Chapter Ten
When Adil had turned away from her, Annabel had felt as if her heart had dropped straight to the floor. She almost called after him to stop him, but just then, she wasn't sure that she deserved to. Instead, she had walked to one of the bathrooms close by. The hacienda had several, and she wasn't quite sure she was brave enough to use the one that was attached to Adil's room.
She had intended to take just a quick shower, but the moment Annabel stepped under the brisk hot spray, she felt a deep languor settle in her body. The hot water calmed her and allowed her to think clearly for the first time in what felt like ages.
I am not a coward.
The words came from nowhere, and she was so startled she dropped the loofah that she had found.
She wasn't, was she? All her life, she had been alone, and she had faced it all down. She had come to New York on her own, she had gotten pregnant and had her daughter on her own, she had raised Marissa and taken care of her and done what she had to do.
Adil does not scare me, and she realized he didn't. She was afraid of looking foolish. She was afraid of doing badly. However, at the end of it, she could not be afraid of a man who sat and drew birds with her daughter.
I wouldn't have agreed to this with a man who was terrible, and he is not.
Even as she thought the words, the fear inside her pulled back. It was still there. She did not know what was coming next, at all. However, the fear was revealed to be far smaller than she thought it was.
She had made a bargain, but it was more than that. When the fear pulled back, there was curiosity beneath it, and under all of that, the power that pulled her to Adil in a way that felt like gravity. She fell towards him like a thrown stone fell towards the earth, and now that she acknowledged it, she could feel it even more strongly.
When she got out of the shower, she listened intently. She could not hear him moving around the house, and that meant that Annabel likely still had some time. The bathroom she was in felt feminine, with soft touches in sage and violet, and when she opened one of the cabinet doors, she was rewarded with a variety of lotions and skin care products. She selected a lotion that smelled strongly of sandalwood, and she slathered it all over her skin. It was wonderfully creamy, and it left her already soft skin even softer.
For a moment, Annabel wondered what to do with her hair, but after drying it, all she could think of was to braid it up again and pile it on top of her head. She had heard from more than one disapproving man that it was old-fashioned, and that was the last thing that she wanted to convey tonight.
Her bags had been left in a bedroom next to Adil's, and now Annabel went digging inside it. She had packed just the essentials from the clothes that Adil had provided. He had told her that there would be more to come when she and Marissa got to Sakhi, but it wasn't really clothing that she needed just now.
She had bought the negligee on one of her last days in New York. It was a spendy purchase, one that cost far more than she would ever have wanted to spend in her life, but it had felt like an urge she couldn't release. There was a tangle of emotions there, desire and the urge to show off and the powerful need to please and over it all that insistent desire.
She must have been as red as a tomato when she went into the lingerie store to make her purchase, and when she had been confronted with all the choices in red, black, emerald and gold, she had nearly bolted right out. Then Annabel had found this negligee, and it stopped her.
It was made of pure slippery silk, and the color made her smile. It made her think of coffee and milk, mixed together on a cold morning to provide a nourishing treat. When she had tried it on, it fit just right, making her skin look like ivory. It clung in all the right places, showing off her round breasts and her lush hips, and she had bought it without a question.
Come on, you bought it just for this purpose, just for this night, she told herself. Don't chicken out now.
Easier said than done, but she took a deep breath and put it on. Somehow, wearing that piece of lingerie, she felt more naked than if she had just been bare. Before she could think better of her plan, she made her way to Adil's bedroom, closing the door after her.
She wondered for a moment how he should find her, and then with a warm flutter deep in her belly, she realized that there was just one choice.
The silk cover on the bed was deliciously cool against her skin, and she couldn't resist stretching out on it. The motion only reminded her how short the negligee was, however, and she felt it ride up over her hips.
She was just tugging it down again when the door opened and Adil appeared.
He was in the motion of tugging his tie loose, but then as his eyes fell on her and he froze. In the dim light of the room, his eyes were utterly black, and Annabel frantically searched his face for any kind of reaction.
In that moment, all of her confidence collapsed, and she scrambled up into a sitting position.
"Is... is this dumb?" she asked, her voice absurdly squeaky. "I'm sorry, this is ridiculous, isn't it, I can... I can go change..."
In a flash, Adil closed the door behind him, locking it with a click.
