He groaned as he traced over it. She whimpered at the caress that was desperately needed and not nearly enough.
“Karim,” she begged.
“So ready for me.” He rose to kiss her, but his hand stayed beneath her gown. “Do you think about that night my mouth was here? I do. All the time.”
His finger slid beneath the silk, parting and caressing, making speech impossible.
“I think about you in my office, touching yourself as you pleasured me. I’m jealous.” He probed gently, licking at her panting mouth as he carefully penetrated. “I think about being here like this with you, having you in every way possible because I want you to be mine.”
“I am,” she swore, opening her legs to invite his touch deeper.
“I take care of what’s mine.” He pushed the silk firmly aside, his thick finger making love to her while his thumb teased the knot of nerves that made her writhe in pleasure.
She was going to die, held by his caress on a molten ledge, teased and stroked, heat building until that was all she was. Heat. Blistering heat. She bit her lip, wanting the release but fighting it.
“Karim,” she managed to breathe, stilling his hand. “I want to feel you. Do this together.”
His cheekbones were sharp above cheeks drawn taut. All of him was tense and flexed. Even his lips were pulled back from his teeth in effort.
“Yes,” he hissed and very, very carefully withdrew, then he began to tug at her gown.
It took forever. They kept stopping to kiss. To groan. To caress bared skin and whisper, “Oh, yes. You smell so good. You’re so smooth here. So lovely. So strong.”
Somehow, they managed to strip and she made a keening noise in her throat as they rolled together. The aching swells of her breasts flattened by his hard chest, the roughness of his thighs abrading the insides of hers was sheer magic. She hadn’t known that being naked, skin to skin, sex to sex, would make her so weak. She hadn’t known that his muscles and overwhelming size could be its own aphrodisiac, making her writhe in ecstasy simply because he was against her.
“Galila.” His voice was an abrasive husk, savaged by the same limits of arousal that gripped her.
“I’m ready.” She was going to weep. She was so achingly ready.
He slid against her, parting her folds, lined up for entry. And kissed her as he held himself there. He kissed her as though she was the most precious thing he had ever seen.
“No one else will ever give you this,” he vowed against her mouth, brutally possessive, but truer words had never been spoken.
“No one could.”
There was pressure, invasion. She stiffened a little in surprise, anticipating pain, bracing for it, but he kissed her so tenderly as he exerted that steady pressure.
For one second, as his implacable demand threatened pain, she thought, I can’t. Then it was done and he seemed to become a part of her, mouth open over her trembling lips, thumb caressing her cheek. His hard shape inside her was strange, yet deeply wonderful.
“No one else will ever give me that,” he said with awe and pride. He nibbled her jaw, brushed his lips at her temple, then kissed her once, very sweetly. Then again, this time with more purpose. When he came back a third time, she clung to his mouth with her own.
Their bodies shifted. There was tenderness where they were joined, but nothing more than she could handle, not when arousal was returning with inescapable tingles and clenches of desire.
He was right. This was a type of pleasure she couldn’t give herself, couldn’t have even imagined. She rubbed her face against his neck, wallowing in the weight of his hips, the way smoothing her inner thighs against his hips made him groan.
When he began to withdraw, she clung on with everything in her and he returned with a rush of sensation so acute she gasped.
“Oh,” she breathed, beginning to understand.
“Yes,” he said tightly, eyes deep pools, atavistic and regressive, yet he never lost control. He kept his pace slow, letting her get used to the feel of him forging his way, holding her well inside the concentric circles of pleasure that rang through her with each thrust.
She couldn’t bear it, it was so good, and she turned her mouth against his iron-hard biceps, biting him. Only then did he make a primal noise and pick up the pace. The intensity redoubled. Her body undulated to receive him. The struggle to reach the pinnacle became a fight they fought together with ragged breaths and fisted hands and every ounce of strength they both possessed.
Then she was there, right there, the cataclysm a breath away. She locked her heels at the small of his back, determined to keep him inside her forever. At least while the waves of pleasure rolled over her.
