‘Maybe subconsciously,’ she admitted.
He gave a glimmer of a smile. ‘A woman only wears underwear like this if she wants a man to take it off. Is that what you want me to do, Livvy? Is that what you’ve been longing for me to do ever since you got up this morning? To run my fingers over your beautiful pale skin and get you naked?’
She closed her eyes as his hand strayed to the bra’s front clasp. She wanted to tell him that his assumption was arrogant, but how could she protest when his fingers had loosened the clip and her breasts were spilling free? The cool air hit her skin and suddenly he was bending his lips to a nipple and he was sucking on it. Nipping at it and grazing his teeth all over the sensitised nub. She gave a little squeal of pleasure and he lifted his head.
‘You are very vocal in your approval, habibi,’ he observed softly. ‘Does that feel good?’
Her tongue snaked out to moisten her parched lips. ‘So good,’ she breathed.
‘And this? Does this feel good?’
Against the rug, Livvy writhed with pleasure as his hand moved between her legs, because her body suddenly felt as if was out of her control and words seemed to be beyond her. Did he really need her to tell him that she liked the way he was sucking her nipple? The way his finger was rubbing up and down the stiff seam of her jeans at the very point where she was acutely sensitive. The finger stilled.
‘Does it?’ he questioned silkily.
Did he want praise? Maybe she was expected to touch him. To reach out to where his crotch was straining so formidably against his trousers and to trickle her fingers over his hardness. Livvy’s heart began to pound. Her experience of foreplay was limited, because Rupert had known she was a virgin and had wanted to wait until they were married and had said he didn’t trust himself to touch her. It wasn’t until afterwards that she had discovered the reason why...
Her sex life was something she regarded as an arid area of failure, but instinct told her that Saladin Al Mektala could be the person to change all that. She suspected that what the sheikh didn’t know about pleasure wouldn’t be worth knowing. Yet surely it would be deceitful to let him make love to her without telling him her secret.
‘Does it?’ he repeated silkily, and Livvy circled her hips with frustration and guilt.
What if she told him and he rejected her—if he left her shivering and aching with frustration in front of the fire?
She had to tell him.
She stared straight into his black eyes. ‘It feels incredible,’ she said. ‘But maybe you ought to know that I’m—’
‘Driving me crazy with desire, that’s for sure,’ he said, moving over her to silence her words with another breathtaking kiss.
And Livvy let him. That was the shame of it. She just let him. Wrapping her arms around his neck, she kissed him back with a slow, exploratory hunger as he began to slide down the zipper of her jeans.
‘Mmm...’ was his only comment as he tugged the denim away to reveal the lacy blue knickers that matched her bra, before concentrating his attention on kissing her body. He whispered his lips over her breasts—his breath warm against her skin—before travelling down to her belly. She held her breath as his head travelled downwards until his dark head was positioned between her thighs. For a moment she tensed, but when he licked almost lazily at the moist panel of her panties a spasm of pleasure so intense shot through her that for a moment Livvy was scared she might faint.
Was it the half-broken cry she made in response to that intimacy that made him suddenly stop? Her nails dug hard into his shoulders in protest but he didn’t appear to care.
‘Don’t—’ she gasped.
Had he read her mind?
‘Don’t stop?’ He looked up from his decadent position between her thighs, and smiled. ‘I have no intention of stopping, but I am hungry to feel my skin next to yours, habibi. And while you are almost naked—I am not.’
She didn’t want him to move—terrified that any movement would shatter this precarious magic—but she had little choice except to lie there and watch as he stood up and began to strip off. His shirt was silk and so were his boxers and they floated to the ground like fine gossamer. Livvy’s mouth dried as his body was revealed. His dark skin glowed like richest gold and the deep shadows cast by the flickering firelight emphasised his physical perfection. A hard and rippling torso, with powerful arms and muscular legs that seemed to go on forever. Narrow hips and rock-hard buttocks. Even the powerful evidence of his arousal wasn’t as daunting as it should have been because by now Livvy was alive with a need that had been buried inside her for so long that she felt she would die if he didn’t make love to her.
Her heart was pounding as she stared at his erection, but when he reached down into the pocket of his trousers and drew out a condom, she felt a flutter of misgiving. Did he always carry protection with him? Did he take it for granted that there would always be a willing woman lying waiting for him like this? She thought about the women who sometimes used to accompany him to the stables—those models and actresses with their suede boots and miniskirts and real fur. For a moment she wondered how she could possibly compare to those glamorous creatures, until she forced the dark clouds of insecurity from her mind. Maybe there was always an accommodating female wherever he went—like a sailor having a woman in every port—but this wasn’t about convention, was it? She’d done all that stuff and look where it had got her.
She thought about the heartache of the past and the struggle her life had been for so long. She stared over Saladin’s shoulder as he slithered her panties off and moved over her. Outside the world was white and still and silent, apart from the distant ticking of a clock. Time was passing, but they were completely alone and this moment would never come again. And she had to seize it—to grab it—and to hell with the consequences.
