Page 63 of Silver Angel

He released her, daring her to step back. She didn’t. An image had come to her from his words, of him removing the necklace, touching her skin, while she slept blissfully unaware. The unfurling of warmth in her belly surprised her so, she gasped. How could that happen from an image?

“I’m waiting.”

Recalled to herself, she didn’t understand for a moment what he was waiting for, and when she did, she balked. Since he hadn’t stood up to put the necklace on her, he obviously wanted her to kneel down before him. It was too much, too subservient, too demeaning.

“I don’t have to wear the necklace to return it.” She held out her hand for him to simply give it to her.

“I insist.”

“Well, you can just go—”

In whatever direction she had meant to send him was lost in a small gasp as one of his feet came around to press against the back of her knees, buckling them, and his hands on her sides forced her down and kept her down. She had to look up to see him, and she did, murderously.

“Are you happy now?” she demanded shrilly.

“I will be happy when you stop fighting me,” he replied with a tinge of regret, then added softly, “This was not meant to humble you, little moon. I will grasp any excuse to wrap my body around you, to feel—”

“You said I could go!” she cried, eyes flaring.

“And so you can. I still mean only to put the necklace on you. Lift your hair for me and it will be done.”

She did not know what to make of him. Wrap his body around her? God, how weak that image made her feel….

Quickly, to get it over with, she lifted the weight of her hair off her neck. He picked up the necklace from where he had dropped it on the bed. And then he stared at her for a long moment before he slowly, very slowly, slipped the cold metal around her neck.

Chantelle shivered, not so much from the coldness, but from the warmth of his fingers that were there, too. Then he leaned closer to fasten the clasp, and she did find his body wrapped around her, his arms, his chest, his knees pressed to each side of her hips.

The cold, the heat, the contact of her cheek against his chest, all combined to make her forget her anger. It was like being enclosed in a warm, safe cocoon. Safe? Yes, somehow she did feel safe for the moment. He had said she could go, so she had nothing to fear from this embrace except perhaps her own reaction to it. God, it did feel good to have him surround her like this.

The regret she felt when he removed his hands from her neck was real. She looked up at him in bemusement, to find him smiling at her.

“Was that so hard?”

She refused to answer, pride pushing away what he had made her feel. “Can I gonow?”

“Yes.” But his hand on her shoulder stayed her when she started to rise. “As soon as I have your word that you will come to me tonight when you are summoned.”

“But—”

“Your word, Shahar, or you don’t leave me now.”

“Nothing has changed,” she told him plainly.

“I did not think it had, but you will come here anyway, and we will see what happens. Your word?”

She bit her lip in indecision, then finally nodded. This brought his hand to her cheek for a soft caress and an even softer warning. “Save your fighting for me, little moon. If you have not noticed, I have accepted the challenge.”

When she rushed from the room, it was with a certain degree of dread, but something else as well. She wasn’t ready to admit it might be anticipation.

Chapter Thirty

Chantelle couldn’t work up much interest in her new “prison cell.” She now had two rooms instead of one, and both were three times larger than her previous cubicle. Very nice, she supposed, with Rhodian tiled walls and marble floor in the anteroom, where large pillows surrounded a low table. There was even a little fountain in the center of the room, and latticed windows facing a large court of pink marble.

In her bedchamber, she had a rose canopied bed instead of a pallet, and a large chest already filled with a dozen of the skimpy outfits she thought of as underwear. There were shelves behind a lacquered screen for her cosmetics, oils, and perfumes, and a magnificent Turkish carpet of crimson and gold covering most of the floor. Here there was another window, this one overlooking the walled-in garden of the favorites, where a larger fountain gurgled among beds of carnations, tulips, and dark purple lilies. A jasmine shrub just below the window allowed the sweet scent to drift in with the breeze.

She had been brought here directly from Jamil’s apartment, where Kadar had again been waiting for her out in the hall. She had been too ashamed to look at the giant eunuch with his battered face that she was responsible for, and so hadn’t really noticed where he was taking her until she stood in the doorway of her new abode. Adamma was there beaming at her, but so was Haji Agha, so Chantelle didn’t see anything out of the ordinary in being brought here.

It was Kadar who enlightened her. “This is yours now,lalla, as am I.”