“I have been riding for twenty hours,” he said, shaking his head. “I need to shower, and sleep…”
“But you came to see me,” she said pointedly, her hands reaching inside his shirt despite his protest, curving around his hips. She stroked his flesh there and then dipped them lower, into the waistband of his pants. His eyes swept closed and his Adam’s apple bobbed as he swallowed.
“I came to shower,” he insisted, “and sleep.”
He lifted his hands to her breasts, covering them indolently, possessively, lazily, feeling the weight of them in his palms.
Her breath was tight, burning inside her lungs.
“Yet you’re here…”
His eyes narrowed, and his fingers lifted to the straps of her bathers. Watching her, waiting for her to say something, perhaps to demur, he slid the straps lower. She shivered as they ran over her arms, and he dragged them lower still, revealing her breasts completely to his proprietary inspection. “I heard you splashing.”
She bit down on her lower lip, her body swaying forward slightly in an unspoken invitation. “You should have joined me.”
His eyes dropped to her breasts now, to where his fingers were curved around her flesh. She let out a whimper as he took one nipple between his forefinger and thumb, rolling it and increasing his pressure until she moaned, tilting her head back, staring at a sky that was growing darker by the minute.
“Don’t shower,” she pleaded, not even remotely ashamed to beg that of him. “Not yet.”
His eyes lifted to her face, and there was a battle being waged inside of him. A war of control, a fight for sanity.
“I must.” He gave her nipple one last squeeze, tight, and her gut kicked in response, her insides slicking with moist heat.
Her pulse was a livewire.
“Then why don’t I come and wash you,” she murmured, wondering at this heady sense of power she felt, this certainty that he wouldn’t say ‘no’ to what she was offering.
Their eyes met once more and desire exploded between them.
The battle he was waging shifted. “If you wish, Sharafaha.”
Chapter 5
HIS BODY WAS SO broad and powerful. She could easily believe he was the kind of man who’d been conjured from the ancient myths of this historic land. Myths that spoke of beasts being cast to human form, that spoke of men being forged from the depths of the ocean or the bowels of the desert, men who could withstand sandstorm and earthquakes and duel with the gods.
Even though this was her suggestion, she was nervous now, uncertain. She reached for a sponge and layered spiced body wash on it, buying for time. His look showed he understood that, that he was aware of her hesitation.
He stretched his arms out wide, and unconsciously she bit down on her lower lip, scanning his ridged abdomen and arms that were thick and sculpted. On the underside of his left bicep, he had a scrawling tattoo. She held the sponge in her hand and traced it with her fingertip, reading the words now.
الظلام ضوء الولادات
She frowned, translating the words into her native English. “Darkness births light?”
His chest stilled as his breath caught in his lungs. “You speak and read Abu Fayan with ease.”
It wasn’t praise, so much as an observation.
Her smile was lopsided, and only the work of an instant. “I’ve lived here a long time.”
“Yes.”
Her eyes lifted to his. “When did you get it done?”
“A while ago.”
She swallowed, emotions balling inside her. “After Addan?”
There was something in his eyes when he turned to face her. “No.” Something stony and cold. Something like rejection.
“When?” She persisted.
His expression tightened, if that was even possible. “Why do you think any one particular event led to my tattoo?”
Another smile flitted across her face. She lifted the loofah and began to rub his shoulders, moving slowly even when it was obviously a torment for him, even when their mutual desire was pulsing between them, demanding indulgence.
“It’s not a picture of an anchor or an eagle,” she quipped. “It’s a profound statement. Of course it was inspired by something.”
He was quiet, and she wondered if he was going to answer. Then, as she moved around to his back, sponging his flesh there, marveling at his firmly muscled skin, he spoke. “After my father’s death.”
She sighed. “It was devastating.”
“He’d been sick a while,” Malik murmured.
“Yes,” Sophia swept her eyes shut, remembering what that sickness looks like. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.” Her fingers curved to his hips and around to his front. He stilled as the loofah brushed the ridges of his abdomen, low down, curving close to his powerful erection.
His hand curved over hers, holding it for a moment, and her breath jammed in her throat. “You were a child when your father died?”
She nodded, but he couldn’t see her, so Sophia cleared her throat. “Yes.” She moved around to his front, their eyes locking. “And darkness was everywhere.” She sponged his shoulder, memories of that time heavy in her mind.
“It was very sudden, with your father,” he murmured, lifting a hand and stroking her hair, the gesture surprising her.
“It was.” Her lips pulled into a small grimace. “Mercifully so.” His hand dropped to her shoulder. “I was only a child but I remember feeling like the walls of my world had crashed down on me, like I’d never be the same again. He was so dynamic; so incredibly special.” She sighed softly. “I couldn’t understand how someone could simply cease to exist.”
“I have felt the same each time I have lost someone I loved.” He focused on a point over her shoulder, his expression grim. “With my father, he was such a force of energy.”
“That’s the perfect way to describe him.”
Malik’s eyes dropped to hers, and something fired in her belly – desire and need, certainty and a billion questions that bubbled just beneath the surface.
