The Desert Lord’s Bride

you climax around me over and over. I want to feel those velvet muscles that wrung my fingers wringing me of every drop of pleasure.”

She was shaking so hard her teeth chattered, and it had nothing to do with being cold. She was coming apart with overstimulation. “Shehab, I can’t breathe…my heart…it’s stampeding…don’t torment me anymore…please… take me.”

Hearing her say the words, take me, sobbed on her siren’s voice, sabotaged the last of Shehab’s reason.

“Umrek, ya rohi, command me…” He unclasped their bodies, slid off the platform, turned her, slid her to the edge, brought her trembling thighs around his hips, took hers in one hand, the other bringing his shaft to her entrance, sliding its head into her nectar, spreading it, stimulating her more, lubricating himself, struggling with the need to ram inside her.

When she whimpered again, arched up to seek more of him, to bring him inside her, he surrendered, flexed his hips, plunged halfway into her heat, going blind with the blast of pleasure.

When his sight returned, he saw her, arched off the platform, the sensations slashing across her face dominated by shock, by pain. The tightness of the velvet vise enveloping him, even in the absence of a barrier, felt like a virgin’s. Not that he’d been with any virgins, but this must be how tight, how untried, how uncertain of how to receive a lover one would feel.

And he could only believe the verdict of the body buried in hers. Not only hadn’t she been tasted before, her sexual experience was practically nonexistent. And he’d hurt her.

“Samheeni, ya rohi,” he panted his agitation. “Forgive me, I should have been more gentle.”

“No, no…” she moaned, rigidity draining out of her body. “I never dreamed, never…” Her fingers dug into his shoulders, bringing him down to her, forcing him to stroke deeper into her, tearing a hot sharp sound from her depth, a growl from his. He heard exultation mixed with the pain now, and relief flooded him.

She thrashed, never taking her eyes from his, letting him see every sensation ripping through her, her tan brightening with rising pleasure, seeming to glow against the whiteness she lay on, an image the poets of his land, known for their expertise in exaggeration, would have failed to find words for.

“You feel…magnificent…inside me…” she panted, the exhilaration thickening her voice, sending more arousal crashing through his body. “I never knew so much pleasure…existed…”

“Aih, ya rohi, et’mataii…” he rumbled, assurance taking hold. “Take your fill of pleasure.”

And he watched in awe as she accepted more of him, arching, offering, abandoned. Her cries rose, her hands bunched in his hair, bringing his lips down to hers to drown them both in another exercise of abandon, her core throbbing around his invasion, pouring a surplus of welcome. She’d reached fever pitch so soon. But so had he. Not that it mattered. He’d succumb now, and would remain ready to pleasure her again, and again.

He withdrew, then plunged, burying himself all the way inside her. And she shattered around him. The feel and sight of her pleasure boiled his seed in his loins. He surged to her womb and her cries intensified, her convulsions reaching new heights, tearing his orgasm from depths he’d never known existed. Overcome, convulsing, he jetted inside her in endless surges, his roars reverberating around the chamber.

He finally felt her melt beneath him, aftershocks jolting through them both. He still throbbed inside her, hard and ready. Still, she wouldn’t be again. Not tonight.

He carried her to his bed. The bed he’d spent the past two weeks unable to rest in, imagining her there.

Now she was, lying over him, her eyes drugged with cell-deep satisfaction, humming a wonderful sound, a score of bliss.

She slept. He studied her, all the nuances her features, her expressions, her every breath in sleep revealed, reveling in the unprecedented experience, the unknown intimacy, and was almost sorry when she stirred. Then she wobbled up, her now-dry hair raining over his chest, and gave him a smile that made him feel he could indeed fly under his own power.

“The first moment I saw you…” Her voice was different, awareness-laden, smug. “It was like I turned into a living tuning fork, and your vibe was the frequency that set me off. But no fantasy could have done what you just did to me, what you gave me, justice.”

“You gave me as much, and more.” Joy burst in her eyes, rained in kisses over him. When the homage reached his heart, it almost rammed out of his ribs for a direct kiss. “But we needed to go through all that we did, to achieve this pinnacle.”

She murmured in agreement, undulating in a sinuous dance.

“Shehab, take me again, don’t make me wait.”

“You’re sore. You can’t take me again.”

“I can. I want to feel your weight on me, feel you inside me, dominating me, until I’m finished, complete.”

In answer to her pleas, Shehab sprang out of bed, gave her a bedeviling smile as he scooped her up and carried her to the shower. “All mind-blowing pleasure comes to she who waits.”

Eight

“I’ve never heard of strip chess.”

At her breathless comment, Shehab lifted a face ablaze with the flames of the fire he was stoking, the majestic sunset and the passion perpetually brewing between them.

They’d dived again today, had had another session in his hammam, prepared a meal together, then he’d seen to some business, as he’d been doing for the past three weeks.

Since that day he’d made her his, he’d almost never left her side, had concluded his business on site. She’d been ecstatic yet worried he was succumbing to their magic and neglecting his work. He’d assured her the worst of the crisis was over, that he was now smoothing edges. If he had to leave, he would, but he would take her with him this time. He couldn’t be apart from her now. And he never was, never left her side during days and nights spent in the escalating delight of exploring each other.

He’d taught her to fly, in every way as he’d promised, freely admitting that she’d taught him, in turn, how to truly experience and revel in the flight. He said she’d done the same in everything else, made him feel with new senses. And they’d shared everything, from listening to music, to discussing books, movies, world state and business affairs, to preparing meals and tasting food, to sharing jokes and games and silence, to experiencing every nuance of this place, from its skies to its underwater world, from dawn to dawn.

He straightened from the fire, looking straight out of impossible female fantasies, in another of those sumptuous traditional garbs he’d promised he’d wear for her to have the pleasure of seeing him in it, and the far more intense delight of getting him out of it.

This one was more intricate, in gold-embroidered grays and blacks, the open abaya billowing around him in the gentle wind like the swirls of a magic spell.

He approached her as she sat under the small shade tent they’d put up, facing the fire. The huge bespoke tent he’d had erected for them earlier was at his back by the lapping waves. His movements echoed the tranquility all around them, deepening his impact, and that of the evocative surroundings.

He came to stand over her, brushed his hand down her cheek. “It does exist, I assure you. You’ve just led a sheltered life.”

She loved his teasing, its wit and gentleness of intention. He was always true to his early words, laughing with her and never at her. And loving it when she reciprocated.

She shivered as he came down on his haunches before her. The weather was hot and dry, would become balmy at twilight, cooling gradually as the night deepened, until he’d have her wrapped in the warmth of cashmere and the velvet of his heat. Right now her shudders were emotion-induced. How she loved him.

She reached an unsteady hand to the ebony locks that had escaped the darkness of his headdress, and teased back. “While you’ve sampled all life has to offer?”