Lost Love Found (59 page)

“She is not in the harem, however. When I obtained Naksh, I took her to the Island of a Thousand Flowers. I installed Gülfem, Hazade, and Säh there, hoping that their good example would encourage her to proper behavior. I intended to have a summer’s delight on the island.” He sighed.

“Summer is not over, my lord. Those sweet, witless little ewes of yours have not aided your cause in the least. Bring the women back to our palace, my lord. I will train this new woman to perfection, and she will soon give you the pleasure you seek. I am not surprised that she has refused to yield to you. She is from the West, is she not? You will have to court her in order to seduce her successfully, my lord.”

“How do you know she is from the West?” he demanded suspiciously.

“She must be,” the princess replied airily. “A girl born and raised in the East would know her duty toward you, my lord. Western women are different.”

“Lateefa, my dove, you are perfect in every way,” the vizier said affectionately. “And you are absolutely correct. The woman is from the West. I had forgotten that those women need very special handling. I will arrange to have the Starlight Kiosk closed for the winter, and I will bring the women back to the palace within the next few days!” He rose. “As always, you have not failed me. Indeed, you have solved a very thorny problem for me!” Then he was off, striding purposefully across his wife’s gardens.

On the following morning, Lateefa Sultan received a small casket of delicately carved ivory fitted with solid gold fittings. Within, the velvet-lined casket was filled with loose pearls, all large, all flawless. They were, said the eunuch who delivered them, a small token of her husband’s esteem. The vizier’s wife smiled, pleased with her husband’s public show of affection for her.

On the Island of a Thousand Flowers, preparations were being made for the inhabitants’ departure.

“What can there be to pack?” Valentina said wryly. “We wear no clothing.”

Her three companions giggled. They were now quite used to Naksh’s sharp tongue, and they were not surprised by her bitter mood. She would not yield to the sweetness that only their lord and master could provide for a woman. A sweetness that was necessary to a woman’s well-being and even her survival. Naksh would grow old before her time without such sweetness. Everyone knew that.

Shakir bustled about, his arms filled with filmy garments that he parceled out to Gülfem, Hazade, and Sah. “
You
,” he said to Valentina with scornful emphasis, “are to stay a day longer than the others—though why our lord would choose to be alone with such a viper of a woman is beyond my understanding.”

“Toad!” she hissed. “I will claw your ugly heart out if you speak to me again without my permission!”

Shakir shook his head despairingly. He had failed the trust that Hammid had placed in him. But perhaps, once they returned to the vizier’s palace, things would change. “Drink this!” he ordered her, handing her the goblet of fruit sherbet that Halim had brought him.

Valentina did not bother to ask what was in the cup. By now she knew that the eunuch would not poison her. She quaffed the cherry-flavored beverage, asking as she handed him the cup, “Will I sleep from this drug, or merely feel unassuagable passion?” Her voice was mocking, for she knew what they were feeding her. She had fought being influenced by their drugs as she had fought everything else.

The faintest smile touched Shakir’s lips. There were times when he wished her as mindless as the rest, particularly when she denied the master so stubbornly, for her impossible behavior reflected badly on his performance. But there were other times when her implacable will and her open intelligence intrigued and amused him. If he could only bring her willingly to the vizier’s bed, Shakir knew that his fortunes would be assured.

“You will need your rest for what is to come tonight, Naksh,” he answered. “Sleep while you can.”

Valentina opened her mouth to scald him once more with her tongue, but the sleeping draught had been strong, and she suddenly felt all the strength ebbing from her. She tumbled down into a soft darkness.

Later, looking at her lying on the silk-covered bed, Cicalazade Pasha felt his lust rising. The rich violet fabric beneath her ivory skin made her body seem even lusher than he remembered. She was sprawled on her back, her torso curved slightly, one leg bent, the other straight. One arm rested across her middle, the other flung gracefully above her head. Her hair, normally braided in a neat plait, was loose and fanned out over the silk in luxuriant dark waves. She was a sumptuous feast.

