His Queen by Desert Decree(41)

‘No, you’re going too fast for me,’ Molly warned him, her face tomato red. ‘Slow down. I haven’t done this before...remember?’

‘You can’t fault me for enthusiasm, aziz,’ Azrael said playfully. ‘But I will slow down.’

‘Thank you,’ she said unevenly, taking the opportunity to push back the bedding and slide beneath the concealing cover of the sheet. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit shy...but I don’t think you have a shy bone in your body.’

‘Never thought about it,’ Azrael admitted. ‘I would’ve been punished for being timid or impolite or not doing what it was my obligation to do—’

‘Punished?’ Taken aback, Molly leant over him to stare down at him. ‘Who would’ve punished you?’

‘Firuz was a very strict stepfather. I was beaten a lot,’ Azrael confided with the calm of someone who appeared to accept that such a childcare approach was perfectly normal.

‘But that’s dreadful,’ Molly exclaimed in horror.

‘I survived. I can survive any mistreatment,’ Azrael countered with pride. ‘I was brought up to be tough.’

‘Would you treat your own children—?’

‘No, of course not!’ Azrael studied her with incredulity. ‘Firuz is a tyrant in his own household. I withstood his punishments for my mother’s sake. She would’ve suffered if I had defied him or rebelled. My children will never be beaten,’ he swore vehemently.

Molly’s eyes stung and she pressed a helpless kiss to a bare brown shoulder. ‘You had the most horrendous childhood.’

‘It is the past,’ Azrael reminded her gently. ‘I do not look back.’

‘I suppose that’s one way of dealing with it,’ Molly mumbled.

‘It is my duty to be strong,’ Azrael pointed out, glittering dark eyes roaming over her troubled face. ‘Why does that upset you?’

‘Oh, no reason,’ Molly hastened to assure him chokily.

A seeking hand smoothed up over a curved hip and settled on a lush pink-tipped breast. ‘You have too much heart, aziz,’ he intoned huskily, sliding half over her to plunge his mouth hungrily down on hers.

And serious thought along with that conversation vanished then, lost in the rising tide of her physical responses. He sucked the tips of her breasts, contrived to dispose of her last garment without her noticing and smoothed a skilled hand up to the junction of her thighs where she throbbed and pulsed with a fierce craving for more that she barely understood. Azrael shifted down over her, lithe as a jaguar, his skin pure bronze against the white sheet, and his black hair brushed her thigh.

She had never wanted and had never felt anything like the delicious physical torment that followed. Her fingertips raked the sheet and then plunged into his thick hair. She cried out, teeth gritting, spine arching as the sweet agonising sensations grew in intensity until her lower body was taut with the hot, churning tightness of inner need and hunger. Her body writhed convulsively as she soared to her peak, unleashed waves of pleasure roaring through her in a glorious shot of relief and delight.

‘Tell me if I hurt you,’ Azrael told her hoarsely, rising over her, pushing her thighs back when she was already weak and boneless with satiation.

She felt the push as his bold shaft entered her, eyes widening at the unfamiliar sensation. Her body was primed for him and he groaned with unashamed pleasure over her and the glittering golden satisfaction in his stunning eyes excited her more. His lean hips shifted fluidly between her thighs as he thrust deeper and a sudden sharp little pain made her bite back a cry of discomfort. She hadn’t expected her first taste of intimacy to be an entirely pain-free process and she was determined not to spoil it for either of them as he stretched her with his powerful girth.

Azrael growled with uninhibited pleasure, luxuriating in the tight wet welcome of her body. Raging impatient need roared through his long, powerful body but he needed to make it the best it could be for her. Rigid with control, he raised himself to glide in and out of her, filling her up with slowly building speed and intensity.

Molly’s head fell back, her eyes shutting as she fought to contain the wild sensations eddying out from the heated ache and tightness in her pelvis. She could feel the hunger climbing again, rising sharply as he ground down on her and then sank harder and deeper, all grace, all power and impossibly erotic. She panted for breath, flying high on the surge of excitement he had incited, the feverish pound of his possession uniting with her racing heartbeat and suddenly she was there again on the heights, her body out of control as her world exploded into white-hot ecstasy. His magnificent body shuddered as he too reached the same completion.