by Olivia Gates
He should have known. It had all been there. The evidence of her innocence. From the first moment.
The shyness and wariness that had so contrasted with her efficiency and resolve. The pain at his experimental invasion while he’d pleasured her. Her unnerved reaction, even in her total willingness to offer him all she had, to the rest of the intimacies he’d lavished on her. Fool that he was, he’d thought she hadn’t been tasted, when she hadn’t been touched at all.
He was her first. And he’d hurt her. She now lay beneath him, quivering, her impossible tightness throbbing around his invasion, her torn innocence a new gush of heat singeing his flesh, and—God help him—arousing him to madness.
Ashamed, suffocating, unable to look her in the eye, he moved, started to withdraw his body from hers. Her sob tore through him. Ya Ullah, he’d hurt her. Hurt her.
But she was clamping quaking legs over his hips, stopping him from exiting her body, pumping her hips up, impaling herself further on his hardness, forcing him back inside her.
“I’m hurting you.” He barely recognized the butchered protest that scratched the panting-filled silence as his.
“Yes—yes…” That made him heave up in horror. She only clung harder to him, arms and legs, her core clamping him like a hot fist. “It’s magnificent…you are. I dreamed—but could have never dreamed you’d feel this way inside me. Oh, Malek, Malek, your heat and power, the pain and pleasure. Habibi, brand me, finish me…”
How many times could she wreck his sanity before it disintegrated irrevocably?
Helpless to do anything but her bidding, he thrust back into her, gentle this time, slow. She thrashed her head against the bed, bucking her hips beneath his, engulfing more of his near-bursting erection into her heat. “Don’t hold back. Give it all to me. I’m yours, ya habibi, yours.”
He rose, cupped her hips in his hands, tilted her and thrust himself to the hilt inside her.
He withdrew all the way out, looked down on the awesome sight of his shaft resting at her entrance then sank slowly inside her until he didn’t see where he ended and she began.
He raised his eyes to hers, found her propped up on her elbows, watching, too, crimson lips swollen, open on frantic pants, eyes stunned, streaming, wild. He drew out, thrust again, and she collapsed back, crying out a hot gust of passion, opening wider for each thrust, an ecstatic amalgam of pain and pleasure slashing across her face, rippling through her body.
He kept his pace gentle, massaging her all over, bending to suckle her breasts, drain her lips, rain wonder all over her.
“See how beautiful you are? See how perfectly I fit inside you? See what you do to me? See what I’m doing to you?”
She writhed beneath him with every word, her hair blinding splashes of sunlight over the whiteness, her breathing becoming fevered snatches, her whole body straining at him, around him, making him pick up speed—though he managed to somehow not give in to his body’s uproar for more force—her answering confessions getting more uninhibited.
Her honeyed depths started to ripple around him. He quickened his thrusts until she screamed, bucked, froze, then convulsion after convulsion squeezed screams out of her, clamped her tight inferno around his erection in wrenching spasms.
The force, the very sight and sound and knowledge of her release broke his dam. He roared, let go, his body all but detonating in ecstasy, his seed jetting endlessly into her, until he felt his essence flowing into her, never to return.
Shaking with the aftershocks of his life’s most violent and profound release, he fought the need to come down on top of her, feel every inch of her along every inch of him. He’d tested her recuperating body enough.
He collapsed beside her, took her over him with extreme care, making sure he remained inside her.
She lay limp and cooling on top of him, the biggest part of his soul. He’d never known physical intimacy could be like this, channeling directly into his spirit, his reason. It had been a good thing he hadn’t been anywhere near accurate imagining how sublime making love to her would be. He would have definitely lost his mind during the past weeks.
He encompassed her velvet firmness in caresses, letting the memories and sensations replay in his mind and body, letting awe overtake him.
He was her first. And she’d needed him so much that, even through her pain, he’d managed to give her pleasure.