Seeing her in sleep, he seemed to be seeing her for the first time. Those wonderful breasts, so like Incili’s magnificent orbs. Those long, supple legs. Incili had had a small heart-shaped beauty mark atop the cleft of her mont, unlike anything he had ever seen. Naksh’s mont was wonderfully plump and pink, and as smooth and perfect as polished marble. There was nothing to distract from that marvelous deep cleft of hers. Tonight he would pierce the walls of that cleft and plunder the sweetness within.

He had waited patiently for three long months for her to yield to him. He had installed her on this exquisite little island, in this beautiful little kiosk. He had given her pleasant companions and excellent servants. Everything had been done to encourage her acquiescence, yet she had stubbornly resisted him.

Lateefa, of course, had given him the answer. Naksh was a woman of the West. Where the women he knew would have been thrilled by the treatment given Naksh, that treatment had encouraged her, not to docility, but to resistance. It had been, he now saw, the wrong approach.

He could not keep her on the island forever. By late autumn, with the winds sweeping down the straits from the Black Sea, the island would be uninhabitable.

He had sent the others away, and there was no one on the island except himself and Naksh. Tonight he would take her. Take her again and again, and yet again until the fight was completely gone from her. Tomorrow, when she was installed in his harem, she would be completely and unequivocally his. That she would recover quickly from this night, he had no doubt. She was strong, as Incili had been strong. She would continue to resist him later on, but that resistance would be only a sham, an attempt to keep his interest. Women were always so sweetly predictable.

Slowly, he stripped his clothes away and laid them neatly aside. Then, nude, he stretched himself in a leisurely fashion, not in the least self-conscious. He did not need a harem of adoring women to tell him he was handsome. His mirror told him that. He had his height from his Turkish mother. His fair skin and light eyes came from a Norman ancestor who had gone to live in Naples. The vizier was very hirsute: his broad chest and shoulders were matted with dark hair, his long, hard legs covered with it. Beneath his elegant, straight nose and above his large, sensual mouth was a beautifully clipped and tailored mustache. Cicalazade Pasha did not wear a beard. Indeed, it would have been a crime to hide his marvelous high cheekbones beneath a beard.

His gaze was fixed on the woman on the bed. She was beginning to stir, and he glanced about to ascertain that all was in readiness. A low table on the right side of the bed contained a crystal decanter of pale gold Cyprian wine, well laced with aphrodisiacs, and two crystal goblets. Although wine was forbidden by Islamic law, the sultan drank. That, according to the mufti, made it acceptable. Cicalazade Pasha did not, as a rule, indulge in spirits, but occasionally wine was useful.

He lowered himself onto the bed next to her, his hand stroking her perfumed flesh. She made a small sound of pleasure and stretched. Unable to resist, the vizier bent over Valentina and pressed his mouth to hers. With a deep sigh, she wrapped her arms about him and returned his kiss, her lips parting beneath his, her little tongue darting about to find and tease his. She was so meltingly sweet that when he pulled away from her a moment later, he groaned.

She stiffened, and her violet eyes flew open. “
You
! Must you invade my dreams as well as my life with your distasteful presence?” Her voice was harsh and angry.

“It was not a dream you yielded to, Naksh. It was me, and I will admit to liking you more docile,” he shot back mockingly.

“Where are the others?” she demanded, then said, “I remember. They have returned to your palace.”

“Where you will go with me tomorrow,” he said.

“Why did I not go today with Gülfem, Säh, and Hazade?” she asked boldly. “I hate this place!”

“You did not go with the others because I do not intend to introduce a wildcat into my harem to sow dissent and discord among my women. Tonight I shall tame you, Naksh. Come morning, you will be a purring cat instead of a wild one.” He watched closely the effect his words had on her.

Valentina said scornfully, “All summer, my lord vizier, you have attempted that feat, but you have failed. I have been pampered, massaged, fed exotic foods and liquids, caressed and tortured without cessation. All this has not made me yield. What else can you do?”

“I can fuck you,” he said quietly.

“What?” She was astounded by the calm response.

He smiled, pleased to have caught her off guard. “There are times,” he said, amused, “when your innocence amazes me, Naksh. It is true that I have spent the summer attempting to coax you into yielding yourself to me, and it is also true that you have stubbornly resisted me. But did you actually think that, having failed to cajole you, I would give up? No. There are some women who prefer being taken with harshness rather than gentleness. Perhaps you are one of those women. We are about to find that out, my beautiful one. Your sweet kisses of just a minute ago have quite aroused me.”

