To Touch a Sheikh (Pride of Zohayd 3)

Power poured into her body, propelling her after him.

She found him flat on his back on the settee, one arm thrown over his eyes, the other dangling off its edge. The dejection blasting off him had her heart slamming her forward.

Without taking his arm off his eyes he hissed, “Don’t come near me. I advise you not to again until this damn mess is over.”

She didn’t falter, reached for his arm.

He jerked it away, snapped up sitting in one impossible move, his eyes almost evaporating her with fury as he took in her nakedness. “What the hell do you want now? Feeling aroused again and sorry you prematurely ended my…services?”

She held her ground, even as she quailed at his barely leashed anger. “I wouldn’t end those even at gunpoint.”

Disbelieving disgust crackled from his depth as he started to rise. She put both hands on his shoulders, keeping him in place.

“Take your hands off me, Maram.”

Before he could shake her off she blurted out, “I was talking about you, not me. I meant I disappointed you. You gave me…indescribable pleasure, but then I thought I didn’t give you the s-same…and…I felt…felt…” Her eyes flooded. “Did I? And please, please be your skin-flayingly honest self. I need to know the truth.”

He’d gone still as she babbled, his eyes losing their rage, settling into watchfulness, then slow realization before something blasted from them. Relief?

He placed his hands on hers, not to remove them, but to press them tighter to his shoulders. “If you gave me any more pleasure I would have expired. I came close as it was.”

She believed him, as she always did. But…

She whispered her confusion, “Then…why…? How…?”

It was clear he understood what she meant now, the wickedness dawning in his eyes the most welcome thing she’d ever seen, making her realize how brutally the minutes when it had all seemed to have gone wrong had hit her.

He pulled her down on his lap, his smile sensuous taunting and supreme male satisfaction as she gasped at coming into contact with his revived desire. “It seems you’ve only had experience with…short-term men. I, as you well know, am a very long-term man.”

“I thought you wouldn’t be…especially after so long.”

He took her lips in a fierce kiss that showed her how much those moments of alienation had affected him, too. “It’s because it was after so long of wanting you. When I finally had you, I decided to exercise something I learned long ago, so the pleasure wouldn’t end.”

She keened as he tasted her from shoulder to breast, his teeth grazing her senses into a riot. “It didn’t have to end. We could have started again.”

He hauled her straddling his hips, his hands spread across her back and buttock as he bent her backward. She bowed back, her breasts a wanton offering, her hair touching his thighs at the first pull of his lips on her nipple.

“I wanted it to continue, not end, then restart,” he groaned between suckles and nips. “I never tried this with anyone before, but this…technique was why it appeared I hadn’t almost died of pleasure inside you.”

She still didn’t know what he was talking about, tried to hold herself back until explanations were out of the way. She failed, rocked against him, in a fever for him, gasped, “And that’s the truth?”

“Apart from the very hard evidence—” he thrust himself at her drenched core for emphasis “—when have I ever been less than mutilatingly truthful?”

She ground back at him, words choppy now as she rode him. “Maybe you…suddenly grew scruples about…my sexual sensibilities…after I went to such lengths…to seduce you…only to follow it by this…moronic demonstration of insecurity.”

“First, I’m incapable of growing scruples about anyone’s sensibilities, sexual or otherwise, you included, so never fear.” She giggled, loving his abrasive straightforwardness more than ever. “Second, I let myself be seduced. Third, now that I know what was behind this…interesting incident, I find your ‘moronic insecurity’ a cross between hilarious and endearing, considering you are the goddess of sensuality and seduction. Fourth, haven’t you ever heard of sexual continence? Something all Eastern philosophies advocate?”

She raised her head from her surrender to his pleasuring, the practice coming to her in vague snippets. “Sex without orgasm?”

His lips twitched, a dozen devils dancing in his eyes. “Without…release. Reaching a pinnacle of pleasure that plateaus in intense, sustained ecstasy that can make me go on and on. And on.”

He punctuated each and on with a harder pull on her nipples, a harder thrust against her core. Even without entering her, she knew he’d bring her to completion again.

She pushed away, wanting only the pleasure of his possession. He let her break the rhythm hurtling her to climax, but kept her simmering with caresses and suckling.

She had to force more words out. “I didn’t really think it possible…but if anyone…is capable of anything…it’s you. But…” She struggled to voice her last concern, her belated confession. “If this was in any part because you’re worried, don’t, I’m…safe.”

He raised his eyes from worshipping and tormenting her. She expected him to ask why she was.

He didn’t. “I’m ashamed to say it didn’t cross my mind.” The moment of grimness passed and his eyes were back to tantalizing. “But it’s good to know, in case we feel like…variations.”

“Oh, yes, please.” She longed to have him fill her, in every way. “But for now, I literally can’t wait to explore this ‘on and on. And on’ concept.”

A chuckle revved in his chest as he stood up, wrapping her around him. “I can teach you the technique, and we can keep at it to infinity. We do have years to make up for.”

She laughed her eagerness for anything he’d teach her, show her, share with her, let him arrange her among the cushions, run fevered appreciation all over her, feeling like the feast he’d said she was. Soon, she couldn’t bear not to reciprocate, begged him to let her, made a case for it now that they were sure he wouldn’t turn into some hulking monster at her touch.

And he finally let her touch him. Let her do anything to him. It was even more mind-blowing than having him doing things to her. His size daunted her, his texture amazed her, his scent and taste intoxicated her. And that was before she reached his manhood.