The Sheikh Who Claimed Her: Master of the Desert / The Sheikh's Reluctant Bride / Accidentally the Sheikh's Wife. Teresa Southwick
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than sex for you, isn’t it?’ she said with wonder when he released her.
She wanted to hear Saif say he cared, Antonia realised, feeling a pain in her heart when he remained silent. ‘Please say something,’ she begged him.
‘What’s left to say?’ he murmured, nudging one hard thigh between her legs.
CHAPTER SIX
HE HAD never met a woman like her. It even occurred to him that he might have met his match. She begged him, ordered him, demanded that he pleasure her, whilst all the time pummelling him when she wasn’t scraping her small white teeth against his flesh for emphasis.
‘Easy, tiger-woman,’ he murmured, taking hold of her. ‘This isn’t a battleground—we’re making love.’
Love?
This was sex, pure and simple, something they both wanted and needed, something that could only happen on a night like this—a night detached from reality, a night when they were both free to throw caution to the wind.
Antonia, meanwhile, was lost to reason. ‘Oh, yes,’ she gasped as Saif’s lean fingers delicately parted her swollen lips. She was on the highest plateau of sensation and greedy for more. ‘Please touch me there.’ She should be shrinking from this man she hardly knew, not using him for pleasure. But Saif had opened a door and she had walked through, and now he was exposing her to his gaze in a way she could never have imagined feeling easy with—but she did. She’d had torrid thoughts for as long as she could remember, but had never put those thoughts into action. Now all she could say was, ‘Please … Please …’ when what she really meant was, oh, yes, that’s right … and, oh, yes, thank you … thank you …
Easing her legs over his shoulders, Saif dipped his head to touch her with the tip of his tongue. She shuddered with delight, wondering how she was supposed to hold on—and then he increased the pressure. Was this a test? She had never wanted to fail a test quite so badly. Then he tasted her, and in that moment, that string of moments, she knew she had found the exquisite high point of her life. Saif had taken her to a realm she hadn’t even known existed where he could order her pleasure with the skill of a maestro.
Governed entirely by raging hunger, she reached her goal and dissolved into a starburst of pleasure, her shuddering screams slicing through the sultry night. But it wasn’t enough. Rather than slaking her hunger, Saif had woken a slumbering tiger, and now all she could think about was having him deep inside her so she could claim him for her own.
Losing control with Saif had laid her bare, Antonia realised when she quietened. He might not have taken her fully yet, but she had given him something that could never be recaptured—her trust. Saif had taken a girl and made her a woman, and now there could be no turning back.
Forgetfulness was one of the most valuable commodities for men who could afford anything, and, briefly, Tuesday would provide that. She was resting, but not for long, he suspected. He anticipated a long and deeply satisfying night, but for now he was content to let Tuesday set the pace, especially with the news from the palace still nagging at the back of his mind. Why, with so many rooms to survey and create inventories for, had they rung him tonight of all nights with the news that the treasure room of his father’s concubine had been uncovered?
It certainly killed off Tuesday’s romantic notion of some rosy destiny for them. Did he need a reminder of the rapaciousness of women? Did he need a reminder of that other woman on a night like this?
He should forget the past, shut it out of his mind, but when he stared at Tuesday he thought he understood his father’s weakness perhaps for the first time. He understood, but could not excuse it. He was a very different man from his father, and had not pledged himself to a country and its people to be distracted by anyone. His father might have squandered his reputation, but, ma sha’a allah, there wasn’t the remotest possibility that Ra’id al Maktabi would do the same.
‘What are you doing?’ he demanded as Tuesday, having stretched languorously, came to kneel before him. He wanted her, but not like this—not like a king with his mistress on her knees in front of him, waiting to serve.
‘I wanted to repay you,’ she said innocently.
He frowned. ‘Explain …’
‘The pleasure? I would have thought you knew,’ she said, blushing.
He knew that she had never looked more beautiful, but the sight of her naked and proud and on her knees in front of him made his head pound. In that one innocent and provocative gesture, Tuesday had thrown him back into a world where sycophants knelt and equals stood at his side.
Springing up, he brought her in front of him. Embracing her, he kissed her hungrily, and by the time he released her she had forgotten the moment that could have gone so badly wrong for her. He knew then that she had been right to say this was more than a sexual encounter, but he would never admit it, because he had nothing to offer her.
But this was … sweet.
Holding Tuesday safe against his chest, he rested his face on her tangled hair and savoured the uncomplicated moment. This could be as straightforward as he wanted it to be, he reasoned. Taking hold of her hand, he kissed her palm, and, closing his eyes, he inhaled her innocent scent, as if the magic of the desert could make everything right.
Saif’s touch made her arch against him. Hot flesh on hot flesh inflamed her past reason. ‘Pleasure me,’ she demanded, drunk on sensation, rubbing herself against him. She was completely lost in the fantasy of the desert and the dark stranger she had always known she would find there. She trembled uncontrollably as the hardness of Saif’s muscle bore into her soft flesh, and she was impatient for him to move lower so he could satisfy her needs. ‘Oh, please,’ she begged him, bucking helplessly beneath his touch. ‘I can’t wait any longer.’
‘You must wait,’ he told her in a stern voice.
‘I can’t—’ Her voice wavered.
‘Tuesday,’ he instructed sharply. ‘You will wait.’
She held his gaze, and then he smiled at her as if he was pleased with her. She found his voice hypnotic and seductive, while his eyes carried the promise of pleasure and the certainty of danger. She exhaled shakily as he pressed her down into the cushions, and he held her there with little more than a compelling stare. She moaned in complaint when he held himself aloof, while all she could do was writhe helplessly in time to the insistent beat between her legs. ‘I need …’
‘I know what you need,’ Saif assured her, taking fierce possession of her mouth.
Sensation surged through her. She pressed against him, feeling stronger than she had ever felt. Saif’s desire empowered her, just as his planned delays infuriated her. Striking his back in frustration, she wondered how long she was supposed to wait. Her body was ready; he knew this and still he tormented her. But, as he kissed her, something happened. He kissed away the image of an experienced man and a much younger girl and replaced it with two lovers of equal standing, so that now there was only a man and a woman, and a desert moon shining over them like a beacon in the watchful sky.
He had awoken a whirlwind. He would never have believed it of the girl, though he should have known from the moment she boarded his boat that she was wilful, strong, and courageous in all areas—and that their first encounter had only hinted at the fires beneath. When it came to sex, she had stated her needs in the bluntest of language, and appeared utterly without self-consciousness. She had even tried to take hold of him, and, finding her tiny hand would barely encompass half of him, she had exclaimed with impatience and angled herself hungrily—and this before the last of the exquisite tremors had had a chance to subside after her first bout of pleasure at his hands.
Cupping her chin, he made her look at him so he could be sure she knew what she was doing. Her eyes were still misty with desire and with passion, just as he had imagined them, but there was purpose there too. She had discovered physical love and was elemental in her need. Suddenly struck by a spear of jealousy, he demanded,