by Lucy Monroe
It didn’t matter. For a few brief hours, she would let her body be his, just not her heart.
He reached behind her to unclasp her bra. “You still wear such feminine underwear beneath your T-shirts and jeans.”
“I wasn’t wearing jeans tonight.”
“But you brought this with you regardless.” He drew the silky champagne lace bra down her arms and dropped it to the carpet under their feet.
She couldn’t deny it. She might dress like an asexual scientist most of the time, but underneath, her bras and panties were her one consistent feminine indulgence.
His large hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs brushing over her hardened nipples.
She sucked in a breath.
Approval flared in his dark eyes. “So responsive.”
His gaze dipped low and she felt the caress of his eyes on her most sensitive flesh, though it was still hidden behind the stretch lace boy shorts that matched her bra. “This style is new for you. I like it.”
“It’s been six years since you’ve seen my underwear.”
“I’m keen to see what else you have in store for me.”
Which implied this was not a onetime deal. And she’d known that. He’d said as much when admitting he wanted her back in his bed, but this further proof that tonight was not their only and last night together still settled over her in an unexpected delight.
“Take off your panties,” he ordered in a guttural tone.
“Why don’t you?”
“I can’t stop touching you.” The admission affected something deep inside her she didn’t want reached and she almost pulled away.
But the way he played so intently with her breasts, giving her pleasure and so obviously taking his own from the caresses, made it impossible for her to deny him. Or herself.
Soon, they were both naked and lying together in the big bed, the covers tossed back. His hands mapping her body as if memorizing it, comparing it to memory and marking all the similarities and differences.
She could not remember a time they had made love before when he had been so intent on learning her every dip and crevice. Not even their first time together.
Something about tonight was different for him too, but she wasn’t about to speculate what that might be. She’d make the wrong assumptions as she’d done before and her heart couldn’t afford such mistakes again.
He leaned up over her, his regard serious. “You are the first woman I have brought to this bed.”
But he’d been married. “Badra?”
“Had her own room.”
Iris couldn’t imagine him having sex with his wife on that tiny bed, so Badra’s bed must have gone the way of her other things.
“Do you want me to be flattered?” she asked and then wished she could take back the facetious comment.
It might not be love, but this moment was too profound for sarcasm.
His tender smile said he was not offended. “It is I who am honored to have you here.”
So that was what he wanted, for her to feel honored by the distinction. And really? She did. Not that she was going to tell him so. It seemed like too much an admission to make after she’d opened herself to him in a way she’d been determined never to again.
“Kiss me, Asad.”
He did, a growl of desire sounding between them, his body moving over hers in that dominating way he’d always had. An aggressive lover, Asad filled her senses with his presence as he caressed her body with the clear intent to seduce and excite. He knew how to draw forth more than she ever intended to give and yet fill her with bliss in the way she responded to him.
She returned his touches, reveling in her ability to once again lay claim to the magnificent man above her.
Their kisses were incendiary, the fire burning inside her in no danger of being extinguished. Tense with need, her body remembered this man’s lovemaking and the capacity for pleasure he had taught her that she had.
He brought her to her first climax with his hand, his lips never leaving hers. Once he had swallowed all her cries as his due, he moved down her body, his mouth blazing a trail of heat and want that culminated in a renewed pulsing in the tender flesh between her thighs.
She found completion the second time with his mouth on her, his tongue lashing her clitoris with deft flicks, his hands roving her body and settling on her breasts as he manipulated her nipples to enhance her pleasure until she screamed with it.
She grabbed a pillow to stifle her cries, but he reared up and yanked it from her hand. “I want to hear every sound. I will have all of you.”
“But the tent walls…”
“Are far better at muffling sound than you would ever imagine, my sweet little Westerner.”
“That was the problem, wasn’t it?” she asked, her body still shuddering from the ultimate in pleasure, his resting between her wantonly spread thighs. “I was too Western for your people. Like your mother.”
“My grandmother was from the West, as well. She adapted.”
“But her son did not.”
“No. Why are we talking about my parents right now?” he asked as he thrust his hard and very impressive member against her.
“Because…” She let her voice trail off, unsure what she wanted to say, what she was willing to admit to.
Even though she didn’t want to be, she’d been trying to understand how he could let something so good go. What they’d had between them had been incredible, not just something that worked to relieve sexual tension.
“I might have been innocent, but even I knew we were amazing together. The sex was mind-blowing from the very first time.” And so had everything else between them been.
The dip of his head acknowledged the truth of her words.
“Why?” she asked, finally able to do so.
“I planned to marry Badra from the time I was eighteen.” And he was the type of man that when he had a plan, he stuck to it. Could it really have been that simple?
When she didn’t reply, he added, “There was no lack in you. Nothing missing from us.”
She just hadn’t been the Middle Eastern princess he’d wanted. “When you dumped me, I sure felt lacking.”
