He made love to her first with his mouth, and then, when she was sated and shattered, he settled between her thighs and entered her on a breath-stealing plunge. Sheridan wrapped her legs around him as he rode her, arched her body into his and let him take her over the edge of passion and into the depths of a pleasure so intense it made her cry his name again and again.
When she was shattered and spent again, when she couldn’t lift a muscle, Rashid found his release in her body. He rolled away from her and she lay there with the cool air wafting over her heated skin and her brain racing, wondering if he would get up and hand her the clothing he’d dropped onto the floor.
She didn’t dare reach out to him. Long minutes passed in which she worried and wondered and thought of what she would say if he withdrew again. And then she thought maybe she should just get up and go. Take the decision away from him. Show him she didn’t care about his rejection.
Sheridan pushed herself upright and swung her legs off the bed. She fumbled for her clothes in the dark, her eyes stinging, as Rashid didn’t say a word. He didn’t care if she left. After everything he’d said, he didn’t even care.
But then he was there, his hand smoothing over the curve of her back, her buttock, and she stopped what she was doing as her skin reacted with the same predictable flare of heat as always. Oh, it wasn’t fair. It just wasn’t fair.
“Don’t go,” he said. And then he pulled her down, into his arms, and she was lost all over again.
CHAPTER TWELVE
HE’D BEEN RIGHT about her, Rashid thought. She was a people pleaser. Sheridan was the kind of bright, sunny sort of person that he was not and never had been. She was light to his dark, sweet to his sour, sunshine to his ice. She made people happy. She spoke with everyone she met as if she was genuinely interested in them. She had to have a translator, but she was beginning to learn a few words and when she tried them out, no matter how badly she mangled them, even the council smiled indulgently.
He did not fool himself that would last, however. The council would eventually begin to demand he take a second wife. He’d told them he would, but he was in no hurry to do so.
Besides, when would he have time for another woman? He was busy enough with Sheridan. Not that she demanded his time, but he often found himself giving it. He went looking for her during the day, found her with her secretary or in the kitchen. Occasionally, he found her in the stables with the puppies.
He looked down at the basket that Mostafa had placed silently beside his desk and took a moment to wonder at himself. Was he going soft?
Soon there was a knock on his door, and Sheridan breezed into the room. She was wearing cream trousers and a red shirt today, and her hair tumbled in blond curls over her shoulders. She was fresh and pretty and glowing.
He glanced at her belly worriedly, but then he told himself it was silly. She wasn’t even showing yet. There was nothing to worry about.
“You wanted to see me?” she said.
He stood and went to her side. “I did.” He leaned in and kissed her cheek. And then he had to tell himself it was the middle of the day and he had appointments in a few minutes. But he was already hard. It surprised him how quickly she got to him.
As if she knew what kind of internal battle he was having, she slid her arms around him and brought her body against his.
“You smell good, Rashid.”