Tiffany Clare - The Surrender of a Lady

“Damn it, just say it, you stubborn woman.” His voice was calmer, but his strokes were still forceful, strong. His balls slapped against her nether region on each downward stroke.

She lay there, afraid her body would respond if she found and matched his rhythm. She let him take his pleasure as she lay beneath him trying to think of her escape.

When his fist tightened in her hair, she knew he was going to come to his crisis. And hated him and herself for everything that had happened. Not just everything in the last few minutes, but since her supposed last session in the Pleasure Gardens.

Let his seed dry up and prove infertile. Please . Amir cannot banish my son and me now, not after all I’ve worked for.

She voiced a sob then. It didn’t matter what she did, he came, great jets of his seed squirting into her channel. After a few small thrusts of his hips and twitches of his semihard cock inside her, he released her and rolled over to his back, his breathing hoarse.

In her haste to leave the bed she fell to the carpeted floor, banging her knee with the impact. She scrambled away from the bed, desperate to get his seed out of her.

Retrieving the washing bowl she’d spied earlier, she put it on the floor and upended the pitcher in it, uncaring that it splashed on the floor around her.

The shadow of Rothburn came closer, but she paid him no mind. She had to get his seed out.

She was aware—barely—that she sobbed aloud as she squatted over the basin and submerged a small hand towel, soaking up as much water as it would take. She slipped as much of her hand inside her vaginal walls as she painfully could with the cloth. She felt his seed there, its consistency so different from hers as she wiped it out and frantically washed the cloth in the water below her so she could repeat the process.

Rothburn’s face flickered in front of hers, a lit candle illuminating the space between them. His mouth moved, but she didn’t hear his words. The roaring of her anger buzzed so loudly in her ears it drowned out her surroundings.

She looked to the basin and scooped up water to wash around the entrance of her sheath. She could still feel his seed there. Would it plant in her womb? Would she bring another child into this godforsaken world? She didn’t want that to happen—it couldn’t happen.

She’d get his seed out.

What were the herbs she was to use if she found herself with child? She knew only their Arabic and Turkish names. She couldn’t even begin to translate their names to English.

Her sheath was sore and raw from her ministrations, as if it had had one too many fuckings without the aid of feminine lubrication.

She heard the hiss of his breath and his voice pounding through her ears.

“Jinan, let me help you. What’s this about?” His hands cupped her face. So gentle, but shaking.

She stared at him a moment, not moving because she had no cloths to dry her.

“Why would you do this to me?” Her ears rang so loudly she wasn’t sure what language she spoke. Her fist shot out and hit him in the chest. Then, because it felt good to assuage her anger that way, she pounded her fist against his chest again. He let her fight him, his hold staying light against her face as she took out her frustration and anger. Why did he let her treat him so? She did it a few times before he stilled her actions.

“Stop this.” His hands pressed over hers, surprisingly gentle. “What are you doing?”

“Your seed is in me. I need to get it out.”

Instead of commenting, he pursed his lips and went into the other room. She looked around for something to dry off with. It appeared that she had soaked both hand towels that were on the washstand, and she wore nothing useful to help her in this situation. Her bath towel was on the other side of the room, the scarves of her dress had been left in the bathing room.

Rothburn stepped back into the room, carrying another pitcher and a small cloth that looked like a handkerchief in the near darkness. Wordlessly, he handed it to her and gave her his back as she cleaned herself.

He mumbled something.

“What is it you are saying?” she hissed out.

“I can guess what all this worrying is about. When are your menses due?”

Oh, he knew his way around a woman of pleasure, all right. That angered her more than the seed he’d put inside her.

But she understood why he’d mumbled it the first time and seemed to have difficulty in asking her such a blunt, private question. It wasn’t normal to discuss bleeding with a man in English society. Even in the harem, she was taught her menses were a dirty time in her month. She had no reason to be shy about this, even though it was something her husband would never have asked outright, nor would have Amir—it was not their way.

