by Cindy Dees
“You made a sound of…I don’t know—pain, maybe.”
She squeezed her eyes shut, praying that the sunburn overtaking her fair skin would hide the hot blush she felt exploding across her face. That was not a groan of pain he’d heard. It was a sound of pure, sexual frustration. And there was not a chance in hell she was going to admit that to him.
She replied as casually as she could, “I’m fine. How about you? You didn’t get any more rest last night than I did, and I’m afraid I haven’t been much help today in finding our way.”
He shrugged. “No problem. I’m good at navigating.”
His voice sounded oddly strangled as he said that. He must miss his life as a sailor. No surprise, then, that he changed subjects abruptly. “Tell me more about your people.”
Not a topic she was fond of. “There’s not much to tell. We’re pretty typical of folks everywhere. We raise our families, do our best to have enough food and money to take care of our needs, try to find a little happiness along the way. What of you? Tell me about your travels.”
He muffled what sounded like a choking sound. Wow. The business of his shipwreck and subsequent slavery must really be upsetting to him.
To distract him, she asked, “How did you come to be in the…employ…of Queen Artemesia?”
“My ship wrecked in her domain, stranding me upon her shores. Her soldiers arrested me, declared me a Greek spy and nearly beheaded me before I was able to talk them out of the idea. After that, it seemed prudent to attach myself directly to the queen to avoid a repeat performance of my near death, and she made me her slave. Artemesia is deeply suspicious of men of noble rank. She fears that one will attempt to steal her kingdom—or worse, force her to marry him so he can steal her kingdom and enslave her.”
Tessa grinned at that. “I knew from the moment I met her that she was a smart woman.”
Rustam glanced at her with interest. “Women are as independent as she is where you come from, then?”
“More so.”
He made a face. “In my home, a woman wouldn’t dare to imagine ruling a clan, let alone a nation. No woman has ever attempted it. No man would follow her.”
“These Persian men are pretty chauvinistic, but Artemesia seems to do all right being a queen among them.”
“She has to be a lot smarter, a lot tougher and a lot more manipulative than a man to hold her crown. Why, she even uses sex to further her ends.”
Tessa laughed. “You sound offended by that. If men are willing to let her use sex as a weapon against them, why shouldn’t she?”
Rustam frowned, thinking about that. “Sex has its proper place. It’s up to men to keep it there.”
The question popped out before she could stop it: “And exactly where is the proper place for sex?”
He shot her an amused glance that was so full of promise for later, she all but fell off of Cygna. “The proper place for sex is anywhere. Absolutely anywhere. At any time.”
A vivid image of him dragging her over into his lap aboard Polaris, peeling off her leggings and pulling her down on top of his engorged shaft burst into her mind. The horse would surge beneath them, and he would surged up into her….
“Stop that,” she snapped, realizing belatedly that he’d been projecting the image into her mind. “That’s not fighting fair.”
The image faded from her thoughts, but not the lingering sexual irritation vibrating throughout her.
Rustam commented mildly, “Who ever said I fight fair? I fight to win, my dear.”
And darned if she wasn’t half hoping he did win, tonight. Was there actually such a thing as sex so fantastic she would beg for more?
Rustam chuckled beside her, as if he’d picked the thought out of her head. “What?” she asked him a tad crankily.
“I’ve already won, Tessa. Stop fretting about it and enjoy your defeat.”
“Arrogant man.”
He smiled unrepentantly. “And yet you want me, anyway.”
She resorted to rolling her eyes because to disagree with him would be a bold-faced lie, and he would hear it in her voice.
There was no sense feeding his ego until his head exploded from it.
By the time the last streaks of sunset faded in the west and the sky began to turn dark blue overhead, she felt as if she were going to explode.
Rustam declared that they’d made good time today, and that the horses really did need a solid night’s rest. He stopped in a narrow sandstone gully that held them close in its embrace.
