by Kim Lawrence
Gabby, her heart hammering, nodded mutely, the memory of the surge of his body against her hand still making her weak with lust and sheer longing.
Rafiq carried on kissing her while unfastening her skirt and sliding it down her hips. Her pants followed. He disentangled her fingers from his hair and raised himself up on one hand to look down at her.
‘You are so beautiful, Gabriella…’ He pressed a hand hard to his chest and swallowed. ‘So beautiful that it hurts. He looked as astonished to hear himself make the confession as Gabby was.
‘You are very good at multi-tasking,’ she breathed against his lips.
He lifted his head, breathing hard, and flashed a white grin. ‘I am good at many things.’ Her blush drew a delighted throaty laugh from him. ‘But sadly very out of practice.’
Because of his illness? She pushed aside the thought, and wondered what constituted ‘out of practice’ to Rafiq. A week? A month?
‘Don’t worry,’ she said, literally shaking with need. ‘I’m not a tough audience.’
Rafiq’s eyes darkened as he read the glow of need in her cerulean eyes. He stood up, drawing a protest from Gabby, who drew herself up on her knees to cling to his leg. She let go and settled back with a sigh as he began tearing off his clothes with flattering urgency.
After fighting his way out of his shirt he flung it over his shoulder, minus any buttons. His body had the sort of perfection that she had always imagined did not exist outside the creative powers of an artist. But he was no cold statue. And no artist, no matter how skilful, could have reproduced the earthy sexuality he projected.
His skin was an even gold, and as he stood in a pool of warm light it gleamed like oiled silk. The muscles in his upper body were impressively developed, and there was no surplus fat to mar the perfect muscular definition of his washboard-flat belly.
Holding her eyes, he unbuckled the belt of his trousers and let them fall. A moment later he kicked aside his shorts and sat on the side of the bed.
The breath snagged in her aching throat as her eyes slid down his body. She swallowed and looked away quickly when she reached his pulsating manhood.
He laughed and said, ‘You are allowed to look and touch.’ The smile died from his lips and he added in a hard, driven tone, ‘Touch me, Gabriella. I need to feel your hands on me. I have been needing it from the moment I laid eyes on you.’
The raw need in his voice sent a fierce thrill through Gabby. She reached out and laid her hand on the hair-roughened skin of his chest. Then, leaning up, she kissed him on the mouth—a deep kiss with all of her heart in it. A soft fractured moan drifted from deep within her as they touched for the first time skin to skin, her breasts crushed against his chest. She ran her hands over his muscled thigh, then softly her fingers curled over his engorged shaft. The breath left her lungs in a shaky gasp of wonder.
The thought of all of him inside her burnt away the last threads of Gabby’s control. She felt liberated. She felt alive.
His mouth was against hers. He was speaking—they were both speaking, but not necessarily in the same language. Their jerky, disconnected words were interspersed with frantic touching, hungry kisses and hoarse moans.
Gabby clung tight when Rafiq wrapped his arms around her and fell backwards, pulling her down on top of him as the silk cushions fell on the floor.
The tortured need throbbing inside him threatened his control as she pressed her lovely firm breasts against his chest and whispered, ‘Please make it stop hurting, Rafiq.’
He held her hips and flipped her over, pulling her underneath him, and then he raised himself on one elbow and looked down into her face. Her pink lips were swollen, and in her big eyes the blue was only a thin band around her dilated pupils.
Gabby’s heart was pounding so hard she wouldn’t have heard if Rafiq had chosen that moment to speak. But he didn’t. Without saying a word, his eyes burning into her, he took her wrists and pinioned them either side of her head.
He released one hand to stroke her, his fingers sliding over the damp skin of her hip and thigh while his knee nudged her legs apart. His fingers moved to her inner thighs, gradually moving with torturous slowness until he touched the moist heat between her legs.
Rafiq’s body shuddered with the effort of not plunging straight into her sweet, wet heat. He watched her pale body writhe as he touched her, heard the fractured little sobs in her throat as she cried his name over and over, and it raised the heat roaring in his blood to fever pitch.
