Pretty Wicked Page 5

  Eight

  I dressed in my fail-safe—a black dress with a demure neckline and a good cut. It was no Jessica Rabbit but I was done with trying to seduce him. I pulled my hair into a chignon at the base of my neck and dressed it with a tortoiseshell comb. I felt strangely calm. The way the air is before a storm. I wore my most expensive underwear. I guess I knew what I was really up to.

  Miko rang the bell at five to eight. I opened the door with my purse already in my hand. My eyes widened. In casual clothes he looked very fit and masculine. He was wearing a black shirt with silver buttons and hip-hugging black jeans. The wind had ruffled his hair and the desire to run my fingers through it was immediate. What was it about this man? His magnetic pull on me began from the moment he appeared in my presence.

  ‘Hello,’ he greeted evenly, but his eyes were devouring me. Whatever it was I felt it was the same with him.

  ‘Hi,’ I said softly.

  ‘I guess you’re ready to go.’

  I nodded and we walked to the lift. He was different today. That rakish charm was gone. Instead there was caution and a deliberate distance. As if he did not know how far he could go. Once when helping me into his hired open-topped car his hand touched mine, and he retracted it with the same speed that I did. I flushed a sharp shade of red, but he ignored it. Even our conversation was stilted.

  ‘Up or down?’ he asked.

  I thought of my hair. ‘Up please.’

  He drove us to Twickenham. In all my years of living in England I had never left London and I gazed at the suburbs curiously. The car came to a stop outside a large detached house with wisteria growing over the front of it.

  Miko rang the bell and a tiny, olive-skinned, middle-aged woman opened the door.

  ‘Ah, Miko,’ she exclaimed happily, and with flying limbs, flung herself at him.

  He wrapped her inside his arms with genuine affection. With one arm still around her he introduced me to her.

  ‘Mysha, meet Lexi. Lexi, meet Mysha.’

  Mysha had eyes that were as black and inscrutable as Miko’s. They looked at me shrewdly. ‘Hello, Lexi,’ she said, and nodded approvingly. ‘It’s about time Miko found himself a wife that bore him some babies.’

  My eyes collided with Miko’s. His lips had tightened.

  As if catching the tension in the air, Mysha extricated herself from Miko and said, ‘Come in, come in. Everyone is waiting for you.’

  She took us each by the hand and with a merry laugh sailed down a narrow corridor decorated in the most sumptuous manner possible. It kind of reminded me of the Egyptian room in Harrods. There were paintings of women draped in transparent veils hung on walls covered with rich velvet patterned azure wallpaper. The wall lights were made of cherubs in gilded metal holding red candles.

  A sideboard covered with a crimson throw held large crystal bowls full of fruit, nuts, colorful sweets and dates. Two gilt and ebony Au Jeune Nègre floor candelabras stood on either side of the staircase throwing their circles of flickering light into the space.

  She turned into a doorway where noise, laughter and music were coming from. There were a lot of people there. Many of them waved and called out to Miko, but Mysha imperviously plowed through the crowd pulling us along into a conservatory where a dapper, small man in a dark evening suit, a yellowing shirt and a red bow tie was nursing a goblet of red wine and holding court over a circle of elegant people. His pale blue eyes noticed us and lit with joy.

  ‘Miko, Miko, Miko,’ he sighed like a child.

  I looked up at Miko and he was smiling with an expression of tenderness I had never thought to see in his face. Surprised, I stared at him.

  ‘Sobhi,’ Miko said softly.

  The man turned toward me. ‘Ah,’ he intoned. ‘Ah, but she is beautiful, Miko. Absolutely beautiful.’

  Everyone turned to look at me and I blushed furiously.

  ‘Come, come,’ he cried genially. ‘Join us. Yusuf here,’ he waved his thin, pale hand in the direction of a tall bearded man, ‘was just saying that the great poet Rumi was a coarse fellow because he wrote bawdy stories of women copulating with donkeys. What do you think, Miko?’

  Miko shrugged. ‘I admire Rumi,’ he said. ‘He refused to corrupt the language no matter what the provocation. Telling the truth is often a revolutionary act. If an act can be conceived then it can and should be expressed.’

