The Sheikh's Stolen Bride(16)

Nothing mattered beyond this.

Everything they were necessitated that they make love. On the deck, she paused, reaching for a towel, but Ashad was there first. He wrapped it around her and lifted her in one motion, carrying her against his chest.

“I can walk,” she said, not entirely sure if it was true.

He stared straight ahead. His face was unreadable. Curiosity was a beast inside of her. She lifted a finger, touching his lips as he had hers. He looked down at her with a searing heat and her stomach flipped. Anticipation flooded her.

At the bedroom she’d used earlier, he paused, shouldering the door inwards then placing her gently on the ground. He closed the door, sliding a latch in place to ensure privacy, despite the fact there was only a skeleton crew on board.

Charlotte watched him, her stomach in knots. He turned to face her slowly, his eyes sparking flame with hers. He prowled towards her with the same animalistic power that a cheetah in the desert would display. He was all muscle, broad shoulders, sinew, and he was dripping wet. His dark hair was slicked back from his face, his high forehead autocratic, his eyes dark and mysterious. His smile was sardonic; it stirred the butterflies anew that seemed to have moved into her stomach.

“Allow me.” His voice was a gravelled husk. His fingers, when they reached for the towel, were confident. Charlotte knew her fear must have been in her eyes. She expelled a long, shaking breath and Ashad’s eyes flew to hers.

“I didn’t misunderstand you?” His fingers slid beneath the straps of her swimming costume, the costume he had chosen with her in mind. He slid the fabric down her arms; the wetness offered resistance. “You have done this before?”

“I’ve never done this before,” she said, a watery smile on her face.

“You’re a virgin?” He paused, his eyes scanning her face.

Charlotte’s face was pale as she shook her head. “I meant … I meant that it was nothing like this.” She bit down on her lower lip. “I … don’t want to think about that now, anyway.”

“Nor do I.” His laugh sent tremors down her spine.

Charlotte stared at him, and he stared back.

“Yet you are nervous.”

“Well, unlike you, I haven’t had many lovers,” she snapped, unable to resist throwing the confession back in his face.

He continued to push the straps lower, until the fabric across her chest gave way and her breasts were freed, exposed to him. His eyes dropped to them, and the air around them charged with electricity. “Perfect,” he said with quiet seriousness.

Charlotte thought they were done talking about their past, but Ashad flicked his gaze back to her face, catching her staring at him. Her stomach churned. Need was a snake in her heart.

He dragged his fingers over the flesh of her arms lightly, lifting them upwards and in, curving them around her breasts. She gasped, her whole body charging at the contact. But he didn’t stop. His body, wet and sleek, pushed her back onto the bed. He straddled her, his enormous arousal hard against her stomach. His hands on her breasts were insistent; he rubbed the pad of his thumb over her nipples, and she tilted her head back.

He dropped his head, rubbing his lips against hers then taking them lower, to her full, curved breasts. He moved his lips over a nipple, rolling it with his tongue, clamping his mouth around it while his fingers tormented the other, flicking it and circling it until she moaned. Charlotte’s breasts had never known such ministrations.

Marook, the only man she’d ever been intimate with, had not been interested in pleasing her.

She pushed him from her mind. This had nothing to do with that. It wasn’t the same. This was a choice she was making. She’d had no choice with Marook. There was no reason to feel fear now. Ashad would be gentle; he would be excellent.

His fingers pulled at her swimming costume, sliding it lower, and lower, and lower, until finally her womanhood was exposed.

Strange that she wasn’t self-conscious, Charlotte thought with a small kernel of confusion. She was naked before a man – a man who was not to be her husband – and she didn’t care.

Lower and lower, and so slowly that the removal of her bathers was its own sensual foreplay. By the time he’d reached her ankles, she was almost panting with unfulfilled desire.

She kicked it off the rest of the way, almost landing a foot against Ashad’s face in her impatience to finally be naked and free to move.

He laughed softly, his hands on her calves stilling her.

