His Defiant Desert Queen(91)

                Maybe that’s why sex had felt different last night and this morning.

                Maybe it’s because she was familiar to him. Important to him.

                But she was different, too, he thought. She hadn’t merely been in his arms, but with him...in him...which didn’t make sense, as it was his body filling hers, but somehow she’d gotten inside of him. He had felt her, feeling her not just with his body but his heart.

                The emotions and sensations had made the sex more intense.

                She’d felt so alive beneath him, so fierce and fragile, so beautiful that he couldn’t get close enough to her, and he’d tried, God knew he’d tried.

                Slow, deep strokes, hands holding her down, and still so he could kiss her, ravish her, draw her all the way into him.

                And it hadn’t been enough. He couldn’t get enough. Even after one, two orgasms...hers, his.

                Before, when he’d pleasured her, he’d wanted to blow her mind, enslave her through passion, make her yield to him. Belong to him. If she was going to be his, she should be happy with him.

                But today it’d been something else.

                There had been more heat than ever before but the heat wasn’t about skin or erotic zones. It wasn’t about the orgasm, either.

                It was her. Wanting her. Holding her. Being with her.

                And he could have sworn she’d been into him. Not the act. Not the friction and tension, not the positions, either.

                Somehow the game of seduction had changed and become something more. More real, more honest, more raw. Suddenly, the stakes seemed higher than ever. Could he make Jemma happy? Could he keep her here with him in Saidia?

                And if he could, was it fair to her? Or to those in her family?

                * * *

                Mikael threw back the covers, and headed for the bathroom where he could hear Jemma showering.

                Hot steam filled the white marble bath, thick fragrant clouds hanging in the air.

                He could just make her out through the wisps, her long hair piled high on her head, her hands on her breasts, spreading the bath gel across her lovely pale skin. He hardened, wanting her, craving her again.

                He should be sated by now. He should have had his fill.

                How many times did a man need a woman?

                And yet watching her dark head dip, as she looked down her long, slim torso, to the suds running from her breasts to her belly, his body tightened, his arousal surging upright.

                He couldn’t stay away. He needed her. Again. He’d have her, too.

                Mikael pushed open the glass door to the sunken shower, steam rising, embracing him.

                Jemma turned toward him, startled, her lips parting in surprise.

                Her eyes, those lips, her face...

                Hunger raced through him. Hunger and the need to have her, hold her, keep her. He reached for her, and pushing her back against the wet marble wall, pressed his chest to hers, feeling the slippery film of soap suds between them, skin slick, enticing.

                He rubbed his chest across her soft breasts and felt her nipples pebble. He inhaled sharply, as something wrenched in his chest.