“Nowhere near enough, ya habibati,” he said, grasping her question without being asked. Pushing her back into the bed, his body settled on top of hers. The hair on his legs rasped against her, the angular contours of his hips an intimate caress. He felt heavenly on top of her, the heavy weight of him a pleasure that rendered her mute.
“Ayaan?”
His face buried in her nape, he smiled. “Hmm...?”
“I...” the words she wanted to say rose to her lips and fell away. Fear was a tight knot in her throat. This moment with every inch of him flush against her, the ever-present shadows in his eyes at least held back for now, she didn’t want to fracture its fragility, she didn’t want to risk another’s name entering it.
She arched as he sucked at her neck, and then licked it. “I want something from you.”
His grip on her hips tightened an infinitesimal bit. “Tonight, anything you want, ya habibati.”
“I have dreamed of touching your scar, of kissing it, of tracing it with my tongue.”
She felt the rush of his exhale between her breasts. In the next second, her wrists were unbound. And he fell back against the bed.
She took in the sight of him, her breathing, raspy, shallow.
His hair falling onto his forehead, his arms resting above his head, the contours of his chest narrowing to his waist, the hard, tight abdomen, lean hips covered by the sweatpants, olive-colored skin gleaming with a sheen of sweat—it was an intimate sight she hugged to herself, a sensual feast that would forever be etched onto her mind.
Staying on her side, she ran tentative fingers over the winding scar, felt the puckered tissue. Tears rose in her throat and she swallowed them down. No, there was no place for sorrow in this moment either. “How did you get it?” she breathed the question into his skin, hiding her face.
The tangy scent of him held her in place, the gentle stroke of his fingers in her hair rooting her to that moment.
“They bound me with a metal rope that had several knots in it.”
A matter-of-fact reply.
She caught the sound of horror before it left her mouth. Sliding close, which rubbed her breasts against his side, she pressed her lips to the scar. His hands tightened in her hair, his abdomen bunched so tight that it took her a moment to understand.
He liked it.
Pulling herself up on an elbow, she ran her tongue slowly over the length of it, peppering it with kisses. “Turn around,” she said.
And to her delight, he did. With his darkly hungry gaze trained away from her, she was bolder. Sliding to her knees, she kissed it all the way across his torso. Her nipples grazed him again and this time, they both groaned.
“And again,” she whispered, and he lay on his chest.
She bent forward to reach the other side, and her hand fluttered over his chest, down to his navel and farther below.
Until her fingers grazed his erection. A hoarse grunt fell from his mouth, his hips thrusting upward into her hand. She palmed it, the rigid, pulsing length of it sending a rush of wetness to her core.
And then, before she could blink, he was on top of her, deliciously heavy.
His gaze collided with hers. Naked desire burned bright with dark shadows that always lingered but something else shimmered in his eyes, something that burrowed into her heart, wound itself around her. “You didn’t ask me permission to do that.”