IT WAS late in the day when Annalisa woke. She’d fallen exhausted into bed. Yet she hadn’t slept for hours. Instead she’d replayed events in her mind. The quake, her work to help the wounded.
And Tahir, appearing out of nowhere and sweeping her into his arms. Her heart fluttered at the memory.
He’d been a stranger: intent, focused, all hard-muscled strength and determination. No hint of the playboy, just one hundred percent powerful, commanding male. One look at the set of his jaw had told her she hadn’t a hope of escaping his hold. Even if she’d wanted to.
In his embrace was exactly where she’d wanted to be.
She’d been so worried for him, but had found herself in the thick of disaster and hadn’t been able to turn her back on the pitifully wounded victims.
Tahir had barely heard her as he’d marched through the dark streets. Nor had he relinquished his hold when he’d reached his vehicle. He’d held her tight all the way, then carried her through the palace to her rooms.
Ignoring propriety, he’d only released her when he reached her bed. Even then he’d loomed close as servants scurried to provide food and run her a bath.
He’d looked immovable, his features a study in potent masculinity as he stared silently down at her.
Something had stretched taut between them. A tension she hadn’t been able to name but had felt with every slow breath, every tingle of awareness across her burning hot skin and in the deep, slow, coiling excitement in her belly.
When a maid had announced the bath was ready he’d abruptly disappeared, leaving her to ponder what had just happened.
When Tahir looked at her that way her doubts melted into nothing. It was like the sizzle in the air the night they’d made love. But more. Something stronger still.
Was she a fool, reading too much into his actions? Had he just been protecting his unborn baby?
And yet…she found herself hoping it was more.
She turned from her view of the sun setting in a blaze of colour. It was time to—
Annalisa’s footsteps faltered as she spied the figure just inside her room. His hand clenched high on the filmy curtains that separated the entry foyer from her chamber.
‘Tahir?’ Her husky voice betrayed her longing.
Need rose. It had gnawed at her so long. A need that had escalated last night as he’d carried her with the stern certainty of a man claiming his woman.
She wanted him to claim her. She wanted to be his.
Every warning, every doubt, ebbed in the face of her feelings for Tahir. She’d tried to focus on the negative, to tell herself she shouldn’t care for a man who didn’t love her. But stern logic didn’t work any more.
Flutters of excitement whirled and swooped in her abdomen. She stroked trembling fingers down the opalescent silk of the gown Rihana had given her.
His gaze followed the movement.
Heat blossomed low in her womb and at the apex of her thighs. She tried to calm herself and failed.
Last night’s crisis had cut through her attempts to be sensible and careful. All that remained was raw feeling.
What she felt for Tahir was stronger than ever.
He was the embodiment of every dream she could no longer deny. Tall, suave and potently masculine in dark trousers and a black shirt, his head bare.
Tension radiated from him. His jaw was rigid, his face composed of taut angles and lines. His eyes blazed like the sky at midday. Almost too bright to watch. Yet she couldn’t look away.
She took a step towards him and his hand clenched white-knuckled on the gossamer fabric. Her heart thumped out of kilter at what she read in his expression.
He looked fierce, stern, forbidding. Yet she felt no fear. For there was warmth too. Such warmth.
Surely it was real, not a product of her needy imagination?
For so long she’d wanted him to want her, really want her, as she did him. Now she had her wish. The force of that look almost buckled her knees.
Instinctively she realised he battled with himself. She had so little experience yet at some primitive level she understood her power over him.
For he had the same power over her. He’d wielded it from the first. She’d been blind to think she could escape its pull. Foolish to think she could walk away.
They might be king and commoner but in this they were equals. That knowledge gave her strength.
‘Tahir?’ Her voice was a barely audible throb of sound.
His fingers eased their grip on the fabric and his arm dropped to his side. He hefted a breath that inflated his chest and lifted his shoulders. It shuddered from him in a sigh. Annalisa felt its twin tremble through her.
He stepped forward, his long stride closing the distance between them. All she saw was him.
