For a second the idea infiltrated that she should stop this. She’d come here to get away from Karim. But only for a second. This…whatever this was…was unstoppable, like the surge of the tide or the rise of the moon.
Karim’s knees were astride her thighs, his heat warming her through her trousers as deft fingers worked the buttons of her shirt undone. Safiyah reached for his shirt, flicking those buttons free with an ease borne of urgency. She was working her way down when he pulled her shirt wide and sank back, imprisoning her legs with his weight.
His eyes glinted like starlight, and he had the stark look of a man about to lose control, his flesh pulled tight over bone.
In one quick, ripping movement he tore his shirt free of his trousers and shrugged it off, leaving her in possession of a view that blew her mind.
She’d felt the solid muscle beneath his shirt, seen the way his wide shoulders and broad chest tapered down towards a narrow waist. But the naked reality stunned her.
Safiyah’s throat dried. Karim was built like an ancient sculpture of idealised male athleticism. Dark skin and a dusting of even darker hair covered a muscled torso that drew her like iron to a magnet. Her hands lifted, pale against his bronzed flesh, to settle, fingers splayed, across satiny heat. Intrigued, she let them rove higher, over pectorals weighted with muscle and fuzz that tickled her palm.
Karim’s ribs expanded into her palms as he snatched in air. In the soft darkness all she could hear was ragged breathing and the pulse of her blood, louder even than the shush of the waves.
Safiyah let her hands slide down across all that searing heat. She reached his belt, her knuckles grazing his flat belly and the tiny line of hair that disappeared into his trousers. Muscles tautened at the brush of her fingers, the tiny movement incredibly erotic.
‘You want me.’
It wasn’t a question. How could it be when he could read the need in her touch, in her quickened breathing, in the way she ate him up with her gaze? Yet she felt compelled to reply as he waited for the admission.
He’d challenged her to admit what she’d tried to hide, even from herself.
She swallowed, feeling that, despite their wedding vows last week, this was the real moment of truth between them. The moment of consent. With no witnesses but the vast sea and impervious stars. Where even in the shadows she could no longer hide.
‘I want you, Karim.’ She watched the quick rise of his chest on another mighty breath as if her words brought relief from pent-up pain. ‘And you want me, don’t you?’
His teeth gleamed in a smile that looked more like an expression of pain than pleasure.
‘Of course.’
He took her hand and dragged it low, pressing it to his trousers. Her hand firmed on his erection and his eyelids lowered, his breath hissing as he pushed forward into her palm, his hand still cupping hers around him.
Heat suffused Safiyah. The sight of Karim half naked, questing after her touch with his head arched back in pleasure, was the most arousing thing she’d ever seen. The pulse between her legs quickened and she squirmed against his solid thighs. The sensations were simultaneously delicious and terrible. She’d wanted him for so long, even as she’d told herself she didn’t.
The depth of her desire frightened her with its unfamiliarity. And that gave her the strength to drag her hand away.
Karim made as if to grab her hand, then stopped.
‘You didn’t come to me.’ Her voice was a harsh rasp of fury and hurt as she struggled for breath. ‘Ten. Whole. Days. You ignored me.’
How could she be sure he wasn’t still playing some cruel game? Making her want, despite her better judgement?
Karim shook his head like a swimmer surfacing, trying to clear water from his eyes. ‘You hold that against me?’
Suddenly Safiyah knew this was a bad idea. She lay half naked with a man who’d toyed with her before. Yet here she was, baring if not her soul her desires.
She tried to shift him, but those strong horseman’s thighs held her in place.
‘I’m sorry.’
Karim’s apology froze her in place. Or maybe it was the way he trailed his index finger from her navel over her ribs till he reached her bra. Her nipples pebbled and she couldn’t prevent the arch of her back, thrusting her breasts higher. He pressed his thumbs against her nipples and Safiyah gasped as pleasure shot straight to her core.
‘I wanted to be with you,’ he murmured, his voice low as he bent over her, his breath hot on the bare upper slopes of her breasts. ‘But I couldn’t. There was too much work to ensure key people were loyal to me, not Shakroun.’
He squeezed her breasts through the lacy bra and everything inside her turned molten.
‘I worked day and night to make sure he couldn’t mount a challenge.’
His words blurred under the force of her restless hunger but still he spoke.