No woman had ever been so sensitive to his touch. He had never wanted to please a woman more. He had never wanted to possess a woman more. He shook quite literally with raw need. His nostrils flared as he bent his head and ran his tongue down the soft curve of her belly, smelling the scent of her arousal, breathing it in deeply.
Gabby’s teeth sank deep into her lower lip. She could taste blood in her mouth but barely registered it as his fingers stroked her, flicking across her tight nub, driving her to the brink before sliding into her smooth slickness.
Her cheeks flushed bright, she was delirious with pleasure.
‘You’re so tight,’ he murmured, biting softly into the curve of her neck, kissing the corner of her mouth, and her eyelids as he finally settled between her legs, the silky hard tip of his erection nudging her.
Then he was inside her. One long, deep thrust buried him deep in her very core. Gabby’s untutored body convulsed with shock at this new and most shocking of all sensations, and above her Rafiq stilled.
Gabby, her senses glutted with new sensations, barely registered the cry that was torn from his throat. Rafiq was filling her, stretching her, and when he moved, sinking in and withdrawing over and over, pushing deeper, touching the core of her, she lost all sense of self. All that was left was primal driving need and Rafiq.
When the climax hit her she called his name and clung to him. She felt close to losing consciousness as every pleasure-soaked cell of her body exploded. She heard him cry her name and felt the hot rush of his own release. They lay there, their sweat-slick bodies entwined, gasping for air.
Slowly reality seeped back, and Rafiq began to pull away.
‘No!’ she cried, throwing her arms across his broad back.
Rafiq turned his head to angle a questioning look into her flushed face. She looked like a wanton angel, her lips red and wet, her smooth cheeks flushed, her eyes bright and her wild blonde hair spread out on the bright silk pillows.
‘Can we just stay like this for a little while?’ she coaxed. ‘You don’t have to do anything, just…’ She lowered her eyes and stroked his back. His skin felt like satin. ‘You feel so good…Just a little while…please?’
Her wide eyes flew to his face as she felt him pulse inside her. ‘Well, we could do something—if you like?’
He fixed her with a smouldering stare. ‘Yes, you little witch—I like,’ he growled. ‘I have never felt this alive in my life.’
The second time was slower, their passion tinged with a sweet, aching tenderness that brought tears to her eyes—tears that overflowed when her climax claimed her. Rafiq accepted the tears and held her, rocking her back and forth slowly until they abated.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THEIR lovemaking had been meant as a brief escape, a mechanical exercise—not something that was life-affirming, a confirmation that he was alive.
Rafiq had never wanted to live so much in his life!
As their sweat-slick bodies cooled his brain started functioning again, and he was furious with himself for allowing his emotions to become involved. Once he had called himself every word for a total bastard in his multilingual vocabulary his anger shifted to Gabriella—Gabriella, who had deceived him. Even now he could not believe that it was possible. There was a dream-like quality to the entire experience—he was living a forbidden fantasy.
Looking down at her tousled blonde head, he felt his anger slide away. Something twisted in his chest: a pain he avoided analysing. He smoothed down her h
air, soft like silk. He breathed in the scent of her skin. It smelt of roses and of her and of him.
His arms tightened around her warm, pliant body, and she made a little noise in her throat like a contented kitten.
‘Sorry about the crying, Rafiq.’ Gabby was grateful that he hadn’t asked her to explain the overflow of emotions. ‘Thank you,’ she whispered, kissing his hand.
His racing mind slowed as he let her softness seep into him. He didn’t want to move and he didn’t want to think—because this was one conversation he didn’t want to have. Not yet.
He ought to feel ashamed—well, he did. But the emotion was submerged beneath layer on layer of gloating male satisfaction. She was his.
In his arms she stirred again, running a hand down his hair-roughened chest and then circling his pebble-hard flat male nipple with her fingertip. The lustful surge of his body made it clear that if he put off the conversation much longer it wasn’t going to happen for some time.
