There was no room left for teasing.
“Be careful,” he warned her quietly, the intensity of his hunger making his voice sound lethal in the quiet tent. “When I touch you this time, I won’t stop. I won’t even try.”
She swallowed hard. Her eyes were like the dizzying stars above, wide and bright. And he couldn’t think of a single thing he’d ever wanted more than her touch. Her taste. Her beautiful cries as she wrapped herself around him.
Her. His wife.
His in every way there was.
“Khaled,” she whispered as if she felt the same. Needy. Hungry. Near to insane with it. “If you don’t touch me right now I think I might kill you, and that would make this an embarrassingly short marriage.” Her mouth curved. “And I’d end up detained after all.”
He laughed. And then he stopped trying to pretend he was anything but wild where this woman was concerned. He stopped trying to cling to some notion of propriety. She was his, fierce and inappropriate and lovely beyond measure. It was time.
Khaled thought he might have growled when he pulled her close and set his mouth to hers, and he gloried in it.
He was claiming her at last.
* * *
Khaled’s mouth was hard and perfect on hers, hot and wild.
Like fate, Cleo thought; like he’s mine—and then she burst into a delirious fever of shuddering heat, and she met him.
This time, she expected the punch, the blast of flame and need. They’d kissed in these past three months, but it had never burst into that same bright white fire the way it had that first time. It had never gone supernova again, because Khaled had always, always, maintained his iron control. He’d always set her away from him far sooner than she’d wanted. He’d always pulled back, shut it down, told her he’d wanted them to wait.
Always.
It took her one hot, slick kiss, then another, to realize with a deep, delicious thrill that this time, Khaled wasn’t holding back.
One of his hands slid around and into her hair, anchoring her for his pleasure as his mouth moved over hers, tongue and teeth and all of that dizzying, heart-pounding passion.
That bright white heat. That impossible flame. That addicting blaze so hot it almost hurt, so hot she was sure it would burn her alive, and she couldn’t imagine wanting anything more.
When he broke away, Cleo let out a small sound of disappointment, and he laughed against her mouth.
It was a sound filled with deep male confidence, power and certainty, and it made Cleo melt.
“These have been the longest months of my life,” he muttered, so low she wondered for a moment if he even knew he was speaking out loud. And then his voice went even rougher. “This is not what I had planned.”
Cleo didn’t know what he meant and with his mouth against her neck, she didn’t care. She wound her arms around his gorgeous shoulders and pressed herself against the length of his magnificent body, and this time, he let her.
He let out a sound like a growl, not for the first time, and then he swept her up into his arms again. The room spun, drunken and beautiful, like the perfect roller coaster. She had only a wild, dizzy impression of the rich colors throughout the tent, the candles in glass lanterns spilling out all of that golden light, and her brand-new husband’s hard, fierce face, dark and intent as he gazed down at her.
He was hers. He was finally hers.
And then she was on her back on that big, wide bed and he was coming over her, pinning her to the soft mattress with all of his ferocious heat and power, and she loved it.
“I was going to take my time,” he told her, his voice harsh, but she knew what that glittering, edgy gleam in his dark eyes meant.
She could feel him, hard and demanding against her, and she shivered. She was too hot, too molten, too needy, and she wasn’t sure he’d ever be close enough.
“I think you took your time,” she managed to say, with only the faintest trace of her former laughter, because this was all far too intense now. “Every day of the past three months.”
He muttered something much darker and then he moved over her, pulling the voluminous skirt of her wedding dress up with him, baring her legs and her thighs and then even higher.
God, the way she wanted him. The way she needed him. She’d never felt anything like it. She couldn’t imagine anyone had.
Khaled held her gaze as he reached down and held the hungry center of her need in his hand.
It was as if she wasn’t wearing those silly scraps of lace at all. She felt the heat of his hand like a jolt of lightning, setting her on fire, and he did nothing for one heartbeat and another but hold her. But wait. Until her hips started reaching for him of their own accord, rocking into that hard palm of his, and she was powerless to stop it.