Virgin Seduction

Chapter 9

Her lips were warm and soft, but with an enticing little bite to them that he recognized, even in that moment of shock, as Rueben's chili. But there was something else, too, a salty coolness he knew could only be tears. It was that as much as anything, he thought later, when he was capable of it again, that reminder of her vulnerability, the fragile state of her emotions he'd violated once before, that made him stiffen when she touched him. That made him hold himself rigid while his insides quivered with unanticipated longing, his arm muscles tensing until they ached with the control it took to keep from wrapping them around her.

"You're welcome," he said as he took her by the arms and held her where she was, a few critical inches away from him. Any closer, he knew, and he'd never be able to resist her. If he let her body touch him he was finished. "I'm glad you like her."

His thoughts were as bleak as his words were gentle, and as uncompromising as his touch. It's gratitude, nothing more. It's the gift-it's the horse she loves, not me.

I don't understand him, this man I have married, thought Leila. He seemed so kind…yes, even sweet- Kitty had been right about that. But at the same time, so distant it seemed impossible that she would ever know or understand him.

What if I can't? What if I never do?

The thought filled her with the cold emptiness of panic. She could not endure such aloneness for long. And what must she do then, go running back to Tamir, to her mother and father, like a little child with a bumped knee? To even think of such a thing made her cheeks burn and her heart quicken. No-I cannot. I will not go back.

No, she was not ready to give up. Not yet.

Tonight, she had decided, she would try again to seduce her husband. Except…no, she did not think seduce was exactly the correct word. She had looked it up in her English dictionary, and it seemed to mean that she would be trying to make Cade do something bad. What could be bad about a man making love to his wife? No-she did not like this word, seduce. Not at all.

So, what would she call it, this business of trying to make her own husband desire her? And more important, how could she accomplish it? She had not had any success at being pushy, so it was clearly time to try something else. But what? Leila was not accustomed to having to work to get her way. All her life she had been the baby of the Kamal family, the palace darling. All that had been required in order to wrap her family and servants around her little finger was to flash her dimples, be her winsome and charming self.

Be herself. Was it possible? Could her own winsomeness and charm be enough to win over such a man as Cade? Leila didn't know, but since nothing else seemed to be working, it was definitely worth a try.

Yes, she thought, watching herself in the bathroom mirror as her small white teeth pressed into her lower lip and her dimples magically appeared. Tonight… .Tonight, she would make herself so appealing, not even Cade would be able to resist her.

Cade was accustomed to fixing his own Sunday evening meal. He'd eat it alone in the kitchen, sometimes standing at the counter, or, if he'd remembered to pick up a Sunday paper, at the table in the breakfast room with the sports and business sections spread out in front of him. Tonight was no different, except that he had company.

Leila had come in while he was filling his plate from the array of covered containers and foil-wrapped packages Betsy had left for him, looking scrubbed and delectable in a belted robe the soft pink of wild roses. He'd tensed automatically when she first appeared, armoring himself against her appeal and gearing up to do battle with the unwanted desire for her that was beginning to gnaw at him like a hunger in his belly.

But she hadn't made any attempt to touch him again, or even get close to him, leaning instead against the counter and nibbling strawberries while she chattered on about the day she'd had. He thought he should have found her presence annoying. He wished he did. With all his heart he wished he didn't enjoy the sound of her voice so much. He wished his mouth wouldn't water at the sight of those soft lips of hers lush with strawberries.

She followed him into the breakfast room and sat down across the table from him, so he never did get to his newspaper. Instead, while he ate he listened to Leila telling him all about swimming with the children at Rueben and Betsy's, and how much she'd enjoyed meeting all the Flores family. She asked him all sorts of questions, and seemed so interested he told her everything he knew about Rueben and Betsy-how they'd grown up together in the same small village in Mexico, had married as teenagers and come to the United States not long after that, like so many others, to find work. How they'd been lucky enough to both find jobs with the same estate, Betsy as cook and housekeeper, Rueben as caretaker and horse wrangler. How they'd raised eight kids in the house down by the creek, and sent every one of them to college-they'd all graduated, too, except Tony, the youngest, who was still at Texas A &M studying veterinary medicine.

