by Dani Collins
“Won’t...?”
“Shut you out. I won’t,” he vowed.
She searched his expression, anguished by the struggle she could see in him, disheartened by how clearly it went against the grain for him. “That’s not a promise you want to make. I can see that much, Karim.”
Why didn’t he want to share himself with her?
His lips pulled back against his teeth.
“But I will.” He came across to cup her cheek. His gaze dropped to her throat, where her pulse throbbed fast. His palm slid down to cover it, so her heartbeat was hitting the heel of his hand. “Because I would do almost anything to touch you.” His voice was both graveled and velvety. “That is the crux of it. And I can’t believe I am handing you that weapon.”
He looked tortured, but if his statement was a weapon, it was one that disarmed her as thoroughly as him. Her eyes burned and the rest of her grew weak. With her own tentative trust building, she set her hand on his chest, where his heart hammered in fierce pounds that made her own echo in her ears.
“It’s the same for me. You know it is,” she whispered.
“Our souls may be destined for hell then, because I have tried to resist—”
He dipped his head and this time, when he dragged his mouth across hers, she melted. The harsh truth was, she wanted him far more than she feared the detriment he might become to her well-being.
And how could she deny the hunger in his kiss? He was so unabashed it was as if he’d let himself off leash. His lips demanded while his tongue took and gave, making her whole body feel gripped in a force that was both energizing and weakening. The pulse that had raced in her throat grew to something she felt in the pit of her belly and at the juncture of her thighs. It was nervous anticipation. Knowledge that this was it.
Neither of them could be torn from the other now.
She clung to him, growing so hot, she whimpered in frustration because she didn’t want to let him go to remove the rest of her clothing. Her one hand went to her back and tried to work the zipper.
He lifted his head, eyes glowing and avid, cheeks flushed, mouth wet and pulling in a nearly cruel grimace.
“We have time,” he said roughly.
“I don’t feel like we do,” she said breathlessly, feeling overcome and anxious and—
With a feral noise, he scooped her up and strode to the bed. His angular features were warrior sharp, hawkish and fierce.
“This,” he said as he set her on the mattress and leaned on the hands he braced beside her shoulders. “This is what scares the hell out of me. It’s your first time and I feel like an animal. If I don’t control it, who will, Galila?”
“Come here,” she demanded. Begged. And set her hand behind his head, moaning in tortured joy when his weight came down on her along with the heat of his lips against hers.
They attacked each other with erotic passion, legs tangling in her gown as she tried to make space for him. Her fingers caught at the collar of his robe, pulling at it so she could taste his shoulder when he dragged his tongue down the side of her neck. Somehow her teeth set against his skin and she had to restrain herself from biting down, but she wanted so ferociously to mark him, it was a fight to keep herself to a scrape and a threat of pain.
“Go ahead,” he said, lifting his head and revealing a dark smile that was so transfixing, she felt it like the sun hitting her bare skin. It lit her up inside and out, nearly blinding her. “Claw at me. Bite me. I want all of it. Whatever is inside you.”
She dragged her nails down his back through his robe, then dug them into his buttocks, hard as steel but flexing at her touch to drive his firm flesh against her sensitive mound.
He cupped her head and held her still for another rapacious kiss. Again and again, he feasted on her, satisfying yet stoking. Driving them both wild until she was ready to cry, she was in a state of such heightened arousal.
“I need to feel you,” she panted when his hot mouth went down her throat again. “Please, Karim.”
His answer was to yank at her bodice, baring her breast to his greedy mouth. She arched, crying out at the sharp pull on her nipple.
“Too hard?” His breath bathed her skin in a tease.
“Never,” she gasped, and dragged at his robe, trying to get beneath it.
He shifted, went after her other nipple with equal fervor while he began gathering her gown up her thighs. The second he found skin, his hand climbed unerringly to the lace that shielded her most intimate flesh.
He groaned as he traced over it. She whimpered at the caress that was desperately needed and not nearly enough.
“Karim,” she begged.
“So ready for me.” He rose to kiss her, but his hand stayed beneath her gown. “Do you think about that night my mouth was here? I do. All the time.”
His finger slid beneath the silk, parting and caressing, making speech impossible.
“I think about you in my office, touching yourself as you pleasured me. I’m jealous.” He probed gently, licking at her panting mouth as he carefully penetrated. “I think about being here like this with you, having you in every way possible because I want you to be mine.”
“I am,” she swore, opening her legs to invite his touch deeper.
“I take care of what’s mine.” He pushed the silk firmly aside, his thick finger making love to her while his thumb teased the knot of nerves that made her writhe in pleasure.
She was going to die, held by his caress on a molten ledge, teased and stroked, heat building until that was all she was. Heat. Blistering heat. She bit her lip, wanting the release but fighting it.
“Karim,” she managed to breathe, stilling his hand. “I want to feel you. Do this together.”
His cheekbones were sharp above cheeks drawn taut. All of him was tense and flexed. Even his lips were pulled back from his teeth in effort.
