Satisfied by that admission, if a little spooked by the strength of his reaction, Tilda said nothing more; he’d listened to her request and acted on it. Tomorrow or the next day would be soon enough to resurrect the past. For the present, Tilda realised that she was more interested in making the most of her wedding day.
CHAPTER NINE
THE magnificent main bedroom suite, which neither Rashad nor Tilda had occupied before, was bedecked with flowers and bore more than a passing resemblance to a fairy-tale bower. Tilda was enchanted.
Rashad watched her reverently touch a snowy-white lily blossom. He moved forward to grasp her hand gently in his. ‘This is my wedding gift to you.’ He threaded a stunning oval diamond ring onto her finger. ‘A betrothal ring. We were never engaged but I would like this ring to signify a new beginning for us.’
Her eyes prickled. The diamonds glittered with breathtaking brilliance. She was very touched by what he had just said, because he was offering her heart’s desire. More than anything else she wanted to believe that she had a proper future with him. His choice of gift told her so much more than he would have managed to say. ‘It’s absolutely gorgeous.’
Rashad detached the coin headdress from her hair with great care and set it aside. Beautiful dark eyes serious below his luxuriant black lashes, he removed the turquoise jewellery piece by piece. ‘It meant much to me to see you wear these gems.’
‘Did anyone ever tell you how amazing you look in army uniform?’ Tilda muttered helplessly.
‘No,’ Rashad said truthfully, and an amused smile lightened his solemn expression.
‘Well, you do,’ she told him gruffly.
‘I want you so much I hurt,’ Rashad breathed not quite steadily, letting the tip of his tongue delve between her readily parted lips.
As he leant closer she felt the hard evidence of his arousal through his clothing and a combination of nerves and excitement gripped her. He detached his sword belt and undid his jacket. She tugged it off him with hands that were clumsy with impatience. She had waited too long for him. She wondered if he would realise that he was her first lover. She hoped so. Then he would have to accept how wrong he had been about her and she supposed she would graciously accept his heartfelt apologies.
He undid the tight sash at her waist and unzipped the ornate and heavy kaftan, easing the rich fabric down slowly over her hips. Desire sparked low in her pelvis and she pressed her slim thighs together in embarrassment. Tiny little tremors were running through her slender figure. She stretched up and found his wide, sexy mouth again for herself. He held her there entrapped, one lean hand braced to her spine, the ripe swell of her breasts crushed by the powerful wall of his chest. As he captured her lips with shattering urgency her heart thumped an upbeat tempo inside her ribcage and a delicious surge of heat warmed her belly. His tongue plundered the soft recesses of her mouth, teaching her a wickedly erotic rhythm that made her whimper low in her throat with surprise and pleasure.
Golden eyes smouldering like the heart of a fire, Rashad set her back from him and removed the gossamer fine silk slip she wore. ‘So many unnecessary layers,’ he complained thickly.
Still clad in bra and briefs, Tilda reddened, wildly conscious of his appraisal as he shed his uniform. Watching in guilty fascination, she thought how beautiful he was from the smooth golden skin of his wide, sculpted shoulders to the hard, muscular breadth of his chest and his long, lean, hair-roughened thighs. Her admiring scrutiny jolted to a sudden halt just below the low-slung waistband of his boxers, where the explicit outline of his bold maleness was all too obvious to her disconcerted eyes. Hastily she glanced away, a tiny frisson of mingled response and alarm gripping her.
‘Come here,’ he urged.
‘Can we do this really slowly?’ Tilda asked abruptly.
Surprise and amusement made Rashad smile. With quiet confidence he let his long brown fingers feather through her pale silky ringlets in a soothing motion. ‘What are you scared of? Surely not of me?’
Tilda went pink, mortified that she had let herself down with that nervous and all-too-revealing question. ‘Don’t be daft.’
Unhooking her bra with deft assurance, Rashad vented a husky sound of satisfaction and lifted his hands to cup the full, firm mounds of creamy flesh that tumbled free. ‘I promise that you will know only pleasure in this bed tonight.’
Tilda remained tense. ‘I’m not as experienced as you seem to think.’
His stubborn jaw line tautened, for he did not want to think of anything that might awaken thoughts of the men with whom she had betrayed his trust. He shut out that statement and wiped the very memory of it from his mind. If he let anger touch him again he feared that his promise of a new beginning would become empty, meaningless words and so he made no answer. Instead, he bent his head to kiss her into silence again and he stroked the delicate coral pink buds that crowned her breasts with skilful fingers.
The liquid sensation at the juncture of Tilda’s thighs became a knot of almost painful anticipation. She sucked in an audible breath, but a gasp of disconcertion was wrenched from her when he pulled her down across his thighs, though she had no thought of protest. He used his tongue to lash a lush, pouting nipple with wicked expertise. He followed that bold caress with the gliding graze of his teeth, tormenting the tender peaks into rigid, straining points.
‘Rashad…’ she gasped, her hips squirming in a forlorn attempt to assuage the throb of need he had awakened.
‘You like that?’ Venting a soft laugh of satisfaction, Rashad framed her face with lean brown fingers to hold her still. ‘I think you will like everything I do.’
He tasted her swollen mouth with erotic urgency and eased a hand beneath her hips to remove her last garment. Suddenly aware that she was totally naked, Tilda tensed and there was a hint of insecurity in the way her tongue twinned with his. Rising with her in his strong arms, he tumbled her gently down amongst the pillows. Removing his boxer shorts, he joined her on the bed. His rawly appreciative gaze feasted on the pale rounded contours of her shapely body. She lay there, her entire skin surface buzzing with a wanton response that not even an attack of almost paralysing shyness could kill.
‘I want to please you,’ Rashad muttered huskily. ‘Just as you will wish to please me.’
‘Please you?’ she whispered uncertainly.
He took her hand and closed her fingers round that part of him that she had rigorously avoided looking at. The size of him dismayed her, even while the offer of such blatant intimacy fascinated her. Her face flamed at the iron- hard heat and satin smoothness of his rigid shaft. Uncertain though she was, curiosity took over. When he rested back against the pillows and groaned with uninhibited pleasure, answering heat slivered through her and centred on the damp, tender heart of her.
‘How am I doing?’ Tilda whispered shakily
‘Too well for my control.’ Rashad laced possessive fingers in her hair and devoured her luscious mouth in an almost punitive kiss while he spread her back against the pillows. He skimmed teasing fingers through the pale blond curls below her belly and she shivered, madly, wantonly aware of the hot, moist heat of that hidden place. He found the tenderest spot of all and she moaned and pushed her flushed face into his shoulder, alternately taut and melting with delight in response. She was wildly sensitive to his erotic skill. Her head moved restively back and forth, her spine incurving in a helpless attempt to release the unbearable tension rising inside her. He tested the slick, wet heat of her with a single finger. Consumed by the sheer force of her own response, she cried out, her senses scattered with need.
She had never dreamt that she could want and crave as she did at that moment. ‘Rashad…please!’
But only when the ache for fulfilment had become a torment did he angle her back, sliding lithely and surely between her thighs. She was frantic by that stage, urging him on with eager, clutching fingers. With an earthy sound of male pleasure he eased a path into her delicate passage, restraining himself with difficulty as she was very tight.
‘You feel marvellous,’ he breathed raggedly.
Tilda was past speech, all her needs pent up in the violence of the hunger he had aroused and the astonishing
