CHAPTER SIX

      WITHOUT thinking Eleni leaned forwards and brushed her fingertips over one of the angry red ridges which scarred both the sheikh’s wrists and Kaliq’s mouth tightened.

      Truly, her impulsive gesture was an imposition—for how dared a commoner touch a prince in such a way? Yet considering he had been touching her only moments before—he was disinclined to stop her. Even if the feel of her breast was infinitely more pleasurable than the feel of her fingers. Although…

      He frowned. Her touch was oddly distracting. It was soothing—almost healing. Was that why she was so wonderful with horses, he wondered—because she had the gift of softness about her? And if he allowed her this touch then wouldn’t it lead them down the path of sensual pleasure? Only this time—with her sympathy engaged—she would be less likely to stop him. He gave a cynical half-smile. Women were very predictable.

      ‘What happened?’ she asked quietly, her fingertip automatically questing over one of the hardened and raised red ridges as she saw his black brows crease into a hard line.

      ‘You are very impertinent, lizard,’ he drawled. But he didn’t move his hand away from the comforting caress. ‘To ask your sheikh such a question.’

      Biting her lip, she let his wrist go. ‘Forgive me.’

      But strangely her question did not trouble him as much as protocol demanded. Now why was that? Was it because women always asked about these marks—only he was usually naked when first they noticed them? And the scars on his back were much worse—making these seem almost trifling in comparison.

      Sometimes he explained them away by saying that an over-enthusiastic partner had got slightly carried away during a sex-game. Sometimes they believed him—depending on their own experience and worldliness. Even when they clearly didn’t believe him they rarely challenged him—because they were too busy clicking into whichever fantasy they thought he wanted from them. They tried to be everything he wanted in order to please him—and in so doing they ended up being nothing.

      But Eleni was different. Probably because she was low-born. Did she not realise how preposterous it was for a humble stable girl to have tenderly stroked the raised weals at his wrists?

      But perhaps your kiss made her think that all such contact was appropriate.

      He studied her as suddenly her inexplicable refusal to allow him more than a kiss made sense. ‘Are you a virgin?’ he demanded.

      She shrank back against the silken cushions. ‘Highness!’

      His black eyes glittered like jet. ‘You asked me an impertinent question and now I am asking you one in return. What do you say—shall we exchange intimate knowledge, lizard? That seems only fair to me.’

      Eleni bit her lip. It seemed a terribly personal thing for him to want to know—but perhaps if she told him then he might not try to seduce her again as he had done this evening.

      Even if you want him to? taunted a voice in her head. Even though the touch of his lips made you feel more alive than you’ve ever done in your life?

      Swamping down her rogue thoughts, she nodded her head reluctantly. ‘Yes, I am a virgin, Highness,’ she said quietly, her cheeks flaring scarlet.

      Kaliq seized on the information with a feeling of triumph. So that was why she had done the unthinkable and resisted his advances. But he could feel the renewed beat of excitement, too. A virgin. A sweet, green-eyed virgin. How the gods must be looking down on him—and how good it would be to enjoy such a gift for his own.

      ‘I cannot believe that you have never known a man’s love,’ he observed, his mouth drying at the thought of initiating her into the art of love-making. Of piercing through her tight maidenhood. Of having those soft breasts in his hands and those firm thighs wrapped tightly around his back. ‘I thought that you country girls sometimes took lovers out of wedlock.’

      ‘Perhaps some of them do, Highness, but not me,’ said Eleni disapprovingly.

      ‘Yet you might die and never know the pleasures of the body.’

      ‘Then I will gladly accept my fate,’ she answered fiercely.

      He laughed at her feistiness. ‘Ah, but you are missing out on a great deal, Eleni—one of the greatest wonders of life,’ he said softly. ‘More than you will ever know if you do not try it for yourself.’

      His eyes had softened, as well as his voice, so that they were more like molasses than jet and again Eleni was reminded with shocking clarity just how potent his kiss had been. And that strange and bewitching sensation of the sheikh’s tongue entering her mouth and… and…

      ‘Perhaps what you say is true, Highness—but I will not attempt to control my own destiny by lying with a man. To seek to shed my virginity simply for the sake of it is not how a well-brought-up girl should behave!’

      ‘And you are a well-brought-up girl, are you, Eleni?’

      She heard the mockery in his voice and she wanted to tell him not to confuse her with her father—that her mother had brought her up to behave as much like a lady as was possible when living in such basic conditions. But, of course, she could not boast about her own qualities at the expense of her father’s reputation.

      ‘Yes, Highness, I am. I know the difference between right and wrong and if it is not meant to be, then I accept that. After all, no-one can possibly have everything in life,’ she answered carefully. ‘And since I’ve answered your question—is it not fair to now answer mine, Highness? How did you come by these terrible scars?’

      How bold she was, he thought admiringly with a renewed kick of lust at his groin. And how outrageous of her to interrogate him in the light of her refusal to let him bed her. He could order her to go to hell…

      But how long since he had talked about that terrible day when his world had changed for ever? It was a subject off-limits, even with his twin who shared the awful guilt. A dark secret which had been hushed up by the palace apparatus like so much else. A stain on the family of Al’Farisi.

      Yet secrets became burdens which could grow in weight until they became intolerable—and suddenly the innocent and green-eyed young stable girl seemed as welcoming and as unthreatening as a newborn falcon chick.

      ‘You know about my brother?’ he demanded.

      The royal family of Calista was an endless source of fascination to its people. Even without mass communication, gossip about the ruling clan was always available—it was swopped in the market place or spoken of outside the school gates, just as it was the world over.

      Eleni knew that there had been five brothers—one of whom was his twin, Aarif. And she knew too that there was some terrible tragedy surrounding the youngest. Hadn’t he gone missing—when he was just a child?

      ‘You mean… Zafir?’ she ventured nervously.

      Kaliq flinched. She was one