by Jane Porter
“Yes.”
“Just your mother? Or, perhaps you are also still hurting from that spineless Englishman who calls himself a model?”
She made a soft, rough sound. “He’s a great model.”
“But a lousy man.”
She smiled despite herself, and then her smile faded. “My sister Logan said he did me a favor. She said it was better that I find out who he is now, before we married, instead of after.”
“Your sister is right.” His thumb slid across her cheekbone, and then down, along her smooth jaw, his attention fixed now on her mouth. He was going to kiss her. She was sure of it, she could tell by the expression in his eyes, and the way the air sparked and crackled around them, tense, and electric.
She felt raw and emotional. Confused. Everything was changing; the energy between them was different. He’d been so harsh and cold in the beginning but he was different now. He seemed as if he might care.
His head dipped. Her tummy flipped. Her pulse raced. His mouth almost touched hers, but didn’t. His breath caressed her lips. “I am sorry that spineless Englishman hurt you. I am also sorry that I add to your pain.”
Her heart squeezed. She struggled to catch her breath, feeling bruised.
“But I will make you happy, laeela. I promise.”
She stared into his eyes, lost, dazzled.
“You will enjoy being my wife.” He stroked her cheek again. “You will have riches beyond compare.”
Jemma exhaled hard, and sat back, the magic gone.
He didn’t understand her. He didn’t understand that what she wanted, needed, had nothing to do with wealth. “Money does not buy happiness. I’ve no desire for riches, or wealth. I’ve had both, and money can buy things, but not what my heart needs.”
“What about your body?”
“My body?”
His dark eyes gleamed. “What about what your body needs?”
“I don’t understand.”
“Who worships your body?”
Without wanting to, she thought of Damien. They’d had a good relationship, and great sex, but she wouldn’t say Damien ever worshipped her body. She’d never had a boyfriend who’d worshipped her body, and had begun to think after conversations with her girlfriends, that few men did. “No man worships a woman’s body.”
“I fully intend to worship your body.”
“This is incredibly uncomfortable. Perhaps it’s time we discussed your body.”
Mikael grinned. Like his laugh earlier, it was the first time she’d really seen him smile, a real smile and his teeth flashed again, and a tiny dimple appeared on the right side of his mouth. It was astonishing. Not just because he’d smiled, but because of what it did to his face. The smile transformed his hard, fierce features. He looked so approachable, so appealing.
She sucked in a breath, dazzled. “You shouldn’t do that, you know.”
A hint of a smile lingered at the corners of his mouth. “Do what?”
“Smile.”
“Why not?”
“It makes you seem almost human.”
“I am almost human.”
“I had no idea,” she retorted, trying to ignore the thumping of her heart and the way he made desire coil inside her.
He smiled again, and his expression was so warm and playful that she suddenly wanted more of him.
Wanted him closer. Wanted him kinder. Wanted him to be good to her.
“I like how fierce you get,” he said.
“You deliberately provoke me.”
The dimple deepened at the corner of his mouth. “Maybe.”
In that moment she saw who he might have been had his life turned out differently. Or perhaps, this is how he might have been with her from the start, had she not been Jemma Copeland.
Maybe he really was warm and sexy, charming and engaging. Maybe.
“And my body is very fine,” he said, the smile still lingering in his eyes. “I appreciate your concern.”
Suddenly, she very much wanted to know more about him, who he was, and how he lived. Did he have lots of women in his life? Was he the kind of man who serial dated or did he prefer having a long-term relationship?
“Tell me about your body,” she said, trying to sound off-hand. “Does it see a lot of action?”
“I don’t think that’s appropriate.”
“I’m not asking you to divulge names or numbers. I just want to know you. I’m curious about you. It’s the sort of thing a woman wants to know about her man.” She held his gaze. “So, are you a player?”
“I used to be a player. I’m not anymore. I haven’t been for a couple years.”
“Why?”
“Age? Maturity? I just know that around thirty I started to get tired of the chase, and would have just one relationship at a time. How about you?”
“I like having a boyfriend, but don’t need to be in a relationship. I’m picky. I would rather be with no one than just anyone.”
“A woman with high standards.”
“A woman that prefers books to casual sex.”
“You might just be the perfect kidnapped bride.”
There was silence for a minute and Jemma felt a thousand different things.
But then from the first time she’d met Mikael, he’d made her feel a lot. And here, in this...pleasure palace...she’d begun to feel the whisper of a craving for something. She wasn’t sure what it was she wanted, but her dreams last night had stirred something within her and all day she’d felt a restlessness and an ache.
Like a craving for sensation.
Staring into his eyes, she was teased by the possibility. Teased by the suggestion of pleasure. It would feel so good to feel good again. To feel like a woman again. To feel close to someone again.
“If you’ve finished your dinner,” Mikael said rising. “It’s time to come with me.”
They climbed the stairs from the grotto’s secret room to the courtyard of fragrant white lilies and vines clinging to rock. White candles still glimmered against the walls and outlined the walkway. But now in the middle of the courtyard, between the waterfall and door to the Chamber of Innocence stood a narrow table covered in crisp white sheets.
