The Desert Lord's Bride (Throne of Judar 2)

Just what she’d thought. She chuckled. “Yeah, which is weird, come to think of it. Say…” She sat up. “Don’t you have to go to work, take care of the crisis?”

“I did, for today. I flew out this morning, was in meetings and negotiations for six hours.”

“What do you mean six hours? How can you-this morning…?” Then it dawned on her. “God, how long have I slept?”

“Do you want the interval in hours, or in days?”

“Days!” She flopped back in his arms. “No wonder there was an emergency.” She sat back up, poking him. “Now stop making fun of me with me and tell me exactly how long I slept.”

Making a visible effort to keep a straight face, he examined his watch. “Considering you’ve been awake for exactly fifteen minutes and thirty-two seconds now, you slept exactly twenty-six hours, three minutes and…forty-three…four seconds.”

She poked him, kissed him, groaned against his lips, all at once. “It’s all your fault. I never sleep more than six hours.”

He surrendered to her, his hands restless on her back, his groans rising as her lips landed anywhere on his face. “I plead guilty. I whisked you away from your world, kept you up for over a day. I should have insisted you got some sleep.”

She drew back, ran her hands over his robe-clad shoulders. “There was no way I could sleep while you were awake. But you weren’t knocked for a loop staying up so long like I was. You even put in a full day’s work with flights and fights involved.”

He smoothed his hand down her hair. “I sleep little by nature. But with you around, insomnia will enter a new dimension.” His eyes fixed on her lips, pulling them by sheer will toward his. Just half a breath away, he whispered, “How about a ride?”

She pulled away, her eyes rounding, a hundred images crashing into her mind. Sculpted flesh, moist with exertion, hard with arousal, beneath her, around her, hands spanning her waist, moving her up, down…“Huh?”

He’d seen everything that had played in her mind, just as clearly as if it had played on a widescreen. She was certain. In response, his lips crooked at one corner, the roughening of his voice the only indication that reading her thoughts had affected him. “Do you ride? Horses?”

Oh. Oh. “Uh…umm…” She croaked. “Not since I got my scar. It was the last straw. Mom had a fit and insisted that Dad never take me to the ranch again.”

“The last straw, eh? So you’d given them one too many scares. But not to worry. I’ll give you my most accommodating mare to ride.” He dropped a kiss on her nose. “But first, something to eat. You must be starving.”

And she was. For him. But he wasn’t, for her? She’d thought he’d postponed making love to her because she’d been exhausted. But she was overcharged now. So why wasn’t he…?

He pulled her to him, buried his face in her neck, bringing her between his legs, leaving her in no doubt of the extent of his hunger, amazing her once more with his restraint. He groaned when she ground her core into his hardness, unconsciously trying to assuage the ache pounding there. His answering thrust felt as involuntary, riding what sounded like a pained rumble, before his hand on her buttocks ground her harder into him, stopping her from moving and maddening them both further.

His voice was tight with control when he murmured, “We’ll spend what remains of the day roaming the island. What we don’t cover today, we will in the days to come.” His voice dropped an octave. “We have all the time in the world.”

He’d read her mind again. And this was his answer. Showing her that he was starving for her, too, with the incontestable evidence of his body. But his words were equally clear.

When he’d said they’d go slow, he’d really meant it.

And suddenly it scared her.

She’d thrown away her wariness at Shehab’s first touch, would have braved any recriminations or repercussions to be one with him, once, in those gardens. When he’d offered slower, more, she’d snatched at the offer that was so much better than what she would have happily settled for.

Even when he’d invited her here, she’d had no expectations beyond the satisfaction of her unstoppable desire for him. She’d been ecstatic that someone like him existed, that she provoked the same desire in him, delirious at anticipating what she’d given up on ever experiencing, a man who set her every cell singing with life. She hadn’t hoped for a second the affair would last for longer than it took for him to move on. She’d accepted it without the least resentment or longing for more. It would have been enough to last her a lifetime.

But now he was offering her what she’d never dreamed any man would-time. And not just time spent seducing her, but time to savor her, her, not her body. As he’d promised, as she hadn’t understood, or believed. As she now did.

And she knew what that time would do.

Time would destroy the simplicity of the equation. She wouldn’t be satisfied with the purity of a physical and transient relationship. If she got to know the man inside the male, undiluted by physical involvement, she might start to think there could be even more. This was a hurt she wouldn’t come back from.

She wanted to beg him not to compound the addiction she could already feel taking hold within her, not to set her up for frustration. For devastation. But for once, something stopped her from confessing her thoughts, her vulnerability. She had no right to burden him with her fears and frailties, to demand that he modify his behavior to observe them. But she could modify her own behavior. If she were sane, she’d lay down her rules and leave if he refused them. But she’d lost her mind…

She should still try to change his.

She slid up his body, rubbing against his unyielding steel, tasting his neck, biting into the sculpture of his lower lip, groaned her plea when he opened to her on a growl of pleasure. “We can explore tomorrow. Today, I only want to explore you…”

He stemmed her entreaty, thrusting into her recesses, draining her until she sagged in his arms. “And you will explore me. And I will explore you, claim you, do everything to you.”

He surged up, sweeping her around and beneath him and her eyes stung, filled, with relief. And disappointment. There’d be no more waiting. There’d be no more.

But he rose from the bed, in one impossible movement scooping her up in his arms and striding to the other end of the room, entered a huge, exquisitely outfitted dressing room.