Married for the Sheikh's Duty(23)

Something harsh fell from his mouth in Arabic. In the haze of desire, she couldn’t catch what it was. Every inch of her trembling, she stared as he lifted the pouty nipple to his mouth and flicked it through her top. A bolt of pure desire shot through her and Amalia arched her body into his, a pit of longing in her gut.

“Seeing you in his arms made me forget everything, azeezi. About Sintar, about my duty, about Mirah’s happiness, about your brother and the media... I forgot everything.” He punctured the words with flicks of his tongue and now he took the nipple into his mouth and sucked it. Amalia pinched her thighs together against the arrows of pleasure converging around her sex. “So you tell me now. Have you betrayed our deal, Amalia?”

She sobbed when he released her nipple with a soft plop, her entire being tense like a bow. With hands that could play her like a violin, he took the hem of her top and pulled it up over her head until her torso was bare to him.

And then his hands stroked over the flesh he had uncovered. Large hands pressed and stroked her until all she could do was give herself over. Moving to her shoulders, he kneaded her back, so aggressively male that Amalia drowned in him.

“Did you, ya habibti? Did seeing Massi remind you what an arrogant beast I was in comparison?”

Amalia didn’t want to agree. She wanted to remind him of his tenderness when he’d thought she’d hurt herself, the concern she’d read in his eyes because he’d feared for her safety. But no sooner than the thought formed, he drove it out with his fingers plucking restlessly at her turgid nipples.

Hardly had she shaken her head before he resumed the plunder of his mouth on her other breast.

Again and again, he ministered to her breasts until the wet points were tender and sensitized, until a fever ran in her blood. Pain and pleasure seemed to coalesce and beat like one pulse all through her body.

When he stopped his caresses and moved his hands down her body, Amalia felt like her entire body was waiting for a breath, parched. Like she’d been waiting her entire life for this moment with this man. The pulse he had built to a keening pitch between her thighs dulled down. And she was desperate enough to beg. “Please, Zayn, I need—”

“Not yet, habibti.” Dry amusement sprinkled his words. “First, I shall make sure you are ready for me, yes?”

Amalia protested with a sob. He was already holding her up, her quivering legs of no use. A hand under her knee urged it up and she locked it around his hip. The graze of his hip bone, the rough musculature against her inner thigh, sent a moan hurtling through her, the press of his shaft against the core of her sending an ache through it.

She hid her face in his chest at the way he opened up the heart of her, heat flooding her cheeks. “Zayn, that’s...the bed...”

A wicked gleam in his eyes, he pressed a sizzling kiss to her damp mouth. “No, here,” he whispered, before his fingers found the wet heat of her.

Amalia groaned as he pushed one, then two fingers into her core, while his thumb pressed and stroked the spot that ached for his touch.

His jaw gritted so tight to resemble a marble cast, he looked down at her. Passion pinched his features, all the hard contours of his face even more pronounced now. “You’re swollen and wet for me, Amalia.” When he tweaked the bud with his fingers, Amalia jerked at the wave of pleasure that claimed her. “And so violently responsive. Shall I take you like this, latifa?”

Amalia knew she should say something but the sight of his leanly powerful body arrested her words. While she watched with widening eyes and whistling breath, he ripped off the cover on a condom and rolled it on.

Her mouth went dry. She went willingly when he took her in his arms again and his fingers plunged into her wet core as if they belonged there. The insistent pressure and strokes of his fingers sent wave after wave of such blinding pleasure that she clung to him to ride each.

She was so close, so desperate for that peak, she dug her teeth into his flesh and panted against his skin.

In the next breath, he was lifting her as if she was a petite, fragile thing, urging her to wrap her legs around his hips. The wall kissed her bare spine, while his muscles pressed into her front. His fingers left her just as Amalia hung on the edge of her climax and then he was entering her with one hard thrust...

Stinging pain rippled through her core and Amalia tried to contain her whimper against one rock-hard shoulder. And failed. Every inch of her went rigid against the waves of pain.

This time she understood the curse words that fell from his mouth.

His fingers gentled on her hips, his breathing like bellows around her. “Damn it, Amalia...why didn’t you tell me?” He sounded so utterly pained that she lifted her head and looked at him.