She unsaddled and groomed Cygna, carefully checking the horse’s feet for stones and bruises before turning her loose to graze beside Polaris. As tall as the mare was, she was dwarfed by the mighty stallion.
When she approached, Polaris struck lightning fast, teeth bared, and bit the mare on the neck, then used his weight to shove her closer to the spring trickling down the stone wall behind him.
Tessa lurched forward to defend her mount, but Rustam’s calm voice stopped her.
“He won’t hurt her. He’s just reminding her who’s in charge.”
Would Rustam do that with her? Dominate her without hurting her, to remind her that he was in charge?
The man maddeningly gave no hint of his plans but went about the business of laying a small fire with deadwood he pulled from the stand of olive trees clustered around the spring.
Meanwhile, Tessa spread out their bedrolls on opposite sides of the fire. She caught the glint of humor in his eyes at the arrangement, but he said nothing.
She dug in her packs for hard bread and dried meat and fruit.
“Save that,” Rustam told her. “I’ve got a barley stew mix we can cook. And since we can have a fire tonight, we should use it. We’ll need those dry provisions later when we cannot build fires.”
She did as he suggested, commenting, “You can cook, too? You’re a man of many talents.”
His glance suggested that she had yet to plumb the depths of his talents, and her pulse took off, racing erratically.
While the stew cooked, he inspected the horses, running his hands slowly over them. Both animals seemed more animated and at ease when he’d finished. It crossed Tessa’s mind to wonder if he was healing them, somehow.
It was odd the way she just accepted his gifts. She’d met some powerful psychics at Project Anasazi, but Rustam’s talent was off the charts. She would love to take him back to Arizona when it was time to go home, to let Athena study him. She would bet the professor would be thrilled to meet someone of his ability.
He came back to the fire as the pot was beginning to bubble. He stirred some salt from a small leather pouch into the stew, and they sat in silence while it finished cooking. Twilight washed away the vivid streaks of color from the rocks around them, fading them to muted gray.
When the tantalizing smell of the stew had her stomach growling, Rustam finally ladled up a steaming bowl for her. She gazed down at bits of vegetables and meat in a surprisingly thick broth. It tasted great, but then hunger was, indeed, the best seasoning. The first bowl made her feel human again. The second made her feel like a new person.
Out of the blue, Rustam said, “How about a warm bath?”
She exclaimed, “Are you serious?”
“The spring trickles into a stone basin over there, then overflows to form the stream. The basin is big enough to hold a person, but shallow enough to warm up considerably during the day. The horses have had their share, and I’ve already filled our water skins for tomorrow. Go take a bath in the basin. It should have cooled off to a comfortable temperature by now.”
He didn’t need to invite her twice.
She headed for the sound of running water and spotted the knee-deep natural basin easily. Steam was beginning to rise from it as the evening air began to cool. A faint sulfur smell arose, but who was going to be picky about that? It was a bath! It was deep enough that if she sat down in it, she would be up to her waist in water, which was more than adequate for a lovely soak.
She stepped into t
he shadows beneath the nearest tree and turned her back to Rustam before she stripped. Then she stuck a toe into the water, sighing in delight. It wasn’t scalding, but it was plenty warm enough to soothe away the day’s aches and pains.
She waded in, sighing as the steaming water embraced her foot, then her calf. She sat down, groaning in nearly orgasmic pleasure as the water went to work on her aches and pains.
Rustam’s voice came out of the very shadows where she’d just shed her clothes, and she started violently, throwing her arms across her breasts. “I love it when you make that sound.”
Good Lord. She hadn’t heard him move, let alone seen his bulky approach. Man, he was quiet! She peered into the darkness, barely able to make out his broad shoulders.
But then he stepped forward into a shaft of faint starlight, dangling a small cloth bag from his finger. “Soap?”
“You are a prince among men.”
He laughed quietly. “You have no idea.”
