Then, for an instant he wondered if she'd somehow guessed his thoughts, when she pressed a hand to her chest and her skin seemed to darken to a dusky rose. But he realized that she was stroking, not hiding, and making an odd little pleasure-sound, like a large cat purring.

"Mmm…oh," she murmured. "Yes, I see what you mean. It feels very nice, now. Nice and warm…all over inside me." She gave herself a shake and added with delightful primness, "Well-it is a pity that something that smells so nice and feels so good must taste so awful. But, perhaps it is just as well, since I do not believe it is very good for you." She plucked the bottle and the flashlight from his hands. "Now you must lie down and let me finish," she said, and gave him a severe look that had the opposite effect on him than she probably intended.

He obeyed her with a groan, somehow managing to quell the impulse he'd just had, which was to just say the hell with the cactus, and roll her under him and kiss her breathless.

He never knew how he got through the next hour, quite possibly the most intense pleasure and the most exquisite agony he could ever have imagined. And the cactus spines had very little to do with it.

Lying there on his belly with his mind full of the last image he'd had of her-lush, curving flesh and taunting strips of lacy white-first he'd feel a tiny zzt of pain, then the sweet burn of the bourbon, and then the far sweeter warmth of her mouth…gentle heat and drawing pressure…and sometimes, when she forgot to hold it back out of the way, the cool silky kiss of her hair. Between times, she sang to him in a sweet, soft voice, in a language he didn't know. And when she had cleared an area of spines large enough, she would pour more bourbon into her hands and rub him all over with it…stroking, massaging…kneading the sting and the ache away. That was the pleasure.

The agony was elsewhere. In his groin, of course, but in his belly, too, and the muscles of his arms and legs, his neck and jaws. Desire had taken over his body; it was a white-hot starburst in his brain. He was being consumed by desire. Sooner or later, he knew, he would have to do something about it, and when he did, he was desperately afraid he wouldn't be able to control the monster that was eating him alive.

And he knew the worst was yet to come. She'd worked her way down his back to the elastic waistband of his shorts. She'd plucked the last of the spines from the backs of his arms and legs. When he felt her fingers slip under that elastic he knew he'd endured all he could. He made a sound somewhere between a sob and a groan and tried to turn.

"No, no," she said softly, "you must let me finish." Gently but firmly she pushed him down. Even more gently she lifted his shorts away from his pricked backside, drew them over his legs and tossed them away.

And he found there was more he could endure, after all.

But just barely. He'd never felt so vulnerable. The cool air stirring over exposed skin, like a touch that never quite came, the cold wet tickle of alcohol between his legs and down his sides, and then-with all his strength he braced for it-her mouth. Yes, even there, laving, sucking… soothing away the sting. He could hear her quick, shallow breathing above the labored pounding of his own heart-for some reason, she'd stopped singing.

He knew when she'd pulled the last of the spines. He heard her take in a breath and let it out in a soft and oddly replete little sigh. He felt her weight shift as she set the bottle of bourbon on the nightstand. Then shift again. He felt the cushiony weight of her breasts as she bent over him. Relief and alarm slammed into him and his heart skidded and lurched out of rhythm. No.

Had he spoken? What did it matter? His body shuddered and shivered with adrenaline as he caught her around her waist. In an instant he'd pinned her, flat on her back, to the mattress.

The flashlight rolled away somewhere, but it spilled enough light across the bed that he could see her face staring up at him… the dark enigma of her eyes, utterly without fear, just tiny lines of puzzlement between them.

Her breasts heaved beneath his arm as she whispered, "You do not wish me to continue?"

"No." This time he knew he'd spoken, but it was in a voice he didn't recognize. "And it's not a matter of wishing. I can't let you."

"Why? I do not understand. Do you not like it?"

Looking up and away from her, he gave a soft, croaking laugh. Then he brought his eyes back to her, and was caught off guard by a treacherous, shimmering fog of overwhelming tenderness. Like that strange, protective tenderness he'd felt for her before, only this was much, much worse. He couldn't speak, but had to look away again, and take deep breaths and laugh a little the way men do when they dare not humiliate themselves with symptoms of emotion.

When he was able to look at her again, he lifted a hand to touch her face. Softly, with wondering fingers he traced the ink-black line of her eyebrow, the clean, pure sweep of her cheek and jaw.