"Stop."
His voice was deep and there was a thickness to it she had only heard once or twice. He pulled his tie off the rest of the way as he stalked towards the bed, and she realized that his eyes were raking over her body with obvious need.
"Don't move, and stop telling me you're sorry," he growled. "Not when you've given me something so lovely."
"You... you mean me?"
"Yes," he said with a dark chuckle, "I do mean you."
Annabel found herself blushing to the roots of her hair. He thought she was lovely. Her first instinct was to push it away. Of course he couldn't be serious. Of course he couldn't really think that she was lovely. He had been with starlets and models, and she was just a mother from the US, as plain as could be.
She yelped a little when he tapped her nose with a finger. It didn't hurt, but it did startle her into looking at him.
"I think that you are thinking too much," he murmured, a slight smile on his face. "I think that you need to stop that."
"I can't help it at all," she said, a little flailing. "I just keep thinking about... about what we are doing, and I don't know what to do. I don't know what I'm supposed to do, if I'm making a fool of myself or if I am irritating you..."
"Well, the first thing I can tell you is that you are not making a fool of yourself at all, and that I am not irritated."
She might have protested, but then he leaned in and kissed her. The moment his lips touched hers, she could feel a rush of hot sensation flow through her. It wasn't the burning conflagration it could be just yet, but she knew that it would rise up into it in less time than not.
When he pulled away, her eyes fluttered open, and Annabel saw a slumberous look of pleasure on Adil's face.
"Well, then," he purred. "That seems to work very well."
"Work? Works for what?"
"For calming you. For pleasing you. Both of those are things that I certainly want to do. Perhaps I can find others."
She bit her lip. She couldn't help but wonder if he was being kind to her, if he was forgoing his need and her duty simply to calm a woman who had no reason for being upset. A part of her wanted to simply dive into what they were meant to be doing (as a matter of fact, a part of her longed to do so), but another part of her, she realized, was frankly terrified.
While Annabel was deliberating, Adil matter-of-factually started to strip. She was startled when he didn't stop with his tie, but instead stripped off his shirt and started to undo his trousers. She stopped herself from yelping again, but she couldn't take her eyes away from his body and from the bronze skin that was being revealed.
Looking at Adil was like being a starving person looking at a banquet she thought. He was delicious, there was no other word for it. His body was built for power, all lean muscles and strong frame. His skin was perfectly tan all over and she longed to touch him. To her relief and disappointment, he kept his silk boxers on, and then he came to sit next to her on the bed.
"Now how is this? Is this fair?"
It took her a moment to figure out what he was saying. She realized that they were stripped to the same amount, more or less, both dressed in light silk, both baring their bodies to the other.
"Yes, I think so..."
"Good. Now tell me what you think we are going to be doing today?"
"Well..." She had not realized how hard it might be to say it. She had to try twice before she managed to push the words out.
"Well, we're here to create an heir for you, a child who will inherit the throne of Sakhi."
"That is the eventual goal, yes, but one thing that you learn is that each goal is made up of several much smaller goals. It is true that the end result will be a child that we both can love, but do you know what the goal is for tonight?"
"No..."
"Tonight, the goal is simply touching each other and making each other feel good."
When she shot a confused look at Adil, he sighed.
"It cannot escape you that you are very nervous..."
Annabel flinched a little.
"I'm... I'm very sorry, I know that I am being a fool..."
His fingertips pressed against her mouth, and when she looked up in surprise, his expression was very stern.
"You are not allowed to apologize for anything else for the rest of the night. if I think that I am owed an apology, I will ask for one. Otherwise... you are not sorry for anything. Is that clear?"
She laughed a little when she realized that her first instinct was to apologize all over again, but she nodded.
"All right."
"As I was saying, you are nervous and jumpy. That will not lead to a positive experience for either of us, and from what I know of the process, it could even get in the way of conception. I want you to have a good time when we are in bed together, and I want to make sure that we have the best changes for success. Does this make sense?"
"So far..."
"So right now, I want you to understand that we are going to touch each other. It will start with touching, and then we can figure out where things are going from there. We can figure what you want to do, what you like, and we can simply move on. Does that sound right to you?"