Jemma looked at Mikael, uncertain. “What is that?”
“A massage table. I’m going to give you a massage,” he said. “You’ll lie there, face down—”
“Why?”
“Most massages start with the back.”
“Yes, but why are you giving me the massage?”
“I think you’d enjoy it. And it would help you relax. I want you to relax. I want you to realize that everything that will happen here in the Bridal Palace will feel good. I will never do anything you don’t want. And if I do something that does make you uncomfortable, all you have to do is speak up.” He drew the top sheet back on the table. “Any questions?”
Jemma tugged on her dress. “Do I wear this?”
“No. You’ll take that off—everything off—and then lie down between the sheets, naked.”
* * *
He’d turned around to give her privacy while she disrobed, but she was on the massage table now, tucked between the sheets.
He looked down at her on the table, her dark glossy hair tumbling over one shoulder.
The massage was for her, not him. He wanted her now. He wanted her naked in his bed now. But she wasn’t ready, and he’d meant it when he told her that she had to be comfortable. She had to want him before anything would happen between them.
He placed his hands over the sheet covering her back, letting her feel the pressure of his hands, letting his hands warm her.
After a moment he smoothed his hands over the sheet covering her back.
She felt good. Warm, solid but sm
ooth.
This wasn’t going to be a sexual massage. He’d told her that before they started. It was to show her he could be trusted. He wouldn’t hurt her, or force her to do anything she didn’t want to do.
This massage was simply to help break the ice.
Develop awareness. Create ease between them. Stir the senses, too, so that she’d be comfortable with him physically. You couldn’t impose desire. It must come from within.
He concentrated on learning the shape of her back through the sheet, the sheet protecting her, giving her a sense of safety. He had told her that at any point she could stop the massage. If at any point she felt uncomfortable or threatened, she just needed to speak up and the massage would end. But he didn’t expect her to stop it.
Moving from her shoulders down, he ran his palms from her spine out, smoothing tension away, relaxing the muscles, letting her continue to warm, encouraging her to breathe more deeply.
After several minutes he drew the sheet down, folded it low on her hips, leaving her lovely back exposed. His eyes followed the line of her body, the narrowing of her waist to the soft swell of her hips. The sheet rested on her bottom, hiding the cleft of her cheeks, but again, he knew it was there. He wanted to see it. Touch it. Touch her.
And he would touch her, but not there, not today.
He drew her long hair into his fist, and quickly braided it, before draping the braid over her shoulder, leaving her back bare.
As he stepped away to reach for the oil he could see her profile. Her eyes were closed, her full lips softly parted. Her pale skin gleamed, and his gaze dropped to the side of her soft breast, and then lower to the gentle curve of hip.
He hardened. He’d wanted her for hours. He felt as if he lived in a constant state of arousal around her.
He’d desired many women, and knew how to pleasure his women, but this one made him ache.
Or maybe it was the fact that he couldn’t have her, not today, or tomorrow, or even the day after that made him hurt.
Pouring warm oil into his hands, Mikael rubbed his palms together, spreading the oil, thinning it, and yet the slippery texture was so sensual that he wasn’t sure he could do this. It was to tease her, but he was teasing himself and he hated it.
He placed his hands in the middle of her back, where he’d rested them a few moments ago when the sheet still covered her, and then he began to stroke her back, with smooth, firm deliberate strokes to relax her.
She was tense but he was patient, and as he worked on her back, he focused on the satin texture of her skin, the supple muscle beneath the skin, and the long elegant lines of her—shoulder, upper arm, spine, hip, thigh to calf.
For the next two hours he rubbed and kneaded, massaging every muscle group, working on her back, and then massaging her front, her arms, shoulders and the upper planes of her chest. Aware of the stiff peaks of her nipples beneath the loosely draped sheet his own body tightened in response. He wanted her.
He would wait until she gave herself to him. Would wait until she asked—no, begged—for release.
His hands stopped moving. He leaned over her, whispered that he was done, and told her to hold the sheet.
She did, and he scooped her up, carrying her into the Chamber of Innocence where he laid her in the big bed.
“Good night,” he said, smoothing the hair back from her forehead. “Sleep well. I will see you in the morning.”
* * *
He’d carried her into the bedroom and then left her.
Jemma rolled over onto her tummy, and pressed her face into the pillow, her body aching.
She ached for more. Ached to be filled, satisfied.
Hopefully she wouldn’t have to lie here like this tomorrow night feeling so...tense. Frustrated. It wasn’t a good feeling. Hopefully tomorrow it would be different. Hopefully tomorrow she’d sleep contented. Because wasn’t that the sheikh’s promise? He was to fulfill her needs, give her pleasure?
Yes, the massage had been nice.
She’d very much enjoyed being rubbed and stroked with warm fragrant oils.
