Devil's Daughter (Devil 2)

“I suggest, my lady, that you keep your tongue between your teeth. I am in no mood for your arrogance. Now, let’s get those boots off and see what you’ve managed to do to your feet.”

Arabella gritted her teeth and raised her leg. She felt tears sting her eyes as the leather scraped over her raw heel.

“You are nothing less than a fool,” Kamal said after he had pulled off her other boot. Her heels were raw and bleeding. He turned and left the tent, to return a few moments later with a basin of water and a cloth.

She cried out when he pressed the wet cloth to her heels. His lips were a thin line; otherwise, he paid her no heed. When he set her feet in the basin of water, Arabella rose off the pillows with a yelp of pain.

“Sit still,” he said, clamping his hands on her shoulders. After a moment, he rose, and again left her.

Arabella stared ahead of her, seeing nothing. This is ridiculous, she thought, trying to turn her mind from the stinging pain. Sitting here like an idiot with my feet soaking in water, with a man who would just as soon wring my neck as look at me. She tugged off the burnoose and flung it away from her.

The sight that greeted Kamal upon his return was almost comic. Tendrils of hair curled haphazardly about her face. The large uniform made her look like a girl playing grown-up. He stopped smiling when he saw the water was tinged red.

“Lie down.”

“Why?”

“What a pity,” he said, ignoring her, “that you could not find a guard with smaller feet.” He lifted her feet from the basin and pressed her backward. He sat down beside her, drawing her feet onto his lap. He daubed a healing ointment onto the raw flesh, then wrapped both her feet in clean white cloths. “There,” he said, not looking at her.

“What do you intend to do with me, Kamal?”

He raised his head and noted her pallor and the shadows of exhaustion beneath her eyes. “What you did, Arabella,” he said at last, his voice low and controlled, “was so incredibly stupid that, had I not known you, I would have laughed at the story of a woman dressed as a man traipsing alone to the harbor of Oran. Did you honestly believe that you could board a ship and simply sail to Genoa?”

She knew he was right, knew that her desperation had led her to commit an act that was sheer folly. “Did you expect me to docilely await the arrival of my father? Greet him dressed in heathen veils, and watch you condemn him for an act of which he is innocent?” She jumped to her feet, her hands fisted at her sides. “Just what do you intend now, master? Another beating to make you feel strong and powerful? I wish you had not come. What is another rape? Perhaps your brother would have been kind enough to kill me once he was though.”

Kamal felt a pulse pound in his temple. He rose to face her.

“I don’t care what you do to me.”

He seized her arms and shook her until her head snapped back. She didn’t have the strength to fight him and when he drew her against him, she laid her head against his shoulder.

He felt her flinch when his hands rubbed her back, and he cursed.

“Is Lella all right?”

“Yes, she does well. She bore a son, the image of his father.”

“Then she is happy.”

“Yes.” He pushed her away and began to unfasten her shirt.

“You plan another rape?”

His hands stilled. He cupped her chin in his palm and forced her face upward to meet his gaze. “Rape, Arabella? Have you managed to twist what happened that night between us, as you have twisted other things? As I recall, you wanted me as much as I wanted you. Do you not remember how you yielded to me, how warm your body was for me? You can pretend many things, Arabella, but not what I felt when I was inside you.”

“Stop it. I will not listen to you. It was nothing, I tell you, I only—”

He kissed her. He held her head, forcing her to accept the punishment of his mouth. He forced her lips to part and thrust his tongue into her mouth, knowing he was savaging her, bruising her. Suddenly his anger dissolved in his need for her. He eased his pressure, now seducing her with his tongue. He kissed her mouth, her closed eyes, the tip of her nose. He slipped his hand between them and let his fingers caress her belly. He felt her resistance disappear as his fingers pressed lower, probing gently at her.

“No.” She felt his palm pressing lightly against her, and she could not seem to call up a shred of resistance.

“You are moving against me, cara,” he said into her mouth. “I want to touch you, Arabella, feel you open yourself to me. I want to taste you.”

“No.” Her breath caught in her throat when his hand left her. Then he lifted her, pressing her belly against him. “Please,” she whispered, “don’t make me feel this way. Please—”

“Feel how much I want you, Arabella,” he said, molding her hips against him. “I want to be deep inside you, make you part of me, bind us together.”

He let her slide back down his body, then pressed her back against his arm. He kissed her deeply while his hand stroked over her.