by Pippa Roscoe
‘That is so good,’ she praised unashamedly when she’d finished it. ‘I’m going to have to learn how to make it.’
She chanced a look at Kal and veered back to the cityscape before she could be burned further by the heat in eyes heavy-lidded with desire. It scorched the air she breathed, jolted her heartbeat and pulsed and flared through her body.
By the time Star was ready to risk another glance at him, he had turned towards the desert, staring at the magnificent view as if it were his. Possessively. The way she wanted him to look at her. The way she’d thought, just for a moment, he had.
Blushing, she returned her gaze to the same view, wondering whether Catherine had ever seen it. Star had read over the journals Catherine had written while in Duratra, but she couldn’t seem to make the descriptions from then fit with what surrounded her now.
‘I wonder what this view would have looked like a hundred years ago,’ she half whispered, her voice breaking on the words emerging from a throat half raw from need.
His reply was so long coming she’d begun to wonder whether he’d heard her.
‘There was less metal, less chrome and glass, and it was a touch smaller. But one hundred years ago, Burami was still an impressive city.’ She watched the way his throat worked as he swallowed, his eyes frowning once again at the view. ‘The market you passed on the way to the palace has been there for nearly three hundred years. The skyline would have been not too dissimilar, the silhouette of the minaret and the cross, the turrets of the university. We’ve always had a mix of cultures, religions—mosques near churches, near synagogues, near temples...all from the very beginning.’
He spoke with a cultural pride that was unfamiliar to her, a sense of personal history she felt that she’d only just begun to experience herself.
‘How long has your family been here?’
‘Since around then.’
‘It must be incredible—that sense of history, that sense of ancestry.’
‘That’s one way of looking at it. What about you?’
Star sighed. ‘We’ve just discovered a grandfather on our mother’s side.’
‘And that is what has you upset?’
She resisted the urge to ask how he knew, but it must have been clear on her face. She’d never been very good at hiding her emotions.
‘I... I have let my sisters down. My mother,’ she said, hating the way that saying it out loud seemed to make it real.
‘I know that feeling. With my brother. My father. I wasn’t exactly their first choice,’ he said before coming to an abrupt halt.
‘Choice for what?’
She watched the way his jaw clenched in the darkness of the oncoming night.
‘The head of the family business.’
‘Really?’ she asked, surprised. ‘You’d be my choice.’
‘You don’t know me,’ he replied darkly.
It was on the tip of her tongue to deny what he was saying. A half-forgotten song lyric hummed in her head about having loved someone for a thousand years... She shook her head, as if to free the words, but it only sent them scattering. Instead, she caught the words of one of her most loved books.
‘“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy; it is disposition alone. Seven years would be insufficient to make some people acquainted with each other, and seven days are more than enough for others.”’
He barked a laugh, not at her but as if with her, and she felt the appraisal in his eyes even as he made a joke of it. ‘You just happen to have that to hand?’
‘It’s Austen. She should always be “to hand”.’
‘Oh, so you’re one of those,’ he teased.
‘If by “one of those” you mean someone who reads romance then yes, I am,’ she said with pride. ‘And there’s absolutely nothing wrong with that.’
He held his hands up in surrender. ‘I believe you.’
‘No, you’re humouring me. That’s a very different thing,’ she said, not unkindly. ‘It’s very easy to be cynical and sharp-edged in this world. It’s harder to have hope, to hold to romance and sentimentality, to allow the enjoyment of them and the sheer optimism, the faith of it all to sink deep into your bones.’
‘Faith?’
‘The conviction that love in whatever form conquers all.’
‘And if I say I don’t believe, does it knock a romance reader down dead?’
‘No,’ she replied, unable to turn to look at him with the smile on her face. ‘But it seriously diminishes your chances of finding true love.’
There was a beat—of something. Something that passed his eyes and crossed his features before he barked out another laugh that had both traces of the humour she sensed in him but also the weight that pulled at him. And it was that weight she felt partly tied to, as if the deeper it plunged, the more it drew her with it.
She caught herself frowning, not because she was confused by her feelings—she knew what they were, knew that this attraction was something as unique as it was raw. She was confused as to what to do about it. Because, while she didn’t need to know the why of it, Kal was holding back and Star just wasn’t confident or experienced enough to call it out into the open.
But she didn’t want to walk away from it either. She couldn’t explain it. But she was sure, more sure than anything she’d ever felt, that if she walked away now, she’d never find this again. This feeling that sank into her skin and delved into her bones, that caught her by the throat and squeezed at her lungs. She wanted to gasp for air, she wanted to gasp for him. Just thinking about the way he made her feel had her pulse quickening, and something deep within her quivering.
The only place he’d ever touched her was the thumbprint he’d left on her bottom lip. She bit down once again, into the soft flesh as if...
‘Stop,’ he commanded.
‘Stop what?’ she asked, her words breathless, as she peered at him through the sensual haze that had descended like a fog. The muscle in his clenched jaw flared again and again, as if he was as reluctant as she was to voice this thing between them.
