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When nothing but his slow, deep breathing answered her—which to the über-fit Rashid constituted panting—she nudged her head against his arm. He raised it, letting her follow an uninterrupted path up his abdomen to where the scar ended over his heart.
At the very tip, she slipped her tongue out to taste it and him. The voltage coursing through him almost electrocuted her.
She raised her gaze, panting. “How does that feel, Rashid?”
His face looked like a force of nature roused. His voice did sound like muted thunder when he answered. “Your every touch, your every breath triggers everything I can feel at once. It’s as if every sensation is amplified within the scar’s confines only to shoot out to my every nerve ending.”
Her hands stilled over the scar’s tip as she wet lips so dry she felt they’d crack. “Sounds… distressing.”
He followed her tongue’s movements, something deliciously scary smoldering in his eyes. “It is. Overwhelmingly so. It’s pleasurable to the point of pain. And arousing to beyond madness.”
His fingers were suddenly digging into her hair, twisting into her long tresses, tilting her face up to his. Her lips opened on a gasp of shock and pleasure at the spikes that shot from every hair to her toes, pooling in between in her core in a heavy, liquid throb.
She swayed into him, feeling the sensual whirlpool he generated tugging her under. At the touch of her length against his, his steady grip trembled once before firming again.
Holding her eyes, he singed her with intensity. “Is this what you want me to feel, princess? Is this what you want me to do?”
And his lips crashed over hers.
At the impact of his passion, a cry burst from her, laden with surprise, relief, delight and a dozen other emotions. He swallowed it, poured his own groans into her. Her lips opened wider, begging for more of his taste and ferocity.
She needed this kiss, this man she’d been waiting for all her life, more than she needed her next breath.
“Is this what you want?” He tore his lips away from hers to growl against her cheeks, her forehead, her neck, roaming over her with demand, owning her. At her frantic nod, he swept up the sweatshirt he’d loaned her, cupped her buttocks in the warmth of his large, calloused hands. Pressing her against the wall, he opened her thighs, grinding against her core with the massive hardness his pants barely contained. “Is this what you’ve been after as you pushed me and pulled at me and exposed me to your inexorable temptation? Do you want me to lose every shred of restraint, every spark of sanity and devour you whole?”
He accentuated his last words by thrusting against her in an explicit mimicking of possession. She could only moan her consent, going limp in his arms.
“Be absolutely sure it’s what you want, princess. I would have taken nothing, but if you say yes, I’ll take it all.”
Was he trying to scare her off? For her own good?
She had to convince him her only “good” was to be with him.
She struggled to wrap her legs around his hips, but was quaking so much, her legs slipped off him. She moaned in thankfulness when he scooped them up and held them around him.
Her hands trembled over his head as she transmitted her conviction into his eyes. “I am an all-or-nothing kind of person myself. And make no mistake, Rashid, I want it all with you.”
He pressed harder into her, as if testing her claims. “You make no mistake, give me one more intimacy and I’ll take everything you have. Everything, princess.”
The misguided man still thought the idea of his ravishing her could scare her away.
She decided to stoke all that ferocity higher. “You mean if at any point I say stop, you won’t?”
His eyes blazed in imperious confidence. “You will not want me to stop.”
She dragged his head down to hers, opened her lips over his scar, grazed it with her teeth. “Yet here I am still trying to convince you to start—”
She trailed off on a yelp. In another of those magical moves, he swept her up in his arms.
She snuggled against his muscled shoulder, soaking up the momentous feeling. He was striding across his domain, taking her to where she’d thought she’d spend the night alone then leave to never see him again. Could it be that everything she’d ever dreamed of was coming true instead? She would finally be with Rashid?
Her fingers dug into his arm, making him slow down. “I want you to be clear on something, Rashid.” He smoldered down at her, awaiting her conditions. “You will give me everything, too.”
After a protracted, unreadable glance, he gave a brief nod.
He accepted her terms, would abide by them.
Elation fizzed in her blood even as arousal thickened it.
And that was before he said, “Just remember, when I give you everything, it was you who asked for it.”
