“Come.” He gave a light tug on her wrist. “Kiss me.”
It was an outright order in a tone that brooked no argument—one that warned that any resistance, any recalcitrance, would be dealt with in a way she wouldn’t want to learn about.
He exerted a steady, inexorable pull. She took a step forward, then another, then found herself sinking onto the divan beside him.
She waited, but he didn’t reach for her and pull her down to him; instead, he studied her for a moment, then he lifted his free hand and lightly—oh so lightly—caressed the delicate curls brushing her nape. The touch—so subtle, so unexpectedly evocative—made her shudder and close her eyes.
“Now you’re in my harem, you have to learn to be a houri.” He waited until she opened her eyes, until she fell into the green depths of his, then stroked her nape lightly again and murmured, “Come—kiss me, and give me your mouth.”
Her hands were rising to frame his face before she’d thought, then she tried to think and discovered she couldn’t. That somehow the draw, the hypnotic tug he exerted on her, was all consuming, making thinking redundant, at least for now.
She wanted to kiss him. Her lips throbbed as she leaned over him. As she paused with their lips less than an inch apart, letting her breath bathe his, feeling his exhalation brush hers.
Then she closed that last inch and kissed him. Let herself flow into the kiss, into her memories, into her long-ago fantasies.
He was the sultan, the sheik of her girlhood dreams, a figure larger than life, better than any mortal man could ever be. A better lover, a stronger warrior, a more powerful lord—a masterful seducer.
She opened her mouth over his, sent her tongue between his lips to mate with his, and did as he’d commanded—as she knew he wished—and fed him kisses, kisses more ardent than any she’d imagined gifting any man, more wanton, more abandoned, more urgent and arousing.
He responded, met her and matched her, demanded, but didn’t take the reins, refused to absolve her of her duty.
He hadn’t released her wrist; his fingers remained shackled about it as she leaned on his chest, her lips fused with his, and felt herself drowning, growing giddy, her wits and senses swirling in the sea of desire she’d evoked.
It was he who broke the kiss, drawing back just enough to meet her eyes. Then his hand rose, sliding across the back of her neck to cup her nape, holding her there, letting her feel the weight and strength of his hand.
Then he released her wrist, reached down, and, with a surprisingly quick few flicks, freed the back of her skirt and tossed it up to her waist.
She sucked in a breath at the cool touch of the air on her exposed skin, caught and held that breath, her lungs seizing as his hand closed possessively over one bared globe.
He caught her eyes, flexed his hand, flagrantly kneading, then, exerting pressure, he drew her lips closer. Just before he kissed her, he murmured, “Now those words apply.”
She understood, but as his lips closed over hers and heat arced, sparked, then raced between them, through them, over them, building into a now-familiar conflagration, she knew she wouldn’t need to remember his words.
This was her dream, not his, and it was even better than her girlish imagination had painted it. He was her sheik come to life, determined to ravish her, to demand her sexual surrender…. She wasn’t about to stop him.
This was what she wanted, what she’d brought them here to achieve. The last stage in her seduction…she suddenly discovered just how hungry she was, how desperate she could grow to feel his hands on her.
He shifted, then rolled her into the cushions, then rolled again, and she lay beneath him.
She arched and her senses exulted, glorying in the solid hardness of his body over hers, holding her trapped, pinned beneath him. Her naked bottom lay on the red silk brocade, a cool touch at first, but it quickly heated. One hard hand remained beneath her, idly sculpting, for the moment waiting.
His other hand had slid from her nape; palm and fingers now cruised the gold silk of her bodice, taut and straining to contain her already swollen breasts. She arched into his touch, eloquently if wordlessly inviting more. His fingers found the line of buttons closing her bodice, traced, fumbled.
He drew back from the kiss, looked down at the tiny buttons. “Open your bodice.”
Another order; there was something in his face, in the hard lines and planes, that sent a delicious thrill skittering through her as she drew her hands from his hair and obeyed.
Any doubt that what she’d glimpsed wasn’t real—that his desire for her didn’t burn with a raging flame, didn’t drive him—disappeared in the instant she slid the last button free. He pushed her hands aside, pressed the halves of her bodice wide, paused for a heartbeat to examine what he’d uncovered—then he bent his head and feasted.
As if he were starving—as if he and his senses could never, would never get enough of her, not enough to satisfy.
She writhed and burned beneath his hands, his lips, his too-knowing caresses. Her gasps and moans, orchestrated by a master, filled the room, each sound another note in a sensual sonata that hypnotized and lured. Each lick, each evocative suckling sent sensation spearing through her; she welcomed every streak of lancing passion, every lapping flame of desire—embraced them, offered herself up to them, and him.
Of course he knew.
Just as he knew that that wouldn’t be enough to satisfy either of them. She felt nothing but leaping expectation when he shifted back and between them drew up the front of her skirt. The back had already been trapped high under her back and shoulders when he’d rolled them
; with the front lifted, too, she lay all but naked beneath him, her hips and long legs exposed to his gaze, displayed against the red-silk brocade.