‘Habibti.’ My darling. His deep voice was hoarse and unfamiliar. The sound of his endearment crept like warm fingers up her spine till she shivered, her nipples peaking.
This close, she saw the lines of fatigue around his eyes. Had he been up all night and all day too?
Annalisa opened her mouth to ask about the rescue, but he reached out and pressed his index finger to her lips. She inhaled the warm scent of man, of Tahir, and heat pooled low in her body. She felt herself tremble on the brink of a precipice. No thought now of their turbulent past. The emotion she’d read in his ravaged features last night was more important than what had gone before.
For countless moments they stood, drawn by a force so strong the air crackled with it.
The tension was too much to bear. Annalisa swayed towards him. A muscle in his jaw worked; his eyes devoured her.
Tentatively she lifted her hand, unable to stop herself. She needed to feel him, safe and real.
Before she could touch him he hauled her close, slamming her into his rigid body. His arms wrapped hard round her, tucking her against him as if he had no intention ever of releasing her.
Annalisa trembled as his fiery heat encompassed her. Beneath her ear his heart thudded, matching her own racing pulse. She hugged him close, squeezing tight as tears she didn’t even understand stung her eyes.
A hiccough escaped as she fought back surging emotion that threatened to overwhelm her.
Long fingers cupped her chin and tilted her face up. Then Tahir was kissing her, lips slanted across her mouth in stormy possession. He gave no quarter, allowed no hesitation, as he took her.
He delved deep, kissing her thoroughly, like a conquering marauder taking his fill. Yet there was a piercing sweetness to his caress that spoke of far more than easy gratification. Her heart soared at his urgency and underlying tenderness.
His hands shook as he cupped her face. For all his power and physical strength, Tahir was as needy as she.
Annalisa answered his kisses with her own, leaning on tiptoe and planting her hands in his thick, soft hair, as if to prevent him pulling away.
Tahir groaned deep in his throat as she slid her tongue into his mouth, mimicking his caresses, luxuriating in the dark mutual pleasure consuming them.
He bowed her back over his arm, his legs wide around hers as he demanded even more. Gladly she gave it, sinking into a warm tide of delight as their open-mouthed kiss grew needier, deeper, hungrier. This was what she’d craved.
A barely familiar throb quickened in the place between Annalisa’s legs and she shifted restlessly, finding comfort in the press of his body against hers.
The pressure inside rose and she kissed him feverishly. She needed him closer even than this.
A moment later she was falling, and the air was squeezed from her lungs as he came down on her, pressing her into the cushioned mattress of her low bed.
Eyes wide now, she saw him prop himself on one arm, keeping most of his weight off her. Her eyes met his and thought fled.
Such fierce passion in his sky-blue eyes. Annalisa only had to meet his look and she spiralled towards paradise.
‘Tahir.’ Every scintilla of longing and hope and tremulous desire was in that one word. And she didn’t care. All she cared about was having this one man who meant so much, here where he belonged. For this time it was right.
Her body softened, accommodating his hard length, readying for his possession.
A shudder racked his big frame and she saw the tendons in his neck stretch taut. Tenderness filled her at his vulnerability.
‘I had to come. I need…’ He shook his head, eyes squeezing shut.
She felt a spasm of sympathy clench her heart, seeing his inner turmoil, feeling the same driving force for intimacy.
‘I need too, Tahir.’
At her whispered admission his eyes snapped open. Cerulean fire blazed down, scorching her face, her lips.
‘Habibti.’ The endearment was a low hum of sound that curled up and wrapped itself around her, warming every last recess of her body. Emotion shimmered in each syllable.
He lay poised above her as her heart thudded out a rhythm that spoke of desire, need, love. A love she could no longer deny for this proud, complex man.
Acknowledging her love didn’t scare her when she saw Tahir at the mercy of his own emotions. Not just desire but tenderness, relief and regret. She recalled the stark fear on his face last night, the convulsive clamp of his arms around her, and wanted to soothe the remnants of his anxiety away.
