It took Clara a couple of seconds to get her bearings as she stood on the small sandy beach on the edge of the lake. The early morning light was still quite dim and Clara suspected that the sun had not quite risen yet. Even if it had, they would still be in the shadow of the large mountain looming just east of them.

"Ah, nuts!" Jeff complained, grabbing Clara's attention. He quickly ran out of the freezing-cold ankle-deep water in which he'd reappeared and on to the dry bank. Clara smirked. She had not intended to transport Jeff into the water. Precision long-distance travel just happened to be one aspect of her powers that she hadn't quite gotten the hang of yet.

"Sorry about that." She said flatly.

"Nah, it's okay. I didn't have time for a shower before we left, anyway." Jeff facetiously replied. "Where... where...", Jeff trailed off, suddenly seeming very unsteady.

"Are you okay?" Clara asked with concern. Jeff fell backwards onto his ass and Clara ran over to him. He was sitting up, but still seeming quite unsteady about it.

"I'm okay..." he said in groggy speech that seemed to suggest the exact opposite, "I just... just tripped. It's so dark."

"Not really." Clara disagreed, "It's the sudden drop in air pressure. You'll be all right. Just rest there until you feel better. Don't try to get up."

"Can do." Jeff softly replied. Clara watched over him vigilantly until she was satisfied that the worst was over. She was quite grateful now that she hadn't attempted to transport them directly onto the peak of one of the mountains, as she had been tempted to do the previous afternoon. Clara shuddered at the thought of what condition Jeff might have wound up in if she had.

As Jeff's strength seemed to return to him, Clara took in her surroundings more thoroughly. On a raised area a couple hundred feet from the lake's edge Clara could see what appeared to be a road sign of some sort. "If that's the road, then we can follow it into the town." She thought. Her intention had been to transport Jeff and herself to the edge of a lakeside town conveniently close to all four of the mountains they were interested in. The town had a vehicle rental agency and Clara had had the foresight to phone the agency the previous afternoon and arrange for a four wheel drive to be ready for them by the morning. Clara looked down at Jeff once again. As soon as he had recovered, they would set out.

As it turned out, Clara had transported them three kilometers away from the town. Even after the long walk, however, they still managed to arrive in the town well before the rental agency opened. Fortunately, there were no problems with the vehicle. The dealer had managed to secure for them a top-of-the-line Mercedes four wheel drive, more than capable of getting anywhere on the mountains that a vehicle could possibly go. Clara quietly groaned when Jeff took the keys and made for the driver's side door. Jeff smiled and playfully told Clara that she could drive on the way back. Clara climbed into the passenger side, silently thinking to herself that it would be christmas before they arrived at the mountaintop.

Within an hour, however, Clara and Jeff had made their way to the end of the trail that lead up the first mountain they planned to explore. Since the capital of her empire was located far to the south, the plan was to begin the search for Tukanni's tomb on the southernmost mountain and work their way north.

Exploring the mountaintops was easier said than done, especially for Jeff, with steep inclines and rocky dead-ends limiting where he could go. The treacherous terrain did not pose such a problem to Clara, however, who managed to climb around any obstacle she found with sure-footedness that would shame any mountain goat. Jeff found himself watching her admiringly, wondering just how much of what he saw was genie, and how much was pure Clara Roft.

Jeff would follow Clara along the mountain trails as far as he could, and although she easily could have, Clara never allowed herself to get more than a few feet ahead of him. When they struck an obstacle that Jeff simply couldn't navigate around, Jeff would wait while Clara went on ahead to "Just have a look.". Sometimes she would leave him for over an hour while she continued to explore solo. In many ways, she preferred it when she was alone, there was still something about Jeff's presence that Clara found disconcerting. But on the other hand, she also worried about him wandering off and getting into trouble while she was gone. If he was to die whilst she was still his slave, it would devastate her quest for freedom. Had it been an option, Clara would have preferred to leave Jeff back in England while she explored the Turkish mountains alone. But the spell she was under bound her to stay within a certain distance of the lamp, and it also forbade her from transporting the lamp out of the reach of it's owner.

Before long, the sun began to get low in the sky. The pair continued traversing the mountain for as long as they safely could before they returned to the four wheel drive and returned to the town. True to his word, Jeff let Clara drive on the return trip.

Getting a motel room for the night resulted in an awkward moment for Clara. When the desk clerk asked Jeff if they wanted a double, Jeff turned to Clara, silently asking what she wanted.

"Very Well" she replied straightforwardly. Jeff's delighted smile betrayed his thoughts as he signed them in. Clara loathed having to give him such a mixed signal, but ultimately she thought it was the simplest and safest way of handling the situation. Once they were in the room, Clara made her way to the phone. She ran her eye quickly over the nearby instructions on how to dial out of the motel, and proceeded to dial the number for Croft Manor. Clara spent ten minutes talking to first her father and then her mother, mostly assuring them that both her and Jeff were safe and that she remained optimistic of finding the tomb, despite the day not having yielded any results. Meanwhile, Jeff had stripped down and made his way into the shower. He was still in there when Clara entered the bathroom.

Clara excused herself from Jeff's presence, telling him that she wished to return to the lamp, carefully choosing her words to make it sound like she planned to study Zhiasa's journal. Jeff gently protested, saying he had hoped they could spend the night together, perhaps finding a restaurant in the town in which to dine, but in the end he did not forbid Clara from returning to the lamp.

Seeking sanctuary within the lamp allowed Clara to avoid any further advances from Jeff, but contrary to what she'd implied to her master, there was nothing else for her to learn from Zhiasa's journal. With nothing else to do Clara layed down on the elegant bed within the lamp chamber and fell asleep, knowing that she would awake when Jeff rubbed the lamp in the morning.

