him, she reached up and laced her fingers through his hair, bringing him down to kiss her, as a far more experienced woman might have done. Instantly hard when she rubbed her lush, warm body against his, he mapped her breasts appreciatively and was rewarded by her nipples turning pebble-hard against his palm.
‘Don’t tease me,’ she begged. ‘By the way,’ she added with one of her comic looks that only revealed how vulnerable she was feeling, ‘you don’t think I’m fat, do you?’
He smiled to reassure her, with what must surely be a perplexed expression on his face. ‘Fat? You’re perfect.’
She relaxed and smiled mischievously up at him. ‘Then...?’
‘Delay is the servant of pleasure.’
‘Don’t give me that,’ she warned him teasingly. ‘Give me you...’
‘Your wish is my command.’ Swinging her into his arms, he carried her into the bedroom. As he laid her down on crisply dressed sheets, it felt more like taking a lover of long standing to bed than a woman he’d just met. He had no explanation for this, other than to say being with Lucy felt right. Her freshness and inexperience had won him over, and introducing her to pleasure was the only thing on his mind.
‘Tadj...’
As she reached for him, he stared into eyes that had turned black, apart from a small rim of jade green around her pupils. ‘Soon,’ he promised, and, dipping down so he could kiss her, he smiled against her softly yielding mouth.
‘Now,’ she argued hotly, digging her fingers into him.
Lifting his head, he stared down with amusement. ‘You’ll regret it, if you rush.’
‘I’m prepared to risk it.’ Then her mind switched up a gear. ‘I’m tired of being steady and prudent,’ she admitted. ‘I want tonight to be different. You’re different. And I trust you—sort of,’ she added with a rueful smile.
‘That’s quite a responsibility you’ve given me,’ he said, grinning down.
Running her small hands appreciatively over his shoulders, she commented, ‘I think you can take it.’
Shrugging off his jacket, he dropped it on a chair. Lucy was already pulling at her dress. He helped her. In just a bra and thong, she was the Venus de Milo made flesh, unbelievably beautiful and lush—and wild with impatience. Yanking at the buttons on his shirt, she managed to pull a couple off. As they flew across the floor, he freed his sapphire cufflinks and put them safely out of reach. They didn’t lose eye contact for a second while all this was going on, and by the time he’d kicked off his shoes, she was working on his belt. Snapping it out of its loops, she gave a sound of triumph and fell back.
‘Hussy,’ he accused as she greedily sucked in air.
‘You bet,’ she said. ‘You don’t know how long I’ve waited for this.’
‘From the first moment you saw me in the café?’
She laughed. ‘Something like that.’
‘Still, savour the moment—make it last...’
‘Not a chance,’ she assured him.
He sucked in air between his teeth as she boldly brushed her hand over his body. Her hand was tiny and he was big. Lucy wasn’t the only one being seduced here.
‘You’re loving this,’ she gasped, her pupils huge and black with excitement. ‘The chase, I mean. Have I spoiled it for you, by becoming the aggressor?’
‘Not at all—and that might change soon,’ he warned.
She shrugged, but for a moment he thought she seemed uncertain. He loved sex, and did nothing to stop her as she explored him with exquisite skill. Sex had never been so much fun before, he thought as she slipped her hand into his boxers. It was just a hunger like anything else, to be satisfied on demand. With Lucy, sex had become an open-ended possibility. Her lack of experience was no deterrent to enthusiasm. When she stared into his eyes, there was fire in the depth of the black, as if she was claiming her mate.
‘Do you trust me?’ she demanded.
In the moment it took to answer, he hooked a thumb into the neck of his shirt, ready to pull it over his head.
‘Trust works both ways,’ she insisted, stilling as she stared at him, waiting for his answer.
‘Trust has to be earned,’ he countered as he tossed his shirt aside.
The most plausible liars could arrive in the most pleasing of packages, he had discovered in his youth. Lucy had gone some way to wipe out his recollection of an older woman who had found it all too easy to convince a gullible young prince, whose brain had been firmly lodged below his belt at the time, that fate intended them to be together. To help fate along, a loan from Tadj would really help her to build her business, she’d said. The jewels she’d plundered from the Emir’s palace were to form part of an important exhibition, she had explained in court, after walking out on him in the middle of the night. His heart had turned to stone when her duplicity had been uncovered, and he had focused his mind solely on Qalala, vowing never to be duped again. So yes, trust was an issue for him. It was as vital as the air he breathed, and he was always waiting to be disappointed. But he’d put all that aside for this one night.
‘When you surrender to pleasure there are no barriers left,’ he told Lucy as she undressed him.
‘And none required,’ she promised as her nimble fingers flew over his remaining clothes.
Placing her hands palms flat against Tadj’s chest, Lucy indicated that she would set the pace. He could have thrown her back and done anything he wanted, but that was what she meant by trust. One night to remember for all the right reasons, she thought, though her inner self warned that one night wouldn’t be nearly enough. It would have to be, she thought.
Beneath Tadj’s control, she sensed a fire raging. She had never felt like this...so excited and lustful, which was hardly surprising when he stood before her naked and magnificent, like a bronze cast by Michelangelo. Fear of sex with such a big man had quickly been replaced by a hunger to know him inside her. Tadj would put her needs first, of that she was sure. He was such a compelling presence, he had pushed all the horrors she’d witnessed at home behind her with no effort at all. If he hadn’t been the Emir of Qalala, and she no one in particular, she could easily have fallen in love with him.
‘My turn now,’ he said.
There’d be no argument there, she thought as he deftly removed her bra, maintaining eye contact while he did so.
‘Good?’ he murmured, surely knowing that everything he did was so much better than good.
Lucy couldn’t help her shiver of delight. Burying her face in Tadj’s hard, warm chest, she listened to the steady beat of his heart. It calmed her, and seemed to promise that whatever happened next, she would know pleasure as never before. Stretching out his length alongside her, he proved to be even bigger than she’d imagined. Against him, she was like a slender twig with breasts—breasts he seemed to admire—and she gasped with pleasure when he gave them his attention. She craved him, ached for him, and only one thing could ease that, but Tadj appeared to be in no hurry to relieve her frustration. Moving down
