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She was trying to think of a suitable response when suddenly the Sheikh seemed to lose patience with the conversation because he picked her up.
‘What are you doing?’
‘What do you think I’m doing? I’m taking you to bed. I’ve had enough talking, particularly about your sister.’
He began to carry her towards a beautiful carved arch at the far end of the room and Hannah kicked her legs a little like a toddler learning to swim.
‘Please put me down, Kulal. I’m much too heavy.’
‘You weigh nothing,’ he said, carelessly discounting her protest. ‘Nothing at all.’
And perhaps he decided that kisses were better than words—for kisses took you down one path and words another. Perhaps he was bored with talking altogether, for he set her down beside the biggest bed she’d ever seen and pulled her into his arms.
CHAPTER NINE
‘SO,’ SAID KULAL, his voice unsteady. ‘Time to seduce my new wife. But first, I need to get you out of this infernal wedding dress.’
Hannah’s heart was hammering as the Sheikh turned her round to begin unhooking her decorative gown. It seemed to take him ages, but that might have had something to do with the fact that he kept brushin
g his mouth over each inch of newly exposed flesh, so that by the time he had laid her trembling and naked beneath the embroidered bedcover, all her nerves had dissolved beneath a feeling of mounting anticipation. Just enjoy this, she told herself fiercely as he pulled the ceremonial robes from his darkly muscular body and slid naked into bed beside her. Because this is your wedding night and it will lay the foundations of your whole life together.
‘I’ve never had sex with a pregnant woman before,’ he murmured as he grazed his mouth over hers.
Brushing the back of her hand across her forehead, Hannah mimed relief. ‘Thank goodness for that.’
He paused, lifting his head away from hers so that their gazes collided. ‘I don’t want to hurt you, Hannah.’
‘I’m tough,’ she said truthfully, though she was talking physically, not emotionally. Because when he looked at her in that seeking way, she felt almost boneless with a deep longing which was alien to her. But surely she was permitted to experience it on her wedding night... Surely just this once she could hint at all the passion lying deep inside her, waiting to be unlocked. ‘Just hold me, Kulal.’ Her voice trembled a little. ‘Touch me.’
His features hardened as he stared at her and she wondered if she’d sounded needy. But suddenly, his mouth was on hers and he was kissing her with a hunger which seemed to echo her own and she felt a great whoosh of excitement flooding through her. And although Hannah wasn’t—in Kulal’s own words—very experienced, somehow that didn’t seem to matter. Not to her and not to him. Not now, when she was his wife. When she was at liberty to touch him without inhibition. And why be shy when his baby was in her belly? Wasn’t their flesh combined in more than one way?
‘Oh,’ she said breathlessly as he began to drift his fingertips over her skin.
‘Your breasts are magnificent,’ he said throatily.
‘You don’t think they’re too...big?’
He gave a strangled kind of laugh. ‘What kind of a question is that?’
Now wasn’t the time to admit that the fashion magazines which Tamsyn had always passed on to her to read had always made Hannah feel like an over-curvy freak. Not when he was bending his head to suck hotly on each aroused nipple. She shivered as his fingertips skated over the curve of her belly, lingering there for just a moment. She waited for him to say something about the baby, but he didn’t and she told herself it was stupid to feel disappointed. To think that if this were a normal honeymoon, then he might have mentioned the unborn life within her.
But why think about the things he wasn’t saying when his seeking fingers were delving in between her parted thighs and beginning to stroke her. He was tantalising her as he rubbed his fingers against her slick, wet heat until she moved restlessly—her hunger beginning to mount.
She knew she couldn’t just lie there passively. During her solitary nights last week on the other side of the palace, she’d furtively read a book on sexual satisfaction within marriage, which she planned to put to good use. But when she summoned up the courage to slide her palm over the enormous erection which was nudging hard against her belly, Kulal dragged his mouth away from hers and gave a decisive shake of his head, before moving her hand away.
‘No,’ he said sternly.
‘Why not?’
‘Because I’m too close to coming and I want to do that when I’m inside you.’ His voice was almost gentle as she sank her hot face into the sanctuary of his neck. ‘And I don’t really think that now is the time for blushes, Hannah. Do you?’
She remembered that once he’d told her he liked her blushes, but that had been way back when—when he’d thought she would be in and out of his life in a few short hours. If he had been able to look into the future—if he’d known that their single night in Sardinia would have ended with her as his new Queen in this amazing golden palace—would he still have gone ahead and had sex with her?
Of course he wouldn’t.
Would she?
But the crazy thing was that Hannah couldn’t find herself regretting that night—and not just because Kulal had introduced her to a physical pleasure she was discovering hadn’t been a one-off. It was more than that. Because already she felt a fierce love for the new life growing inside her—so how could she possibly have regrets?