“No.” He kissed the join between her neck and shoulder, suckling up a love bite, and sent pleasure zinging through her. “You were the perfect lover.”
But not the perfect candidate for wife, even if Badra hadn’t been in the wings waiting. That much Iris understood.
Unwilling to dwell on a reality that she had no hope of changing, Iris offered, “You’re a pretty amazing lover, yourself, Asad.”
He moved over her body, reminding her of the stalking lion he’d been named for. “I would have you beyond amazed.”
“What, you want me passed out from pleasure?” she teased.
“It has happened before.”
Yes, it had. “Be my guest.” She waved languidly with her hand, as if it didn’t matter one way or another to her.
But they both knew it did. She’d never been indifferent to him. She never would be, but maybe, just maybe she would learn to move on from him.
“You have a serious expression I do not like,” he said with a frown. “You are not thinking of me.”
“Of course I’m thinking of you. Who else would I be thinking of while I am in your bed?”
He looked away, telltale color showing on his cut cheekbones. “I used to wonder.”
“What? Why?”
“You were not a virgin when you came to my bed the first time.” He met her eyes then. “I thought it mattered.”
Yes, he had, though she hadn’t known it. “If I recall correctly, it was my bed we used the first time, and I was as close to a virgin as you can get.”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you think I’d had a string of lovers before you?”
“I preferred not to know details.”
Arrogant, possessive sheikh. Even though he’d had no intention of staying with her, he didn’t like to think of
anyone else with her, either. He didn’t deserve the truth, but maybe she deserved for him to know it.
Six years before, she’d thought her innocence obvious and had only learned otherwise when they broke up.
“I lost my virginity on a bet.”
“That is…a bet…” For the first time ever, she saw Asad bin Hanif al Sha’b Al’najid lost for words.
It made her smile despite the topic under discussion. “For my high school years, my parents placed me in a coed boarding school known for its science programs.”
At least they’d cared enough to take the advice of her middle school counselor on that.
“Yes?”
“There were the typical geeks and jocks, though most of the athletically gifted were highly intelligent, as well. It wasn’t easy to get placement in the school and required high marks on the standardized tests.”
“I imagine you did very well indeed.”
She had, but book smart didn’t equal people smart as she’d learned unequivocally her sophomore year. “I was the bookish, shy student who didn’t make friends easily.”
“Because you were afraid to let them in.”
“Partly.” And partly because she was socially awkward.
He gently tipped her head back toward him. “I would have been your friend.”
It was a nice thing to say, but she couldn’t stifle her laughter. “No, you wouldn’t. You would have been one of the popular people. You couldn’t have helped yourself. You wouldn’t have even noticed me.”
“I noticed you in college and you had not appreciably changed by then I think.”
“True.” Why was she sharing her past again when he wasn’t going to be in her future? “Are you sure you want to hear this? It’s old news anyway.”
“Tell me about this bet.”
“The year I was a sophomore, the senior boys had a bet going on for who could bag the most virgins.”
“Bag?”
“Get in the sack…have sex with.”
“I see, and clearly at that age, you were a virgin.”
“I was. When the senior boy who decided to make me one of his conquests started flirting with me, I had no clue what was going on. It was only the middle of the school year, but by then, most of the students knew about the bet, so girls were wary of these boys.”
“But you are not a gossip and you pay little attention when it goes on around you.”
“Right. So I didn’t know. It wouldn’t have mattered anyway. I thought he just wanted to be my friend. And the funny thing? We ended up enjoying each other’s company a lot. He became my best friend.”
Asad winced. “Then you had sex.”
“Yes. Despite my naïveté, I wasn’t an easy mark—simply because the idea he’d want sex with me was so completely outside my thought process.”
“And sex would have been an intimate encounter for you, something you’d already learned to avoid.”
“You understand me so well.” She bit her lip. “So did Darren. We finally had sex the week before graduation. It only happened once. I didn’t like it very much.”
“He was harsh?”
“No. He tried to make it good for me. He kept asking me if I was okay. He wasn’t a cruel boy, not really. But it was my first time and I wasn’t doing it because I wanted him. I never desired anyone that way until I met you. I just wanted to be close to him.”
“What a little bastard.”
“No. Selfish and thoughtless? Yes.” She shrugged. “I didn’t know about the bet until two days later when one of the other boys in the competition came up to me and complained about how he’d had it in the bag until I won it for Darren.”
“The little prick.”
“Yes, he was. He wanted me to hurt, to know the sex hadn’t been about love, but in that, the joke was on him. I never thought Darren loved me.” She’d thought he was her friend and she’d felt enough betrayal from that, though they’d worked through it in the end.
“Yet you had sex with him.”
“He was leaving.”
“So you gave him your virginity?”
“I don’t expect you to understand.” Darren had, though. He’d known how hurt she was by the bet too, even though she’d pretended indifference. “Darren’s guilt was way worse than my embarrassment.”