While he was telling her all this, he couldn't help but notice how the glow in her eyes had grown misty, and that her smile seemed wistful, even sad. It had a bad effect on him, that smile. It made him ashamed of himself. It made him think about his behavior toward her-especially the way he'd treated her since he'd married her and brought her here, to this place so far from her home and family. God, how lonely, how homesick she must be. No wonder she'd enjoyed Rueben and Betsy's bunch so much. And she'd never once complained. He-Cade-was a jerk, a selfish, thoughtless SOB, thinking only about how he was going to get out of this marriage mess, and nothing at all about what she must be going through.

Being thoroughly ashamed of himself didn't exactly put him in a frame of mind to be sociable, so as soon as he'd finished eating, he excused himself rather abruptly and shut himself up in his study to brood. It didn't take him long to discover that being exclusively in his own company wasn't doing much to improve his mood, and that it probably wasn't going to get any better until he'd figured out a way to make it up to Leila.

Meaning to step out into the backyard for a cheroot, he found himself climbing the stairs instead. He halted in front of the closed door to the bedroom that wasn't his anymore and raised his hand, only to discover that it still held the unlit cigar. He tucked it in his shirt pocket, then knocked.

So was his heart, knocking so loudly he barely heard Leila's musical, "Come in."

She was sitting on the bed-his bed-half-sideways to him with one leg drawn up, giving him enticing glimpses of smooth legs that were either naturally tawny or lightly tanned. There was the promise of other intriguing secrets in the deep vee of her robe, but they were screened from his view by her upraised arms, from which the sleeves of her robe had slipped down to reveal still more of that silky, cream-with-a-dash-of coffee skin. Which was more of her skin than he'd ever seen before at one time, come to think of it. His memory chose that moment to replay the thought that had struck him down at Rueben's, the incredible fact that he'd never actually seen his wife's body.

What was more incredible was the realization that, of all the women's bodies he'd seen in his life, in all stages of sexy and alluring undress, he'd never been so turned on as he was by those tiny, half-imagined glimpses of golden-tan skin.

With all that going on in his mind, it took him a minute or two to realize that what she was doing was braiding her hair. A tortoise-shell brush lay on the bed beside her and a length of pink ribbon was draped across her lap. She looked flustered, as if he'd caught her in a private act. She murmured something he couldn't hear and struggled to bring the braid over her shoulder so she could finish the task, and he murmured something back that was meant to tell her she didn't need to rush on his account. She watched him come toward her with apprehensive eyes. He wondered if she could hear his heart thumping.

She pulled her eyes away from him. Holding the braid with one hand, she picked up the length of ribbon with the other.

"You need some help with that?" His tongue felt thick; his voice sounded furry. Her eyes jerked back to him as he sat on the bed beside her and reached out a hand to take the ribbon.

For a moment she seemed mesmerized, gazing at him without comprehension. Then she gave herself a shake and murmured, "Oh, yes-thank you…" Her eyes dropped behind the veil of her lashes as she watched his big-boned hands tie the delicate piece of ribbon around the glossy rope of her hair. Her lips parted. She seemed to be holding her breath. He knew he was.

He tried to clear his throat. "Just out of curiosity, how were you going to manage this before I happened along?"

She gave him a sideways, upward look through her lashes. "Like this-" Her dimples winked at him as she demonstrated, with lips tucked between her teeth, how she would have held the braid in her mouth while she tied the ribbon around it.

He finished the task and held it up for her inspection. "Okay-how's that?"

"That is very nice, thank you."

For some reason he didn't relinquish the braid right away, but held it for a moment, staring at it and measuring the warm, damp weight of it in his hand. He had a sudden powerful urge to yank off the ribbon he'd just finished tying, unravel and bury his face in the soft, fragrant mass of her hair. Your hair is beautiful. He wanted to say that to her, but he didn't.

Instead, as he felt the smooth rope slide through his fingers, he cleared his throat and said, "I've been thinking…"

With a single graceful motion the braid disappeared over her shoulder. "Yes?" Her eyes waited, expectant, vulnerable.

