The taller of the two bowed to Damon. “All is well, Bardono?”
“All is well.” Damon’s hand tightened on Cory’s arm. “Cory, these gentlemen are Abdul and Hassan. You’ll be seeing them frequently.”
“Bodyguards,” she said tersely. “Considering what an arrogant bastard you are, I’d say you probably need them. You must manage to antagonize everyone you meet.”
A stunned expression appeared on Abdul’s face before he took a threatening step forward.
“Bardono, disrespect …”
Damon lifted his hand and said quietly, “It is permitted. The woman is mine.”
“Bull,” Cory said succinctly.
Abdul looked uncertainly at Damon before he stepped back again. “If it is your wish.” He glared at Cory. “But it is disrespect.”
The smaller guard Damon had introduced as Hassan said quickly, “The pilot is ready to take off at your word, Bardono.”
“Then give the word.” Damon urged Cory up the steps. “And once we’re airborne, I don’t wish to be disturbed until I summon you.”
Hassan bowed.
“I can’t believe this,” Cory muttered as she entered the passenger compartment. “No wonder you’re so impossible, with all that fawning over you. I don’t remember you being surrounded by bodyguards before.”
“They were there. I just made sure they made themselves unobtrusive.” He propelled her down the lushly carpeted aisle toward two black velvet upholstered executive chairs in the rear of the plane. “You were already wary of me as it was. I was too wild for you, my culture too different. Do you think I couldn’t see that? So Hassan and Abdul stayed very much in the background.”
She had been wary of him but she hadn’t realized he had been conscious of her reservations. “A man who needs bodyguards obviously isn’t the most desirable of companions.”
“I don’t need them but it’s the custom for the sheikh of the El Zabor to be under protection at all times.” He shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, so I let my chieftains have their way.”
The engines of the jet began to rev and Cory felt a sudden flutter of panic. She cast a wild glance at Damon and found his gaze on her face as if he had been expecting her reaction. “It’s not too late. You can get off the plane. Your choice.”
“Without Michael.”
He nodded. “It’s my turn, Cory.”
She swallowed and glanced away. She quickly undid the belt of her trench coat and slipped it off. “The hell it is.” She slung her coat on the glass coffee table in front of the chairs. “I’m going to Kasmara.” She dropped onto the window seat and began to fasten her seat belt. “And I’m going to make you sorry every minute I’m there.”
For a moment relief conflicted with a strange sadness in his expression. “I imagine we’ll both have enough cause for regret before this is over. I’m going to the cockpit, but I’ll be back once we’re airborne.”
“Stay as long as you like. You won’t be missed.”
“I know.” He smiled crookedly. “You haven’t missed me for the last four years. Why should this be any different?” He strode down the aisle toward the cockpit without giving her a chance to reply.
He was wrong. She had missed him at first, before time had managed to reinforce the barriers she had locked in place to keep the memory of him at bay. She would wake in the middle of the night, her body throbbing, needing him with a hunger that was as fierce as it was mindless. She imagined his face above her, intense and sensual. She had been able almost to feel his hands on her flesh.
She drew a deep quivering breath and turned her head to gaze blindly out the window. She wouldn’t think about the period of madness they’d shared. It was gone. She had known at the time that Damon was wrong for her and she’d never be able to tolerate a man so dominating, so demanding.
She had accepted him into her bed because she hadn’t been able to resist the strength of the sexual attraction whirling them both away, but she had protected herself from any deeper involvement. Just as she would protect herself again now that he had come back into her life.
“It will be a long flight.”
She stiffened as her gaze flew to Damon standing in the aisle with a folded red blanket in his hands. They were airborne. She hadn’t realized so much time had passed. “How long?”
“We’ll be landing in Marasef tomorrow morning and change to a helicopter to take us to Kasmara.” He sat down beside her and spread the blanket over both of them. “We’ll arrive there before sundown.”
She started to push the blanket aside. “I don’t need this. I’m not cold.”
