The bones at her hip had never felt so special, nor had the dip in her waist felt so curved as his hand slipped past, and she was breathless now, breathless with his slow ascent, and through it all he watched her, blue eyes on black, his smile like a victor about to enjoy the spoils. And then his thumb grazed one tight breast and she cried out with the unexpected and unfamiliar pleasure, her spine arching against the bed. He dropped himself over her and smiled. ‘You see? Like riding a bicycle.’
She blinked up at him and her brain shorted, with not a clue why he should be talking about bicycles, knowing only that Rafiq’s mouth was descending again, knowing that he would kiss her again and that it had already been too long since the last one.
The touch of lips, the nuzzle of noses, the rasp of whiskered skin against her cheek—how could such simple things feel so good? Even the heat emanating from the man hovering over her warmed her soul and pleasured her senses, driving her need.
She mewed and sighed as sensation rippled into sensation, her fingers curling into the coverlet as he kissed her throat, suckled at her flesh, turned her inside out with desire. Why had nobody warned her it could be like this?
And then his mouth ventured lower, his lips closing over a breast, his tongue circling her aching nipple. Two thin layers of cloth were no barrier. The shockwaves were spearing down to her core.
Or had she just forgotten how good it could be to feel?
All those years when she’d buried everything. Her needs. Her desires. And especially her memories of a dark-haired youth who’d made her feel like a woman. Beautiful. Desirable. The woman he had promised not to take until a wedding night that would never be.
Even then he had set her alight with his touch, just the trail of his fingers down her arm, the feel of his hand in hers. Even then, in her youth, she’d known how good one special man could make her feel.
One special man.
That was Rafiq.
And he was here now.
She shrugged off her inexperience as Rafiq peeled away the layers of her shame and his hot mouth devoured her breasts, her stomach, and then moved back to suckle at her rock-hard nipples. Gasping, breathless, she let her useless hands find a purpose after all. She reached for him, found him, felt the jolt that moved through him as her fingers spread, taking the measure of his chest and sliding down his sides before letting her fingers trail back up the sleek wall of muscled flesh.
Air whooshed out of him as her fingers found the tight nubs of his nipples, hard as pebbles on the beach, and flicked over them with her thumb, and there was something empowering knowing that she had caused his reaction. Oh, he felt so good—the sculpted planes of his chest rippling under her hands so perfect! She thought briefly about all those wasted years when she’d felt nothing but humiliation. Nothing but shame. Then she thought fleetingly about all those wasted minutes and seconds when she’d been lying here, too tentative to reach out and touch the man above her who was making her feel again. Making her blood fizz.
Wasted years. Wasted moments, every one of them.
She would waste no more.
Starting now.
Drowning under his kisses, she let her palms follow the sculpted arch of his back, finding the band of his boxers and pressing her fingernails beneath, her fingers tracing the line that circled his firm hips, until her hands were almost between them and the only place to go was down…
A hand snared her wrist.
‘Not so fast.’ She blinked up at him, wondering if she’d done something wrong, wondering if she’d just revealed the extent of her inexperience, to see eyes wild with want, his features taut with control. ‘If you’re going to touch me there, I really need you out of that dress.’
He was just the man to peel it from her. He rocked back on his knees, his hands at her ankles before they started the slow ascent once more, each leg getting the special treatment, skimming the fabric of her gown from her skin and gathering it at his wrists as he went.
He peeled the silken fabric away, uncovering her, exposing her inch by slow inch, and yet still his eyes never strayed from hers. When his thumbs grazed her inner thighs, and her muscles clenched and jerked, he simply smiled with satisfaction—and she understood, because of the moment her hands had grazed his nipples and he had started, and she had realised the power of her own touch.
He wanted her to feel good. He delighted in it. There was no need to feel apprehensive or afraid. She was in safe hands.
She lifted her hips before he had to ask, allowing the swish of bunched stone-encrusted silk to slide past her until his hands gathered at her waist, his thumbs performing lazy circles around her navel.
Lazy circles that felt anything but. Lazy circles that turned her insides to jelly.