Ultimate Heroes Collection

by Various Authors

  Just as she screamed again, he slid two fingers between the velvet slickness of her exquisite folds, spreading them, getting drunk with the scent of her arousal, the evidence of her love and dependence. She was ready for him.

  He slipped a careful finger inside her, needing to know how much and went blind with another blast of arousal. Soaking, for him, but … so tight. And she lurched, as if he’d hurt her.

  So not so ready for him. But ready for pleasure. And how he’d pleasure her.

  He stroked her, spread honey from her slit before his fingers made way for his thumb to find the knot of flesh where her nerves converged, her trigger. The moment he touched it, he felt as if he’d touched the core of the sun, her cries of love, of his name, strangled and she bucked in his arms.

  He roared with pride, swept her off her feet, deposited her with all the cherishing and gentleness pouring out of his being for her onto the bed, crashed to his knees in front of her, spreading her shaking legs, bringing them over his shoulders, his hands and lips and teeth devouring their every inch. Tension invaded her body again, until she was thrashing again.

  “Malek, please … I n-need you …”

  For answer, he spread her core, gave her one long lick. She bucked off the bed, screamed again. “Please, Malek … you … you.”

  He subdued her with one hand flat on her abdomen. “Let me taste you, taste your pleasure,” he begged. “I’ve been starving for you. Let me have my fill, give me everything you have.”

  She still tried to squeeze her legs closed, her eyes wet and beseeching. And he realized. She was shy!

  Following on the heels of this realization came the certainty. No one had ever tasted her before. His wild flower of the desert had never allowed anyone this privilege! And she would give it to him. The privilege was his alone, now and forever.

  He staked his claim. “Aren’t you mine?”

  She nodded mutely, her color high.

  He surged up, dragged pillows, propped her up against them so she was half-sitting. He withdrew to look at his arrangement, Janaan, open and willing for his ministrations. Blood whooshed, a geyser in his head, in his erection. He gritted his teeth, watched her hands convulsing in the sheets, her body tensing up.

  “Don’t be shy, ya hayati. And don’t close your eyes. Watch me worship you, pleasure you, own your every secret. Look me in the eye as I bring you to orgasm this time.”

  She squirmed, hiccupped. “Malek, I can’t, please …”

  “You can. You will.” He latched onto her core. He drank her, her essence, her need, her pleasure. Then when he knew her body was screaming for release, he tongue-lashed her clitoris, and she shredded her throat on ecstasy, unraveled her body on a chain reaction of convulsions. And looked him in the eyes all through. It was the most erotic, most intimate, most fulfilling experience of his life.

  But, then, every touch, every glance from her had been that. Now he’d take her, and union with her would reinvent the terms of eroticism, intimacy and fulfillment. He prayed she was ready enough now.

  First, to bring her to fever pitch again.

  He slid up her sweat-slick body, snatching the pillows from beneath her, flattening her to the bed, soaking up her drugged look, the looseness confessing the depth of her satisfaction.

  But as soon as he branded her lips, letting her taste her pleasure on his, her breath hitched, her cool sweat evaporated on a blast of heat radiating from her core. She was aroused that much, that fast again? He hadn’t even started stimulating her.

  He withdrew to make sure, and she clutched at him, tearing the abaya from his shoulders. “I want to see you—all of you. Oh, please, I don’t want pleasure—I want you, I’m dying to feel you, deep inside me, filling my body, please …”

  Hearing the last pillar in his mind give, he snatched at her lips with rough, moist kisses, nothing left in him but the corrosive need to bury himself inside her, fill her, dominate her, surrender to her, knowing that it was what she needed too.

  He heaved himself up, tore off his abaya and pants. She fell on her back, held out her arms, her eyes streaming her plea for him.

  He surged back to her, covered her, felt her beloved flesh cushioning his hardness. She opened her legs and, as he’d long dreamed, he guided them over his waist.

  He fused their lips for feverish seconds before he reared up, his eyes seeking hers, his erection seeking her entrance.

