More Precious than a Crown

‘Birds feed with their mouths,’ Zahid said, and Trinity felt her insides fold in on themselves as he scalded her face with his eyes. Still she did not get that last piece of loaded, sugary pancake and her face turned to fire as he continued to speak. ‘Okay,’ Zahid said, ‘you have two choices—breakfast with your family or we are otherwise engaged.’

‘When you say otherwise engaged...’

Did he mean...?

Yes, Trinity realised as he took the last lovely bit of pancake and popped it in his own mouth, he did mean that, for his mouth was pushing her down to the pillow and he was feeding her terribly intimately now. Tongue, pancake and maple syrup were being pushed into her by his tongue and he didn’t even let her close her mouth as she struggled to swallow.

It was moreish!

Filthy, messy, sticky and so very, very, nice, but as her mouth emptied and his kiss lingered on she moved her face back. ‘I haven’t brushed my teeth,’ Trinity said, shy all of a sudden, but Zahid seemed more than happy to accept that she might need some space.

‘I am going to have a quick shower,’ Zahid said, licking the last remnants of maple syrup from her mouth and then releasing her, leaving her more than a bit breathless. ‘Then, if you want, you can have your bath.’

It was up to Trinity. Whatever her choice, Zahid would not be joining the Fosters at breakfast.

Duty was done.

He just hoped now that it was time for pleasure.

Zahid stood and started to unbutton his shirt. ‘When I come out I will ring for someone to come and sort out the room.’

Trinity nodded, surprised that he clearly expected her to be able to speak at her first sighting of his torso. His coffee-coloured skin gleamed and his dark nipples drew her eyes, but it was the very flat stomach and the snake of dark hair beckoning downwards that had Trinity suddenly look away and start pleating the sheet with her fingers.

‘I won’t be long,’ Zahid said, and headed to the shower as she lay back on the pillows and blew out a breath, trying and failing not to think about him sliding off his trousers and naked on the other side as she heard the taps being turned on.

He was giving her the chance to leave, Trinity realised. The chance to gather her things and go to her own room. To have breakfast with her family safe in the knowledge that this would never be mentioned again.

If she left now, she would never see him again.

Trinity lay on the bed and listened as the taps were turned off and a few moments later he came out, carrying his trousers, which he put over the chair. One white towel was around his hips, the other around his neck.

‘Still here?’ Zahid smiled and took the towel from his shoulders and started to dry his chest and under his arms.

‘Looks like it.’

‘I’ll get the place sorted.’

‘I’ll have my bath.’

She climbed out of bed and walked to the bathroom but turned at the last moment, in time to see Zahid take off the towel from his hips. And Trinity got more of a glimpse of what she was letting herself in for. It was darker than he, thick and tumescent, and so incredibly beautiful that rather than wanting to grab her dress and run or head for the other side of the bathroom door, she actually wanted to go back to bed.

‘You should call your family,’ Zahid said, as if it were completely normal to be chatting to her while naked, as if it was completely normal to want the plates cleared and the place tidied and all distractions put on hold before settling in for a lovely long session.

‘Er, after my bath,’ Trinity croaked, for she wanted nothing to burst the fragile bubble that she carried into the bathroom with her and only released once she had closed the door. The most fragile bubble she had ever carried, for she actually wanted sex, rather than wanted to want sex.

The lighting had been turned down and the huge sunken bath was filled with warm milky-looking water.

She felt all giddy and disorientated but in the nicest way. She looked in the mirror. Her hair was a disaster, her eyes on fire and her body felt as if it was filled with helium, so floaty and high was she from pancake-laden kisses and the promise of more to come.

There was a little card telling her the infusions that her bath contained—frankincense, neroli and argan oils—and that she was to add the bomb at her leisure.

It was the bomb of bath bombs, Trinity thought as she watched it spinning in the water, tossing out petals and the most heavenly fragrances that lured her to climb in.

She lay there in the just right temperature water, with her stomach pleasantly full and her thirst more than quenched, yet for the first time, the very first time since her very first kiss with Zahid, there was a stir of want for a very different pleasure.

