His impatience heightened as they waited for the cloakroom attendant to find her stole and his coat. He slung the stole over his arm and wrapped his coat around Kasia’s shoulders. He didn’t need the garment himself, he was already burning up. His hunger surged when he caught a flash of something raw and needy in her eyes as he escorted her into the street and flagged down a cab along the wide boulevard. He couldn’t wait for their car.
The cabbie weaved through the streets in the short drive to their hotel. He kept her fingers clasped in his, stroking her knuckles, trying to reassure her as much as himself. Despite appearances and the judgement of other, more pampered men, he wasn’t an animal.
And he would be gentle if it killed him. He didn’t want to endanger the babe or exhaust her. But he could not wait any longer.
‘Is everything okay, Raif?’ she whispered in the darkness, and while he could hear the tremble of uncertainty in her voice he could also hear the naked desire that she was making no effort to hide.
Pride surged. Despite her apprehension she was here, with him, ready to meet his needs with needs of her own.
‘It soon will be,’ he said, devouring the sight of her, silhouetted against the glittering lights of the city, as the cabbie drew up outside the hotel.
But as he escorted her through the lobby, dragged her into the penthouse elevator, and waited for the damn thing to finally reach their suite, he felt the tight leash he had kept on his hunger start to fray.
As they stepped into the suite, she let go of his hand to shrug off the coat and lay it on the back of one of the couches, revealing the seductive dress, and the lush curves he could no longer wait to caress.
Kasia’s thigh muscles loosened and pleasure ached at her core as Raif’s arms wrapped around her and his hands caressed the smooth satin covering her abdomen. His lips nuzzled her neck and her breathing became ragged, her heartbeat hammering her ribs.
At last.
The ring had thrown her and so had his presence by her side during the glittering event. She’d assumed he would leave her as he had so often in the last four days to attend to his business commitments. But instead he’d remained beside her, his arm banded around her waist, never letting her stray far from his side.
But what should have felt suffocating had been exhilarating. Feeling owned also made her feel cherished, and important. He’d introduced her as his fiancée and had never let her out of his sight. But then something had changed suddenly. She’d felt his irritation at the attention she was getting from the royal she was talking to and had assumed it was because the young man’s conversation was so inane.
But when Raif had whispered in her ear, she’d heard the note of possessiveness, the note of arrogance and desire—and instead of feeling outraged or appalled she’d felt elated.
The journey to the hotel had been agony, her anticipation reaching fever pitch.
His large hands cupped her breasts, his thumbs stroking her nipples through the dress until she was panting.
‘I need you naked,’ he growled, his breathing as ragged as her own.
‘I know,’ she said.
He turned her in his arms, found the tab of the dress’s zipper under her arm. The sibilant hiss echoed in the shadowy room, the only light coming from the lamps outside. The evening breeze brushed over her skin, but that wasn’t what made her shiver as he stripped the dress off her.
Seconds later he removed her bra. Bending, he scooped the swollen flesh into the palm of his hand and captured the stiff peak in his teeth.
He flicked his tongue over the engorged nipple, making the blood flow painfully to her core. She sobbed, the sensations unbearably wonderful as pleasure rolled and crested.
He lifted his head, his eyes dark with arousal. ‘Are they more sensitive?’
‘Yes,’ she said on a broken sob.
He chuckled, then captured her other breast and continued the torture, sucking and nipping her into a frenzy as his seeking fingers slipped into her panties.
The heel of his palm pressed against her vulva. She rolled her hips, desperate to increase the delicious pressure, then moaned as his fingers delved, brushing and circling the stiff nub of her clitoris, forcing her to dance to his tune.
The vicious orgasm crested, her body bucking against his touch—so firm, so sure, so right. She cried out as she shattered, grasping his shoulders to stop herself from falling into the abyss.
As the last of the orgasm waned, her knees weakened, but as she threatened to dissolve into a puddle of passion on the carpet, he scooped her limp body into his arms and strode into the master bedroom.
He placed her gently on the four-poster bed. She lay there, feeling dazed and disorientated, her body alive with afterglow, as he stripped.
Her gaze consumed the planes of muscle and sinew, the scarred and inked skin, the scatter of dark hair and the large, thick shaft of his erection.
He knelt on the bed, but instead of thrusting that swollen shaft deep inside her, he cupped her bottom, draped her legs over his shoulders and blew across the slick folds of her sex. Then, holding her open with his thumbs, he licked across her clitoris.
Her body bowed back, the shocking ple