Sheikh's Princess of Convenience(11)

“For various reasons, I never thought you and I would be a good fit, despite the fact my advisors consistently brought you to my attention. You seemed young, wayward and superficial.”

“Are you sure you’re not a virgin? Because you’re offering very little pleasure with remarks like that.”

“No one else appealed to me, though.” He sounded almost as if this was a surprise revelation only occurring to him now, one that dismayed him. He sounded disturbed, even.

She sighed. “Please don’t make this about my looks, Karim. That’s no better than using me for political gain.”

“I didn’t come to the wedding intending to make an offer for you. I wouldn’t have kissed you if you hadn’t kissed me first. But when we did...”

“Karim.” She was glad for the dark because she was wincing with mortified agony. “I know you weren’t as involved as I was. I felt your...” She swallowed. “Distance. Before we were seen.”

“That only proves how attuned we are to one another. Physically.”

“No! It proves you can manipulate me with my body while I have no such power over you.”

He shifted abruptly, voice now coming from the space above and behind her shoulder, telling her he was propped on an elbow. “Did you want me to lose myself and make love to you against the wall where everyone could see us?”

“I wanted you not to use me!”

“I’m offering you a chance to use me.”

“You’re not that simplistic. Or generous. You’re going to get me all worked up, then say, ‘Why don’t we go all the way?’ Not my first rodeo, cowboy.”

“Am I?”

“What?”

“Going to get you all worked up? Because I know how to settle myself down. You have no fear I’ll prevail on you to provide my happy ending.”

“Oh!” She buried her cry of frustration into her pillow. “Fine,” she declared with the impulsiveness that had earned her a reputation for being exactly as spoiled and wayward as everyone thought her. “Go ahead and prove there’s something in this marriage for me. Give me all this pleasure you’re so convinced you can provide.”

Nothing. No compliments or commands. He didn’t move.

She suspected he still hovered over her, but it was too dark to tell. She turned to face him, one hand inching just enough to feel the silk tassel on the cushion still between them.

He drew the rolled mat out of the way and his hand bumped hers when he sought the cushion. He kept hold of her hand.

She didn’t know what to do. Pull away? Let her hand rest in his? She was nervous. Curious. Furious. Frustrated in more ways than one.

He lifted her hand and rubbed his lips against her knuckle. The short whiskers of his closely trimmed beard were silky soft where the backs of her fingers brushed against them.

“This isn’t about how you look, Galila,” he breathed across her skin. “I can’t see you. It’s about how we make each other feel.”

“How do you feel?”

His humid breath bathed her palm before he spoke into it. “I’ll let you know when you get there.”

The light play of his mouth exploring her skin, the dampness when he opened his lips, sent heady tingles through her entire body. When he pressed a kiss into her palm and set his blazingly hot mouth against the inside of her wrist, tongue swirling against her pulse, she gasped at the wave of arousal that throbbed through her. It sent heaviness into her loins, stinging tightness to the tips of her breasts, and a helpless sob to catch in her throat.

“How are you doing this to me?” He was touching her hand.

“What am I doing? Tell me. I can’t see you.”

“You’re—” She didn’t want to admit he was seducing her. “I can’t breathe. My heart feels like I’ve run miles.”

He moved her hand to his neck, setting the heel of her palm against his smooth throat, next to where his Adam’s apple moved as he swallowed. The artery there held a powerful pulse, one that was quick and hard.

“You’re excited?” she asked.

“Of course.”

No. He was tricking her again. But she found herself doing what she had last night, acting out of instinct, but this time her fingers were in his thick, silky hair. She urged him down and somehow their mouths found each other despite the blinding darkness.

The lack of light amplified the acuteness of her senses. Such a rush of heat went into her lips, her mouth stung under his, assuaged by the lazy way he settled into the kiss, easing her lips to part. She was the one to seek a deeper kiss by searching for his tongue with her own and moaned as their kiss grew fully involved.

His arm snaked around her and he tucked her half beneath him, weight settling more heavily on her. Then he lifted his head just enough to say, “Say yes,” against her lips.

