‘Don’t stop. Please don’t stop, Nadim…’ She saw him wage what looked to be an intense inner battle, before he made an inarticulate sound and said gutturally, ‘Relax…this might hurt for a moment…’
Iseult looked up into his eyes, telling him silently that she trusted him implicitly, and in that moment she did. She could feel him flex his bottom, and then he thrust in, making her breath catch at the searing, burning pain.
Immediately his mouth was on hers, kissing her, drugging her as she felt him go deeper. And the pain was fading magically, and as he started to pull out again she felt that delicious friction. Loath to let him go, she moved her hips with him, but then he came back, thrusting in again, even deeper this time.
Iseult’s legs were locked around his waist, her chest arched up to his and her head falling back as she struggled to comprehend all the sensations running through her body and head.
Nadim brought a hand around her back, arching her up even more, and thrust again, deeper, a little harder. Iseult moaned. She felt his breath feather over her hot skin and gasped out loud when he took a nipple deep into his mouth, swirling his tongue around it, biting gently as he took up a remorseless rhythm, driving in and out of her body.
The intensity of sensation was overwhelming. Iseult could only cling onto Nadim. He was her anchor, the centre of her universe, and he was threatening to topple her over an edge she’d never known before. But with him looking down into her eyes she was fearless.
His strokes got longer, deeper and faster, and Iseult felt her muscles clenching. She was rushing headlong into something she could only guess at, and in that moment everything exploded around her, and a carnal pleasure she’d never even imagined existed pulsed through her even as Nadim still moved in and out.
Iseult could feel her muscles spasm along his hard length, but she couldn’t articulate anything, knowing that she must look shocked. She felt shocked. What she’d just experienced had reformed all her cells into a new configuration, and this man’s stamp was all over them.
As she watched Nadim’s eyes closed tight, his head was flung back, the veins of his neck stood out. And with one final powerful thrust he stilled, and the only sound that could be heard was their laboured breathing.
Iseult was still floating in a limbo land of half-consciousness when she felt herself being lifted out of the bed by strong arms. She murmured something and felt Nadim’s breath close to her ear. His deep husky voice sent a frisson of remembered ecstasy through her. ‘Shh, I’ve run you a bath…you must be sore.’
Iseult shook her head with an effort, not even able to lift it from where it lay on Nadim’s shoulder. She sounded drunk. ‘No…not sore…happy.’
She only started coming back up through the layers of satedness when she felt Nadim lower her into a warm, fragrant bath and felt the water close over her languid body. His arms were leaving, pulling away, and instinctively she made a sound of protest, catching his arm, finally opening her heavy eyes.
She was in a bathing area much like her own, but far bigger and more opulent. Nadim’s arm was under her hand, and she saw that he’d put on a robe. She felt completely disorientated, and if an alien had appeared in that mo
ment with the news that they’d arrived on another planet she wouldn’t have been surprised.
Nadim pressed a kiss to her mouth, and a chain reaction started in Iseult’s blood. She wanted to ask Nadim to get into the bath with her, but something in his closed expression forbade it. He looked cool and composed, austere again. Not like the man who’d told her with such a tortured expression that he wanted her. And who had then made love to her…had initiated her into womanhood.
She took her hand from his arm, something inside her contracting protectively amongst the feelings of opiate languour.
Nadim stood up and towered over Iseult in the bath. ‘I’ve left a robe on the chair for you. I’ll be outside when you’re ready…’
Iseult watched him walk out, and felt alternately as if he’d just slapped her across the face and as if he’d just given her the greatest gift. She sank down in the water, wanting to hide away, feeling hideously self-conscious all of a sudden. Deeply embedded doubts and fears started to rise up to the surface.
Had she initiated this? Had she somehow twisted things again so that she could justify it to herself because Nadim had really wanted her? Had she thrown herself at him like some out-of-control groupie?
Her belly quivered when she remembered how he’d lifted her up and carried her to his tent like a marauding pirate. A tiny trickle of confidence returned. He’d told her he’d wanted her from the moment he’d seen her…so that tension in Ireland hadn’t been her imagination…but why was he being so aloof now?
Iseult’s brain started to throb with questions and insecurities and attempts to reassure herself. Sitting up to wash herself perfunctorily, she stopped for a moment when she saw faint bruises flowering across her skin, redness from where Nadim’s stubble had grazed her delicate skin. Heat bloomed low again, and Iseult avoided touching that part of herself which still tingled and stung slightly.
Nadim stood at the heavily draped curtains at the entrance to his tent. Hard to believe that only an hour or so had passed, when the entire world seemed to have shifted on its axis. Sounds of revelry came faintly from the tent he’d left earlier. But all he could remember was the sheer blind lust that had galvanised him.
When he’d first spotted Iseult in the tent, dressed in that excuse of an outfit, he hadn’t recognised her. But he hadn’t been able to look away. She’d been more inherently voluptuous than the other girls, and her movements had been gauche and untutored. It had been odd, as the girls who danced that dance would have learnt it from their own mothers at a young age.
His eye had been drawn to the unknown woman and his body had stirred in response. Nadim’s first feeling had been intense relief—Iseult hasn’t bewitched me completely. But almost in the same instant, she’d come closer, and he’d had the sinking realisation that it could be none other than her. The perfect pale alabaster of her skin had glowed with luminescence in the dim light. And her eyes, flashing dark gold above that veil, had given her away completely.
And then had come the burning acrid jealousy be cause every other man there would be looking at her and coveting her charms. It had taken all his control and self-restraint to wait until she’d disappeared at the back of the tent to go and get her. And the minute he’d pulled her into his body he’d known that there was only one possible outcome to that scenario.
The knowledge sliced through his brain and body as if he’d been blocking it out: she’d been a virgin. And yet she’d made love to him with such passionate abandon that if he hadn’t felt her body’s initial resistance he might not even have known.
He’d only ever slept with one other virgin: his wife. Nadim’s brain seized there. Yet another comparison thrown up to mock him and make his belly roil with guilt as he had to acknowledge the vast differences between the two women…
He realised then that the splashing of the bath had stopped, and he heard a soft footfall behind him. Feeling intense trepidation, he slowly turned around to face Iseult.
CHAPTER TEN
ISEULT steeled herself for whatever was coming, even though she had no idea what that might be. She belted the robe around her waist tightly. Between her legs she could feel tenderness, and the memory of how it had felt to have Nadim surge so forcefully into her body made her feel weak with desire all over again.