The Sheik & the Slave Ch. 11

Dedicated - as always - to the fans of The Sheik and the Slave. Thank you for your continued support. This chapter has taken me quite a bit of time to write and I appreciate your patience.

Nic

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Anne sipped her champagne as she stood next to her husband. She watched the couples whirl across the floor and spied Kat's friend Frances in the arms of the squire's son, Henry.

Henry had always been a good lad. Studious and quiet he was expected to take over his father's farms in years to come.

"My dear, where is Katharine? I haven't seen her in a goodly 10 minutes."

Edward smiled down at his wife. "First you decide she is too morose, now you worry she is gone astray?"

"Ridiculous!" Anne admonished him lightly. But secretly she did worry for her daughter.

Katharine was so different, so altered since her return that Anne feared for her mind.

She had been such a spirited young girl that Anne had worried after her virtue. As she had grown, her beauty became legendary. Anne had worried about fortune hunters that would come after her.

But Anne needn't have worried. Kat had a vicious tongue that was well known and she was no insipid girl. She was educated, innocent and not given to false flattery by insincere dandies.

Anne enjoyed the music and the time spent among her neighbors where she was liked and admired.

"My dear, I have come upon a wonderful idea!" Anne said excitedly as she gripped her husband's arm.

Edward rolled his eyes at the tone. Anne was a good mother and wife with a gracious heart but sometimes her ideas were outlandish.

"After the engagement is announced this evening, we will send Kat – with a chaperone of course – to my sister Louisa in France!" Anne smiled broadly.

Edward arched an eyebrow at his wife.

Anne saw the look and pounced on it.

"But my dear, it will be just the thing to right her spirits, just the thing!" Edward left his wife briefly to converse quickly with Jamie and returned to Anne's side.

"Anne, if you feel it would do Kat some good to spend time in France, than I will agree. But I also think we should ask Kat. She might be against the idea. After all, she will be married soon."

"Yes, yes. But a holiday away from all this, will be just the thing."

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Kat rested a shaking hand against her breasts. She should not have let him touch her.

I remember how you like it – he had whispered in her ear. She shivered in the cool air.

She was so easily swayed. He had touched her, kissed her and she was ready to do anything. She had wanted to lift up her fashionable Paris dress and wrap her legs around his waist. To feel his thick cock deep inside her – was all she wanted at the moment. She was so weak, she cursed herself.

She could feel the beads of moisture on her forehead and she almost cried aloud.

"Kat?"

She turned around where Jamie stood before her.

"Jamie." She breathed a sigh of relief.

"What happened to your hair?" Her perfectly coiffed hair had been pulled down when Mohammed had touched her.

"It was so heavy," Kat supplied weakly.

"I see." Was all he said. "Your father asked that I find you and bring you back to the ballroom."

"Thank you." She took his arm as they walked back to the house.

"I would still like to announce our betrothal," Jamie said quietly.

Kat's heart sank. It was all so unfair. Why did he make her feel this way? Why did she burn for the Arab's touch? Why didn't Jamie ever touch her or at least try?

Kat suddenly stopped Jamie on their way to the large house.

"Kiss me."

Jamie looked down into her luminous blue eyes. "What did you say?"

"Please, kiss me, before we announce our betrothal."

Jamie smiled. "Of course, dearest." He bent his head toward hers and lightly touched his lips to hers. They were as cool as her own and it ended after a brief meeting of their lips.

Mohammed's dark eyes watched the two lovers kiss in the darkened garden. So the little falcon was at it again. And whether they were dark Arab men or the English gentlemen of this cold world – they all flocked to her honey – like dogs after a bitch's scent. He seethed.

He remembered so well the night of the Banquet when she had spread her slim legs and moaned as he took her virginity. Did her English lover know that she wasn't a virgin? Did he know that she had lost her virginity on that Arabian evening when her hair had been scented with Patchouli and Jasmine?

What would he think when he told him she lost it to an Arab Muslim?

Mohammed chuckled. Maybe he should find himself alone with the man and tell him.

He watched the lovers enter the large ballroom.

"My love," Anne came to her daughter's side. She noticed her daughter's hair fallen down upon her back.

"Your hair – "

"Yes Mother. It was too heavy. I took it down. I'm tired of fashion's dictates," Kat grumbled in an unattractive, unladylike way. She thought suddenly of the free-flowing Arabian clothes and life without corsets.

"And corsets bind most unappealingly." Kat sulked.

