15
I’ve lost control, Jan thought. She blinked three times and licked her lips, taking in the now-familiar aftertaste of the sweet aruha. She’d tasted it in the first sip of the tea Ephraim had offered, and she’d gulped it down anyway. Truthfully, that’s why she drank the tea—after all, she didn’t particularly like iced tea.
Yes, I’ve lost control of myself, my mind, my grip on reality, she thought again as she tried to get her bearings. Was she on a plane? Already in Habeetha? Somewhere else?
I’m in a bed, she realized as her senses came back to her and she felt the pillows beneath her head and the cool sheets against her body. Against her naked body.
“Oh God, no!” she cried out when she realized she didn’t have a shred of clothing on beneath the sheets. “Oh, please no!”
Jan sat up straight and pulled the sheets up over her bare breasts as panic gave way to a sinking feeling of dread. Had this really happened? She didn’t remember a thing, but she was in what looked like a hotel room, naked to the toes after being drugged by a Sheikh who was king of Sin City, Arabia!
He raped me, she thought in anger as she carefully touched herself between her legs to see if she was sore, if she was bleeding, if that sick animal’s semen was oozing out of her after he’d taken what he wanted when she was powerless to resist. She didn’t have any soreness or pain, and there was no blood or semen on her or in her that she could feel. After making sure the bedroom was empty, she pulled the sheets away and examined herself and then the bedsheets beneath her bottom. No bruises on her smooth, creamy skin. No damp spots or stains on the pristine white sheets.
“That doesn’t prove anything,” she muttered, fighting back a dreadful sense of guilt as a part of her whispered that she’d slurped down that aruha drug like a goddamn witch-whore and put herself in a position of absolute vulnerability. What did she expect was going to happen? Another round of hot sex on a private plane? Nope. You get used like a harlot while you’re passed out. It’s his fault for doing it, but you’re still a goddamn fool.
Jan looked around the room again. Certainly a hotel room. There was a window at the far end, but the curtains were drawn. She looked for a phone. No phone. Cameras on the walls? No cameras. What about clothes? Um, no clothes anywhere in sight. Neither hers nor his. Where the hell was she?
She swung her legs off the bed and wrapped the sheets around her, carefully standing and bumbling over to the window. She took a breath and pulled the curtains away, squinting and turning her head when the sun hit her full. When she got her sight back she looked out, letting forth a deep sigh when she saw the Tower of London in the distance. She was still in England.
“What do you think he will do?” came the voice from behind her, and Jan was so startled she almost dropped the sheets.
She turned on her feet, making sure not to fall flat on her face as she trampled on the sheets and tried to look calm and composed in the presence of the man who’d just raped her. “How could you?” she said, frowning when she saw that Ephraim was still wearing that maroon tuxedo, tie included. “Have you no shame? What kind of a man does that?”
Ephraim didn’t flinch. “What kind of a man did you think I was when you drank the aruha? When you knowingly drank the aruha, I should add.”
Jan blinked hard and swallowed. “I don’t know what you mean. All I know is that you drugged me last night, and now I’m naked in a hotel room with no memory of what happened.”
Jan blinked again as she looked at Ephraim. He seemed calm, in control, his dark green eyes unwavering and alert. She glanced at his clothes again. The shirt had lost some of its crispness and the jacket had a definite crease in it, like he’d been wearing those clothes all night. But that still didn’t prove anything. He’d done it. Hadn’t he?
Is he trying to mess with my head, she wondered as she forced herself to look into his eyes, guilt creeping through her when she realized she didn’t feel the hate and anger she wanted to feel. Was it the drug that was numbing her? Or was it the look in his eyes—a look that whispered the truth: that perhaps he wasn’t an unhinged rapist, that perhaps he had simply decided to enter the game on his own terms.
Ephraim smiled, his thick red lips parting, his perfect teeth shining white against the dark stubble that lined his strong jaw. He shook his head while holding the eye contact, his long black hair looking like a stallion’s mane, his eyes narrowing as he laughed. “Those are indeed the facts, I suppose. You were drugged, and now you are naked in a hotel room. As for your memory . . . yes, the strain of aruha that grows in Habeetha is more potent, and it does cause a blackout effect. Too bad. I am sure you would enjoy the memories of last night, Professor Janice.” He paused. “May I call you Jan?”
She snorted. “You may not call me anything. We don’t know each other, and we never will, after what you’ve done.”
“I disagree,” Ephraim said drolly, raising an eyebrow and rubbing his stubble. “We already know a lot about each other simply from our actions.”
“What actions? I didn’t—”
“You knew what was in that tea, and you drank it anyway. That means you’d tasted aruha before, and since it only grows in the desert around the Golden Oasis, it must have been Darius who gave it to you the first time.” Ephraim paused, that smirk returning as his eyes gleamed. “The good Sheikh Darius. Did he tell you I was the evil king in this story? Are you sure you know who is the good king and who is the evil one?”
