by Sophia Lynn
"I can tell you're looking at me," he said calmly. "Hadn't you better get back to the green onions?"
For one brief and delicious moment, she wondered what he would do if she threw those green onions at his head. Would he come back and pin her against the kitchen island again? Would he growl her name and kiss her until she felt faint?
Instead, Berry took a deep breath to get herself back under control, and smiled a little. "Right away, chef," she said jauntily, and got to work.
One thing that she had realized was that it was simply better to step back and to see where Rasul went. At the moment, there was something intensely freeing about leaving the next twenty-four hours up to him. He was going to be the one who decided what they did, and she had a feeling that she was not going to be using her no very much at all …
CHAPTER SEVEN
There were one or two more antiquities that Rasul wanted her to take a look at. He led her through the manor, stopping to point out rare bits of his family's history.
"What is it like?" she asked finally, after seeing a lance that a distant ancestor had used in the cavalry.
He glanced at her. "What do you mean?"
"What's it like to have all of this history, all of this family? I barely knew my grandparents, and most of my friends in the United States, when we stand up, we only stand up for ourselves. No one I know has ever had to represent a family name, or anything like that."
Rasul thought for a moment, running his thumb along the rounded handle of the lance. Generations ago a man who perhaps looked a great deal like Rasul had mounted his horse and rode into battle with only a lance made of wood to ensure that he could defend himself and all he held dear. Now his descendent stood in designer clothes in a house high on an impassable mountain, a woman from halfway across the world at his side. If she thought about it too much, she could become overwhelmed.
"You may not believe me," he said finally, "but it sometimes feels very empty."
She blinked. That hadn't been what she thought he was going to say at all. "Lonely?"
"Yes. I can count my lineage back for generations, back to a time when people were defined by who they were related to and what their legacies were. My father, before he died, was always very stern about how I represented the people who came before me and who had died, so that I could stand where I stood that day."
Berry considered it for a moment. "That sounds like a great deal of pressure for a young child," she said cautiously, and he smiled at her. It was a brief and fleeting thing, but there was a bit of old pain there that she longed to soothe.
"It could be. But I think overall, I was grateful for it. It is … incredible to look back over the long list of people who made me who I am. It made some of my more awkward teen moments particularly embarrassing, but when I thought about it during my victories, it made me feel like a strong link in a chain that goes back centuries."
The moment passed, but as it did, Rasul reached out and squeezed her hand gently, a touch that was there and gone before they moved on. For some reason, that gentle touch stuck with her. Despite the physical intimacy that sprang up between them at a moment's notice, despite the power of the electricity between them, there was something almost shockingly personal about how that gentle squeeze had felt. It was something that was passed between people who knew each other well, and who cared about each other.
That day, she helped him calculate the value and history of a set of armor that had been in the family so long he didn't even know when it had appeared, and a small chair that had simply been left in the room of a long-deceased great-aunt. Seeing the chair had made Berry laugh until she cried.
"Only you," she said, when Rasul had looked alarmed. "Only you would have an old chair that belonged to a great-aunt that turned out to be worth some fifty thousand dollars."
He had looked at her skeptically. "That seems truly unlikely," he said. "Are you just teasing me?"
She shook her head, and reaching for her tablet, she pulled up a recent auction from Sotheby's. A chair identical to the one that was reposing in dust and drapes in front of them had sold for almost sixty thousand dollars at auction.
Rasul raised his eyebrows. "That's impressive. I suppose my great-aunt had better taste than the rest of us knew. My grandfather was always trying to get rid of that chair …"
"And now you can simply sell it, and endow a research organization or something," she said with a giggle.
There was simply so much history around them, so much to see and do, but throughout the day, Rasul would reach for her. His touch might be a light brush of a fingertip across her cheekbone, or it might be a significantly longer kiss that made her sigh. The only thing those kisses had in common was the fact that they ended long before she was ready for them to do so. Whenever he pulled back, she would feel a moment of disbelief, and then she only wanted him more.
When the day was over, and the shadows were deep in the house, they spent the evening watching the television in the den, as she showed him ridiculous clips from the cartoons that she had watched as a young girl. He had missed all of them, and laughed uproariously at the antics of the shows she had loved.
Every now and then, she was struck by the strangeness of it. They were so very different, but this was something they could share. In that moment, it seemed as if they were not so very different at all.
Of course, most of her thoughtful realizations were completely totaled by the fact that he kept his arm over her shoulder, his fingers tickling along her bare skin there. Somehow during the course of the day, she had become completely sensitive to him. His light touches, his gentle caresses, and the occasional heated kiss had twisted her into something that could only focus on the man sitting next to her now, watching her favorite cartoons from when she was a girl.
When the hour grew late, Berry thought, all right, surely now … But instead, he got up, stretched, and walked her almost sedately to her room.
"Thank you for a great day," she said, because after all, it had been. Her body might have been twisted into knots, and her head might have been swimming with desire, but the day had been wonderful, one of the best she had spent in a long, long time.