“When he was young,” Malik murmured, “the country was very different. There had been civil war in his lifetime, and he’d seen the ravages of that on our country. He was a skilled statesman and a clever politician.”
“And a wonderful man,” she added, her expression wistful as she blinked away from Malik, smoothing the loofah over his flat, toned belly. “I adored your father.”
“I know.”
There was something in those words, something that spoke almost of disapproval. “You were like a daughter to him.”
“He used to call me Amyrat Saghira.”
“Did he?” The question came from deep inside of him, the words flecked with disapproval.
She blinked, wondering at the strength of his response.
“As a child, I just thought they were pretty words. They used to chase each other around my head like an incantation of a dance.” She smiled distractedly. “But then, as I got older, I understood.” She placed the loofah on the shelf, her hands bare. “What he wanted, what my father wanted…”
“And that was for you to marry into this family, to become a part of Abu Faya?”
She nodded slowly, a frown creasing her brow. “Yes.”
“And what did you want, Sophia?”
It was one of the first times he’d used her name, instead of the title Sharafaha. It did something strange to her body, making her spine tingle and her knees weak. He said it softly, with an emphasis on the first syllable, like “soff-eah.”
She liked it, more than she wanted to.
“I loved this country from the first time I visited,” she said quietly. “But it was Addan who made it feel like another home.”
Something flickered in his gaze, emotions that were dark and forbearing, yet she barely registered them.
“I felt like I lost everything when dad died. My mother became distant and Bella went to live in Spain with her godparents. I went from having thi
s incredible family to being quite alone.”
“Except for Addan?” Malik murmured, the question cold.
“Yes.” She bit down on her lower lip. “I don’t know why he was so kind to me.”
“Don’t you?” The question was layered with unspoken answers.
She frowned. “It felt like we’d met before.”
A muscle jerked in Malik’s jaw. He reached behind Sophia then, shutting off the water. “Enough.”
She blinked. “Enough?”
“I do not wish to speak of Addan with you, Sophia.”
Sophia’s heart turned over and regret filled her. Of course he didn’t. Malik had lost his mother, father and now his brother – he knew so much of loss. Why would he want to speak about it, and in that moment? “I’m…”
Before she could finish her sentence, he scooped her up out of the shower and hoisted her over his shoulder, carrying her through the bathroom. He grabbed a towel as they passed, wrapping it over her bare back, and then placed her feet on the floor. She looked around.
His bedroom.
“You have not been sleeping here.”
She shook her head slowly. “It didn’t feel right.”
“Why not? You are my wife. You don’t think your place is here, with me?”
She shrugged her slender shoulders. “You haven’t been here.”
He rubbed the towel over her flesh, drying her, and he wasn’t gentle – nothing had ever felt better, though. Her breasts were so sensitive, between her legs was warm and wet. She stifled a moan as he brushed the towel there.
“Whether I am here or not, you should be.”
She opened her mouth to fight him but he kissed her, a dazzling kiss of pure possession, of absolute need and fire. He kissed her with all the flame in his body and she surrendered to it and him immediately, an ancient, desperate need firing her senses, filling her with an absolute fever pitch of lust.
Her hands ran over his body, reaching his arousal and cupping his hard length, feeling his strength in her hands.
“You are my wife.”
The words were discordant, and seemed to come to her from a long way away. Sophia, always a fighter, responded with light sarcasm.
“No kidding. I was there when we married.”
The words caused his expression to tighten, if anything. He moved his body, guiding her back to the bed. She fell onto it unceremoniously and his own frame, so large and powerful, was on top of hers. His hands caught her wrists in them, lifting them above her head, pinning them to the mattress easily. He parted her thighs and thrust into her, deep, hard, so she arched her back, welcoming him and this.
Every movement of his body was a beating of a drum, a call that her spirit answered, a primal, physical need she couldn’t help but respond to. Six nights since they’d made love and her body was craving his.
She whimpered as he moved deeper, and then his mouth dropped from her lips to her breasts, his tongue swirling her nipples, sucking one peach aureole deep into his mouth rolling it with his tongue, flicking it before pressing his teeth into her sensitive softness, before transferring to the other breast. His fingers tormented the nipple he’d first kissed, plucking it, rolling it between his forefinger and thumb until she was moaning and whimpering, pleasure thick in her voice.
She lifted her legs, wrapping them behind his back but he caught them at the ankles, pushing them over his shoulders and straightening, staring down at her, his eyes watchful as his body drove hers to the point of explosion.
It was fast and satisfying. Just as soon as she tumbled over the abyss, delight and euphoria erupting from her, he followed after, his own guttural cry in his native tongue, deep and rumbling.
Their panting, torn breaths split the room afterwards. She lay beneath him, her body weakened and strengthened, her mind spinning.
“Well,” she said, to break the silence, as he stayed where he was, his powerful frame atop hers, his head dipped so she couldn’t make out his expression. “You’re back.”
But something had shifted. It was as though there’d been a terrible dark storm building between them, and sleeping together had burst it open, breaking rain upon the earth and now there was just relief.
