Beneath her shy exploration she could feel the satin texture of Jourdan’s skin, damply warm where she touched it, filling her with a primeval feeling of power she could barely understand, but which made it imperative for her to press her body deeper into the hard masculinity of his, running her fingers over the long back and taut muscles, until her touch drew a husky protest and Jourdan’s lips left the slender curve of her throat to tease the full softness of her breasts, already burgeoning to soft roundness beneath his skilled fingers.
Driven farther and farther from reality along paths of sensuality which held her fast within their grip, Danielle had no conscious knowledge of arching instinctively beneath Jourdan’s hard hands, or of the way they trembled slightly as his tongue touched her nipple, circling it slowly, sending her mindless with a pleasure which overwhelmed modesty and caution and left only a need for something which ached deep down inside her and grew stronger with every passing second.
‘You learn well, Danielle,’ she heard Jourdan mutter hoarsely before his mouth closed in implicit demand on the tautly tempting outline of her breast. He added something in Arabic which sounded like a plea, but Danielle’s mind was too fuzzy to comprehend it. She was caught in the middle of a raging tide, too confused and bemused to try and fight it, and when Jourdan’s hands slid down to her hips, lifting her slightly and coaxing her slim thighs apart with the burning heat of his own she could only look at him through the darkness and feel the cramping excitement race through her body at the intimate contact with his.
By the time the mists of sexual pleasure had parted enough for her to appreciate what the pulsing hardness of his body betokened it was too late.
Her sharp cry of pain and distress was lost beneath the firm pressure of Jourdan’s lips, but fear swamped her earlier exultation, pleasure giving way to shocked acknowledgement of what had happened. The drugs she had been given had caused this, Danielle thought shakily, brushing away the tears she was trying to subdue. She hated Jourdan as she had never hated anyone in her life before. She tried to move away, but he wouldn’t let her, his face a white mask of fury above her, and she realised that she had voiced her thoughts out loud.
‘You don’t hate me, mignonne,’ he drawled with harsh cruelty, his fingers biting into the tender flesh of her arms. ‘You hate yourself for being a woman…’
‘You drugged me!’ Danielle stormed back at him, falling back against the pillows as the hands which had been tender suddenly tightened and with calculated cruelty held her prisoner while his body reinforced its domination of her own.
‘Stop it!’ Danielle protested furiously. ‘Aren’t you satisfied with the degradation you’ve already inflicted on me?’
Fury mingled with a self-disgust she could barely admit surged through her until she feared nothing; not even the blazing anger burning in the darkness of Jourdan’s eyes.
His possession of her was brutally swift, making her gasp in sudden pain, her fingers curling protestingly into his shoulders as his mouth punished hers, forcing her lips to part beneath his ruthless assault.
Quite when pain turned to heated pleasure Danielle did not know. One moment she was furious and bitterly resenting the intrusion of Jourdan’s body, the next, or so it seemed later in her hazy recollections, she was responding to a sensation as primitive and age-old as man himself.
Her fingers were still curled into the hard warmth of Jourdan’s shoulders, but now with pleasure instead of pain, pleasure which beat at her in ever-increasing waves until she was moaning softly and involuntarily beneath the burning demand of Jourdan’s mouth, her arms locking round his neck as her body arched with instinctive need to prolong the pleasure he was giving her, her heart racing frantically against his flesh as his harsh breathing communicated a message which seemed to be received in every part of her body.
The exquisite fulfilment of their lovemaking stayed locked inside Danielle’s mind, even when her body had relaxed into exhausted satisfaction; Jourdan’s tongue delicately tasting the tears lying damply on her cheeks her last memory as sleep claimed her.
CHAPTER EIGHT
IT was daylight. In her drowsy, half awakened state Danielle could feel the warmth of the sun’s rays through the draperies of the bed. She stretched, unconscious seduction in the languorous movement, her body full of a strange lethargy which made it impossible for her to jump out of bed with her normal vigour. She rolled sideways, her eyes clouding as fragments of a nightmare came back to her, her body tensing with horror as she remembered events which had been no nightmare, but cold, factual reality.
