‘Thought you preferred it that way.’
‘Thought the same about you,’ Rafiq incised, lean brown fingers rising to frame her flushed face. ‘Got that wrong, very wrong.’
Enthralled by the dark liquid sexiness of his deep voice, Izzy tilted her head back to have a better view of him and that was a mistake because her mouth ran dry when she met the scorching heat of his appraisal. Her body reacted instantly, nipples tightening, pelvis clenching, that hollow ache between her thighs stirring afresh.
‘Five minutes after I have you, I want you again,’ Rafiq husked.
Her hands lifted and settled at his narrow waist to steady herself and she shifted closer, feeling the heat of his lean, powerful physique soak through the barrier of their clothes. She shivered, the strength of the pull he exercised over her unnerving her as she tried to fight it. It was the work of an instant for him to haul her fully into his arms and detach her from the cloak she had been wrapped in, casting it aside to unbutton the tunic she wore beneath.
‘Rafiq…’ she began.
‘Tell me you don’t want me.’
Her breath snarled up in her throat because she couldn’t lie to him, couldn’t lie to herself, had never in her life before realised that hunger could be so overwhelming that she could barely think, never mind speak in the grip of it. ‘Can’t do that,’ she muttered in a pained whisper.
He gathered her up into his arms and brought her down on the big bed. ‘A little taste of you only makes me want more. It makes me greedy.’
As his lips closed around a straining pink nipple, her spine arched, and she gasped helplessly in response. Shimmering dark golden eyes surrounded by dense black lashes gripped hers and her heartbeat hammered, liquid heat shooting straight to her core. He spread her over the bed and worked a skilled path down over her squirming body, teasing at the more receptive spots, lingering at his leisure when her response was more immediate, toying with her as her movements grew more agitated. It was a slow burning torment after the swift release he had granted her earlier when his dominant masculinity had been exactly what she craved.
Her control was hanging by a thread, tiny tremors rippling through her as she stayed poised on the edge of climax, frantically seeking that ultimate goal. He swiped his tongue across her exquisitely sensitive bud and her whole body rose in a whoosh of sensation, fierce arousal linking with bone-deep craving and the clenching tightness in her pelvis to combine in a rapturous rush of pleasure that sent her careening into space, splintering delight shockwaving through every sense.
‘Wow…’ she framed in the aftermath, weighted to the mattress like a stone statue out of its element, gazing up at him with stunned eyes. ‘Didn’t know I could feel like that.’
‘Didn’t know I could make a woman feel like that,’ Rafiq traded with a flashing grin of satisfaction. ‘I’m experimenting with you.’
‘I’m like a session in the lab? Homework?’
‘Infinitely more exciting than that,’ Rafiq breathed, sliding between her spread thighs and lowering his head to snatch a breathtakingly demanding kiss that sent her fingers diving into his silky black hair to hold him close.
He surged into her, her body stretching to send sublime messages of pleasure through her quivering length. ‘Do that again,’ she said raggedly, struggling to breathe.
And he did.
And it was even more amazing because he slowed his pace to tease her, sending sensation slowly, oh, so slowly, sending her every nerve-ending into screaming overdrive to the height of excitement and craving. He flipped her over like a rag doll, ground into her from behind at the same time as he strummed that tender bud, and that fast she hit another orgasm, shrieking his name, out of her head, out of control, almost frightened by the drowning onslaught of sheer physical pleasure.
‘So, no more separate bedrooms,’ Rafiq murmured raggedly as she lay in his arms afterwards. ‘Waste of time. Waste of opportunity. Waste of everything that we can be.’
‘But we still have an end date,’ she reminded him helplessly.
‘Everything has an end date,’ Rafiq qualified, deciding then and there that he would do everything within his power to stave off that end date for as long as was humanly possible.
‘True.’ And it was only sex, casual sex, she reminded herself, nothing that she needed to get all worked up about. It didn’t matter that she didn’t know anything about having a casual relationship because presumably he did and a few months down the road, she would barely remember him or the ecstasy, she told herself fiercely.
She was young and she was strong, no man’s patsy, no man’s fool. She would move on, write off Rafiq to the accident of fate he had been. She couldn’t call him a mistake because it wasn’t his fault that she had conceived, but they didn’t belong together. He was going to be a king, for goodness’ sake, utterly removed from her in every way, just as their twins would be in their relation to him, she registered belatedly, titled royals with a commoner mother with no claim to fame.
Long powerful fingers splayed across her stomach, which was no longer quite flat. ‘I still think they’re a miracle,’ he murmured levelly. ‘And I’m already so curious about them.’
‘I suppose you’re hoping for a boy to be your heir,’ Izzy remarked, involuntarily touched by that miracle reference coming her way again.
‘The firstborn will be my heir. Gender is irrelevant. A warrior queen here in the eighteenth century put that kind of sexism behind us. A future queen in waiting will be as acceptable as a king.’
‘A warrior queen?’ Izzy exclaimed, startled by that news.
‘And reputedly a tougher negotiator than all the tribal heads put together!’ Rafiq extended with amusement. ‘It is many years since there was a constitutional
