I feel the battle within him and I understand it, but here in this ancient, important part of Qabid’s history, something propels me forward, so that my breasts crush to his chest, my arms wrap around his back. My heart is in my throat, nerves turning my veins to mush.
“Amy.” It’s a sigh, a whisper of acceptance. I lift a f
inger to his lips, pressing it there, hunger stirring deep in my gut.
“Don’t talk.” I shake my head. “There’s no need anymore.”
His eyes widen and I wonder if he’s going to argue with me, to disagree and inform me this is too complicated again, or remind me that we’re supposed to be enemies.
I wait, and each second is like the beating of a drum, deep into my chest, doubt hard against my side. But then his head is dropping towards mine, so fast it’s as if momentum has taken over and whatever magnetic force had drawn us together that morning is back in effect, pulling him to me and lifting me to him. Our lips clash and I groan, because it’s what I’ve been on tenterhooks waiting for since he kissed me at our wedding. I am filled with the most inexplicable sense of coming home – how can that be?
His hands tangle in my hair: long, confident, strong fingers pushing at the blonde ends, loosening it from the tie so it falls down my back. His fingers stay anchored to the back of my scalp, pushing me against his mouth, holding me so his tongue can lash me and command me. I sway forward, my back too weak to support me fully, my hips seeking him, rolling against him in a silent demand that I have no control over. I pull at his shirt, needing to feel his bare chest beneath my fingertips, remembering how I had reached for him the first morning in the desert, wanting to connect with his bare skin, to know what it feels like beneath my fingertips. I feel him shudder as I push at it, my fingers shaking as they undo the buttons, my nails scratching him as I tear it down his body. I rip my mouth from him in an agonising need for control, my eyes skating over his broad chest, the tattoos there, chasing their marking, so reminiscent of the cave drawings I’ve just been analysing. And as with the cave drawings, I want to understand his chest, too, I want to know what drove him to have each and every mark put in place.
I want him.
There is an ache low in my abdomen, an ache to feel him thrust deep inside of me, and I know if anything happens to suspend that pleasure I won’t cope. My need is all-consuming. My fingers work at his pants urgently as my mouth seeks his again. His kiss is a relief that tears through my body. As I push down his pants he does the same to me, undoing the drawstring of the simple linen culottes I’d pulled on. Without the drawstring, they fall to the ground and I step out of them as his hands cup my bottom, yanking me hard against him, his erection powerful and unmistakable. I groan again, a guttural noise that rips through us and the cave.
He pushes at my shirt, his own needs apparent, overpowering, desperate.
He shoves the shirt up, over my head, tossing it carelessly to the side so it falls into the water. I follow it with my eyes and laugh softly to see it floating there. But a look at Zahir shows he’s not laughing. His face is like thunder, illuminated by desire, the strength of his own visible need for me enough to make any laughter strangle in my throat.
“I want you now, Amy.”
I know this is a turning point, a moment in time, a moment that would allow me to pull back, to distance myself from him, to remember all the reasons I shouldn’t want this and him. I remind myself that he’s the enemy, the man who ruined my father’s life, that we married for convenience and nothing more, but his breath fans my temple and my insides quiver in recognition.
“Amy?” The way he groans my name is all it takes; I nod urgently, forgetting who I am and who he is, submitting to the physical needs running through us both.
“Please,” I mumble, digging my nails into his side.
His eyes widen and then sweep shut on a breath of relief. A moment later, he’s dispensed with my bra, dropping it to the ground at our feet in the same motion as his lips draw one of my nipples into his mouth, circling it with his tongue so I cry out, the sharp pleasure driving through me like the blade of a knife. I twist away on instinct, the feelings almost too intense to handle, but he doesn’t let me. His arms hold me tight, his mouth comes back, sucking on my nipples, one then the other, taking turns, until I’m groaning over and over in pleasure, then he’s pressing his teeth into me, so I almost black out from the rush of sensation. Every part of me is at bursting point.
I need him fiercely.
He understands, drawing me to the ground while lifting his mouth back to mine, kissing me to press me back against the sand-covered floor. His knee parts my legs and I make a whimpering noise in his mouth, impatience tearing through me even as I brace myself. It’s like an express train is rushing towards me – I know we’re about to change everything and there’ll be no turning back, but I don’t care – I’m incapable of caring or thinking now. I surrender completely to the urgency of this, waiting, bracing, aching.
His eyes find mine and there’s a silent question in their depths. In response, I reach up and wrap my hands around his neck, pulling him towards me, kissing him as I lift my hips. He swears in his native tongue, words that are guttural and primal and make me ache for him all the more, then he’s thrusting into me, not slowly, not gently; a single, powerful push, his arousal filling me, stretching me, pressing places I didn’t know existed. I arch my back and cry out: his name, then a string of words I can’t control, my fingers scraping down his back, curving around his bottom, digging into his flesh as he moves in and out of me, each thrust like nirvana, a paralysing sense of delight reaching all the way to my toes.
His tongue finds the indent between my clavicle then the valley between my breasts, tormenting it in the same way he did before so I’m almost incandescent with the building of my pleasure, a wave of desire crashing down on me. I dig my hands in harder, my nails scoring his flesh as I explode on a powerful orgasm, tearing me into pieces and spreading me through this ancient cave. Breath burns in my lungs; stars fill my eyes, but still he moves, giving me no time to recover from this feeling of sexual euphoria. None. I am in an agony of ecstasy, and he is making it so much better – or is that worse?
I can barely see, my blood is pounding through me so hard and fast, and then his hand is curving behind my back, lifting me off the ground, pulling me to sit on him, and he’s so much deeper like this, his body thrusting into mine as he holds me crushed to his chest, his hands in my hair rough and urgent, his stubble drawing across my chest leaving a burning sensation that only increases this visceral, soul-splitting heat.
I swallow a curse of my own as another orgasm builds, my teeth sinking into his shoulder as pleasure saturates me and my insides tighten, squeezing, demanding release.
He makes a gruff noise then finds my mouth with his, kissing me with the same rhythm as his cock possesses. Every single thrust is a mark upon my being. I push down deeper, welcoming him, needing him, something shifting within me so I am utterly, completely his.
The thought shocks me, and I mentally reject it even as I acknowledge its accuracy.
My orgasm is swift, driving through me like the same freight train I’d felt earlier. It is too much. I collapse against his shoulder, my breathing the same as if I’d run a marathon, my skin flushed and covered in moist heat.
He’s still, his arms around me like a vice, his lips gently kissing my shoulder, his tongue flicking my flesh, tasting my perspiration. He’s still so hard inside me, I brace for him to start moving again, already craving that specific kind of fulfilment.
“That was worth the wait.”
Surprised, I pull back, heat of a different kind flushing my cheeks now. “You’re not…you didn’t…”
He grimaces, his cheekbones flushed dark. “No.”
“Oh.” I blink away, mortified that for whatever reason he didn’t come – or doesn’t want to. It was the most amazing sex of my life but apparently for him, it wasn’t enough to drive him to completion.