He waited a moment, the tendons in his neck standing out, his jaw clenched tight. She noticed the muscles in his arms were trembling, as he held himself still.
“Zayn.” She said his name, and he started to move.
He started with slow, measured strokes, giving her time to adjust to the feeling of fullness, to the feeling of his body inside hers. Gradually, the discomfort began to recede, pleasure started to build.
She rocked against him, chasing the climax that was beginning to build inside of her again. His movements began to fracture, his control fraying, everything becoming harder, more desperate. And she was right there with him. She didn’t want slow anymore, she didn’t want gentle. She wanted it all. She wanted it fast, she wanted it now.
She clung to his shoulders, met his every thrust, her clitoris making contact with his pelvis, white-hot pleasure streaking through her body with each movement.
She could feel herself starting to slip, starting to head back toward the void. She tightened her hold on him, intent on dragging him down with her. This time, she wouldn’t go alone.
“Zayn,” she whispered, her lips near his ear. “Zayn, come with me.”
He shuddered, his body shaking, the evidence of his loss of control the final ingredient needed to push her over completely. Climax ripped through her, harder this time, more intense than the first. That had only been preparation, it’d only been a primer. It had not prepared her for this. For what it was like to lose control completely, with Zayn. To shake as he did. To be drowning in the swell of pleasure, as he did, too.
When it was over, they clung to each other. She could feel his heart raging against her chest, could see his pulse beating at the base of his neck.
And she heard silence, no more rain, nothing at all.
And she could feel the final bits of sand slipping away.
Time had run out, and the world was encroaching. And she knew that she had been a fool. Because she had imagined that she would walk back into that world unchanged.
But she was changed. Utterly, irrevocably.
She had just made love with Sheikh Zayn Al-Ahmar, and everything inside of her felt new. Felt different. But the world, the monarchy, his engagement, all of the social hierarchy, stood firm. Unmoving, uncaring of everything that had passed between them.
“Zayn?”
He wrapped his arms around her, and pulled her against his chest, reversing their position so that she was partially on top of him. “The roads will still be flooded for a while. You should rest.”
And with those words, he turned the hourglass again, granting them an extension on their time out in the wilderness.
CHAPTER EIGHT
BY THE TIME the light of dawn broke through the edges of the tent door, Zayn had already been awake for hours. He was holding Sophie in his arms, warm, soft and bare, her skin pressed against his. Satisfaction flowed through his veins like warm honey, but then it hardened, turned bitter, as it mixed with the realization of what he had done.
Sophie did not deserve this. She did not deserve to have her virginity taken in a tent, in the middle of the desert, by a man who would have to ignore her when they returned to real life. She did not deserve to be the conduit by which he expended his frustrations. He had reached a breaking point, and it would’ve been far better for him to stand out in the rain and let it wash over him until he was numb again. Until he remembered who he was. And what his responsibilities were.
But she had been there, she had been there saying the things he wanted to hear, offering him the things he wanted most. And she had told him to pretend as though the rest of the world didn’t exist, and he had been far too eager to refuse.
And then, rather than distancing himself the moment he realized his mistake, he had pulled her into his arms, granting them an extension. Granting himself an extension.
Were his spot in hell not already well assured, and likely well appointed in preparation for his arrival, a space would certainly be reserved now.
Where was his sense of duty now? Where was the honor in taking advantage of an innocent woman and using her to sate his own lust? There was none. Because while Sophie might have believed she knew what she wanted, she had no real way of knowing. A virgin had no way of knowing the ways sex might affect her emotionally. And he had suspected as much, especially given what she had told him about the kiss. Her one and only kiss, with one man. He had known what that meant, but he had chosen to ignore it. And when he had decided to ask her about it, at the worst moment possible, after turning back was impossible, he had known what her immediate deflection had meant. Still he had ignored it. Because of what he had wanted.
It was his greatest fear realized. That he had not changed at all. That he was still the same selfish, spoiled boy he had always been. The years of adhering to a code of honor could be undone by lust that was just strong enough.
A moment that his selfishness could not transcend.
He sat up, pushing his hands through his hair, looking down at the woman sleeping next to him. She moaned, and rolled over onto her side, drawing her knees up to her chest. She looked so young, so vulnerable. And he felt even more like an ass than he had only a few seconds ago.
He stood, as straight as he could in the tent, and found his pants, which were crumpled on the floor. They were wet, still, and he probably deserved that. He pulled them on quickly, and went outside.
The sun was up now, the sky clear. The roads below looked like they had dried. They had no excuse to linger here. And indeed, they should not. He would only do more damage out here away from reality. He had managed to trick himself, but he would do it no more.
He looked back at the tent and cursed. He would still have to go in there and face her, would still have to see her all rumpled, naked, and deal with all of the heady memories from last night. How wonderful it had felt to be inside of her, to be skin to skin with her.
He went to the SUV and opened the back, pulling out their bags and slamming the tailgate shut. He hefted both bags over his shoulder, and went back to the tent. When he opened the flap, Sophie was stirring, the blankets pulled up over her breasts, her shoulders bare.
She blinked sleepily and scrubbed her eyes with the back of her hand. She was everything fresh and sweet, perfect. Everything he had no right to touch. No right to ruin.
“Good morning.” He dropped both bags on the floor of the tent. “The weather is nice, so we should have no difficulty getting back into the city.”
She blinked more rapidly, trying to focus on him, squinting at the light that was filtering through the opening of the tent. “Oh.” She shifted, holding tightly to the blankets. “It is morning.” She looked like she was thinking deeply about something, and it disturbed him. Made something ache in his chest.
“I can wait outside while you get dressed if you like.”