Anne looked shocked. "My dear. What would a woman be without a slim waist?" She glanced to Jamie and Edward but neither seemed interested in their conversation.

Kat was tired of the ball, the heat and the people staring at her. She was terrified of being introduced to Mohammed in front of her father and having to make niceties to a man who had been her lover.

"Let's announce the betrothal," Edward suggested to the threesome.

"Oh yes," Anne smiled as she held another champagne flute in her hand.

Kat wondered if he mother was drinking too much and watched as Edward managed to get the large crowd's attention.

Edward thanked the entire congregation for coming a day's journey to join the festivities and took his daughter's hand and Jamie's hand joining them together.

"Anne and I are proud to announce the betrothal of our beloved daughter Katharine to James Clifton."

Applause broke out around her as Kat fell into a black hole. Jamie caught her before she sank to the ground.

Jamie carried her up the stairs with her mother fussing behind them.

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Fern and Daisy, the Bucket sisters, were 15 years older than Kat and vicious town gossips. They stood behind a large pillar in the ballroom and watched as Kat was picked up and carried away.

"Did you see that Fern? She fainted!" Daisy told her sister in a hushed tone.

Fern, a hooked nose woman with frizzy red hair and watery brown eyes, sniffed decidedly. "Of course. The little chit couldn't wait til the proper wedding night. She's obviously in the family way."

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Mohammed stood behind the town gossips unseen. So. She had spread her legs again and this time, the Englishman's seed had been potent. He would never take her now. Not the leavings from the pale Englishman. He could see her as she had been when he had taken her from behind in the bath. Pounding into her tight pussy had been beyond pleasure. His little princess had always said one thing when she had wanted the opposite.

Kat had always been too proud to admit that she needed him, wanted him. But he had been the same.

He had never been able to admit what affect she had on him. She had dazzled him as she had the men before him and after him. But he still wanted her. He would place her in the harem. That was the only place for his wayward falcon, Mohammed thought arrogantly.

Kat awoke slowly with a headache.

"There, there." Anne patted her hand and poured her a glass of water.

"I don't remember –" Kat began.

"You fainted, dear. It must have been the heat of the ballroom." She took a cool cloth and placed it over her daughter's forehead.

"Was the betrothal announced?"

"Yes, dear."

"Are you pleased?"

Anne smiled. "Well, yes. I suppose I am. And you, are you happy?"

"Yes. I am, Mother. Jamie is a good man."

"Of course he is, darling." Anne took the cloth away and stepped away from her daughter's bed.

"Rest, darling. Most of the people have gone. You needn't go back down. Tomorrow we'll talk about an idea I have. You can go abroad before the wedding."

"Before the wedding?" Kat repeated.

"Yes, dear. To France to visit your Aunt Louisa."

Kat sighed. "I would like that." A chance to leave England and get away from Mohammed, Kat thought.

"I'll bring you up a cup of tea dear, after the guests have gone."

Anne closed the door quietly and went downstairs to perform her duties as hostess and bid those leaving a goodbye and good journey.

Kat could still remember the brother-like kiss Jamie had bestowed upon her lips. Sweet and loving it had all the warmth and passion of a walnut. Kat sighed.

She tried to imagine what life would be like with him. How could she be a good wife? How could she lie with him and make love to him as she had with Mohammed?

All the things she had let Mohammed do. She had given in so easily. She had become a sexual toy so quickly. But she had also fallen in love.

She still wore her heavy dress of ruby silk. The dress that showed off her assets with an alluring view.

She could undress and put this evening behind her. His presence meant nothing. She would marry Jamie. It was the right thing to do. She would ring for her Irish maid.

"Don't undress. The one good thing about foreign women is you wear more clothes than Arab women. Much like unwrapping a present."

Kat whirled to where Mohammed stood in a dark corner hidden by a large armoire.

"You are mad to be here. What are you doing here?" Kat's dress billowed out she stood up.

"My little princess. So perfect and unspoilt." He spoke lowly and then cursed in Arabic.

Kat blanched at the word he called her. She knew it. He had called her a whore in Arabic.

"You have not right to call me that!" She spoke to him, her breasts heaving in anger.

His dark eyes watched her creamy globes as they slipped over the bodice.

"Perhaps no right. But don't pretend to be something you are not."

"I don't understand." Kat shook her head.

Mohammed watched her throat and longed to bury his mouth in it.

"Don't act the lady, when all you really are is a cheap whore."

Kat moved to him and slapped him hard, the sound echoed in the room.

