Neither had she been prepared for her body’s response. She might not know exactly what she wanted, but her body did. Her internal muscles pulsed, the ache between her legs intensifying.
“Let me see you,” he said. “I am at a disadvantage, for you have seen me twice, and I have only ever been teased by promises of your body.”
She just sat there, staring at him, feeling too dazed to follow instruction.
He approached the bed, his hands going to the front of her dress, where it was fastened together with hooks and eyes. “Consider this my payment,” he said. “For all that was stolen from me. For I have not touched a woman since that day. And it is fitting that you are the one who has returned desire to me.”
“A fair exchange then,” she said. “And in the end, perhaps neither will owe the other anything?”
“Perhaps,” he said, his tone raw.
He pushed the little metal clasps apart at the front of her dress and started to part the silken fabric, slowly and deliberately. Her breasts were bare beneath the heavy material. She wasn’t generously endowed there, so unless she was engaging in physical combat, there was little need for her to wear undergarments.
She wished for one now. For one additional buffer between her skin, the cool air of the room, and Ferran’s hot gaze.
He pushed the dress from her shoulders, leaving her in the light pants she’d been wearing beneath them, and nothing more. He looked at her breasts, his admiration open. “You are truly beautiful. Let your hair down for me.”
She pulled her braid from behind her and took the band from around the bottom, sifting her fingers through the black silk and letting it loose to fall around her shoulders, all the way down to her waist. She let the loose strands cover her breasts.
“That’s a tease,” he said. “Giving me only one thing that I want at a time. I want it all. I have waited long enough. Stand.”
She obeyed the command, because she was more than willing to follow orders now. She was not the expert here. She had nothing but a deep, primal instinct pushing her forward, and if she stopped to think too hard, nerves were waiting in the background to take hold. They had no place here. They were not allowed to overshadow her desire.
He remained sitting at her feet on the mattress, and he reached up and tugged her pants down, along with her underwear, leaving her completely bare before him, with him on his knees, right at eye level with the most secret part of her.
“Ferran…”
He leaned forward and pressed a kiss to her thigh, then to her hip bone, his lips perilously close to…to…her. To places on her she didn’t know men might want to kiss.
“You want my passion used for your pleasure, Samarah? You demand it? Then you must submit to it.”
“I…I will,” she said.
“Do not fight me.”
“I won’t.”
He tightened his hold on her. “Do not fight what we both want. I feel that you’re about to flee from me.”
“I’m not,” she said, her throat tightening, her heart fluttering.
“Liar,” he said, his lips skimming the sensitive skin on her inner thigh. “Spread your legs for me,” he said.
She obeyed. Because he would know the best way to do this. That she did trust. And he was right, if she wanted his passion, demanded it, then she had to accept it. Not try to control it.
He leaned in again, his tongue sliding through her inner folds, across the sensitive bud there before delving in deep.
“Ferran.” She grabbed hold of his shoulders to keep herself from falling, her legs shaking, the mattress wobbling beneath her feet. He anchored her with his hands, holding tightly to her hips as he pressed in deeper, increasing the pressure and speed of his strokes over her wet flesh.
Her stomach tightened, pleasure a deep, unceasing pressure building deep inside of her until she thought she might not be able to catch her breath. Everything in her tightened so much she feared she was turning to glass, so fragile and brittle she would shatter if he pushed against her too hard.
He kept going, adding his hands, pushing a finger deep inside of her, the sensation completely new and entirely different to anything that had come before.
He established a steady rhythm, pushing in and out of her, the friction so beautiful, so perfect, she very nearly did break. She held back, rooted herself to earth by biting her tongue, by gritting her teeth so hard she feared they’d crack.
Because she was afraid to let herself go over the edge again. Afraid of what her release would bring this time.
“Give it to me, Samarah,” he said. “Give me your pleasure.”
“I can’t…I can’t.”