Not that it would have mattered to him if she’d been experienced. He’d fallen in love with her believing she was, not for a minute thinking it his business, or questioning it with her age and culture. Even when she’d talked about her lack of involvement with men, he’d assumed she’d meant in a serious way.
But now he knew, he was just about bursting with pride—and shame.
Just as she’d offered her life for his when she’d believed he’d offer her nothing at all in return, she’d offered her innocence when she still believed the same.
And he had to tell her now that he’d been insane to think it possible to let her go. For any reason. She would have all of him, for as long as he lived. He’d make it so. Somehow.
“Janaan, mashoogati,” he murmured into her hair as he pressed her into his body, satiation, gratitude, love and humility radiating from his very core. “I thought being with you the last weeks had been, and would remain, my life’s most incredible, unrepeatable experience. And then you gave me this. Now I know every minute with you, every time in your arms, in your body and passion, will be that all over again and then more. And no matter what happens, I’m never giving you up. I’m never letting you down. I’ll be the man to give you all you need and deserve. Forever.”
Silence met his proclamation.
Didn’t she believe him? Did she think it the empty promises of a man drunk on ecstasy, panting for more?
“Janaan…?”
The faintest snore answered his questioning whisper. Then she turned her face into his chest and her breath became soundless again. She was asleep!
Of course she was. It was another miracle she’d weathered all he’d put her through in the last hour.
He spread himself more, hoping to provide her with more comfort, dragged the cover over them, gathered her tighter in his arms. “Sleep, ya maboodati, get well. You will need all your strength when you wake up. For a very, very long future together.”
He could swear she smiled in her sleep.
Jay woke up with a start. She realized one thing at once.
This time, she was in heaven.
She was wrapped in it. It was a huge desert lion of a man, the epitome of maleness and manhood and humanity. Malek.
His legs enveloped hers, one heavily muscled arm propping him up on one elbow, the other cherishing her protectively around her waist. He was looking down at her with eyes that had replaced the sun in her world, his smile adoration, possession and barely leashed voracity.
Awareness burst inside her brain, bringing with it every single second and sensation of their union. Then he moved, a deceptively lazy shift bringing his legs around to massage hers, the arm at her waist taking her to his wide chest.
“Ma arwa’ek fee uhdani, ya maboodati.” His bass rumble dripped with satisfaction. And just that edge of imperiousness that so befitted him.
“That made zero sense to me.” She leaned back over his arm, for a more comprehensive view of the force of nature that had claimed her, transfigured her. The movement brought her breasts pressing into him. A fresh wave of heat drenched her. “And I thought I was getting good at Arabic.”
“You are. I’m just saying things you’ll never hear from anyone else. Where else but from my lips would you hear how magnificent you are in the depths of my embrace, my goddess?”
God—could he talk! As if he needed to enhance his hold on her.
“In one of those ancient desert poets’ works?” she whispered, trying to bring her emotions to a manageable level.
“I’ve been becoming one ever since I laid eyes on you. I am this close to becom
ing your lunatic, like our history’s most famous poet. But I’ll go mad with too much unconditional love, rather than a thwarted, unrequited one.”
And he wasn’t even joking.
She had to lighten this up, before she made a fool of herself, weeping with the sheer beauty of it, of him, of the memories.
“I want this formidable mind of yours intact,” she quipped. “Maybe on cessation of exposure, your condition will reverse?”
He pressed her into him more, his eyes flaring. “Don’t even joke about it. Expose me, ya mashoogati, flay me with your love.”
She looked at him, everything she’d never hoped to find, let alone have, spread beside her, beyond dreams and comprehension, surrendering his uniqueness to her to worship…
She hiccupped, buried her face in his chest.
“You’re shy again?” He tried to bring her face up and she squirmed, dug deeper into him. “After you gave me what I never thought could be given, made me feel what I never thought could be felt? After you made me understand what it means to give one’s all? You gave me your all, took mine, ya hayati.”
