“I have not forgotten anything,” Tariq replied, his voice clipped, rough, impatient with need. “But perhaps you have forgotten that I did not agree.”
“But you—”
“Later,” Tariq said, interrupting her. He sank to his knees on the carpet in front of her, making her heart stutter in her chest before kicking into a frenetic beat. This close, Jessa could see the wildness in his eyes, and the passion stamped across his features, giving him a certain breathtaking ferocity.
She started to argue, but instead he leaned closer and claimed her mouth with his. He held her head between his hands, held her captive, and she didn’t think to fight it. He moved her to the angle that best suited him, plundering her mouth with his, taking control. Claiming her. Proving his mastery, and it made her ache and swell and melt against him. Again. Then again, and again.
Heat like liquid washed over her, through her. She felt hectic, frantic, alive with need, shaky from the inside out. She buried her hands in his thick, black hair, exulting in the way it felt like rough silk against her palms, in such contrast to the punishing, glorious demands of his mouth.
It occurred to Jessa that she should protest, wrench back the control she refused to accept he’d only allowed her, indulged her.
Tariq took one strong, capable hand from her head and slid it down her back, leaving trails of sensation in his wake, causing her to arch against him at the wonder of his touch. Then he moved around to her front and pulled once, twice, against the band of her panties. By the time Jessa registered the fact that he was using both of his hands, and that he seemed to be tugging, there was a rip and he was done. He tossed her torn panties aside, and the look he slanted her way dared her to comment on it.
She didn’t say a word. She wasn’t sure she could speak. She was having trouble breathing, much less thinking, as they knelt together in the center of the thick Aubusson carpet.
Tariq’s long, elegant fingers slipped between her thighs, tracing the contours of her sex, then the honeyed heat within. His green eyes held her still, imprisoned her, even as he tested her tight sheath with one strong finger, then another. Jessa felt herself clench around him, and shuddered.
“Forgive me, but I cannot wait for you to finish playing your games with me,” he said then, but there was absolutely no apology in the way he looked at her. He was all arrogant male, every inch a king, and he did not wait for her to respond. Instead, he slid his hands back up the length of her torso and then picked her up as if she weighed no more than a pound coin. He shifted her across the space between them and settled her astride him.
“Tariq—” But she didn’t know what she wanted to say, or how to say it, and he merely twisted his hips and thrust deep inside her.
So deep. So full. Finally.
“Yes,” he said, need pulling his face taut, his eyes black and wild for her. “Finally.”
Only then did Jessa realize she’d spoken aloud. Her breasts seemed to swell even more against their prison of lace, and she rubbed herself helplessly against the wall of his chest, unable to stop, unable to get enough of the feel of him. Again. Finally.
The perfection of it, of him, of their bodies fused together, overwhelmed her. She had no memory of looping her arms around his neck, and yet she held him. Other memories, older ones, of the many times they’d tested the feverish joy of this slick, matchless, breathtaking union, threatened to spill from her eyes.
Now she remembered why she had thrown away her life so heedlessly because of this man. Now she remembered why she had let Tariq twist her into knots and cast her aside like a rag doll—why she hadn’t even recognized what was happening until it was done. For the glory of this moment, this connection, this addictive, electrifying link.
And then he moved, one long, sure stroke, and Jessa came apart. He thrust once, twice. She sobbed against him while her body exploded into pieces, as she shook and shook and shook. She panted, her face in the crook of his neck. The world disappeared and there was nothing but the singular scent and taste of Tariq’s skin at her mouth, and his hard length still buried deep in her sex.
“Come back to me.” His voice was rough, intimate. “Now.” It was no less an order for the sensual tone in which it was delivered. Still, it made her shiver.
“I am finished,” she managed to say, her eyes still closed, her head still cradled between his throat and his wide shoulder. She meant, I am dead. She was not sure she would have minded were that true.
“But I am not.” Tariq shifted position, holding her bottom in one large hand and keeping her hips flush with his. “Hold on to me,” he demanded, and she was too dazed, too drunk on the sensations still firing through her to do anything but what he asked. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders and then everything whirled around and she was on her back on the plush carpet and he was between her legs and still so deep inside her, so hard and so big, she thought she might weep from the sheer pleasure of it.
Tariq bent his head and took a stiff nipple into his mouth, sucking on it through the lace barrier. Jessa moaned as a new fire seared through her, the slight abrasion of the lace and the hot, wet heat of his mouth together almost too much to bear.
He laughed softly, and began to move his hips, guiding himself in and out of her with consummate, devastating skill. He turned his attention to her other breast, making Jessa arch into him again and raise her hips to meet his every stroke. Their hips moved in perfect harmony. Once again, she ached. Once again, the fire grew and raged and consumed her. Jessa felt the storm growing within her, taking her to fever pitch, though she fought against it.
“Let go,” he said, his voice fierce, his gaze intense.
“But you—and I—” But how could she concentrate on what she wanted to say when every slide of his body against hers turned her molten, incandescent?
“I command it,” he said.
Her eyes flew wide. Tariq smiled. And then he reached between their bodies and touched her, and she flew over the edge again.