Promises, promises, she almost said.
But teasing Rashid would come later. When he opened up to her more. Hopefully soon. And fully.
For now, she would take one miracle at a time.
Six
The miracle wasn’t unfolding as Laylah had anticipated.
It had played to her expectations till Rashid had lowered her onto his bed. Then it had diverged onto a totally unexpected path.
Instead of continuing his seduction, he’d risen to his feet. He now stood brooding down at her.
“Rashid, arjook…”
Was that her voice? That thick, covetous rasp?
But who could blame her? The man she’d fantasized about all her life was standing before her, proving her most extravagant fantasies of him modest.
Instead of answering her plea, he was turning away, tossing words over his shoulder. “You won’t appreciate me all over you sweaty like this.” Before she could cry out that she loved him sweaty like that, would want him all over her even slathered in mud, he dragged his blunt fingernails down his face, producing a scratching sound that deluged her in a fresh bout of tremors. “I’ve also grown some industrial strength sandpaper.”
Next second, he disappeared into the bathroom.
The moment he closed the bathroom door, Rashid bolted into the shower, turned it on cold and plunged beneath its freezing spray.
Gulping down air, he squeezed his eyes shut, leaned his flaming forehead against the cold tiles, willing the icy needles to pummel arousal’s hold on his senses.
What was he doing?
This had progressed so fast. Too fast. Too far.
Even when he’d been doing everything in his power to sabotage his own plans, it had only accelerated them.
Now she was out there, the woman he’d meant to eventually have in his bed, begging him to take her, now, not later. When he hadn’t done a thing to seduce her, had done the opposite, trying to ward her away, giving her every reason to back off.
It would have been an ingenious strategy had he meant it, pulling away so she’d be the one to pursue him, but he’d genuinely tried everything he could to dissuade her.
Now that he’d failed, he couldn’t go through with it. For she wasn’t the woman he’d meant to seduce. That woman existed only in his preconceptions. The real Laylah was something he hadn’t known existed. A being pure of heart and magnanimous. And she wasn’t seeking him in response to a maddening challenge.
She truly wanted him. And had for all her life, she’d said.
He shouldn’t have let her touch him.
Her hands and lips on his disfigured flesh had… Ya Ullah…
He’d never known there could be sensations like that. They’d bolted from his flesh to his psyche, tearing into him, detonating his barriers, his brakes. Nothing had mattered after that first touch but that she kept on touching him. As she had.
Then she’d told him she wanted it all with him. He had no idea how he’d stopped himself from dragging her to the ground right then and there and driving inside her, assuaging their mutual need.
But he couldn’t take what she was so fervently offering. Not after the past hours’ experiences and revelations. Not now that he knew she wasn’t who he’d thought she was.
He now owed her far better than that.
Yet how could he deny her, after he’d promised her himself?
He would give her one last chance to make sure. If being with him in ultimate intimacy was as necessary to her as it was to him, and not a reaction to tonight’s turmoil, he’d have to succumb.
Laylah stared at the bathroom door, worry preying on her.
When the door finally opened, it felt like it had been ten hours instead of just ten minutes. The scent of the musky soap she’d used earlier preceded Rashid. Bonded to his own scent, it smelled different, intoxicating. The flames that hadn’t dimmed in his absence roared higher.
What if her absence had doused his? What would she do?
But… what was she doing, asking him to do… this?
Her fantasies had never taken her so far. They’d been so tentative that the most they’d dared contemplate was a kiss. Now… this.
Did she even have any idea what this would be like? What it would lead to? Or wouldn’t lead to? Was this how she wanted to have him? Because she’d thrown herself at him until he couldn’t resist anymore?
He came to stand over her again. Clean-shaven, head and skin still gleaming with wetness, his beauty twisted a spear of longing through her gut. She leaned limply against the wall, her legs tucked beneath her, hands folded over her heart, as if to stop it from beating its way out of her chest.
He finally murmured, “Your beauty is incomparable.” She gaped at him. “But this must have been the first thing you learned about yourself, princess.”