"I am glad you enjoyed it," he said, and if he was aware of her disappointment, he made no mention of it at all. Instead, he leaned in to give her a sweet, almost chaste kiss on the cheek. Then he drew back, and what she heard him whisper in her ear made her freeze.
"Did you think I would really leave you like this, beautiful woman?"
"I …"
"I want you," he whispered. "I want every part of you, and some part of me urges me to simply take you on the ground here and now."
The image of them rolling like wild animals on the ground, biting and clawing at each other, licking and desperate, made her blush, but she wanted it, oh she wanted every bit of it.
"I am going to give you some time," he said, "and I want you to think of your response very carefully. Go into your room. Close the door. Think for half an hour. If you do not want what comes next, lock the door and I will go away. It is that simple."
She tried to speak, but her throat was simply too dry. She had to swallow twice before she could make herself understood. "What … what if I do not lock the door?"
"Then you will have lost your last chance to say no to what comes after," he said.
This time, when he kissed her, there was a slow burn to it, and she could feel the deep well of heat underneath everything he did. It called to a deeper fire inside her, one that had been burning all day, stoked by his gentle touches and sweet words.
"Choose wisely," he said, and then he was gone.
***
In the luxurious confines of her room, Berry wondered what she should do. She knew what she wanted to do, but a part of her wondered if it was truly wise. Today had punctuated the differences between them very clearly. She was a simple girl from the United States. He came from generations of wealth and nobility. She had only known him for a short time, and most
of the time she had known him, they were fighting.
And yet …
No one had ever set her on fire the way that he had. No one had ever come close. There was nothing in her that did not want his touch, his mouth, his hands. The only thing that she feared was the consequence of what would come after.
Before her time was up, she went to lock the door. Berry's hand was actually on the latch, but somehow, she could not make herself turn it. She could not force herself to bar the door to someone that she wanted that much, that she craved with every bit of her being.
In the end, she left the door unlatched. She went to the bathroom to splash cold water on her face. She had thought that she would be pale, but instead there was a rosiness in her cheeks, and her lips were red from where she had bitten them. She sat down on the edge of the bed and waited.
Half an hour later, to the second, she would later think, the door opened. Suddenly, the energy in the room changed, and a part of her realized that all of the obfuscating civility that Rasul wore like a cloak was gone.
The well-considered charmer was gone, and in his place was a man who exuded control, who would no longer be denied. Another woman would have been afraid, but in this moment, Berry was only excited.
She stood up from the bed, and he watched her, a slight smile on his face.
"You didn't bar the door," he said softly, and perhaps there was a bit of amusement on his face at a woman who had been so very careless.
"I didn't want to." Berry meant for the words to come out defiantly, but there was something smooth and almost vulnerable about them. She hadn't wanted to. In the end, the urge to have him touch her was simply too strong.
"Some might call that foolish," he observed.
"Maybe," she said, regaining some of her composure. "All I know is that what I want is standing before me, and yet, he still will not come near …"
The sound that Rasul made was nearly a growl, and she realized that there was no turning back now.
Berry froze as he stalked towards her. She knew that she should stop him. She knew what happened when they touched each other, because once they started, they would not stop. It was like they couldn't stop.
"You're in my blood," he growled, his voice low and terrifying. "No matter what I do, I cannot stop thinking about you …"
She swallowed hard, because it was the same with her. No matter where she went or what she did, he was always there, in the back of her mind.
"At night, I can still feel your touch," she confessed. "Sometimes, I lie awake and think that you have been kissing me, touching me." She wondered if she saw his eyes soften a little.
"It is the same with me," he said.
Now Rasul was only separated from her by a few feet of space. Instead of closing it, however, he reached for her instead. His hand stroked down her cheek, running light fingertips over her ear, her neck. He twined his fingers through the soft wisps of hair that fell over her ears, and then he reached behind her.
It took her a moment to realize what he was doing. She felt him pick up her braid, rolling the elastic holding it down and flicking it away. Then she felt his fingers, clever and smooth, gliding through her hair, smoothing the braid out into soft waves as she closed her eyes. Her body remembered the pleasure that he had given her, and it was already crying for his touch. She clenched her fists helplessly, because she knew if she relaxed for a moment, she would simply be in his arms.
"If you do not want this, I will go," he said. "I'll leave, and I swear, I will never touch you again …"
"That's not what I want," she whispered, and she felt the shudder go through his body as clearly as if it had gone through hers.
"If you tell me yes, I will take you," he said, his voice as rough as a midwinter sea. "I will lay you down, and I will take what I want from you while giving you as much pleasure as I can. Once you tell me that I can, I will not stop, do you understand?"
"Yes," she whispered. She could feel the pull of him, like gravity, like some dark natural force that could not be denied. If she was honest with herself, she never wanted to deny him, not this, not anything.
His hands cradled her face, making her look up at him. He was a tall man, powerful and fast. Many women in her place would have been afraid, if not of his body, then of the raging passion that she could see there now.
