CORONATIONS WERE NOT a lavish affair in this part of the world. Galila knew that from her own country and had been told that Karim had a cousin appointed as his successor should he fail to produce one. That designation and the allegiance of all his cousins and other dignitaries had been handled with public, verbal pledges witnessed by the rest.
Recognizing Galila as his queen had been a matter of Karim stating that he had chosen her that night in the Bedouin encampment. It was all the people of Zyria had needed to accept and recognize her as their monarch, but they would feel cheated of a party if he didn’t host one.
That was all that this day was—a formal celebration here in the palace, but one followed by all. Festivities were extended across the country, providing the entire population a reason to take a day to enjoy themselves.
Galila was nothing if not scrupulously adept at planning this sort of event. Along with charity work abroad and at home, she had always led the charge on family events—to a point. Her mother had liked Galila to do all the work of choosing menus and decor, then always swooped in at the last minute to change the color scheme or the order of the speeches, putting her own stamp on it.
This time, every single detail was Galila’s own.
As part of that, she had carefully considered the message the event would send. Obviously, she had to convey that she was pleased to be Karim’s wife and that she embraced her new country. She needed to highlight the advantage of a union with Khalia, too. It was a celebration and needed to be lavish enough to reflect their position, but she didn’t want to pin spendthrift to her lapel and require years to remove it. She wanted it known that she was eager to begin charity work, but didn’t want to appear critical and suggest Zyria was failing to meet the needs of its people.
The guest list had been its own Gordian knot to unravel and there had also been kosher meals and other diverse religious observances that had to be considered.
In the end, Galila pulled a small cheat by adding some well-respected professionals to the mix. She seated doctors and teachers next to ministers and other dignitaries with appropriate portfolios. Everything in the swag bags from silk scarves to gold bangles to a jar of spices had been sourced in Zyria, showcasing their best merchants.
Within the speeches, she had the treasury minister praise her for being under budget with this party. He announced that she had asked for the savings to be donated to a traveling medical unit that would service some of the most difficult to access places in Zyria. It was met with an appropriate round of appreciative applause.
Her husband promptly upstaged her by announcing that a hospital wing to service women’s health issues would be built in her name. Her reaction must have been priceless because everyone laughed and applauded even harder while she covered her hot cheeks with her hands.
It was a political gesture, she reminded herself. A means of ensuring she was accepted and welcomed and cemented into Zyria’s history books.
She was still touched by the gesture, perhaps because he looked at her with sincere regard as he said, “I’m hoping you’ll take an active role in this project. Your instincts and attention to detail are excellent.”
“Did you mean that?” she asked as he seated himself next to her again.
“Of course.” He seemed surprised by her question. “I’ve been kept apprised of every decision you’ve made here so far.”
That was news. She had been quite convinced he hadn’t thought of her more than twice since they’d met.
“You’ve done an excellent job,” he said, sounding sincere. His gaze skimmed across the four hundred people dressed to the nines, jewelry sparkling and gold cutlery flashing as they dined on their first course beneath faux starlight. Landmarks were projected onto the walls beneath swathes of fabric to resemble looking out from a Bedouin tent on Zyria’s landscape. The centerpieces were keepsake lanterns amid Zyrian flora and the scent of Zyrian incense hung on the air.
“I don’t know that anyone will dare eat these chocolates, but they will certainly enjoy showing them off. Very ingenious.” He tilted the treat that decorated each place setting. It was made of camel milk by a Zyrian chocolatier and shaped like Zyria and Khalia stuck together as one piece, the border only a subtle shift in color, not a dividing line. She had prevailed on her brother to send coffee and cinnamon from Khalia to flavor their side of it while the Zyrian was spiced with nutmeg and cardamom.
“It’s a subtle yet brilliant touch.”
Brilliant?
Don’t be needy.
But she was. In her core, she was starved for validation. Which was exactly the problem with this marriage. She wanted—needed—to believe Karim valued her. That whatever he felt toward her was real and permanent.
He was in demand at all times, however. It was somewhat understandable that after his brief compliment, his attention went elsewhere. They didn’t speak again until the plates had been cleared and they moved to the adjoining ballroom to begin the dancing.
Here she’d been a little freer with the Western influences, bringing in colored lights and a DJ who played current pop tunes from around the globe, but included many of the hits by Arab bands.
Their first dance was an older ballad, however, one Karim’s mother had told her had been played at her wedding to Karim’s father. It was meant as a reassurance to the older generation that things were changing but only a little.