The following three days progressed much the same as the first had. Clara and Jeff combed the surface of the mountain, Clara often going off to explore on her own, but finding nothing of interest. At night, Clara would fulfil her promise to call her parents, and then quickly excuse herself into the lamp.

By the afternoon of their second day in Turkey, Jeff was getting severely bored with being left alone on the mountainside for extended periods of time. He used the sat-phone to order the most expensive portable DVD player that could be shipped to their motel by that evening, and took it with him on the following days, playing movies in blocks whenever Clara left him to go off on her own. Jeff seemed quite proud of himself for his first instance of frivolous spending since he became a billionaire. Clara did not share his excitement.

By the end of their third day in Turkey, both Clara and Jeff decided that it was time that they move on to the next mountain on their list. On it's first day, the second mountain seemed no more promising than it's predecessor. But just after ten o'clock the following morning, Clara's keen eyes spotted a small cavern in the mountain face, on top of a seven-foot-tall mound of earth. The opening was small, but the mound beneath it offered the possibility that it was just the top of a tunnel entrance that had been partially buried. The pair immediately made their way over to the cavern. Clara kneeled in front of the dark opening and shone her torch into it, revealing that the passage went deep into the mountain.

"See anything?" Jeff asked as he squatted down beside her.

"No. But the passage runs deep. This could be it!" Clara smiled, looking over at him from behind her shades.

"It's a tight squeeze." Jeff noted. The entrance to the cave was very short, but it appeared to be just large enough for a person to crawl through.

"Yes." Clara agreed. "We won't be able to take these..." She said as she began to remove her backpack. Jeff followed her lead, removing his own pack, taking out his own torch and, as an afterthought, the lamp as well. Even though there was nobody else around, he wasn't going to let it out of his sight. Finally, he removed his broad akubra hat and placed it on the ground, sitting his pack on top of the brim so that the wind could not blow it away. Clara pressed her body to the ground and wormed her way into the cavern in a manner not unlike the one Jeff had seen soldiers using in stock footage of army training. She was still grasping her torch, ensuring that she was not moving completely blind. Once she was completely inside of the cavern, Jeff followed her in, his torch in one hand, the lamp in the other. The two explorers slowly moved into the depths of the mountain. The passage didn't seem to get any more spacious as it progressed, but neither did it become tighter. After moving into the tunnel just a few feet, Jeff could scarcely see anything other than the soles of Clara's boots, illuminated by his torchlight, shifting to and fro just in front of him. Clara could see little more than the next few feet of passage ahead of her, however she had observed that the roof of the passage was far too consistent for it to have formed naturally. A confidant smile grew on her face as she realised she had almost certainly achieved her goal. Ahead, she could see the ground level begin to descend.

"Mind the incline." She warned.

"Righto." Jeff acknowledged with a frustrated huff. Eager to get off his belly, Jeff pushed himself forward with newfound gusto when he began to feel the passage widening. Unfortunately, Clara's warning had failed to convey how quickly the ground turned downwards into a fairly steep angle. It was only when he put his hand forward that he realised that the ground was much lower than he expected it to be. He stumbled forward and began to slide down the loose earth of the cavern base, collecting Clara on his way down. The two explorers careened down the passage together like a runaway train, coming to an abrupt stop only a few seconds later. Clara grunted as she hit solid ground, the impact knocking the torch out of her hand. She grunted again a split second later, in unison with Jeff, as he landed on top of her.

"I did say 'mind the incline'." She said with a slight hint of annoyance.

"Yeah... Sorry about that...." Jeff responded sheepishly, "I didn't expect it to be that much of an incline..."

"Would you mind?" Clara asked, referring to Jeff getting off of her. She had quickly changed the subject to avoid succumbing to a burning urge to berate his carelessness.

"Sure." He answered, climbing off of her as quickly as he could in the pitch blackness. Unable to see much of anything, Jeff slowly lifted his body. Upon discovering that he could now stand upright he cautiously walked over to his glowing torch, which (along with the lamp) had been knocked out of his hand, much like Clara's, when he landed on top of her. He picked it up, and walked over to Clara's torch. As he bent down to fetch it, Clara pulled it quickly into her hand with her magic. His attempt at a courteous gesture foiled, Jeff shrugged and began panning his torchlight around the nearby floor, searching for the lamp. Clara meanwhile was examining the slope of earth that they had just ridden down. From the bottom, it didn't seem as steep or tall as it had on the way down. Climbing back up to the small tunnel opening at the top would not be a major problem. She moved her torchlight upwards, revealing that the roof of the cavern they were in was quite high, perhaps twenty feet above them. Astonishingly, it appeared to be completely smooth, and even arched. There was no question now that this was a man-made chamber.

It didn't take Jeff long to find and retrieve the lamp, only a few feet away from where they'd landed. He crammed it as best he could in one of the deep pockets of his shorts and began to move his torchlight further afield. All of a sudden something in the beam caught his eye and his hand froze. "Clara!" he called, as a look of awe grew on his face.

"Yes, what is..." She began in an incurious tone, silencing herself as she turned to see what Jeff had discovered. In the light before them were dozens of objects. Dull grey pots and vases made of clay, hunks of rotting pale timber that appeared to be the remains of decayed boxes or chests, the rare hint of severely corroded bronze, and a three-foot-tall statue of what appeared to be a soldier. Clara walked over to Jeff's side as she shone her own, more powerful torch in the same direction as Jeff's, illuminating even more parafinalia. As the two archaeologists began to slowly pan their torches around in opposite directions, they began to realise that the entire opposite wall of the large chamber was lined with ancient artefacts.

"I think we're in the right place..." Jeff mused with a sarcastic hint of doubt. Clara had moved her torchlight around to discover that the chamber appeared to be rectangular in shape, with a short vestibule, in which they were still standing, connecting the main area of the chamber to the entrance passage. Clara noticed that there seemed to be a couple of short steps down from the vestibule to the chamber proper. The artefacts seemed to line all the walls of the chamber, right up to the edge of the vestibule. It reminded Clara of photos she'd seen of Tutankhamun's tomb in the state it was first discovered.