She’d learned no such thing. Not that she was about to debate it. If he thought so, even if it turned out he only needed glasses, she wouldn’t jar him from his illusion.
“I could see your potential from the time you were six. I knew your beauty would become so overpowering, men would fight over you and kings would fall at your feet. I was right. The list of the royals who have begged for your hand is as tall as you are.”
She cast a deprecating glance down her body. While not short, she was the shortest in her family at five foot six. “Not really tall, with a sum total of seven such ‘royals.’ And none was after my ‘overpowering beauty’ but rather my ‘overwhelming connections.’“
“If that was true, then the only explanation is that they’re not into women. What heterosexual male would not want you?”
“Uh… off the top of my head, I know of eighty-eight such males.”
He shook his head. “Your relatives don’t count.”
But she hadn’t counted as a desirable female to any man that she knew of. Whatever her personal assets, they’d always been nullified by her family’s. Men had either wanted her, or hadn’t wanted her, based on those. Not that she’d ever cared. Not when Rashid was the only man she’d ever wanted.
His gaze, sliding from the feet tucked beneath her to her face, felt like a full-body caress. “It almost… hurts to look at you.”
Her smile wavered. “I’m hoping that’s a compliment.”
“It’s the truth.” He was suddenly on his knees, facing her on the mattress. “You’re an impossibility. I don’t believe in perfection, but here you are, against everything I believe. And against anything I can believe, you say you want me.”
Her heart kicked so hard it brought her up on her knees, too, looking fervently up at him. “I do want you. I always have.”
The brooding look gripping his face deepened. “You said I defined perfection to you. So now I ask—how? What is it about me that you ever found perfect, let alone now?”
A drop of water streaked down his chest and caught in the groove of his scar, making her tongue ache to lick it off.
She dragged her gaze up to his. “It would be easier to count the things I don’t find perfect about you. Like how you were always so distant, as if in a world of your own. But then, that’s not an imperfection, just a frustration.” Giving in to the need, her fingertips swept a trembling path down his scar. “The thing is, you might not be perfect per se. But you are perfect to me.”
A large hand covered hers, pressed it to his six pack of steel. “I had time to reconsider in the shower.”
Oh, no! He’d say he’d lost his head under her temptation, reprimand her for being inappropriate again and end this. Then in the morning she’d leave and never find her way back to him again.
But she’d taken this as far as she could. Anything he decided now, she had to abide by.
She waited for his verdict, her teeth starting to chatter.
His eyebrows furrowed as he documented her reaction. “Whatever I said before, you must not think it’s too late to change your mind. You’re free to reconsider.”
The letdown felt like the two-floors’-worth fall from this mezzanine onto the stone ground below.
She gritted her teeth on a sob that almost escaped, forced steadiness in her voice. “If you want to take back everything you said, you feel free. You don’t have to let me down easy.”
His eyes narrowed. “You mean you still feel the same way?”
Her shoulders slumped. “It’s not important what I feel.”
“It’s all-important. But what you feel now could be PTS.”
“Post-traumatic stress? From the attack, you mean?”
“It’s common to need to reaffirm life through uncharacteristic, uninhibited acts after surviving a life-threatening experience.”
“And you’re an expert in that, right?” His gaze dropped, his whole face becoming inanimate. Beyond trying to analyze his reaction, she had to resolve this. “Since I detailed my lifelong crush on you, you know this isn’t spur of the moment on my part. If you want to give me a way out of looking like a pathetic fool by pretending it was the stress talking, go ahead, be chivalrous to the end.”
Without raising his eyes, he murmured, “The last thing I am is chivalrous.”
She sagged back on her heels. “Then it’s even worse. You succumbed to an ‘uncharacteristic and uninhibited act’ because you’re stressed and had a hormonal surge due to a woman throwing herself at you and pawing you all over. Now that the urge has subsided, you want to end this on a not-too-sour note.”
His eyes rose then, bored into hers again. “Does it look like my ‘hormonal surge’ has subsided?” His gaze lowered, dragging hers with it and… Whoa. His clean sweatpants showed that… nothing had subsided. Not in the least. “And women have thrown themselves at me and pawed me before, and none has caused even a hormonal blip.”