“You’ll need it.” Damon pulled the blanket up around her shoulders. “Kiran.”
Her eyes widened in surprise.
He smiled crookedly. “Did you forget? I assure you I didn’t. We’re en route to Kasmara, Cory, and that means our agreement is in full force.” His voice thickened. “I want to touch you.”
Her gaze flew to the guards sitting in the front of the plane. Her lungs seemed suddenly robbed of air. “Here?”
“When did we ever require a conventional setting? The blanket is only to make you feel more secure. Abdul and Hassan won’t disturb us by so much as a glance.” He paused. “Unbutton your blouse.”
“No I—” She met his gaze and stopped, held by the sheer force of his will.
“Do it,” he said softly. “Kiran.”
Her hands moved slowly to the buttons on the front of her blouse. She was trembling, she realized, but there was no chill, only heat. Every shivering breath she drew seared through her as if she were inhaling fire.
“Are they unbuttoned?”
“Yes.”
“And now the bra. I remember those pretty lacy cups and how they framed your breasts. You always wore bras that fastened in front. Do you still?”
She nodded jerkily.
“Then get rid of it and the blouse too.”
“Damon, this isn’t …” She met his gaze and almost instinctively her hands moved to do as he commanded.
The bra and the blouse fluttered to the floor.
“Now the rest of your clothes.”
Her hands moved with dreamlike slowness beneath the blanket, conscious only of tingling heat and Damon’s gaze fixed intently on her face. Then it was done and she leaned back in the chair, the plushness of the material soft and furlike on her bare flesh.
Damon wan’t touching her, but the furnacelike heat of his body enveloped her beneath the blanket. She could feel her body respond helplessly to the knowledge that she was sitting naked, in compliance with his wishes. “I don’t like this, Damon.”
“Yes, you do.” He smiled down at her. “This isn’t too different from other fantasies we’ve acted out in the past.”
“But this is real.”
“And so you’re finding it even more exciting. I may not know your mind, but I do know your body, Cory. You’re sitting there waiting for me to touch you, every muscle tense and tingling. Your breasts are swelling and you want me.”
“You don’t know that. You can’t see …” She moistened her lips with her tongue. “It’s your imagination.”
“No, it’s your imagination. You have such a splendid imagination, Cory. You’re imagining how it’s going to feel to have my hands on you again; you’re visualizing what I’m going to do to you.”
He was right, she realized. Her mind was a tumult of pictures, memories, and anticipations melting together in a wild stream.
“But it’s not going to happen yet.” He settled back in his chair. “We’re just going to sit here for a while. I’m not going to touch you. Not even with one finger. You won’t know when or how the first touch will come.”
He wanted her. She could see that the muscles of his shoulders were tense and rigid and his voice was hoarse. Yet, if he said he would wait, he would wait. His control had often astounded her. “Is that part of my punishment?”
“If it is, then I’m punishing myself too.” A muscle jumped
in his cheek. “It’s torture.”
But he wouldn’t break until he was ready. She tried to relax, but it was impossible. She sat there, waiting. The plush velvet caressing her skin, Damon’s gaze on her face, her heart pounding so hard she thought it would jump from her breast.
The first touch came fifteen minutes later. Damon’s fingertips lightly grazed her left breast. She gasped, her muscles convulsed. After the minutes of tension it was like an electric shock. Her gaze flew to his face.
His green eyes were glittering as his warm palm slowly cupped her breast. “Do you know how many times in the last four years I’ve awakened in the night to find myself reaching out, searching for you?” His hand compressed, squeezed gently. “Thinking how the weight of you felt in my hand.” His thumbnail lightly flicked her nipple and she inhaled sharply. “How you’d harden and swell. How I’d love to make you gasp as you did just now. Did you think about that too?” He smiled crookedly. “No, I guess not. But you’re thinking now, aren’t you, Cory?”
