She was still studying him, looking gorgeous and far too interested in him as she held his gaze. “The storm’s really blowing out there. Do you want to wait it out in here or would you rather go to my place?”
He arched a brow. “Your place?”
“My tent.” She smiled, and the warmth of it went straight to his groin. “It’s where I stay when I’m here at the camp for any length of time. It’s not all that comfortable, but it is private.”
Jehan’s grin broke slowly across his face. “Miss Sanhaja, are you trying to seduce me?”
She licked her lips, tilting her head as she held his hungry gaze. “I think I might be.”
Holy hell. The promise in her voice had his blood racing so hard and fast to his cock, he wasn’t sure he’d make it to her tent.
“Lead the way,” he drawled thickly, his fangs already punching out of his gums.
He held the blanket aloft over them as they dashed out of the medical building and raced through the blizzard of sand. Seraphina’s tent stood toward the far end of the camp. By the time they reached it and found their way past the zipper and ties that secured the shelter’s entrance, they were coated in a thin layer of grit. They stumbled inside together hand-in-hand, Seraphina laughing and breathless in the dark.
She left him for a moment, bending to turn on a lantern.
The soft light put a glow on her pinkened cheeks and on the flush of color rising up the smooth column of her throat, making the fine sand that dusted her skin glitter like diamonds. Under the windblown tangle of her long brown curls, her sandalwood-colored eyes were fathomless and filled with desire. Her breath was still racing and shallow, the outline of her breasts teasing him from under the crisp white linen of his shirt.
He’d never seen anything so lovely.
With the storm howling all around them, sand buffeting the tent like rain, Jehan stood speechless, the sight of her like this branding itself into his memory forever.
He couldn’t resist reaching out to stroke the velvet of her cheek. And then that wasn’t enough either, so he cupped her face in his hands and dragged her into a fierce kiss.
The instant their mouths met, it was as if no time had passed between their fevered kiss before the sandstorm and this electric moment now. Hell, it was as if they were merely picking up where they left off that first night at the villa. All of the hunger he felt for this female, all of the desire...it was right there below the surface, waiting for the chance to reignite.
And he knew that Seraphina felt it too.
On a moan, she melted against him, her lips parting to give his tongue the access it demanded. Heat licked through his veins at the taste of her passion, scorching everything in its path. In an instant, his fangs punched through his gums to fill his mouth. Need hammered in his temples, in his chest. In the aching length of his cock.
He groaned with the intensity of it.
He had to pace himself. Wanted to take this slowly with her, despite his own impatience to have her spread out beneath him as he buried himself inside her.
But Seraphina was merciless. Her wet mouth and gusting breath tore at his resolve. Her soft curves and strong, questing fingers on his shoulders and chest, in his hair, stripped away his already threadbare control.
Sliding his hands under the loose hem of the tunic, he greedily caressed the firm swell of her satin-covered breasts. Seraphina gasped, arching into him as he flicked open the front clasp of her bra and cupped her bare flesh in his palms. Her nipples were tight little buds that pebbled even harder as he rolled and tweaked them between his fingers, hungry to taste them.
He released her, but only so he could take the shirt off and feast on her with his eyes.
He drew the linen over her head and let it fall to the floor of the tent. The red sash holding up her pants came off next. He untied it and watched as the slackened waistband of the linen trousers slid off her hips to pool at her feet.
“So beautiful,” he murmured, reaching out to run the backs of his knuckles down her arm, then across the flat plane of her belly. He ventured further, toying with the lacy edge of her delicate panties. “This is what I wanted to do that first night with you, Seraphina. Undress you inch by inch. Pretend I had the right to look at you like this and think I could ever be worthy of having you.”
She slowly shook her head. “I don’t want you to pretend, Jehan. Tonight, I don’t want you to stop. I didn’t want you to stop that first night either.”
A sound escaped him, something raw and otherworldly. He slid his fingers into the scrap of fabric between her legs, and...holy fuck.
She was almost bare beneath the lace. And wet. So damn wet. Hot, liquid silk bathed his fingertips as he delved into her slick cleft.
She bit her lip, dropping her head back on a sigh. Holding on to him as he stroked her silky folds, she squirmed and shuddered against his touch. “Jehan, don’t make me wait. Please, don’t make me want like this again.”
“No chance of that,” he uttered, his voice like gravel in his throat, raw with desire. “Not tonight.”
Not ever again, some possessive part of him growled in agreement.
He didn’t know where it came from—the bone-deep sense that he belonged with this woman.
That she was his.
And that as ridiculous as the ancient pact between their families was, it had somehow delivered him to the one woman he craved more than any other before.
Jehan drew her mouth to his and kissed her again, as reverent as it was claiming. He broke contact only so he could strip out of his shirt and jeans, leaving both at his feet. He wore nothing underneath, and as soon as his cock sprang free, Seraphina’s hands found him.