  Finding both hot and molten, he growled his surrender, sank into her in one forceful thrust.

  Home. At last. At last.

  It was on the second thrust that he realized why the first one had taken such force, found such resistance, why her beloved body had bowed up in such rigid shock. Why his ears were still ringing with her scream.

  She was a virgin.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  SHE HAD BEEN a virgin.

  Malek lay on top of Janaan, buried in her depths, the realization pummeling him, paralyzing him.

  He should have known. It had all been there. The evidence of her innocence. From the first moment.

  The shyness and wariness that had so contrasted with her efficiency and resolve. The pain at his experimental invasion while he’d pleasured her. Her unnerved reaction, even in her total willingness to offer him all she had, to the rest of the intimacies he’d lavished on her. Fool that he was, he’d thought she hadn’t been tasted, when she hadn’t been touched at all.

  He was her first. And he’d hurt her. She now lay beneath him, quivering, her impossible tightness throbbing around his invasion, her torn innocence a new gush of heat singeing his flesh, and—God help him—arousing him to madness.

  Ashamed, suffocating, unable to look her in the eye, he moved, started to withdraw his body from hers. Her sob tore through him. Ya Ullah, he’d hurt her. Hurt her.

  But she was clamping quaking legs over his hips, stopping him from exiting her body, pumping her hips up, impaling herself further on his hardness, forcing him back inside her.

  “I’m hurting you.” He barely recognized the butchered protest that scratched the panting-filled silence as his.

  “Yes—yes.” That made him heave up in horror. She only clung harder to him, arms and legs, her core clamping him like a hot fist. “It’s magnificent … you are. I dreamed—but could have never dreamed you’d feel this way inside me. Oh, Malek, Malek, your heat and power, the pain and pleasure. Habibi, brand me, finish me.”

  How many times could she wreck his sanity before it disintegrated irrevocably?

  Helpless to do anything but her bidding, he thrust back into her, gentle this time, slow. She thrashed her head against the bed, bucking her hips beneath his, engulfing more of his near-bursting erection into her heat. “Don’t hold back. Give it all to me. I’m yours, ya habibi, yours.”

  He rose, cupped her hips in his hands, tilted her and thrust himself to the hilt inside her.

  He withdrew all the way out, looked down on the awesome sight of his shaft resting at her entrance then sank slowly inside her until he didn’t see where he ended and she began.

  He raised his eyes to hers, found her propped up on her elbows, watching, too, crimson lips swollen, open on frantic pants, eyes stunned, streaming, wild. He drew out, thrust again, and she collapsed back, crying out a hot gust of passion, opening wider for each thrust, an ecstatic amalgam of pain and pleasure slashing across her face, rippling through her body.

  He kept his pace gentle, massaging her all over, bending to suckle her breasts, drain her lips, rain wonder all over her.

  “See how beautiful you are? See how perfectly I fit inside you? See what you do to me? See what I’m doing to you?”

  She writhed beneath him with every word, her hair blinding splashes of sunlight over the whiteness, her breathing becoming fevered snatches, her whole body straining at him, around him, making him pick up speed—though he managed to somehow not give in to his body’s uproar for more force—her answering confessions getting more uninhibited.

  Her hon
eyed depths started to ripple around him. He quickened his thrusts until she screamed, bucked, froze, then convulsion after convulsion squeezed screams out of her, clamped her tight inferno around his erection in wrenching spasms.

  The force, the very sight and sound and knowledge of her release broke his dam. He roared, let go, his body all but detonating in ecstasy, his seed jetting endlessly into her, until he felt his essence flowing into her, never to return.

  Shaking with the aftershocks of his life’s most violent and profound release, he fought the need to come down on top of her, feel every inch of her along every inch of him. He’d tested her recuperating body enough.

  He collapsed beside her, took her over him with extreme care, making sure he remained inside her.

  She lay limp and cooling on top of him, the biggest part of his soul. He’d never known physical intimacy could be like this, channeling directly into his spirit, his reason. It had been a good thing he hadn’t been anywhere near accurate imagining how sublime making love to her would be. He would have definitely lost his mind during the past weeks.