She wasn't sure. A part of her simply wanted to get it all over with, but the rest of her only glanced down at his dark hands and knew that she wanted them all over her.
"It... it sounds good, yeah," she said.
"Good." His voice was a nearly dangerous purr, and that was all the warning she got before he kissed her.
It was different from their kisses from before. Those kisses had all been hurried things, them stealing time when in many cases, it had not been there to steal in the first place. Now he was kissing her like a man with all the time in the world, and she could have drowned in how sweet it was.
Her hands came up to wrap around his shoulders, holding him close as they kissed. She let him explore her mouth with his tongue, and then she did the same for him. There was something intoxicating about being allowed to kiss him exactly as she pleased without needing to worry about having to stop for some reason.
Adil's hands came up to cradle the back of her neck and head, and his fingers pressed into the sensitive skin there. She found herself purring at how pleasurable the sensations were, pressing back into his hands. She had never realized how good that could feel, and now she never wanted to let it go.
"May I take down your hair?" Adil whispered, and after a moment of hesitation, she agreed.
As he fastidiously pulled the pins out of her hair, he unwound the braids that were coiled on top of her head. She deliberately kept her eyes on the bed as she felt him uncoil their full length. She didn't want to see the surprise and mockery there.
She managed to stop herself from apologizing, but a part of her sat up a little bit straighter when Adil brushed his fingers through the long black waves.
"I know that other people think of it as old fashioned and dull," she said, trying to keep the defensive tone out of her voice. "I just started wearing it long when I was a teenager, and I never wanted to stop..."
She was going to say more, but then she shivered as she felt the gentle tugging of Adil's fingers sweeping through it.
"How long is it?" Adil asked. When she looked at him, she could see that he was entranced by her dark, dark hair.
"Shorter than it was," she said with a shrug. "I went to the local hair salon and asked them to take a few inches off the bottom. I suppose to them, a few means 6 inches instead of 2 or 3, but that's a rant for another time...."
He deftly loosened all of her braids, and then he carded his fingers through the length. Her thick hair now fell down to her waist, and he couldn't seem to get enough out of staring at it.
"You seem to have no idea how lovely this is," he said softly. "It looks like something out of a fairytale."
She laughed a little.
"Most people think it looks pretty dumb. Even Marissa prefers a pixie cut when it gets warm, and she's my biggest fan. I'm pretty determined though. It's the only way I like to wear my hair..."
"I hope you never cut it," Adil said softly. "It's so much fun."
She thought her hair was pretty and that it suited her, but she wasn't sure that she would ever think it was fun. She started to ask what he meant by that, and then he gathered the thick bulk of it at the base of her neck and pulled, gently and steadily.
It was all the pleasure of having his fingers running through her hair but more so, and before she could help it, she was sighing deeply and half-draped over him.
"Do you like having your hair combed?" he asked, and she blinked.
"I brush it myself," she said with a shrug. "It has never been something that struck me one way or another."
"Do you mind if I try it?"
"Not at all..."
Adil rose from the bed, and after rustling around in a dresser tucked into one of his many closets, he came back with a solid silver comb. Playfully, he ran the edge of it over the curve of her breast, making her jump and shiver.
Before she could move away, however, he drew her back to the bed, laying her on her belly over his knees. The position was both incredibly comfortable and incredibly vulnerable, but then the cool teeth of the comb were set against her sensitive scalp, and she didn't care.
Adil combed her hair with long gentle strokes. The pressure, the coolness of the comb, his warm fingers and Adil's soft murmurs of praise were addictive. She felt as if someone had replaced all of the bones of her body and replaced them with gelatin. She felt as if her head had been full of moonlight.
She purred with pleasure when the cold heavy teeth of the comb brushed over her sensitive nape, and then she shivered when Adil parted the hair there to either side. His mouth was warm and wet as he lapped at the tender skin there, and almost sooner than she thought possible, she was whimpering under his touch.
"Oh that's hard to take," Annabel murmured, and he paused.
"Unpleasant?"
His lips moving, just barely touching her skin, made her entire body shiver, but she shook her head.
"Not unpleasant at all," she murmured. "Just intense."
"Well, if you find that you do not like intense, then certainly tell me, but until then... well, intense works just fine for me."