She could think of nothing else as his hands roamed over her body. Exploring, playing, toying, stroking until she thought she’d go up in flames. Her teeth bit into her lower lip to keep back the moan that trembled in her throat.
“No, don’t make a sound.” Damon’s eyes were blazing down at her, his nostrils flaring. “I don’t want anyone to hear the little cries you make when I’m loving you. They’re mine, just as you’re mine.”
“No, I’m not—” She broke off as his hands clasped her breasts. Heat. Shock. Hunger.
“You are mine. Always.” His voice held an intensity that shocked her. “You were mine then and you’re mine now.”
She fought her way through the field of sensuality he was spinning around her. “It’s not true. I’ll never be what you want me to be.”
“You don’t even know what I want you to be,” he said roughly. “You weren’t interested enough to ask.”
“This is what you want me to be,” she cried. “Your damn kiran. That’s what you always wanted.”
“That’s not what I wanted then. I wanted—” He broke off and was silent, his chest moving harshly with the force of his breathing. “I wanted many things in addition to this.”
“But sex is what you took.”
“Sex is what you gave,” he said fiercely. “I didn’t take then and I’m not taking now.”
“How can you say that?” she asked incredulously.
“Perhaps I’m forcing you into a certain position, but you’re responding.” He frowned moodily. “Your body doesn’t lie.”
She drew a shaky breath. “I’m a normal woman with needs you’re capable of arousing. But that’s all, Damon.”
She saw the pain in his eyes. “Then that will have to be enough, won’t it?”
She turned her head to look out the window. “May I put my clothes on now?”
He was silent a moment, and when he spoke his tone held a note of mockery. “I think not.” His hand moved beneath the red blanket, one finger trailing slowly down her body to rest between her thighs. He smiled as he felt the muscles of her stomach clench and the trembling start again. “Perhaps in a few hours. I believe we’ll leave the actual consummation until we reach Kasmara.” He found what he was searching for and heard Cory gasp as the pad of his fingertip pressed and then began to slowly rotate. “But, as I said, it’s a long flight and a man must have some distraction.”
Cory was asleep.
Damon gazed down at her and a wave of unbearable loneliness swept through him. She had gone away from him again, left him isolated and alone. He had forgotten those moments when he had watched her sleep, knowing she was no longer his, that he could hold her for only fleet moments before she once more closed him out. Even in sleep she had done it. Instead of cuddling close to him, she had always turned away, curling up in a ball in her own space, instinctively rejecting him. She was doing the same thing now, huddling against the wall of the plane, her head leaning against the window. He wanted to reach out and touch her, bring her back to him.
Why not? Things were different this time. He didn’t have to worry about her leaving him; he didn’t have to worry about rejection.
But he didn’t wake her.
Because things weren’t different.
He didn’t wake her for the same reason he hadn’t done it all those many times in the past. Because a bewildering river of emotion was storming through him now just as it had then. And its driving current was … tenderness.
THREE
“THIS IS SELIM Abol, Cory. He’s my executive assistant and resident financial wizard.” Damon smiled wryly. “And also my conscience.”
“I don’t know how he’s doing with the rest of his tasks, but he could do a hell of a lot better on the conscience bit,” Cory said as she passed Selim without a glance and started down the hall. “Where are the slaves kept in this Taj Mahal?”
“Cory”—there was an edge to Damon’s voice—“I forgot to add one other position Selim fills here. He’s my good friend and my kiran does not treat him with discourtesy.”
“Kiran.” There was shock in Selim’s soft murmur. “Oh, Lord …”
Cory whirled to face him. “I suppose you have a kiran stashed away somewhere too? It seems to be the male prerogative in this blasted stronghold of male chauvinism.” She would have gone on but paused as she met Selim’s gaze. There was nothing but sympathy and apprehension in the young man’s expression and her annoyance abruptly vanished. “You’re not fortunate in your friends, Selim, but I don’t suppose I should blame you for Damon’s sins.”