Karim wore his ceremonial robes and she was in several layers of embroidered silk over a brocade gown with jewels in her hair, at her wrists, around her neck and even a bejeweled broach worn on a wide band around her middle.
Karim had to be very careful as he took her into his arms. He muttered something under his breath about hugging a cactus.
“I understood it to be an heirloom that all Zyrian queens wear on special occasions,” she said, affected by his closeness despite the fact he had to maintain enough distance not to catch his robes on the piece.
“My staff was too shy to explain it was designed as a chastity belt, worn when the king was not around to protect his interests.”
“Talk about putting a ring on it,” she said under her breath.
He snorted, the sound of amusement so surprising, she flashed a look upward in time to see the corner of his mouth twitch.
“Yes, well, the king is in the house so we’ll dispense with it as soon as possible.”
Her heart swerved in the crazy jitter of alarm and anticipation she’d been suffering as this day drew nearer. It was so silly! They were familiar with each other. She knew she would find pleasure with him.
But what happened after that? Would he go back to ignoring her? She wouldn’t be able to stand it. How could she give herself to a man who would only rebuff her afterward?
* * *
Karim stole her away to her apartment as soon as he could, dismissing the staff that hovered to help undress her. He could handle that himself, thank you very much.
On his instruction, the rooms had been prepared with a fresh bath, rose petals, candles, cordial and exotic fruits. The music of gently plucked strings played quietly in the background. Silk pajamas had been left on the bed for both of them—and would be swept to the floor unused if he had his way.
Alone with his wife for the first time since she’d blown his mind in his library the other day, he was fairly coming out of his skin with anticipation—not that he would admit to it. Oh, he knew damned well that part of him had been counting the minutes until he could release himself from his self-imposed restraint, but he barely acknowledged that. It was pure weakness to feel this way, damn it, but he couldn’t put off consummation forever.
In fact, he had begun to rationalize that the reason he was growing obsessive about the moment of possession was merely because he hadn’t yet done so. Once they made love, he wouldn’t be so preoccupied by how delicious it might be.
That was the only reason urgency gripped him and put a gruff edge on his voice when he commanded her to turn around. “Let me relieve you of that thing.”
She jolted a bit and didn’t meet his eyes as she turned so he could remove the elaborate belt.
Her spine grew taller as he released the dozen tiny hook-and-eye fasteners. She drew a deep breath as he set it aside, then, when he touched her shoulders to remove her outer robe, she stiffened again and glanced warily over her shoulder.
He hesitated, but she shrugged to help him peel it away. It was surprisingly heavy with its detailed embroidery locking in pearls and other jewels. If anything, her tension grew as he eased it away, however.
She turned and folded her arms, now in a strapless gown bedecked with a band of silver and diamonds beneath the extravagant necklace that had been his wedding gift to her. She pressed her lips together, conveying wary uncertainty.
“What’s wrong?”
“Nothing,” she said a little too quickly, shoulders coming up in a shrug and staying in a defensive hunch.
He moved closer and had to tilt her chin up, then wait for her gaze to come to his. A tiny flinch plucked at her brows and her gaze swept away, anxious to avoid his.
“Galila,” he murmured. “Are you being shy?” It seemed impossible, considering the intimacies they’d shared, but her mouth twitched.
She hitched a shoulder, nodding a little, lashes dropping to hide her gaze again.
“There’s no rush,” he assured her, even though it felt like a lie. Standing this close to her, feeling the softness of her cheek under the caress of his thumb, he didn’t know how he had managed to wait this long. The starving beast inside him was waking and stretching, prowling in readiness to go on the hunt.
When he started to lower his mouth to hers, she stiffened with subtle resistance.
He drew back, experiencing something like alarm. Was she teasing him on purpose?
“I’m nervous, it’s fine,” she insisted, but she was still avoiding his gaze.
Her crown had been fitted with a silver and blue veil that draped over the rich, loose waves of her hair. She reached to remove it.
“I’ll do it.” He searched out the pins that secured it, distantly thinking he should have delegated this task to the one who’d put them in. It was an intricate process and she winced a couple of times, even though he was as gentle as he could be.
He persevered and finally was able to leave the crown and veil on a table. She ran her fingers through her hair—an erotic gesture at the best of times. Tonight, she was especially entrancing. The smooth swells of her breasts lifted against the blue velvet. Her heavily decorated ivory skirt shimmered, merely hinting at the lissome limbs it hid.