As he retreated back into the shadows, she tipped out the bar of soap , which was scented with rosemary and something sweet and floral, maybe orange blossoms. It was heavenly. She leaned back, wetting her hair. She rubbed the soap vigorously between her hands and then worked the lather into her locks. She smoothed it over her skin, savoring its slippery glide.
“Rinse?”
She jumped again. Jeez. He was right behind her. “Uh, sure.” This time she stopped herself from covering her breasts. It was a brazen invitation, but they were both adults.
He held a large cloth in his hand. She watched over her shoulder as he cleverly fashioned it into a rough bucket. He scooped up water and murmured, “Lean your head back and close your eyes.”
She obeyed, and he poured a torrent of warm water over her.
“Again, please,” she murmured.
There was something incredibly sensual about bathing in front of him like this. The water danced over her skin like a thousand shimmering diamonds, its warmth and glide erotic. She threw her head back, and cool air wafted across her breasts. And somehow, all was as it should be. Rustam was her man, and she was his woman.
Except they hadn’t established either of those assumptions as fact, and she shouldn’t get involved with him at all. She was only going to be here as long as it took her to recover the Karanovo medallion fragment, and then she was going home. To a home so far away he couldn’t possibly go with her. And she was not crazy about the idea of staying in this time and place for the rest of her life.
But then a wave of soothing emotion washed over her. Apparently, he’d sensed her disquiet and had taken steps to calm her.
“I won’t hurt you,” he murmured.
Perhaps he mistook her apprehension for fear of him. She corrected quickly, “It never crossed my mind to worry that you would.”
He continued to pour water over her until her hair squeaked cleanly between her fingers. Then she stood up and he slowly rinsed her entire body with a warm cascade that did nothing to cool the ardor brimming within her. She turned around to face him so he could rinse her front. And she risked opening her eyes to peek at him.
She’d expected lust in his gaze. But she was staggered to see something else entirely.
Reverence. Awe, even.
She was a decent-looking woman, but Venus de Milo she was not. Certainly, after the legions of gorgeous women she’d seen for herself at the Persian court, he was immune to feminine beauty.
She muttered, “Hey, I’m not that attractive.”
Almost absently, he replied, “You do not see what I see. Your spirit. It’s a light that dances across your skin like all the stars in the heavens. You…dazzle me. I have never seen another woman like you in all my travels. Not among my people, not among yours—” He broke off abruptly.
She glanced down at herself and saw only pale skin starting to form goose bumps as the air cooled her wet body.
She frowned. “I wish I could see what you see.”
“Maybe you can,” he murmured, sounding almost surprised at his own words. He took a step closer. “Later. After…”
Her breath caught.
He raised his hands, unfolding a length of white cloth. She stood quietly as he dried her off with the linen. The not-quite-smooth feel of it sliding across her skin wasn’t sexual in any way, nor was how he lightly toweled her hair dry.
But the very fact that he was tending to her bath was so unbearably erotic she could hardly walk when he murmured that she should return to the fire to warm up.
She was stunned when he didn’t go with her. But a moment later she heard the faint splash of water and glimpsed his big body, shrouded in shadows, sliding into the pool.
“Do you need me to scrub your back?” she called out quietly.
“No. You warm yourself. Relax.”
Relax? He was kidding, right? She was strung so tight she could hardly sit still.
His bath was quick. Either he didn’t need to soak his muscles, or he was more impatient to bed her than he’d let on. He towel-dried his shoulder-length hair into a silky, damp mane. Then he wrapped the towel around his hips and strolled over to the fire. He didn’t seem the least bit affected by the chill descending with the night.
The firelight turned his skin to liquid bronze, flowing over muscles a sculptor could not have fashioned more perfectly. Not an ounce of fat marred the rippling contours of his abs or the sculpted definition of his thigh muscles. That towel, hanging low on his hips, was positively tantalizing.
“I knew you were a hunk,” she breathed as he drew near, “but wow. No wonder Artemesia hoarded you all to herself.”
