"I always lose weight when I work hard."
His lips tightened. "I suppose that comment was made to make me feel guilty for forcing you to—-"
"You didn't force me. It was my choice." She stared challengingly into his eyes. "And I almost beat you."
He smiled faintly. "Yes, you did. But almost isn't good enough." His gaze moved down to the curls surrounding her womanhood. "Turn in a circle. Slowly."
She felt heat suffuse her body but somehow managed to keep her expression blank as she obeyed him.
"Even though you're thinner, your breasts are fuller than they were three years ago."
"May I get in the tub now?" she asked jerkily.
"Not yet. Turn your back to me."
Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she turned around and stood still, spine rigid.
"Marvelous buttocks." His voice thickened. "Tight and firm . . . Do you remember the painting in the maharajah's car?"
She felt like a slave on an auction block, like one of the whores in Frenchie's tent. Slavery. Block it out, she cold herself. She was giving him what he wanted; he was making her feel what he wished her to feel. "No, I don't remember. Are you finished?"
"Yes," he said hoarsely. "Get into the tub."
She quickly covered the few steps to the hip bath and the next moment thankfully sank into the soapy water. Don't look at him. Just get it over with. The heady scent of jasmine and lemon drifted up to her from the water as she grabbed the sponge floating on the surface and began briskly rubbing her shoulders.
"Not so rough," he said mockingly. "I don't want you damaged."
She stared blindly down at the water in the tub. "It's not going to work. You're going to be disappointed."
"Am I?" His voice came from behind her. "Why do you think so?"
"I'm not going—" she paused as she felt his hands on her hair, quickly unloosening her braid—"to let you hurt me.
"No?" His fingers moved through her braid from scalp to the ends of her hair, gently tagging and separating until it was in wild disarray around her shoulders.
Clever Ruel. The soft, silky hair brushing her flesh increased tenfold her feeling of vulnerability and womanliness. She moistened her lips. "I had time to think while I was riding here. I can stand anything for a few days."
"Can you?" She could hear him moving behind her. "How do you know it will be for only a few days?"
"A few days," she repeated firmly. "You'll grow tired of it and go back to doing what's important to you."
"This is important to me."
"Not like Cinnidar."
"At times I'm not sure of that."
"You'll be certain when boredom sets in." She rushed on. "And then I'll go back and I'll finish that railroad on schedule."
"And what if your disobliging elephant pays you another visit?"
She had been trying not to think of that possibility. "Li Sung will see that Dilam guards against that happening. It was all I could do to keep him from rushing into the jungle after Danor."
"I've noticed he appears a bit obsessed with getting rid of him." He moved from behind her and seated himself on the chaise longue a few feet from the tub. "I sympathize. I understand obsession."
He was naked, his thighs slightly parted to reveal bold arousal.
Her lungs constricted and she found herself unable to look away from his lower body. Soon that part of him would be joined to her, he would be moving in and out, and she would feel that helpless bonding she had first known in the maharajah's railway car. This time he would not be careful of her and she should be frightened. She was frightened, but there also existed that dark fascination he always held for her.
"I assume Li Sung will send a message if there's any further trouble?"
"What?" She managed to pull her gaze away from him and looked down at the water again. "I don't expect any more problems."
"Danor seems to do the unexpected. Lift your breasts. I want to see the water glisten on them."
Her hand tightened on the sponge.
"Anything I want, I believe you said," he reminded her softly. "I'm perfectly willing to guide you in this, but you do have a promise to keep."
She closed her eyes tightly and dropped the sponge. Her hands reached up to cup the undersides of her breasts.
"That's right." His voice was closer, beside her now. "Higher. Now offer them to me. Good ..."
His lips closed on her nipple.
She gasped and her eyes flew open. His mouth was enveloping her breast, but his light eyes were fastened on hers, watching her expression as he slowly sucked and bit at the sensitive tip. The muscles of her stomach clenched in instinctive response as sensation after sensation rippled through her. "Now keep quite still and I'll give you a reward for obedience." His hands were beneath the water, probing, finding. She gasped as his thumb began to press and rotate on the tiny nub. Hot, explosive splinters of sensation rippled through her with every motion. His other hand moved still farther down is he murmured, "Don't tighten up."
She couldn't help it. One finger. Two. Three. She arched back against the tub, her hands gripping the porcelain sides as his fingers plunged deep, out, in, fast, slow, in a rhythm that caused her to bite her lips to keep from crying out. He finally sat back on his heels. "Very good." His chest was lifting and falling with the harshness of his breathing. "Perhaps a little too good. I'm growing impatient. I believe we'll put an end to this first lesson. We'll have plenty of time for others." He stood up and reached for the large towel on the chaise longue. Stand up."
She didn't know if she could stand. Her knees were shaking, her entire body was shaking with the effort not to reveal her response to him.
"Up." Ruel didn't wait for her to obey but jerked her out of the tub and into the folds of the towel. He cast a quick glance at the bed. "Too far." He dropped back down on the chaise longue. "I can't—wait."
His fingers were searching, adjusting, drawing her limbs on either side of his hips. His hands cupped her buttocks and jerked her forward, impaling her to the quick.
She cried out as she felt the warm, hard length in the depths of her. Heat. Tightness. Hunger. No, not hunger, let it not be hunger.
He was moving, bucking, keeping her sealed tight but making her feel every inch, every sensation. Her nipples were hardening against his chest, she realized in despair. "Hold me tighter," he muttered, punctuating every word with a thrust. "Give—me—more."
She didn't want to give anything but found her legs instinctively tightening around him. That spiraling tension she had known in the railway car had returned and was growing with every second. How could her body betray her when it meant victory for him?
He moved, turned, and somehow she was on her back, lying sidewise on the chaise. There was room only for her torso on the tufted cushion and her head arched over the edge, her hair brushing the floor with Ruel's every thrust. She could feel a scream building in her throat, building in her entire body, waiting to be released.
"Stop holding back," Ruel muttered as he rotated, drew out slowly, and then plunged deep. "Give it to me."
She could fight him no longer. The primal scream broke free, her body convulsed, climaxed, and she heard his low cry of satisfaction above her. She was barely aware of the short flurry of thrusts that brought him his own release. He had won, she thought wearily. He had manipulated her body and taken what he wanted, and she had not been able to keep even that final victory from him.