Her eyes flew to the appropriate place; he did not lie. His enormous male parts were awakened, his excitement more than evident. Valentina rolled onto her hands and knees, preparing to spring off the bed. But the vizier was ready. One hand grasped the back of her neck, forcing her head and shoulders down onto the bed, facedown. Her body was coerced into a position that arched her back while pushing her hips and bottom up into prominent display.

“Now, that, my exquisite beauty, is the perfect gesture of female submission, and it pleases me that you have been able to attain it so easily,” the vizier purred. He fondled the twin moons of her buttocks possessively.

“Let me go, you beast!” Valentina shrieked when he loosened his grip on her neck just a little. “You are vile beyond anything I have ever known, and I despise you! I cannot believe that a man of your legendary prowess would force himself on a helpless and resistant woman! You are no real man to do so!”

Cicalazade Pasha laughed, delighted. Her anger was surprisingly stimulating. He could scarcely wait to get into her, and with his free hand, he guided his huge maleness carefully to the entry of her female passage. That other sweet entry to her body, so temptingly visible to him now, he would save for another time. Tonight, he simply wanted to fuck her until she begged him to stop. Quickly releasing his hold on her neck, he grasped her hips with both hands and drove himself into her without hesitation.

Valentina screamed furiously with his successful assault, desperately trying to buck him off her. Treated more gently these last months, she had actually come to believe that he would not attack her, and her cries were more of outrage and surprise than of fear.

His fingers dug into the soft flesh of her hips, bruising her, for his grip was strong as he held her firm, pillaging her body with his great lance.

Allah! Allah! he groaned silently to himself. She was as tight as a virgin, and he almost lost control of himself in his excitement. Incili had been like this. Warm and moist, tight and inviting. A noise, something between a moan and a sob, escaped him. He began slowly to pump her, withdrawing himself to the tip of his shaft, then plunging deeply back into her softness.

The reality of what was happening had now fully communicated itself to her mind. Valentina could feel the enormous manhood actually stretching her passage. It delved deeply into her; it probed skillfully within her depths until her mind could no longer control her body, and her body answered his call, her hips pushing themselves up to meet the powerful thrust of his loins.

“Ah, yes, my beauty,” he groaned through gritted teeth. “Come onto my cock! Yes! Yes!” The fingers dug painfully into her flesh as he ground himself into her sweetness.

For the briefest moment, her mind cleared. She thought how unfair it was that her body should give this man pleasure when she did not wish to give him pleasure. Then he loosened his iron grip on her hips and, leaning forward over her back, reached around to cup her breasts with his hands. He crushed them hard within his palms. Finding her nipples, he began to pinch and pull at them, causing her to move her hips more quickly.

“That’s it, my beauty,” he whispered hotly in her ear. “I have waited months to have you like this, and you have been more than worth the wait!” He gripped her hips again and increased his tempo, carefully gauging her desire. “Tell me you want me, my adorable Naksh! Tell me you want me to fuck you!” It mattered not to him that his victory was but the result of the aphrodisiacs she was being fed daily. What mattered was that she was his at last!

“Nooo!” she sobbed, frantic to prove that she could still defeat him, but her needs were screaming within her for blissful release.

“Say to me ‘Fuck me, my lord Cica!’
Say it!
” he demanded.

“Never!” she gasped.

“Say ‘Fuck me, my lord Cica,’ or I shall withdraw from you, Naksh!” And he immediately began to make good on his threat.

“
No
! Please, no!” she begged, shamed by her words but past the point where she could stop herself.

“Say the words to me, Naksh,” he murmured in a gentler tone. “Say them, and I will give you paradise. You know that I can.”

Valentina was weeping openly now with desperate need. “F …” she sobbed. “Fuck me, my lord Cica! Oh, God! Fuck me!
Please!
”

He slammed himself into her over and over again, brutally, feeling her immediate response as her softness was racked with spasms of pleasure and her love juices drowned his manhood.