by Marsh, Susan
When he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth in a brazen imitation of what he’d like to do to her, swollen lips pulsed with need and she groaned her approval. ‘Oh, please,’ she begged, clinging fiercely to him. ‘Don’t you dare change your mind now.’
There was no chance of that.
Raffa removed her clothes with ease.
The words ‘years of experience’ flashed between them in a look. The revelation that sex could be fun boosted Casey’s confidence. It had always looked like such a serious undertaking between the covers of her parents’ books. But with Raffa—
That was as much thought as she could manage before Raffa’s lips crushed her mouth, opening her lips with the pressure of his, invading and tasting her, only to pull back and tease her with his tongue, tracing the line of her mouth, before plunging deep again, in a blatant rehearsal of what he meant to do to her.
She was on fire for him, every part of her pleading for his touch, for his attention. Mindless with delight, she bucked towards him. A dam had broken, and now her hunger was released she wanted everything he could give her.
She offered her breasts, begging in words she hardly recognised for him to ease the ache inside her. Taking her nipples, he chafed them while soothing her with words in A’Qabani. But she refused to be soothed. Her nipples were almost painfully extended, and the pleasure was streaming between her legs, where it gathered in insistent pulses.
Raffa’s answer was to brush her nipples with his lips, and then he suckled while his hands explored, tracing a leisurely path over her quivering belly towards the source of her need.
She was almost frantic with desire by this time. She had waited so long for this moment, and was almost frightened of losing control again before Raffa could complete his investigations.
‘Are you warm enough?’ he demanded, when she shuddered uncontrollably.
Desire swirled around her, making it impossible to answer. She could only thrash beneath him, seeking more contact. These feelings, these incredible sensations—all of them new, and all of them so much stronger and more intense than she had dreamed.
‘There’s only one way to be sure,’ Raffa growled. ‘I’ll have to cover you all over.’
She gasped as he swung her beneath him, and then rubbed herself shamelessly against him, catching what pressure she could from his powerful thigh. ‘Please …’ she managed shakily, hungry for more pleasure.
‘You want more …?’
‘Everything,’ she groaned, opening herself to him.
Raffa tugged his robe over his head. He was naked underneath. He was magnificent …
‘I always wondered what a Sheikh wore underneath his robes,’ she murmured, reaching up to trace his ferocious tattoo.
‘Well, now you know.’
‘A condom and a tattoo.’
‘It’s enough, don’t you think?’
‘More than—’ Casey’s words were choked off as Raffa’s hand found its place between her legs with unerring accuracy.
‘Good?’ he murmured, testing her readiness.
She could only writhe with greedy delight. There could be nothing better than this, surely? Closing her eyes, she gave herself up to pleasure as Raffa worked with the greatest skill and sensitivity, until she was so engorged with need she could only whimper, ‘I need you … I need you … please … please …’ But though he teased and stimulated, he refused her release. ‘Oh, please don’t stop.’ She was practically sobbing with disappointment when he changed position.
‘Who says I’m stopping? I want you to feel me …’
Casey’s mouth dried. Reaching down nervously, she gasped at the size of him, but even as she shrank away Raffa moved so he could touch her with just the tip of his erection. ‘I would never hurt you, Casey.’
‘Oh …’ Her mouth fell loose. This was more sensation than she had ever known. Her breathing changed, quickened, as if every part of her was waiting, but he was so big, so huge …
Raffa was kissing her, deeply and persuasively, until all her fears dissolved and she was crushing her mouth against his, hungry for more contact, more pressure, more pleasure—more of everything he had to give her …
She was so tender and vulnerable beneath him, and yet she was driven by a hunger equal to his own. She had taken his shoulders in a vice-like grip and was urging him on with words that surprised him.
‘Okay, we can do that,’ he murmured, grinning against her mouth. This was all he had ever wanted for Casey … all he had ever wanted.