This time, he did not stop. He did not wait. He continued to thrust into her, slow and steady, until her sobs became ragged breaths and her eyes focused once more on his face.
“One more time,” he ordered her, his eyes gleaming.
“I cannot possibly!”
“You can.” He bent toward her, pulling the lace cup away from one breast to tease the flesh beneath with his lips. His tongue. His teeth. Jessa shuddered in response. Tariq slanted a look at her. “You will.”
And when she did, he went with her.
It took a long time for Jessa to return to earth, and when she did, he was still stretched out over her, still pressing her into the floor. She was afraid to think too much about what had just happened. She was afraid to allow herself to face it. She wasn’t certain she would like what she might find.
That much pleasure could only be trouble. She could not assign it too much meaning, decide it was something it could never be. She could not allow herself to forget that this was her idea. That she was here to take some of this pleasure for herself and hoard it. This was her longoverdue goodbye, that was all. She didn’t know why she felt so fragile, so vulnerable.
Tariq stirred and rolled off her, sitting up as he yanked his trousers back into place. As he fastened them, Jessa struggled to sit up herself. Was this it, then? She hadn’t thought much beyond the actual pleasure part of the one night of pleasure idea. How was one expected to negotiate such moments? The last time she had been with him, she had been openly and happily in love with him. There had been no awkwardness. Jessa pulled her bra back into position, and swallowed when her eyes fell on the torn scraps of what used to be her panties. She looked down and saw, with some amazement, that she still wore her impractical shoes.
Beside her, Tariq rose to his feet in a single, lithe movement that reminded her that he was a warrior now, in ways she could only pretend to understand. He turned and looked down at her, his expression unreadable.
Jessa was suddenly painfully aware of
her surroundings, the majestic grandeur of the well-appointed room, from its carved moldings to the graceful furniture that looked more like works of art than places to sit or to store belongings. It was not even the bedroom, merely the first in what she could see now was a series of rooms. A suite, complete with floor-to-ceiling windows that showed off the lights of Paris shooting off in all directions. Tariq stood before her, half-naked, his thick hair tangled and hanging around his face, making him look untamed and remote but no less regal. He belonged in such a place, surrounded by such things. And here she was, half-naked on a priceless rug, Jessa Heath from Fulford with nothing to show for herself, not even her panties.
It occurred to her that he had only said he wanted to get her out of his system. He had never elaborated what might happen when he had.
The moment stretched between them, long past awkward. Jessa could still feel him between her legs, and yet it was as if a perfect stranger stood before her, carved from stone. Some avenging angel prepared to hand down judgment.
But she had been through worse, she reminded herself, and no matter what happened, no matter how unpleasant the moment, she had chosen this. That was the key point. She had chosen this.
Jessa sat up straighter and pushed her hair back from her face. It hardly mattered if she looked disheveled at this point, after all. He must have had his mouth or his hands on every inch of her body. And what could he possibly do or say to her? Would he leave her cruelly, perhaps? She had already survived that once, relatively unscathed. She met his gaze proudly.
“Thank you,” she said in her most polite tone. It was the one she used in fancy restaurants and to bank managers. “That was exactly what I wanted.”
“I am delighted to hear it.” His tone was sardonic. “I live to serve.” Now he openly mocked her. She pretended she could not hear the edge in his voice.
“Yes, well.” She got to her feet with rather less grace than he had displayed, and looked around for her dress. She saw it in a crumpled heap a few feet away. “If only that were true. You would be a different man, wouldn’t you?” She moved toward the dress.
“Jessa.” Her name was another command, and she looked at him even though she knew she should ignore him, pick up her things and walk out. “What are you doing?”
“My dress…” She gestured at it but couldn’t seem to turn away from him, not when he was looking at her that way, so brooding and dark and something else, something she might have called possessive on another man.
“You won’t need it.”
“I won’t?”
He didn’t move, he only watched her, but his eyes were hot. Jessa was shocked to feel her body respond to him. Anew. Again. Her nipples hardened, her sex pulsed.
It was absurd. She had gotten what she’d wanted, hadn’t she? What was the point of drawing it out? No matter how ravenous she seemed to be for him.
“We are not done here,” he said quietly. His gaze was hard, yet she softened. “We have hardly begun.”
CHAPTER NINE
TARIQ stood at the window that rose high above the bedroom, looking out over the city. Dawn snuck in with long pink fingers, teasing the famous rooftops of Paris before him, yet he barely saw it. Behind him, Jessa slept in the great bed that stood in the center of the ornate room, the heavy white-and-gold-brocade coverlet long since discarded, her naked limbs curled beneath her, rose and pink from the exertions of the long night. He did not need to confirm this with his own eyes again; he would hear it if her breathing altered, if she turned over, if she awoke.
It was as if he could feel her body as an extension of his own. Perhaps this was inevitable after such a night, he told himself, but he knew better. He had lived a life of excess for more years than he cared to recall, and he had had many nights that would qualify as extreme, and yet he had never felt this kind of connection to a woman. He didn’t care for it. It reminded him of all the things he had worked so hard to forget.