A sudden twinkle appeared in Selim’s eyes. “I hope not. I have quite enough of my own to worry about. I’d be weighted down like the ancient mariner if you hung Damon’s iniquities about my neck.”
Cory’s lips curved in a reluctant smile. “You’d never be able to lift your head,” she agreed as she ran her fingers wearily through her hair. Heavens, her hair felt as mussed and soiled as the rest of her. “Do you suppose you could find me a bed and a bath somewhere in the midst of all this grandeur? I don’t think I’ve slept more than a few hours in the past two days.” She shot Damon a resentful glance. “I never sleep well on planes.”
“I’ll take the responsibility for your wakefulness for the last thirty hours or so, but you’ll have to blame Koenig for the night before.” There was violence beneath the silkiness in Damon’s voice. “He must have been very … demanding.”
“Oh, he was,” she said sweetly. “Gary is always demanding.”
Anger flared in Damon’s eyes as he took an impulsive step forward. “Then it’s lucky—”
Selim stepped between them. “I think we’ll put you in the jade suite,” he said quickly. He took Cory’s arm and gave her a gentle push down the corridor. “I think you’ll find it interesting. It has a colorful history and was first occupied by Ralane, the favorite kadin of Damon’s great-grandfather.”
“Can it be suitable then for a lowly kiran?”
Selim’s pace quickened. “I’ll send Liande to draw your bath before you take your nap.”
“For a few hours,” Damon said curtly. “I want her in my suite for dinner at nine.”
Cory shrugged. “If I wake up.”
“If you don’t, it will be my pleasure to wake you,” Damon said mockingly. “And your pleasure too.”
The hot color flooded her cheeks. “It won’t be my—”
“Later.” Selim’s grip tightened on her arm as he almost pushed her down the hall. “Conversation can wait until you’re less tired.” As they rounded a corner Selim muttered, “And your thinking’s a hell of a lot clearer.”
“Do we have to run?” Cory asked.
Selim’s pace slowed. “I thought it wise. Damon was about to explode and you were busy lighting new fuses with every word.”
“He’s arrogant.”
“Yes.”
“And domineering.”
“Yes.”
“And unprincipled.”
/> “No.” Selim shook his head. “His code may be different from yours, but he has stronger principles than anyone I know.” He paused. “And he lives by them, which isn’t always easy for a man in his position.”
“I haven’t noticed any qualms about kidnapping or—”
“Did he kidnap you?” Selim asked with mild curiosity.
“No,” Cory said grimly. “But he kidnapped my son.”
“It must have been a most unusual abduction. Michael seems as happy as the proverbial lark.”
Her gaze flew to his face. “You’ve seen Michael? How is he? Was he tired from the trip? Did he seem—”
Selim held up his hand. “He’s fine. He seemed a little tired, but that’s to be expected. He was very eager and curious about everything. He chattered all the time we were getting him and the Langstroms settled. Is he always that loquacious?”
“Always.” Cory’s face was suddenly glowing with tenderness. “Nonstop. You just have to tune him out. I remember—” She stopped as she felt the tears rise helplessly to her eyes. “I want to see him. Where is he?”
Selim hesitated. “I can’t tell you that, but I’ll save you the trouble of ransacking the palace. Neither Michael not the Langstroms are on the palace grounds.” He smiled sympathetically. “Perhaps Damon will permit you to see him soon.”
“Permit?” She swallowed. “He’s my son.”
“He’s Damon’s son too,” Selim said gravely. “And you never permitted him to see Michael. I don’t believe you know what that means to him.”
“He would have wanted to own Michael.”
“Yes, but he would have given him love too. Love without end, Cory.” He inclined his head. “May I call you Cory?”
She nodded absently. Love without end. The phrase sparked an odd aching pang deep within her. “You can’t defend what he’s done in the name of love. He didn’t even know Michael.”
“Not in the name of love,” Selim said gently. “But perhaps in the name of loneliness.”