He continued to touch lightly and evenly until she had finished her climax, then he moved over her and pressed himself against her.
He paused long enough to put on protection.
She would have thought there wasn’t anything left inside her, but as he entered her so very slowly, filling her, stretching unused muscles in the most delightful way, she found herself collecting to tense and release again.
She opened her eyes and their gazes locked. He breathed her name and shuddered.
She tilted her hips to accept all of him. He felt so right. She adored the weight of him, the way her body trembled and the building pressure that promised she was far from finished.
He bent low and kissed her, then raised himself again so he could watch her face.
The swift but gentle action made her body contract in an unexpected spasm.
“Again,” he demanded and she found herself doing as he wished, until she was caught up in a cycle that made her release with each thrust.
“I can’t,” she gasped, knowing that her body was no longer hers to control. “I’ll die of it.”
Malik said nothing. Instead he continued to move, watching her. She was sure he could both see and feel her releases. She felt wanton and sensual and more feminine than at any other time in her life.
And then he was moving faster, and she felt him ready himself. She prepared for him to thrust deeply one last time. He stiffened and groaned. Her body contracted around him, pulling him in, and she held him close as he relaxed against her.
Happiness filled her. Perhaps this wasn’t the smartest thing she’d ever done in her life, but she refused to have any regrets. Even if it was just for tonight, making love with Malik had been glorious.
“Not bad for two out-of-practice people,” she murmured, then nibbled on his earlobe.
“You were most adequate,” he told her teasingly.
She laughed. “As were you, my handsome prince. As were you.”
Malik sat in the low cushioned chair across from the bed and watched Liana sleep. After making love, they’d pulled up the covers and rested together in each other’s arms. But although she’d drifted off, he couldn’t stop the whirling thoughts in his head.
There was no excuse for what he’d done, he told himself. When she found out the truth, which would probably happen in the morning, there would be hell to pay. If Liana hadn’t appreciated his attempts to get her to live at the palace, she was hardly going to forgive his latest transgression. He should have more forcefully told Bilal no.
Malik closed his eyes. But instead of picturing the leader of the nomadic tribe, he saw Liana as she’d lain naked in his arms. He replayed the memory of how it had felt to slide into her waiting body. For that single moment, they truly had been one being.
She was so many things, he thought watching the way the faint light from a glowing lantern caught the golden blond in her hair. Beautiful, affectionate, intelligent, caring, humorous. How was he supposed to resist her? For a man who had lived alone for most of his life, the promise of her acceptance had been more than he could resist. He’d known it wasn’t going to last, that it wouldn’t last even now, but he’d been unable to walk away from her. For the first time in his life, he’d understood what it meant to be intimate—in more than a sexual sense.
So for this evening, and for as long as she would let him, he would pretend that it was real. That she cared about him and wanted him and that they were together. It wasn’t love. It could never be love. But it was as close as he was allowed. Surely his duties and responsibilities could excuse him this one time—for these brief hours—and he could be like other men.
“What are you thinking?”
He looked up and saw that Liana had awakened. She sat up, watching him, her hair mussed and her eyes still half closed.
“I’m thinking about you,” he said honestly. “About how we were together.”
“Oh, are you? And how was that?”
“Amazing.”
“Hmm, my thoughts exactly.” She pushed back the covers and rose to her feet. Naked, she crossed the carpeted floor and stopped in front of his chair.
He remembered that she’d worried about her body—that she’d borne a child and wasn’t as slim as she would like. But when he looked at her, he saw only perfection. The full br**sts of a mature woman. Rounded hips, long legs and one or two marks that proved she was a fertile, vital goddess.
“You are a fantasy,” he said, leaning forward and pressing his mouth against her belly.
She cupped his head, then tilted his chin so that he stared up at her. “Somehow I think you’re the winner in the fantasy department,” she told him. “Very few men daydream about schoolteachers, but nearly every little girl in the world has dreamed about a prince.”
“A man from a fairy tale. Not someone real.”
“You’re real?” she said, teasing him with mock disappointment. “And here I thought you were the manifestation of every childish daydream.”
She sank to her knees and pressed her palms against his bare thighs. “Although the good news is if you’re real, you won’t disappear at midnight or whatever it is fantasy princes do when they leave.”
“It’s past midnight and I’m still here,” he said.
“Good, because if you were a fantasy, I might just shock you by doing this.”
He sat naked in the low chair. Liana gave him an impish smile, then leaned forward and took his rapidly swelling arousal in her mouth. The combination of movement, moist heat and her long hair brushing against his inner thighs made him swear aloud. He tensed as a wave of pleasure rushed through him. In less than a heartbeat he was as hard as he’d ever been. Pressure built quickly and purposefully and he knew he had to distract himself or he would give way in a matter of seconds.