“My tale is not quite as hers,” Shahdi said. “I am a Circassian. Our women are considered to be beauties in this part of the world. My father sold me when I was ten to one of our great slave merchants who decided I had promise. I was trained and then purchased by a warlord who was also pledging his fealty to the sultan. I was included in a great train of gifts and slaves this man sent to the Conqueror as a token of his good faith. Like Maysun, I ended up unnoticed until I was picked to be given to our prince.
“So many women are given to the sultan for his pleasure, but only a mere few ever are taken to his bed, and of those, fewer still manage to gain his personal favor, some briefly, but others longer. Being sent to the sultan’s harem usually means a lonely life unless you are fortunate enough to be given away to another that the sultan wishes to honor, as we were given to our husband,” Shahdi explained.
“What do the women of the harem do?” Azura asked her, curious.
“They spend their days beautifying themselves in the hopes that the sultan will notice them. Some, wiser than the others, find tasks to make them useful to the powers that rule the harem. Their lives are more interesting and fulfilling,” Shahdi replied.
“There is so much about your world that I do not know,” Azura said slowly. She loved Amir, but now she wondered if that would be enough.
“You have but to ask us if you are confused,” Maysun said sweetly.
They had been kind enough, Azura thought afterwards as she prepared for bed. The kaftan had been taken from her and a gossamer-thin silk chemise with a high rounded neck and long full sleeves was given to her to sleep in. She was about to lie down when Nadim stepped aside to allow Ali Farid into the little chamber.
“The prince wishes your presence, Azura,” he said. “Remove your sleeping garment, and come with me.”
She looked to Nadim. He shook his head, and quickly drawing off her silk garment, handed it to Agata to store away. Undoing her single plait, he ran a brush through her long ebony hair. It shone in the lamplight as it fell in rippled waves down her back to the base of her spine. The faint fragrance of night-blooming moonflowers touched his nostrils. It was the perfect fragrance for her.
Ali Farid looked Azura over with a critical eye, then nodded. “You are a beautiful woman. No wonder our prince fell in love with you.” Then he turned and hurried out.
Azura stood frozen, but then Nadim gave her a little push.
“Walk slowly, and with your head up,” he murmured. “There is no one to see you, my lady Azura. This is our way.”
Following his direction she walked out of her little apartment. Ali Farid led her from the harem wing down a softly lit corridor through a pair of great bronze doors.
They were in an antechamber. He pointed to a carved wooden door. “Your lord and master awaits you, lady. When he has taken his pleasure of you, you are to return to your own bed unless he invites you to remain. You will find Nadim waiting outside of these doors to lead you back.” Then he turned about and left her.
Azura knocked at the carved door, opened it, and walked into Amir’s bedchamber. She wanted to run to the bed and cover herself, but there was simply no avoiding her nudity. She glided across the floor as he watched her. He wanted to grin, for he could see her distress. She had given up much for him, not really knowing the world she was about to enter, and he could not bear for her to be unhappy now.
“Usually when called to her husband’s bed, a wife crawls across the floor and up into the bed,” he teased her as she slipped in next to him. He too was naked.
“That’s almost as awful as it is ridiculous,” Azura told him. Then without waiting another minute she kissed him full on the lips, pushing him back amid the pillows.
His strong arms wrapped about her, pulling her atop him. His hand smoothed down her graceful back and over her sweetly rounded buttocks. “I can see you have missed me, beloved,” he said, laughing softly. She was so different from the other two, allowing her passion to bloom before his eyes while the others always remained restrained beneath him. It was he who had awakened her to love. It was she who had awakened him.
“That whole voyage was made worse by the beautiful landscapes we sailed past, the moonlit nights, and our inability to be together. I can see that you missed me as well, my husband,” Azura told him, kissing him again. She sat up, straddling him boldly.
Reaching up, he captured a lock of her hair, bringing it to his lips to kiss. Her fragrance assailed him, but as much as he would have enjoyed taking her then and there, he wasn’t going to do so. When they had first become lovers, in that brief, sweet time at Luce Stellare, he had been gentle with her, loving her in a way that would not frighten her. Now, however, she was his wife. Now she would learn that the man she was wed to was filled with great passion and lust for her.
He gazed up at her, smiling. She was so very beautiful. Her round breasts enchanted him. He leaned forward so he might kiss their dainty nipples, drawing her down just slightly in order to bury his face in the sweet valley between those breasts and inhale the fragrance of her skin. He had been hard before she even entered his bedchamber. Just thinking about Azura aroused him. No woman had ever affected him in the way that she did. No woman had ever had his love until Azura.
She pulled away again so she was just above him. The palms of her small hands glossed over his smooth bare chest, making little circles of movement. His skin was beautifully soft, but his body was also hard and sculpted beneath her touch. He lay perfectly still, enjoying her attentions. Her shapely thighs held him as if he were her mount.
His hand reached out to brush over her plump mons. Two fingers pushed past her nether lips and beneath her, past her love jewel, gliding slowly into her wet sheath. He smiled a slow smile, seeing her eyes widen in surprise. “I want you to ride my fingers,” he said softly as he sensuously stroked the hot hidden flesh that closed around those invasive digits. “Ride until I tell you to cease, Azura. This is but the first of the pleasures we shall share this evening, beloved.” His dark blue eyes glittered wickedly.
At first she could not move. Her very breath seemed caught in her throat. He had never made such a request of her, touched her in such a voluptuous manner so that her body felt as if it would shatter with a word, a single touch. However, she had never before clambered atop him in so bold a fashion. The sensation of those two fingers inside of her was acute and very exciting. She obeyed his command without another word.
Azura felt deliciously wicked as she began to move her body just slightly so that the fingers now buried deep inside her began to mimic her rhythm, stroking her, fanning the flames of her increasing desire. Her eyes closed, and with each subtle movement she made, her need increased. She moved faster, faster, faster until suddenly she felt the walls of her sheath convulsing around his fingers. She shuddered with release, and felt her cheeks grow hot with the realization of what had just transpired.“Oh! Oh! Oh!”Azura gasped as another and final tremor wracked her.
Amir’s fingers slid from her body. He pulled her down, rolling her onto her back.
“A sweet beginning, beloved,” he murmured in her ear, kissing it, his breath hot, nibbling on the fleshy little lobe. “You are a most obedient wife, Azura,” he teased.
She opened her aquamarine eyes and looked up at him. “You treated me with more delicacy in my villa by the sea,” Azura said to him.
“You were a properly raised Florentine woman, a young widow, with only a cruel and crude knowledge of passion. I think I would have frightened you to death had I been as bold then as I will be now,” Amir told her.
“Now that I am the infidel’s wife,” she said softly.