"Clara!" Jeff called again, as he made another, even more interesting discovery. Clara quickly turned her gaze to the area illuminated Jeff's torch beam and her lips parted in silent amazement. There in the light was a large stone box; quite obviously, a sarcophagus. "Definitely in the right place." Jeff asserted.

The box itself was relatively plain. It was a simple rectangle prism in shape, except for a rounded cornice extending around the edge of the top of the box. The lid was still upon the sarcophagus in it's rightful position. The box looked strong, despite it's probable age. On the visible long side, a simple pattern of vertical stripes had been carved into the stone, but apart from that, the only other notable feature on the box were some inconsistent markings carved into the nearest short side, probably writing.

After staring silently at the casket for a few seconds, Jeff began to walk towards it, Clara soon followed. Jeff stumbled down the steps from the vestibule, not realising they were there, and turned his torch back to see what had made him stumble.

"Sorry. I was going to warn you about those, but then I thought if I did, you wouldn't have expected them to be that much of a step." Clara flatly remarked. "ARGH!" she winced, as she pressed her hand against her suddenly aching forehead.

"Is it that insult punishment thing again?" Jeff asked her.

"Yes." Clara replied in a strained voice.

"Don't do that. I had it coming." Jeff conceded in an easy-going tone, as her continued walking towards the sarcophagus. Clara agreed with his statement but said nothing.

"I appreciate the thought...", Clara responded as the migraine left her and she resumed following Jeff to the casket, "but it's not exactly something I have control over."

"Right. Sorry..." Jeff said, looking back at her with a sympathetic expression.

"Never mind." Clara grumbled, tired of discussing the matter. As Jeff began to slowly circle the sarcophagus, Clara carefully studied what she could now clearly tell was writing, carved into the nearest side of the box. "My God!" Clara suddenly exclaimed in astonishment, "I was so wrong about her."

"Who? Tukanni?" Jeff asked, lifting his eyes from the sarcophagus to look in Clara's direction, even though the glare from her torch made it impossible to actually see her.

"No, Zhiasa.", Clara said, "This first line of text is written in the same dialect as the journal, nine thousand year old mesopotamian. It says 'Entombed within is Queen Tukanni'."

"But?" Jeff asked, knowing there must've been more to the story.

"But the line below it is written in medieval persian; Hal'hadin's language. It says '...The Forgiven.'. Zhiasa forgave her!" Clara said staring at Jeff in wonderment. Thanks to her heightened genie senses, Clara could actually see his dumbstruck expression, despite the extreme darkness and torch glare.

"Jesus! After eight thousand years of being enslaved...", Jeff responded in wonderment. "Who said 'Hell hath no fury like a woman scorned'?" he said in a lighter tone.

"Some misguided fellow who tried to steal the Illakri Sceptre from me, Van Skaal, his name was..." Clara replied without missing a beat. Jeff chuckled and Clara smirked. "Tukanni indirectly introduced Zhiasa to the love of her life..." Clara said, her tone serious once again, "Regardless of her intentions, Tukanni had given her something wonderful that she would never have otherwise had, something that Zhiasa obviously felt outweighed all the hardships she'd encountered along the way... I guess in that light, Zhiasa felt that she could no longer bear a grudge..." Clara suggested. The chamber fell solemnly silent as the two explorers pondered such an extraordinary gesture of compassion.

"Well... We've come all this way. I think it's time we found out if the amulet is here or not." Jeff said. Clara nodded. Jeff placed his torch on the flat top of the sarcophagus lid and pressed his palms against the lid's side. He groaned as he pushed hard against the heavy stone slab. Clara, still standing several feet away, summoned a strong burst of magical energy to move the lid with a smooth wave of her hand. Jeff was startled as the lid suddenly shifted halfway across the sarcophagus. "Wow! That was easier than I thought it would be." He said in surprise, "I don't know my own strength.". Clara smirked at the ironic truth in his statement.

Jeff grabbed his torch from atop the lid while Clara strolled over to the open side of the casket. They both shone their torches into the box and examined it's contents. After nine thousand years there was no body to be seen, nor skeleton. There were only scant fragments of bone, severely corroded hunks of metal (which Clara presumed was once part of the queen's funerary attire), and an awful lot of dust.

"Bingo!" Jeff said in a triumphant tone, as he reached in to the sarcophagus to grab an eye-catching metallic object, with what appeared to be two emeralds embedded in it, resting in the dust where Tukanni's torso would once have layed. Jeff blew the dust off the object as he held it in his own torchlight, and sure enough, it was shaped in the form of a lotus flower, with two emerald buds on the stem.

Jeff stared at the amulet, a contemplative look on his face with a suspicious-looking smirk. Then Clara felt her stomach sink as it all dawned on her. In her desperation to obtain the means to her freedom, she'd lead her master right to the means of keeping her in his service forever. All he had to do was marry that amulet with the lamp in his pocket and there would be no limit to the amount of wishes he could make her grant. Everything he would ever desire would be his, every obstacle that ever came in his way would disappear. Even her body would be at his beck and call. Why would he hesitate to spend a wish on sex, when he had limitless more at his disposal? Clara could only look on in alarm as he continued to gaze at the amulet. Jeff was a very intelligent man, there was no way in hell that he did not realise the potential of what he held in his hand.

