"I'm less interested in morality than in the fact that she is very vulnerable now," Laura said tartly. "Meera has been separated from the only life she's ever known, and she faces an uncertain future. Though she's bearing up remarkably well, the last thing she needs is to have a man take advantage of her loneliness and confusion."
Ian sobered. "As I did with you after your father's death?"
Laura raised her head and regarded him with cool cat eyes. "The circumstances are nothing alike." Resuming her brushing, she said, "No doubt Zafir's honor is impeccable where his own womenfolk are concerned, but Meera is a different matter. I don't want to see her hurt again. In particular, a pregnancy would make her life much more difficult."
Ian gave serious thought to her concern. "I really can t predict what Zafir might do. You're right that in Pathan terms Meera is fair game, but I've never known Zafir to be callous or cruel to a woman." An alarming thought occurred to him. "I sincerely hope that you're not going to ask me to talk to him about reining in his manly lusts."
She smiled a little. "I can see where that wouldn't be appropriate, but I might have a word with Meera. Fortunately, the opportunities for seduction are limited the way we've been traveling."
"Very true." Ian did his best to keep regret from his voice.
Laura gave him a slanting glance, then slid under her quilt. "Good night."
More slowly. Ian did the same. He had been wise to avoid being alone with Laura over the past week. A mere half hour in her company was almost enough to convince him that this was the perfect time to try to woo her into his bed.
But that was desire speaking, not logic; his mind still said it was too soon. When the time came to try to change her mind, he wanted to do it with champagne and roses in Bombay, not on a narrow cot in a mud-brick cubicle.
It wasn't easy to relax when his delicious wife was just a few feet away. If he had any sense at all, he would go outside and sleep in the tamarind grove in spite of the rain. Sense, however, was something he conspicuously lacked at the moment.
* * *
After the intoxication of Ian's embrace, Laura had not thought she would fall asleep, for her whole body pulsed with the longing to be closer to him. She wanted so much to sleep in his arms that she seriously considered joining him in his charpoy, but caution prevailed. She didn't think he'd welcome an invasion of his bed as much as he had welcomed her kiss. Having him kick her out, even politely, would be unbearable.
But after a long day's travel, sleep would not be denied. Soon she drifted off, though her dreams were not peaceful ones.
In her imagination she and Ian continued to kiss and her
clothing mysteriously dissolved under his caressing hands. Together, still kissing, they fell gracefully to the bed, like drifting leaves.
His robe had also magically evaporated and his warm, hard flesh was pressed against her. Something was going to happen, was happening, only she didn't quite understand what....
A shattering crash jolted Laura into wakefulness. The air was close and pitch black, and for a moment she had no idea where she was. Memory returned when she heard Ian mutter a string of muffled oaths. Hearing a note in his voice that frightened her, she scrambled out of bed and crossed the narrow space that separated them. "Ian, what's wrong?"
Misjudging the distance in the darkness, she stumbled against his charpoy and half-fell onto it. As she sprawled across Ian, his arms came around her, hard. His body was rigid with tension, and she felt the pounding of his heart against her breasts. Laura shifted to a more comfortable position so that they lay face to face on their sides.
After pulling the quilt up, she put her arms around him, holding him so that this breath warmed her throat and shoulder. "What's wrong?" she asked again.
"Nothing really. It's just... just the damned, suffocating darkness," he said in a frayed voice. "Sorry I disturbed you. That crash was the lamp breaking. I forgot to check the wick before going to bed and it burned out. I woke up when the light went out. Then I knocked the lamp to the floor while trying to find the matches on the table. Stupid clumsiness on my part."
For someone who hated the dark, this windowless room must be a nightmare, for it was black and close as a cavern. With the night sky covered with rain clouds, there were not even cracks of dim light around the doors. "Easy to make a mistake in such darkness," she murmured. "Is there another lamp in the room?"
