He leaned over then, pressed his mouth to the physical reminder of her birth and kissed it reverently before he rose. ‘We need to get this off,’ he muttered, sounding strangely troubled, his voice as thick as the sinking sands that had swallowed her car. And then leaned down and drew her into his embrace as he kissed her again, and she let him draw the garment over her head.
She heard a sound like a waterfall as the bejewelled gown pooled on the rug, felt one brief moment of regret for its unfair fate—and just as swiftly forgot it as Rafiq chose that same moment to look down upon her body.
‘I thought you were beautiful last night, in the moonlight, emerging from the sea,’ he said. ‘But tonight you are perfection.’
Her heart swelled in her chest. She was so close to tears—but tears of euphoria and not of sadness. For he was a god and he was calling her perfect! She thanked whatever kind fortune had brought her this moment, this night. For she would remember it for ever.
He lowered himself over her, so that their bodies met length to delicious length, their mouths enmeshed, their tongues tangled, their bodies skin to skin apart from the underwear they both wore—the underwear Rafiq was already intent on removing. He kissed the line of her bra straps, sliding them from her shoulders in the process. And then, with a skilful hand, the reason for which she didn’t want to dwell on, he snapped open the closure at her back. With a flick of his wrists, even that scrap of material was gone.
The lamplight threw crazy shadows across the room—crazy shadows that merged with the crazy ideas in her mind and the crazy feelings in her heart. She had loved Rafiq once. He had loved her. Could he love her again?
Then his hot tongue circled one nipple, sending spears of pleasure down to her very core, and she didn’t care what he felt.
She loved him. She wanted him. He was here now.
That was enough.
His hot mouth was at her breasts, his teeth and tongue combining in their unmerciful assault against one tight nipple and then the other, and her spine was arching with the delicious pleasure, so that she was barely aware of the downward slide of her underwear, or of his.
Until his tongue circled a nipple and she felt his hand cup her mound, felt his long fingers separate her, heat into molten heat, driving her head into the pillows with the sheer force of it. With the wonder of it. With the near agony and ecstasy when he zeroed in on that tight nub of nerves and circled it, the flick of a fingertip turning her inside out.
‘Rafiq!’ she cried, not entirely understanding what she was so desperate for, only knowing that his touch, her very delight, was suddenly her torture.
‘I know,’ he whispered, and he suckled at her throat on the way to reclaiming her mouth, ‘I feel it too.’ And he lay atop her and she felt him, naked and wanting, hard and heavy against her belly. ‘I can’t wait either.’
And this time her stab of fear at what was to follow was blunted by his hot kisses and the knowledge of his own desire and the hot rush of moisture between her thighs. She wanted him. That thought was paramount. She wanted him more than anything in the world, wanted to feel him inside her. Deep inside her, where her body ached so very much to receive him. And she wanted him now.
‘Look at me,’ she heard him urge. ‘Open your eyes.’ And, when finally she had complied, ‘Keep them open. I want to see your eyes when you come.’
He’d sheathed himself and was already between her legs, his thickness nudging at her slick entrance, and her breath hitched, the internal muscles she’d never known already participating, trying to draw him in to their own dance of seduction.
She was burning with need, burning with fire, and the weight of him was heavy against her flesh. Heavy and yet compelling. And still she could feel his control, his tension, as the muscles bunched in his arms around her head, as his body seemed drawn tighter than a bowstring, waiting to release the arrow.
And she looked for him then—because if he was going to see her come, she wanted the very same. Their eyes connected, fused, and the circuit was complete.
And then he moved.
His hips swayed against hers, once and then again. She felt the push and the power, his masculine force against her feminine core, and feared for a moment the impossibility of it ever happening. But he must have read her panic in her eyes, because he slowed and kissed her. Slowly, thoroughly, soul-deep. So deep she melted into him even as he angled her higher.
She looked up at him in that moment and loved him. With her eyes and her heart and her very soul. Loved him for waiting, for hesitating, and for not rushing her. Loved him for the youth he had been. Loved him for the man he was now.