“Yes,” he hissed and very, very carefully withdrew, then he began to tug at her gown.
It took forever. They kept stopping to kiss. To groan. To caress bared skin and whisper, “Oh, yes. You smell so good. You’re so smooth here. So lovely. So strong.”
Somehow, they managed to strip and she made a keening noise in her throat as they rolled together. The aching swells of her breasts flattened by his hard chest, the roughness of his thighs abrading the insides of hers was sheer magic. She hadn’t known that being naked, skin to skin, sex to sex, would make her so weak. She hadn’t known that his muscles and overwhelming size could be its own aphrodisiac, making her writhe in ecstasy simply because he was against her.
“Galila.” His voice was an abrasive husk, savaged by the same limits of arousal that gripped her.
“I’m ready.” She was going to weep. She was so achingly ready.
He slid against her, parting her folds, lined up for entry. And kissed her as he held himself there. He kissed her as though she was the most precious thing he had ever seen.
“No one else will ever give you this,” he vowed against her mouth, brutally possessive, but truer words had never been spoken.
“No one could.”
There was pressure, invasion. She stiffened a little in surprise, anticipating pain, bracing for it, but he kissed her so tenderly as he exerted that steady pressure.
For one second, as his implacable demand threatened pain, she thought, I can’t. Then it was done and he seemed to become a part of her, mouth open over her trembling lips, thumb caressing her cheek. His hard shape inside her was strange, yet deeply wonderful.
“No one else will ever give me that,” he said with awe and pride. He nibbled her jaw, brushed his lips at her temple, then kissed her once, very sweetly. Then again, this time with more purpose. When he came back a third time, she clung to his mouth with her own.
Their bodies shifted. There was tenderness where they were joined, but nothing more than she c
ould handle, not when arousal was returning with inescapable tingles and clenches of desire.
He was right. This was a type of pleasure she couldn’t give herself, couldn’t have even imagined. She rubbed her face against his neck, wallowing in the weight of his hips, the way smoothing her inner thighs against his hips made him groan.
When he began to withdraw, she clung on with everything in her and he returned with a rush of sensation so acute she gasped.
“Oh,” she breathed, beginning to understand.
“Yes,” he said tightly, eyes deep pools, atavistic and regressive, yet he never lost control. He kept his pace slow, letting her get used to the feel of him forging his way, holding her well inside the concentric circles of pleasure that rang through her with each thrust.
She couldn’t bear it, it was so good, and she turned her mouth against his iron-hard biceps, biting him. Only then did he make a primal noise and pick up the pace. The intensity redoubled. Her body undulated to receive him. The struggle to reach the pinnacle became a fight they fought together with ragged breaths and fisted hands and every ounce of strength they both possessed.
Then she was there, right there, the cataclysm a breath away. She locked her heels at the small of his back, determined to keep him inside her forever. At least while the waves of pleasure rolled over her.
He pressed deep, holding himself flush against her as culmination arrived.
They clung then, holding on to each other as the acute tension released in a near painful rush of heat and such encompassing waves of pleasure she could hardly breathe. If her eyes were open, she was blind. If he said things, she only heard the rush of blood in her ears. What happened to him happened to her, stopping time and holding her transfixed. They were one in a way she hadn’t known was possible.
It was utter perfection that couldn’t be maintained forever, which was a tragedy, she decided, as the rush subsided and the pulses began to fade and she discovered tears on her cheeks.
That supreme ecstasy could be replicated, however. They pleasured each other into delirium twice more before she fell asleep, bound to him in a way that could never be undone.
Which made waking to an empty bed that much more excruciating.
He had promised not to rebuff her, but here she was, forsaken, abandoned and alone. Again.
CHAPTER SEVEN
KARIM HAD MADE a terrible mistake. He had known it as he was offering a vow to Galila that put fissures in his defenses against her. He had known it as he chose to make that vow rather than put off consummation of their marriage—which would have proven his mastery over his corporeal desires.
He hadn’t had the strength. Waiting until his wedding night, hanging on to control while he tried to understand her hesitation, had taken all his willpower. When he had been pushed right up to the edge and given the choice to protect himself or have her, he had chosen to have her.
Which told him everything he needed to know about how dangerous she was to him. Devastatingly dangerous.
Once hadn’t been enough, either. Maybe if she had expressed some reluctance or said she was tender, he might have restrained himself, but she had been as eager as him to bind their flesh irrevocably.
It wasn’t until he woke in the dawn hours, aching to take her a fourth time, that sanity had intruded on the euphoria of honeymoon madness. She was slender, delectable, infinitely erotic but new to lovemaking. He had to find a shred of control, if only to continue calling himself human.
He left for his own apartment where he did everything he could to put himself back inside the armor he had worn until Galila had smashed him apart. He watched the sun come up, letting the brightness burn from his retina the image of her nubile curves. He listened to the morning numbers from overseas, drowning out the memory of her pleasured moans and cries. He showered the scent of her from his skin, then hated himself for all of it and wished himself back in her bed, feeling her warm, smooth skin stretching awake beside him.