“You make me feel alive,” he had told her once, years ago, recklessly, and she had laughed as she rose above him, naked and beautiful, her face open and filled with light.
“You are alive,” she had whispered in his ear, holding him close. She had then proceeded to prove it to them both.
Tariq had lost count of the times he had reached for her last night, or her for him. He knew he had slept but little, far more interested in tasting her, teasing her, sinking into her one more time. He had reacquainted himself with every nook and cranny of her body, all of its changes, all of its secrets—the pleasure so intense, so astounding, that he could not bring himself to let it end.
Because he knew that once he stopped, he would have to face the truths he was even now avoiding. And as the night wore on, Tariq had found himself less and less interested in doing so.
“This is a feast,” Jessa had said at some point, while they sat in the sitting room and ate some of the rich food they’d ignored earlier, wearing very little in the way of clothes. She had smiled at him, unselfconscious and at ease with her legs folded beneath her and her hair tumbled down around her bare shoulders. She had looked free. Just as she had always been with him.
“Indeed it is,” he had replied, but he had not been talking about the meal.
Memories chased through him now, hurtling him back to a time he wanted to forget—had worked to forget, in fact, for years. Touching her, tasting her, breathing in her scent. These things had unlocked something in him that he had worked hard to keep hidden, even from himself.
His parents had died in a car accident when he was too young to remember more than fleeting images of his father’s rare smile, his mother’s dark curtain of hair. He had been taken into the palace by his only remaining relative, his uncle the king, and raised with his cousins, the princes of Nur. His uncle was the only parent Tariq had ever known, and yet Tariq had always been keenly aware that he was not his uncle’s son. Just as he had always known that his cousins were the future rulers of the country, and had been trained from birth as such.
“Your cousins have responsibilities to our people,” his uncle had told Tariq when they were all still young.
“And what are my responsibilities?” Tariq had asked guilelessly.
His uncle had only smiled at him and patted him on the head.
Tariq had understood. He was not important, not in the way his cousins were.
And so he did as he pleased. Though his uncle periodically suggested that Tariq had more to offer the world than a life full of expensive cars and equally costly European models, Tariq had never seen the point in discovering what that was. He had played with the stock market because it amused him and he was good at it, but it had been no more to him than another kind of high-stakes poker game like the ones he played in private back rooms in Monte Carlo.
He had long since buried the feelings that had haunted him as a child—that he was an outcast in his own family, tolerated by them yet never of them. He believed they cared for him, but he knew he was their charity case. Their duty. Never simply theirs.
Tariq heard Jessa move in the bed behind him. He turned to see if she had awoken and if it was time at last to have a conversation he had no wish to pursue. But she only settled herself into a different position, letting out a small, contented sigh.
He turned back around to face the window, heedless of the cool air on his bare skin, still caught up in the past. The summer he had met Jessa was the summer his uncle had finally put his foot down. He could not threaten Tariq with the loss of his income or possessions, of course, for Tariq had quadrupled his own personal fortune by that point, and then some. But that did not mean the old man had been without weapons.
“You must change your life,” the old king had said, frowning at Tariq across the table set out for them on the balcony high on the cliffs. He had summoned his nephew to the family villa on their private island in the Mediterranean, off the coast of Turkey, for this conversation. Tariq had not expected it to be pleasant, though he had always managed to talk his un
cle out of his tempers in the past. He had assumed he would do the same that day.
“Into what?” Tariq had asked, shrugging, watching the waves rise and fall far below them, deep and blue. He had been thirty-four then and so world-weary. So profoundly bored. “My life is the envy of millions.”
“Your life is empty,” his uncle had retorted. “Meaningless.” He waved his hand in disgust, taking in Tariq’s polished, too fashionable appearance. “What are you but one more playboy sheikh, looked down upon by the entire world, confirming all their worst suspicions about our people?”
“Until they want my money,” Tariq had replied coolly. “At which point it is amazing how quickly they become respectful. Even obsequious.”
“And this is enough for you? This is all you aspire to? You, who carry the royal blood of the kingdom of Nur in your veins?”
“What would you have me do, Uncle?” Tariq had asked, impatient though he dared not show it. They had had this conversation, or some version of it, every year since Tariq had gone to university where, to his uncle’s dismay, he had not approached his studies with the same level of commitment he had shown when approaching the women in his classes.
“You do nothing,” his uncle had said matter-of-factly, in a more serious tone than Tariq had ever heard from him, at least when directed at Tariq personally. “You play games with money and call it a career, but it is a joke. You win, you lose, it is all a game to you. You are an entirely selfish creature. I would tell you to marry, to do your duty to your family and your bloodline as your cousins must do, but what would you have to offer your sons? You are barely a man.”
Tariq had gritted his teeth. This was not just his uncle talking, not just the only version of a parent he had ever known—this was his king. He had no choice but to tolerate it.
“Again,” he had managed to say eventually, fighting to keep his tone appropriately respectful, “what is it you want me to do?”
“It is not about what I want,” his uncle had said, disappointment dripping from every hard word. “It is about who you are. I cannot force you to do anything. You are not my son. You are not my heir.”
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