With a conceding sigh, after many tensely silent seconds, Jeff turned to Clara and offered her the amulet. "I bet this is a sight for sore eyes?" he said. Clara's jaw dropped. She began to shake her head softly in disbelief as she stared at him. Only seconds ago she was afraid that she had made a colossal mistake in leading Jeff to the amulet. Now she realised that she had made a much more terrible one by not trusting him. All of those horrible suspicions she'd had about him since that morning after they'd first made love, they were all wrong! From the day they first met, all he had ever shown her was kindness, and now this man, this wonderful man was sacrificing virtual omnipotence for the sake of her freedom! If this was not someone she could trust, then no one was. All at once Clara felt more touched than she ever had been before, and yet so ashamed for her mistrust and cruel spurning of Jeff, who clearly had feelings for her.

Jeff did not look at her, he just kept looking at the amulet as he held it out. Eventually, Clara reached forward with both hands and cupped them gently around Jeff's hand and the amulet. "Thank you." She said in a quiet, heartfelt voice. Then Clara pulled her hands slowly away from Jeff's, taking the amulet with them. She stared at Jeff for a few seconds, and it was only now that Jeff looked up at her with a smile. Clara smiled back.

"Not at all, milady." Jeff said quietly, in a warm tone. Clara simply continued to smile at him. They stared at each other for a few more seconds before Clara spoke.

"I might be a few minutes. There's something I need to take care of..." She said.

"Okay." Jeff responded, as Clara slowly began to dissolve into smoke, starting with her feet and moving upward. "Clara wait!" Jeff suddenly interrupted. Clara instantly paused her transformation, everything above and including her hips was still a solid human form, whilst below there was only a cloud of smoke that lead into the pocket in Jeff's shorts containing the lamp. "I wish..." Jeff began, falling silent as he pondered how to finish the sentence. "I wish... I wish I knew why your father called you 'Nugget'." He finally said with an air of genuine curiosity, clearly making the impulsive wish only so that his third wish would not have been forfeited. Clara chuckled at the triviality of the request.

"It's what he used to call me as a baby. He always used to say that I was his 'little treasure'." She replied with a smile. After granting her master's third and final wish, Clara was forcibly transformed into a smoky cloud and drawn back into the lamp, with the magic amulet still in her hands. Once again in the familiar lamp chamber, Clara immediately headed for the writing desk. With what she hoped would be her final magical act as a genie, She conjured several blank sheets of paper on to the desk, as well as a fountain pen. Clara then sat down at the desk and began to write the following message:

"I regret to inform you that you have been caught in an ancient, magical boobytrap. Don't waste your time searching for a way out of this chamber. The only way you can be released is if another person rubs the lamp as you have just done. When that happens, they will be your master and you will be their slave. You will have to grant any three wishes that they make, and then wait once again, until someone else rubs the lamp, making them your new master. But do not despair, for there is hope. There is an amulet that can free you."

Clara then gave detailed directions to Tukanni's tomb.

"...You will find the amulet in the stone sarcophagus. Once you have the amulet, return to this chamber and place it in the niche in the wall with the writing on it. Be very careful whom you share this knowledge with, for the amulet can also allow your master to make infinite wishes, potentially making your enslavement eternal. I have been lucky, my first and only master is a man with a good heart..." Clara smiled as she wrote those words. "...but You may not be so.

Take heart, and don't give up. I wish you luck.

- A Previous Resident."

Clara then wrote the same message on seven more pieces of paper, until she had written a copy in each of the eight modern languages in which she was fluent. She picked up the sheets, along with the amulet and placed the sheets on the ground, at the foot of the taunting message carved into the wall. Then Clara took a deep breath, and slid the amulet into the small enclave in the wall. The amulet fit into the space snugly. As soon as it had been pushed home, the amulet began to glow with an orangey-golden light. Clara could hear the faint sound of wind blowing, and looked around to see where it could be coming from. She looked down at her feet, half expecting another cloud of smoke to begin swallowing her up, but there was nothing there. The sound was getting louder. Then all of a sudden the wall in front of her disappeared and she found herself in the middle of the fiercest sandstorm she had ever been in. It was so thick she could not see a thing, and the howling wind was so deafening, she could not even hear her own shouting. As she held her right arm out in front of her, searching for some sort of reference point, Clara shielded her face with her left. All the while, a barrage of sand grains assaulted her, front-on, with incredible force. Then, after only a few seconds, the storm ended as quickly as it had begun. When Clara looked up from behind her arm, she discovered that she was somewhere very dark, so dark in fact that she could not see a thing. She also became aware that somehow the amulet was back in her right hand again. Without warning, Clara was caught in a bright light, which hurt her eyes, and she once again lifted her arm to shield them.

"There you are!" Jeff said, moving his torch beam slightly away from Clara when he realised that her eyes needed time to adjust to the light. "So you wanted to change, eh? Looks nice." He said in an overly conversational tone. Clara looked down over her body and noticed that she was indeed dressed in a different outfit. She smiled in delight when she realised how she'd been redressed. Jeff was not to know, but the clothes she was now wearing were the same ones that she had on when she first discovered the lamp. For Clara, that was all the proof she needed that her imprisonment was over. She looked back up at Jeff, beaming. "I don't know about the guns, though..." Jeff continued, "I don't know how necessary they are on an expedition like this. See, the thing about tombs is, their owners have usually already been... well, 'capped'."

Without a word, Clara began to quickly march over towards Jeff's torchlight. "So is that it?" He asked, seriously, "Are you...". Before he could finish, Clara lunged forward and pushed her lips hard against Jeff's, wrapping her arms around him and squeezing him as tightly as she could. Jeff did not hesitate to return her affections, his torchlight danced happily around on the chamber ceiling as he threw his arms around Clara's back and embraced her as they kissed long and passionately.

Becoming a genie via powerful ancient magics, only to be set free by a man her gut told her to be wary of threw everything Clara believed in into question. Mythology, history and her own instincts, she didn't know what to believe about any of them any more. The only thing that she could be sure of right now was that the best place in the world that she could possibly be was right here, in Jeff's arms.

"Wait..." Clara said with a hint of regret as she broke the kiss off, "...there's one more thing I need to do. Do you have my torch?" Jeff reached into a pouch on his belt and produced Clara's torch.