The bathroom door opened and Jourdan strode into the room, a towel draped casually over his lean-hipped frame, its white softness in direct contrast to his tanned body. A bitter hatred filled Danielle as he walked casually over to the bed and looked down at her. Her first instinct was to turn away from the amused comprehension of his glance, but she forced herself to meet it with eyes carefully blanked of all emotion.
‘Well, ma chérie, did I not keep my promise?’ Jourdan drawled, one lean hand pushing aside the bedcovers to trace the fragile bones of her shoulder.
‘Your promise? I call it a threat!’ Danielle spat furiously at him, pulling away from his hand. ‘I suppose I’ve one thing to be grateful for—at least now that our marriage can’t be annulled I won’t have to bear your loathesome touch on my body again!’
‘Loathesome?’ Danielle was too caught up in her own emotions to hear the warning tone in the softly spoken word. ‘You didn’t seem to find it loathesome at the time, mignonne, far from it,’ Jourdan reminded her hatefully, ‘In fact unless my memory serves me wrong you pleaded with me to open the gates of paradise for you…’
‘Because you drugged me,’ Danielle cried wildly. ‘Otherwise I would never…’
‘Drugged you?’ The forbidding words cut across her bitter protests. ‘Your imagination run away with you, daughter of Hassan. The only drug that was used, if you can call it that, was your female response to my maleness.’
‘That tea you made me drink was drugged, just like the cup Zanaide gave me,’ Danielle protested furiously. ‘Otherwise I would never have… have…’
‘Responded to me with such sweet passion?’ Jourdan suggested cruelly. ‘I did not use drugs, Danielle, it wasn’t necessary,’ he told her sardonically. ‘However, if you should prefer me to prove my point…?’
He was reaching for the towel even as he spoke, and to her chagrin Danielle felt herself crimson furiously, her body going rigid as her eyes mutely begged for the compassion her lips refused to ask for.
‘Still such a child,’ Jourdan said acidly, leaning over her, his hands either side of her body, imprisoning her in the bed. ‘It might be amusing to teach you a lesson you well deserve, petîte. It would take very little to arouse those passionate fires you keep so well hidden, to the point where every night not spent in my arms would be the most exquisite torture…’
‘You… you… sadist!’ Danielle hissed at him, driven almost beyond words in her need to show him the depths of her hatred and contempt for him. It was on the tip of her tongue to tell him that there was no way she was going to remain his wife with that threat hanging over her, but caution intervened, reminding her that for now she was virtually a prisoner within his castle, and that no Arab would lift a hand to help a runaway wife. There must be some way she could escape, she reasoned. If she could just telephone her parents. One phone call that would be enough to have them both on a plane to Qu‘Har.
‘When you have finished sulking you may summon Zanaide to help you dress. I am going out riding. If you behave yourself I may take you with me another day, when we have been married a little longer. Were I to allow you to ride this morning my men would think me a poor bridegroom, so today you must occupy yourself alone.’
Try as she might Danielle could not control her shocked gasp, or the vivid colour burning her heated skin. Her hands curled impotently until her nails were digging in her palms, the tears stinging her eyes preventing her from seeing Jourdan leave the room.
Once he had gone she did not give way to her emotions, telling herself that she would not give him the pleasure of having it whispered amongst his household that he had made her cry, and so when Zanaide came in carrying her breakfast tray she found Danielle sitting up in bed, manicuring her nails.
Food would surely choke her, Danielle thought sickly, barely glancing at the fresh warm rolls and honey Zanaide had brought her and the sweet, juicy dates, but the young maid protested when Danielle said that she didn’t want anything, her expression demurely coy as she murmured that Danielle must keep up her strength.
‘The Sheikha will not make a fine son if she does not eat,’ Zanaide told her.
A son! Danielle’s stomach clenched protestingly, her face paling as the full implication of Zanaide’s innocent words struck her. Dear God, please not that, she prayed with chattering teeth as she made a pretence of eating one of the rolls. She had to leave Qu‘Har, and at once. She couldn’t endure to spend another day here, especially not in this room, haunted by the memory of her own aroused breathing and soft, panting cries.