Her heart thundered. “You mean you still want… want…”
Desire surged in his voice and gaze again. “Everything. But I needed to be sure I wouldn’t be taking advantage of your vulnerability.”
So. Moment of truth. Setting him, and herself, straight. She wanted everything with him, whatever it led to.
She leaned into him, spread her hands over his formidable chest, moaning at feeling his vitality and power quiver beneath her touch. “If another man had saved me tonight, I would have made sure he got medical attention and promised to be there for him if he ever needed my help. But I wouldn’t have gone home with him, and I certainly wouldn’t be in his bed now. From the E.R. onward, everything I did was because it was you. Everything I feel is for you. All I want is you.”
He suddenly severed their contact by standing up.
At her choking disappointment, he said, “To do your unrepeatable offer of everything justice, I’ve revised my approach of gulping you down whole.”
Biting her lip on the yo-yoing agitation and excitement, she whispered, “So what will you do?”
He undid the drawstrings of his pants ever so slowly. “I’ll savor you within an inch of your sanity.”
She wanted to tell him she was already a few miles beyond sane. That when he let those pants drop, she might suffer a coronary. Then he did.
Finding black silk boxers beneath didn’t ward off the mini heart attack. The potency tenting it, those muscled thighs and legs encased in the perfect amount of black silk, and imagining what all that would soon be doing to her, was enough.
Then, muscles rippling, he knelt before her again. He skimmed his lips over her face and neck, inhaling her, groaning his delight at her scent. The conqueror she’d expected him to be had turned into a seducer bound on driving her out of her mind.
Tears stung her eyes as she tried to wind herself around him. “Don’t savor me, Rashid. Arjook, I can’t wait…”
He gently disentangled himself, groaned deep inside her mouth, “Don’t rush me, ya ameerati. Let me do all this beauty and generosity justice.”
It was only that she realized he was in as much torment as she was, that made her concede and suffer his pace.
His hands trembled as he released her from the few clothes she had on, which though loose had become suffocating. She writhed and moaned, caressing his head, drawing him closer, wishing there was hair for her hands to convulse in. At the first touch of those electrifying hands on her breasts, she scraped her fingernails across his scalp. He groaned in equal suffering, but wouldn’t hurry.
By the time he had her naked, she knew what erotic torment truly was. It was still worth it, just to see his face as he looked down at her.
She cried out at the savage hunger in his eyes. He closed them instantly, opened them again with it under control. Still afraid for her alleged fragile state of mind?
But he couldn’t control the raggedness in his voice. “Anti akthar menn kamelah—more than perfect. You’re beauty incarnate.”
Her head thrashed in protest. “That would be you.”
He caught it in gentle hands, pressed a fierce kiss on her lips. “You honor me with your approval, but let me show you how much I hunger for every inch of you…”
And he showed her. He drank her lips dry, then moved to her neck, her arms, her hands. When he drew one of her fingers inside his hot mouth, pleasure forked through her, lodging deep into her core. She hadn’t known that it could be like this. That he could do this to her, just sucking a finger. Then his lips pulled—hard.
She bucked off the mattress. The throb between her legs squeezed another rush of molten agony. “Rashid… arjook, daheenah…”
She was coming apart, needed him now… now…
But he had other plans, deeper levels of torment. He exposed her to all forms of sensual stimulation, plumbing every response she hadn’t known her body was equipped with, taking every intimacy as he’d warned, creating erogenous zones wherever his hands and lips landed, or his tongue and teeth followed.
He was everywhere. Kneading, kissing, licking. Nibbling, nipping and suckling. Her feet, down her back, all over her stomach and breasts and buttocks, the insides of her arms and thighs. All the time coming up to plunge deeper and deeper kisses into her mouth, along with more aroused, arousing confessions. She lost count how many times she begged for him.
