Flutters of excitement whirled and swooped in her abdomen. She stroked trembling fingers down the opalescent silk of the gown Rihana had given her.
His gaze followed the movement.
Heat blossomed low in her womb and at the apex of her thighs. She tried to calm herself and failed.
Last night’s crisis had cut through her attempts to be sensible and careful. All that remained was raw feeling.
What she felt for Tahir was stronger than ever.
He was the embodiment of every dream she could no longer deny. Tall, suave and potently masculine in dark trousers and a black shirt, his head bare.
Tension radiated from him. His jaw was rigid, his face composed of taut angles and lines. His eyes blazed like the sky at midday. Almost too bright to watch. Yet she couldn’t look away.
She took a step towards him and his hand clenched white-knuckled on the gossamer fabric. Her heart thumped out of kilter at what she read in his expression.
He looked fierce, stern, forbidding. Yet she felt no fear. For there was warmth too. Such warmth.
Surely it was real, not a product of her needy imagination?
For so long she’d wanted him to want her, really want her, as she did him. Now she had her wish. The force of that look almost buckled her knees.
Instinctively she realised he battled with himself. She had so little experience yet at some primitive level she understood her power over him.
For he had the same power over her. He’d wielded it from the first. She’d been blind to think she could escape its pull. Foolish to think she could walk away.
They might be king and commoner but in this they were equals. That knowledge gave her strength.
‘Tahir?’ Her voice was a barely audible throb of sound.
His fingers eased their grip on the fabric and his arm dropped to his side. He hefted a breath that inflated his chest and lifted his shoulders. It shuddered from him in a sigh. Annalisa felt its twin tremble through her.
He stepped forward, his long stride closing the distance between them. All she saw was him.
‘Habibti.’ My darling. His deep voice was hoarse and unfamiliar. The sound of his endearment crept like warm fingers up her spine till she shivered, her nipples peaking.
This close, she saw the lines of fatigue around his eyes. Had he been up all night and all day too?
Annalisa opened her mouth to ask about the rescue, but he reached out and pressed his index finger to her lips. She inhaled the warm scent of man, of Tahir, and heat pooled low in her body. She felt herself tremble on the brink of a precipice. No thought now of their turbulent past. The emotion she’d read in his ravaged features last night was more important than what had gone before.
For countless moments they stood, drawn by a force so strong the air crackled with it.
The tension was too much to bear. Annalisa swayed towards him. A muscle in his jaw worked; his eyes devoured her.
Tentatively she lifted her hand, unable to stop herself. She needed to feel him, safe and real.
Before she could touch him he hauled her close, slamming her into his rigid body. His arms wrapped hard round her, tucking her against him as if he had no intention ever of releasing her.
Annalisa trembled as his fiery heat encompassed her. Beneath her ear his heart thudded, matching her own racing pulse. She hugged him close, squeezing tight as tears she didn’t even understand stung her eyes.
A hiccough escaped as she fought back surging emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.
Long fingers cupped her chin and tilted her face up. Then Tahir was kissing her, lips slanted across her mouth in stormy possession. He gave no quarter, allowed no hesitation, as he took her.
He delved deep, kissing her thoroughly, like a conquering marauder taking his fill. Yet there was a piercing sweetness to his caress that spoke of far more than easy gratification. Her heart soared at his urgency and underlying tenderness.
His hands shook as he cupped her face. For all his power and physical strength, Tahir was as needy as she.
Annalisa answered his kisses with her own, leaning on tiptoe and planting her hands in his thick, soft hair, as if to prevent him pulling away.
Tahir groaned deep in his throat as she slid her tongue into his mouth, mimicking his caresses, luxuriating in the dark mutual pleasure consuming them.
He bowed her back over his arm, his legs wide around hers as he demanded even more. Gladly she gave it, sinking into a warm tide of delight as their open-mouthed kiss grew needier, deeper, hungrier. This was what she’d craved.
A barely familiar throb quickened in the place between Annalisa’s legs and she shifted restlessly, finding comfort in the press of his body against hers.
The pressure inside rose and she kissed him feverishly. She needed him closer even than this.
A moment later she was falling, and the air was squeezed from her lungs as he came down on her, pressing her into the cushioned mattress of her low bed.