She started to ask what he meant, but then he stretched out beside her. She thought that he was going to take her in his arms again, but instead one hand settled on her shoulder to keep her on her belly, and the other smoothed her hair away, revealing her nape and her back.
He started with the comb. Instead of brushing her hair now, he raked the teeth of the comb down the pale skin of her back. The negligee had an indecently low back that dipped almost to the curve of her rear, so he had plenty of access. There was nothing crude or harsh about it. It was just the cold tines moving down her skin, cold against her warmth. At first the sensation was strange, but then Annabel lost herself in it. The cold made her shiver, but it was such a good shiver that all she could do was dig her fingers into the bedspread and endure.
After a short amount of time, Adil traded the comb for his mouth. He laid a long line of kisses from the base of her spine up to her nape, where she could feel him pause for a moment. Then when he kissed the back of her neck, that almost frightfully sensitive area, there was a gentle scrape of teeth there as well.
Annabel gasped, half-rising off of the bed, but a firm hand between her shoulder blades kept her down. Instead, all she could do was squirm and whimper with increasing need as he start tortured her with sensuous kisses.
"You see what happens when we take our time with this?" he murmured between kisses. "You see how good it can feel?"
It took her a few moments before she could respond to him.
"When is it my turn?" she asked. She meant for it to come out with a certain amount of teasing, but it came out as slightly desperate instead. Slightly desperate was a good phrase for what she was feeling. The fire that he caused to spring to life inside her was growing steadily, making her long for him in a way she couldn't articulate. More than once, she caught herself pressing her hips against the firm mattress for relief before she could stop herself.
"It is your turn when I say it is your turn," Adil said with amusement. "And I say not yet."
It was a most peculiar form of torture. After a few moments, the cold comb was back, and then his mouth again, and soon enough she was squirming with need and just shy of begging him for more. She would have been embarrassed at herself if she wasn't wracked with all of the shivers that were running through her.
"I think I want you naked now."
Still shaking, Annabel started to reach for the hem of her negligee, but Adil got there first. He skimmed it over her head with a practiced motion, and for the first time in five years, she was naked in front of a man. In the same movement, he flipped her over on her back, and with a startled cry, she wrapped her arms around her body, trying to cover herself up as best she could.
"Why, what's this?" asked Adil in surprise. "I thought you would be past this."
"It's... it's not..."
She couldn't say it. She couldn't talk about the stretch marks on her breasts and hips, about the slight sag of her belly after childbirth. As the doctor had said, she was in fine shape, but there was no escaping the fact that she had given birth. It changed a body, and suddenly, without a shadow of a doubt, she knew that Adil had never been with a woman who was a mother before.
The expression on Adil's face grew fierce, and his teeth glinted whitely in the dimness of the chamber.
"This is not something that you can deny me," he murmured. "I will have mercy if you are in pain, if you cannot continue for some reason, but I refuse to let this... inappropriate modesty get in my way."
She cried out a little as he pulled her hands away, pinning them to either side of her. She let him, because she knew that he was right, but still she could not stop herself from studying his face in desperation as he looked down at her.
"Oh my beautiful one," he all but purred. "I should punish you for trying to keep this from me."
If he were any other man, if she knew him even a little less well than she did, she would have said that he was mocking her, teasing her when he had had the most beautiful women in the world, but there was no mistaking the sincerity in his voice. There was need and awe there, and most of all, there was a rising desire that made his voice thick.
When she made it clear that she would not try to hide from him again, Adil released her hands and stripped off his own boxers. Her eyes widened as she saw his member jutting proudly from his body, thick and dark against his belly. Instinctively, she reached for it, but then drew back, too shy.
Adil laughed, and he caught her hand in his.
"Go on," he murmured, his voice like woodsmoke. "Touch me. See what your body does to me..."
He wrapped her small pale hand around his manhood, showing her how to stroke him. He was silk over steel, and with every stroke, she could feel the shudder that ran through his body. With every moment, she could feel his desire rise up as if it was twined with hers, and she knew that if she did not have him soon, there was a very real chance that she would go insane.
When Adil rose over her, his knees between hers, she thought that he was going to enter her. Her body clenched with anticipation, but instead of pushing into her, he simply rested his weight over her.
He canted most of his weight on his elbows as he lined his body over hers, and then she whimpered as she could feel his member gliding over her most secret places.