He knew he should be more careful with her. He knew he ought to move away, at least. But he seemed to be drowning in those midnight eyes. For one panicky moment he couldn't remember what it was he'd wanted to say to her.

"I've been thinking," he said firmly, and struggling against the spell of those eyes was like swimming up out of a whirlpool. "It's been almost a week since we left Tamir. I thought you might be feeling…you know, a little homesick." She straightened almost guiltily and gave her head a little shake, ready to deny it, but he checked her with a gesture. "Hey, it's natural you'd be missing your family. What I thought, is, maybe you'd like to give them a call."

She tried to catch back the cry with her fingertips, but it was too quick for her. Above her hand, her eyes were suddenly bright with tears.

"I should have thought of it before this," Cade said gruffly. "I guess I was just so busy… business… catching up…" He felt thoroughly ashamed of himself. "Anyway, if you like, we can make the call right now. It would be…" he frowned at his watch "… early in the morning in Tamir."

"I would like that…very much." She'd turned a shoulder to him and was trying to wipe away a tear without him noticing. Then she jerked back to him, eyes wide and stricken again. "But I do not know the number. Is that not terrible? I do not even know my own telephone number!"

"I doubt you've had reason to call it," Cade said dryly.

"Not since school, that is true. That was so long ago."

"It doesn't matter. I just happen to have it, right here."

He reached into the pocket of his shirt for the slip of paper he'd written the number down on and found his forgotten cheroot there instead. Distracted, he handed the cigar to Leila while he retrieved the paper and reached with the other hand for the cordless phone on the bedside table. He dialed the number, and while he waited for the overseas connection he looked over at Leila and saw that she was still holding his cigar. Sort of rolling it between her fingers in an exploratory way, holding it to her nose and sniffing it.

Just as he was about to take it off her hands he heard the phone ringing on the other end, and immediately after that a voice saying, "Royal palace, family residence, may I help you?"

A few minutes later Leila was laughing and sobbing joyfully into the phone and didn't even notice when Cade walked out of the room. He had a knot the size of a fist in his belly, and just about the last thing on his mind was that damned cigar.

He went straight down to his study and poured himself a double shot of bourbon. He couldn't have felt worse if he'd been torturing kittens. What kind of man am I? he wondered as he gazed morosely into the amber depths of his whiskey glass. What kind of selfish idiot was I, to have convinced myself I could marry a girl from a completely alien culture, haul her thousands of miles away from her home and family and expect her to be happy? The look of sheer joy on her face when he'd handed her the phone, her radiant, tear-wet eyes, haunted him.

I have to make it right, he thought. Somehow.

Half a bottle of bourbon later, she was still haunting him, but in a vastly different way. As the level of liquid in the bottle dropped, so, it seemed, did the focus of his thoughts. The image he couldn't get out of his mind now wasn't her eyes, or even her dimpled smile. It was those taunting glimpses of creamy skin vanishing into the shadowed slashes of her robe, one at her breasts, the other her thighs. And he kept coming back to the fact that she was his wife, and he'd never seen either of those parts of her, not to mention others even less accessible.

She's my wife, dammit And I want her.

Oh yeah, he kept coming back to that, too, like a little kid nagging in a toy store.

A few more sips of bourbon and he was starting to rationalize pretty effectively, with much the same sort of creative thinking he recalled employing as a teenager. Then he'd been under the influence of hormones, not whiskey, but the effect was the same. He began to convince himself that she wanted him to make love to her. After all, back there in Tamir she'd asked him to kiss her, hadn't she? And she'd come to his room, hadn't she? Hell yes, she had. She wanted him, he wanted her, they were married-so why shouldn 't they have each other?

It began to seem ridiculous to him that he'd been married nearly a week and hadn't yet made love to his wife. He couldn't even recall his reason for not doing so-something about her being a virgin?-but whatever it was he was sure it couldn't have been very important. Not nearly as important as how full and hot and hard he was right now, and how much he wanted her.

But then, high on hormones, the teenage boy he'd been hadn't given much thought to tomorrow, either.