"Here." He said as he handed it to her. Clara turned the torch on and shone it around the room, quickly locating the sarcophagus a few feet away. She walked over to it, with Jeff soon following her. Then Clara leaned into the ancient box and carefully placed the magic amulet upon the disintegrated remains of the lamp's cruel forger. Without a word, Jeff and Clara walked around to the other side of the sarcophagus together to push the lid back and seal the casket once more. With a great deal of grunting and groaning from both of the explorers, and the occasional curse word from Jeff, the lid was eventually restored to it's original position.

"It's done." Clara said as she ran her torch over the ancient box one last time.

"Let's hope nobody ever has to come looking for it..." Jeff said.

"Indeed." Clara agreed. She looked over at Jeff with a smile and kissed him tenderly as she wrapped one arm around the back of his waist. "Come on, we'd best be out of here. The longer I stand in this tomb, the more I'm tempted to take some artefacts back for study." She said, gently slapping Jeff on the butt.

"Alright." Jeff responded in a compliant tone. "So, is this compulsion to Raid Tombs a normal thing for you?" He asked facetiously.

"Hmm... I must admit, I honestly can't recall the last time I found a nine thousand year old royal tomb and then left it without any evidence of it's existence." Was Clara's droll reply.

"Really?" Jeff asked with mock surprise, "I do that all the time. But then I dropped out of archaeology before they told us what you're supposed to do after you discover a tomb..." Clara chuckled as she made her way up the mound of loose earth leading to the small entrance passage.

CHAPTER X

The walk back to the four wheel drive was fairly easy. The path was far from smooth, but there weren't any arduous inclines along the way. Clara and Jeff talked the entire way. When they reached the vehicle Jeff rested by the back wheel and removed his water bottle from his pack. He drank heartily, as there was no longer a need to conserve his water, while Clara opened the vehicle's rear hatch and threw her own pack in.

Jeff had only just replaced the bottle in his pack when without warning Clara placed her hands around his head and pulled him in for another passionate kiss. Clara had hoped she would be able to make it back to the motel room before she expressed her gratitude to Jeff physically, but her ever-growing desire could be suppressed no longer. Jeff wrapped his arms around Clara, positioning his hands initially on the back of her bare midriff, then sliding them down over the coarse fabric of her tight shorts. Jeff gave Clara's buttocks an unexpected tight squeeze as he pulled her hips against his own, prompting a muffled yelp of approval from his partner.

Their faces, like the rest of their bodies, were covered in dust from crawling through the tight cavern, and as their lips slid against each other mercurially, the dust was swept into the kiss. For Clara, the unique mix of bland, gritty dirt, commingled with Jeff's delicious warm saliva only served to make the kiss feel that much more exciting and spontaneous. After smoothly manoeuvring her arms under Jeff's and around his back, Clara gently began to prompt him to move backwards, towards the Merc, until they were close enough for Clara to reach the back door and open it. As Clara continued to push him back, Jeff stumbled over his own pack. He briskly broke off the kiss, reached down to grab the pack and then chucked it recklessly on the back seat floor of the Merc, spilling half of it's contents, including the lamp, onto the vehicle floor. Jeff knew that he would soon be far too preoccupied to remember where he'd left his pack, and had no intention of leaving the lamp on the mountaintop.

Grasping his well-defined chin between her thumb and index fingers, Clara pulled Jeff's gaze promptly back to her and stole a quick kiss before urging him into the four wheel drive with a gentle push on his chest. Jeff climbed up on to the back seat and moved over one space to allow room for Clara. Clara never once took her eyes off Jeff as she climbed onto the seat beside him with an almost authoritative patience, slowly entering the vehicle and closing the door behind her. She concealed her raging arousal behind a calm, if somewhat mischievous smile, while her eyes gazed at Jeff in such a deeply sensuous manner that he could almost hear them say "I am going to pleasure you to brink of insanity..."

She leaned over and pressed her lips against Jeff's once again, sending her tongue deep into Jeff's mouth to slide along, around and against his own tongue in a tender, intimate caress. For Jeff, it had barely seemed like that wonderful kiss had begun before he felt her palm once again pushing gently on his chest and her lips pulling away from his. She pushed him down so that he was lying back on the seat. As Jeff layed flat, the enormous bulge in his shorts became very apparent. Clara did not break the silence when she noticed it, she simply smirked. After stopping only briefly to admire the display of Jeff's arousal, Clara leaned over Jeff to again kiss him on the lips. Jeff wrapped his arms around Clara's torso and pulled her closer to him in a passion-fuelled embrace. She kissed him many times, provoking many appreciative moans from him, but after a few moments, Clara was insistently pulling away from Jeff's arms. She looked down on him with that same conniving smirk, as her hands gently trailed over the fabric of his shirt.

All of a sudden, she gripped the left and right sides of the shirt tightly and swiftly ripped them asunder, sending the buttons flying. They clattered as they bounced off of the hard surfaces of the vehicle interior. "Shit!" Jeff exclaimed in surprise, cracking an amused smile after the initial shock had passed. Quickly resuming her calm, deliberate demeanour, Clara again leaned down, this time to plant a soft, tender kiss on the top of Jeff's chest. She slowly made her way down his chest, padding kisses along it, occasionally pressing against it with the tip of her tongue, while her right hand gently coursed back and forth through the chest hairs near his nipple.

"Oh boy!" Jeff sighed as he exhaled a deep breath. As Clara made her titillatingly slow progress down his sternum, Jeff contemplated the gruelling amount of restraint he would soon have to call upon to prolong his climax as long as possible. His sexual instincts had been in standby mode ever since that first amazing kiss in the tomb. Watching Clara's firm ass the entire twenty-minute walk back to the Merc certainly did nothing to calm them. Now, with this onslaught of incredibly sensuous foreplay from Clara, he was all systems go. The pressure his stiff cock was putting against the strong fabric of his shorts was excruciating, and Clara was still fully clothed! Jeff feared that by the time they actually began to make love, he would only be able to withstand a few seconds of Clara's luscious womanhood.

