Five minutes ago it hadn’t been conversation he’d wanted. As it was, his groin felt so hard he feared one wrong move might make him spill before he even got his trousers off. Yet he needed answers.
‘It’s nothing.’
Her mouth curved up in a smile that didn’t fit.
Quickly she reached for his belt, starting to unbuckle it. ‘I know what you want.’
Yet she didn’t sound eager any more. She sounded…dutiful.
Incredibly, Karim felt his hand close on hers, stopping her when she would have pulled the belt undone. She was shaking, fine tremors rippling beneath the skin. The aftermath of her climax or something else?
‘What I want is an answer.’
His voice emerged harsh. He felt her flinch and guilt eddied. Curiosity, too, about her relationship with Abbas. For years he hadn’t let himself dwell on that. Now he was consumed by the need to know.
‘But you haven’t even—’
‘I can wait.’ He couldn’t believe he was saying this when desire still rode him so painfully. ‘Tell me, Safiyah.’
‘It’s nothing. I’m just a little…overwhelmed.’
‘Because you’ve never climaxed before?’
The idea battered at him, making it difficult to think. It didn’t change anything. So what if Safiyah hadn’t found sexual satisfaction with her husband? So what if her eagerness to satisfy him suggested her experience had been about giving rather than receiving pleasure?
But it did matter.
Karim didn’t understand why, but it did. He gathered her in and held her close till the last tremors subsided, even though it was torture in his aroused state. When she was warm and pliant in his arms he released her and moved away.
‘Where are you going?’
She sounded shocked. As shocked as he felt.
‘To get your clothes. We’re going back to the palace.’ He grimaced, his gait stiff and uncomfortable with his erection.
‘Don’t you want me?’
Her voice was a whisper, and when he turned she was sitting with her arms wrapped around her knees. Her pale flesh glimmered seductively and it took everything he had not to drop to his knees and continue what they’d begun.
‘Of course I want you.’ He drew a deep breath, strengthening his resolve. ‘But when I take you, Safiyah, I want the first time to be in a comfortable bed—not hot and hard in the sand and over in two seconds.’
Which sounded good in theory, yet Karim wasn’t sure how he was going to make it last—bed or no bed.
Why, precisely, the location suddenly mattered, he wasn’t sure. Except he suspected Safiyah hadn’t been an equal partner in sex before.
Karim didn’t want her sharing his bed out of duty. He wanted her as she’d been moments before, full of passion and delight. She deserved more than a quick coupling on the beach.
He wanted to make their first time together special.
Karim refused to dwell on what that meant.