His hand indicated the pillows opposite the ivory chess pieces, while he himself sat opposite the black


onyx ones. Then suddenly a wicked light came into his eyes, and he said, "Wait!" She looked questioningly at him. "Remove your jacket, and your blouse, Incili. If you would forestall the inevitable, I shall at least have the delightful pleasure of your breasts." She flushed, and he was pleased. She was angry but she was forced to obey him. She was a wonderful, wild thing, and he was very much enjoying their battle. Eventually, of course, he would tame her completely. The thought of her begging his favors excited him greatly and, like a great beast, his manhood awoke and stretched itself.

She played with a serious concentration that he admired, and because he could not take his eyes from her beautiful breasts, he found himself in danger of losing to her. She deliberately thrust her breasts forward and moved in such a way that they bobbed provocatively. In order to even the odds again, he moved around the table to sit next to her. Casually putting as arm about her, he fondled a soft breast, enjoying her disconcerted gasp and the sadden hardening of a rosy nipple. His head dropped, and he kissed her silken shoulder while moving his king piece into an apparently vulnerable position. Flustered and unthinking Cat quickly moved her queen piece, and was horrified to hear the vizier chuckle. "Check, my distracting beauty, and-" he pushed her back into the pillows-"mate!"

Before she had realized what was happening he was atop her, laughing down at her. His hands stroked the tight, quivering globes beneath his touch. "Do not be angry with me, my sweet Incili. You are too delicious to resist, and I do not want to play games with you, I want to make love to you."

"I am not one of your soft harem beauties, quick to spread her legs for the master," she spat at him. "I will not yield. It will be rape!"

He laughed again, and his eyes twinkled. "All right," he said, "then it will be rape, which could be very titillating." And she felt his hands on her hips untying the striped sash and inching her silk pantaloons off.

"No," she shrieked. "No!" Straggling angrily against him, she tried to claw at him, and he laughed. He was stronger by far, and Cat began to tire. Successfully stripping her, the vizier slid his own pantaloons off while still straddling her. Now he lay his warm naked body the length of her naked body, enjoying the satiny feel of her. He made to kiss her, but she furiously turned away from him. Chuckling, he caught her head between his hands and his mouth swooped down on hers.

Gently he ran his tongue along her little white teeth, and though she tried to deny him, the fires of her own desire were fast rising. Her hps parted with a despairing little moan, and as his tongue darted into the fragrant cavity of her mouth, she shivered beneath him. His lips moved to tenderly kiss her eyelids and then her cheeks, wet with silent tears. He stopped, and raising himself on one elbow he asked quietly, "Why can you not give yourself to me completely? Your body longs for mine, yet you deny me a full victory."

"I-I-I do not love you, my lord Cicalazade. I love my husband. In my land a woman who yields her body to a man she does not love is considered the lowest of creatures."

"But I love you. No, Incili, don't look incredulous. I speak the truth. Were I only interested in your lovely body I should not care about your feelings. But I do care. Unless I have all of you, my love, I have none of you, and that is intolerable to me." The intensity of his voice was frightening. "You will never see your husband again. You belong to me now, but I will be patient, for I want you to love me." And the sensuous mouth was again closing hungrily over hers, demanding, searing.

Unable to stop herself, Cat clung to this passionate man and felt his hands stroking her trembling body. His lips were on her breasts, bis tongue tracing tantalizing patterns, torturing the nipples into hard, hurting little peaks. The teasing tongue moved across her shrinking belly, sinking lower and lower, seeking access to her sweetness.

His tongue was like soft fire burning into her writhing body, thrusting deeper and deeper until she was mindless with the waves of pleasure sweeping over her. Then he was in her, hard and hurting, making her cry out in rapture, begging him-to her shame-not to stop.

Never in all of his life had he wanted so desperately to prolong bis own passion. She consumed him with a flame of lust unequal to anything he had ever experienced as he strove to bring her to complete fulfillment. He didn't want to stop, but then his foaming seed was pouring fiercely into her, and she cried out her joy.

But afterwards she wept again in Ins arms, sobbing against the dark mat of his broad chest. He held her tightly while one hand caressed her tawny head, soothing her. For a brief moment he understood her anguish, for he knew that if he ever lost her his own world would be meaningless. He, Cicalazade Pasha, grand vizier to Sultan Mohammed III, caught in the silken web of his beautiful, unwilling slavewoman. What irony!