“Three days past the full moon.” And since she didn’t really know what today was, after all the groggy traveling, she waited for him to tell her. She’d also not been paying attention to much besides this man while she was still in the harem. She’d been completely absorbed in the ending of their too-brief union.

“Full moon’s tomorrow. You should be fine.”

She was glad he still stood some distance away from her, or he’d have seen the blush that rose in her face. How embarrassing for him to know she’d be bleeding in four days . if she bled.

But he was right, it was a safe time, and she might not need to worry; she should not be ripe for impregnation. She released a long breath of air.

“Is there a wisewoman in the kitchen?”

She hoped he knew what she was getting at. She did not want to explain the necessary precautions she would take regardless of the timing of her menses.

He faced her then. “Yes. I know what it is you want.”

She looked to her feet. It was chilly in this room—her nipples puckered into rose-tipped beads and gooseflesh rose along her stomach. Ignoring the awkwardness, dread, and irritation in her mind, she focused on the cold. On nothingness.

No sense in displaying her emotions by acting skittish. She stood tall and looked him in the eye. “Will you send her to me?”

He nodded, raised his hand to her cheek to touch her reverently, then said, “I’m sorry, Jinan. You did not fight me off. I thought it was all right.”

“It did not occur to me until afterward.”

Nodding, he walked away from her, saying something about bringing her whatever tea they might have on hand. The jangle of a key told her he’d left the apartment. She listened to the sound of the lock clicking back over—sure enough, the snick was the last sound she heard for some minutes.

She needed to dress. She made her way to the armoire, threw the doors open and paused. Her eyes took in the bright silks before her. How had he done this?

Had his abduction of her been planned right from the beginning?

There were rich materials of every color, so bold you’d not see them worn in polite society. A heathen’s sanctuary of familiarity within her grasp. Her fingers touched the brocade floral design on the white trousers. All in Turkish style. There were silk scarves of every color, perhaps as many as she’d had when back in the palace.

How had he done this?

It didn’t matter, she reminded herself. He’d done a great injustice toward her. One that by all rights was unforgivable.

Her only worry right now was how to protect herself from becoming enceinte, then she needed to find a way back to Jonathan. She pulled out red scarves and an orange brocaded vest and trousers.

She slammed the doors on the armoire closed. What she really wanted to do was kick them. How could she not have understood his desperation before now? She was trained to read the desires in every man she played sex with. How had she not seen his obsession? It should have been apparent long before she had been abducted.

Jinan tugged the vest over her head and buttoned it up, and then the trousers. Then she tied the scarf around her hips, knotting it below her navel. She now wore sufficient clothing that his lordship would have to go to a great deal of trouble to remove them.

That way she might have time to take precautions against pregnancy.

Though she doubted it would stop his lordship from taking what he wanted, she felt some peace of mind. Peace that had been absent since she’d arrived.

How in all the isles of hell had he done something so reprehensible? Worse, he knew he’d do it a hundred times more, if only to prove that they were the pieces of a long-unsolved puzzle joining in a unity long denied.

She’d denied him in so primal a fashion that it made his blood boil in a rage such as he thought had died with his autocratic uncle. His fingers tangled in his hair, pulled it tight until he felt something . anything.

It was a damnable act on her part. To deny his seed. It was a damnable act on his part for wanting to force it on her. Was he not good enough to have her? Even if she were his mistress, shouldn’t she want such a gift? Not once had he shown her any unkindness.

Not once. He was irritated. He knew she was fuming. But his anger now affected his thoughts. He’d been useless for two days straight because of Jinan.

Because she’d turned their congress into an act of filthy debauchery.

Why did he care? Why did this bother him? He’d freed her. There was no kindness greater than the one he’d given her. Now he offered her a life by his side and she refused him?

She dared to refuse him?

He squeezed the plump breast in his hand.

Jinan was sound asleep. She had been for some hours while he’d mulled over the prelude to their evening. His hand didn’t meet soft flesh, of course. She’d dressed when he’d gone to retrieve some herbs from the cook. The cook he’d dragged out of bed and down to the kitchen.