In a second, Mohammed pinned her arms behind her back, picked her up and threw her onto the bed.

His weight settled on top of her as he pinned her down.

"Little slut." He purred into her ear as his hands delved underneath her silk skirts. He felt the garters that held up her stockings and looked down. Her silk encased legs were mouth-watering with small blue garters holding up the stockings.

"You know I've dreamt about you day and night," he said huskily in her ear.

Kat shook her head. "No. I don't want anything to do with you." Her heart raced as his weight settled on top of her. She could feel her body coming to life.

"Yes, so it seems. While I scour the whole of Arabia looking for you after that bitch Yasmeen had you kidnapped, you are spreading your legs for half of England."

"What?" Kat asked him, shocked.

"Yes. Yasmeen has been returned to her family in disgrace. But I shouldn't have bothered. Or perhaps I should bring you back to Arabia to satisfy myself and then my brothers when I tire of you."

Kat struggled underneath him. "I never meant to deceive Majeed. Please believe me. He and Rana were nothing but good to me."

Mohammed snorted. "No, you need do nothing, princess. Men just flock to you. They flock to your honey."

With that, Mohammed moved his hand between her thighs.

Kat was mortified. She could deny him with her mouth but her passage was already slick with her juices.

"Spread your legs, Princess."

"No." She tried to squeeze her thighs but his hand parted them.

"How much honey do you give them?" His fingers moved into her and she opened her thighs to him.

"That's it." He whispered into her ear.

Kat clenched her hands onto his shoulders as his fingers moved into her tight, wet passage. The tightness surrounded his finger as the warm core enveloped him.

"Mohammed." Kat was losing control. She wanted him too badly. She could not say no to him.

"You will come back to Arabia and join the harem." Mohammed told her, his ego would allow no more though he wanted her at his side.

Kat pulled back. "You are insulting. I am offered marriage here, yet I'm to go to Arabia and be your whore?"

Mohammed sneered. "What can your Englishman give you? I can give you servants and a palace, even inside the harem. It may be asked why I should take a pale Englishman's leavings?" He sat back on his haunches.

"Leavings? How dare you. I've done nothing to be asha –"

"There was talk of you in the ballroom. You fainted. They think you pregnant. Used goods. They think you couldn't wait until the wedding night."

"I couldn't. Why should I?" She raised her head haughtily. Let him think that she was used. Let him think what he would. She alone knew that the only man that had ever known her biblically – was before her. She lay before him on the bed, legs spread and dress bunched up around her slim thighs.

Mohammed's hand slid up her thigh. "So what would one more mean to you? So experienced. So used to a man's touch."

Kat shivered as he moved the silk dress further up her thighs.

He spoke to her in Arabic. The words were half coarse, half loving as he spoke of his need for her.

"No one but you will do." He said as his mouth roughly took hers. She never had to ask Mohammed to touch her or taste her. He took her when he wanted. And she wanted him.

He pulled back suddenly to look at her. "I have traveled from Arabia to bring you back. You belong at my side, princess."

"No." Kat shook her head. "There can never be anything between us."

"So little falcon. You think I will leave here and let you marry that Englishman? I told you before, I'm not leaving England without you."

"You must see the truth. There is no future for us. Please." She begged him.

Kat knew that as much as she dreamed and yearned for him, they were too different. She knew in her heart as much as she wanted him, she would never have him. And his arrogance would only allow her to remain in the harem, never at his side as his wife.

Tears gathered in her eyes. "Please, Mohammed. If you care for me at all, you'll let me go."

Mohammed looked down at her and then stood up, smoothing her dress down as he did.

He said only one word in Arabic before he left her room. Kat shivered at the word he had said - impossible.

Less than five minutes later, Anne entered her daughter's room carrying a tray with a cup of tea.

"Mother, I have been thinking about what you said. I would like to go to France immediately."

"Of course, dear. I will write the necessary letters. You can perhaps journey within the month."

"I should like to go within two days," Kat told her mother.

"Darling –" Anne began to argue at the rash decision and then turned silent. "Two days it shall be," Anne agreed.

After her mother left, Kat went to stand beside her large windows that overlooked the vast property of her father's estate.

She knew that if she could stay hidden from Mohammed she could break the spell he held over her. Once she was legally married, she need never worry about Mohammed again.

She would marry Jamie, bear his children and have a life in the country.

If only she could stop dreaming about the little boy with his honey colored skin, dark curly hair and her blue eyes.