“You’re so beautiful, it almost hurts the eyes.” The words came from a place he barely acknowledged within himself, one where his desire for her was a craven thing that he could barely contain.
She dropped her hands in front of her. “I can’t help the way I look.”
“It’s not a drawback,” he said drily, moving to take up her hands and set them on his shoulders. His own then went to her rib cage, finding her supple as a dancer. Her heels put her at exactly the most comfortable height to dip his head and capture her mouth with his own.
A jolt of electricity seemed to jump between them, reassuring him even as his mouth stung and she made a sound of near pain. He quickly assuaged the sensation with a full, openmouthed kiss. The kind he’d been starving for. The kind that should have slaked something in him, but only stoked his hunger.
She began to melt into him and he felt mindlessness begin to overtake him, the same loss of control that had pinned him in place while she stole every last shred of his discipline that day in his library.
He tightened his hands on her and started to set her back a step, needing to keep a clear head.
She made a noise of hurt and the heels of her hands exerted pressure, urging him to release her altogether.
His reflexes very nearly yanked her back in close. Some primitive refusal to be denied was that close to overwhelming him.
The push-pull was startling enough to freeze him with his hands still keeping her before him, so he could read her face.
“Do you not want—?” He had to look away, not ready to hear that she was rejecting him.
“I do, but—”
She did break from his hold then, brushing his hands off her and pacing away a few steps. The action raked something cold across him.
She turned back to hold out a beseeching hand. “I can’t bear the games, Karim.”
She looked stricken enough to cause a sharp sensation to pierce his heart.
“Make love to me if you want to. But don’t... Don’t tell me I’m beautiful, then act like you can’t stand how I look. Don’t kiss me like you can’t get enough, then push me away as though I’m someone you dislike. Don’t tell a roomful of people that you think I’m wonderful when you clearly think I’m not. I can’t go through those ups and downs again. I can’t.”
He narrowed his eyes. “What are you talking about? I don’t dislike you.”
She closed her eyes. “It doesn’t matter how you feel, just be honest about it. And consistent. Please. It’s fine that you only want me a little, the way any man might respond to any available woman. Don’t pander to me and act like...”
“What?” he prompted, bracing because he was afraid that he might have betrayed too much somewhere along the line. Definitely when she’d taken him in her mouth.
“I don’t know,” she said with a break in her voice. “I don’t know how you feel. That’s the issue. Sometimes you act as though you like me, but then...you don’t.”
“Of course, I like you, Galila.” He swallowed, thinking he understood the issue here. In a gentler tone, he added, “But I told you in the beginning not to expect love from me.”
“I’m not talking about love, Karim! I’m talking about basic regard. You’ve barely spoken to me since the day in your office. You act like it didn’t even happen! Then you think saying a few nice things tonight—that I’m so beautiful you can’t stand to look at me—and think that makes me want to...” She waved at the bed, then her arm dropped in defeat.
His heart skewed in his chest. “That’s not the way I meant it, Galila.”
“The worst part is, I still want to have sex with you. But be honest about how it will be afterward. If you’re only going to ignore me until the next time an urge strikes, then don’t arrange rose petals and candles and act like you want me to feel something tonight. Don’t act like this is a special moment for either one of us. Not when you’re only going to pretend I don’t exist afterward.”
He pinched the bridge of his nose. This was special. It was her first time. Did she think he didn’t have some nerves about that? The responsibility to make it special?
“I wanted you to relax.”
“Well, I can’t.” She shook off whatever melancholy was in her expression and reached to remove her earrings. “Let’s just get it done so you can lock yourself back in your room.”
“Get it done?” he repeated as a sick knot tightened in his gut. “I want our lovemaking to be a pleasure for you, Galila. Not a chore.”
“I’m not like you! When we...do things, I feel it. Emotionally.” She pressed her curled hand between her breasts. “And you’re manipulating me with that. Maybe not on purpose. Maybe you don’t even realize how badly you’re knocking my feelings around, but you are. I can’t do that for a night, Karim, let alone a lifetime. I accept that this is an arranged marriage, not one based on love. But don’t act like you care and then prove that you don’t. I can’t bear that. Not again.”
If she had plunged a knife into his lung, she wouldn’t have winded him this badly. Her accusations were bad enough, but suddenly he was wondering if she had given her heart to another and been rejected. And if she had, why was he taking that far worse than he would have if she’d had other lovers physically?
“Who else did that to you?” He needed to know.
“It doesn’t matter,” she muttered, turning away to work bangles off her wrists.