She nodded, tickling her nose on his chest hair. “Hence this bout of crippling shyness.”
This made him put her away and sit up, a scowl knotting his brow. “You regret it?”
Her lips twisted. “Is it OK to scoff at a crown prince and a future king?” He raised one imposing eyebrow, reading her mischief, promising retribution for the anxiety the very thought of her regret had caused him. “But to tell the truth, shyness is always caused by naughty thoughts one is unable to handle.”
“Enti janaani—you’re my Janaan. You can handle anything. You can handle me. In every sense of the word.”
And she dove into him, wrapping her arms around his endless back. “Love me again, Malek.”
He growled deep in his chest, spread her back in bed, blazed down her body with hands and lips. She realized his intention and was overcome by another tidal wave of memories and embarrassment. She tried to keep her legs closed, but he insisted, caressed them apart.
“Open up yourself to me, let me feast, let me heal you…”
“I’m healed,” she cried out. “Please…!”
“Your injuries, yes, but it will be pain unmixed with pleasure if I take you now.” She started protesting, and one of those long, perfect fingers found her entrance. She lurched with a jolt of stimulation-laced burning. Then he dipped in, and each slow inch felt like a red-hot skewer driving deeper into inflamed tissue. He held her eyes all through, drawing the admission that there was no way she’d accommodate him right now.
Then she looked down on his promise of endless pleasure lying daunting in length and thickness over his abdomen, and nothing mattered but having him inside her.
She tried to wrap her legs around him in silent supplication, and he only opened them fully, smiled his pledge, cherishing and carnal, burned it in licks and nibbles and ragged confessions down to her core. She collapsed, not one muscle functioning anymore as his magnificent head settled between her thighs and his lips and tongue soothed and scorched her sore flesh, the very heart of her secrets that she could surrender to no one but him.
She was lost again, and again, in the tumult of the body and soul-racking ecstasy he detonated in her depths, holding his eyes all through, as they demanded, as he needed her to.
Finally he came up, wrapped himself around her as she lay trembling, stunned, long drowned, guiding her on the descent, cupping her, defusing the surplus of stimulation, completing her bliss, murmuring how he’d never seen or felt or tasted anything so beautiful as her and her desire and pleasure, how he’d never thought sexual intimacy could be so sublime, his eyes heavy with awe and satisfaction.
Then he suddenly murmured, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
That he’d be her first.
“It didn’t occur to me.” Which was the truth. She wouldn’t have told him he’d be her only either. “Now I realize I should have. A man might decide to opt out if he knew, might think it an unwanted responsibility that could become some kind of obligation.”
He seemed to darken and expand at her every word. “All my consideration is, has always been, and will always be, for you.”
“Oh, Malek, I know that!” She hugged him, remorse compressing her heart. “What we shared, not only making love but everything we shared, every second of it, was the best thing that has ever happened to me. So I hope you’re not finding more ways for it to weigh on your conscience now.” Suddenly something occurred to her. “Say, would you have taken me if I’d told you?”
He gave a self-deprecating huff. “After you pointed out how you could have been lost, and we both wouldn’t have lived first for not being together? Oh, yes, I would have.” His eyes blazed with such adoration and agony-mixed contrition that her heart dropped a few beats. “But I would have initiated you so thoroughly you wouldn’t have felt that much pain.”
Her hands framed his face, trembling, begging his belief. “The pain was glorious, Malek—glorious. A searing evidence of our intimacy and an unrepeatable experience of such elemental magnitude that I probably can’t describe it to you, as you never had anything comparable.”
“I did,” he contradicted. “Not a replica of the physical experience, but falling in love for the first time has been gloriously agonizing, spiritually and physically.”
“Oh…” And how stupid was it that she felt jealousy crush her heart?
“You.” He caught the tremor that shook her lower lip in a devouring kiss. “My first and last love.”
Oh. Oh. He’d read her mind and insecurities again.