That's it, he thought, enough of this bull. She ought to be about talked out by now, homesick or not. He knocked back the last of the whiskey, plunked down the glass and marched out of his study and up the stairs. He almost barged right into his bedroom without knocking, but at the last minute thought better of it and tapped softly with one knuckle. When he got no answer, he opened the door part way and poked his head through the crack, calling her name. Then he stopped. He let out his breath in a long slow hiss, like something deflating.

His princess bride was lying on his bed, curled on her side with one hand under her cheek, the other cradling the telephone against her breasts. She was sound asleep. And those elusive legs of hers, slightly bent at both hip and knee, had escaped the confines of the robe through the front overlap and were finally displayed for him in all their glory. It was a sight to make a man's mouth water and his belly howl.

He tiptoed over to the bed and stood looking down at her…this lovely, exotic creature he'd married. The hormone-and-whiskey high was ebbing, and he felt a strange, indefinable sadness, an ache of longing he neither liked nor understood. It scared the hell out of him, as a matter of fact. What did it mean? Was he falling for this girl? God help him if he was, because things were complicated enough the way they were.

He was easing the phone out of her grasp when he made another unsettling discovery. Pillowing her cheek, her hand was still curled around his forgotten cheroot. What did that mean? His heart skittered and bounded like a startled rabbit. He flicked the comforter over those delectable legs, turned off the lamp and went out and closed the door behind him, feeling shaky and weak in the knees.

He woke the next morning with a severe headache and a sense of having escaped unthinkable disaster. No question about it, he was going to have to get this marriage thing solved right quick. Before he got himself in so deep he couldn't get out, at least not without permanent damage to his heart.

Meanwhile, he was swearing off bourbon.

When Leila woke up Monday morning, Cade had already gone-to his offices in Houston, Betsy told her. And after that, she said, he was going to fly up to Dallas to meet with some people about a refinery he was going to rebuild and modernize for them out in a place called Odessa. There was a lot of planning to do- probably take several days, she said, so Cade would be staying in Dallas most of the week. Betsy's face looked stern as she told Leila this, as if she were angry.

Later, she heard Betsy talking to Rueben in the kitchen.

"…makes me so mad. Why is he acting like this? What did he marry her for, if he's just going to leave her alone all the time? Why doesn't he sleep-" And she broke off quickly as Leila came into the room.

I don't know why either, Leila wanted to say. Although, unlike Betsy, she did know why Cade had married her. He had married her because she had disgraced herself, and he felt sorry for her. And because he did not want to displease her father, the sheik.

And now she was trapped, every bit as trapped as she had been in Tamir, only worse. There, at least, she had been surrounded by people who loved her, even if they did treat her like a child most of the time. Here, she had only a husband who did not love her at all, and Rueben and Betsy, who were kind.

"Just give him some time," Betsy told her with a sigh, as if she were talking about one of her own children who was misbehaving. "He's real busy right now, but he'll come around. You just have to give him time."

Yes, Leila thought, but I do not know how long I will be able to stand this loneliness.

She kept busy during the day, working with the foal, Sari, reading books beside the pool and swimming. Once, two of Betsy's grandchildren knocked at the back door and said, "Can Leila come out and play with us?" And so she enjoyed a wonderful afternoon swimming with them in the creek.

But the thing she liked the most, besides working with Sari, was following Betsy around the house, asking questions about Cade. She especially liked the photograph albums Betsy gave her, and spent hours poring over them staring at the grainy black-and-white or faded color photographs of Cade when he was a boy, and the people who had made him who he was.

One album was older than the others, made of black paper pages between stiff leather covers. It had been Cade's mother's, Betsy told her, and the pictures were of her father, who had been the "wildcatter." There were many pictures in the album like the one Leila had seen framed in Cade's study, of grimy men with blackened faces standing beside wooden derricks or oil well pumps that reminded Leila of giant insects. Betsy explained that a wildcatter was someone who searched for oil, and that Cade's grandfather had found a lot of it, back in the nineteen-twenties, and had become very rich.

"Ah," said Leila, nodding. But she was puzzled, too. For some reason it had not seemed that Cade had always been rich.

But then Betsy explained that Cade's father had been a gambler and an alcoholic, and had lost almost all of his wife's money before she divorced him, when Cade was twelve. And then had died a short time later.