"There's one in my baggage. In a minute I'll get up and look for it." He made a palpable effort to regain control of himself. "My mind knows I have nothing to fear from what is only a lightless bedchamber, but my insides are churning like a desert sandstorm."
"Yet the storm has not overpowered your reason."
"Not quite." His embrace eased and he ran his hand down her back, as if reassuring himself of her presence. "It helps having you here. It helps a great deal."
"I'm glad." Hoping that talking might relieve his distress, she asked, "Was the Black Well entirely without light? I've wondered how Uncle Pyotr could see to write in his journal."
"The Well was a pit twenty feet deep, with no windows and a hatch over the top," Ian explained. "For the first year or so, the hatch was an iron grid that let in a little daylight from the room above, which had a small window. It wasn't much, but eyes become incredibly sensitive to any light that's available. It was enough for Pyotr Andreyovich to read and write in his Bible, and for us to keep to the natural cycle of day and night."
He was still trembling, but less so than he had been at first. "You said that for the first year there was a grid," Laura said. "Did something happen later?"
"Not long after Pyotr's execution the hatch was changed to a solid slab of wood. After that, the only light I ever saw was when food was lowered down."
"I can't imagine what it is like to live in constant darkness," she said softly. "Tell me about it."
He gave a bitter laugh. "Why would you possibly want to know a thing like that?''
She brushed a light kiss on his cheek. "To understand you better, doushenka. To know why your paw is sore."
"You're a glutton for punishment, Larishka," he said wearily. "If you really want to know, living in endless night is a special kind of hell that completely severs all connection with reality. Without light, there is nothing."
"Like Genesis, where it says 'The earth was without form and void, and darkness was upon the face of the deep'?"
"Very like that. I now understand why God decided to create a world to fill all that empty space," Ian said with a shadow of humor. "Time was distorted until it vanished. It was impossible to know whether minutes, hours, or days had passed. The result was a form of madness, a disintegration of mind and spirit that words can't describe. Even filth, cold, and hunger hardly seemed to exist."
There was a long pause before he said painfully, "Sometimes I fell apart and cried for hours."
Laura knew intuitively that he could never have admitted such a thing in the light, but the darkness created a profound heart-to-heart intimacy that made his bleak honesty possible. "If Pyotr had still been with you," she asked, "would it have been easier to maintain your emotional balance?"
"I would have managed much better. God knows I was already in poor shape when Pyotr died. With him gone, the combination of isolation and darkness wreaked havoc. Later I was surprised to learn that I'd been alone only about six months. It seemed like much longer. Years."
"Given the condition you were in, how did you endure an exhausting escape across the desert that would have been difficult for a man in perfect health?"
"I had no choice," he said simply. "It was a matter of pull myself together or die. Worse, weakness would have endangered my companions by holding them back. As it was, Ross had to tie me to a horse for the first stretch. The longer I was free, the stronger I became. At least, physically. Unfortunately, the mental damage is harder to repair. At times like this, it seems impossible."
"Surely your strength and honesty and courage are more than just an i
llusion."
"Those things are an illusion," Ian said harshly. "I feel as if I'm hollow—an actor playing at being what others expect me to be. Pretending to be brave, pretending to be strong.''
His words were so at odds with how Laura saw him that at first she didn't know how to respond. At length she said hesitantly, "I'm only a feeble female, so perhaps I can't understand, but what is the difference between acting as if one has courage and really having it? You seemed brave enough yesterday when you were facing that mob."
"That sort of thing is easy. Real bravery is mastering the darkness within one's own soul." He gave a shuddering sigh. "And that I cannot do."
His stark words were wrenched from some bleak, solitary depth far beyond Laura's understanding. Sadly she accepted that she would never truly understand what Ian had endured. But she could reassure him that he was not alone now. That he need never be alone again as long as she lived. She turned her head and touched her lips to his.
He caught his breath and his body went taut. Then his hand slid around her, coming to rest, warm and wide, on the small of her back. As he pulled her pliant body against himself, her mouth opened under the pressure of his, and he teased her lips apart with his tongue.