Jan took a breath and frowned as her head spun. A part of her still couldn’t fathom why she’d downed that tea when she tasted the drug in it. Did she want to be powerless and vulnerable? Did she want to give up control and let the so-called evil Sheikh have his way with her? Was it because of the madness of what she was getting herself into, the strange mix of guilt and excitement that was impelling her forward even though by all logic she was in a situation that was disgusting at best and deadly at worst? After all, these were kings threatening to send their armies into battle for the future of their kingdoms! Would they even think twice about manipulating and using her, disposing of her if it suited them?
“He told me . . .” she started to say. “He told me . . .”
“Say no more,” Ephraim whispered, still smirking though his eyes revealed something that made Jan shiver—and not in fright but excitement. “Your actions have told me enough. The game is on and you are playing it, Professor Johansen. We are all playing it. Darius set this in motion, but all three of us have made conscious, deliberate moves. I made the move of drugging you. You made the move of allowing yourself to be drugged. Now it is time for Darius’s next move. I am hitting the ball back to him.”
Jan frowned, pulling the sheets tight around her curves and then glaring up at him as that sense of excitement grew to the point where all fear was gone and it was just excitement. “I’m the ball in this game? Did you just call me a ball?”
Ephraim took a step forward, his dark eyes shining as he cocked his head. Slowly he walked toward her, and now Jan could smell him, an earthy, heavy musk of sandalwood and desert oak that overwhelmed her senses as she felt her nipples stiffen beneath the sheets. What was she doing? Was she actually flirting with this asshole?
Slowly the dark Sheikh circled her as she stood there barefoot and vulnerable, and the arousal began to build as her thighs tingled, her buttocks tightened, her toes curled. When he got so close she could feel his clean, warm breath on her bare neck, the wetness began to flow from her secret space, and when he brought his lips close to her face, she opened her mouth and gently sighed as she felt herself close to losing control.
“There will come a time when I shall call you what I want, when I want,” he whispered without touching her. He glanced into her eyes and she almost swooned as she sensed the movement in his fitted maroon pants as he stiffened, as if his cock was straining to be unleashed, as if her oozing cunt was calling out from beneath those white sheets. “But for now, I will call you Helen.” He took a long breath and smiled tightly, as if it was taking all his willpower to not touch her, to not take her. “My attendants will bring your clothes back shortly. There will be a car waiting for you whenever you choose to leave. Good day . . . Helen. It is time for you to return to the good Sheikh Darius.”
Jan blinked and frowned as the Sheikh suddenly stepped away from her and walked across the room toward the door. She blinked again when she saw the way his trousers were peaked at the front. Clearly he was aroused beyond belief. The way he’d backed off confused her even more than him calling her Helen when he knew her real name was Jan. Helen? Who was Helen?
And then it hit her. Helen of Troy. The woman who’d been kidnapped by a king, starting a war that changed the course of history. Suddenly she knew he hadn’t raped her. He hadn’t even touched her. And something about the way he’d backed off despite his arousal told her that perhaps he hadn’t even undressed her himself, had perhaps not even taken the liberty of looking at her naked body when she was passed out.
Helen of Troy. That was his first move, wasn’t it? Ephraim wanted to see if he could provoke Darius into doing something rash, perhaps even violent. That’s why he wanted her to think she’d been raped. Yes, of course! She’d go running back to the good Sheikh Darius, tell him what the evil King Ephraim had done, and spark a war! Was Ephraim testing Darius to see if Jan meant anything to him? Was he testing Jan to see what she’d do? Was he testing himself? All three at once? Who knew?
Only one way to find out, she decided as the blood rushed to her head. Only one way.
“Helen of Troy wasn’t sent back, you know,” she called after him, her heart almost beating its way out of her chest when she realized what she was doing.
The Sheikh stopped at the door, his broad back to her, his thick long hair looking wild against the dark red of his jacket. Slowly he turned, and it took all of Jan’s strength to stay focused on his face and not the enormous peak at the front of his trousers. “Ya Allah,” he whispered as his jaw went tight and his eyes blazed a deep green. Slowly he looked her up and down, his lips trembling as he clenched his fists. “Careful,” he whispered. “Once you step all the way into the arena, there is no stepping out until the game is finished.”
He took a step and stopped, his eyes giving her one last chance to take back the move she was making. But Jan was outside herself now, logic and common sense thrown to the wind, her entire being operating on nothing but instinct and intuition. And though every part of her brain screamed for her to stop, her body wouldn’t listen, and slowly her fingers loosened their grip on those sheets.
The soft white cloth slipped off her shoulders, past her breasts, finally falling away, leaving her naked as the day she was born, smooth white breasts with peaked red nipples, her dark brown triangle shamelessly exposed to the man who’d abducted her. She could smell herself, wet and ready, hot and heavy, and as the Sheikh’s entire body tensed up visibly, she whispered from a part of her that she didn’t know existed:
“I think I’m already in the arena, Sheikh Ephraim. I’m already in it.”