‘Like that?’ His voice was gruff, almost unrecognisable, and she loved it. Loved knowing he too was on the edge.
‘Exactly like that.’ Rosanna struggled to find her breath as their bodies arched and thrust together as if they weren’t virtual strangers but long-term lovers. ‘Please,’ she gasped. ‘More.’
Something flared in Salim’s eyes. His tempo quickened and his movements grew less measured, as if he too felt that primal beat in his blood. Rosanna met him, thrust for thrust, caught up in that surging tempo, until it burst upon her, an explosion of rapture that carried her to a place she’d never known.
She heard Salim shout her name, a long, deep groan of completion so raw it sounded almost like pain. Her climax should be dying but the quick, insistent pulse of his ejaculation drew her muscles into spasm again and her brain into paradise.
Rosanna felt utterly, wonderfully complete.
CHAPTER EIGHT
SALIMDISPOSEDOFthe condom then doused his head under the cold tap, trying to shock his brain into action. He stood, arms braced on the bathroom counter, head sunk between his shoulders, trying to think.
It had never been so hard to concentrate. His thoughts kept straying to Rosanna, luscious and inviting in his bed, so unconsciously seductive.
Unconsciously? He was imagining things.
Yet while she was innately passionate, Rosanna MacIain wasn’t a practised seductress. More than once he’d caught her look of surprise. At her loss of control? At her multiple orgasms?
That was his ego talking. Wanting her to be blown away by how good they’d been together, as if no other man had made her feel anything comparable.
Salim’s rueful smile died on his lips.
It was true. That’s exactly what he wanted.
He lifted his head and looked in the mirror. A frown corrugated his brow and the lines carved around his mouth spoke of tension, despite the lingering echoes of bliss in his body.
Because no matter how good sex with Rosanna had been—and it had been phenomenally good—it had also been a mistake.
He employed her. It went against every rule to mix business with his personal life. Even though it had been consensual, he was her boss and he didn’t like the disparity in power.
Salim’s mouth rucked up in a wry grimace. Now he was sheikh there would always be a disparity in power between himself and any woman, wouldn’t there?
His situation had changed so much, and though his upbringing had been designed to prepare him for such a possibility, the change sideswiped him sometimes.
He needed to be careful, behaving with decorum as well as decency. The example set by his brother, of reckless enthusiasms, inconsistent and questionable decision-making and personal cruelty, still lingered in the public psyche. Salim was doing his utmost to reassure his people that he wasn’t like Fuad.
His brother’s enthusiasms hadn’t run to women but to fast cars, high-stakes gambling and a never-ending series of expensive whims. He’d siphoned funds earmarked for public programs to his private, lavish expenditure. As a result, Salim was particularly cautious of any actions that hinted he put his personal interests ahead of his duty.
Plus Salim had always kept his sexual liaisons private. In the days when he’d lived part-time in his father’s palace and part-time elsewhere, he’d never invited a lover here, and there’d been no lovers since he took the throne because the needs of his nation had come before his own.
Because there was no woman you wanted as much as the stranger you left behind in the Highlands.
His mouth flattened in response to that truth. It made him restless and uncomfortable. Because, even now he’d had her, he still wanted Rosanna. Too much.
On every level he could think of, sex with Rosanna MacIain had the potential for disastrous consequences. It was wrong, or it should be wrong.
Yet it felt utterly right.
The glow of wellbeing that suffused his body and clouded his brain was testament to that.
Salim scowled at his reflection. He needed a solution to the problem that was his yearning for this woman.
She was here to find him a spouse. How could he expect her to continue now they were sexually involved? Even considering it made something sour roil in his belly, as if he were being unfaithful to a woman he hadn’t yet met. Or to the woman who’d just shared his bed.
Yet he’d committed to the search for the sake of his people who had been through so much in recent years. He didn’t have the luxury of choice. Hecouldn’tturn back now.
How could he proceed while his thoughts were filled with Rosanna? When he hadn’t had a full night’s sleep in weeks because of his craving for her?