“It has nothing to do with you.”
“I’m not the kind of man one issues challenges to, habibti. I have a pathological need to prove the issuer wrong.”
She took a step backward. “We don’t know each other well enough. Touch me and I’ll scream.”
He laughed. It was completely unexpected. She didn’t like the warmth dripping into her limbs at the sound. “You forget this is the royal palace of Kyr and I am the king. If I wish to tie you to my bed and have my way with you on a nightly basis, there is no one who will stop me.”
Her heart hammered. She wasn’t supposed to be titillated by the idea of being tied to Rashid’s bed. And yet she was.
He moved then, toward her, and she didn’t even try to get away. She was frozen like a gazelle, waiting for the big cat to strike. And strike he did. He tugged her against him, her body in the thin silk robe flush to his naked flesh, and spread his hands over her backside.
Yet he didn’t hold her tight. She could escape if she wished. She knew it and he knew it—and she didn’t even try.
He laughed again, softly, triumphantly. “Such a liar, Sheridan,” he said thickly. And then his mouth came down on hers.
If the kiss in her store had been surprising in its intensity, this one was downright earth-shattering. Rashid’s tongue traced the seam of her lips and she opened to him, tangling her tongue with his almost eagerly.
The sensations rioting through her were more intense than she ever recalled experiencing before. It was the hormones from the shots, she told herself—but it was also the man. He was more exciting than anyone she’d ever known. Which didn’t make any sense because he was also the least likable person she’d ever known.
Not to mention she didn’t even really know him at all. He was a king, a desert sheikh, an autocratic ruler accustomed to ordering people around and getting his way.
And she was giving him precisely what he expected.
But it felt so good. Their tongues fought a blistering duel, her skin grew moist and impossibly hot and wetness flooded her sex. Her limbs were weakened by the kiss and she lifted her arms to put them around his neck. The shock of his hot skin beneath hers made her whimper.
Rashid turned her until her back was against the railing—and then he untied her robe and slipped it off her shoulders. The next thing she knew, his hot mouth was tracing a path down the column of her throat while she threaded her fingers into his dark hair and clutched him to her.
His teeth bit down on her nipple through the silken fabric of her nightgown and she gasped. It wasn’t a hard bite, but it had the effect of sending pleasure shooting straight to her core. Her body clenched hard with desire as she gripped his shoulders and thrust her breasts toward his mouth.
She wanted him to remove the thin tissue of silk between his mouth and her body, but he didn’t. He licked her through the fabric, nibbled and sucked until she was wild with need. Her nipples were more sensitive than ever since she’d had the hormone shots. If he did nothing but this all night, she knew she would come from the stimulation.
But he had no intention of doing only that. He reached down and gathered the hem of her nightie, lifting it up her legs, exposing her. Sheridan thought she needed to protest, but some needy, wicked part of her really didn’t want to.
Rashid’s hands glided beneath her gown, up the flesh of her abdomen, until he was cupping her breasts beneath the fabric, his hot hands spanning her skin, making it burn.
His mouth claimed hers again. It wasn’t a tender kiss, or even a teasing kiss. It was a full-out assault on her senses. He stepped in closer, pinning her body to the railing with his much bigger, much harder one.
And that was when she felt him. That insistently hard part of him that pressed into her, letting her know that he was every bit as affected by the tension and heat between them as she was.
Sheridan acted instinctively. She reached for him, cupped her hands over that hard part of him she shouldn’t crave but did. It had been so long since she’d been with anyone and she was suddenly ravenous. Rashid made a noise, a growl of satisfaction or encouragement in his throat. A thrill shot through her.
She’d thought he’d be disgusted by her, but that clearly wasn’t the case. He wanted her. And, right now, she wanted him. It was insane, but nothing about this situation was normal. If she slept with him, what would change? Not a damn thing.
She pushed her hands beneath his briefs, cupped him in her hands. He was big and full and so very ready that it almost scared her. She didn’t know this man at all, and what she did know hadn’t been very pleasant up until this point.
He’d threatened her, taken her against her will and brought her here and treated her as if she was someone he’d hired to do a job instead of a woman caught up in a mistake not of her own making. He’d been angry with her, and he’d started this to prove a point, to punish her.
Now he was in her hands, his body hard and taut and ready. He broke the kiss and stared down at her, his eyes dark and deep and so fathomless she was almost frightened. But he was just a man, she reminded herself, and he’d not harmed her. He’d never given a single indication that he would force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.
“Sheridan,” he growled, his voice as tight as she’d yet heard it. “If you don’t mean to give yourself to me, you need to leave. Now. Because if you continue to touch me like that, I’m not stopping until I’ve tasted you as thoroughly as I desire.”
Sheridan bit her lip as her heart skittered recklessly in her chest. A sane woman would leave right this instant. A sane woman would not give her body to a man she barely knew simply because he made her feel more excited than she’d ever felt before.
She was not precisely sane at this moment. Maybe it was the heat of the desert, or the sand, or the opulent palace. She had no idea, but she wanted things she shouldn’t want.
“I don’t want to leave. I don’t want to stop touching you.”
With a groan, he swept her up into his arms and carried her through the door.
SOMEWHERE ON THE trip to his bed, panic began to flood her system. But before she could react, he set her on the bed and stripped her nightgown from her body. And then he was hovering over her, kissing her until her fear melted and her body caught on fire again.
Oh, this was so wrong—and so right. Sheridan put her arms around him, ran her hands over his broad back, the thick muscles and tendons, down his biceps and over his pecs. He was magnificent, and he no doubt knew it.
He left her mouth to lick his way to her breasts again. He took his time, sliding his tongue around and around before he sucked one aching nipple into his mouth. Sheridan cried out with the intensity of the pleasure spiking through her.
“You are sensitive,” he murmured, his breath hot against her skin and yet cold where it drifted over her wet nipple. “So sensitive.”
Sheridan couldn’t speak. Her stomach churned with anticipation and, yes, even fear. Because what was she doing? Part of her