When he finally drew away, she thought he’d at last remove the only remaining barrier between them and join his body with hers. She rose to hurry him, welcome him…
Next second she was flat on her back with her legs over his shoulders. Surprise and consternation warred inside her as a wave of contrary shyness overtook her. She’d been begging to share the ultimate intimacy with him, but had qualms about letting him have a lesser one? Stupid, but no less cripplingly real.
Panting, she tried to sit up. “I want you, Rashid, you…”
“You’ll have me, all of me. But first I feast on all of you.”
He drew her legs wider apart, flattened on his stomach between them, cupping her buttocks, opening her core fully to him. Before one more neuron could fire, he blew a hot breath on the knot where it felt every last nerve in her body converged.
The sound that she made was one of alien hunger. Coherence seeped out of her, nothing remaining but craving and sensation. The emptiness inside her was spreading, engulfing her…
Her head thrashed, her face tangled in her hair. “You’re killing me…”
“I’m worshiping you, ya ajmal an’naas.”
Hearing him call her “my princess” before, not just princess was one thing. But “most beautiful of all people”? That he thought such a thing, the way he said it, only made her state more acute. Then he slid a rough, careful finger between the molten lips of her core.
She screamed, bowed up, her whole body quaking. Her breathing stopped, her heartbeat stumbled.
One trembling but insistent hand soothed her down, kneading her breasts, rolling her nipples as his other hand stroked her liquefied flesh in tight circles, just the right speed, just the perfect pressure. She writhed and begged for him more and more. He only quickened his ministrations, and quakes started, radiating from where his fingers played her flesh like a virtuoso. Her hips undulated, moving with his fingers, ripples of delight hurtling with frightening speed toward something far more intense than she’d ever felt or imagined…
He rubbed his now-smooth face against her tender inner thighs, like a lion nuzzling his mate. He sounded like one when he growled, “So hot and fragrant, so ready for me. Now to taste you…”
A shriek tore out of her at his tongue’s first plunge into her, drinking her pleasure at the source. Tightening his hold over her bucking buttocks, he swept its firm, slick heat through her trembling flesh to the pinpoint of torment. She imploded, collapsing back on herself.
Then he sucked her flesh into his mouth, unleashing every spark of accumulated sensation.
She ceased to exist, dissipated in wave after wave of white-hot release…
The shudders racking her finally eased, her vision returned to the sight of his regal head between her thighs, still suckling her, drawing out her aftermath.
Closing her eyes, she melted back into his cossetting, surrendered to his ministrations.
Suddenly, her eyes snapped open. Pleasure wasn’t subsiding, it was building, the screaming tension for release back in full force. He went on and on until she was heaving and keening again, in the merciless grip of an even fiercer climax.
Afterward, inside a body that was no longer hers to command and a mind she felt she had no access to, she saw him rise to prowl over her numb body, sweeping her with soothing caresses. Her eyes stung again at his generosity, his restraint. She couldn’t believe a man could deny himself so long when he was as agonizingly aroused as Rashid evidently was.
But instead of moving on top of her, he tugged her into the curve of his great body, stroking her quivering flesh gently, murmuring praise and passion in that voice that spoke to her soul.
“Laylah… the taste and sight and sound of your pleasure, everything about you—is beyond perfect, beyond belief…”
What was beyond belief was that he was arousing her again, when she suspected he was trying to lull her to sleep, too. When she’d thought he’d drained her of sensation, maybe forever. Now that her body knew what kind of pleasure he could provide, his merest touch and breath had it clawing its demand for his.
She twisted in his arms, wound herself around him, arms and legs. “You promised me yourself.”
Something almost frightening erupted in his eyes. His voice couldn’t hide his state, either. “Don’t pour more fuel on the fire now, ya ameerati.”
“I will if it’s the only way you’re going to stop worshipping me and give me what I need—you, inside me.” Catching his face between her hands, she rained kisses all over it before sliding to his scar, suckling and nibbling it in abandon, moaning against his burning flesh, “Come inside me, Rashid, arjook. I feel my heart will stop if you don’t fill me… now, Rashid, now!”
Those roughened hands whose touch drove her out of her mind and ignited every last one of her senses, tightened on her arms as he turned her on her back, loomed over her.