he suggested.
She couldn’t believe she was talking about something like this with Raffa. This was something she hadn’t even been able to discuss with her own parents—and they were experts in the field.
‘You think a man must take absolute control and you are expected to lie beneath him and endure whatever happens as best you can?’
‘How do you know that?’ Then she smiled, remembering how Raffa had teased her. ‘Years of experience?’ she said, pretending disapproval, but then she laughed, and they both clung to that shred of humour.
‘Did you think I was going to throw you over my shoulder and carry you off to the desert as my captive virgin?’ Raffa suggested. Thumbing his jaw, he added thoughtfully, ‘That’s not a bad idea, actually…’
‘Raffa,’ she scolded, by now completely relaxed.
‘Maybe you would have preferred that?’ he said, holding her in a loose embrace in front of him. ‘And there’s still time,’ he warned, pretending to be fierce.
‘But I trust you,’ she said.
‘I should hope so.’
‘I still have hang-ups.’
‘Only because you don’t know the rules.’
‘What rules?’
‘Rule number one: no hang-ups allowed in the desert.’
If only it were that simple, Casey thought, hugging herself. She had just made a spectacle of herself in front of Raffa in the most acutely embarrassing way. He had talked her round and reassured her, but she was still aroused. She had never been so aroused. Her nipples were on fire and she was throbbing with need between her legs, where she felt swollen and moist. She had never wanted sex more and never been more certain that she wouldn’t know what to do if they made love—except that she would make a complete and utter hash of it.
‘Dreaming again. Or just worrying?’ Raffa prompted.
‘I’d be useless at it,’ she blurted out.
‘Useless at what?’
‘Sex.’
He made a low, confident masculine sound. ‘But I’m not…’ Touching her chin, he made her look at him.
‘This isn’t funny, Raffa.’
‘No, it isn’t,’ he agreed, turning serious. ‘You have parents who advise other people with sexual problems, and for some reason you seem to think you have all those same problems yourself.’
‘I know I have,’ she interrupted.
‘How do you know?’
‘I can get so far down the road and then I can’t go any further. I’ve read the books, so I know—’
‘You don’t know anything,’ he interrupted. ‘How can you know anything when you’re still a virgin? You’ve read too many books, Casey, and life has to be experienced outside of the covers of a book. Books are instructive and interesting— and surprising, sometimes—but they can never take the place of living in the moment and all that that entails: feeling, sharing, caring, cherishing, laughing, crying.’
‘Loving?’ She stared at him steadily until she read the answer in his eyes.
‘Loving in the moment? Yes, of course.’
That was Casey’s cue to move away from him. He knew it was a lousy answer, but he had nothing to offer her long-term, and he wouldn’t pretend. Casey was special—very special. But she made him feel like the worst type of man as she hugged her knees, burying her face again. It was as if all the good that had been done over the past few days had been wasted.
‘I’m sorry.’
‘No—I’m sorry.’ She cut across him, lifting her head. There were no tears now, just an expression of resignation, which he found almost worse. ‘I shouldn’t have pressed you like this. I’ve got no right.’ She threw her hands up in mock despair. ‘I don’t know what I was thinking.’
Everything she was entitled to think—that he had brought her here to make love to her. It was a perfectly reasonable supposition. He just wished Casey didn’t believe her parents’ books held the answer to everything, or that fairytales could sometimes come true.
Picking up the howlis from his neck, he readjusted it until only his eyes were showing. ‘I’m not a very romantic Sheikh, am I?’
‘Oh, I don’t know…’ She stared with him into the vastness of the desert. ‘You brought me here.’
The wry tone in her voice was so much better to hear than Casey’s awkwardness and uncertainty. ‘Should I try harder?’ he suggested dryly.
‘You can try…’
‘Your eyes are like stars,’ he intoned solemnly. ‘Will that do?’
‘I suppose it will have to.’
She was still smiling when a cloud scudded across the moon, plunging them into darkness. Sensing her unease, he reached for her. ‘Don’t tell me you’re frightened of the dark as well?’
When the cloud rolled away she was staring up at him. As he met her gaze he wondered if this was the most intimate moment he had ever shared with anyone. And then she whispered, ‘Make love to me, Raffa…’
WITHIN moment Casey’s mind was wiped clear of why she shouldn’t, or mustn’t, and above all why she couldn’t. Every excuse her lack of self-confidence had ever thrown at her was effectively obliterated by Raffa’s overwhelming sensuality. She had never felt passion like this before and pressed close, her breasts aching for his touch.
When he deepened the kiss, plundering her mouth in a brazen imitation of what he’d like to do to her, swollen lips pulsed with need and she groaned her approval. ‘Oh, please,’ she begged, clinging fiercely to him. ‘Don’t you dare change your mind now.’
There was no chance of that.
Raffa removed her clothes with ease.
The words ‘years of experience’ flashed between them in a look. The revelation that sex could be fun boosted Casey’s confidence. It had always looked like such a serious undertaking between the covers of her parents’ books. But with Raffa—
That was as much thought as she could manage before Raffa’s lips crushed her mouth, opening her lips with the pressure of his, invading and tasting her, only to pull back and tease her with his tongue, tracing the line of her mouth, before plunging deep again, in a blatant rehearsal of what he meant to do to her.
She was on fire for him, every part of her pleading for his touch, for his attention. Mindless with delight, she bucked towards him. A dam had broken, and now her hunger was released she wanted everything he could give her.
She