The resulting kiss was beyond anything Laura had imagined—sweet ravishment and wildfire, both end and beginning—and she welcomed it with surprised wonder.
As she responded, he made a rough sound deep in his throat and rolled her onto her back, surrounding her with his strength. Yielding utterly, she accepted all that he gave, then returned the gift to the best of her ability.
Though dimly she recognized that such behavior might not be wise, she didn't care. Here in the intimacy of absolute darkness was freedom and safety. She could pretend this madness was not quite real. That this was a moment out of time where they could do things that would be unthinkable in the light.
And darkness had an unexpected benefit, for all her senses were sharper. She was acutely aware of the rough sounds of his breathing, the faint brushing contacts of flesh and fabric as his warm hand caressed her arm. His scent was a dusky masculine essence uniquely his, laced with accents of night rain and wood smoke. It intoxicated her. And his taste, ah, his taste, sensual beyond belief. Darkness enhanced the kiss with dimensions she would never forget.
Touch expanded into a mesmerizing universe of sensation. Body heat was tangible, a physical guide to location and closeness. As his lips moved to the sensitive flesh beneath her ear, she raised one hand and buried her fingers in the crisp waves of his hair.
Did auburn feel different from blond or brown? She didn't know, did not ever want to touch another man's hair to find out. Her fingertips glided over his jaw and corded throat, the prickle of whiskers provocative, silently etching the difference between male and female.
His linen robe had a nubby grain. Sliding her hands beneath the fabric, she skimmed across the width of his formidable shoulders, feeling the contoured hollows and the straight, strong length of his collarbones with the heels of her hands.
Enchanted, she drew her open hands down the broad expanse of his chest. Springy hair, the flex of hard muscles beneath taut skin, all a thousand times more vivid to her palms and fingertips than they would have been to her eyes. She discovered a thin ridged scar, and traced it along his ribs toward his left hip, pushing his robe back so that she could follow the arc until it ended in a hard knot.
As she brought her hand back, she touched the small tight nub of his nipple, then rolled it experimentally between her fingertips. He shuddered, then exhaled, his breath shaking. "I'm sorry," he said hoarsely. "We—I shouldn't be doing this." The charpoy rocked as he pulled away, and the thick quilt fell back. "I'll look for the other lamp."
The air was as richly opaque as black velvet. Moving heat and the compression of air signaled the passage of his arm as he lifted it over her torso. Once he left the charpoy he wouldn't return and she couldn't bear the thought. She shifted with involuntary protest, accidentally bringing her breast into the path of his hand.
When his fingers grazed the swelling curve, he paused, arrested, unable to continue his retreat, his hand rigid except for a faint tremor. Before he could bring himself to withdraw, she caught his hand and pressed his palm against her breast. Warmth burned through the thin fabric of her nightgown.
He groaned, "Laura..." as his fingers tightened.
"Don't," she whispered, knowing that words would shatter the spell. "Don't talk. And don't stop."
And before logic or doubt could intervene, she closed his mouth with a kiss.
Chapter 21
A battle between passion and restraint had been raging inside Ian, but Laura's command ended the conflict. With joy and humility, he realized that his perceptive bride must have deduced that he was now whole. Now she was willing—more than willing, eager—for them to become truly man and wife.
He was free to fully savor every wondrous aspect of Laura's sweet body and spirit. Even as a hot-blooded youth astonished by his first experience of passion, he had never been so completely bewitched. Her supple softness, her instant responses, her quick wondering breaths, were all miracles, for he had never expected to know them again. And like anything that one has thought lost forever, he valued passion all the more for having regained it.
But tonight was not only for his pleasure; he must also give his wife her first, vital lesson in the art of making love. Because his hunger was great, this first union would not be a prolonged one, so he must take special care to help Laura discover her own capacity for passion.