Clara certainly did not make the task any easier as she unzipped Jeff's fly, and slid her left hand inside to gently fondle his rod through his briefs. Many agonisingly enjoyable seconds later, Clara had finally kissed her way to the bottom of Jeff's chest, stopping just above his navel. She smiled as she rose up, removing her hand from his shorts. After making quick work of his belt buckle, Clara slid her fingertips inside the waistline of Jeff's briefs and pulled them, along with his shorts, midway down his thighs in one smooth movement. Free from it's cotton prison, Jeff's rigid maleness immediately sprang to it's full height, almost as if it were doing so solely to grab the attention of the only person who could fulfil it's maddening need. If that was the case, then it's mission was most definitely a success. Clara paused for a couple of seconds as she admired Jeff's erection with a keen look in her eye. Then, with a teasingly slow blink, Clara shifted her amorous gaze back to Jeff's eyes, consuming his attention as her fingers nimbly unlaced her boots just enough for her to slide her feet out. Next she began to unbuckle her own belt and remove her shorts. Jeff, realising that he had a little time before Clara resumed pleasuring him, sat up and began to awkwardly pull down his own shorts and briefs, which were still holding his thighs together. Clara had obviously only been interested in unleashing Jeff's rod, his mobility was apparently of no concern.

The shorts were still around Jeff's knees when Clara reached over and firmly grabbed their crotch. She pulled the shorts down forcefully, using them to pin Jeff's legs to the seat. Then, as she held his legs fast against the seat, Clara slowly rose up. It was only now that Jeff noticed that she had completely shed her own shorts, leaving only her white cotton panties to hide her snatch. Jeff also noticed that the panties were almost entirely wet and there was a faint smell of female arousal in the air. Jeff smirked as he realised that behind her calm, cool facade, Clara was just as horny as he was.

Clara kneeled over Jeff, straddling his thighs. As she slowly layed down on top of him, she pushed her wet panties against Jeff's hard cock. By the time she had begun to kiss him, it was tightly sandwiched between their two bodies. Clara enticed him further by pressing and releasing her lithe flesh against his rod in rhythmical waves of pressure, whilst her tongue inspired his arousal by dancing playfully along the surfaces in his mouth.

Over and over they kissed, as the pressings of Clara's hips became steadily stronger, more passionate. Jeff moaned happily at the deluge of affection that he'd been swept into, and although Clara remained silent, her composure was clearly starting to deteriorate. Her kisses were becoming hungrier and she was unconsciously running her fingers through Jeff's hair, and even grabbing it at times. Jeff had once again wrapped his arms around Clara. His hands spiralled over her body in wide strokes, rubbing over the back of her shirt and the butt of her panties and sliding over the smooth skin of her lower back in between. As the intense foreplay sent their body temperatures climbing, the dirt on their bodies was absorbed by their sweat, forming a black liquid. Jeff's caresses began to leave black streaks along Clara's wet skin, and dark stains on her shirt and panties.

Motivated by the urgent yearning in his manhood to feel her sweet fissure and the dissatisfying sensation of his hands repeatedly rubbing across the coarse fabric of her shirt, Jeff attempted to move things along by pulling her top off. He was surprised to find just how tightly it clung to her body. Before he could make much progress Clara pulled away from him and sat up. She was still smiling as she looked down at him, but the smile was no longer playful; her lips were parted, she was breathing raggedly, and she meant business. Jeff lifted his hand up to caress her cheek as they both took a few seconds to rest. He smiled as he mused how even covered in dirt, Clara's face was, without compare, the most beautiful one he had ever set eyes upon.

Even once she had caught her breath, Clara forced herself to wait a couple of seconds so that Jeff could calm down a bit. She had been mercilessly teasing him for a while now. The odds were that if she did not give him a little recovery time, they would not get to make love for very long. She held out as long as she could but eventually her craving for Jeff's rod took over. She lifted her body off of his only as much as necessary for her to remove her panties. The scent of her juices flooded the cabin as she bared her slick privates. With a single skilful sway, Clara managed to slip the panties past her right kneecap, then her left, all while continuing to straddle her lover. From there, removing the panties completely was a breeze.

As Jeff looked on with an eager smile, Clara lowered her heavenly opening onto his cock. She leaned her head back, closed her eyes and purred softly as she slowly took Jeff's maleness deeper and deeper into her body. Jeff uttered a vibrato moan as the sensation of Clara's red-hot womanhood sliding down his member sent a growing surge of pleasure tingling up his spine. She did not stop until her outer lips were pressed against his body. With a shake of her head, Clara turned her gaze back to Jeff, with a look that both conveyed raw animal desire and heartfelt affection. The sides of her mouth curved upwards in a playful smile as Clara began to slowly rock her hips.

The two lovers began to moan intermittently as Clara's gyrations increased in intensity ever so slowly. She savoured the mild pleasures of Jeff's rod making the slightest movements within her, while it continued to put pressure on her most erogenous flesh with it's lust-fuelled firmness. Occasionally she would treat Jeff by gently squeezing on Jeff's rod with her privates, usually provoking an appreciative moan from him. Jeff, meanwhile, ran his hands over Clara's bare thighs and around her firm ass, eventually settling on the sides of her waist.

When Clara's gyrations had grown somewhat in intensity, she removed her top, pulling it over her head and tossing it without care onto the passenger seat, all without the slightest interruption to the rocking of her hips. Jeff, inspired by the sight of Clara's ample breasts heaving back and forth in her black bra, sat up and pushed his lips firmly against hers. As their tongues began to dance yet another ballet with one another, Clara reached behind her back and began to work the clasp of her bra. It was soon undone. When Jeff felt Clara sliding the loose bra down her arms, he did not immediately break the kiss off, as it was quite enjoyable. Eventually, his desire to suckle on her luscious breasts got the better of him and he pulled his lips away.