Yet once before she had blinded herself to the truth. She’d buried her head in the sand and allowed herself to be treated like a fool by the man she’d been engaged to. Was she going to repeat that pattern of behaviour all her life—to run away from what she was afraid to face?
‘Saladin,’ she whispered as he rubbed his thumb over her clitoris. ‘There’s something you should know.’
‘The only thing I need to know is whether you like...this...’
She closed her eyes. Like it? She imagined that even a marble statue would have squirmed beneath his questing finger, but that wasn’t the point. The words came out in a bald rush—but what other way was there to say them? ‘I’m a virgin.’
His fingers—which had been working rhythmically against her heated flesh—now stilled. He raised his head to look at her, his eyes full of disbelief—but there was something else in their depths, too. Something she didn’t recognise. Something dark and tortured. Something that scared her.
‘Is this some sort of joke?’ he demanded in a strangled kind of voice.
Wondering what had made him look so bleak, Livvy shook her head. ‘It’s no joke,’ she said. ‘Why would I joke about something like that? It’s the truth. I might not be very proud of it—but it’s the truth.’
He rolled away from her and she noticed that his erection had diminished. ‘How can this be?’ he bit out. ‘You are nearly thirty years old. You were engaged to be married. I know what Western women are like. They lose their innocence early and they take many lovers!’
His crass generalisations dispelled some of her insecurity and made Livvy start to claw back some dignity—something that wasn’t particularly easy when she wasn’t wearing any clothes. Did she dare walk over to the sofa where the soft woollen throw she kept for cold winter nights was folded? Too right she did—because staying here completely naked was making her feel even more vulnerable than she already did. On shaky legs she rose to stand, aware of his heated gaze following her as she walked over to get the blanket and brought it back to the fireside. But as she
wrapped it around herself and sat at the other end of the rug, she became aware that his erection was back. And how. Hastily averting her eyes, she turned to throw a log into the neglected fire.
‘I hate to ruin your prejudices, but not all women conform to the stereotypes you’ve just described,’ she said. ‘The law of averages suggests that there will be some older virgins as well as young ones.’
Saladin’s mouth thinned with displeasure, thinking that there couldn’t have been a more inappropriate moment for her to try to dazzle him with statistics, and he was amazed she should even dare try. He felt the heavy throb of his heart. He had wanted sex. Simple, uncomplicated sex with a willing woman. He didn’t want someone with issues or baggage. He didn’t want someone who, with her purity, had stirred up memories he had locked away a long time ago. For he had only ever slept with one virgin before, and that virgin had been his beautiful wife. Pain and guilt clenched at his heart as he stared at her.
‘I don’t understand,’ he said coldly.
‘You don’t have to. I’m...’ And suddenly he saw the uncertainty that flickered across her pale and freckled face. ‘I’m sorry if I led you on.’
An unwanted but persistent point of principle made him shake his head. ‘We led each other on,’ he said heavily. ‘But it is true that you have left it a little late to drop this particular bombshell.’
Awkwardly, she shrugged. ‘Do you want to get dressed?’
Saladin shook his head. What he wanted was to be back where he’d been less than five minutes ago, not stuck in the middle of some damned conversation! ‘I don’t believe it,’ he breathed. ‘I thought it was the custom in the West to have sex before marriage—and you were on the very brink of marriage. So what happened?’
‘It’s difficult to put into words.’
‘You don’t seem to have had much problem with words so far.’
She shifted uncomfortably beneath his gaze. ‘I think I was born in the wrong age,’ she said slowly. ‘I was a tomboy who loved messing around in the countryside. I climbed trees and used to make dens with the boys from the village. I never had posters of pop stars on my walls like all the other girls in my class. I was more interested in horses—horses were my life. In fact, everything was just like one of those old-fashioned children’s stories, until my mum died.’
‘That must have been hard,’ he said.
She shrugged again and suddenly he thought she looked much younger than nearly thirty.
‘Lots of children lose their mothers,’ she said. ‘But not so many have a father who was left feeling very vulnerable. A rich widower who became perfect marriage fodder for the kind of woman commonly known as a gold-digger.’
‘I have some experience of that breed myself,’ he observed wryly. ‘So what happened?’
She shrugged. ‘He fell for a busty blonde with a penchant for diamonds and couture and then he married her. My father was a country gentleman and this house had been in his family for generations, but his new wife preferred luxury travel and sailing in sunny waters on a lavish yacht. She was the kind of woman who would buy an entire new wardrobe before every trip—and we weren’t the sort of family who had a lot of ready cash. Most of it was tied up in the house. Would you...?’ Again, she licked her lips. ‘Would you like a blanket, or something?’
He would like something, but he suspected he wasn’t going to get it right then. ‘Why, is my nakedness bothering you?’
‘A little.’
‘Just a little?’ He let his gaze slide down to his groin before raising his eyes to her flaming cheeks. ‘I must be slipping. Very well, bring me a blanket if it makes you feel better.’
He wondered if she was aware that he was being treated to a tantalising glimpse of her bare bottom as she walked over to a second sofa and grabbed another blanket, though he noticed that she averted her gaze again as she thrust it at him before resuming her position at the other end of the rug.
