When Osman protested her extravagance, she rounded on him. "Go to the grand eunuch, insect! If he says no, then I will obey." Osman sighed and paid the happy vendors.
She ate lightly and then spent two luxurious hours in the harem baths being pampered, for word had already reached the bath mistress of Cat's favor with the master. Back in her room, she slept to be awakened in early evening, when she again ate lightly of fresh yogurt and fruit.
Studying the garments she had purchased, she decided upon the lime green. The ankles of the silk pantaloons had bands of a slightly deeper green, embroidered in gold-thread flowers. With it she wore a sheer, long-sleeved gauze silk blouse striped in the two greens, and topped it with a short, sleeveless lime-green silk jacket with its sides and bottom banded in heavy gold embroidery and seed pearls. The bolero was fringed in tiny pearls. Below her hips was tied a gold-and-green striped silk sash. Her kid slippers were studded with pearl flowers. Over her long, dark-gold hair she wore a long diaphanous green silk veil. About her neck she had fastened a rope of jade and a rope of pearls. Gold bangles jingled on her arms, and gold-and-jade earrings bobbed from her ears.
Hammid's fat face split into a wide grin when he saw her. "Magnificent, Incili!" he exclaimed. "You have taste, and a flair for style." He escorted her as far as the door to the vizier's bedchamber. There he left her, saying, "I wish you joy this night."
She walked into the room calmly to find him waiting. She saw the approval in his gray-blue eyes, and he teas-ingly said, "I hear you have been spending my money." Reaching out, he pulled the veils from her face and head.
"You imply you find favor with me, my lord," she said coolly, "yet until today the lowliest female in your harem had more than I. I am neither a greedy nor an acquisitive woman, but I must have clothes."
"With or without them you are the loveliest of women, Incili," and she saw the quick desire flickering in his eyes.
Seeing a chess set on the low table, she quickly asked, "Will you play with me my lord Cica?"
He was amused. "Do you play?" he asked.
"Very well, or so both my husbands told me," she answered with a poise she was far from feeling.
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.