Clara leaned back slightly, to give Jeff a better angle, as his face moved down over her body. He brushed his chin over the perfect smooth skin along the top of her right breast, as he descended over it until his lips were only an inch in front of the nipple. He poked his tongue out and pressed it against Clara's yielding areola. Then he slowly slid it over her nipple, before pressing his lips onto the wonderful orb and beginning to gently suckle. At the same time, he moved his right hand up to cup and fondle her left breast. Clara moaned happily as she continued to ride him, running her fingers through his hair, with an absent smile on her face. Her mind was caught between several emotions, all of which were most pleasant. The radiating pleasure in her center was building to a critical level and with each stroke, Jeff's mighty rod incited even more bliss. His skilful ministrations to her breasts were now bringing the delight to another part of her body. And as she listened to Jeff's indulgent moans, she found herself very happy to be giving her benevolent liberator so much enjoyment.

After savouring the delights of having Clara's pliant breast so welcomely wedged between his lips for quite a while, Jeff decided to alternate, moving his mouth over to Clara's left breast, while allowing his hand to get re-acquainted with the right. He moved his right hand down on to his lover's hip, using it to encourage Clara to accelerate her gyrations.

The dirty sweat on his hand had left dark streaks all over the surface of her shapely breast. As Jeff suckled and teased it with his tongue, he could feel the rough dirt particles rolling over his lips and tongue. Even while contending with the salty taste of their mixed sweat and the (probably imagined) deliciousness of her velvety areola, the dirt had it's own compelling and strangely erotic taste. It had been little more than an hour since they'd discovered the long lost tomb of an ancient queen. Now, while the dust from the tomb still clung to their bodies, they were locked in coitus, fantastic coitus. Jeff could not deny that there was something incredibly hot about that.

Clara, taking the hint from Jeff, began to ride him in deeper strokes. Jeff began to instinctively move his own hips up and down as much as he could. Clara's moans became more prolonged and louder as Jeff's maleness moved within her roasting snatch in a rapidly increasing span. His cock radiated with it's own sexual energy and with each thrust, it sent a pulse of pleasure surging through her entire body. She was almost at the edge.

Again, Jeff alternated his affections, returning to kiss and suckle her right breast, while gently kneading her left. Warm sexual delight radiated from her ample mounds readying her body for the spectacular climax bearing down on her. As her desire grew in urgency and became more focused, Clara began to utter coherent words between her absent moans.

"Ooooh... Oh yes... Mmm... So good... Feels so good... Mmm... Yes... Don't stop... So good... Ooooh..."

Clara's gyrations were now quite intense. The constant pleasure of Jeff's rigid maleness brushing back and forth along her inner walls kept feeding her desire, only serving to make it stronger. She wanted to come so badly, and judging by his moans, Jeff did too. Her hips moved with an erotically rhythmical grace as she repeatedly pushed her womanhood onto his cock, with no little enthusiasm. Over and over, she delighted in her yearning center being probed by the rock-hard shaft, filled with a load of semen that it determinedly withheld, but that Clara knew would ultimately be hers.

"Yes... Almost... It's so close... Ooooh Yes.... Ooooh I'm so close... Don't stop... It's so close... It's so wonderful... It's so... Mmm..." Clara continued to moan broken sentences of encouragement as a dreamy smirk washed over her face. She was so close to orgasm! Jeff had moved both his hands onto the small of Clara's back to help guide her passionate gyrations. His lips had abandoned her breasts (to reduce the tax on his stamina, Clara assumed) and he was now moaning along with his lover. Within a few seconds Clara felt her control over her body slipping away as she rode her virile stallion to an earth-shattering climax.

Her embracing arms tightened around Jeff's torso, pulling her body flush against his, as her womanhood clamped around his excited manhood in an overload of ecstasy. She flung her head back, and opened her mouth, only to emit a barely audible whimper. Once Clara came, Jeff only managed a few more thrusts with his hips, before his anxious rod could resist the carnal embrace of her delectable snatch no longer. With all it's might, Jeff's manhood fired a powerful jet of his seed into Clara's amazing body, blowing back an equally potent wave of sheer euphoria into his own. As the orgasm took control of his faculties, Jeff instinctively held Clara's body tightly to his, reciprocating her own passionate embrace. He bucked forcefully with every quaking pump of his cock.

"Oooooooooh Yeah! Oooooooooh Yeah! Oooooooooh! Oooooooh Holy shit!" Jeff bellowed appreciatively. An incessant blaze of pleasure racked Clara's body and saturated her mind, showing no sign of abating, while Jeff continued to be enraptured by the short, but intense, lashes of ecstasy that accompanied every ejaculation. He was buried to the hilt, but with every buck he seemed to briefly edge a little deeper, a little closer to actually touching the lovely womb of his noble English goddess.

Time ceased to have meaning as they hurtled along a raging river of potent sexual bliss, locked in each other's arms. At some point, Jeff's maleness pumped the last morsels of it's seed and fell inert between Clara's relenting vaginal muscles. As the two lovers regained awareness and exhaustion enveloped them, they dropped back down on to the seat, their arms still wrapped around each other. Clara continued to moan softly as her orgasm slowly faded away. The experience had been so intense that it left her trembling in Jeff's arms. Her overwhelmed partner was breathing raggedly beneath her. The expression on his face could've given the impression that he'd just been run over by a semitrailer, but Jeff was coasting quite happily in his own sexual afterglow.