He pressed deep, holding himself flush against her as culmination arrived.
They clung then, holding on to each other as the acute tension released in a near painful rush of heat and such encompassing waves of pleasure she could hardly breathe. If her eyes were open, she was blind. If he said things, she only heard the rush of blood in her ears. What happened to him happened to her, stopping time and holding her transfixed. They were one in a way she hadn’t known was possible.
It was utter perfection that couldn’t be maintained forever, which was a tragedy, she decided, as the rush subsided and the pulses began to fade and she discovered tears on her cheeks.
That supreme ecstasy could be replicated, however. They pleasured each other into delirium twice more before she fell asleep, bound to him in a way that could never be undone.
Which made waking to an empty bed that much more excruciating.
He had promised not to rebuff her, but here she was, forsaken, abandoned and alone. Again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KARIM HAD MADE a terrible mistake. He had known it as he was offering a vow to Galila that put fissures in his defenses against her. He had known it as he chose to make that vow rather than put off consummation of their marriage—which would have proven his mastery over his corporeal desires.
He hadn’t had the strength. Waiting until his wedding night, hanging on to control while he tried to understand her hesitation, had taken all his willpower. When he had been pushed right up to the edge and given the choice to protect himself or have her, he had chosen to have her.
Which told him everything he needed to know about how dangerous she was to him. Devastatingly dangerous.
Once hadn’t been enough, either. Maybe if she had expressed some reluctance or said she was tender, he might have restrained himself, but she had been as eager as him to bind their flesh irrevocably.
It wasn’t until he woke in the dawn hours, aching to take her a fourth time, that sanity had intruded on the euphoria of honeymoon madness. She was slender, delectable, infinitely erotic but new to lovemaking. He had to find a shred of control, if only to continue calling himself human.
He left for his own apartment where he did everything he could to put himself back inside the armor he had worn until Galila had smashed him apart. He watched the sun come up, letting the brightness burn from his retina the image of her nubile curves. He listened to the morning numbers from overseas, drowning out the memory of her pleasured moans and cries. He showered the scent of her from his skin, then hated himself for all of it and wished himself back in her bed, feeling her warm, smooth skin stretching awake beside him.
He ordered their usual breakfast and had it served in the common dining room between their apartments, as it always was. He should have been sated and mellow. Instead, he was short on sleep and impatient with the staff as they hovered, each with their schedules and correspondence, their headlines and coffee urns.
Was the queen expected? Should they allow her to sleep? The questions were unending and struck him as unbearably intrusive. He gritted his teeth against ordering all of them out.
Despite his conflict, he lingered over his breakfast, full of self-loathing at the weakness he was displaying. His schedule had been emptied for the day after their reception as a courtesy. There was endless work in his office to be attended to and he shouldn’t dally here like some besotted suitor, hoping to catch a glimpse of the object of his affection.
He was a man. One who ought to be in complete command of himself and the world around him. As he became aware of stirring behind the door to her room, he rose to leave.
* * *
Galila had barely been able to look at her own wan face in the mirror, feeling quite a chump for falling for Karim’s promise. At least she had slept well past the time when he normally left for the far side of the palace. She would have the breakfast room to herself.
When she entered the small dining parlor, however, he was standing by the table, reviewing something on the tablet his aid was showing him. He flicked her a glance, one that lasted barely a second, but she saw the consternation in it. Read the lack of welcome in his stiff posture.
Waking alone had been a slap. Walking in here to see he had resumed his cloak of indifference was a kick in the stomach. Having all that play out before the usual assortment of hovering staff added insult to injury. Was it really necessary that she parade her deflowered self before a dozen people?
A case of acute vulnerability struck. Physically, she was fine. She’d had a bath and was only feeling as though she’d pushed herself with stretching poses, not particularly tender from their lovemaking. But memory of their intimacy thinned her skin. She couldn’t bear to look at him, she was so dreading the coolness in his eyes.