In a swift move he lifted her into his arms before she knew what was happening. Her shoes fell off as Alix strode out of the main hammam room and deeper into the harem. It was dark and shadowy. Mysterious. Rooms led off the corridor all in different colours.
He shouldered open one door and Leila’s eyes went huge when she took in an enormous circular bed, dressed in blood-red silks and satins. The walls were covered with murals and it took a second for it to sink in that the murals depicted Kama Sutra–like explicit drawings.
A courtyard filled with wild blooming flowers was visible through French doors and a brightly coloured bird flew away from a water fountain. It was as if this was some kind of fairy tale and these rooms had been suspended in time all these years.
And then Alix laid Leila down on the bed and she knew this was no fairy tale. He was too intent...serious. Focused. And she knew she should care...should be getting up, walking away...but she couldn’t move. And, worse, she didn’t want to.
If this was all they had then she wanted it as fiercely as he did. Somehow, here, with Alix stripping off his outer urban layer, Leila could pretend that nothing else existed. For a moment.
When Alix was naked he lowered himself over Leila on his arms and dropped his head, his mouth feathering hot kisses along her jaw and neck down to where her pulse beat like a drum, sucking her there and biting gently. As if he wanted to leave his mark on her.
She reached for him, groaning with deep feminine satisfaction when she found his hard muscles, the defined ridges of his abdomen. And she reached down further, to where his erection jutted proudly from his body. Hot and hard. Silk over steel.
She wrapped a hand around him, suddenly more confident than she’d ever been before. She stroked him, loving how the muscles in his belly tightened at her touch.
Then he put a hand over hers and drew it away. ‘I’ll explode if you keep touching me like that. I need you—now.’
Suddenly Leila was frantic with the same urgency, and aware that she was still fully dressed—albeit with her dress gaping open and her bra pulled down.
Alix undid the tie of her dress and Leila wriggled out of it. Her bra was dispensed with and Alix pulled her panties and tights down and off.
He stood back for a moment and just looked at her. Waves of heat made her blood throb and her skin feel tight. And then he came over her again, nudging her legs apart. He lavished attention on her breasts, sucking her nipples into his mouth and making them wet and tight with need. Then he trailed his mouth and tongue down over her belly, where their baby was nestled in her womb.
He seemed to linger there for a second, and Leila felt a rush of emotion, but she bit her lip to stop it coming out, afraid of what she’d say. And then she couldn’t think, because Alix’s mouth was moving lower, and so was he, hitching her legs over his shoulders and gripping her buttocks as he put his mouth on her there.
At the hot, wet seam of her body where she couldn’t hide how much she wanted him.
She felt utterly exposed, but couldn’t stop him as he stroked her with his tongue, opening her up to his ministrations, and then he found that cluster of cells and licked and sucked until she was gripping his hair and bucking towards his mouth, and his tongue was thrusting deep inside her.
And even though she’d climaxed, right into his mouth, it wasn’t enough. She was panting, almost sobbing as he rose up like some kind of god. Her legs flopped wide and Alix moved his erection against her. After an enigmatic second of silent communication he thrust deep into her core. And her world shattered into pieces for a second time.
She became pure sensuality—engulfed in a never-ending moment of bliss. Alix moved within her, deeper and harder with each thrust. She was boneless, and yet she couldn’t help the rising tide of another climax. Even after the last two.
She caught a glimpse of something above them and looked up. The ceiling was mirrored glass. Old and dark. But she could see Alix’s sculpted and muscular buttocks moving in and out of her body, her legs wrapped around him, ankles crossed over the small of his back.
And it was as she saw his huge, powerful body flexing into hers with such beauty and strength that she fell apart for the third time, her orgasm so intense that she barely felt the rush of Alix’s hot release, deep in her body, as he jerked spasmodically with the after-effects of his own climax.
* * *
When Leila woke she was completely disorientated. She was alone on the huge circular bed and the covers were pulled up over her chest. She could see herself reflected in the ceiling and her hair was spread around her head. Images came back... The sheer carnality of their union. The humiliating speed with which she’d capitulated.
‘You’re awake.’
Leila tensed and lifted her head. Alix stood by the open French doors of the room. It was dusk outside and birds called. The scent of the flowers was heady. Leila ha
d to block out the immediate instinct she had to assimilate the smells.
She pushed herself up on her elbows, noting that Alix was in his trousers, but still bare-chested. ‘Yes, I’m awake.’
She felt as if she’d been turned inside out. She tried to claw back her sense of anger from earlier, but it was hard when she felt as if someone had drained every bone from her body and injected her with some kind of pleasure serum.
She saw her dress at the end of the bed and sat up, holding the sheet to her as she reached for it. She put it on awkwardly, aware of Alix’s intense regard, and tied it around her, sitting on the edge of the bed.
‘You asked me earlier if it affected me, seeing the baby today?’
Leila went still and nodded.
‘Of course it affected me. What kind of man would I be if I couldn’t see my own child and feel something?’