you always go braless?’ he questioned unsteadily.
She wanted to tell him that the fashionable dress had made the wearing of a bra impossible but somehow the words seemed to have lodged in her throat.
‘But then again, why would you ever cover up anything so beautiful as these pert little breasts?’ he continued as he grazed a lazy thumb over one hardening nub. ‘I like the fact that they are so instantly accessible. That they are within easy reach of the curl of my tongue.’
She wanted to protest at the outrageous mastery of his words but he leaned forward to suckle a taut nipple and the corresponding shaft of desire made her body shudder helplessly.
She could see the erotic contrast of his black head against her pale skin and could feel his tongue licking sensual pathways over the diamond-hard nub. And suddenly, the pleasure almost became too intense to bear. She felt her knees begin to sag and he responded by bending down to curl his arm beneath them to pick her up. He carried her across the glittering gilded room towards an arch beyond which she could see a massive, canopied bed. And the reality of what was about to happen hit home.
‘Hassan?’
‘That’s my name.’
His teasing words momentarily distracted her. But not nearly as much as the warmth of his fingers as they pressed against her bare flesh. ‘We … we shouldn’t be doing this.’
‘Shouldn’t we? You don’t sound very certain.’
That’s because she wasn’t. She’d never been carried by a man before and it was making her feel intensely feminine. As if for the first time in her life, she’d found someone strong enough to protect her. Her loosened dress was flapping against her bare breasts and she looked up to find his black eyes burning into her as if she was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. She had never felt quite so desired, nor so deliciously compliant.
He put her down on the bed and she lay there watching as he shrugged off his jacket and let it fall to the floor. His tie followed, and then his silk shirt. Shoes and socks were efficiently disposed of and then his hand moved to the belt of his trousers, gingerly easing them down over his formidable erection. Completely absorbed by what was happening, Ella stared at him, unable to tear her eyes away from his magnificent body. Surely she should have felt shy at such a careless striptease, but she didn’t feel a bit shy. Was that because he knew that his hard, honed body was the closest thing to perfection she had ever seen?
He moved to the bed, his face a dark mask as he bent over her, his fingers moving to find the zip of her dress. But the zip seemed to have been jammed by some errant beads and when he tugged at it, the whole thing split, sending silver beads spilling all around them, some rolling from the bed and others cascading onto the floor. Ella heard someone laugh and realised that someone was her, and that her arms were reaching up to him and pulling him down to her.
He gave an unsteady laugh. ‘So your sexual appetite matches your temper, does it, Cinders?’
‘Does yours?’ she murmured back, completely forgetting her abysmal track record with men as she felt the brush of his lips over her shoulder.
Her provocative reply fired him up even more. Hassan had never felt quite so out of control before, knowing that what he was about to do was sheer madness and yet somehow powerless to stop himself. Because hadn’t he denied himself the comfort of a woman for too long? He had forgotten how it felt to touch silken skin, and the sweet contrast between the hard male body and its yielding female counterpart.
Yet there were a hundred women more suitable as lovers than she. Women back in that ballroom who had plenty of aristocratic credentials. Who knew how to behave and how not to behave. Who would never have doused him in champagne and then submitted to him so easily. He should go back right now. Renounce this insolent Jackson while he still had the strength left in him to do so.
But now her milky thighs were spreading wide, silently urging him into their secret, molten depths, and Hassan knew that it was too late. With fingers which weren’t quite steady, he reached for a condom. Everything he wanted at that moment was centred on this woman and all he had to do was push his hard flesh into her silken sweetness to find that elusive peace.
Unable to wait any longer, he slithered her skimpy lace panties down, tossing them away before moving over her and positioning himself against her quivering heat. With an urgent moan he entered her, moving deep into her body with a trembling hunger he could barely restrain.
Ella gasped as she felt Hassan’s intimate possession, momentarily dazed as his enormous length and power began to fill her. Surely he was too big for any woman? For a moment she tensed as she allowed her body to accommodate his and she could feel herself stretching and then settling, her blood pumping and her heart giving a little leap of joy. She made an instinctive sound of pleasure and he looked down at her, smoothing some of her tousled hair from her hot cheeks.
‘Does that feel good?’ he demanded.
‘It feels f-fantastic,’ she managed.
‘Then let’s see if I can make it even better, shall we?’
It sounded like an arrogant sexual boast, but somehow she didn’t care. Especially as his words were true. He was making it irresistible. And somehow instinct made her respond to him in a way which relegated her relative inexperience to distant memory. Suddenly, she felt like the woman she had thought she could never be. Who could respond with passion and eagerness. No longer a miserable block of ice but a fiery equal who knew exactly what she wanted.
Her hips rose to meet his as she quickly became attuned to each powerful thrust. Clinging to his sweat-sheened back, she felt the powerful play of muscles moving beneath his silken skin as he thrust into her.
‘Hassan!’ she gasped.
‘Ladheedh!’ he ground out gutturally, in his native tongue
Helplessly, her head fell back as he kissed her neck and then her breasts, brushing his hungry lips against the tight buds of her nipples, increasing the urgent pleasure which was building inside her with every second.
Hassan groaned. She felt so hot. So tight. How many nights in the desert had he fantasised about being inside a woman’s body like this, before spilling his warm, wet seed onto his own frustrated fingers?
He drove deep inside her before lifting her legs to wrap them around his back so that he could go deeper still. He could feel her fingers digging into his back, could hear her breathless little moans of pleasure as his own began to snowball. Was it because it had been so long that it felt this good? Or because it was so sudden and unexpected, and with none of the usual prerequisites demanded by even the most predatory of women? He felt as if he was clinging by his fingernails to the edge of a cliff, and at any minute he might simply lose control and slip away.
For a moment, he watched her. She looked lost in her own little world: her hair was splayed against the white of the pillow and her lips were parted so that he could see the gleam of her teeth. He watched as her lashes fluttered open so that their gazes locked but he quickly shut his eyes. For why would a man ever choose to let a woman look at him when he was at his most vulnerable?
Instead he began to concentrate on giving her pleasure, and thus taking back the control he had felt in danger of losing. Over and over again, he edged her to the very brink, like a man determined to showcase his repertoire of sensual skills. He heard her murmured little pleas, the entreaties
