It incited both anger and hope: anger, that she failed to understand a eunuch's limitations; hope, that she prove he could find gratification as surely as any other man could.

A young stableboy held the horse's head while he lithely jumped down out of the carriage. For the first time he was glad that he had to daily exercise to build muscles or else turn to flab as so many eunuchs did.

His strength would allow him to bring Megan many more orgasms.

Turning, he offered her his hand. She glared in the direction that the stableboy stood.

He did not need to look to know that the boy gawked at the Arab who wore a robe like a woman.

"Megan," he said softly.

She reluctantly tore her gaze away from the stableboy.

"I am used to arousing curiosity," he merely said.

Megan gave him her hand. Her frown did not diminish.

The dim interior of the inn was oppressive after the bright sunshine outside; the smell of boiled cabbage and beef nauseated him after the freshness of spring air.

The innkeeper who had greedily procured him a whore was not at his station. Raised voices drifted out of the pub.

A chambermaid had straightened his room while they were gone. The bed was made; the ladderback chair stood by the fireplace; the water pitcher sat inside the stoneware basin.

It was as if he had not pleasured a woman and been pleasured in return.

He locked the door.

Megan waited for him by the bed. "I trust you to give me pleasure, Muhamed."

But he did not trust her to give him pleasure, she did not need to add.

No woman could give him what he ached for.

She would not be satisfied until he proved it to her.

"Take off your clothes, Megan."

Megan did not gaze away from him as she removed her clothing. The color of her eyes was indistinct in the dull light; the fire in her hair doused.

"Sit down on the bed," he said harshly.

She sat down on the edge of the bed.

Silently he removed his turban and jerked his thobs over his head. The act was familiar, his intentions were not.

Megan dropped a pillow to the floor; he knelt in front of her.

He did not have to tell her to spread her legs.

Gently he cupped her breasts, swollen and tender, shrouded in shadow instead of sunlight. Hunkering down, he touched her vulva, her clitoris that was still engorged, her nether lips that glistened with moisture.

Untouched by the beauty and the brutality that was Arabia.

She easily took one finger, two…

He stared at the taut ring of her flesh and the dark intrusion of his hand. Moisture leaked from her body, a pearly essence. Slowly, he pulled out until just his two fingertips were buried inside her. Carefully, he pressed his third and forth finger into the gap he caused, fluting them to fit her shape, her size.

She winced, but did not deny him.

Megan would not deny him anything, and he did not know why.

He glanced up at her breasts he had held and her nipples that he had suckled. And was overwhelmed by need.

Swooping upward, he took her left nipple in his mouth. Her heartbeat pounded against his tongue; a matching pulse throbbed against his fingertips.

A woman's vagina was made to birth a child. A woman's breasts were made to give milk.

But there would be no offspring from their union.

He suckled, giving her the succor she needed. That he needed. That they needed, together.

He pushed four fingers inside her, first knuckles, second knuckles… stretching her as a child never would.

Megan contracted around him.

He circled his thumb around her clitoris, savoring her hardness on the outside, her softness on the inside.

A cry spread through Megan's chest, vibrated against his lips and tongue, labored up through her throat and out of her mouth.

Pleasure. Pain.

Her orgasm crushed his fingers, forcing him to share both her pleasure and her pain. A drip of preparatory moisture was squeezed out of his verge.

Cool fingers cupped his ears; heat riffled the top of his head-her breath. She buried her face in his hair, nose and lips pressing against his scalp as he suckled her and milked from her the last spasm of her pleasure, a gentle flutter around his fingers.

They sat for long moments, his fingers inside her, her nipple inside his mouth, connected in a way no erotic treatise could adequately describe.

Reluctantly, he released her nipple. The heat weighting his head lifted; the fingers cupping his ears slid down to his cheeks.

There was no stubble to prick her fingers, nor would there ever be.

He lifted his head and met her waiting gaze.

"I had a son," he said.

Her fingers tightened around his jaws; her vagina nipped his fingers.

"Not of my flesh," he explained harshly, "but a boy who was placed into my care when I was twenty-seven years old.