She surged into him, her lips and tongue mating with his in wrenching, draining kisses, the fuse of her hunger relit. Overcoming her shyness, she blindly reached for him, needing to feel his potency.
He stopped her with a look that liquefied her bones, rolled her over him, got out of bed with her wrapped around his waist.
He took her to the bathroom, and in an endless warm shower, he taught her how to satisfy her urges, how to complete her ownership of him. He was soon telling her she’d been born to drive him out of his mind, roared his surrender as she brought him to orgasm just as he brought her to another one.
They were clinging under the flow of water, moaning at the profoundness of their intimacy, when Malek finally murmured in her mouth, “Some food is becoming an emergency, ya roh galbi. Then I want to share another first with you.”
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
“YOU’RE TOTALLY off track,” Malek murmured in Jay’s ear.
“You mean it’s bigger?” Jay could barely turn to gape back at him. His head was resting on her shoulder, his hard body pressed into her back, his thighs enveloping hers.
He laughed, cuddled her more securely. “If after you’ve been around it, you still can’t guess, I’m not telling you.”
She nestled into him, cast her gaze over the depression of el waha—the oasis that sprawled below them.
Being on top of Zeenah, Malek’s mare, gave her an even higher vantage point from this, the highest elevation before the desert surrendered its dunes to the rocky terrain that heralded Jabal al Shamekh’s mountainous dominion miles in the distance.
It was mind-boggling, the explosion of lush green life in the middle of the desert. Date palms and olive trees numbering in the hundreds of thousands, wild flowers and cacti, impossible in beauty and abundance, farmed fruits and vegetables, especially apricots, figs and corn, astounding in size and taste. To complete the Garden of Eden setting, beside the prerequisite horses, camels, sheep and goats, wildlife was plentiful. Malek’s favorite moments were when she spotted a deer or a fox or an unknown bird and bounced up and down in delight.
Besides being breathtaking, the oasis was vast. Her last guess was fifty square miles. She gave it another go. “Seventy?”
He hugged her, laughed again. “Ah ya malekat galbi, I can’t bear to see you burning even in curiosity. It’s a hundred.”
Jay shi
vered at the passion that permeated the lightness in his voice. He’d just called her the owner of his heart. And by now, a week after they’d first made love, a week in a heaven she hadn’t dreamed existed, basking in his love, plunging deeper in their entrenching unity, she was certain she was.
She was certain of something else. This wouldn’t end. He’d promised it. She knew he kept his promises.
It was unbelievable, too much to grasp, to imagine, to look forward to. But Malek was hers, like she was his, for life.
Sunset was in an hour and he’d just finished showing her the last of the oasis’s wonders and its northern limits.
The oasis and its people were considered off-limits to the outside world they lived independent of. They welcomed only Malek, and whomever he invited. He’d never wanted to share the experience he treasured with another before her. He was held in such high esteem here, they even let him bring in all the laborers he needed to build his dream retreat on their land. He wouldn’t tell her why.
She’d found out why in one of the feasts that had been held for them. Around a huge fire, their best storyteller had recounted the story of the knight of the desert who was riding his powerful machine, looking for solitude and communion with nature, when a sandstorm came up. He came upon a group of their young who’d foolishly tried to visit the nearest town and had got lost. They would have all died if he hadn’t braved one of nature’s most destructive forces, instead of blasting through it to reach safety, and if not for his healing powers.
Malek had suffered through the retelling, muttering about the hyperbole that was so integral to the region’s culture. She’d only kissed him soundly, teased him about his inability to stomach people singing his praises…
“Here we are,” Malek murmured in her ear.
He’d ridden back into the depths of the waha, brought his magnificent black mare to a halt by the ayn, a miniature lake of crystal-clear water enclosed within a canopy of intertwining palms where everyone, including them, fetched their drinking water, crisp and perpetually cool. The air was sweet and earthy, the temperature seemed to be calibrated for perfect comfort all year round, as he’d told her.