He ordered their usual breakfast and had it served in the common dining room between their apartments, as it always was. He should have been sated and mellow. Instead, he was short on sleep and impatient with the staff as they hovered, each with their schedules and correspondence, their headlines and coffee urns.
Was the queen expected? Should they allow her to sleep? The questions were unending and struck him as unbearably intrusive. He gritted his teeth against ordering all of them out.
Despite his conflict, he lingered over his breakfast, full of self-loathing at the weakness he was displaying. His schedule had been emptied for the day after their reception as a courtesy. There was endless work in his office to be attended to and he shouldn’t dally here like some besotted suitor, hoping to catch a glimpse of the object of his affection.
He was a man. One who ought to be in complete command of himself and the world around him. As he became aware of stirring behind the door to her room, he rose to leave.
* * *
Galila had barely been able to look at her own wan face in the mirror, feeling quite a chump for falling for Karim’s promise. At least she had slept well past the time when he normally left for the far side of the palace. She would have the breakfast room to herself.
When she entered the small dining parlor, however, he was standing by the table, reviewing something on the tablet his aid was showing him. He flicked her a glance, one that lasted barely a second, but she saw the consternation in it. Read the lack of welcome in his stiff posture.
Waking alone had been a slap. Walking in here to see he had resumed his cloak of indifference was a kick in the stomach. Having all that play out before the usual assortment of hovering staff added insult to injury. Was it really necessary that she parade her deflowered self before a dozen people?
A case of acute vulnerability struck. Physically, she was fine. She’d had a bath and was only feeling as though she’d pushed herself with stretching poses, not particularly tender from their lovemaking. But memory of their intimacy thinned her skin. She couldn’t bear to look at him, she was so dreading the coolness in his eyes.
“Good morning.” She gathered her shredded composure and found a distant smile. “I thought you would be across the palace by now.”
Silence.
She had the sense he was waiting for her to look at him, but she pretended to take enormous care with selecting cut fruit to add to her yogurt. She brushed away the serving hand that would have poured date syrup over her flatbread.
When she reached for the coffee urn, one of the staff hurried to fill her cup, but Karim said sharply, “I’ll do it. Leave us.”
His tone was so hard, Galila started, then remained on her guard, gaze on her untasted breakfast.
The room cleared in a quick shuffle of feet and a closed door.
She sat with her hands in her lap, discovering she was afraid to move. Not because she feared him, but because she had silently wished they were alone and now discovered the downside of that. No one to hide behind. She didn’t want to move and draw his attention.
“You’re angry with me,” he said.
She was angry with herself.
“Why would you think that?” she murmured, picking up her spoon.
“You’re not looking at me.”
She should have looked at him then, to prove she wasn’t avoiding it, but her eyes were hot. She feared he would read the anguish in them. She had poured out her heart to him last night. She had shared her body in a way she had never done with any other man and now...
“Even if I were...” It wouldn’t matter, she wanted to say, but couldn’t face that harsh reality so head-on. It would hurt too much. “Just go, Karim.”
“I would have made love to you all night, Galila,” he said through his teeth. “Until we were both too weak to move. As it was, I was far too rough with you. How do you feel?”
He hadn’t s
at down again and she only had the nerve to bring her gaze as far as the embroidery that edged his robe.
“Fine.”
He sighed in a way that made her flinch, he sounded so impatient. Then he threw himself into the chair and his eyes were right there, leveled into hers like a strike of sunlight off water, penetrating so deep it hurt. Her eyes began to water and she blinked fast.
Through her wet lashes, she still saw the accusation behind his eyes. The way he searched her face as though trying to find a reason to hate her.
“I know a prevarication when I hear one,” she said, her voice a scrape against the back of her throat. “You left because you’d had enough of me. Just go, Karim. It will be easier to stand being ignored if you’re not doing it in person.”
His hand closed into a fist. With a muttered curse, he unfurled it, then reached to take her wrist, the one that held her spoon. He tugged her to her feet and around the table where he pulled her into his lap.
She landed there stiffly, one elbow digging with resistance into his ribs, face forward as she gritted her teeth.
“What is this?” she demanded. “Some new form of torture where you assume that if I succumbed to you once, I’m yours whenever you want me?”
She very much feared she was. Her bones were already threatening to soften, her whole body wanting to relax into supple welcome, longing to melt into him, skin tingling for the sensation of his hands stroking over her.
“Definitely torture,” he said, rubbing his beard into her neck so she shivered and squirmed in reaction.
His arms stayed locked around her, keeping her on his lap.
She put a little more pressure behind the sharpness of her elbow. “I’m actually hungry,” she said pointedly.
“Eat, then,” he invited, opening his arms and relaxing beneath her, but the way his hands settled on her hip and thigh told her he would restrain her if she tried to rise. “I will hold my wife and consider my inner failings.”