Her eyes had turned almost black, with just a slim ring of cobalt surrounding the dilated pupil. His must be the same. He wanted her as he had never wanted any woman before, and he eased her thighs a little wider. He found her to be just as he’d expected only better—plump, warm and moist, and oh, so eager. He teased her with the tip again, for the sheer pleasure of hearing her soft cry of delight.
‘Please, Raffa … Please …’
‘Patience,’ he murmured against her lips, moving rhythmically so that each time he caught a little deeper inside her.
‘No—now,’ she insisted fiercely, taking the decision out of his hands by bucking towards him. ‘Oh, Raffa,’ she moaned, as he moved with infinite steadiness to claim her completely.
However much he wanted this he would never allow himself to forget how inexperienced she was. ‘Am I hurting you?’
‘If you stop now I’ll never ever forgive you …’
For ever was a long, long time he thought—and then, inevitably, the world outside real time slipped away.
Her world was composed of Raffa. Her concentration was all on him—on his muscular back beneath her fingers, and his rock-hard chest in front of her face, and the sublime rocking motion that was taking her places she had always wanted to go. Her eyes were full of him, and her ears were tuned to his erotic suggestions in A’Qabani. Her world was pleasure—pleasure that defied belief as Raffa settled deep inside her. He inhabited her completely—and not just her body, but her mind, her soul, her heart.
He stretched her beyond anything she would have believed possible before this moment, and as she grew accustomed to the new sensation of being one he withdrew. There was barely chance to voice her complaint before he plunged deep again, to her shriek of surprised delight.
‘For the pleasure of taking you again,’ he murmured against her smile. ‘And again.’
He moved faster now, in firm, measured strokes, but the build was so great the destination began to terrify her. ‘I can’t—’
‘Yes, you can,’ Raffa insisted. ‘I’ll keep you safe.’
‘No …. Please … Really … I can’t—’
‘Yes,’ he told her firmly, continuing the steady onslaught on her senses.
Seconds later she was keening with surprise as ecstasy consumed her. As the violent pleasure took her over completely Raffa held her safe, as he said he’d would, and when she calmed he continued his steady rhythm until her throbbing flesh demanded more.
‘I can’t … not again,’ she said more in wonder than surprise.
‘But you want to?’ Raffa smiled wickedly down at her.
‘You know I do,’ she gasped out, locking her legs around his waist.
‘Then you can.’ And, cupping her buttocks in his strong, firm hands, he proved it so.
‘Is there a temptation to do nothing but this once you get the hang of it?’ Casey demanded groggily some hours later. Snuggled safe in Raffa’s arms, on their soft bed of rugs overlooking the desert, she was gazing out at a dawn-spangled sky. Lilac competed with tangerine clouds, and there were aqua smudges and lacy hairs of light along the horizon. It was a distraction, but not enough of one to keep her gaze from feasting on Raffa’s naked form, currently entangled with her own.
‘I think you’ll find it’s necessary to take one or two breaks,’ he observed, winding a curl of her hair around his finger to draw her close.
‘Well, I think that’s absolutely outrageous,’ Casey whispered against his lips.
‘And quite unnecessary.’
‘Do I take it you want more?’ Raffa said this approvingly, drawing her on top of him as he spoke. ‘Surely you don’t want to miss the sunrise in the desert? It’s the reason I brought you here …’
‘Then you’ll have to bring me here again …’
Making love with Raffa was the ultimate joy, the ultimate freedom.
Or the biggest self deluding screw-up yet?
No, Casey argued with her inner voice. She wouldn’t let self-doubt spoil this moment. Raffa might be a king and married to his kingdom, but she’d take this for what it was and then walk away.
Oh, really …?
Clinging to him, she kissed him passionately, but the feeling that this was a dream, and the fantasy she indulged in back home was the only reality, refused to go away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
‘SO … IS your palace far from here?’ Casey asked Raffa, remembering she had thought that was the point of this expedition.