“It’s affecting our marriage. Our relationship.” What the hell did he care about such things? She was handing him a free pass to make love to her and withhold any investment of deeper feelings. He ought to rejoice. Instead, he was aggrieved by the idea of her coming to their marriage bed withholding anything from him, especially the genuine excitement and delight she had seemed to take in their congress before.
Running a hand over his head, he demanded, “Who?”
She sighed and stayed silent a long time, while her jewelry went into a dish with soft clinks.
“In light of what we’ve learned about my mother recently,” she began in a subdued voice, “I understand better why she was so ambivalent with my brothers. Why she pushed them away. She had given away a child she wanted to keep. That has to break something in you. Maybe that’s even why she eventually pushed me away, but it wasn’t always like that. For years...”
Her shoulders slumped under an invisible weight.
“None of this really matters, Karim,” she said faintly.
His ardor was well and truly doused. Short of an invasion that required him to protect his country, he could not imagine anything more important to him than what she was telling him right now.
“Continue,” he commanded.
“It makes me sound very pathetic. As superficial as you think I am.” She kept her back to him and spoke to her feet. “When I was a child, I felt very special. It was obvious to me that I was the one Mother loved. Father worshipped her and she gave him nothing. The boys learned to live without affection from her, but she adored me. She brushed my hair and dressed me so we looked alike. She took me everywhere with her and was always so proud and happy when people said I was pretty and looked like her.”
“That makes you sound more like a pet than her child.”
“I was. A living doll, maybe. If only I had stayed that way.”
“What way? Young?”
“Preadolescent, yes. Once I started to become a woman, it stopped.”
“What did?”
“Her love.”
She clutched her elbows in clawlike fingers, manicured nails threatening to cut into the skin of her bare arms. He moved across to touch her, drawing her attention to it so she would stop hurting herself.
She gave a little shiver and flashed a distressed glance up to him, then stepped away, averting her face.
“How do you know she stopped loving you? What happened?”
“Instead of saying, You’re so beautiful, she would say, ‘Your perfume has soured.’ Instead of saying, I love how your smile is exactly like mine, she would say, ‘Your laugh is too high-pitched. That lipstick is not your color.’”
“Did you do something to anger her?”
“If I did, she never said outright what it was.” Her tone grew bitter.
“Then why do you think—? Ah. You told me before that she didn’t want to be called Grandmother,” he recalled.
“She said those exact words one time when my father was telling me over a family dinner that I ought to marry.”
“So she was jealous of your youth.”
“Maybe even that my life was ahead of me. I’ve been thinking about her all day today, thinking she would have died rather than attend my wedding. She hated it when I was the center of attention and would always say, ‘You’re acting like Malak.’ She really did hate him and wasn’t afraid to show it.”
Galila had never acknowledged that out loud, but it felt weirdly good to do so. Like lancing a wound so it could begin to heal.
“And now you have no opportunity to ask her about it. I do understand that frustration, you know.”
She sent him a helpless look, one palm coming up.
“You see? You’re doing it again. Making it seem like we have something in common, that you care what I might have been through. What happens in ten minutes, though? In an hour? In the morning? Will my feelings become inconsequential again?”
He looked away from her, uncomfortable as he viewed his behavior in a fresh light. He had been protecting himself—his whole country, he could argue—since Zyria had been impacted when his father threw his life away over a broken heart. But he hadn’t seen that in protecting himself, he had been injuring her.
“Is it me, Karim?” she asked in a voice thick with dread. “I had nearly convinced myself that my mother’s hurtful behavior was her own issue, but if you’re doing the same thing, then there must be a flaw in me.” Her voice cracked as she pointed at her breastbone. “Something that makes me impossible to love. What is it?”
* * *
Galila stood in a vice of agony while her husband stood unmoving, as a man made from marble. She didn’t even think he breathed. Was he trying to spare her? Because he was alleviating none of her fears with that stoic expression.
Finally, he blinked and muttered, “There’s nothing wrong with you. That’s absurd.”
“There you go. I’m absurd!” She felt exactly as she had in those first dark years when her mother had begun to pull away. “I know I’m a ridiculous person. My brothers told me all the time that I shouldn’t be so needy and want to feel loved. I know that with some people, like you, there’s no getting into their good graces, even when you once were loved by them. But I don’t understand how I lose it. Is it things that I say? Am I supposed to stand in silence and allow myself to be admired? But why would anyone want to look at me? I’m not beautiful enough. My neck is too long and I have my mother’s thighs. Is it because my nose is too pointy? Help me understand, Karim! I can’t fix it if I don’t know what the problem is.”