Zahid thought her a party girl—that a morning sex marathon was surely commonplace for her.

He’d fall off his mummy-bird perch if he knew just how limited her experience was.

Yet as she lay there, recalling his kisses and her body’s response to them, it dawned on Trinity that after all those years of therapy and Californian healing, which hadn’t worked a jot, the answer could well be on the other side of the door.

If Zahid had so much as a clue how messed up she was sexually then everything they had now would disappear. He’d either do the honourable thing and decline because nothing could ever come of them or, worse, she’d get pity sex, with Zahid being all careful and tender and asking if she was okay every five minutes.

Zahid wanted straightforward sex but there was nothing straightforward about sex for Trinity.

Yet she wanted Zahid to look at her the way he had this morning, she wanted the absence of fear that he brought, not just to her mind but her body too.

Still, if she was going to carry this off, then a confident, assured woman must walk out of this bathroom. Somehow she must present herself as the sexually experienced woman that he assumed she was.

‘The maid has been.’ Zahid knocked at the door. ‘And your phone keeps buzzing. Do you want me to bring it in to you?’

‘I’ll be out in a minute, Zahid!’ Trinity called to the closed bathroom door. ‘About what you said last night...well, it would seem that I forgot to say please...’ She could almost feel his smile behind the door as he answered her.

‘Just remember to say thank you.’

Trinity ducked her head under the water but it didn’t wipe the smile from her face. It should worry her really that the rather staid Zahid seemed to be the only person in the world who got her sense of humour. Most people frowned, or she had to explain and by then it wasn’t so funny.

She didn’t have to explain herself to Zahid.

Trinity looked down and saw her nipples peeking up out of the milky bathwater and she didn’t understand why she was terrified but not scared.

This was all so...planned, so clinical.

No, not clinical...

Trinity blinked as she realised she had found the word she was searching for—Zahid put the sensual into consensual.

It was a very nice word to ponder as she climbed out of the bath. There were petals from the bath bomb in her hair and sticking to her skin but Trinity just wrapped herself in a robe and ran his comb through her hair.

What if she couldn’t carry it off? Trinity thought. What if she started crying or broke down, or her complete inexperience told him that she hadn’t a clue?

You’ll never get a chance like this again, Trinity warned her reflection.

Kill or cure.

She opened the bathroom door, half expecting the slight chaos of this morning.

Instead, the room was in darkness, broken only by the candles dotted everywhere.

The breakfast things had been taken away, all clothes and things tidied, even the bed had that smooth freshly made look, except for the naked sheikh in it!

Trinity was terrified, of course, but nicely so, as she walked over to the bed.

‘Nice bath?’

‘Lovely.’ She sat on the edge of the bed and wondered if the right thing to do would be to tell him but, no, as he welcomed her to his bed with a kiss, she wanted it just as it was.

His kiss made her shiver, the skill of his mouth told her to leave things to him but, just as she almost forgot to be frightened, the bleeping of her phone made her jump.

‘Has anyone seen Trinity?’ Zahid said, and actually made her laugh as she rose from his bed and raked her hands in frustration through wet hair. ‘I’ll just let them know that I won’t be joining them.’

She was far from grateful for the reprieve—now she and Zahid would have to start all over again, Trinity thought as she picked up the phone from the bedside and read her mother’s text.

‘They’re about to start breakfast and she wants to know where I am.’ Her voice gave a little squeak at the end, because he had rolled to the side of the bed and was fiddling with the belt of her robe,

‘Text and say Zahid has taken you riding.’

‘Horseriding?’

‘Don’t lie,’ Zahid said, and pulled her hips so she was standing, trying to text, as he stayed very much on his side, leaning on one elbow, one hand on her bottom, guiding her hips to his face.

It was terribly hard to text with a mouth nuzzling your stomach. She could see his glossy black hair and feel his hot mouth and tongue as she tried to work out what to write.

Oh, my, Trinity thought as he continued to kiss her stomach, because she actually wanted to drop the phone and hold his head.

Dry from her bath, she was wet from his mouth.