Lord of Desire

When she didn't answer, his fingers tightened painfully on her arms, as if he might shake her. "Stop this, do you hear me?"

She swallowed hard, trying to control her emotions. "And now? What will become of Gervase?"

Jafar's grip only tightened further. "Enough! I forbid you to speak his name in my hearing, do you understand?"

Slowly Alysson nodded. Even Jafar's unreasonable demands could not dim the joy she was feeling at this moment. She was free, free of the dark, insidious fear that had haunted her during the past terrible weeks, free of the crushing guilt.

Through fading tears, she looked up at him without speaking. His eyes blazed with a savage fury that should have frightened her, yet strangely, that burning gaze only reassured her.

More than that, it brought back memories of a night not so long ago, a night sensual and dark with desire, when Jafar had taught her what it meant to be a woman. She had tried desperately to forget that night, to forget the wicked, erotic things he had done to her and with her, the way he'd dominated her senses and made her body shake with passion. But now her pulse, nerves, skin, heart suddenly remembered everything he'd made her feel then.

Inexplicably, uncontrollably, she found herself trembling. She wanted to touch him—with such primal urgency that it gave her the courage to raise her hand and twine her fingers around his nape.

Jafar stiffened abruptly, as if he couldn't bear the contact, but he didn't draw away.

Alysson stepped closer, pressing her body against his. He wanted her, she knew it. Jafar himself had stripped her of her innocence and taught her to recognize the signs of a man's passion. She could not mistake his tenseness, could not doubt the way his body had heated and hardened against hers, the swelling of his masculinity. He was as aroused as a man could be.

And she wanted him in return. She wanted to know the exquisite promise of his body; she wanted the hot pressure of his mouth on hers.

Staring into his burnt-honey eyes, she raised her mouth for his kiss.

"Alysson, don't!" It was a savage growl, a command, a plea. But she didn't obey.

Powerless to move away, Jafar closed his eyes, shutting out the sight of her beautiftil face. Yet the first velvet caress of her warm breath on his lips demolished his tenuous control.

His hard mouth came down hers, hungry and hurtful, a raw act of possession as an instinct stronger than reason drove him. He wanted to mark Alysson as his. He wanted to drive all thought of Gervase de Bourmont from her head, from her heart. He wanted to hear her whisper his name, to plead in incoherent words against his lips, to cry out in joy as she reached incredible heights of pleasure with him.

The cruel fierceness of his kiss startled Alysson, not because of the unrelenting anger she tasted in his mouth, in his thrusting tongue, but because within that brutal kiss there was pain. His pain. An aching vulnerability that touched her soul in a way nothing else ever had. She made a soft, answering whimper of need deep in her throat and opened to him.

At her surrender, Jafar sank his fingers roughly into her hair, anger and arousal making his blood surge hot. Anger at himself for betraying his blood oath; anger at Alysson for being the cause. Fury that she should love another man. Rage that she was responding now because she was grateful to him for sparing her fiancé's life.

It was gratitude, only that.

The terrible realization was like salt on a raw wound, dragging Jafar suddenly, painfully, back to his senses. He could not, would not, allow her to give herself to him out of gratitude. Nor could he take her with the ghost of Bour- mont in his bed, lying between them. He would never be able to stomach himself afterward.

Bitterly, with a superhuman effort at control, he tore his mouth from hers, his fingers digging painfully into her arms as he held Alysson away from him.

Startled, she gazed at him in incomprehension. His face was shadowed, his jaw clenched with determination, though his breath came unnaturally fast.

"I won't have you this way, Ehuresh."

His harsh rasp was like a dash of icewater on her burning skin. All she could do was stare at him.

Even more abruptly, he released her and began to gather up his sword and burnous, his movements rapid yet unsteady.

"Jafar . . . what . . . ?"

He made no reply, merely flung his burnous over his shoulders.

Alysson watched in bewilderment as he turned and strode quickly from the chamber. "You're not leaving!"

"Yes!"

She took a faltering step after his retreating form. "But where are you going?''

"To sleep with my men! I find I have a conscience after all!"

Chapter 16