Then, he pushed her legs apart, lifting her feet onto the edge of the bed so that she was bent at the knees. He moved her legs wider still then, sliding her feet outwards, and finally, self-consciousness waved over her as he moved higher, kissing the calf of one leg, the knee, and then, the inner thigh.

She moved to bring her legs closer together but his hands were vice-like. He flicked his gaze to hers and it held a challenge. Before she could understand his intention, his tongue was tracing the fold of her womanhood. She cried out, arching her back off the bed at the wholly unexpected touch.

“Ashad!” She cried, but white heat spread like lava through her, erupting over her senses, drowning everything but need. He was exceptional. His tongue, his mouth, tormented her. It was a sweet, unfamiliar touch and she could not have prepared for what it would do to her. She was shaking all over, as pleasure began to mount inside of her. And when she thought she was losing her mind, he brought a finger towards her heart and slid it deep inside.

She sobbed; the pleasure was soaking her. “Ash,” she moaned, writhing against the bed, her hair wet, her everything wet. His finger probed her and his thumb sought the tangle of nerves at her entrance, swirling over them, until she was incandescent with fire and flame.

His body moved higher while his fingers tormented her, dragging her over hot coals with the promise of the greatest release she’d ever known. His mouth came back to her breasts, flicking her nipple with his tongue while his hand stirred her with a beat that she had never heard before.

Pleasure was a torrent of raging water and self-control was the wall of the dam. But nothing could hold against the feelings he was evoking; her dam burst and she was shivering in his arms, arching her back and crying out as release finally broke through her. She said his name, over and over again as sensations tumbled through her like the water rolling away. She would never be able to build those dam walls again. They were burst for good. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his naked chest, kissing her hair gently and whispering words in Kalastani. Words she understood, yet didn’t. She stayed close to him, expecting the sensual cloud to dissipate. But it didn’t.

Having tasted what Ashad had to offer, she simply wanted more.

There was no sanity; just salvation.

Her hands reached for him. She wanted to touch, feel, to know every inch of him. She was tentative at first, marvelling at her daring in touching him with a sense of possession that surely she didn’t warrant. His body on top of hers was heavy and perfect. She moved beneath him, revelling in the contact. His arousal was close to her heart; she straddled him and moaned, low in her throat, when he pressed hard, so that she could just imagine the relief that was to come. The perfection.

“This is crazy,” she groaned, and his hands came to tangle in her hair, pulling her face higher so that he could kiss her, laying sweet caresses along her jaw and neck, then to her lips.

She kissed him back, and the taste of herself on his tongue was as erotic as it was foreign. Everything about them was erotic. Sex had cast a spell over them; it was a song they both heard, a dance they somehow knew, and yet it was just them. Only them. She lifted her hands to her hair and found his fingers, knotting hers through them and pulling his arms outward. She almost purred into his mouth.

He smiled into the kiss then murmured, “I have dreamed about this.”

So had Charlotte.

Ever since meeting him, she’d been in a fever pitch of need that not even sleep could obliterate.

“It is the definition of insanity,” she responded softly, her hands moving to his shoulders, rolling over his firm, smooth flesh. “How can we do this?”

“How can we not?” And now he moved, surprising her with his strength as he trapped her wrists in his and held them above her head. He kissed her hungrily, passionately, with an intensity that filled her with longing.

But the fear was back.

The fear and vulnerability of what was about to happen.

It wormed its way through her, cutting through the need, devastating her with its precision, stilling her.

“Wait.” She stared at him, seeing him anew. Understanding how close they were to becoming lovers. “Wait,” she repeated unnecessarily, because he had frozen at the first instance that something was wrong.

“I’m waiting,” he said, his tone light despite the fact there was a doubt in his mind. “But for what?”

His weight on her was not lovely now. It was reminding her of before. The last time. She shook her head. “I can’t do this.” She shoved at his chest with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, and he didn’t fight the insistence of her gesture. He rolled off her, his eyes holding hers as he lay beside her. He reached out and stroked her hair; though she had no doubt he was attempting to placate her; she was no longer on the boat with him.