“There is no problem,” he said so firmly she could only take it as a knife in the heart because he clearly wasn’t going to tell her.
She threw up her hands in defeat. “Fine. Let’s just—” She waved at the bed, but tears came into her eyes. She didn’t know if she could go through with it. All she could do was stand there, crushed by anguish, fighting not to break down.
“Galila. There is nothing wrong with you,” he insisted, coming across to take her hands. “Look at me.” He dipped his head and waited until she was looking into his eyes. “You’re very engaging. Very easy to...”
His mouth tightened and she could see him pulling himself back behind some invisible wall.
She tried to pull away, but he tightened his grip on her hands.
“Listen. I find myself letting down my guard with you. That’s not something I ever do. Not with anyone except perhaps my mother. Even then...it’s not comfortable for me.”
“Well, it’s not comfortable for me to let down my guard only to be shut out afterward. That’s why I’m still a virgin. That sort of intimacy isn’t easy for me, either. Not unless I’m convinced my heart will be safe.” She pulled her hands free and quarter-turned away. “Maybe that’s what all relationships are, though? Maybe I am a fool, thinking there’s some way to feel safe in one.” She spun back. “But your mother and father were in love. It’s possible, Karim.”
He was the one to walk away this time, hand drawing down his face as he let out a harsh breath.
“I know what you’re thinking,” she said with despair frosting her insides. “That I’m ruining our honeymoon night. I don’t mean to set ridiculous standards. I just...” Find it all very disappointing. Heartbreakingly empty. “I don’t know how I’ll live in this state of hurt for the rest of my life. How do you not care, then? Teach me that, Karim.”
His shoulders flexed as though her words had struck like a whip across them. He shook his head, voice disembodied when he spoke.
“I have trained myself not to care, Galila. To keep my thoughts to myself and control my desires. A man in my position can’t give in to urges and open up doorways to vulnerability. I can’t, Galila. The kingdom depends on my strength.” He turned to deliver that bad news in a voice that was calm and factual but kind, at least.
Her mouth trembled and she nodded. “I know. Look at my father, abdicating because he was so devastated by losing my mother, even after what she had done. I just don’t know how to be like you, Karim, instead of like him.”
“I don’t want you to be like me,” he said in a voice that was low and quiet, but carried an impact that seemed to go through her as a shock wave, shivering all her pieces into new alignments. “I like who you are, Galila.”
“You don’t even know me, Karim.” Her eyes were hot, and she wanted so badly to believe him.
“Untrue. Look at this party tonight. It was a ridiculous expense, one where you could have made it all about yourself. Instead, you gave it meaning. You are beautiful, so beautiful you trick the mind into thinking that’s all you are. Then you display intelligence and kindness and you navigate all aspects of my life—a life I fight to control every minute of every day—you walk through that obstacle course with a graceful lack of effort. It’s astonishing to me how well you fit in.”
“My mother should get the credit for preparing me for this life, not me,” she pointed out, throat abraded by emotion.
“And humble on top of the rest.”
“Karim, it’s very nice of you to say these things, but—”
“I don’t do platitudes, Galila,” he cut in flatly. “I’m telling you what I have learned of you during our short union. You have qualities I didn’t expect, but I never expected to have a partner at all. A wife, yes, but not someone who is a genuine support. It’s the strangest thing to me. Do you understand that? I don’t want to grow accustomed to your presence at my side. I never needed you before. Why should I need you now? But there it is. You make it easier to carry out my duties, even as I feel weak for allowing you to lift any of the load. It’s a paradox I haven’t worked out how to solve.”
She was soaking up the mud with the rainwater, feeling the contradiction inside her while watching the dismay battle with resignation in his brutally handsome features.
“Do you understand that it’s your reluctance to allow me to share in your life that is killing me? Every time you push me away and act like I’m more annoyance than necessity, I hurt. How do I relax and give myself to you tonight, then face your withdrawal tomorrow? When you’ve decided I’ve seen too much of you?”
His cheek ticked.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered, shaking her head in defeat. “I don’t think I can—”
“I won’t,” he cut in, tone thin and sharp as a dagger, one corner of his mouth pulling down into the deadly curve of a jambiya blade. He was tensile steel, pupils expanding and contracting with inner conflict—a warrior on the defensive, but ready and willing to attack.
“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 could 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.