“She never controlled me. I have always chosen when and with whom I lie.”
Tessa forced her greedy gaze upward to meet his eyes. “And do you choose to lie with me?”
“No, I do not.” Her jaw went slack with shock, but he continued quickly. “I do not choose merely to lie with you, Tessa of Marconi. I choose to make you my lover.”
“The two are different?” she managed to mumble.
“Entirely. In the first place, I have not taken a lover since I became stranded here. I have bedded women but that is all. Even back in my home, I’ve never chosen a consort.”
A consort? He was some sort of noble among his own people, then? No surprise. He had natural-born leader stamped all over him.
“I’m honored,” she murmured formally. “Should I be worried about any assumed commitments or responsibilities that come with this status as your lover-consort?”
He laughed quietly. “Being my consort is not as miserable as all that. And there is the considerable side benefit of us being permitted to have sex with one another whenever and wherever we want. Did I mention I want you so badly right now that I can hardly stand?”
She blinked rapidly, startled, then rallied enough to quip, “Frankly, you strike me as the kind of man who just throws a woman over his shoulder and has his way with her, not the sort who stands around talking about it.”
His finely shaped black eyebrows arched in amusement. “Are you impugning my manhood, madam?”
“Well, I don’t know. I don’t have much to judge it by, yet.”
“Have my kisses left you cold, then? I seem to recall them differently.”
She said lightly, “My recollection of our last one is rather vague and distant. Perhaps you should refresh my memory.”
He grinned broadly. “Forward female. Most men in my land would beat that out of you. But I prefer to tame my women by other means.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’m beginning to think you’re all talk and no action.”
He laughed then, his rich baritone rolling up into the mountains around them, as much a part of the night as the stars overhead. No wonder the locals thought this man was a sorcerer or even a rumored god in their midst. He was larger than life. A force of nature.
All of a sudden, he was standing directly in front of her, though she hadn’t seen him move. “I believe, madam, that you have failed to retur
n the towel you borrowed from me.”
Slowly, she reached for the end, where it was tucked in over her left breast. He folded his arms and watched her uncover herself, his eyes snapping now with unmistakable lust. She tugged the cloth free and unwrapped it slowly from around her.
And then it fell away. The firelight leaped, shining upon her bare skin, lending its faint golden hue to her flesh. How long she stood there, naked before him as he drank in the sight of her, she didn’t know. Long enough for her initial shyness to give way to intense awareness of the eroticism of the moment.
If she’d expected Rustam to step forward, sweep her into his arms and kiss her into a sexual frenzy, she was surprised when he did none of those things. Instead, he reached out with both palms, holding them several inches away from her skin. He passed them all over her body, never touching her, just moving his hands alongside her flesh.
If she’d been a native of this time period, she would have sworn he was weaving some sort of magic spell upon her. As it was, she gradually became aware of a shift in the natural energy field around her.
And then she noticed something else. Her entire body felt intensely alive, each and every cell registering and reporting sensations to her brain. How was it that every square inch of her was completely energized and awake like this? It was an extraordinary feeling.
Just when she feared her skin might not be able to contain all of the tingling life energy flowing through her for another second, Rustam murmured, “There. Now you are ready to make love with me.”
“What did you just do?”
“I aligned our energy fields. Now we’re operating on the same frequency.” He added lightly, “And while I was at it, I raised your sensitivity level somewhat. I like my women responsive.”
“You make me sound like a horse.”
He grinned. “What’s wrong with that? I happen to like horses a great deal.”
“Particularly riding them?” she asked wryly.
His voice dropped until it was barely louder than a whisper. “I will not ride you. I will fly with you.”
And then he was on his knees before her, startling her with the quick fluidity of the move. He touched her, his big hands sliding around her waist to pull her belly to his mouth. The kiss burned like fire and she cried out with the intensity of the sensation of his lips against her skin.