‘Stop looking at me like that,’ he ordered, and she wondered how she looked at him. She’d thought it was just her who experienced the flashover when their gazes met. The thought that he could feel something similar...
‘Tell me,’ she whispered, hoping he couldn’t detect the begging in her tone, the tremor in her voice as she shuddered under the weight of her attraction to him.
‘Tell you what?’ he asked, his gaze still clinging to the horizon as if his life depended on it.
‘What you see when I look at you like that.’
He bit out something in Arabic that sounded hot and heavy, half-prayer, half-curse. She saw him inhale, drawing oxygen deep into his lungs and expanding his chest, the breadth of it making her palms itch and her fingers tingle. He moved his gaze from the horizon to the table between them, as if having to work his way up to looking at her. And when his eyes finally cut across the space, up to her face to meet her eyes, she felt branded.
‘It’s not what I see but what I feel,’ he said, his voice scraping over her nerves with wicked deliciousness. ‘A heat that snags on a spark just begging to catch fire. I see a want so pure, so powerful, so...naïve...as if it would rush headlong into a burning forest and be happy to die in its blaze.’ His eyes interrogated hers, leaving nothing unseen, unexamined. ‘I see fuel for a flame that lies deep within me and a fire that I’m too tempted by to not get burned.’
His words caught her heart and drew it upwards into the night sky. Not one book had prepared her for how this felt.
‘Which is why you should go,’ he said, dragging his gaze from hers, but it was too late. The damage was done. ‘You’re leaving tomorrow,’ he clarified to the question that had yet to leave her lips.
‘I know,’ she said simply.
�
�I can’t follow you.’
‘I didn’t ask you to.’ She knew that he belonged here as much as she was needed in Norfolk. But she also knew that she would never forgive herself if she walked away from the promise of this night. One night.
‘Star, you’re innocent. You are—’
‘A virgin? Yes. I am. Does that mean I don’t know what I want?’ she replied.
‘No, but that doesn’t mean I can give you what you need.’
‘Oh. Would you not treat me well?’ she asked, not thinking for a second that he wouldn’t.
‘Of course I would.’
‘Would you be selfish and only take what you wanted?’ She couldn’t even imagine it.
‘No, I—’
‘Would you not be very good?’
The question was a taunt and his response, ‘Star...’ was a growl on his lips, a warning and an incitement, a call to arms that she felt down to her core, setting her on fire, energising her in a way she could never have imagined.
‘So you think I should leave and instead find someone who I’m less attracted to, who might not be good or treat me well and only be selfish in their wants?’
* * *
The thought burned the back of his throat and bruised his palms from clenching his fists too tightly. He couldn’t argue with her logic. He had spent years cutting a swathe through Europe’s most beautiful women and not a single one of them had caused this...arcane chemistry that burned the air between them—and his willpower to dust.
With his unseeing gaze still on the horizon, he felt her eyes like a brand against his skin, waiting for an answer, a response. His mouth ached to say the words, but he held them knowing he needed to be strong. He felt the subtle shift of her body as the fight left it and he closed his eyes, not wanting to see how giving up haunted her eyes.
Wordlessly she stood and approached the balcony as if the silhouette of his city contained answers that he was unable to give. She bowed her head and for a moment looked defeated. He wasn’t arrogant enough to believe it was all him.
‘I have let my sisters down.’
‘You’d be my choice.’
‘“It is not time or opportunity that is to determine intimacy...”’
Snippets from their conversation whispered once again in his ear, threatening to pull him under, the word ‘intimacy’ like a spell drawing him to her. Before his mind could catch up, his body had taken him to her.
He stood behind her, inches from her, his mind on all the reasons why giving in to this desire would be bad and his body itching to touch all the reasons why it wouldn’t be. The glorious river of red had fallen over her shoulder, the delicate curve of her neck exposed. But it was when she moved her head slightly to the side, her pale skin gleaming in the light of the moon, willingly exposing her greatest vulnerability, surrendering to him completely, that he was lost.
He placed his hands against the stone balustrade either side of Star’s, encircling her without yet touching her. The roar of blood in his veins, the pounding beat of his heart in his ears—something primal, elemental was taking over, and as he placed his lips against that stretch of the palest, smoothest skin he offered his first prayer in over three years.
The shudder that travelled through him rippled through her and he couldn’t tell whether it was her legs shaking or his. He pressed his body into hers, leaning them both gently against the balcony, trapping her, holding her still. Her head fell back against his shoulder, her hair streaming over his forearm, offering him access to more of her. Rough stone was replaced by smooth skin as his hands left the balcony and swept around her petite body. He prised his eyes open to see the valley between breasts that were made to be held in his palms. He was torn, wanting to take this slow and wanting to take it all.
‘Please,’ she whispered.
And the leash on his restraint was lifted.
His hands swept over her breasts, palming the weight of them and feeling complete. His thumbs brushed her nipples into stiff peaks, ringing a shuddered moan that tightened Khalif’s arousal. As if feeling it, Star arched back into his groin, pressing against the length of his erection until it was cradled against her bottom. Desire exploded on his tongue and he gently scraped his teeth against the muscle of her neck. She shivered again—and he felt it against his chest, his hands, his thighs and his calf muscles, questioning why they were still standing.