We"-he would not reveal another's secret exile, it was not his story to tell-"came to England nine years ago. Last week he threatened to kill me if I hurt his woman."

His pain was reflected in her eyes. Or perhaps it was fear he saw, that another man had felt it necessary to threaten him lest he harm a woman.

"Words said in the heat of anger should be forgotten," she merely said.

"They were not said in the heat of anger." He flexed his fingers inside her; Megan reflexively tightened around him. "He would have killed me. I do not blame him. He did what he had to do."

"Were you a… a threat to this woman?"

"Yes."

The pulse beating inside her sped up.

"Why?"

"Because I was jealous." Remembered rage and pain swelled over him. "Because I wanted what he had, a woman of my own."

"But you didn't harm her."

"No."

Or had he?

Were the two of them together, or had he irrevocably come between them?

"Does he-do you-live around here?"

"He lives in London."

"Is that why you are in Land's End-to get away from this man and his… woman?"

He opened his mouth to tell her the truth.

He couldn't.

"In Arabia, there was a woman in the harem… a woman who married a eunuch," he heard himself say. "He had no verge, no testicles. Yet she claimed that he was capable of orgasm. She said that he would go into a rutting fever… and she would hold a pillow over his head when he obtained his peak to prevent him from gnashing her breasts with his teeth.

She and the other women laughed, that a eunuch could be reduced to such ignominy."

He heard again the laughter, the jeering taunts.

He wasn't like that, he thought on a surge of agony.

He would show her he wasn't like that.

He didn't need a woman to bring him release, other than through her own release.

Megan's flesh sucked at his fingers when he withdrew. He gave her his verge, sinking so deeply inside her that there was not room for thoughts of Arabia or eunuchs.

Her gaze held his, accepting him, accommodating him.

Closing his eyes, he pulled back out, and rammed into her. Again. And again. And again.

Until his skin burned with sweat.

Until his knees ached.

Until his verge throbbed in agony.

Until she cried out, first in pleasure, then in pain, and he still could not gain release.

Soft arms wrapped around him. Held him. Immobilized him.

He leaned into Megan, trembling, wanting so badly that he wanted to howl. Sobbing for air, he buried his face in the crook of her neck.

Soft fingers feathered his hair, pressed him closer. "Tell me how," she whispered.

How could he tell her?

It was unnatural.

A man should not need more than a woman's vulva.

"Tell me," she persisted. "Please. Trust me, Muhamed. Trust me like I've trusted you."

He pressed harder into her neck, her vagina, wanting to lose himself inside her, unable to do so. Because of one man's decision. Because of an entire culture that perpetrated a practice that destroyed lives rather than desire.

"A man has a gland inside him that can be caressed," he said raggedly.

Megan stilled-even the pulse that rapidly pounded against his lips seemed to halt.

It had dawned on her that there was only one place that a man could be internally caressed.

"How would a woman be able to identify this gland?" she asked unevenly.

He repeated what he had heard other eunuchs say, creatures who were not supposed to want sexual satisfaction but they did. "It is said to be the size and shape of an unshelled nut. They call it the third almond."

"I want to please you, Muhamed. I want to give you the same pleasure you have given me."

He pulled away from the comfort of Megan's arms. "It is not the same," he said harshly.

"You are afraid."

Yes, he was afraid.

He was afraid that the climax she had given him would never be repeated.

He was afraid of losing what little masculinity he retained.

"It is unnatural," he grated.

Why didn't she see that it was unnatural?

"Muhamed, satisfaction is not unnatural. What they did to you is unnatural. Men loving women only so they can bear their children is unnatural. But not this, Muhamed. You said you receive satisfaction through my pleasure. Let me share yours. Let me know that I can please you, as you've pleased me."

"They laughed," he said harshly.

"I would never laugh at you."

No, Megan wouldn't laugh at him.

Gently, he withdrew from her and stood up, bones creaking, knees aching.

Megan grabbed a pillow. Dropping it to the floor, she kneeled in front of him.

He stared down at the top of her head; her braid hung down her back. She looked like a schoolgirl.