"Don't you know?" He shrugged one shoulder and said it with aching simplicity. "You're a virgin."

Chapter 12

She didn't say anything for several seconds, while her heartbeat fluttered against the barricade of his arm like a captive bird struggling to free itself. Then she made a sound, a perplexed and impatient little sigh.

"In my culture," she whispered, and her frown deepened as she searched his face, "a man would consider a woman's virginity a treasure…a gift. I think that for you this is not true. I think…for you it is only a burden."

"Not so much a burden…" He considered, his voice gravelly and soft. "More like…a responsibility."

"But…why?" She gave a hopeless little sigh and said again, "I do not understand."

And again Cade had to gaze into the shadows beyond the light while he gathered his courage. She couldn't know, could she, how hard it was for him to talk about such intimate things? "I'm too full…too hard…right now. Too…aroused." He took a breath, but the words wouldn't come, and finally he whispered it brokenly, "I don't think I could stand it if I hurt you."

"Oh," she cried, "is that all?" Her eager innocence nearly shattered him. Her fingers closed around his wrist. She turned her lips into his palm like a bird snuggling into its nest, and he could feel them form a smile against his skin. She closed her eyes, and something glimmered like tiny diamonds in her lashes. She whispered, "I thought…it was because you did not want me."

He was too precarious; he dared not laugh. With a soft groan he lowered his forehead until it touched hers. "Not want you? No, no, it's that I want you too much."

Her fingers left his wrist and wove themselves into his hair. Her face tilted and her lips touched searchingly here and there on his face…his chin, the edges of his jaws, the corners of his mouth. Between touches, in breathless little puffs he heard words. "But I am…your wife. How…is it possible…to want…your wife…too much?"

Your wife. He replayed the words in his head and his heart shuddered as if from a violent collision. In a sense it was-a collision between heart and head…between reason and emotion. If you do this, his head reminded him, it can't be undone.

To which his heart responded, I don't care!

In slow, sighing surrender he brought his mouth into alignment with hers…barely touching…brushing her breath with his. He felt her go motionless with wonder. Her lips opened in a blissful, waiting smile. She moved her head slowly back and forth, caressing his lips with hers, mercilessly teasing nerve-endings already honed to needle points. He felt the caress in his temples and breastbone, in the soles of his feet and the backs of his knees, in the pit of his stomach…and with a deep, burning ache in his groin.

If I kiss her now, he thought-he absolutely knew-I won't be able to stop.

"It is all right," she murmured, as if she'd heard his thought, her words tickling his lips. "I have been told it is normal for there to be pain the first time. I do not mind."

With a quick, violent motion he caught her wrist and held it pressed against the bedspread while he drew back to look at her. Her breasts rose and fell in uneven rhythm, brushing against his arm. He frowned down at them and muttered groggily, "Who told you that?" Whoever it had been, in his heart he was vowing there and then to make that person a liar.

"Salma. When I was very small she was my nanny. Now she is my very dear friend. And she gave me something to help soothe the pain…a special recipe of herbs and oils. She said it is from her grandmother."

Herbs and oils? He was beginning to get The Arabian Nights feeling again. That sense of unreality grew more encompassing as he listened to the muffled thump of his heart…heard his own voice as if through layers of wool. Carefully, trying not to smile, he said, "And you… brought this magic stuff with you?"

"Yes, of course-I have it right here, in my bag." And lithe as an otter she twisted under him, rolling onto her stomach as she stretched an arm to reach for her overnighter.

He barely knew when she opened it and began to rummage through its contents. Raised on one elbow, he gazed at her body…the pale, curving shape of it against the darker bedspread…and paler still the narrow stripe across her back…the triangle that barely succeeded in covering the rounded mounds of her bottom. He was thinking about himself in just that position, the treatment she'd put him through…his terrifying vulnerability, the exquisite sensations…his overwhelming arousal.

She gave a soft "Hah!" of triumph and held up a bottle, graceful in shape and iridescent in color. But before she could roll back to him, he growled, "Not so fast," and with a hand on the small of her back, pinned her there on her belly. In a moment he was kneeling astride her thighs, bending over to whisper in her ear, "Now it's my turn…"