the matter, quickly realizing he’d had his head in the sand about a lot of things. Calling Mac into his tent the next night, he’d dropped the bomb.
“My daughter will ne
ver marry anyone like us. I won’t allow it. You can either leave now, quietly, or I will have you removed.”
Mac hadn’t bothered telling Roger that he hadn’t even thought of marrying Minarra. Under the circumstances, that would only have added insult to injury. “I’ll go,” he’d said, adding, “Roger, I’m sorry, I never meant to hurt anyone.”
Roger had gone back to his book, his gaunt face eerily lit by the lantern hanging from the center pole. It had been a clear message that the meeting was at an end.
The next morning, loaded down with supplies, he had made his getaway, his feet as heavy as lead, his soul as empty as the desert stretched out before him.
~~~~~
The bronze-skinned Komen-tah had chained her naked, arms stretched between two columns. Stripped nude, his amber-green eyes glowing like Egyptian jewels, his smile like an asp, quick and deadly, he approached her, a long, black, braided whip in his hands. Minarra struggled, but she was no match for the chains.
The golden throne room was full of laughing slave girls, in scraps of sequined silk, reclining on plush red cushions. They wore anklets of steel and collars around their necks.
“Prophesy to me, my Minar-ra,” proclaimed Komen-tah. His head was shaved bald this time, save for a long ponytail of braided, raven’s wing hair. He wore a necklace of gold, set with splendid gems, many of them colors and varieties she had never seen before. She had the distinct sense they served some purpose, almost like controls to an unseen mechanism. His face was painted this time, with razor thin black lines on the side of each eye and red tear drops on each cheek.
“Stay away from me,” she cried.
“Minar-ra,” he soothed, touching her chin, once again using the Shera-Sa pronunciation of her name. “My lovely priestess. Why will you not worship me?”
So this was it. This last prince of Shera-Sa was mad. He thought himself to be the creator of the universe, not a mere kingly god, but god above all gods. Did this have something to do with the city’s destruction?
Prisoner of Shera-Sa Page 3