The Sekhmet Bed by L. M. Ironside Read Free Book Online

platform at the center of the barge.
     
    Thutmose climbed onto the lake’s lip, then offered a hand to Mutnofret. She hiked up her skirt and took his hand, her cheesk coloring when her skin touched his. Ahmose, watching, bit her lip.
     
    When Mutnofret had lowered herself gracefully to a stack of cushions, Thutmose turned to help Ahmose aboard. “I swear I’ve met you someplace before,” he said with a wink. Ahmose giggled, which made him break into his horsey grin. When his hand closed around hers, a shaky heat flared through her. Her palm tingled with the memory of his rough, callused fingers even after she’d seated herself by Nofret’s side.
     
    Thutmose loosed the ropes holding the barge, then found the quant and began poling them toward the center of the lake. “And so the great journey began,” he said. “The lucky soldier stole the two beautiful princesses from their father’s house and put them on his magic boat. He took them far away down the Nile, where nobody would be able to find them….”
     
    “ You don’t need to steal me,” Mutnofret said. “I’ll come along willingly.”
     
    “ Will you, now?” Thutmose let the boat slow, then tucked the quant into the hull. The barge drifted. He made his careful way to the table, strong arms stretched low to counter the boat’s rocking. “Let’s have some breakfast, shall we?”
     
    There was honey for their bread, and berries in milk, and two kinds of cheese. Ahmose could barely eat, her stomach was so fluttery. She recalled how close she’d stood to Thutmose in the chariot, how strong he’d looked standing on the crest of the hill in the moonlight, and her skin felt too hot in the sun. She had never been so closer to a man than she had been to Thutmose, and here he was again, sharing his morning meal. She kept glancing at the shapes of the muscles in his arms and shoulders, the path of a raised vein that ran over the outside of his arm like a tiny brown river. She was fascinated by the maleness of him.
     
    As they talked, Thutmose would sometimes give his big, barking laugh. The first time he did it Mutnofret blinked, obviously taken aback by his uncouth manner. He was unlike the noblemen Mutnofret was used to, Ahmose knew. But as the First Princess became accustomed to Thutmose’s sense of humor she began trying to make him laugh, coaxing it out of him with funny stories or bawdy jokes. At first, Ahmose laughed right along with Thutmose. But as he paid more attention to Mutnofret, each of his smiles brought a twinge of jealousy. Soon Mutnofret was reclining on her cushions, stretching in the sun, eyes closed, head back, soft neck bared. Her body was long and round, like curves of the river, as ripe as Iset and lovely as a song.
     
    “ Mmm, the sun feels so nice, don’t you think?”
     
    Thutmose said nothing, only sipped his wine; but his eyes wandered from Mutnofret’s face down the line of her throat to her breasts; then to her softly rounded belly and hips, curving bright through her sun-soaked linen. Ahmose bit her lips together and looked away, sharply aware of the smallness of her own breasts and the hard angles of her young body. Beside Mutnofret, she was as plain as a pebble. She wished they were back on the shore again.
     
    “ I’ve brought you both some little gifts,” Thutmose said. “What about it? Are you interested?”
     
    Mutnofret sat up at once and leaned forward, closing her eyes and holding out her hands. Thutmose had a leather bag in the hull next to him. He pulled out of it a small bundle wrapped in blue fabric, dropped it into Nofret’s palms. She opened her eyes, then opened the cloth. “Oh! What is this stone?” It was a pendant made of some shiny, bright white rock, carved in the shape of a crouching lioness.
     
    “ Not a stone,” Thutmose said. “It’s ivory. It’s so white because I just had it carved for you yesterday. I asked your mother about you and she said you are as fierce as anything the