  He encompassed her velvet firmness in caresses, letting the memories and sensations replay in his mind and body, letting awe overtake him.

  He was her first. And she’d needed him so much that, even through her pain, he’d managed to give her pleasure.

  Not that it would have mattered to him if she’d been experienced. He’d fallen in love with her believing she was, not for a minute thinking it his business, or questioning it with her age and culture. Even when she’d talked about her lack of involvement with men, he’d assumed she’d meant in a serious way.

  But now he knew, he was just about bursting with pride—and shame.

  Just as she’d offered her life for his when she’d believed he’d offer her nothing at all in return, she’d offered her innocence when she still believed the same.

  And he had to tell her now that he’d been insane to think it possible to let her go. For any reason. She would have all of him, for as long as he lived. He’d make it so. Somehow.

  “Janaan, mashoogati,” he murmured into her hair as he pressed her into his body, satiation, gratitude, love and humility radiating from his very core. “I thought being with you the last weeks had been, and would remain, my life’s most incredible, unrepeatable experience. And then you gave me this. Now I know every minute with you, every time in your arms, in your body and passion, will be that all over again and then more. And no matter what happens, I’m never giving you up. I’m never letting you down. I’ll be the man to give you all you need and deserve. Forever.”

  Silence met his proclamation.

  Didn’t she believe him? Did she think it the empty promises of a man drunk on ecstasy, panting for more?

  “Janaan …?”

  The faintest snore answered his questioning whisper. Then she turned her face into his chest and her breath became soundless again. She was asleep!

  Of course she was. It was another miracle she’d weathered all he’d put her through in the last hour.

  He spread himself more, hoping to provide her with more comfort, dragged the cover over them, gathered her tighter in his arms. “Sleep, ya maboodati, get well. You will need all your strength when you wake up. For a very, very long future together.”

  He could swear she smiled in her sleep.

  Jay woke up with a start. She realized one thing at once.

  This time, she was in heaven.

  She was wrapped in it. It was a huge desert lion of a man, the epitome of maleness and manhood and humanity. Malek.

  His legs enveloped hers, one heavily muscled arm propping him up on one elbow, the other cherishing her protectively around her waist. He was looking down at her with eyes that had replaced the sun in her world, his smile adoration, possession and barely leashed voracity.

  Awareness burst inside her brain, bringing with it every single second and sensation of their union. Then he moved, a deceptively lazy shift bringing his legs around to massage hers, the arm at her waist taking her to his wide chest.

  “Ma arwa’ek fee uhdani, ya maboodati.” His bass rumble dripped with satisfaction. And just that edge of imperiousness that so befitted him.

  “That made zero sense to me.” She leaned back over his arm, for a more comprehensive view of the force of nature that had claimed her, transfigured her. The movement brought her breasts pressing into him. A fresh wave of heat drenched her. “And I thought I was getting good at Arabic.”

  “You are. I’m just saying things you’ll never hear from anyone else. Where else but from my lips would you hear how magnificent you are in the depths of my embrace, my goddess?”

  God—could he talk! As if he needed to enhance his hold on her.

  “In one of those ancient desert poets’ works?” she whispered, trying to bring her emotions to a manageable level.

  “I’ve been becoming one ever since I laid eyes on you. I am this close to becoming your lunatic, like our history’s most famous poet. But I’ll go mad with too much unconditional love, rather than a thwarted, unrequited one.”

  And he wasn’t even joking.

  She had to lighten this up, before she made a fool of herself, weeping with the sheer beauty of it, of him, of the memories.

  “I want this formidable mind of yours intact,” she quipped. “Maybe on cessation of exposure, your condition will reverse?”

  He pressed her into him more, his eyes flaring. “Don’t even joke about it. Expose me, ya mashoogati, flay me with your love.”

  She looked at him, everything she’d never hoped to find, let alone have, spread beside her, beyond dreams and comprehension, surrendering his uniqueness to her to worship.