And he’d been a great masseuse, the best she’d ever had. He’d been extremely thorough, taking his time, making the massage last for hours. But that was the trouble.
The massage was supposed to be the start of something. A preliminary to foreplay. She’d expected more. The feel of his fingers working knotted muscles, made her imagine his fingers doing other things...
She’d lay on the massage table knowing that soon he’d touch her, and it wouldn’t be just relaxing, but exciting. Stimulating.
She couldn’t help daydreaming during the massage, couldn’t help fantasizing.
She’d entertained the fantasies, too, because surely she’d need them for the next thing. Sex.
But there had been no next thing.
Just the deliciously long massage by a man who obviously had quite a bit of expertise, and then a good-night.
Most cordial of him. If she’d gone to a spa she’d expect him to be waiting on the other side of the door with a lovely chilled glass of lemon water for hydration purposes. But she wasn’t at a spa. She’d expected the massage to...deliver...
It hadn’t.
The sheikh knew exactly what he was doing.
Turning her on, leaving her high and dry, leaving her wanting more.
Jemma would have something to say to Mikael Karim in the morning.
CHAPTER NINE
IT TOOK HER a long time to fall asleep the night before, and when she woke in the morning, it took her a long time to want to leave her bed.
The massage hadn’t just stirred her body, it’d somehow stirred her emotions. She woke up feeling unsettled. Undone.
Mikael had promised her that he’d make her happy in their eight days together, but she felt far less comfortable and optimistic now than she had yesterday before he’d carried her across the threshold of the Chamber of Innocence.
But maybe it was this room, she thought, her gaze sweeping the white marble chamber. It was too formal and too cold.
Too lonely, too.
She hadn’t imagined that the eight nights of pleasure would start with her sleeping alone. She understood why he’d done it—he was trying to put her at ease—but it was isolating here in this room. The cold marble and silk panels might appeal to someone else, but not to her.
She grabbed her pillow and hugged it. She suddenly missed her family very much and that was saying something because Jemma had been independent for years.
When she’d moved to London at eighteen, her sister Victoria had teased her, saying Jemma would never last in London, and predicted that she would be back within a matter of weeks.
Victoria was wrong. Jemma had never returned, and it had actually been surprisingly easy to leave her family. Maybe it was because as the youngest, she’d grown up watching the others move on and move out. By the time she’d reached her teens, it was just her, and her mom, and her mom was ready for freedom, too.
And London had been a good fit. Once Jemma had moved there, she’d found it easy to embrace her new life, seizing every opportunity, taking every decent job, whether home or abroad. She liked to travel, was comfortable in hotel rooms, didn’t mind the long hours, either. Being the youngest, and having to learn to entertain herself, proved beneficial. Jemma was self-reliant. She told herself she needed nothing, and no one.
But that wasn’t true, either.
Of course she needed people. She needed good people, loving people, people who wouldn’t abandon her the moment things got difficult.
A knock sounded on her door and it opened to reveal Mikael, dressed in casual khaki trousers and a white linen shirt, with a scrap of hot orange fabric in his hands.
“For you,” he said, carrying the sheer tunic to her where she lay in
bed.
She blinked at him, this new him, still finding it difficult to reconcile the intimidating sheikh with this very sexy man who looked as if he’d be incredibly comfortable without anything on.
Her hands shook as she unfolded the tunic. The neckline was again jeweled and bundled in the center was a tiny blood-orange bikini.
“We’re swimming?” she asked, lifting the bikini top, and noting that the silky cups looked very small.
“Only if you feel like it. We’re having breakfast outside in the center courtyard, next to the pool. It’s already hot today. You might want to swim.” He gazed down at her. “You don’t have to wear the suit, either. I wasn’t sure how comfortable you’d feel swimming naked.”
Heat rushed to her face. She grabbed the tiny bikini. “I’ll wear the suit, thank you.”
* * *
It was a very lazy, self-indulgent day. Jemma felt as if she were on holiday at a luxurious resort. She’d been in and out of the pool a couple times to cool off, but now she stretched out on a plush lounge chair, sunbathing, while Mikael lay on a lounge chair next to her, reading.
She couldn’t help sneaking glances at him every now and then, astonished to see him in swim trunks. Astonished by his abs, and his long muscular legs, and the thick biceps. He was nothing like the sheikh she’d met three days ago. He seemed nothing like a sheikh at all.
She looked past him to the pool that sparkled in the sun. She could see one of the staff walking toward them with a tray of fresh chilled towels and more lemon flavored ice water, along with little cups of something.
The little cups contained sorbet, a delicious pineapple sorbet that Jemma ate with a tiny spoon. Mikael didn’t eat his. But he sat up to watch her lick the melting sorbet from her spoon.
“You make me hungry,” he said, his dark gaze hooded, his deep voice husky.
She blushed and pretended she didn’t understand, but it was impossible not to understand what he meant when he stared at her mouth as if it were edible.
“You have a sorbet here,” she said. “It’s melting quickly, though.”
“Perhaps I’ll just pour it on you and lick it off.”