She raised her hands to his face, to the strong jaw so smooth it must be freshly shaved. Over high cheekbones, feathering his brow, his ears, his nose and lips. She learned his face as a blind woman would, committing each detail to memory.
His tongue sleeked across her palm and she stilled. He clasped her hand to his mouth and kissed her there, laving and nipping and caressing till longing bubbled up inside and burst out in a throaty moan of bliss.
Then he was gone, rolling off her and leaving her bereft and wanting. Instinctively she turned towards him, but already he’d moved. He knelt, hands skimming up her legs, drawing the delicate silk she wore higher and higher.
Excitement rose as their gazes meshed. She lifted her bottom so he could push the fabric up. Then he peeled the dress over her shoulders and head, tossing it in a stream of pearly colour across the room.
Movement ceased as he loomed above, straddling her hips. His chest heaved, straining the buttons of his shirt. His gaze roved greedily.
A twinge of self-consciousness penetrated Annalisa’s heady pleasure. Had her waist thickened? Her breasts seemed fuller. Too full? Instinctively she lifted her hands to shield herself, but he clamped hold of her wrists and pulled her arms wide.
She felt his eyes on her skin, like the graze of flesh on flesh. Tiny explosions erupted within her. Excitement reached fever-pitch just at the way he devoured her with his eyes. Her breasts seemed to swell against the lace of her bra and between her legs she felt dampness.
She revelled in his breathless regard. The way he looked at her made her feel like the most important being on the planet.
Deliberately he bent and planted a kiss to her belly, where her womb cradled the tiny new life they’d made.
Annalisa’s heart turned over, undone by the reverence and tenderness of the gesture. She slipped her hands free to cup his head in her hands, cradling him to her as a flood of emotion stole her heart.
Seconds later he was moving, slipping off her bra and panties with an ease that reminded her just how practised he was with women.
Yet even that knowledge didn’t give her pause. Not now. This was meant to be.
She welcomed his caressing hands, shifting under each sweep of his palm, each circling finger. She gasped as he bent his dark head to suckle at her breast, gently at first, then, as she held him close, tugging greedily, in a way that sent shafts of fire arrowing through her.
His hand slipped down, restlessly stroking her hip, her thigh, the secret needy place where his touch sent waves of pure pleasure rushing through her.
Annalisa’s heart raced. Her skin bloomed, flushed with sexual arousal and a soaring happiness she’d never known. Her hips lifted off the bed, towards Tahir’s caress. Yet he took his time, pleasuring her slowly, as if eking out every nuance of delight.
‘Please, Tahir,’ she gasped. ‘I want…’
Hooded eyes met hers. She drank in the sight of his desire-ridden face just centimetres from the peak of her breast. Dark burnished golden skin beside pale.
Her proud lover.
A tremor shook her, and another.
‘Then take what you want, habibti.’ He ripped open his shirt and tossed it aside, revealing his powerful torso. A moment later he shoved his trousers and underwear off and onto the floor. His feet were bare, and she had no idea if he’d come to her like that or shucked off his footwear beside the bed.
Her throat dried as he stretched out beside her, propped on one arm. He looked utterly relaxed, like some long, lithe predator, resting in the heat of the day. Only the rapid rise and fall of his powerful chest gave him away. And his jutting erection.
Her eyes rounded as she took in the glory of Tahir, fully aroused. How could she have forgotten his sheer magnificence? Or had she been so overwhelmed by her first experience of lovemaking that she hadn’t looked? This time she felt no nerves, no anxiety. Just love and a soul-deep need.
His erection throbbed as she watched. ‘See what you do to me?’ His voice sounded curiously tight, as if he were in pain.
Her eyes roved him and hunger grew. She reached for him, curling fingers tentatively around his surprisingly soft skin. Warm silk over iron, over pure potent masculinity.
Something plunged deep inside her and she moved nearer.
His hand closed around hers, prying her fingers loose and then dragging her hand wide, to his other side, as he rolled onto his back. He held her like that, poised over him, holding her more with the searing intensity of his eyes than with his touch on her hand.