  She hiccupped, buried her face in his chest.

  “You’re shy again?” He tried to bring her face up and she squirmed, dug deeper into him. “After you gave me what I never thought could be given, made me feel what I never thought could be felt? After you made me understand what it means to give one’s all? You gave me your all, took mine, ya hayati.”

  She nodded, tickling her nose on his chest hair. “Hence this bout of crippling shyness.”

  This made him put her away and sit up, a scowl knotting his brow. “You regret it?”

  Her lips twisted. “Is it OK to scoff at a crown prince and a future king?” He raised one imposing eyebrow, reading her mischief, promising retribution for the anxiety the very thought of her regret had caused him. “But to tell the truth, shyness is always caused by naughty thoughts one is unable to handle.”

  “Enti janaani—you’re my Janaan. You can handle anything. You can handle me. In every sense of the word.”

  And she dove into him, wrapping her arms around his endless back. “Love me again, Malek.”

  He growled deep in his chest, spread her back in bed, blazed down her body with hands and lips. She realized his intention and was overcome by another tidal wave of memories and embarrassment. She tried to keep her legs closed, but he insisted, caressed them apart.

  “Open up yourself to me, let me feast, let me heal you.”

  “I’m healed,” she cried out. “Please … !”

  “Your injuries, yes, but it will be pain unmixed with pleasure if I take you now.” She started protesting, and one of those long, perfect fingers found her entrance. She lurched with a jolt of stimulation-laced burning. Then he dipped in, and each slow inch felt like a red-hot skewer driving deeper into inflamed tissue. He held her eyes all through, drawing the admission that there was no way she’d accommodate him right now.

  Then she looked down on his promise of endless pleasure lying daunting in length and thickness over his abdomen, and nothing mattered but having him inside her.

  She tried to wrap her legs around him in silent supplication, and he only opened them fully, smiled his pledge, cherishing and carnal, burned it in licks and nibbles and ragged confessions down to her core. She collapsed, not one muscle functioning anymore as his magnificent head settled between he
r thighs and his lips and tongue soothed and scorched her sore flesh, the very heart of her secrets that she could surrender to no one but him.

  She was lost again, and again, in the tumult of the body and soul-racking ecstasy he detonated in her depths, holding his eyes all through, as they demanded, as he needed her to.

  Finally he came up, wrapped himself around her as she lay trembling, stunned, long drowned, guiding her on the descent, cupping her, defusing the surplus of stimulation, completing her bliss, murmuring how he’d never seen or felt or tasted anything so beautiful as her and her desire and pleasure, how he’d never thought sexual intimacy could be so sublime, his eyes heavy with awe and satisfaction.

  Then he suddenly murmured, “Why didn’t you tell me?”

  That he’d be her first.

  “It didn’t occur to me.” Which was the truth. She wouldn’t have told him he’d be her only either. “Now I realize I should have. A man might decide to opt out if he knew, might think it an unwanted responsibility that could become some kind of obligation.”

  He seemed to darken and expand at her every word. “All my consideration is, has always been, and will always be, for you.”

  “Oh, Malek, I know that!” She hugged him, remorse compressing her heart. “What we shared, not only making love but everything we shared, every second of it, was the best thing that has ever happened to me. So I hope you’re not finding more ways for it to weigh on your conscience now.” Suddenly something occurred to her. “Say, would you have taken me if I’d told you?”

  He gave a self-deprecating huff. “After you pointed out how you could have been lost, and we both wouldn’t have lived first for not being together? Oh, yes, I would have.” His eyes blazed with such adoration and agony-mixed contrition that her heart dropped a few beats. “But I would have initiated you so thoroughly you wouldn’t have felt that much pain.”

  Her hands framed his face, trembling, begging his belief. “The pain was glorious, Malek—glorious. A searing evidence of our intimacy and an unrepeatable experience of such elemental magnitude that I probably can’t describe it to you, as you never had anything comparable.”