‘How is this possible, Gabriella?’
With lazy, cat-like grace Gabby, who had been lying with her back curved into his chest, rolled over onto her stomach, sending a shower of silk cushions cascading onto the floor.
She propped herself up on one elbow, and with one hand under her chin looked enquiringly into his face.
‘I was just asking myself the same thing,’ she admitted. She knew he wanted this to be straightforward sex, but unable to stop herself, and frankly not caring if she came across as besotted and hero worshipping, she added huskily. ‘That was—you are—utterly and totally incredible.’
‘And you were a virgin,’ he charged grimly.
While his shock and horror at the moment of discovery had been almost instantly swamped by an elemental surge of primal gratification that he was her first lover it was now back in spades.
Gabby blinked as she registered the simmering outrage in his voice and manner. His reaction struck her as extremely unreasonable. What was she meant to do? Deny it? Or produce some sort of defence?
‘That bothers you?’
‘Bothers me?’ he echoed incredulously. ‘What do you think? A woman of your age would normally have had many lovers.’
‘You’re the one with the file on me. You knew I didn’t have a boyfriend. You said—’
‘No man in your life at present,’ he cut in. ‘I knew you had not had a long-term relationship or a live-in lover, not never had sex! It genuinely never even crossed my mind that a woman who looks like you, who is so obviously passionate…’ He rolled onto his back and propped a hand under his head. ‘And last night I saw my brother climb into your bed.’
‘Bedroom—not bed. Big difference. It’s not my fault if you have a smutty imagination.’ He thinks I’m beautiful! Gabby struggled to get her head around this amazing fact.
‘This is not something you were complaining about earlier.’
Gabby turned a reproachful look on him.
‘What is this? An interrogation? Hakim and I just chatted.’
‘Chatted?’ Rafiq echoed. ‘You chatted?’ It was inexplicable to him that any man could be in her bedroom and just chat.
‘I didn’t say we had sex. You just assumed…’
‘You wanted me to assume.’
The accusation struck Gabby as deeply unfair. ‘I hardly think you are in any position to criticise me. It’s not my fault you were spying on me.’
‘Do not be ridiculous!’
It was the first time she could recall Rafiq dodging her gaze. A sure sign of guilt.
‘I did try to tell you nothing happened. You refused to listen.’ Gabby glared at him. He had spoilt everything and her mellow glow of contentment had vanished.
And sex didn’t seem to have made him very happy either, she thought, studying his face and noticing for the first time the greyish tinge beneath the surface of his usually vibrant skin.
Fear rushed through her. During the time when she had been in his arms, when they had been one, she had forgotten. Now the fear came rushing back.
‘Oh, my God—this is all my fault.’ She scrabbled into a kneeling position and began to pull the silken throw that had slipped to the floor over him.
Rafiq caught her hand and trapped it under his as he pressed it flat on his belly.
Her fingers spread and flexed as contact with his hair-roughened skin made things stir and shift lustfully deep inside her. What sort of woman did that make her? He was ill, and all she could think about was sex.
‘What are you doing?’
Gabby shook her head. ‘I don’t know. I make a pretty clueless nurse,’ she admitted ruefully. ‘Can I get you something? Water and an aspirin…?’ She lifted a hand to her head and groaned remorsefully. ‘I’m so selfish. You should be conserving your strength, not…’
His smile was tinged with tenderness as he watched the blush spread across her face. His teasing expression abruptly faded. ‘Not stealing your virginity?’
She squeezed her eyes tight shut and groaned. ‘I don’t know why you’re acting like this is such a big deal. It was hardly stealing—I virtually begged you.’
‘I’m not ill, Gabriella. I just didn’t get much sleep last night.’ Not much as in practically none. Rafiq had spent the night torturing himself, thinking of her in his brother’s arms.
‘Are you sure?’
He nodded.
‘And do you expect to get much sleep tonight?’
