Night had deepened by the time he’d reached the seaside villa where she’d once told him she loved him, and which he’d bought for her, for them. He’d sell it in the morning. He couldn’t stay here without her. And she wouldn’t take it.
He walked across the veranda of the master bedroom suite to the balustrade, lost in thoughts as tumultuous as the sea. He...
“I’ve made a decision.”
His every hair stood on end. Laylah.
He swung around to her, his heart thudding in disbelief. She was the last person he’d expected to see here, tonight, or ever.
She’d taken off the wedding gown he’d had made for her, and was in one of those flowing dresses she’d been wearing since they’d come back to the region. It looked as if it were weaved from moonlight. She was made of his every dream and was so...missed, he swayed where he stood with the sheer intensity of longing.
Her approach continued until she was flush against him.
His whole being, body and soul, surged at the feel of her. Confusion then hope were as overwhelming as his response. Was she...?
Her hand curled around his nape, brought his head down to hers. Before she took his lips in the kiss he’d been dying for, she ended all confusion. And hope.
She said, “Like you used me, took your pleasure when you felt nothing, I’ll use you as cold-bloodedly, for my pleasure.”
Fifteen
Her cold words doused the heat of her embrace.
He jerked back. “You can’t mean that.”
“I do.” Her lips opened on his scar, what she’d turned into the trigger of his every uncontrollable desire. “You’re fantastic in bed, and you are the man in my life—for now. I’ll take my pleasure from you. As is my right.”
He tried to hold her off, to hold back from snatching her. “You have every right to everything in me.”
Her teeth nipped his chin. “I want nothing else from you.”
“But I do. I want your love, your trust.”
It was she who pulled away this time. “Sex is all I can give you. Ask for more, and I’ll walk out, and you will see me only from afar until it’s time to end the marriage.”
It was in her face. She meant it.
If he said no, he’d lose her now, not later.
But if he said yes, he might still have a chance. He might still melt her in the inferno of their passion.
There was no choice really. A beggar had none.
Exhaling his defeat, he swept her up in his arms.
As soon as he put her down on the ground by the bed she charged him, climbed him, wrapped herself around him. His senses blazed with her hunger, his heart crumbled now she’d stormed out of it.
He tried to lower her to the bed, but she twisted in his arms, made him change direction, take her on top.
He watched her sweep off her loose dress, ablaze with exquisiteness, revealing another of those mind-messing creations he’d chosen for her in such intense pleasure and anticipation, the scarlet emphasizing the magic of her coloring and worshipping the perfections of her lushness. His hands trembled over her soft stomach where the miracle of their passion was growing, delight and dejection almost rupturing his heart.
Praying she’d reclaim him from the wasteland of her alienation, he opened himself to her possession, let her devour him and dominate him, drowning in her desire as she exposed him to its full measure, even as she withheld the spiritual part he needed most, was withering without. She ignited fever all over him until she claimed the manhood that been created to mesh them together, to give her pleasure.
Thrusting his hips to her ravenous rhythm, sinking deeper into her hunger, his hands shook all over her, his body and heart in her power. After a lifetime of sufficiency and restraint, his dependence on her was devastating, yet vital.
Her fingers dug into his buttocks, demanding his full surrender, what he’d learned to give her. His hand convulsed in her hair as his loins exploded, as she drained him, yet only left him crazed for more, for her.
He tried to snatch her up to his heart, but she took him over again, straddling him, her eyes as mindless as he felt with the need to merge. “I want you, Rashid.”
“Aih, ya hayati kollaha, my whole life, want me.” He helped her position him at her entrance. “Take all of me...”
She took him in one downward stroke.
A whiteout of sensation blinded him as her scorching core engulfed him, his home inside her. His only home.
Senses reignited when he’d forged all the way inside her, felt her shuddering all over him, inside and out, his name a litany of moans on her lips.
He knew how she felt, frenzied, as he rose with her impaled on him, leaned against the wall, spread her buttocks in his palms.
“Ride me, ya rohi. Take me and take your pleasure of me.”
Hands bracing against his shoulders, thighs trembling, she slid up half his shaft when he engulfed one nipple in his mouth. Her hands slipped off his shoulders, had her crashing down on him, lodging him at her womb, her wail of stimulation tearing through both of them. “Rashid...do it...”
He obeyed, holding her hips and moving her up and down his length to the rhythm of his suckling and confessions. “Do you feel what you’re doing to me? I never dreamed pleasure like this existed...”
Her fingers dug into his flesh, for breaching the sex-only stipulation. But he had to try to reconnect with her.
He rolled her around, slid up her moist, silken flesh, stretched her farther around his invasion, fighting to hold back the impending avalanche.
Throbbing in her depths, he rose above her. “Heaven would be nothing compared to being inside you.” Her teeth sank in his scar, punishing him. His head pitched back on the excruciating pleasure. “Aih, Laylah, punish me and take me back—all of me.”
At his plunge all the way into her, she shrieked, her inner muscles squeezing his length in a fit of release. He rode the breakers of her orgasm in a fury, surrendering to the pleasure he’d only ever known with her, jetting his essence into her milking depths, swearing his love as swell after swell of agonized completion swept him. “Atawassal elaiki suddegeeni—ahebbek, a’ashagek...I beg you believe me, I love you, worship you. I never loved anyone but you, never lied about this.”
She went limp beneath him.
Unreasoning fears crashed on him. He might have been too aggressive, hurt her, the baby...
He tore himself from her clinging depths. “Laylah...”
Her eyes were open and empty. Dread overcame him, until she suddenly moved, removing herself from his frantic grip.