Page 8 of Company of Thieves
“Oh, goody.” The anger that had filled the woman’s glittering eyes turned to pleasure when she marched up to him and slapped him on the left cheek. “Just the man I want to see.”
Stunned, he allowed her to see his ire by flaring his nostrils in a dramatic fashion. “What was that for?”
“You’re in charge of them, aren’t you?” she said, jerking her thumb over her shoulder to the four men who clustered behind her. “That makes you responsible for the outrageous treatment I’ve been forced to endure for the last hour!”
He was about to tell the woman that, despite her opinion, he didn’t recall giving his scouts orders to sling any women they found between them, but before he could do more than open his mouth, she slapped him again.
“Will you stop doing that!” Annoyance rode him, but he struggled to bring his temper back under control.
“They touched me!” the woman said, her hands on her hips, just as if she expected him to apologize. “Inappropriately! I swear, if I was back home, I’d have HR on their asses so fast their grubby little paws wouldn’t have time to do more than clutch their termination papers!”
He pushed his goggles up onto his forehead, wondering if the time out in the sun hunting for the revolutionaries had addled his brains. She looked better than when viewed through sand-grimed green-tinted lenses, but still appeared to be much aggrieved.
“Woman,” he started to say, but stopped when she slapped him a third time. He caught her wrist almost before she’d finished the slap. “You will stop these assaults upon me!” he roared at her.
“They touched me on my ass!” the woman said, and, pulling her hand free from his grip, used two of her fingers to poke him in the chest. Luckily, his leather and metal armor dulled the gesture, but he was irritated by it nonetheless. No one dared poke the prince Akbar in the chest. He was a warlord, for Christ’s sake. Everyone feared him! Strong men blanched at his name! Either he’d had too much sun, or the woman was insane. Or didn’t know just who he was. “That one—” The irritating, possibly mad woman turned and pointed to the scout standing in front, a big leering grin on his face. “That one copped a feel.”
Alan looked from the scout to her, wondering if she was speaking in some dialect with which he was unfamiliar. She had an American accent, but her words made no sense. “What is a copped feel?” he asked, despite knowing he should consign her to the fate of the revolutionaries and be on his way.
She made a face and slapped a hand onto his leather breastplate. He looked down at her hand, confused.
“Gah. Just a sec. How do you get that—oh, that buckle there?” To his amazement, she unbuckled the shoulder strap before repeating the action to the strap that lay across his ribs, both of which helped hold the armor tight to his chest. “This,” she said, sliding her hand under the armor, and cupping his pectoral. “This is copping a feel.”
He stood there for a moment, the warmth of her hand on his chest, separated from his flesh only by the thin layer of linen that made up his tunic, sending a little fire that headed straight for his groin. He eyed her breasts, and lifted a hand without thinking, but the slap that followed—which admittedly he half expected—was delivered with the warning, “Don’t you eventhinkabout it!”
“Woman,” he repeated, trying to pull his mind from imagining just how her breasts would feel against the palms of his hands. And cheeks. And possibly rubbed against his rod. “If you slap me one more time, I will instruct the scouts to return you to my camp in the same manner they carried you here. What is your name?”
“Hallie,” she said, fussing with the silk tunic she wore, apparently without a corset, a slightly scandalous situation that nonetheless he found intriguing. Even the women of his father’s court had adopted Western wear, and to appear without a corset was considered the height of bad taste. Or it signaled her as a camp follower. “Hallie Norris, to be specific.”
He stopped imagining what he’d like to do to her, assuming she was the sort of woman who would tumble easily into his bed, and felt his blood run cold, despite the heat of the day. This was Jack Fletcher’s sister, the woman he’d been engaged to save from the gallows a year before? What the devil and all his little minions was she doing here? More important, what was she doing herenow, when he had just set up a camp? He had never met her, but the danger she posed was extreme. If she connected him with Alan Dubain, she could ruin many plans that had taken him years to lay. “I do not know this name,” he lied, wondering if she would call him out on it.
“Well, of course you don’t. But it’s my name nonetheless.”
His mind ran around like a squirrel on an iced pond, trying to remember if she had ever seen him while he was being Akbar, relaxing slightly when he realized the only time he’d seen Octavia in person during the course of the last year was some ten months before in Cairo, and then contact had been limited to just Octavia and her new husband. “What are you doing here? Where are your menfolk? Are you spying on me? Or have you come to offer your body in exchange for coin?”
That just enraged her, as he’d suspected it would, and she pulled her hand back in order to deliver yet another slap, but this time he caught her hand before she could land it. “You bastard! I’m not a hooker!”
“Hooker?” he couldn’t help but ask.
“‘Sex worker’ is the PC term, but I don’t expect you guys know anything about that. At least the men in the inn didn’t seem to know what it meant, and that Mr. Piper on my brother’s ship is always referring to such women as ‘hoors,’ but that’s just downright derogatory, so I won’t even bother mentioning it. As a matter of fact, I was trying to find Prince Akbar, the Moghul son of some big, bad emperor. Are you part of his group?” She gave him an obvious once-over. “You’re dressed like the description my brother gave me of Moghuls.”
“IamPrince Akbar,” he said, resisting the urge to make another bow. Really, the urbane ways of Alan Dubain were starting to leach into all of his mannerisms. He reminded himself that Akbar was arrogant and uncaring of others’ opinions, and so instead puffed out his chest. “I am the son of Imperator Aurangzeb.”
“Oh, good.” She didn’t look pleased to see him. In fact, she still looked annoyed, a fact that amused him despite the situation. She glanced around and leaned in so that her breath brushed his cheek. “I need to talk to you. Privately.”
Alan Dubain would have wooed the woman. He would have given her compliments, teasing her into a flirtatious mood, and only then would he allow her to fulfill all the desires she had regarding him. But Akbar was different. He didn’t flirt, he didn’t coax—he took. Accordingly, Alan grabbed the woman and pulled her to him, kissing her with all the arrogance he could muster.
Her mouth was warm under his, not with the heat of the cooling day, but with the fire of a woman who was filled with passion, her lips sweet if a bit sandy. He enjoyed the kiss for all of three seconds before she slapped both hands on his chest, and shoved him back, her eyes back to spitting green fire at him.
“What the hell, dude?” she snarled, wiping her mouth with the back of her hand.
He was vaguely insulted by that gesture. Akbar might be rough around the edges and very impulsive, but he prided himself that both of his personae gave all due regard to women, leaving them sated and with a smile on their respective lips.
She gave him the meanest look he’d ever received from a woman. “That is so over the line, and completely unacceptable. That’s a hundred times worse than Mr. Gropey Hands back there.”
“You don’t wish to occupy my bed?” he asked, allowing his confusion to show.
“No!” She gave a little exaggerated eye roll. “I just told you that I wasn’t a whore! I want to talk to you. Privately. About a proposition I have.”