‘My palace?’ Loose-limbed and sexier than ever in the aftermath of sex, he rolled onto his back to stare into the brightening sky. ‘This is my palace …’
‘This …?’ Joining him, Casey exclaimed softly when she saw what he was looking at. A pair of eagles was swooping and wheeling in what appeared to be an intricate courtship dance.
‘Can you think of anything more beautiful?’ Raffa murmured.
No, she couldn’t Casey thought, watching the great birds swerve and dive.
Raffa sat up, completely unconcerned that he was naked. ‘Shall we go for a swim?’
‘Has the water warmed up yet?’
Wrapping a rug around her shoulders to keep her warm, he cupped her chin and dipped his head to drop a kiss on her lips.
Her eyes were closed, and she was suspended in that moment longer than he was, Casey realised, opening her eyes to find Raffa already slipping his robe over his head. Reaching for her clothes, she started to put them on. A sense of inevitability had gripped her, as if this marked the beginning of the end. She shook it off determinedly as Raffa turned to speak to her.
‘Come as you are,’ he said; ‘that’s all you need.’
As he reached for her hand, she took hold of it with confidence.
He hoisted her to her feet and then paused by the cliff edge, staring out across the vast plain.
‘Are you expecting someone?’ she teased him. There wasn’t a sign of human trespass other than theirs.
‘The wilderness grounds me,’ he said. ‘It reminds me who I am and where I’ve come from.’
And where he must go back to? Casey wondered with a shiver of dread. ‘Will you tell me about your parents?’ she said, clinging on to what felt like their rapidly disappearing time together.
For a moment she thought she had gone too far, but then with a shrug Raffa lifted his powerful shoulder. ‘What I can remember of them,’ he said.
‘If you don’t want to—’
‘No, I do …’ He came away from the edge and stood in the shadow of the mountain. ‘They were killed in a coup many years ago. I was just a baby at the time. My mother could have left the country and fled to safety with me. Instead she sent me to England with a relative, while she stayed on in A’Qaban with my father.’
‘What a beautiful love story—and how tragic.’
‘Yes, it was both of those things.’
As Raffa spoke, his voice so cool and distant, Casey’s heart went out to him. ‘They certainly gave you something to live up to.’
‘Something to live for …’ He spoke firmly, and there was a message in his words that made her fears that their time together was limited all the more real.
She reached for his hand. At first he was unresponsive, but then slowly his fingers relaxed and laced with hers. He’d made her think about the close-knit family she had left behind in England. She couldn’t bear to think that all the good the desert had done Raffa had been undone because of her.
‘I had a very lucky upbringing, and I didn’t mean to pry—’
‘Yes, you did.’ The tug of the old humour on his lips was more than she could have hoped for. ‘That’s not unreasonable,’ he went on. ‘In your place I would have done exactly the same.’
‘And now?’ Lifting her hands, she let them drop to her sides, wondering why she had to blurt out everything in her head.
‘Stop worrying,’ Raffa said, reading her as easily as he always had. ‘Now we swim.’
‘Okay …’ She made a pretence of smiling. This was as good as it seemed. She was having the adventure of a lifetime, and maybe it was the start of something even more than that …
Why shouldn’t it be? Casey demanded, when smutty little doubt demons came to haunt her.
‘What’s this?’ Casey ran excitedly from tree to tree when they reached the rock pool. She reached up to free a plump ripe peach from a palm tree. ‘Did you do this?’
Raffa held out his arms and smiled. ‘That’s the trouble with you city girls.’ He caught her to him when she returned with her prize. ‘You’ve got no imagination. No,’ he insisted when she brought the ripe fruit to her lips, ‘you can’t eat it before you’ve paid for it.’
‘And how am I going to do that with no money to hand? You’re impossible,’ she exclaimed, seeing his expression.
She was happier than she had ever been, Casey realised as Raffa kissed her, and when he released her she realised she was still staring at him like a lovesick fool. She quickly turned her attention to the peach, to distract both of them.
‘Mmm, this is delicious,’ she said, juice running down her chin.
‘Let me help you,’ Raffa suggested. Holding her, he sucked the peach juice from her lips.
