Chapter Nine
When Bassam's lips touched hers, it was as if something had become unfrozen. The work that his kisses had started earlier came to their fruition now, and from being a woman who had imagined herself frigid for the better part of a decade, she felt as if she had been transformed into a being of pure fire.
"Bassam..."
"It is your choice," he growled, his voice roughened with the desire she could feel coursing through his body. "It will always be your choice, just as it ever has been. If you want me to stop, you only have to tell me to stop..."
"I won't," she said automatically. There could be no other response, not now, not to this man who she had just unexpectedly found again after so much time apart.
"And if you want me to leave, then I will leave," he said between kisses, "But dear heaven, Laurel, tell me soon..."
She laughed a little, because no matter what, she was still herself.
"So very desperate, my lord sheikh?" she teased, wrapping her arms around him. "I may have been unlucky in love since we parted, but I could hardly assume the same for you."
"Perhaps I have had some luck, but none of it was like this. It was only ever like this with you, I swear this on my life."
It was a serious response to her flippant question, and she started to draw back, to ask him what this meant to him, speaking like that, but then he lifted her in his arms, sweeping her to the bed.
There were a dozen reasons why this was a bad idea. There were a dozen reasons why she should demand that he put her down, that he should leave her bedroom immediately. He would do it, and then they would be alone again, but they would be safe from this fire that had consumed them almost twenty years ago.
But then they would be alone, and that Laurel could not stand, not when Bassam was so near.
When he laid her down on the bed, he did not do it carelessly, no matter what the desire raging through him demanded. He did not press her to the mattress and start kissing her madly. Instead he stood back and looked at her, his gaze hot but the man himself as still as if he were made of stone.
"What is it?" she asked after a moment.
"I want to see you," Bassam said at last. "May I?"
She wanted to refuse. He had last seen her naked as a twenty-year-old girl. She had been so young then, so carefree and so sure that she would never get any older. Now she was almost twice that, and she knew far better.
Then she realized that no matter what, she did not want anything separating her from this man, not even a thin layer of flannel, and with a quick snakelike motion, she tore the nightgown over her head, kneeling up so that he could see her.
She was still slender, but her breasts were softer now, not as high and firm as they had been. There was perhaps more belly than she would have liked, though there was certainly tone there. She was strong, she exercised and ate well, but there was nothing to be done about the roundness of her belly or the stretch marks that decorated the skin there.
She lifted her chin, because her body had gotten her to this point, daring him to be cruel, but the look on Bassam's face was nothing short of worshipful.
"Beautiful woman," he growled, and he started stripping off his own clothes.
His body had changed as well, she realized. He was thicker through the chest and shoulders than he had been, more powerfully built. There was a prosperous look to him, but overall, he was a man. He had seemed a man when she’d met him, but looking back now, looking at other men in their twenties, they seemed almost like boys to her.
We are new to each other all over again, she thought, and then she gave up analysis when he bore her down to the bed, kissing her face with a need that boiled under the surface of his restraint.
"I have missed you," he said, and then almost as if he were afraid that she would turn away from him, deny him, he kissed her so hard that it took her breath away. She gasped, unable to make a response, and then he was kissing her chin, her throat, her breast bone. One large hand cupped her breast while his mouth found the other, drawing on the nipple there. Shocks of pleasure flowed through her, familiar and at the same time so new that it made her ache.
Her hands reached for him, caressing him as best she could. It was almost as if she wanted to make up for lost time, learning everything that she could about his body. She reveled in the warmth of his skin, how his dark hair felt when she dragged her fingers through it. She couldn't get enough of him, but in a vague way, Laurel knew that wasn't because of their position or how he was keeping her pinned to the mattress. Instead, it was because she would simply never be able to get enough of this man, and that was the long and the short of it.
When he passed his hand between her legs, she was so shocked that she nearly clamped them shut again, but when he shifted his kisses to the tops of her thighs, she groaned with need.
"I won't hurt you," he whispered, glancing up. "Surely you know this?"
