He growled, low in his throat, the vibrations rumbling into the kiss as he untangled his hands from her hair, battled to untangle himself from the kiss. Sera felt them through the hard wall of chest, rippling through her as he swept her into his arms. ‘Come,’ he said, ‘tonight you need not be afraid.’
And, suddenly uncertain, she felt the first seeds of panic worm their way into her bliss. ‘Rafiq, there is something—’
But he had no use for words. Not any more. Not when he had seen they could be used to distort and corrupt and crucify with such devastating effect. ‘Shh,’ he whispered as he parted the curtains to his tent with his elbow. ‘Enough of words.’
And so she fell silent. Except for the tiny mewls of pleasure that escaped unbidden when his mouth descended once more, this time to plunder hers with an even greater hunger.
He was right, she thought in one fleeting moment of clarity amidst a whirl of sensation. Why ruin this perfect moment, this perfect night? For maybe, just maybe, he wouldn’t even know.
He lowered her to a bed, plush and welcoming, and richly adorned with pillows of satin and brocades in Bedouin shades, a combination rich in texture and colour. A lamp at the bedside was turned low, casting shadows around the room, turning colours deeper, accenting both the blue-black of his whiskered cheeks and the glint in his sapphire eyes.
He looked massive standing above her, tall and impossibly good-looking, and she caught her breath at the look in his eyes, at the raw desire she saw there.
Desire for her.
Desire that ramped up her own need tenfold.
It was surreal that after everything between them, after all the years and the angst and the pain of coming together again, this day had finally come. It would only be for a night. She knew it couldn’t last. But neither did she know what she had done to deserve this moment.
‘Beautiful,’ he growled, and it wasn’t just the word or the gravel-rich tones of his voice that moved her, but the way his eyes, dark with desire, drank her in, and the rigid set of his jaw and throat, as though it was taking every bit of control he possessed not to throw himself on top of her.
Time lost all meaning as he stood there. It could have been just a minute. It could have been an hour. But it was a moment of connection she recognised, a moment that had been inevitable from the very first moment they’d set eyes on each other.
I do love him, she acknowledged, in that one crystal-clear moment. And this time there was no fear to accompany it, no shame, just a rolling tide of heat that coursed through her. For she was with Rafiq, and it was right.
He smiled then, a tight, hard-won smile, as if he enjoyed the way her body reacted to him, before he pulled the pristine robe over his shoulders and tossed it unceremoniously aside.
Her brain shortened.
Her mouth went dry.
For he was magnificent.
Once upon a time she’d known him, ridden horses with him, swum with him. He’d been fit, his body muscled and toned, but he’d been a youth then, still a teenager. Whereas now…
Now he was a man in his prime. He had the same rich golden skin that she remembered, but the shoulders were broader, and dark hair patterned in whorls across his chest, circled his navel and sent an arrow pointing down his hard-packed stomach before disappearing under the band of his boxer shorts.
She swallowed.
His massively distended boxer shorts.
She shuddered, suddenly unsure, a new fear assailing her even as the prospect of taking him—that—inside her body thrilled her at some primeval level she couldn’t quite comprehend. She wanted him—oh yes, she wanted him—but what if she couldn’t? What if he was too big?
‘Rafiq,’ she started breathily, caught between nervousness and heady excitement, her voice no more than a gasp as she contemplated the impossible. ‘I’m afraid.’
And he smiled the smile of a man who was used to being complimented. ‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ he said, before he placed one knee on the bed beside her, slipping the sandals from her feet and sliding one hand up her foot from toe to ankle, so slowly, so intimately, that she almost cried out with the sheer pleasure of his touch.
Pleasure or need? Both, she decided, as he trailed a line along her calf through the silk of her gown, the heat from his fingers warming her flesh and igniting fires under her skin as his voice washed warm like velvet over her. ‘I know it’s been a while, but it’s like riding a bicycle. You never forget.’
Assuming you’d ever learned. Should she tell him outright? And then his long fingers swept over her thigh, his thumb perilously close to touching her there, and the sensations he generated, the raw hunger that met her touch, made her think that maybe she might just be able to bluff her way through it after all. The flesh she’d hitherto been so ashamed of, the flesh she’d numbed into non-existence for so long, was willing, even if she herself was weak.