The weeping had stopped and he slept, cradling her against him. Awaking in the dark of night, he sensed that she was not sleeping. "Hammid tells me," he said softly, "that you are feeling confined. Would you like to go with me tomorrow night? It is the night of the full moon, and I own a small island down the Bosporus. On it is a little kiosk with a roof that opens to the sky. Tomorrow night I will take you there, and make love to you beneath the moonlit heavens."

He felt her tremble next to him and, turning, pulled her into his arms. His lips were tender, and so was his body now as he gently took her again, delighting in her little moan of surrender. This time she did not weep afterwards, but for a few moments cuddled sweetly against him.

It was fortunate that on the following day he had no state business to attend to, for he could not keep his mind on anything but Incili. He spent part of the morning conferring with his household master about the arrangements for the evening. Late in the morning he went to see his wife.

Lateefa Sultan was a great-granddaughter of Selim I. Her grandmother had been a half-sister to Suleiman the Magnificent She was a beautiful woman who had inherited the magnificent coloring of her great-grandmother, Firousi Kadin, and the gentle disposition of her grandmother, Guzel Sultan. Her long hair was silvery blond, and her eyes a turquoise blue. She had been married to Cicalazade Pasha as a girl, and their children were now grown and gone. She lived a quiet life surrounded by every comfort, secure in the friendship of her husband. One night weekly, each Friday, he visited her bed-but it was usually to sleep, for she did not particularly care for lovemaking. Since his vast harem satisfied that part of his nature and since she had dutifully borne his children, he respected her sensibilities. They were old and good friends, the vizier and his wife.

On this bright morning he sat with her in a small kiosk overlooking the water. He looked slightly haggard and was, she thought, beginning to show his age.

"In all the years we have been together I have never asked for a favor," he said.

She smiled. "It must be a large favor you ask, since you remind me that you have never before requested one.

"As an Ottoman princess you have never had to fear the advent of another wife, for I can have no wife but you-unless, of course, you give me your permission to take another. Until now I have never wanted to take another wife."


"It is the new slave, Incili," said Lateefa calmly. "Is it not enough that you possess her body?"

"No," he replied quietly. "I want more, and I do not believe she will yield it to me until she is my wife."

"Has she said so?"

"She is ignorant of our ways. I do not think it has occurred to her that I would want her as a wife. You would like her though, Lateefa."

"So Hammid assures me," she answered him dryly. Then, looking closely at him, she said, "I am not sure that I believe my own eyes, but they tell me you are in love. Can it be that after all these years the great Cicalazade Pasha is actually in love with a mere woman? Have you finally succumbed to that tender passion?"

"Do not mock me, Lateefa." His voice was hard.

"Oh, my dearest Cica, I do not! Believe me I do not! It's just that you have always prided yourself on the careful noninvolvement of your emotions. Now, however, I see a different man. Very well, my lord. Hammid tells me I will not have to play the forgotten Gulbehar to your beloved's Kurhem, so I will give you my permission to take Incili as your second wife. When will the happy event take place?"

"Later today, before I take her to the Island of a Thousand Flowers."

"So soon, my lord?"

"I would erase the past to which she clings so tenaciously. Once she is my wife she will begin to settle down." He knelt and, taking Lateefa's hands in his, kissed them tenderly. "Thank you, my gentle dove. You have always been the most understanding of women."

Lateefa, watching him stride back across the garden, felt a wave of pity sweep over her. She had not met the woman they called Incili and yet she felt that her husband, in seeking to possess this woman, sought the moon. It was a desire he could never fulfill.

Chapter 51

YOU are to become a Muslim, Incili," said Hammid quietly.

Cat's green eyes widened. "Never!" she answered.

"Do not be foolish, my beauty," chided the eunuch. "It is but a formality. Six times a day you must kneel towards Mecca and pray. Who is to know what is in your heart but God?"

Cat thought a moment. His words made sense, and undoubtedly her great-grandmother had thought the same way, for she could not have been a sultan's favorite wife and an avowed Christian too. Besides, survival and escape were all that mattered. "Very well," she told Hammid. "I will do what you ask."