‘Aren’t you going to have one of your own?’ She was in no hurry to let him go, and could have stared at him for ever, but there were peaches hanging from every tree. ‘I must have been sleeping when you did this.’
‘You ask too many questions.’ Raffa stared her in the eyes. ‘Why can’t you just enjoy?’
‘We’re never going to make it into the water.’
‘Who says we won’t?’ Raffa turned from teasing the sensitive hollow just below her chin to throwing off his robe in seconds. Standing in front of her like Hercules, he challenged, ‘I’ll race you.’
‘You have an unfair advantage.’
He took unfair advantage of it too, diving in seconds before she arrived. He was already swimming strongly when she joined him, exclaiming in shock at the cooler water on her overheated skin. ‘You said it would be warm.’ She turned around, but he was nowhere to be seen.
‘It is warm,’ Raffa said, making her shriek as he surfaced.
‘You frightened me.’
‘Then may I suggest a drop of chilled juice to dilute your fear?’
‘Here in the pool? You’re joking—’
‘No, I’m not …’ Taking her by the hand, he led her through the shallows to where the waterfall tumbled into the pool, making that part of the water icy cold. ‘Put your hand in here.’
Casey could see nothing beyond the wall of water, but at Raffa’s insistence she thrust her hand into it.
‘Now, feel around … Here, let me help you,’ he shouted above the crash of spray.
The touch of Raffa’s warm arm and shoulder was more than welcome, but she was determined to find it first. ‘I’ve got it,’ she exclaimed triumphantly, pulling out a large glass bottle. Champagne.
‘And glasses,’ Raffa prompted, taking the bottle from her.
‘You must have planned this like a military campaign,’ she said, bracing herself for another sortie.
‘Are you complaining?’ Raffa murmured dangerously close to her ear.
‘Far from it,’ she told him with a happy laugh.
‘Then let’s go and have breakfast.’
She was in over her head, Casey realised, pulling on her clothes. Losing sight of the fact that this could never last because of their relative positions in life was the least of her worr
ies. She was deeply in love and loving every moment of this. She was committed to living the fantasy, Casey thought, following Raffa into the shallows.
And should be committed for doing this, her sensible self insisted.
Maybe, Casey thought, frowning, but in her heart she was totally committed to Raffa and to A’Qaban. How could it be otherwise, when her whole life seemed to have been leading up to this moment?
They got dressed quickly—Raffa in his robe and Casey already regretting the fact that she had scorned the robe he’d offered her in favour of fiddly trousers and a buttoned-up top. Robes were far more accommodating to still-damp bodies, Casey realised, hoiking her undergarments into some sort of order as Raffa went ahead around the sandy rim of the lagoon. He was leading her towards what might have been best described as a shady dell, if there had been oak trees instead of palms. As they rounded a rocky promontory she gasped in disbelief. ‘Croissants?’
Casey stared at the feast laid out on a rug in front of them. There were even cushions to sit on, in the shade at the edge of the lagoon. On a clean linen tablecloth a mouthwatering display of fruit, bread and cheese was spread out, and everything was neatly covered in a net cloth to keep the bugs away.
‘You’re full of surprises,’ she said, shaking her head in disbelief.
‘For a wild man of the desert?’ Raffa suggested dryly, throwing her a glance.
‘Oh, please don’t be insulted. I mean it as a compliment. But did we really bring everything here on the horse? I remember the bulging saddle bags, but I had no idea you’d brought so much.’ Clapping her hands together, she stared at Raffa and then at the food.
Suddenly she saw the light. Raffa must think her really dumb, Casey concluded.
‘What’s wrong?’ he said.
‘You didn’t prepare any of this, did you?’ She gestured in disappointment and let her hands drop back to her sides.
‘Did I say that I did?’ Raffa’s luminous gaze sharpened.
‘You didn’t have to. I presumed …’ She glanced around. ‘But then I’m also guilty of presuming we’re alone out here. And that can’t be true, can it, Raffa?’