"I know you won't," she whispered in reply. She was someone who made words her stock in trade, but right now, she could not make them come out. She could not speak of the fear that it would be so perfect, so good that she would lose her head over him. She would become addicted to the pleasure he would give her, and she would give up all of the strength she had developed. She would want him more than she wanted her dreams and her goals, and that was not a thing she could tolerate.
Instead of saying all of that, she only threw her head back on the pillows and spread her legs for his touch. She combed her restless fingers through his hair, and then when he moved forward to lap his clever tongue along her slit, her fingers tightened on the dark strands.
"Bassam!"
He laughed, a low sound that she somehow felt through her body. "I told you I would stop, but here's the other half of that. I am only going to stop if you tell me to stop and not before."
She started to complain about how unfair that was, but then he set his mouth to her, finding her sensitive clit with just a few strokes, and she gasped. The only way she stopped herself from crying out loud was remembering that her son slept just a few rooms away. Even with that reminder it was a close thing, and that was before Bassam started to lap at her most sacred flesh.
Laurel let the sensations tear through her for a few moments, and then she had to bite her hand in surprise and pleasure. If she hadn't, she surely would have shouted with need when, his tongue keeping up its slow strokes, Bassam started to slide a finger along her entrance.
There was no force about it. There was nothing but the heat of the pleasure he was giving her and the insinuating gentleness of his fingertip gliding along her dampening folds. Slowly and gradually, he penetrated her with his fingers, and soon he was setting a rhythm that matched his tongue.
She felt like a butterfly pinned to a display board. There was nothing she could do, she was helpless under the pleasure he was giving her. All she could do was lie back and try to keep her cries silenced.
Laurel's eyes opened wide when she felt the first strong ripples of pleasure course through her. She could feel her body tightening of its own accord, as if she was anticipating a blow, but this was far from pain. The sensations drew through her, harder and hotter until she was drumming one foot hard against the mattress to try to bear it. Then with the power of a raging fire, the pleasure exploded within her, making her entire body convulse. Somehow, Laurel managed to keep her cries to herself, managed to keep from whimpering or screaming, and her pleasure seemed all the stronger because she had to keep it within her.
The sensations were just beginning to ebb when Bassam lost the control that he’d had. With a growl that seemed to rumble through her bones, he jerked and dragged her dazed and limp body up into his arms. She gasped as her most sensitive flesh came into contact with his erect manhood. If she had been thinking coherently, she might have expected to be too sensitive for more, but this was Bassam, and there was a part of her that had been searching for him for what felt like twenty years.
He knelt up, and with her legs to either side of his hips, he brought her down on his cock, impaling her with one sure and powerful thrust. She had known that he was strong simply from seeing his body before, but now she received full proof of it as he started moving her on him, driving up into her even as he dragged her down to him.
After a stunned moment, Laurel wrapped her arms around him, moving with him. To her shock, her body started to wind tight again, and she groaned, burying her face in his shoulder.
At first his thrusts were rhythmic, and then she could feel the moment when he lost control. Suddenly his strong fingers tightened on her hips, dragging her down onto him and making her cry out quickly and sharply in the darkness. He shuddered, every muscle in his body tightened and strained as she felt him spill deep within her. Later on, she would gasp at the risk they had taken and what they had chanced, but right now, he simply felt so good that she cried with need. Her own climax, weaker, smaller but still shattering, followed on the heels of his, and then she was utterly spent, falling forward on his chest to be held against him.
Their heavy breathing mingled in the air, and when Laurel came to herself, Bassam was planting soft kisses on her forehead.
"I must be getting heavy," she murmured, slightly amused that her words were so slurred. She sounded as if she was almost drunk, and he chuckled.
"No, not at all. You're light, but you are going to get stiff if I keep holding you in this position."
With a care that made a lump rise up in her throat, Bassam laid her down on the bed, stretching out by her side. He stroked his large hand down her body from flank to hip as he kissed her gently.