Encouraged by his audible sharp intake of breath, she threw him a look of provocative challenge and, holding his eyes, ran a finger down the hard plane of his chest, before spreading her fingers across the hair-roughened skin of his washboard-hard belly, then lower.
‘Stop that!’ he growled, and Gabby stopped smiling.
The indentation between her brows deepened as her blue gaze fluttered questioningly to his face. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘You can ask me that?’ He sounded amazed and inexplicably angry as he lifted a hand and tucked it under his head. Refusing to acknowledge the hurt bewilderment in her eyes, his own eyes slipped downwards to the gentle sway of her coral-tipped breasts. He swore, and snapped, ‘For pity’s sake put some clothes on.’
Gabby flinched as though he had struck her. His words had made her feel painfully self-conscious of her nakedness—a nakedness that moments earlier had felt empowering and natural.
‘Why? Don’t I come up to your high standards?’ she asked, grabbing the cover she had draped over him and wrapping it around her own shoulders.
He looked at her as though she was insane. ‘Because I can’t think with your breasts in my face.’ He couldn’t think anyway. His brain was still refusing to move beyond the shock that she’d been a virgin.
Gabby blinked, and blushed again as her eyes slid to the telltale imprint of his arousal stirring beneath the fine silk covering.
‘Oh!’ she said, feeling slightly mollified. She was no expert, but for a man who was not in the most robust of health he appeared to have remarkable stamina. ‘Is that a problem? You could think later.’
‘You appear not to appreciate the seriousness of this situation.’
‘What situation?’
‘You were an innocent.’
‘I realise that in your world not being a virgin lowers my market value, but in my world…Dear God, the way you’re talking anyone would think I was pregnant.’
Rafiq froze. ‘You could be.’ He struck the heel of his hand to his head and groaned.
Watching him, Gabby was distracted by the rippling contraction of his stomach muscles as he sat upright in one fluid flowing motion. She watched covetously as he swung his legs over the side of the divan and continued to display a total lack of self-consciousness over his naked state.
‘Could be?’ she echoed vaguely.
‘Of course you could be. You’re not taking contraception.’ Virgins did not need to. His voice was heavy with self-recrimination as he added, ‘And I didn’t take precautions.’
That this was the first time
in his life he had been so criminally careless would not by his reckoning be a comfort to her, and it was certainly no excuse. There was no excuse!
Gabby opened her mouth to tell him he could relax, that there was no chance she was pregnant. Not that she had shown any more care of the consequences than he had. It was by pure chance not cautious foresight that she happened to be protected. She had started taking the contraceptive pill the previous month, when her doctor had prescribed it in the hope of regulating her irregular and painful periods.
Instead she heard herself say, ‘Look, even if I was it wouldn’t be the end of the world.’
He looked at her as though she had lost her mind. ‘A life, a child, can never be dismissed so carelessly.’
She flushed at the reprimand. ‘There is no child.’
‘I don’t think you have thought about the implications. If you are pregnant, the child would be heir to the throne.’
‘Great—let’s get married on the off-chance!’
He responded to her sarcasm with a nod of agreement. ‘Obviously the child would only be heir if he was legitimate.’
Gabby couldn’t believe what she was hearing. ‘It might be a girl.’
He dismissed the possibility with a regal wave of his hand. The response drew a choked laugh from Gabby.
‘Do you realise how crazy this is? We’re discussing a child that doesn’t even exist.’
‘Maybe not now,’ he continued, speaking his thoughts aloud, ‘but it could. I have months to live yet.’
His unemotional observation sent a chill down Gabby’s spine.
‘I don’t know why I haven’t thought of this before,’ he said.
Gabby couldn’t believe he was suggesting what it sounded like. ‘Possibly because you were still in touch with reality then?’
‘It would secure the future of the throne. My father would guide you when the time comes—you would be regent for our son.’
She could almost see the scheme forming in his head. ‘You have it all planned out, then?’
Her tone brought his attention to her face. ‘Have I said something wrong?’