I—’ But her words were lost beneath the hard, heady pressure of his mouth, for he had pulled her into his arms without warning and had begun to kiss her in a way which took her breath away. ‘Hashim!’ she gasped.
Her mouth opened up beneath his and it was enough to ignite all the fire and the fury which had been smouldering away inside him. He kissed her until she was melting and aching and moaning beneath his seasoned touch, and only then did he lift his head and glitter a hard, bright question down at her.
‘Hashim…what?’ he questioned huskily, moving his mouth to her throat to trace a featherlight kiss along its silken path.
It would be madness to protest that he had never kissed her like this before—not when she had spent hours wondering why.
‘Oh-oh-oh!’ She shuddered as he lightly drifted his hand over her breast.
A grim, silent smile of triumph curved his hard lips as his fingertips returned to whisper over their pert lushness. ‘Oh, what, Sienna?’ came the silken query. ‘Is that good?’
‘Oh! Oh!’ she gasped. ‘So good!’
A tiny pulse flickered in the centre of one tensed olive cheek. ‘Tell me what it is you want,’ he grated.
Instinct took over from reservation and sent the words spilling out of their own accord. ‘That,’ she sighed, as his fingers brushed fleetingly against the aching mounds of her breasts. ‘That’s what I want!’
He cupped the magnificent swell in his hand and rubbed a slow and deliberate circle with his thumb. ‘Like this, you mean?’
She nodded as pleasure constricted her throat into a tight, dry band.
‘I can’t hear you, Sienna,’ he urged softly.
‘Yes,’ she moaned. ‘Yes! Just like that. Oh, Hashim…’
How he had misjudged her! Oh, yes! He could feel her responsive body pressing close to his, and knew that if he put his hand up her skirt she would not stop him. How far would she let him go in public? Would she let him unzip himself and plunge right in? Probably.
‘You want that I should make love to you by the lift?’ he demanded hotly.
In some dim recess of her mind she was aware that he sounded almost…harsh…disapproving…But maybe that was because he had been holding back for so long. Didn’t they say that men had difficulty controlling their sexual hunger? Sienna drew back and swallowed breathlessly, lifting the palm of her hand to touch his rugged face, but it looked oddly cold and forbidding. Obviously he was holding himself tightly in check and she must not make him wait any longer—he had played the gentleman to her heart’s content. It was time.
‘Let’s go to bed,’ she whispered daringly.
His mouth hardened. ‘Yes,’ agreed Hashim, in an odd kind of voice. ‘Why don’t we?’
Without warning he shut the door with an echoing slam, then picked her up and carried her towards a vast double bed which was covered with a lavish embroidered gold coverlet.
‘Fit for a king!’ Sienna murmured with delight, but there was no answering smile in his eyes as he put her down on it.
‘Only a sheikh this time, I’m afraid,’ he responded tonelessly. ‘Are you disappointed?’
She wanted to ask him if something was wrong, but by then he had come to lie down beside her and her last reservations melted away.
‘Now, then,’ he said decisively, and began to unbutton her dress, a pure feral smile of hunger emphasising the deep lines around his mouth. ‘Ah…’ He sucked in a slow breath of pleasure as her breasts were revealed to him, spilling lushly pale from the pink lace which confined them. ‘So firm. So tight. So taut. Like two rich, ripe fruits. Beautiful. So very, very beautiful. You have the most beautiful breasts that I have ever seen, Sienna. What a lucky man I am.’
Something in his words unsettled her—but any slight anxiety she experienced was allayed with the expert motion of his fingertips, and Sienna closed her eyes.
‘Yes,’ he murmured approvingly. ‘Lie back and enjoy it.’
Oh, but he was so thoughtful. Beneath that steely exterior he cared for her own pleasure first and foremost. She felt him unclip her bra and give a shuddering sigh. Her eyelashes fluttered open and she surprised a look of almost…reluctance…on his face. But then he lowered his head towards her and she could feel the approaching warmth of his breath.
‘Hashim…’ She swallowed. She wasn’t sure that he’d heard her. ‘Hashim,’ she said again, almost desperately this time, for more than anything she wanted him to kiss her, to whisper sweet words to accompany these erotic gestures.
‘Shh,’ he instructed silkily, for he knew from experience that conversation could break the mood and concentration. He knew what he wanted and he was going to allow nothing—nothing—to stop him from achieving it.
Sienna squirmed on the cold coverlet and the expert movement of his hands made her need for reassurance vanish. Her breasts had never felt like this before. As if they had swollen to twice their normal size and were prickling with excitement—the blood coursing through them so that the slightest touch sent shafts of pure pleasure spiralling through her. She squealed as his tongue licked against the sensitised flesh.
‘You are very responsive for one so…innocent,’ he observed against her puckered nipple.
Another shaft of pleasure so acute that it bordered on pain shot through her, and she was aware of an empty, echoing longing, just crying out to be filled. ‘A-am I?’
‘Yes, you are. And now you will be more responsive still….’
Sienna’s breath caught in her throat, for his hand was moving downwards now, inching towards the heated clamour—the very heart of where she most wanted to be touched—and Sienna silently prayed that he wouldn’t stop.
‘I won’t,’ he said roughly, and she realised that she must have spoken the words out loud.
‘Hashim,’ she whispered, letting her lips rest against the soft furnace of his skin. ‘Hashim, I love you.’
For a moment he stilled, then shook his head very slightly, silencing her with his expert caress. He touched her molten and responsive heat with such delicate skill until she gasped in disbelief—like someone frantically seeking something only not quite sure what. Restlessly, her head moved from side to side as she stumbled towards a place of promise so beautiful that she was certain it could not really exist.
But it did. Oh, it did. She found it and fell into it, sobbing out her fulfilment, scarcely aware of Hashim pulling away from her. But, as reason and sanity began to seep back in, she realised that he was getting off the bed and moving away.
Over to the other side of the room and as far away from her as possible!
She blinked as she struggled to catch her breath. ‘Hashim?’ she croaked in confusion. ‘Is anything wrong?’
‘Wrong?’ He paused before answering her question, sucking in a deep breath as he sought—successfully —to bring his desire under control,
