CHAPTER SEVEN
She froze, a hand midway through reaching for the rope ladder.
“You are mistaken.”
“Am I?” His handsome face darkened. She saw the intent in his eyes and lifted a hand, pushing it against his chest. But she could see that he was the Lion she’d heard of – the man who summed up his opponent’s weaknesses easily and exploited them to achieve his needs.
“I’m not going to sleep with you. I intend to marry your cousin. And I couldn’t live with myself knowing that I had done that.”
“I don’t think you’ll be able to live with the wondering. The wanting. Marrying Syed will not make this go away.”
“Oh, and sleeping with you will?”
His eyes flared and he kicked them away from the boat, away from safety. Charlotte’s eyes flared and a long-ago dealt with fear swirled in her gut.
“No.” His eyes bore into hers, faintly mocking. “I think sleeping together will make us crave more and more and more.”
Charlotte clung to him as he took them into the deep waters to the side of the boat. What choice did she have? Fear of the water was stronger than a fear of what could happen if she let down her guard.
“All the more reason to avoid it. This is just curiosity now. Nothing more. I’m not going to lie to you. I’m … attracted to you. And if it weren’t for Syed, and the marriage that my parents and Kingdom is counting on, then yes, I would want to … get to know you better.”
“Get to know me better?” Such a lukewarm description for what he wanted.
He leaned closer, dropping his words close to her ear so that his breath would combine with truth and spear through her. “I am going to get to know you completely. Inside and out. And inside again.” He flicked her earlobe with his tongue and she bucked hard against him, shock at the intimate touch fanning desire.
“This is just … this is silly…”
He laughed, but it was a sound of disbelief rather than amusement. “Is it?”
“Yes. It’s just … something that will pass. I’m sure of it.”
“Charlotte?”
She blinked at him and felt like she was staring at the sun. She looked away again. He pressed his thumb beneath her chin, forcing her to meet his eyes and she shuddered at the intensity she saw there. “I have had many lovers; beautiful women I have wanted and had.”
Charlotte opened her mouth to say something but he continued before she could formulate words.
“None has tormented me in the way you do. My dreams have become nightmares of need. My body pulses when you are nearby. I have been hard for a week.” He brought her legs around his waist so that she could feel for herself the strength of his arousal.
A noise, low in her throat, was her only response.
His fingers lifted to her lips and he traced the outline and then explored lower, teasing her shoulder before following the line of the bathers, dancing softly against the flesh of her décolletage. He lifted them higher, back to the strap of the swimming costume, and glided them beneath the flimsy, wet fabric.
“It is time to stop pretending.”
“Ashad,” she whispered urgently, but she was incapable of saying more or pushing him away.
“Come to the boat. Let me see you; touch you.”
Words died in her throat. She stared at him in anguish. Everything was wrong. She knew what was expected of her! What she had to do! She had to push him away and refuse to see him again. To ask her father’s council to finalise her betrothal arrangements and go away somewhere. Perhaps to Paris to shop for her trousseau.
But it was futile. No matter how far she went, and how long she was away, he would be with her. Inside of her head, her heart, her mind, her body. He controlled her wishes and desires.
Was it lust, a temporary insanity that she could starve of life and eventually forget? Or was it lust that needed feeding in order to burn itself out?
What if it was worse than that? What if it was something more? Something scarier?
What if the fabled love at first sight was actually true. What if it had happened to them?
“I want to see you here.” He dragged his finger lower, tracing the outline of her breast, swirling his touch over her sensitive nipple, making her gasp. “And here.” He moved to the other breast and his attention was equally arousing. She arched her back, her head falling back into the water.
She was his.
She couldn’t explain it. She couldn’t rationalise it and certainly there was no justification, but she wanted to be his in a way that would no longer be denied.
“Take me to the boat,” she murmured, but now, it wasn’t because she wanted to ignore what was happening between them. It was because she urgently, desperately, achingly wanted to acknowledge it.
There was no need for words. Ashad cut through the water, holding her close to his chest. He swam them to the ladder and as Charlotte climbed it, he was right behind her, his hands only inches from her legs, his mind blanking out the complications that would arise next.
Nothing mattered beyond this.