Leila's eyes had filled with tears when Betsy told her of Cade's mother's death only a few years after that, in a tragic accident. There was something about the pretty blond woman with the kind eyes and gentle smile that reminded her of her own mother. Even now, Leila could not imagine her world without her mother in it, and to think that Cade had been no more than fifteen…The photographs of Cade at that time showed a solemn-faced boy with broad shoulders that looked as if they carried a great weight, and now she understood why. Earlier, though, there were pictures of a younger, much more carefree Cade with his mother and a handsome dark-haired, hawk-nosed man, and a little girl who looked familiar. Leila looked closer, then gave a i cry. "But this is Elena!"

Yes, Betsy told her, and the man was Elena's father, Yusuf Rahman. Betsy's mouth tightened when she said that name.

"Then…Cade's mother and Elena's father were lovers?" In the photographs they seemed close, like a family, Leila thought.

But Betsy shook her head and said, "You'd have to ask Cade about that."

She had gone on about her dusting, and her whole body quivered with indignation and disapproval- though it was not, Leila understood, of her. She already knew, from things Elena had told her, that Yusuf Rahman had been an evil man, that he had even killed his own wife, Elena's mother, and would have killed Elena, too, if Hassan had not shot him first. She had not known how close that evil had come to touching Cade's life as well.

She had gone on to study the photograph albums alone after that, and if she felt disappointed it was because she wished she could ask Cade, as Betsy had suggested-about many things. She liked listening to Betsy talk about Cade's background and family, but she wished she could have talked of those things with her husband instead.

Someday he will talk to me. I must believe that. And maybe then I will understand why he does not want to love we.

Cade returned on Friday, just as Rueben and Betsy were about to leave for the weekend. They were all in the kitchen when he came in. Betsy was showing Leila the food she had prepared for their weekend meals, and Rueben was sitting at the small kitchen table drinking a glass of sweetened iced tea. Cade nodded at Rueben, who nodded back.

"Huh," said Betsy as she closed the refrigerator door with a loud smack, "what're you doing home so early?"

Even Leila recognized the sarcasm, and not for the first time she thought how different Rueben and Betsy's position in this house was from that of the servants back home in Tamir.

Cade pulled out a chair and sat down at the table. He looks very tired, Leila thought, watching him draw a hand over his eyes and rub them briefly. Her heartbeat stumbled as those deeply shadowed eyes slid past her…but when he spoke his words and half smile were for Betsy. "Got any more of that tea?"

Betsy gave him a look, but did not say anything as she took a glass from the cupboard and poured tea fro the pitcher in the refrigerator. Then she handed the glass to Leila. Leila took it, not comprehending; she had not asked for tea. Betsy jerked her head toward Cade and made a motion with her hand that he could not see.

Then she understood. Of course-she was to serve her husband. What a lot I have to learn about being a wife, she thought. When it came to food and drink, Leila was accustomed to being served, not the other way around.

Her heart hammered and her hands shook as she placed the glass of iced tea on the table in front of her husband. His eyes flashed briefly at her from their shadows as he mumbled, "Thanks." Leila nodded and retreated until she felt the cold edge of the tile counter at her back. She slumped against it because her knees felt weak and she was grateful for the support, but she remembered her pride and straightened just in time. A daughter of Sheik Ahmed Kamal does not slump.

Betsy asked again why Cade had come home so early, and what his plans were for the coming weekend. He took a long drink of iced tea before he answered. "I thought I'd fly out to the ranch…do some repairs. That was more than a little bit embarrassing last week, having the power go out, with a client."

Leila felt strange, as if she were standing all alone on a great empty stage, and thousands of people were looking at her. She heard herself say in a loud, clear voice, "I would like to go with you." The strangeness dissolved and she saw that there were only two people looking at her-Cade with silent shock, and Betsy with a little smile of approval. Rueben, with his back to her, drank tea with a noisy clanking of ice cubes.

Leila stepped forward, and her stomach quivered with butterflies. "I would like to see this ranch that I have heard about," she said, and there was no quiver at all in her voice. "I would like to see more of Texas."