With leisurely skill he trailed kisses across her flawless cheek from her lips to the tender hollow beneath her jaw. Her braid was coming undone, so he completed the process and loosened her hair into a spun-silk cloud. Then he buried his face in the gossamer strands, finding a faint, sweet floral fragrance.
With his tongue, he toyed with her ear, and was rewarded with a startled exhalation of breath that tickled him with warmth. His hand still rested on her breast, so he gently squeezed it while he nibbled his way down the vibrant arc of her throat. The tightening of her nipple against his palm proved so erotic that he replaced his hand with his mouth and teased the delicious hardness with his tongue.
She pulsated against him, her hands restlessly kneading his shoulders. Her gown was so sheer that he could feel the pebbly texture of her areola through the muslin, but that was not good enough. Remembering that the garment was secured by small buttons, he located the first and began unfastening, slipping the smooth spheres from their loops one by one.
After struggling with far too many buttons, he spread open the panels of her gown, releasing a luscious essence of sultry female and slumberous warmth. A man could drown in such delight, and go to his maker with a smile on his face. Perhaps later he would, but now he must do homage to her breasts, which fitted his palms as lushly as he had imagined they would. He cupped both and molded them together, kissing the scented cleft he created.
Even though he was experiencing her in a multitude of ways, he longed to see as well as touch the woman who had miraculously become his wife. But seeing must wait for another time. Though he chafed at the darkness, now it was his ally, allowing her to respond with a lack of inhibition that she would not otherwise have known.
As he suckled her breasts, she made a choked sound and her nails dug into his back. Suddenly feverish, he slid his hand downward from her waist, following the rounded contours of stomach and hips to the firm mound between her thighs. She gasped and rubbed against his palm. Impatient with the nightgown, he caught a handful of fabric and raised the skirt, baring her lower body to the cool night air. Then he untied the sash of his own robe and tugged the garment off.
He licked the warm ivory curve of her belly. It was firm and gently yielding under his tongue, subtly different from the blossom texture of her cheek, the taut smoothness of her throat, or the voluptuous depth of her lips. Slipping his hand between her knees, he began massaging the fragile skin of her inner
thighs. Her legs opened as naturally as the petals of a flower greeting the sun, and urgent tremors pulsed through her as he caressed higher and higher.
After tracing the supple junction between abdomen and thigh, he trailed his fingertips through tangled downy hair until he could touch her intimately. She stiffened for a moment and made a raw, startled noise. But as he delicately probed into the warm, moist secret folds, her body eased again.
Ah, God, he had forgotten what joy there was in pleasuring a woman. Or perhaps he had not dared remember. With smoldering hunger, he bent forward to capture her mouth again. In the dark, he found first her cheekbone, then her welcoming lips. His fingers continued their ardent explorations, learning exactly what pressure and rhythm pleased her best, what hastened her breathing and the frantic cadence of her blood.
His deft touch was both wondrous and frightening, for it was dissolving Laura's sense of herself. She would whirl away, lost forever, if Ian were not anchoring her to the present with his taste, his strength, the pressure of his hard chest against her breasts. Her body began throbbing. She didn't understand what was happening to her, and was more than a little afraid, but she would not have stopped even if she could.
When the startling, urgent release swept through her, she twisted her mouth away from his, tasting the saltiness of his shoulder as she shuddered against his hand. In the aftermath she was so weak that she could do no more than press an exhausted kiss against his collarbone.
There was a long, still pause, and vaguely she registered the fact that he was as tense as she was limp. In one quick movement he raised himself and moved between her legs, his hand still on her, stroking, separating, triggering new shocks of sensation. His fingers glided through heated moistness until they penetrated a place for which she had no name.
She did not know, she truly did not understand, even when his searching fingers were replaced by a hotter, harder pressure. At first she thought only that he was caressing her in a different way. Then her mind snapped into wakefulness, stunned and disbelieving. No, it wasn't possible. He couldn't...