‘Take what you want,’ he repeated. This time the words were so slurred she wouldn’t have understood if she hadn’t been watching his face.
Did he mean…?
She looked down to where their bodies touched. A frisson of erotic awareness raced through her. She sank against him a fraction and his mouth tightened in a grimace that she understood too well. The pulse throbbing between her legs was a driving force, urging her to take as well as give.
Carefully Annalisa pushed herself onto her knees so she could straddle his supine form. His heavy weight between her legs, pushing against her thigh, sent a shudder of anticipation through her. As did the gleam in Tahir’s eyes.
When his hands closed around her waist, adjusting her position above him, she let him, eager to ease the burgeoning ache inside.
A second later she felt pressure where she most needed it as Tahir rose beneath her. He drew her inexorably down, meanwhile pushing higher and higher, till surely any more was impossible.
One final sharp thrust of his hips and he lodged deep within her, part of her. The magic of it stunned her. She felt full, but not just physically. Her heart welled with the intensity of her emotions. With love for Tahir.
‘All right?’
She nodded, bereft of speech as he massaged her breasts and sent delight coiling. He shifted beneath her, slowly at first, then to an increasing tempo that made the most of the friction between their shifting, sliding bodies.
Annalisa leaned forward, her hands on his shoulders, falling into the depths of his welcoming eyes. Long fingers clamped her hips, holding her firm against him as he thrust higher, harder.
Then with a hoarse cry she was flying, soaring above the world in exquisite delight as fire shimmered in her veins and pleasure exploded. An instant later Tahir shuddered beneath her, within her, as he gasped her name.
Greedily he hauled her close and they rode the last rocketing paroxysms together, his musky, hot skin fragrant against her, his heart pounding in tempo with hers, his body enfolding her.
Annalisa breathed deep of pleasure and peace and knew this was where she belonged. With Tahir. Always.
The white heat of cataclysmic orgasm burned Tahir’s retinas. Scorched his flesh. Seared his soul.
He wrapped Annalisa closer, tangling his hand in her long hair, catching her slim leg with his knee, locking them together as if to prevent her moving.
He couldn’t let her go.
He’d been right last night. He needed Annalisa.
Sex had never been so good. But he knew now this was more than physical satisfaction.
Tahir couldn’t put a name to it. Couldn’t get his mind to grapple with definitions and meanings.
But she was his. By right of conquest. By her own choice. By dint of the simple fact he’d never release her.
He’d never needed a woman as he needed Annalisa.
He’d never needed any woman.
He nuzzled her neck, breathing deep of her sweetness. Instantly tendrils of desire coiled within him, tightening sinews and hardening flesh.
Blood roared in his ears and rushed south. He stroked her collarbone, let his fingers trail to her breast and felt her shiver.
It was too soon. It shouldn’t even be possible, not yet. But there was no mistaking the stirring in his loins.
Tentatively he moved, still lodged inside her.
He felt her grip on his shoulders tighten, reminding him how she’d scored his flesh in the throes of ecstasy. The idea of her marking him was strangely pleasing.
‘Tahir?’
He shifted so he could see her, read the surprise and confusion in her flushed face. He stroked a strand of hair from her face. ‘Too soon?’
Wide eyes held his for a moment, then a tiny dimple appeared in her cheek as she smiled and shook her head.
That was all the encouragement he needed. Moments later she was on her back, her hair a glossy fan beneath her as he took her slowly, tenderly and thoroughly.
This time he kissed her all the while, swallowed her small mews of pleasure and surprise, cupped her face in his hands as she gasped her completion. Mere seconds later the fire rose in him, spreading from his groin to his belly, sending incendiary flares through his whole body and setting a blaze in his lungs that made him gasp for breath.
He burned for her till the explosion blew him apart.
Yet even then the fire kept burning inside, a permanent unquenchable glow.
Tahir slid into oblivion, basking in its warmth, his arms locked about her.