"How long has it been for you, my little beautiful one?" he murmured, raining soft kisses over her upturned face. "Hmm?"
She was so far gone in her desire that she could barely feel embarrassed over such an intimate question.
"Not since Iain... not for five years..."
"And before that?"
"Before that, there was no one."
Her eyes flashed up to his. Would he find her ridiculously naive? Would he laugh at her?
Instead, there was a leonine satisfaction in his eyes, a fiery pleasure that made her feel like the most desired woman on the planet.
"You are a woman of magnificent desire," he purred, rocking against her. "I am pleased it has been kept all for me..."
"I'm not," she started out, but then he reached his hand down between their bodies to find her mons. She parted her legs easily for his seeking fingers, and when he stroked her damp folds carefully, she groaned.
"Please," she murmured, all dignity gone. "Please, I want you..."
"Not just yet, darling... I want to make sure that you are perfectly ready for me, that you are going to enjoy this at least as much as I am..."
She started to ask what in the world he meant, but then his fingers were working her soft flesh, striving for entry. She drew breath a little. She was aroused, almost painfully so, but though her flesh was slick, it really had been a while since she had done this. There was a slight pinch of pain as he started to work her passage with his fingers, but then she relaxed as it was replaced with pure pleasure.
With every stroke of his fingers, she came closer and closer to a trembling peak, but just as she thought she would have no choice but to fall, he pulled his hands away.
"Now," he said, and his voice was so dark with desire that it was nearly a growl. He reared back, and then with a single perfect thrust, he pushed inside her, groaning with need.
She cried out, clinging to his shoulders as he breached her. It was not pain, not after all of his careful ministrations, but the intensity of being filled so powerfully made her want to shout.
Adil gave her no quarter. He thrust into her hard, over and over again, as wild as any stallion covering a mare. With every thrust, her desire blazed brighter, and before she could say anything, before she could tell him how close she was, it felt as if every single nerve ending in her body lit afire.
Annabel dug her nails into his shoulders, her legs wrapping around him tight as she buried her face in his chest. It was too much, far too much, and surely she would explode if she couldn't lay hold of him. She was shaking, slicked in sweat, and all of that need flowed out of her in a rush after being built up so carefully.
"Oh, oh, Adil...!"
She could relax only by centimeters, and it took her several long moments to realize that Adil was still chasing his own pleasure, his thrusts shorter and more irregular now. Just when she wondered if the pressure of his body inside her was going to make her sore, he pressed inside her one last time, spilling even as he groaned.
Acting on an instinct she didn't quite understand, she dragged him down to her. Annabel suddenly felt afraid of him pulling away from her. She needed to be close to him more than she needed anything else in the world right now.
With a soft sound of satisfaction, Adil rolled them to their sides, their bodies still joined in the most intimate way possible. Annabel could feel their breathing fall into the same rhythm as the sweat cooled on their bodies and their heartbeats returned to normal.
"That was...." Her voice cracked, and she had to start again. "You are amazing," she whispered, planting a soft kiss on his chest. It was the only place that she could reach without too much movement.
"And here I thought that you were the amazing one," he said, laughing a little. "That was extraordinary."
"Really? Extraordinary?"
"Of course. It is not a word I use lightly. That was profoundly pleasurable, the sort of experience that could convince a man that he has a real place in the universe."
She laughed.
"You're making fun of me," she protested
"Not at all," he said, and there was nothing but warmth in his dark eyes. "I can feel it when you laugh... My god, woman, but you are the world."
He leaned in and kissed her firmly, and she threw her arms around him to return it.
They did have to pull apart, but Adil made up for it by carrying her to the en suite bathroom. As she perched int the enormous marble tub, he filled it with hot water and a solution that filled it with the most lush and thick bubbles.
"I would not have thought you were a man who appreciated a bubble bath," she said with a laugh, and he chuckled as well as he slid in with her.
"It is something that should be shared," he said, and under the cover of the thick white bubbles, he stroked her smooth legs. Her eyes fluttered closed as his touch roved her and became more insistent, but even as she relaxed into her inventive lover's touch, there was a small detail that marred her experience.
Bubbles were meant to be shared, he said, and she knew with a pang that sometimes, it would not be shared with her.