His Defiant Desert Queen(35)

He looked down at her on the table, her dark glossy hair tumbling over one shoulder.

The massage was for her, not him. He wanted her now. He wanted her naked in his bed now. But she wasn’t ready, and he’d meant it when he told her that she had to be comfortable. She had to want him before anything would happen between them.

He placed his hands over the sheet covering her back, letting her feel the pressure of his hands, letting his hands warm her.

After a moment he smoothed his hands over the sheet covering her back.

She felt good. Warm, solid but smooth.

This wasn’t going to be a sexual massage. He’d told her that before they started. It was to show her he could be trusted. He wouldn’t hurt her, or force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.

This massage was simply to help break the ice.

Develop awareness. Create ease between them. Stir the senses, too, so that she’d be comfortable with him physically. You couldn’t impose desire. It must come from within.

He concentrated on learning the shape of her back through the sheet, the sheet protecting her, giving her a sense of safety. He had told her that at any point she could stop the massage. If at any point she felt uncomfortable or threatened, she just needed to speak up and the massage would end. But he didn’t expect her to stop it.

Moving from her shoulders down, he ran his palms from her spine out, smoothing tension away, relaxing the muscles, letting her continue to warm, encouraging her to breathe more deeply.

After several minutes he drew the sheet down, folded it low on her hips, leaving her lovely back exposed. His eyes followed the line of her body, the narrowing of her waist to the soft swell of her hips. The sheet rested on her bottom, hiding the cleft of her cheeks, but again, he knew it was there. He wanted to see it. Touch it. Touch her.

And he would touch her, but not there, not today.

He drew her long hair into his fist, and quickly braided it, before draping the braid over her shoulder, leaving her back bare.

As he stepped away to reach for the oil he could see her profile. Her eyes were closed, her full lips softly parted. Her pale skin gleamed, and his gaze dropped to the side of her soft breast, and then lower to the gentle curve of hip.

He hardened. He’d wanted her for hours. He felt as if he lived in a constant state of arousal around her.

He’d desired many women, and knew how to pleasure his women, but this one made him ache.

Or maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t have her, not today, or tomorrow, or even the day after that made him hurt.

Pouring warm oil into his hands, Mikael rubbed his palms together, spreading the oil, thinning it, and yet the slippery texture was so sensual that he wasn’t sure he could do this. It was to tease her, but he was teasing himself and he hated it.

He placed his hands in the middle of her back, where he’d rested them a few moments ago when the sheet still covered her, and then he began to stroke her back, with smooth, firm deliberate strokes to relax her.

She was tense but he was patient, and as he worked on her back, he focused on the satin texture of her skin, the supple muscle beneath the skin, and the long elegant lines of her—shoulder, upper arm, spine, hip, thigh to calf.

For the next two hours he rubbed and kneaded, massaging every muscle group, working on her back, and then massaging her front, her arms, shoulders and the upper planes of her chest. Aware of the stiff peaks of her nipples beneath the loosely draped sheet his own body tightened in response. He wanted her.

He would wait until she gave herself to him. Would wait until she asked—no, begged—for release.

His hands stopped moving. He leaned over her, whispered that he was done, and told her to hold the sheet.

She did, and he scooped her up, carrying her into the Chamber of Innocence where he laid her in the big bed.

“Good night,” he said, smoothing the hair back from her forehead. “Sleep well. I will see you in the morning.”

* * *

He’d carried her into the bedroom and then left her.

Jemma rolled over onto her tummy, and pressed her face into the pillow, her body aching.

She ached for more. Ached to be filled, satisfied.

Hopefully she wouldn’t have to lie here like this tomorrow night feeling so...tense. Frustrated. It wasn’t a good feeling. Hopefully tomorrow it would be different. Hopefully tomorrow she’d sleep contented. Because wasn’t that the sheikh’s promise? He was to fulfill her needs, give her pleasure?

Yes, the massage had been nice.

She’d very much enjoyed being rubbed and stroked with warm fragrant oils.

And he’d been a great masseuse, the best she’d ever had. He’d been extremely thorough, taking his time, making the massage last for hours. But that was the trouble.