Her fingers trailed the length of his back, lightly, and she felt his body pull in response. Her power was intoxicating.
“How was your trip?” The words were husky, coated with desire.
“Long. And not satisfying.” He pushed up so his eyes could stare into the depths of hers and something inside Sophia squeezed.
“Where were you?”
“The plains to the west.”
It was a cryptic, unsatisfying response.
“Yes, I gathered,” she murmured, surprised to feel a sardonic smile tilting her lips. “But with the Lakani people? Or the Shaman?”
At that, his eyes flared a little wider and she felt as though he was contemplating ignoring her question, not answering her. With a hint of reluctance, her said, “The Jakari.”
“Ah. Laith is the ruler of that tribe, isn’t he?”
Malik’s expression tightened with disapproval. Only for an instant, but enough for Sophia to see it. “Yes.”
“And something’s happened now?”
He didn’t answer.
Sophia sighed. “Addan used to talk to me, Malik.” She lifted a hand and stroked his cheek thoughtfully, feeling the ridges of his facial structure and the stubble of his hair through her fingertips. “I think if you were to do the same, you’d find I could be helpful.”
His laugh was spontaneous. A gruff sound of disagreement. “You?” He captured her hand in his and laced his fingers through it, holding it to her side. He pushed up a little higher, so he could see her better. “And tell me, my American, virgin wife,” he brought his mouth to her nipple, flicking it with his tongue, tracing the dark aureole so her breath caught in her throat. “What do you think you could teach me about my own people?” He moved to her other breast, inflicting the same delightful torment on her sensitive nerve endings there. “What insight do you have to offer?”
Hurt flexed inside her but she pushed it aside. Sophia had always been a fighter and despite the torrent of sensation he was raining down on her, she fought his words now. “I think you’d be surprised.”
His eyes showed his disagreement.
He dragged his lips higher, to the flesh of her décolletage, his tongue flicking the pulse point there. She moaned softly, but wouldn’t be derailed.
“Why?” The word was uneven. “Is it so impossible to think I might have a perspective to offer that could be of value to you?”
“You have many things to offer me,” he said, moving his hips so she could feel that he was hard again. But his words were unwelcome. His words made her feel that this was somehow cheap and two-dimensional. Like sex was simply sex, and beyond that, he wanted nothing from her.
“Are you saying you want me to be the kind of wife who’s waiting for you in bed at the end of the day but doesn’t otherwise bother you?”
His lips twisted but his only other response was to thrust his hips once more. “You say that as though it is not what you want.”
“It’s not.”
She pressed her palms to his chest, her expression serious enough to still him. He held himself above her, watching her, his own features carefully muted of any feeling.
“I’m your wife.” She expelled the words slowly, carefully, trying to rein her temper in. She’d learned as a child that her quickness to anger was only a benefit if she could control that anger, if she could mete it out slowly rather than letting it explode in one violent surge of passion, but she was furious. From when she’d been a very young child, and her own family had been ripped apart, she swore she’d have a perfect marriage, a real family, all of her own one day. One that would never fall apart. “We’re supposed to be a team. Do you think you need to do all this on your own?”
He stared at her for several long seconds, and she was conscious of his possess
ion of her body, conscious of how badly she wanted to pause this conversation and feel what he could give her, feel that pleasure and euphoric release.
“You are my wife,” he said, finally, and now he rolled his hips once more and she had to bite down – hard – on her lip to stop from moaning. “But that does not mean I want, nor invite, your counsel.”
How could she feel such heat and want when he was cutting her down so mercilessly?
“But Addan valued…”
“Do not speak to me of my brother!” The words were fierce and she startled, surprised by his anger but also by the depth of his hurt. She felt it ravaging him and she understood. “Not while we are doing this.” He stared at her as he thrust inside her and her chest exploded with feelings.
Because he was right and yet none of this felt wrong, none of it felt like a betrayal of the man they’d both loved and lost.
“I have no interest in competing with him,” he said, bringing his mouth to hers, his mouth warm against her own, his tongue sliding inside, clashing with hers. He moved faster and deeper, his arousal possessing every single part of her, tormenting her with the perfection of his possession.
She arched her back, needing more, wanting all of him, and yet he held himself still, pushing up on his elbows to see her once more.
“You are my wife.” The words rang through the room, and they made no sense and complete sense all at once.
“Yes. And I want that to be more than just sex.”
His eyes locked to hers and then he rolled them easily, pulling her to his chest, holding her hips as he thrust into her, his eyes fixated on her breasts as she moved up and down his length.
“You cannot change what we are, sharafaha,” he said, and she blotted the words out, because she was riding a wave that demanded all her attention, all her focus. She dug her nails into his shoulders, bringing her body down against his, so her sensitive nipples scraped against his hair-roughened chest.
“You think?”
And she moved now, her own body lifting faster, taking him deeper, so that when she exploded it was with Malik in her grip, Malik falling apart with her, his hoarse cry spilling into the room as his body emptied into hers.
Billionaire Brides: Four sexy cinderella romances Page 6