  I stared at Miko, suddenly aware that both of them were speaking in metaphors. I had no idea who Rumi was or what they were talking about.

  Sobhi fixed his eyes, quick but full of old sorrows, on me. ‘If I had had a son I would have wanted him to be like Miko.’

  I reached out to the warmth and kindness in his eyes and forgot to be shy. ‘Why?’ I asked curiously. It seemed incongruous that a man in a frayed shirt and a theatrical bow tie would desire a barracuda in a city suit as his progeny.

  ‘Because if there were more men like him there would be no more wars. Earth would be a paradise.’

  Miko turned to me. ‘Lexi, meet Professor Sobhi Ageel, a member of the faculty of Palestine Studies at the University of Alberta, Edmonton. Professor, meet Lexi, a beautiful contradiction.’

  Professor Sobhi Ageel smiled ruefully at me. ‘Indeed, she is that. If I was twenty years younger I’d fight you for her. And I’d win too.’ His eyes twinkled. ‘Alas, I am twenty years older. You, my dear, must not stay with us old fogies. You are young and beautiful. Time is passing. You must dance and be merry.’

  He made a shooing gesture with his hands and Miko laughed and took my hand. For the first time since we met at the coffee bar the gesture was natural. I looked at him, surprised by this glimpse into the other side of him. He smiled at me and my heart jumped crazily at the possessiveness in it.

  ‘Let’s go get a drink,’ he said.

  I snagged a glass of white wine and Miko was given a glass of brandy. He swirled it slowly in his hands.

  ‘What were you talking about back there with the professor?’

  ‘Professor Sobhi is Syrian. We were talking about the state of his country. The truth that is never told. What peace can there be when we claim to use the ultimate human injustice, war, to instill peace? War after war after war and we never learn that there is no excuse to be inhumane.’

  A brown-skinned man came running up to us. He clasped his hands together and bowed his head toward Miko.

  ‘Thank you, thank you for everything you have done. May God shower blessings upon you…’ He glanced at me and added, ‘And your lovely wife.’

  I cringed and would have pulled my hand out of Miko’s, but he tightened his hold on my hand and smiled at the man.

  ‘It should never have happened this way. I’m sorry it did.’

  ‘Thank you. Thank you,’ he said as he moved away.

  ‘What was that?’

  ‘He is from the Free Palestine society. I guess I am their major donor.’

  I frowned and touched his arm, instantly aware of the steely muscles underneath the soft material. ‘But you are Jewish,’ I said.

  ‘I am, and proud of it, but I am also a human being. When my grandfather dug tunnels to smuggle food and weapons into the Warsaw ghetto, it was an act of justified resistance. How can I condemn the tunnels dug by the Palestinians to smuggle food and weapons as terrorism?’

  Dust motes danced in the space between us.

  ‘Many years ago I made a mistake that changed me forever. It made me the man I am today. It made me seek out injustice and the dispossessed wherever in the world they may be and try to do what I can to alleviate them.’

  I stared at him, stunned. How he had changed? Where was the spoilt boy in the sports car? His aspirations were grander than anything I had ever known. In comparison I was nothing but a petty, messed up woman with a taste for revenge.

  Yes, it had been a cruel prank, but look at what I had done to myself over the years. Instead of forgiving and moving on I had limited and narrowed myself. I knew right then that I didn’t want reven
ge. But I also knew that I could never tell him who I was. It would be the ultimate humiliation for me to let him see me for the petty liar and schemer I had become. We would have our affair and then we would move apart and I would forget him and start again.

  We moved into the large living room where Arabic music was playing. A woman in a red dress swayed up to us. She was as beautiful as a gypsy with charcoal hair and flashing dark eyes that she had thickly outlined with kohl. She turned them upon me. ‘Miko, you have brought a friend.’

  ‘Lexi, Layla,’ Miko said shortly.

  ‘You don’t mind if I have one dance with Miko, do you?’

  I felt a stab of jealousy, but I shook my head automatically. He did not belong to me. Not now, not ever.

  She looked at him beseechingly. ‘They are playing our song. Will you dance with me?’

  Miko looked at me. There was a strange expression in his eyes. I ignored it. ‘Go ahead,’ I threw out carelessly, coldly.

