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“I … for that.” She mumbled.
His shrug was pure nonchalance. He reached behind her and pulled her to a sitting position, disentangling their bodies. His eyes locked to hers, and she couldn’t look away. It was as though an invisible string connected them. Dark emotions she couldn’t comprehend swirled in his gaze, so that she held her breath, waiting.
Finally, he spoke, the words raspy and more heavily accented than usual. “Did I hurt you?”
She blinked, frowning in confusion. “When?”
“Now.”
“Oh! No. Not at all. That was… all good.” She dropped her gaze then, embarrassment making her shy. Or perhaps it was the newness of this, of him, of realizing that she could drive him to depths of wild abandon that surprised even himself.
“Your skin is warm,” she said softly, lifting a hand to his chest and touching the scratch marks he’d made. And then, courage building inside of her, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to the marks, tasting salt, iron and passion on the tip of her tongue.
r /> He tensed beneath her, but she ignored it. Ignored whatever was making him still, making him stiffen.
“You taste like sunshine.” She ran her tongue higher, and then across to his hair-roughened nipple, flicking it with curiosity. When he inhaled a sharp breath, her confidence grew. She traced her tongue to the other, circling it, her eyes lifting to his so that she smiled against his skin when she saw the way tension had permeated his face, the way he was trying so hard to remain strong in the face of her sensual assault.
Her hands crept to his shoulders, and then higher still. She had to stretch to reach his hair, so her breasts pressed against his chest, and she was so sensitive from his ministrations that the hint of texture on his chest made her moan low and soft in her mouth.
She tangled her fingertips in his hair, pulling it loose from the bun. She hadn’t actively wondered how he styled it, but she discovered that it was simply coiled together, wrapped in on itself and held in place by its own coarseness and obedience to the sheikh’s will.
“Enough,” he growled, but there was a plea in the word.
“Why?” She wriggled closer to the edge of the table and wrapped her legs around his waist. “Are you allowed to come and take what you want and not let me do the same?”
“You want to play with my hair?”
She tilted her head to the side, pretending to consider it, then, she sobered. “I want to touch you all over. Starting here.” She tapped a finger to his forehead. “And here,” she ran her finger down his chest in a wiggling line before tapping his impressive manhood so that it jerked beneath her.
“And here,” she ran her fingers around to his buttocks, her eyes lifting back to his face.
She could see a war taking place inside of him. He was implacable and arrogant, and yet somehow, Chloe understood him on a cellular level. She could look at him and know what stirred within him, perhaps even when he didn’t know himself.
“You haven’t eaten,” he said finally, easily pushing her legs from his waist and stepping back. There was a hardness in his expression, a determination to separate from her.
He was going to go away again. To make love to her on his terms and then push her from him.
“How do you know?”
“It’s my business to know.”
She pulled a face. “So? You’re leaving again?”
He looked away from her. “No, Sheikha. You’re upholding your end of the bargain. I intend to do the same.”
6
“WHAT IS THIS PLACE?” she exhaled on a soft sigh of wonderment, her eyes moving quickly to discover the intricacies of the building to which he’d shown her.
“The Nasin-pithak,” he said the unfamiliar word, and she repeated it, wanting to taste it on her tongue, to feel it in her mouth.
His eyes remained on her face, watching her perfect the accent.
“I don’t know what that means.”
“It’s from the ancient dialect,” he confirmed with a nod, moving deeper into the space. It was a shell of a building, but not a ruin. It had been designed with these large openings and the circular hole in the roof giving her, in that moment, a perfect view of the crisp, star-lit sky.
“It was built in the sixth century, a temple then. Over time, it’s become a place for reflection. My great grandfather sat here before going to war with the Imali province. My father spent most days for a year here, after my mother …” he clamped his lips together, the look he sent Chloe cold, despite the raging emotions she felt emanating from him.