Everything they were necessitated that they make love. On the deck, she paused, reaching for a towel, but Ashad was there first. He wrapped it around her and lifted her in one motion, carrying her against his chest.
“I can walk,” she said, not entirely sure if it was true.
He stared straight ahead. His face was unreadable. Curiosity was a beast inside of her. She lifted a finger, touching his lips as he had hers. He looked down at her with a searing heat and her stomach flipped. Anticipation flooded her.
At the bedroom she’d used earlier, he paused, shouldering the door inwards then placing her gently on the ground. He closed the door, sliding a latch in place to ensure privacy, despite the fact there was only a skeleton crew on board.
Charlotte watched him, her stomach in knots. He turned to face her slowly, his eyes sparking flame with hers. He prowled towards her with the same animalistic power that a cheetah in the desert would display. He was all muscle, broad shoulders, sinew, and he was dripping wet. His dark hair was slicked back from his face, his high forehead autocratic, his eyes dark and mysterious. His smile was sardonic; it stirred the butterflies anew that seemed to have moved into her stomach.
“Allow me.” His voice was a gravelled husk. His fingers, when they reached for the towel, were confident. Charlotte knew her fear must have been in her eyes. She expelled a long, shaking breath and Ashad’s eyes flew to hers.
“I didn’t misunderstand you?” His fingers slid beneath the straps of her swimming costume, the costume he had chosen with her in mind. He slid the fabric down her arms; the wetness offered resistance. “You have done this before?”
“I’ve never done this before,” she said, a watery smile on her face.
“You’re a virgin?” He paused, his eyes scanning her face.
Charlotte’s face was pale as she shook her head. “I meant … I meant that it was nothing like this.” She bit down on her lower lip. “I … don’t want to think about that now, anyway.”
“Nor do I.” His laugh sent tremors down her spine.
Charlotte stared at him, and he stared back.
“Yet you are nervous.”
“Well, unlike you, I haven’t had many lovers,” she snapped, unable to resist throwing the confession back in his face.
He continued to push the straps lower, until the fabric across her chest gave way and her breasts were freed, exposed to him. His eyes dropped to them, and the air around them charged with electricity. “Perfect,” he said with quiet seriousness.
Charlotte thought they were done talking about their past, but Ashad flicked his gaze back to her face, catching her staring at him. Her stomach churned. Need was a snake in her heart.
He dragged his fingers over the flesh of her arms lightly, lifting them upwards and in, curving them around her breasts. She gasped, her whole body charging at the contact. But he didn’t stop. His body, wet and sleek, pushed her back onto the bed. He straddled her, his enormous arousal hard against her stomach. His hands on her breasts were insistent; he rubbed the pad of his thumb over her nipples, and she tilted her head back.
He dropped his head, rubbing his lips against hers then taking them lower, to her full, curved breasts. He moved his lips over a nipple, rolling it with his tongue, clamping his mouth around it while his fingers tormented the other, flicking it and circling it until she moaned. Charlotte’s breasts had never known such ministrations.
Marook, the only man she’d ever been intimate with, had not been interested in pleasing her.
She pushed him from her mind. This had nothing to do with that. It wasn’t the same. This was a choice she was making. She’d had no choice with Marook. There was no reason to feel fear now. Ashad would be gentle; he would be excellent.
His fingers pulled at her swimming costume, sliding it lower, and lower, and lower, until finally her womanhood was exposed.
Strange that she wasn’t self-conscious, Charlotte thought with a small kernel of confusion. She was naked before a man – a man who was not to be her husband – and she didn’t care.
Lower and lower, and so slowly that the removal of her bathers was its own sensual foreplay. By the time he’d reached her ankles, she was almost panting with unfulfilled desire.
She kicked it off the rest of the way, almost landing a foot against Ashad’s face in her impatience to finally be naked and free to move.
He laughed softly, his hands on her calves stilling her.
Then, he pushed her legs apart, lifting her feet onto the edge of the bed so that she was bent at the knees. He moved her legs wider still then, sliding her feet outwards, and finally, self-consciousness waved over her as he moved higher, kissing the calf of one leg, the knee, and then, the inner thigh.