“Don’t tell me you forgave him?”
“He’s one of my dearest friends.” Though they hadn’t seen each other more than a handful of times in the intervening years, they stayed in touch with email and telephone.
He’d invited her to his wedding and introduced Iris to his wife as the girl who had made him the man he’d come to be. That bet had had a transforming influence on Darren, changing forever the way he related to others and decimating the power of peer pressure in his life.
He’d told her once that she’d freed him. She’d told him he was an idiot, but knew deep down that in a way he was right. Only it had been his own deep regret at hurting her and the other girls that had truly set him free.
“You cannot be serious.”
“I can. Darren learned not to use people.” Iris hadn’t been so lucky. She hadn’t learned not to be used, not then anyway.
“You cannot be this disgusting boy’s friend. I forbid it.”
She laughed, finding the telling easier than she’d expected it to be. “Too late. And he’s no longer a boy. He’s an adult man, married with two children and working in the diplomatic corps.”
“I will see about that.”
“You will do no such thing. Darren hurt me, but he didn’t abandon me, not like you did. The boy who told me about the bet? Darren disowned their friendship.”
“He was quite the tarnished knight,” Asad said with heavy sarcasm.
“He apologized. We moved forward.”
“I too apologized.”
“And I’m lying here in your bed. What more do you want, Asad?”
CHAPTER NINE
THE question took Asad by surprise. Surely she knew exactly what he needed from her. “Your forgiveness.”
She stared up at him in silence for several long seconds, her captivating blue eyes weighing him in a way he rarely encountered and then said, “I forgive you.”
Could it truly be that easy? “You don’t mean that.”
“Would I be here if I didn’t?” she asked, again referring to her place in his bed, their naked bodies pressed together, her gorgeous red tresses spread over his sheets.
“You forgive too easily.”
“Not really.”
“Yes.” And why he should chide her about that when he was benefitting, he did not know.
“Are you saying you want me to go back to ignoring you?”
“No.” He wanted her to trust him and somehow he knew her forgiveness did not come packaged with that commodity. “I want you to take me into your body.”
It wasn’t all he wanted, but since he wasn’t sure what exactly that did entail, he didn’t try to enlighten her.
Her answer was to shift under him, opening herself to him, but there was a part of herself she held back, a shadow in her eyes that had never been there in the past. Probably inevitable considering their history, but Asad did not have to like it.
Her trust was no longer on offer. And only now did he realize it had been a gift he’d taken every bit of as much for granted as that stupid high school boy had done. But Asad had been old enough to know better.
He would make up for it and he would regain that part of their friendship that he had found so comforting, but had been too blind to see the importance of, six years ago.
If she could forgive the little prick who had taken her virginity, call him friend and mean it, she could learn to give true forgiveness to Asad.
Asad reached for a condom. It was time to join their bodies in a way she could not hide from, could not pretend did not matter. Not his Iris.
He had brought her to the pinnacle of pleasure twice already because he knew he would not last long. Asad had o
nly known his own hand for sexual release since well before Badra’s death. It was not enough, especially now that he had Iris in touching distance again.
The idea of taking another lover, one that might betray him, or even worse, his daughter, had been anathema to him. Nawar’s needs had to come first. Leaving her in order to enjoy liaisons to slake his physical hungers had not appealed to Asad.
He guided his head to Iris’s soft opening, pressing forward into the heated honey depths he could never forget, no matter how hard he tried. Her body encased him in pure pleasure and he had the undeniable sensation of coming home.
This was where he belonged. For now, anyway.
Iris gasped as his body claimed hers and he kissed the sound right from her lips.
The baffling sense of coming home was so strong, once he was seated fully, he could not move. Despite the need clamoring in his body for release, he remained still, savoring the sensations that came from amazing sex.
“I will not abandon you again,” he promised with the full force of his Bedouin honor. “I will be your best and truest friend.”
“Possessive.”
“I am.”
“You always were.”
He could not deny it.
Her voice was strained when she asked, “Are you going to move, Asad?”
“You wish for me to do so?” he taunted.
The clenching of her inner body was his only answer, but her eyes demanded he listen.
So he did, making love to her with less finesse than need. And instead of being bothered by his loss of control, he reveled in it. This was what had been missing for so long in his sex life.
Primitive, ungovernable passion.
In this, Asad’s Bedouin heritage ruled, not the urbanity Badra had demanded.
His pleasure built like a volcano inside him, his balls burning with the need to erupt. He gritted his teeth, holding off the explosion as he did his best to bring his aziz to climax one more time.
Their mouths joined in a primal echo of what their bodies were doing, sweat slickening the skin between them as he thrust into her.
He felt her climax like it was his own and pleasure boiled up out of his cock with all the power of Mt. Vesuvius.
He shouted his triumph even as she continued to convulse around him.