"How do you feel?" he asked, his voice a soft rumble of thunder.
"Like your woman," she answered honestly, and then she sputtered a little. "I mean...not that...it wasn't... I didn't see it as something that...that binds us together," she stuttered, and he laughed.
"I am not some sheikh out of the stories who considers sleeping with a woman a contract of marriage," he said with a wry humor. "If I was, I would have swept you off to Shajae twenty years ago.
"Sometimes I wish I had."
The words made her glance at him curiously, but then he was throwing his feet over the edge of the bed. She started to ask him where he was going, but then he scooped her up again.
"Seriously, aren't you tired of carrying me like this?" she asked.
"Of course not. With your short legs, this lets me go where I need to go much more quickly."
With a quick peek around to make sure they were unobserved, he carried her nude back to his bedroom, and then on to the luxurious bedroom beyond. He set her on the edge of the bathroom’s platform that bore a deep tub wide enough for four people and began filling it up.
Laurel started to protest, but he smiled at her.
"Trust me. After everything that has happened today, you want this. Otherwise, you are going to find that you can barely move tomorrow.”
She watched through half-closed eyes as he prepared the bath, pouring in a mixture of salt and sweet-smelling herbs from a small bottle. The tub filled rapidly, and then he lowered her into it, coming to settle by her side.
Laurel groaned as he snugged her under his arm, the heat and the steam working loose muscles that she didn't even know were tight.
"This feels so good," she murmured, and he chuckled.
"Good, that's how it's supposed to feel."
She wanted to protest his kindness as he started to wash her, but it just felt too good. She fell into a floating haze of pleasure, letting her eyes drift shut and his hands roam her body.
“I really don't know if I have ever, ever felt this good,” she murmured, and she heard him chuckle. It was strange what a pleasure it was to her, how good it sounded when he was happy.
“Good,” he murmured., “Hopefully this is just the beginning.”
Was she supposed to be worried about that? She thought she should have been, but right now, there was just the sensation of the perfumed water swirling around her, the power of his hands on her pleasantly sore flesh, and the loveliness of his voice growling sweet words in her ear. Some of them were in English, some of them were in Arabic, and it didn't matter what they meant, because she could feel the sweetness and the affection in them. It all felt so good...
She was aware that he carried her to his bed, even aware that it was his bed and not hers. Was there a reason that she should have been worried about it? It was too much for her to think about right now...
***
Though he could feel the exhaustion of an incredibly long day dragging him down, Bassam could not sleep. Instead, he sat up in the bed, running his hand over Laurel's chestnut hair. It was unique, just like its bearer, he supposed. He had never met a woman with her shade of hair, and he had never felt what he felt for her with any other woman.
He had never slept all that soundly since becoming sheikh. There were always eyes on him, and the wakefulness and awareness of his waking life had a tendency to spill over into his dreams as well. He had a feeling, however, that with Laurel by his side, he would sleep like the dead.
He knew this was a partial solution at best. He could not keep her and Ben with him like this forever. She would start to grow restless, he would need to tend to the business of finding a suitable wife and sheikha for his country, and that would be that. This was temporary, but there was a grace to it that he had never imagined. When Bassam imagined her twisting underneath him again, he could feel his entire body heat up, and when he thought about never experiencing this sense of peace and joy again, he wanted to howl.
No, this was temporary, and things would be...safer at the very least if he recognized it, learned to live with it now. Of course, that did not mean that he had did not have every intention of enjoying it.
"I did not expect to find you again, my clever little angel," he said softly. "I do not believe that I will let you fly away again so soon."
Finally, he came down to rest beside her, and almost as if they had done it for years, she turned in her sleep towards him, murmuring drowsily. She pressed her forehead against his chest, burrowing under his arm, and fell into a deeper sleep.
She will be nearly impossible to let go, he thought, but then the exhaustion was too much. Sleep claimed him, and he drifted down into the depths of the best sleep he’d had in almost twenty years.