"Well?" he asked.
"I want you," she whispered. "I want you more than I have ever wanted anything, Please … take me …"
She could see the moment when the desire ignited in his eyes. She could see now that there was no going back, and she leaped forward at the same moment that he reached for her. The force of their kiss was an almost bruising clash of mouth and teeth, but she knew that he felt that pleasure and that pain just as she did. They were two hearts that beat to the same rhythm, and tonight, at least, they would not be separated.
His hands tangled in her hair, knotting his fingers through the smooth strands and holding her still as he kissed her. She couldn't get enough of touching him, her hands frantically pulling his shirt from where it was tucked into his trousers so she could touch his flanks, his belly, his muscular back.
"I want you," she panted. "God above, I want you so much, Rasul …"
His groan was all the answer she got, and then somehow, he had borne her gently to the floor. On her back, she looked up with wide eyes as his rose above her, stripping away her clothes with only a few short movements. His body called to her, making her want to mark him as hers somehow. There was something deeply primal about the way they moved together. She didn't care if he was bruising her, she didn't care if she was leaving marks on him. All that mattered was getting as close to him as she could, feeling the way he moved over her and making him feel how hot he was making her.
Their frantic kisses stalled only so he could strip off his own clothes, and now they were writhing naked together, pressing their bodies as close as they could get because anything else was unbearable.
"Beautiful, beautiful woman," Rasul crooned. "All I want, all I have ever wanted …"
When she nipped at his lip, he groaned with need, fisting his hand in her hair to hold her still. That small bit of restraint drove her wild, and she bit him again, harder this time. When he drew back, she snapped her teeth at him, making him grin.
"You think you're so tough?" he growled. "Well, let's see how tough you really are …"
She gasped out loud when he flipped her over onto her stomach, pinning her down by sheer superior weight. She started to try to lever herself up, but Rasul held her down with one hand pressed against her back. Then she felt his soft, wet mouth lapping at the nape of her neck, and suddenly, she had much less interest in trying to get up. Instead, she lay still as one hand ruffled through her hair, the other holding her in place. He never stopped tracing maddeningly light kisses along her shoulders, the bumps of her spine, the curve of her flank. His touch was so light, but it stopped just short of being ticklish. Instead, it made her squirm, the pleasure laced throughout her body inching up with every pass of his mouth.
Slowly, he worked his way down to the curve above her rear, and by then, she had no interest in struggling at all. Instead, she lay flat on the floor, her hands curling and uncurling as he layered sensation over sensation on her skin. He kissed the back of her thigh before moving down to the sensitive skin behind her knee. His skilled hands rubbed the firm muscles of her calves and the arches of her feet, making her aware of those parts of herself in a way that she never had been before.
When she turned her head to look at him, she found him watching her, a slight smile on his face.
"Give up," he advised her. "I'm going to do exactly what I like with you, and you are going to want all of it."
Something about the command in his words made her melt. Suddenly, all of the fight had gone out of her, and all she wanted was to give in to him. She moaned a little as he lifted her up to her knees, resting her weight on her forearms. For a moment, she thought he meant to take he
r right then and there, but instead, his hand slid between her thighs, probing her gently. He found her wet and ready for him, but it wasn't enough, not for Rasul.
She moaned as he slid his fingers inside her, rocking her back and forth with a firm stroke that only made the fire inside her roar higher. When his fingers were thoroughly wet with her arousal, he slid them forward to stroke against her clit, pinching that sensitive spot gently between two fingers before stroking more firmly.
There was nothing she could do but submit to the pleasure. She started to shake as the feelings inside her grew stronger, and then she was shouting as she spiraled into a pleasure that was completely beyond her control. Her entire frame tensed hard as the fire coursed through her. His fingers stayed firmly on her sensitive flesh, forcing her climax to stretch out as long as it could. When the pleasure finally subsided, she would have fallen to the ground in a boneless tumble if it weren't for his hands holding her up.
She whimpered as she felt him take his place behind her. There was something purely animalistic about it. There was nothing controlling them now but instinct. For a moment, she could feel the heat of his cock pressed against her warm, wet flesh, and then he plunged into her with a single, certain motion. They cried out together at how perfect the feeling was, and then he was moving, plunging into her with long strokes that filled her completely.
She braced her arms against the carpet, leaning back as he pressed forward. In that moment, she needed nothing more than to be utterly filled with him. When the heat started to rise in her again, she followed it, concentrating on how good it felt and how this man pushed her higher and higher still.
"Oh, oh God, please …" she cried, and somehow, he understood. He thrust into her harder, and with a deep growl, he bent forward to slide his fingers against her clit again. That touch was what she needed to feel her climax building again. She felt as if she were a rope stretched thin, and that any moment, she would break entirely.
“I want you to come,” he growled in her ear. “I want you to feel so good that you can't help it, no matter what I am doing, no matter how tender you are from coming again so soon …"