It seemed inconceivable to him that Star was a virgin and, despite feeling all kinds of selfish, he couldn’t bring himself to stop. Unless she wanted him to.
‘Star, you need to know that if you want me to stop—’
‘Don’t stop, please, I—’
He bent his head to hers so that his lips were against her ear. ‘Nothing would make me stop. Not the sun falling from the sky, the desert freezing over, floods, locusts, or a third world war. Nothing would make me stop...but one word from you.’
‘I don’t need—’
‘Star. At any point, do you understand? You can stop me at any point.’
CHAPTER FOUR
NOTHING WOULD MAKE me stop. Not the sun falling from the sky... Nothing...but one word from you.
Star couldn’t deny that she had been nervous until he’d said those words. Words that had overflowed with the same need, want, yearning that she felt deep within her, and the only thing she was afraid of was him walking away.
She twisted in his arms, turning to face him, to look up into his eyes so that he knew. So that he believed her when she said, ‘Yes. I understand.’ She searched his face as if she was seeing it for the first time. Emboldened by his declaration, she was ready to stand in the path of his flame.
‘Show me?’ she asked, the weight of her desire making her voice shake.
He pulled his gaze from his observation of her face, her body, and dragged—reluctantly, it seemed—his eyes back to hers. ‘Show you what?’ he asked.
She bit her lip, trying to stop the smile that was ready to burst against her mouth. ‘Just how good you are.’
She watched as the rich brown depths of his eyes were eclipsed by the pitch black of his pupils, his response marked in deep red slashes across his cheekbones. He claimed her then, passionately, possessively, his lips crushed against hers, his tongue slipping into her mouth, tangling with her as deeply and completely as she wanted him.
His hands drew her to him, the soft curves of her chest pressed against the hard ridges of his, but it wasn’t enough. For either of them. He drew her up and she felt herself lifted from her tiptoes, her legs instinctively wrapping around his slender hips until she was above him, his neck bent back to kiss her, her hair streaming down around them, curtaining them within red velvet tendrils.
Her hands braced against his shoulders, revelling in the flex of his muscles beneath her fingertips, the power as he held her there, restrained and raw—and all for her. He looked up at her as if she were the most incredible thing he’d seen and she felt it. For the first time she really felt it.
He walked them back from the balcony and into the living area and a thought snagged at her mind. ‘Is it okay? That we’re here? That we...’ She didn’t quite know how to finish that sentence, but she read the understanding in his eyes.
‘It is. This suite...it’s mine.’
It was the first time she had seen him look worried, as if concerned what her reaction would be, or what questions she might ask. ‘Okay,’ she said simply, her faith and trust in him complete. He looked as if he were about to say something, to qualify or justify. ‘It’s okay,’ she said again, before pressing a kiss to his mouth. Then another. And another. Lips brushed against lips until he opened beneath her and this time it was her tongue that led the dance, and raised a dragon within her. One that breathed fire and clawed skin. He had cast a spell over her and she felt transformed.
She lost herself to the feel of him beneath her, eyes drifting clo
sed to savour the moment, and when they opened there was nothing in his gaze but lust. He turned and walked them through a doorway and into a room that faced the same balcony, the same view. Moonlight poured in through the glass doors, casting a silvery glow on a large bed with pure white sheets. Very slowly he drew her downward, his arms and hands cradling her back, so that she was ready when the back of her thighs hit the surprisingly high mattress. She looked up and saw the net canopy hanging from a hook in the ceiling placed at the centre of the bed and stretching out to the four corners. She felt like a princess and almost said as much, until she caught the look in Kal’s eyes as he took her in, leaning back on her hands.
She watched as Kal pulled his shirt from the waist of his trousers, slowly undoing each button and revealing inch after inch of impeccable bronzed skin. Only once he had removed the shirt could her eyes roam as freely across his body as she’d wished.
He removed his trousers while she was distracted and on her next inhale she saw him standing before her, black briefs hugging his skin, revealing the contours of his body, the dip of his abs, the flare of his hip bones and the length of his arousal.
‘I will stop at any time, Star.’
‘I know. But thank you for saying it,’ she replied sincerely and, no matter what happened that night, she was thankful. Thankful that she was sharing this with Kal.
He came over her on the bed and covered her with his body. It was only then that she realised she was shaking. But the moment his lips touched her skin that shaking became a shiver, became a well of need rising within her.
His hands slid beneath the hem of her top and lifted it over her head, casting the cotton aside as if the few seconds she was hidden from his sight were too much. Slipping the strap of her bra from her shoulder, he pressed kisses across her shoulder as he slipped his hands beneath her and flicked open the clasp. She gasped into the sudden freedom as he threw her pale pink bra from her body and the bed. The fire in Kal’s eyes made her feel glorious as his palms swept up her thighs, rucking the jersey of her skirt into pleats that he bunched in his palms before tugging it gently over her hips and down her legs, from her ankles and onto the floor.