As You Desire by Connie Brockway Page B

Well, you can tell Rabi that I consider this … 
thing
compensationfor being kidnapped, and that hell, or whatever its Islamic equivalent is, will freeze over before he’ll see it again.”
    The boy had probably pilfered the papyrus from his disreputable sire’s personal library of erotica, Desdemona thought. She banished her urge to return them. Sometimes the best lessons were those hard-learned.
    Harry held out his hands in capitulation. “Hey, don’t kill the messenger. I told Rabi I’d try.” He crossed to the window, looked out, and made a slicing sign across his throat.
    The morning light, still translucent and fragile, bathed Harry’s features in gold, ennobling his aggressive-size nose and curling lovingly around his lips. The first clear rays of sun glanced off his irises, making them seem to gleam from within like colored votive glass.
    Desdemona wondered if he knew the effect and had positioned himself accordingly. But, as much as she’d like to think otherwise, she doubted it. Vanity—at least regarding his appearance—had never been one of Harry’s flaws. Not that he didn’t have plenty of others to compensate.
    He turned back and approached the desk. “Rabi wants that thing very badly. What is it?”
    When she didn’t reply, he leaned over the desk, bracing his arms on either end. “I can wait here as long as it takes for you to answer,” he said. “What did Rabi give you?”
    If Harry knew about her possession of blatantly erotic poetry, he’d never let her forget it. Sheblushed profusely at the thought of his endless teasing. “A scarab.”
    Harry captured her chin and lifted her face to his, studying her for a long moment, a tenderness in his expression that matched his gentle touch.
    “You’re lying … to
me,”
he said, softly quizzical, almost aggrieved sounding. His hands, like the rest of him, were an odd combination of elegance and toil. Though his nails were clean and trim, his fingertips were callused and the backs of his hands were covered by telltale glyphs: white scars from toiling through tomb rubble; an overlarge knuckle on the finger he’d broken during an excavation; a pair of white dots, reminders of a cobra’s unhappy waking.
    “Dizzy, look at me,” he coaxed.
    How could she help herself, regardless of how stupid or useless? She shook her head. Magi had awakened old thoughts, old mistakes. They were better left sleeping. Better yet, dead.
    “What?” she asked. “You wouldn’t want to know all my secrets, would you, Harry? I’d lose my feminine mystique.”
    “Never.”
    “And are you willing to tell all yours in trade?”
    “Would you really want to know them?” he finally asked, the seriousness of his tone catching her by surprise.
    She sensed a slight withdrawal on his part, but discounted it, being too aware of the copper shards in his pale eyes, the laugh lines radiating from their corners, the thin red line beneath—
    She frowned. “You’ve hurt yourself.”
    Without thinking, she touched the freshly shaved skin on his throat where a narrow gash angled across the vulnerable-looking flesh. He was warm. His skin was fine-grained and smooth. He swallowed. His pupils had dilated, his lips opened.
    She dropped her hand. He dropped his.
    “It’s nothing. A razor cut.”
    “It could become infected. I’d better have Magi bring—”
    “Don’t.” He straightened. “I have to leave in a few days, and I want you to be careful.”
    “You’re off after the Apis bull? You’ve found one to sell to Mr. Schmidt?” she asked, her hopes toppling. If Harry already had arranged to procure a bull, how could she, with her few contacts in Cairo, hope to compete?
    “I’m off,” he said shortly, “and while I doubt Rabi would do anything stupid, he’s a young male and ‘stupid’ is rather synonymous with that breed. If you won’t return his … gift … at least promise me you won’t go adventuring.”
    “Of course not,” she said with a twinge