  Miko nodded slowly and followed the woman to the edge of the dancers. As I watched him leave I felt a painful tightness in my chest. I wanted to turn away but I could not. I had to see for myself that I was chasing a mirage. This man was not mine. He never had been and he never would be.

  I watched Layla throw her head back so her long hair gleamed like dark water on her back and slowly, sensuously begin to gyrate her hips. The movements were hypnotic, her limbs molten. She raised her hands slowly over her head and, as if she was making love to Miko, placed them seductively on his shoulders. Her nails were long and red against his black shirt. I knew I could not watch anymore. I stumbled away blindly and almost walked into little Mysha.

  ‘Sorry,’ I said automatically.

  ‘Come,’ she said, her eyes dark and full of secrets. Again she took me by the hand and led me away from the party. I followed her past the ebony and gilt Au Jeune Nègre floor candelabras and up the stairs to a bedroom. It was pink and gold and very feminine.

  ‘My daughter’s room. She is in America now,’ Mysha explained.

  I nodded. The civilized sounds of a party, music, clinking glasses, voices, and laughter in the garden rose up into the sultry summer air and floated in through the open window.

  Mysha opened a cupboard and pulled out a costume made entirely of fine black netting and thickly embroidered with green and yellow sequins over the breasts and groin and buttocks.

  ‘Try it,’ she invited.

  ‘Why?’ I asked.

  ‘You know why.’

  I didn’t, but I didn’t argue further. I undressed quickly and put it on. It reached my ankles. There were two deep slits on either side of the dress that ended at the hips. When I moved it showed the entire expanse of my bare leg.

  ‘This is a belly dancer’s costume. It belongs to my daughter,’ Mysha said, and fitted on a thick belt made of green beads, tassels and coins around my hips. ‘Twist your hips,’ she instructed.

  I moved my hips and the belt tinkled, shivered and shook.

  She smiled approvingly. ‘Now you must let your hair down.’

  I pulled the pins from my chignon and shook my hair loose. It fell down my back. She walked around me teasing and spreading my hair over my shoulders and back. She made curls in her small hands and pulling them forward coiled them around my neck.

  ‘Look in the mirror,’ she invited.

  I looked and gasped. I had never seen myself look like that before.

  ‘How do you know Miko?’ I asked her reflection.

  ‘He is our savior,’ she said simply. ‘This party is in honor of him.’

  I felt sad suddenly. Soon he would be gone from my life forever.

  ‘That man is yours, not hers,’ she said in a firm voice, and opened the door. ‘Now go get him.’