Cade was opening his mouth to speak, and she knew that he was going to say that she could not go. She did not know what she would do if he told her that. I will not be left alone again, she thought, trembling now with anger. Anger and a new determination. I will not be abandoned again.

"That's a good idea," said Betsy. Cade shut his mouth on whatever it was he had planned to say and glared at the short, brown woman. She glared back at him. Her arms were folded on her great soft bosom, and her round face looked as though it had been carved from wood. "You should take your wife-show her the ranch. Have a nice weekend together-just the two of you."

The silence in the kitchen was profound. It seemed to Leila that they must all hear each other's hearts beating. Then Rueben gave his shoulder a hitch and said, "Yeah, you should take her."

Cade flashed him a look of pure shock. Leila held her breath while seconds ticked by. She knew that this was important-maybe the most important moment of her life, a crossroads. If he refuses me, she thought with cold resolve…If he leaves me again…

His eyes came back to her. She felt them as a strange kind of heat, a melting fire that spread through her chest. "It's pretty primitive out there," he said. "Not very comfortable. Are you sure you want to go?" And she knew that she had won.

She gave a happy sigh. " Very sure."

The twin-engine Cessna 310 arrowed upward through the East Texas haze and leveled off above the outer limits of Houston's suburbs. This early in the morning there were no thunderheads to reckon with, so Cade set a course straight across the checkerboard of farmland and small towns toward the hill country west of San Antonio. Flying time to the ranch was anywhere from an hour and a half to two hours, depending on wind conditions.

He looked over at his passenger. She hadn't said much since he'd buckled her into her seat, just kept looking out the window with her face pressed right up against the glass. Reminded him of a little kid staring through the walls of an aquarium, oblivious to everything except what was going on in the alien world on the other side.

Not completely oblivious. As if she sensed his look, she glanced over at him. "America is so…big," she said, her voice breathless and wondering. She sat back in her seat with a happy-sounding sigh. "It is just as I imagined. And all of this-" she turned once again to the window, as if she couldn't help herself "-is still Texas? It must go on forever!"

"Not quite," said Cade dryly, "but just about."

She was silent, gazing down on the crazy-quilt landscape. Then she said, "I understand why you felt 'cooped up' in Tamir."

Cooped up. He felt a strange little shiver go through him-not déjà vu, exactly, just an instant of total sensory recall. Hearing those words, for a moment he was back there in Tamir with Leila, the night of the state reception. She was flirting with him on the terrace overlooking the sea, and he was feeling again that unnerving and mystifying sense of accord with a woman as exotic and alien to him as anyone he'd ever met. Thinking about it, and about everything that had happened to him since, he wondered now if it had all begun with that moment. He sure as hell hadn't felt like himself since.

"Yeah," he said in a gravelly voice, "Pretty hard to feel cooped up out here."

"You would think so…" Her voice was wistful and soft, and he wondered how words so gentle could cause such a fierce and painful wound, right in the vicinity of his heart.

There was no more talking after that. Leila gazed out the window and Cade was left alone with his remorseful thoughts. And some that were wistful, too. He kept thinking about those days and nights in Tamir, remembering the gardens, the scent of flowers and the music of fountains, a princess's enchanting smile. And it seemed to him that there had been a magical innocence about that time, remembered, like a fairy tale from his childhood, with a sense of regret, an awareness of having had something precious that was now lost. Something he wished he could find again, and had no idea how.

Time went quickly, and in no time at all the Cessna was circling over dun-colored hills dotted with gray-green live oaks and darker splotches of juniper. There was the pale ribbon of road-smoother-looking from up here than the corduroy it was-and the landing strip with its wind sock hanging limp at this time of morning. Cade pointed them out to Leila-the maintenance shed next to the runway, then the slate-gray roof of the farmhouse, and on the other side of the house, shielded from the landing strip by a grove of live oaks, the barn and corrals. She didn't reply, just gazed down at everything in silent awe.

And suddenly, in his mind he could hear Betsy saying, "…show her the ranch. Have a nice weekend… Just the two of you."

Just the two of us. The whole weekend.

The knot in his stomach felt a lot like fear.