His Queen by Desert Decree

Azrael jerked his chin in acknowledgement and studied her with dark intense eyes. ‘I lost my temper—’

‘We all do from time to time,’ she parried, fighting an overpowering desire to wrap her arms round his lean, powerful figure and despising herself for it. ‘But I can’t overlook the speed with which you chose to believe the worst of me...that’s a dangerous level of distrust.’

A very faint spur of panic urged Azrael forward. There was so much he felt that he should be saying but he wasn’t used to saying such things and he didn’t have the words to explain that she brought something into his life he knew he could not bear to lose. He sank down on the side of the bed and used a long-fingered brown hand to cradle her cheekb

one, his thumb tracing the edge of her full, sultry mouth.

‘I love the dress,’ he said so inanely that he winced for himself but the soft, warm touch of her skin made concentration impossible. ‘It looks amazing on you.’

Molly snatched in a startled breath, battling to retain her distance, but the glide of his thumb made her mouth tingle and the compliment could only please.

‘The next time you go to London I will accompany you and we will visit your grandfather together,’ Azrael declared.

Soothed by that statement of intent, Molly came up on her knees on the bed, drawn by his proximity, mesmerised by the black-lashed drama of his dark golden eyes. ‘I’m still furious with you—’ she warned him tartly even while her breath fractured in her throat as the familiar scent of him, husky male spiced with an extra degree of exotic, engulfed her.

‘Of course.’ Azrael bent his head and went for the soft pink lure of her ripe lips, the need to connect with her overwhelming every other rational response.

CHAPTER EIGHT

AZRAEL’S MOUTH ENGULFED Molly’s and all the reasons why she shouldn’t allow that, including the prepared speech about why intimacy was a very bad idea, simply melted out of her mind as though they had never existed.

He was incredibly good at kissing, she thought vaguely, or maybe it was because she was utterly desperate to be kissed. She didn’t know which and she didn’t know if it even mattered because Azrael’s mouth on hers was pure sensual intoxication. She trailed off his kaffiyah to get her hands into his luxuriant black hair and he was very much on board with that approach because he shed his cloak and began to unbutton his tunic while pressing her back against the pillows to savour her lips and let his tongue dance and curl with hers. Sensation awakened there first where with every moist sweep of his tongue her body ratcheted up in tension a little more. Her spine strained to ease the tingling of her nipples and the swelling of her breasts while heat gathered at her feminine core.

Azrael ran the zip down on the dress and then it got complicated because, when he tried to ease the sleeves down to free her arms, the fabric merely stretched and then sprang back into position. With a strangled laugh of amusement, Molly pushed him back and sat up to wrench the clinging dress down over her arms and let it drop to her waist.

‘That was a challenge,’ Azrael acknowledged, dark golden eyes alive with the same amusement. ‘I’m not making a very polished impression here, am I?’

Molly’s hands framed his lean dark face and that smile tore the breath from her lungs and melted her somewhere deep down inside. ‘You don’t need to be...polished with me,’ she muttered truthfully.

He gazed down at her as she pushed his black hair back from his cheekbones, his captured attention sliding down over her reddened mouth to the smooth, freckled slope of her full, round breasts encased in blue and white polka dots, and his broad chest swelled as he dragged in a sustaining breath, enthralled by the vision she made.

‘I love your breasts,’ he said thickly, sliding his hands beneath her to release the clasp with a dexterity that he was secretly very pleased with.

And then there she was, all creamy glorious perfection, bountiful and soft and firm at the same time. He rubbed a straining pink nipple, his breath laboured as though he had run up a hill as he kneaded and cupped the plump mounds.

‘You’re truly beautiful,’ he told her huskily.

And for the first time in her life, Molly felt as though she was. Of course it certainly helped to have Azrael looking down at her with a kind of wondering pleasure, as if she were a goddess rather than an ordinary woman. The heat coiled between her thighs ramped up another notch, her nipples tightening into distended buds. He captured one between his lips, laved it with his tongue, let his teeth graze the straining peak and a soundless moan of pleasure escaped her and her spine arched.

‘Take your tunic off,’ she whispered shakily.

He leant back from her and yanked it over his head, too impatient to bother with the remaining buttons, and she had a perfect view of his even more perfect torso. He was all hard, sleek muscle from his wide brown shoulders down to the defined V that ran from his narrow waist down into his pelvis. Muscles from his biceps to his chest to his flat, tight stomach rippled with his every move. In a sudden movement, impatient with the constrictions of his clothing, Azrael sprang off the bed and dropped the tunic before skimming off the loose linen trousers and briefs he wore below.

And there he all was, sooner than she had expected to see him, and her breath caught in her throat at her first glimpse of his arousal. He bent over her, dragging off the stretchy dress, flipping off her shoes, reaching for the band of her knickers.

‘No, you’re going too fast for me,’ Molly warned him, her face tomato red. ‘Slow down. I haven’t done this before...remember?’

‘You can’t fault me for enthusiasm, aziz,’ Azrael said playfully. ‘But I will slow down.’

‘Thank you,’ she said unevenly, taking the opportunity to push back the bedding and slide beneath the concealing cover of the sheet. ‘I’m sorry I’m a bit shy...but I don’t think you have a shy bone in your body.’

‘Never thought about it,’ Azrael admitted. ‘I would’ve been punished for being timid or impolite or not doing what it was my obligation to do—’

‘Punished?’ Taken aback, Molly leant over him to stare down at him. ‘Who would’ve punished you?’

‘Firuz was a very strict stepfather. I was beaten a lot,’ Azrael confided with the calm of someone who appeared to accept that such a childcare approach was perfectly normal.

‘But that’s dreadful,’ Molly exclaimed in horror.