‘So what happened?’ he questioned, watching as she huddled herself in a cocoon of soft wool. ‘Or can I guess? Did she grow bored with marriage to an older man? Did she demand more and more money, until she’d bled him dry?’
Her eyes widened. ‘How did you know?’
‘Because I know what women are like,’ he said. ‘And your stepmother was conforming to a pattern that isn’t exactly ground-breaking.’ His eyes narrowed. ‘And ironically, you met your own male version of the gold-digger in de Vries.’
She nodded before staring down at the pattern on the rug as if completely absorbed by it, but when she lifted her face he noted that her expression was calm—as if she had practised very hard to look that way.
‘That’s right. I can’t believe that I didn’t see it for myself, my only defence being that I was very young,’ she said. ‘His stables were in trouble—everyone knew that—but nobody realised quite how bad the problem was. He knew I was an only child and he saw this house and made the assumption we were rolling in money. Which, of course, we weren’t. My father was quite an old man by then and he was ill. We had a lot of carers who were coming in and helping me look after him, and they cost an absolute fortune.’
‘And I suppose that was also occupying a lot of your time and energy?’ he said grimly.
She nodded again. ‘He was very frail by then, and Rupert seemed so understanding about it all. He didn’t seem to mind when I had to cancel dinner because one of the carers hadn’t shown up. And because he was my first real boyfriend, I had nothing to compare him with. I just thought he was being kind. When he said...’ She sucked in a deep breath. ‘When he said that he wanted to wait until we were married before we had sex, I found that somehow reassuring.’
Saladin nodded. Yes, he could see that. A horse-mad, motherless tomboy whose only role models had been an old man who should have known better and an avaricious stepmother who was out for all she could get. No wonder Livvy hadn’t known the rules about relationships, or men, or sex. Nobody had bothered to explain them to her, had they?
‘Don’t you realise that it reflects badly on him, not you?’ he questioned savagely. ‘That a man who dumps a woman on her wedding day because she has less money than he thought is not a real man. We have a name for that kind of man in Jazratan, but I will not sully your ears with it.’
‘But it wasn’t just the money. There was something else.’ She twisted some of the blanket’s tassels between her fingers. ‘It turned out that he was sleeping with one of the female grooms and had been for some time, which was why he hadn’t tried harder to get into bed with me. Not just any groom, either—but my best friend. And there was me thinking that he was displaying old-fashioned values of chivalry designed to win a woman’s heart, not realising that I was being betrayed by the two people I considered closest to me.’ She gave a short and bitter laugh. ‘What a fool I was.’
‘You shouldn’t beat yourself up for wanting to believe the best in people,’ he said, his voice growing hard. ‘Though I hope you’ve learned your lesson now. It’s always better to think the worst. That way you don’t get disappointed.’
She stared at him. ‘You’ve been very...’ Her voice tailed off.
‘Very what?’
‘It doesn’t matter.’
‘I think it does.’
‘Understanding.’ She gave an embarrassed kind of shrug.
‘What did you think I was going to do?’ he questioned roughly. ‘Carry on as if nothing had happened—kiss away your protests and ignore your obvious reservations? Or maybe you wanted me to fulfil the fantasy of the exotic stranger who ravishes the willing but innocent woman. Who takes away the responsibility so you didn’t have to make the decision for yourself. Is that what you would have liked? It’s a common enough fantasy, especially where desert sheikhs are concerned. Would that have made it easier for you, Livvy?’
She licked her lips. ‘I wasn’t eve
n going to tell you.’
‘No, I gathered that,’ he said drily. ‘So what changed your mind?’
She shrugged again and the blanket slipped down over her shoulders, before she hauled it back up again. ‘I thought it was dishonest not to. I thought you might be one of those men for whom virginity is a big deal.’
Saladin was silent as he considered her words. Was it? Her eyes were wide as she looked at him and he could read the faint anxiety in their depths. He supposed it was. For a man in his position, virginity was an essential requirement of any future queen. But he was not looking for a queen. He had been there, done that. What was it they said in the West? Bought the T-shirt.
His mouth hardened as she held his gaze with those startling amber eyes. Was she seeking reassurance? Holding out for an impossible dream? He felt the hard throb of desire at his groin and shifted his weight. This was a unique situation, but despite his undeniable lust—lust was interchangeable, because there was always another female eager enough to open her legs for him. If it were anyone else, he would get dressed, make a quick phone call and get the hell out of there—no matter how many damned snow ploughs it took.
And that was what he should do—he knew that. Because purity was something he always associated with just one woman—and wouldn’t it dishonour Alya’s memory if he were to take the innocence of another? Every instinct he possessed—except for the sexual instinct—told him to leave now and get away while he still could.
But Livvy Miller still had something he wanted. Something that only she could provide. And maybe he had something she wanted, because surely she didn’t want to carry on like this. Was now the time for a little adult negotiation? If he fulfilled a need in her—then wouldn’t she feel morally obliged to do the same for him?
The Sheikh's Christmas Conquest Page 7