Apparently she was wrong....
“You’re being too polite, Rashid. You mean to say you can see it in my nipples, but the truth is it’s cold out here,” she said brazenly. “It has nothing to do with you.”
“I’m not the kind of man one issues challenges to, habibti. I have a pathological need to prove the issuer wrong.”
She took a step backward. “We don’t know each other well enough. Touch me and I’ll scream.”
He laughed. It was completely unexpected. She didn’t like the warmth dripping into her limbs at the sound. “You forget this is the royal palace of Kyr and I am the king. If I wish to tie you to my bed and have my way with you on a nightly basis, there is no one who will stop me.”
Her heart hammered. She wasn’t supposed to be titillated by the idea of being tied to Rashid’s bed. And yet she was.
He moved then, toward her, and she didn’t even try to get away. She was frozen like a gazelle, waiting for the big cat to strike. And strike he did. He tugged her against him, her body in the thin silk robe flush to his naked flesh, and spread his hands over her backside.
Yet he didn’t hold her tight. She could escape if she wished. She knew it and he knew it—and she didn’t even try.
He laughed again, softly, triumphantly. “Such a liar, Sheridan,” he said thickly. And then his mouth came down on hers.
If the kiss in her store had been surprising in its intensity, this one was downright earth-shattering. Rashid’s tongue traced the seam of her lips and she opened to him, tangling her tongue with his almost eagerly.
The sensations rioting through her were more intense than she ever recalled experiencing before. It was the hormones from the shots, she told herself—but it was also the man. He was more exciting than anyone she’d ever known. Which didn’t make any sense because he was also the least likable person she’d ever known.
Not to mention she didn’t even really know him at all. He was a king, a desert sheikh, an autocratic ruler accustomed to ordering people around and getting his way.
And she was giving him precisely what he expected.
But it felt so good. Their tongues fought a blistering duel, her skin grew moist and impossibly hot and wetness flooded her sex. Her limbs were weakened by the kiss and she lifted her arms to put them around his neck. The shock of his hot skin beneath hers made her whimper.
Rashid turned her until her back was against the railing—and then he untied her robe and slipped it off her shoulders. The next thing she knew, his hot mouth was tracing a path down the column of her throat while she threaded her fingers into his dark hair and clutched him to her.
His teeth bit down on her nipple through the silken fabric of her nightgown and she gasped. It wasn’t a hard bite, but it had the effect of sending pleasure shooting straight to her core. Her body clenched hard with desire as she gripped his shoulders and thrust her breasts toward his mouth.
She wanted him to remove the thin tissue of silk between his mouth and her body, but he didn’t. He licked her through the fabric, nibbled and sucked until she was wild with need. Her nipples were more sensitive than ever since she’d had the hormone shots. If he did nothing but this all night, she knew she would come from the stimulation.
But he had no intention of doing only that. He reached down and gathered the hem of her nightie, lifting it up her legs, exposing her. Sheridan thought she needed to protest, but some needy, wicked part of her really didn’t want to.