He wanted this to be her choice and it was. His bare chest pressed where the straps of her nightgown left her upper chest bare and she had never felt anything like that specific heat and texture. It was intoxicating.

“Yes,” she whispered, arching to pull her hair out from beneath her.

It brushed against his skin, and he made a noise that suggested he had to reach for restraint.

“This might become my obsession,” he said, gathering the long waves and burying his face in it. When he turned his head, his mouth was against her nape. He licked into the hollow beneath her ear and sucked on her earlobe, making her whimper in delight.

His touch moved to play his barely there fingertips against the silk of her nightgown, following the band of lace beneath her breasts where it hid her navel, coming back to climb the slippery silk alongside the swell of her breast. By the time his touch met where his lips had strayed, and he began to ease the narrow strap down her shoulder, her breasts were swollen and aching. She was so needy, she was feeling wild. Her own hands were moving restlessly across his shoulders, excited but apprehensive.

“I’m going to make love to you with my mouth,” he said in a voice that barely penetrated the rush of blood in her ears. “That’s not a pleasure you can give yourself.”

Was that what she wanted? She didn’t know, but she was too caught up in the sensation of his beard across the top of her breast. He bared it and she stopped being able to think straight. The heat of his breath warned her just before his mouth engulfed her nipple, but nothing could have prepared her for the way electricity seemed to shoot through her, stabbing into her heart so she thought it would burst. Sexual need raced in sharp lines to her loins, making her tingle and tremble as he pulled and laved and cupped the swell in his big hand and flicked his tongue against the turgid tip.

She could feel herself growing damp and slick. Heard wanton noises escaping her throat. She wanted him to keep sucking her nipples, but wanted to kiss him, too. It was the sweetest torture and she actually lifted and offered herself when he eased the other strap down, desperate for the delicious torture on her other breast.

Oh, he was making her crazy. She swirled her hands through his hair, over his damp neck, across his shoulders. The dip of his spine was an intriguing place and she even wickedly slipped her hand down to touch his chest, finding his own nipples sharp as shards of glass.

He rose to kiss her mouth again, hard and thorough. She moaned her approval, body rolling into his of its own volition, knee crooking.

When he ran his hand down her hip, he pushed the blankets away at the same time. Then he gathered the skirt of her nightgown, drawing it up so her legs felt the cool night air. It was erotic and almost a relief, she was so hot, but it was a moment of truth. Was this really what she wanted?

The darkness was a wonderful place, allowing her to hide and somehow protect her modesty as his touch strayed inward and brushed the damp hair between her thighs. He caressed her swollen lips, more of tease, so entrancing she allowed her thighs to relax open.

He didn’t get the message and continued being so gentle, she wanted to sob with frustration. She was nothing but an agony of anticipation, waiting, longing, yearning for a firmer touch.

He shifted and slid down, pressed her legs wider, beard brushing the sensitive skin of her inner thigh, sweeping in brush strokes that made her gasp and quiver with need. When he turned his face against one thigh and the other, refusing to make contact where she pulsed with molten heat, she sobbed, “Karim.”

“You want my mouth here?” His wide palm settled on her mound, the pressure not nearly firm enough.

He wanted her full surrender. She instinctively knew this wasn’t compromise. It was his way of forcing her to accept his will, but it was such a wickedly delicious way. Seductive. Impossible to resist.

“I do,” she admitted, feeling as though she gave herself up to him with the words, binding herself irrevocably to him. “I do, I do.”

Openmouthed kisses edged closer. He parted her with delicate care, then wet heat slid along her most intimate flesh. Glittering pleasure suffused her, waves of growing arousal that rose as his attentions deepened. In fact, her level of involvement skyrocketed so fast and high, she didn’t know how to handle it.

He paused, causing her to open her mouth in a silent scream of agony. Only his hot breath caressed her as he spoke in a graveled tone.

“Use your words, my pretty bird. I can’t tell if you’re struggling because you don’t like it or you like it too much.”