She moved to bring her legs closer together but his hands were vice-like. He flicked his gaze to hers and it held a challenge. Before she could understand his intention, his tongue was tracing the fold of her womanhood. She cried out, arching her back off the bed at the wholly unexpected touch.
“Ashad!” She cried, but white heat spread like lava through her, erupting over her senses, drowning everything but need. He was exceptional. His tongue, his mouth, tormented her. It was a sweet, unfamiliar touch and she could not have prepared for what it would do to her. She was shaking all over, as pleasure began to mount inside of her. And when she thought she was losing her mind, he brought a finger towards her heart and slid it deep inside.
She sobbed; the pleasure was soaking her. “Ash,” she moaned, writhing against the bed, her hair wet, her everything wet. His finger probed her and his thumb sought the tangle of nerves at her entrance, swirling over them, until she was incandescent with fire and flame.
His body moved higher while his fingers tormented her, dragging her over hot coals with the promise of the greatest release she’d ever known. His mouth came back to her breasts, flicking her nipple with his tongue while his hand stirred her with a beat that she had never heard before.
Pleasure was a torrent of raging water and self-control was the wall of the dam. But nothing could hold against the feelings he was evoking; her dam burst and she was shivering in his arms, arching her back and crying out as release finally broke through her. She said his name, over and over again as sensations tumbled through her like the water rolling away. She would never be able to build those dam walls again. They were burst for good. He wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight to his naked chest, kissing her hair gently and whispering words in Kalastani. Words she understood, yet didn’t. She stayed close to him, expecting the sensual cloud to dissipate. But it didn’t.
Having tasted what Ashad had to offer, she simply wanted more.
There was no sanity; just salvation.
Her hands reached for him. She wanted to touch, feel, to know every inch of him. She was tentative at first, marvelling at her daring in touching him with a sense of possession that surely she didn’t warrant. His body on top of hers was heavy and perfect. She moved beneath him, revelling in the contact. His arousal was close to her heart; she straddled him and moaned, low in her throat, when he pressed hard, so that she could just imagine the relief that was to come. The perfection.
“This is crazy,” she groaned, and his hands came to tangle in her hair, pulling her face higher so that he could kiss her, laying sweet caresses along her jaw and neck, then to her lips.
She kissed him back, and the taste of herself on his tongue was as erotic as it was foreign. Everything about them was erotic. Sex had cast a spell over them; it was a song they both heard, a dance they somehow knew, and yet it was just them. Only them. She lifted her hands to her hair and found his fingers, knotting hers through them and pulling his arms outward. She almost purred into his mouth.
He smiled into the kiss then murmured, “I have dreamed about this.”
So had Charlotte.
Ever since meeting him, she’d been in a fever pitch of need that not even sleep could obliterate.
“It is the definition of insanity,” she responded softly, her hands moving to his shoulders, rolling over his firm, smooth flesh. “How can we do this?”
“How can we not?” And now he moved, surprising her with his strength as he trapped her wrists in his and held them above her head. He kissed her hungrily, passionately, with an intensity that filled her with longing.
But the fear was back.
The fear and vulnerability of what was about to happen.
It wormed its way through her, cutting through the need, devastating her with its precision, stilling her.
“Wait.” She stared at him, seeing him anew. Understanding how close they were to becoming lovers. “Wait,” she repeated unnecessarily, because he had frozen at the first instance that something was wrong.
“I’m waiting,” he said, his tone light despite the fact there was a doubt in his mind. “But for what?”
His weight on her was not lovely now. It was reminding her of before. The last time. She shook her head. “I can’t do this.” She shoved at his chest with a strength she hadn’t known she possessed, and he didn’t fight the insistence of her gesture. He rolled off her, his eyes holding hers as he lay beside her. He reached out and stroked her hair; though she had no doubt he was attempting to placate her; she was no longer on the boat with him.
She was in the bedroom of his house. Marook’s. Her mind trying to ignore the fact that her body was being used for the gratification of a man who had become dangerously obsessed with her.
“I can’t do this,” she said again, and it was a rich truth. She stood, her body jerked from the bed as though pulled by string. She searched for something to put on and found a robe on the back of the door. She slid into it, belting it tightly around her slender waist.
Ashad, wet and toned, stayed on the bed, but he’d pushed up so that his elbows were propping him higher. And his eyes were studying her.
