Page 41 of Hot Zone

Nine

The day’s trek was every bit as hot and dusty and hard as Tessa had expected it to be. What she hadn’t expected was to spend the entire day speculating on what Rustam had in store for her tonight. By lunchtime, she was in an agony of curiosity. By midafternoon, her imagination had run completely wild. She spent hours envisioning the best sex she could conjure in her mind’s eye.

She had to admit it sure helped the time pass.

The mountains around them continued to be jagged and mostly barren. Somehow, Rustam found game trails and nearly invisible paths, and they picked their way across the rugged terrain far more easily than she’d anticipated.

She was forced to admit to herself that she never would’ve been able to make this journey alone. As traveling companions went, he was a fine one, never complaining, and alternating between periods of pleasant conversation and silence.

He didn’t seem at all fixated on tonight’s promise. But she couldn’t get it out of her head. Every time she glanced at him, her thoughts galloped away with her, stripping him naked. Him stripping her naked, them stripping each other naked, them already naked…

At one point, he asked in concern, “Are you all right?”

She jolted back to the present moment. “Why do you ask?”

“You made a sound of…I don’t know—pain, maybe.”

She squeezed her eyes shut, praying that the sunburn overtaking her fair skin would hide the hot blush she felt exploding across her face. That was not a groan of pain he’d heard. It was a sound of pure, sexual frustration. And there was not a chance in hell she was going to admit that to him.

She replied as casually as she could, “I’m fine. How about you? You didn’t get any more rest last night than I did, and I’m afraid I haven’t been much help today in finding our way.”

He shrugged. “No problem. I’m good at navigating.”

His voice sounded oddly strangled as he said that. He must miss his life as a sailor. No surprise, then, that he changed subjects abruptly. “Tell me more about your people.”

Not a topic she was fond of. “There’s not much to tell. We’re pretty typical of folks everywhere. We raise our families, do our best to have enough food and money to take care of our needs, try to find a little happiness along the way. What of you? Tell me about your travels.”

He muffled what sounded like a choking sound. Wow. The business of his shipwreck and subsequent slavery must really be upsetting to him.

To distract him, she asked, “How did you come to be in the…employ…of Queen Artemesia?”

“My ship wrecked in her domain, stranding me upon her shores. Her soldiers arrested me, declared me a Greek spy and nearly beheaded me before I was able to talk them out of the idea. After that, it seemed prudent to attach myself directly to the queen to avoid a repeat performance of my near death, and she made me her slave. Artemesia is deeply suspicious of men of noble rank. She fears that one will attempt to steal her kingdom—or worse, force her to marry him so he can steal her kingdom and enslave her.”

Tessa grinned at that. “I knew from the moment I met her that she was a smart woman.”

Rustam glanced at her with interest. “Women are as independent as she is where you come from, then?”

“More so.”

He made a face. “In my home, a woman wouldn’t dare to imagine ruling a clan, let alone a nation. No woman has ever attempted it. No man would follow her.”

“These Persian men are pretty chauvinistic, but Artemesia seems to do all right being a queen among them.”

“She has to be a lot smarter, a lot tougher and a lot more manipulative than a man to hold her crown. Why, she even uses sex to further her ends.”

Tessa laughed. “You sound offended by that. If men are willing to let her use sex as a weapon against them, why shouldn’t she?”

Rustam frowned, thinking about that. “Sex has its proper place. It’s up to men to keep it there.”

The question popped out before she could stop it: “And exactly where is the proper place for sex?”

He shot her an amused glance that was so full of promise for later, she all but fell off of Cygna. “The proper place for sex is anywhere. Absolutely anywhere. At any time.”

A vivid image of him dragging her over into his lap aboard Polaris, peeling off her leggings and pulling her down on top of his engorged shaft burst into her mind. The horse would surge beneath them, and he would surged up into her….

“Stop that,” she snapped, realizing belatedly that he’d been projecting the image into her mind. “That’s not fighting fair.”

The image faded from her thoughts, but not the lingering sexual irritation vibrating throughout her.

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