  I opened my mouth to tell her he was not my man at all, but she put her finger to my lips. ‘All the men dream of the beautiful belly dancer.’

  ~~~~~

  Nine

  I followed her down the stairs in a daze. It was all so strange. The woman, the house, the dress, the music, the people. I entered the room where I had left Miko, and almost instantly our eyes met. He had been looking for me. Layla stopped her boneless gyrations and turned around to stare at me, but I was not looking at her. I was staring at Miko. His eyes. They were alive. Blazing across the room at me. Devouring me. For a while I could not move and we simply stared at each other. Then he left the woman and walked toward me.

  He had a red lipstick kiss on his cheek. I raised my hand to his cheek and rubbed it away. The flush of excitement in his dark eyes dazzled me. I felt a fever start up inside me. Unspoken desire crackled between us like magic, and itched deep inside like a curse. It would only get worse if something was not done about it. He was the hunter. I was the prey. That was the story anyway. The night could belong to the hunted. The blood hummed in my veins.

  ‘Will you run away again, if I tell you how beautiful you look?’

  Flustered and unable to speak, I shook my head.

  ‘You are the most beautiful woman I have ever seen.’

  I licked my bottom lip and he stared, transfixed.

  ‘It’s our dance, I believe,’ he said softly.

  I had drunk only a sip of wine, but I felt light-headed suddenly. As if I had drunk half a bottle of something very strong. He took my hand in his and it was as if the world was right again. Everything was the way it should be. Warm, right, safe. He looked down at me and at that moment I knew. I was in love with him. I always had been. Tears brimmed in my eyes. I blinked them away and moved my hips in the way the other women were doing. Slowly, sensuously. We were all snakes on that dance floor.

  For a moment he watched me and then he pulled me close and fitted me between his hipbones. His erection was unmistakable.

  ‘Who is Layla?’

  He looked searchingly at me. ‘Who is Nigel?’

  ‘No one.’

  ‘So is Layla.’

  ‘She seemed…potent.’

  ‘Try deadly,’ he said dryly.

  So I snuggled closer to him and wished with all my heart that it was not just one night in Miko Barokas’s arms, but forever.

  That dance was like a dream. I luxuriated in the way his body felt, molded to mine as the music flowered around us and his warm breath stirred the tendrils of hair at my temples. It felt as if he would never let go. What an illusion.

  ‘I like your hair like this,’ he whispered.

  I lifted my head and looked up into his eyes. They were dark and full of unspoken desire. He bent his head and lightly kissed my lips. It was so chaste I was surprised.

  ‘I’m not a fan of audiences,’ he said, with a self-deprecating smile.

  I glanced around and indeed many people were looking at us, some smiling indulgently, one or two curiously.

  He broke away from me. ‘Come to the garden with me.’

  We walked to the garden, lost in each other. He led me away from the long table heaped with food and the people standing about in groups. We stopped under an apple tree.

  ‘Tell me, what if I pulled your panties down and tasted you right here, in this garden of Eden?’

  I took a sharp intake of breath, my mind stumbling, dizzy.

  He pressed his advantage. ‘I already know what you will taste of.’

  ‘What?’ I asked.

  ‘Honey. A sweet taste that will stick on my tongue as I fall asleep.’

  ‘I…’

  ‘Just one taste…’ His voice was low and husky, a promise of pleasure.

  Sticky heat pooled between my legs and any last remaining resolve melted away. ‘Do it,’ I whispered, my voice quivering, barely audible.

  In a flash he had whirled me away to the back of a wooden shed. He put me against it, the rough wood against my back, and dropped to his knees. Before I knew it he had slipped his hands into the slits at the sides of the costume and pulled my panties down my legs.

  He lifted one foot out of them and spreading my legs moved his mouth toward
my freshly shaven pussy, and for one second I looked down and made a mental picture of him, precious and breathtakingly handsome, his curling eyelashes long against his cheek—I had forgotten how long they were—and then the shock of his mouth attaching itself between my legs drove all thought from my mind. I laid my palms, the fingers spread out, on the rough wooden panels behind me and tried not to scream.

  Sweet heaven!

  I wanted to cry, moan and curl my legs. I had never felt more alive. His tongue moved between the folds, tasting, eating, sucking and then he lifted his head. And for the first time in my life I tasted sexual frustration. He pulled my panties back on and, standing up, pulled me away from the shed. We walked through the garden, and the house, and out of the front door.

  ‘Don’t we have to tell anyone?’ I whispered.

  ‘I’ll call Mysha later.’

  ‘What about this dress?’

  ‘Later,’ he said briefly.

  We almost ran to the car and Miko drove away fast. My heart was thudding hard with excitement and my breaths were shallow. A left, then a right, meadows on either side, farmhouses in the distance, fields of cows, and another country lane later, we arrived at a kissing gate. It was the end of a dirt track, a place where we had been going all along. It was getting dark. Behind the gate the field was full of tall, silken, golden grass.

  ‘Come on,’ he said, and opened his door.

  I got out quickly. The blood was singing in my ears. I did not have to ask what we were doing here in this deserted place. I saw it in the glimmer in his eyes, felt it in my bones. We were here to finish what we had started in that garden. He came around to my side and taking my hand took me to the front of the car. Picking me up by the waist he sat me on the bonnet of the car and pushed me back on it.

  The metal was hot against my back. He pulled my panties off and opening my legs buried his face between them with a growl. This time it was not a taste he wanted. He ate me like a starving man. My fingers gripped his hair hard as I stared at the darkening sky and gave in to pure pleasure. My climax rushed upon me packed with explosives. I clenched his head with my thighs and screamed. My legs were still trembling when he flipped me over so I was lying on my front on the hot bonnet. And I was ready for it.