AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Wasn’t his expression more than a little smug? Jasmine wondered, with a touch of indignation. ‘Insist?’ she echoed lightly. ‘I thought that’s what we agreed. Appointments in the diary. A rather unconventional way of a couple getting to know each other, it’s true, but that was the only way you could guarantee allotting me any time.’
‘It’s true, that’s what we agreed,’ Zuhal conceded, feasting his gaze on her luscious body and letting it linger there. He’d said it to make her realise that he had neither the time nor the inclination to play games with her. He’d imagined his cool indifference might make her reconsider her foolishness in rejecting him and bring her running into his arms. That without further prompting she would slip along the secret corridor to his bed and seek the pleasure she was guaranteed to find there.
But it hadn’t worked out that way.
His remoteness hadn’t had the desired effect of taming her or bringing her into his bed. There had been no delicious blonde lying waiting for him between the slippery silk of his sheets, eagerly taking him into her arms before spreading those delicious thighs for him. Instead, she had remained as prim as a maiden aunt and ironically this had only increased his hunger for her. His mouth dried. As if he needed any more hunger than was already coursing around his frustrated veins!
‘So you’ve got what you wanted,’ she observed thoughtfully.
A pulse flickered at his temple as she tilted her chin with faint challenge. ‘On the contrary, Jazz,’ he demurred softly. ‘I’m still waiting for the thing I want most.’
Her eyes narrowed as she looked at him and suddenly all that old sexual shorthand was back. The flush to her cheeks and the darkening of her eyes. The spring of her nipples against the silk of her robes and quick writhe of the hips, which was almost imperceptible to anyone else but him.
‘Jazz,’ he said, on a throaty note of hunger he couldn’t disguise and he heard her answering intake of breath. Did she move first or did he, and wasn’t that something he needed to know—in order to establish whose victory this was? But suddenly Zuhal didn’t care—not about the method, only the result. He didn’t care which of them had backed down as, with a hungry moan, he closed his arms around her and desire reverberated through him as never before.
Her mouth opened beneath his kiss and her moan echoed his as he explored her with his tongue. Sweet heaven, but she tasted good. So good. His shaking hands were on her robes, tugging at them impatiently with none of his usual restraint, and she was doing the same thing to him—touching his body through the delicate material as if she were discovering it for the very first time. But this was nothing like the first time. Back then she had been a virgin and now she was a sexually experienced woman who knew exactly what she wanted. And so did he.
Her hand pressed boldly against his erection as he deepened the kiss and, urgently, he backed her up against the wall, peeling off her tunic and flinging it aside before dispensing with his own the same way. He ripped off her panties so that they fluttered onto the Persian rug, his fingers quickly finding the moist heat now exposed to him and beginning a deliciously familiar rhythm. The scent of sex filled the air as he strummed against the warm syrupy feel of her and she bucked immediately.
‘Yes,’ she gasped, brokenly, and suddenly she forgot everything. Forgot that she probably shouldn’t be doing this and that Zuhal wasn’t using any protection. All she could think about was it. And him. The word burst out of her lips again. ‘Yes.’
His hands clamped around the cool flesh of her buttocks, he lifted her up so she could lock her thighs around his hips, positioning herself perfectly for that first, deep thrust which made her gasp in the way he remembered so well For a moment he had to still in order to compose himself, terrified he would come straight away—like some over-keen schoolboy whose wildest fantasy had just been realised.
‘Oh,’ he breathed, as control returned to him and he resumed his thrust. Each. Hard. Hungry. Thrust. ‘Isn’t that good, Jazz?’ he demanded unsteadily. ‘Isn’t it the best thing you ever felt?’
Her breath was hot against his neck, her words slurred with pleasure. ‘Is it praise you’re seeking, Zuhal?’
No, it wasn’t praise. He told himself it was orgasm he wanted—all he had ever wanted—but orgasms were easily attained, weren’t they? And then he stopped thinking altogether, focussing instead on how tight she felt as his balls slapped softly against her molten heat. On how his heart was pounding like a regimental drum as he increased his speed. He drove into her while doing all the things he knew she liked best. Grazing her nipples with his teeth—so that she was balancing on the fine edge between pain and pleasure. Stroking his thumb down the enticing valley which cleaved between her buttocks, so that she moaned softly with pleasure.
When she came, he followed almost immediately, kissing away her shuddering moans as his seed spurted long and deep into her body and he felt the inexplicable clench of his heart. Long minutes passed as her head flopped against his shoulder and he could hear her breathing fanning his neck. At last she unfolded her legs and slid them down so that she was standing again, her weight now pressed against the wall instead of into his body. But when he tilted her chin to stare into her eyes, she was having none of it and shook her head.
‘No. Don’t say anything,’ she said.
‘Not even to ask you whether you’d like to do it all over again?’
Her emerald gaze was very clear. ‘And if I did, would you use some protection this time?’
He nodded. ‘Of course I would. I wasn’t thinking. At least, not about that.’
There was a fraction of a pause. ‘Neither was I. But I need to do some thinking now, so will you please go?’ She shook her head as if to pre-empt further argument. ‘I mean it, Zuhal. Just go.’
It took a moment or two for him to realise she meant it and slowly he expelled a long breath. It was the first time he’d ever been ejected from a woman’s bedroom but to Zuhal it suddenly felt more like a reprieve than a punishment. Because wasn’t it a relief to be spared the inevitable analysis of what had just happened, in that tedious way women had of always overthinking things?
They both knew exactly what had just happened.
Sex. Amazing sex—nothing more and nothing less.
His lips curved into a satisfied smile as he allowed himself the brief luxury of a stretch. ‘Sure,’ he said, as he bent to retrieve his discarded robes.
CHAPTER TEN
THE SUN WAS rising in the dawn sky as Zuhal headed towards the stables next morning. He felt the tension leaching from his body—something he attributed to the amazing sex he’d had with Jazz last night, an erotic encounter which was making him grow hard just thinking about it. Because tension was an integral part of his life now, he recognised. It went hand in hand with the many new challenges facing him as monarch. Yet he found himself relishing those challenges in a way he hadn’t been anticipating, because he had never imagined he would be King. To rule had never been his destiny, but already his people were beginning to accept him, even to warm to him, and he was confident that he would be able to do his best by them.
Wasn’t that the silver lining to the dark cloud which had descended on him when Kamal had disappeared? The realisation that he no longer felt the outsider in the country of his birth?
The distant sky was a flamboyant display of flamingo-pink and orange as he swung himself into the saddle and urged his horse forward. Last night had been pivotal in all kinds of ways. He had spent the evening watching Jazz perform admirably as Queen-in-Waiting and her subsequent sexual capitulation boded well for the future. Surely now there was no further barrier stopping him from making her his bride? No reason for her to keep him dangling while she tantalisingly r
efused to give him her answer.
