“No.” Liyah didn’t even try to stifle the alien need to comfort, reaching up with an appeasing touch. “She was your fiancée. It seemed an expedient item to provide.”
“Presumptuous.”
Liyah just looked at him.
He moved to get what they needed, never quite losing contact with her body. Moments later, he settled back into his intimate position between her legs after putting on a condom from the brand-new box she’d put there herself in anticipation of an engaged couple’s stay at the hotel.
His smile could have melted ice a lot thicker than that around Liyah’s heart. “Perhaps expedient is the right word.”
Her answering smile was as inevitable as what came next.
Sayed shifted so he pressed against the opening to her body. Everything inside Liyah stilled, her world shrunk down to this exact moment, this space, the breaths they shared between them. Nothing outside Sayed had a hope of registering.
Not with him on the brink of joining them in the most intimate way, an experience that if Liyah was honest with herself she’d never actually expected to have. With anyone, much less this prince.
“This is going to be hard and fast.” The words were guttural and low. “I am too excited.”
Despite their detour into the mundane, she was still floating on a cloud of bliss, pretty sure fast and hard would work for her. “It’s all right.”
She wanted?no, craved for?him to experience the same pleasure she had.
He shook his head. “You are too perfect, habibti.”
“Not per—” Her words choked off abruptly as he pressed for entry.
Even though he’d warned her he was going to go fast, he moved inside her body with measured deliberation.
Liyah stretched around him, feeling full and connected like she’d never been to another person. Then a sharp sting shot through her core, making her gasp.
He must have encountered the barrier to her body. Liyah didn’t feel like she was tearing, more like a stabbing pain.
He looked down at her. “It is good?”
She doubted he realized he’d asked the question in Arabic.
“Yes.” It was good, even if it hurt.
“You are so tight.”
She could only nod, gritting her teeth against the searing ache.
He drew back a little.
Despite the pain, she whimpered in protest at his withdrawal. “No.”
His own breathing labored, his jaw was clenched as tight as hers, his arms shaking. And she realized it was using all his control to hold back.
Unfamiliar emotion seeped past the barrier around Liyah’s heart.
“I’m not going anywhere, ya ghazal.” He laughed, the sound sexy and dark. “Believe it.”
Again, his endearment touched her more deeply than he probably meant it to, but Liyah’s mother used to call her a gazelle. She’d claimed Liyah had the gracefulness and beauty of the animal so often used in Arabic poetry.
Sayed’s addition of the possessive my only added to its impact, insuring this experience went far beyond the physical for Liyah.
He pressed forward again, the pain so sharp she coul
dn’t breathe. She bit back a cry, terrified he would stop. And was infinitely grateful she had when the pain transformed into a whole new level of pleasure.