Such tender concern filled his gaze that the fingers of pain dulled by a deeper longing. “I should have, I know. But I did tell you that I haven’t had much life beyond my mother and Massi...” Her words drifted off as she saw his jaw tighten. “You thought I had been with Massi?”

“Yes. It was clear in his eyes that he wanted more, Amalia.”

“He did. We tried a couple of dates but I couldn’t... I just couldn’t see him as anything other than my boss. And maybe an older brother. So I told him that I didn’t want to ruin what we had.”

“It is clear from his gaze today that he still...” He stopped and carried her to the vast bed. He brought her to the edge of it and gently lowered her. He’d already pulled out of her and all she felt was an aching awareness, a void in her sex, just like the one in her chest.

God, she didn’t want the night to end yet, not like this.

Fingers tight against his biceps, she stayed him. Pressed her face to his chest and breathed in the musky scent of him. His skin was smooth and rough at the same time, a damp sheen clinging to it. “Don’t leave me, Zayn... I came to you tonight because I wanted this.”

He clasped her cheek gently, his eyes full of a warmth that set her heart racing. “Hurting you physically is bad enough, Amalia. I can’t justify—”

“But it is a pain I welcomed willingly,” she pleaded, beyond pride or shame now.

Gentle fingers dug into her hair, molding the shape of her head. She’d never seen the conflict mirrored in his eyes as she did now. Something expanded in her chest, as if this fight he was going through between what he was supposed to be and what he wanted was a personal victory of hers. As if she had smashed through to the complex man beneath. “You know where my life is headed. If you waited this long, it should have been with someone special. I just—”

“You’re special to me, Zayn.” Instantly, his gaze shuttered and Amalia reached up to touch his face. “No, please don’t...withdraw from me. I’m not asking for anything. I do feel...there is a connection between us, do you deny it?”

“It’s attraction, Amalia. Lust at its most primal.”

She swallowed away the hurt that pinched at his dismissal. “Well, you’re the first man I’ve lusted over quite like this. So...how about you make good on your promise, Sheikh?” She filled her tone with taunt, desperate to have him finish what he started, desperate to have that closeness with him again. “Shouldn’t I get some reward for the pain I just felt? Or are you in the habit of leaving your woman unsatisfied? I wonder if that tabloid—”

“You’re a stubborn, manipulative witch,” he mumbled while he climbed over her onto the bed. Amalia slid up the sheets, her breath stuttering in her throat again.

His golden skin tautly stretched over a gorgeously hard body, Zayn took her breath away. He rested alongside her, his hands palms down on her body, restlessly stroking her everywhere.

Amalia closed her eyes and arched into his touch when he strummed her breasts again. Caught between the cool silk of the sheets and the heat of his knowing touches, she drowned in sensations. This time she was a little more aware of her own body’s partiality and she gave in to the delirious pull at her sex.

Then she felt his mouth at her nipples, suckling and stroking, while her body climbed higher and higher. When his other hand rested on her mound again, she tensed, the reminder of that cleaving pain driving her reaction.

He kissed the upper curve of her breast, “Shh...habibti, just relax. You trust me, don’t you, Amalia?”

Amalia opened her eyes and fell deep into his molten gaze. Her lips sought his and she moaned at how familiarly exciting he already was to her. How every inch of her recognized and thrummed for him. “I do.”

“Then give yourself over, hmm?” His fingers delved into her folds again and resumed stroking her.

Amalia brought her knees up and held his shoulders as he increased the pressure. Faster and faster while his mouth tugged her nipple again. She was panting, flying, every inch of her being concentrated on the pulls of her sex. The hunger was so intense that she felt like weeping for release.

“You’re a firecracker. Just listen to your body, latifa, and demand what you want from me,” Zayn whispered in a barely recognizable husky tone. She heard the smile in his words instead of seeing it. “Like you always do.”

As if that was all her body needed, she rocked into his touch, raising her hips, her fingers desperately holding on to his hard body. “Faster, Zayn, now,” she demanded wantonly and had the pleasure of hearing his deep laughter. The soft graze of his teeth against the tautly aching nipple sent Amalia soaring over the edge.