A few minutes later, well after both Clara and Jeff had calmed down, Clara worked up the energy to pull her arms out from beneath Jeff and lift her hips up just enough for her to stretch her legs out along the seat. Jeff's dormant manhood slipped out of her nether lips unceremoniously as she repositioned herself. Within a few seconds she was again peacefully lying atop her lover, her eyes closed and a blissful smile on her face.

"Mmm... Discovering an ancient mesopotamian tomb, escaping eternal imprisonment and incredible sex. You certainly know how to show a girl a good time, Jeff. The tomb and the freedom were quite nice, as well." Clara purred in a sultry tone.

"I'm glad to hear it. I was thinking about following the tomb by writing you a sonnet in hieratic, but then I thought that that might be too much, you know?" Jeff replied.

"Oh, absolutely!" Clara responded, "Less is more!" She looked up at Jeff and they both chuckled.

"Seriously, though, that was amazing!" Jeff said sincerely.

"Wasn't it just?" Clara agreed with a hint of indulgent moan in her voice, as she reflected on the wonderful experience they'd just shared. They both move their heads forward slightly and tenderly kissed. After a few seconds of basking in Clara's warmth, the shiny lamp on the cabin floor caught Jeff's eye. He reached down, without disturbing Clara, and picked it up.

"So what are we going to do with this?" he asked.

"I don't know." Clara honestly replied, as she looked pensively at her former prison. She thought silently for a moment, appreciating the importance of Jeff's question. "My father is good friends with Sir Vernan Winthrop, the famous oceanographer. They went to Cambridge together. Perhaps we can have Sir Vernan drop the lamp into the mariana trench on his next expedition, after we've taken the liberty of sealing it in a block of concrete, of course..." Clara suggested.

"Sounds like a plan..." Jeff said in an impressed tone, as he gently placed the lamp back on the vehicle's floor.

"Well, I'm not just a pretty face, you know?" Clara said facetiously, without even the slightest trace of conceit about her actual physical beauty. She nuzzled happily into the empty space beside Jeff's neck, while an apprehensive expression grew on Jeff's face, as Clara's lighthearted statement resounded through his mind.

Clara was beautiful in every possible sense of the word. She was intelligent, witty, courageous, captivating, sensuous, and without a doubt the most remarkable woman Jeff had ever met. And the question of whether she had feelings for him was beginning to gnaw away at him. Jeff had a terrible foreboding about asking her, but he knew that the longer he put it off, the more devastating any negative repercussions would be.

"Clara?" he said, in a serious tone. Clara looked up at him with a smile. "Is this... I mean this right now... Is this just, like a 'thank you'? Or some kind of freedom celebration?" the smile quickly faded from Clara's face as Jeff continued, "It's okay if that's what this is, I guess, but it's just... I need to know."

"Jeff..." Clara began in a sad tone, unsure of how to respond further.

"I mean after the last time we had sex, you barely spoke to me, almost like you regretted it..." Jeff said with painful honesty.

"No!" Clara declared adamantly, "...I mean for a while, I might have, but..." It was ironic that words failed her when she so desperately needed to explain her actions. Clara took a deep breath and tried to calm herself, although it wasn't easy; her awful treatment of Jeff over the past few days had finally caught up with her and she was so terribly ashamed. "I... I have never done this before, I have never found myself having feelings for someone like I do for you... And I suppose it scared me. It scared me!" Clara explained, chuckling at the final statement despite being visibly upset. Although she genuinely believed it, the statement seemed so absurd, considering that she was a woman who had braved the boobytraps of the most intricate aztec tombs, without even flinching.

"Scared you? What do you mean?" a confused Jeff asked. Clara closed her eyes as she summoned the courage to tell Jeff the complete truth. After all he had done, he deserved no less.

"I was afraid that you had used the lamp's power over me to seduce me without my knowing. I was afraid that you had manipulated me into sleeping with you." Clara said, cringing in shame. Jeff was clearly hurt by this revelation. "You deserved so much better, after all the kindness you showed me. You never gave me any cause to distrust you and I am so, so, so sorry for the way I've treated you. I'm so, so sorry I had those terrible, stupid thoughts about you. But, if it makes any difference, and I hope to God it does, I know now that the feelings I had that night and that morning were genuine. I know because no one who would give away infinite wishes for another person's freedom could ever do something as heinous as invade a person's mind and force them to have sex." Clara declared in a heartfelt tone. Now it was Jeff who looked as if he'd been caught out. He opened his mouth as if to respond, but Clara interrupted. "I know that you were aware of what you were sacrificing. And it is so unfortunate that nobody else will ever know what you gave away to free me. But I do, and I will never, ever forget it." She promised solemnly as she wrapped her arms around his neck in a tight embrace, fearing that it just might be the last one she would ever give him. Several tensely silent seconds passed before Jeff spoke.

"I gotta admit Clara, I was really tempted to use that amulet..." Jeff confessed, looking away from Clara with a guilty expression.

"Why didn't you?" she asked.

"Because..." Jeff hesitantly replied, as if he was searching himself for the answer, "Because it was the right thing to do... and... because I knew that if I didn't, you'd never feel the same way about me as I do about you. Which I guess, in the end, was what I wanted most of all..."

"Do you love me?" Clara asked, looking over at him intently. As soon as she asked the question Jeff's gaze immediately turned to her, she had his complete attention.

"Well... Yeah." Jeff replied, surprised by the question, but totally sincere.

"Well then, you got your wish!" Clara said with an elated smile. A beaming smile appeared on Jeff's face as Clara's response blew his haunting doubts away like dry autumn leaves. Clara pushed her lips against Jeff's and they kissed passionately. Jeff wrapped his arms around Clara's naked body and held her tightly, just as she held him. Their arms only squeezed each other tighter as they rocked from side to side in the back seat of their four wheel drive, and kissed, and kissed, and kissed. Clara snickered as she felt Jeff's cock beginning to rise beneath her.