“You must be very angry,” she said, darting her glance away, focusing on one of the portal windows that showed the glistening ocean beyond. It reminded her of the fact she’d been swimming earlier. She groaned and shook her head. This whole day had been unpredictable and strange.
“Angry?” He frowned, genuinely confused by her assertion. “I am not angry, azeezi.”
“Don’t call me that,” she said stiffly. “Can you make this boat move again?”
He nodded. “Of course I can. But I won’t. Not until you tell me what the hell is going on.”
Charlotte froze. Holding her hostage was hardly the thing to calm her. “I swear, Ashad, if you don’t turn this boat around I’ll … I’ll scream.”
He stood up now, crossing to her. His touch was gentle; so gentle, and it did something to push her memories deep down inside of her. “We’ll go back,” he promised, soothing. His own flash of emotion had been subdued; he could see that her need was greater. She was pale, shaking. Something had happened. “I just want to understand,” he said slowly, stroking her hair.
She nodded, using the gesture to pull away from him. “I know,” she squeezed her eyes shut. “But I can’t … explain it.”
“Try,” he said quietly.
She met his gaze; dark and inquisitive, and her heart turned over.
She did love him. There was no running from the fact. She swallowed and shook her head. That feeling didn’t belong. She couldn’t break her engagement to Syed, even for his cousin. The embarrassment it would cause her parents would be just like before, when they’d had to come to terms with the fact that their daughter was no longer innocent and untouched. They had tried to pretend their emotions were outrage and grief for her, rather than disappointment, but she’d understood their feelings: they so perfectly matched her own.
“Take me home, Ashad.” She blinked, and stepped away from him, her chin jutted at a defiant angle.
He swore softly under his breath and strode towards the door, jerking it inwards. “Wait here,” he tossed over his shoulder, before disappearing.
She nodded, even though he’d left. Her clothes were folded neatly beside the bed, from where she’d changed into the bathers. She redressed in her bra and underpants and the pants she’d worn, before remembering that her tunic was above deck.
She rolled her eyes at the unluckiness of that situation.
A moment later, Ashad knocked on the door before pushing it inwards. He held the garment in his hands. Charlotte’s heart kicked at the realisation that it was just what she’d needed.
He was just what she’d needed.
And in another universe, an alternate reality where her past hadn’t been muddied by Marook and her future wasn’t owned by Syed, she would fight for him. No, she wouldn’t need to fight for Ashad in that reality; she would simply run into his arms and stay there. Because it was where she was meant to be.
She felt the boat purr to life and she closed her eyes. Tears stung the eyelids but she wouldn’t let them fall.
“I’m sorry,” she said stiffly, with a formality that was at odds with their intimacy.
“Don’t.” His voice was so full of gentleness and kindness that she opened her eyes.
She shivered at the way he stared at her. “You look at me as though you understand everything about me.”
His smile was a twist of his lips. Lips that had driven her crazy a moment earlier. “I don’t, believe me.” He walked towards her with a slow, calm pace. “But I want to.” He handed the tunic over to her. She took it, not realising until then that her hands were shaking. She gripped the fabric more tightly, hoping to still the tell-tale tremble.
She bit down on her lip but stopped when his eyes dropped lower, to take in the action. She stopped because she wanted him to kiss her. She was aching – unfulfilled, torn between needing him to make love to her and erase Marook from her memories, and knowing that only her husband should have that place in her mind. Or would she then have Ashad to be erased too?
She expelled a sigh, a soft sound of complaint. “I wanted to make love to you,” she said honestly.
“I know that.”
“It’s not who I am. I cannot do casual sex.”
“Casual sex? Oh, azeezi, that’s not what this is.”
“I’m marrying your cousin,” she said with urgency. “What else can it be?”
How could she be so insistent? How could she intend to go through with the wedding? Anger was a brush stroke in him. It fired him, burned him, and yet he looked, to all the world, completely impassive. He compressed his lips and turned away from her.
“Get dressed, Charlotte. I will come to you when we dock.”
Shock filled her. She watched him move towards the door and the words she wanted to call after him were locked in her mouth. Don’t go. Wait. Let me explain. I’m sorry. I want you. I need you.
But she was silent;
And Ashad left.