He closed his eyes and thought of other things, but the relentless movement of her mouth as she raised and lowered her lips against him was more than he could stand.
“What are you doing?” he asked as he put his hands under her arms and drew her up from her sensual task.
“Just giving in to temptation. When I woke up and saw you sitting there all naked and thoughtful, it seemed to be an invitation.”
Malik rose and drew her to her feet. He studied her face. “You are a woman of many surprises.”
“Why? Because I enjoy making love?” She shrugged. “I’ve never been opposed to it, in the right circumstances. My experience was limited to my marriage, but while Chuck and I were getting along, I rarely told him no. If you’re going to complain that I’m too wild, it’s your own fault. While I’ll accept responsibility for long-denied desire waking up, you’re the one who made it so good.”
Her words made him swell with pride—in more than just his chest. He had a fierce need to claim this woman again, to take them both to paradise and back. They might have only this night, but he wanted to use every minute to his advantage.
“I want you,” he said, moving close and kissing her.
With their bodies still pressed together, and their mouths joined, he moved them toward the bed. When she tumbled onto the mattress, he followed her onto the yielding surface, but he didn’t kiss her again. At least not on the lips. Instead he did to her what she’d done to him.
He licked the soft, quivering skin of her inner thigh, then moved higher to her woman’s place. There he parted the blond curls and studied her beautiful body. He used his tongue to find all the places that made her gasp and call out his name, knowing that her body, unlike his own, could be coaxed by him to experience ultimate release, only to have it happen again and again when he was inside her.
He licked her thoroughly, plunging his tongue into her waiting depths. She was sweet and hot, and he knew he would never forget a single moment of their lovemaking—not in this life or the next. He circled that one point of need, teasing it until she trembled and pulled her knees back toward her chest.
“Malik, please,” she pleaded, her voice soft and shaking, her breath coming in gasps.
He slipped two fingers inside her and pressed up, stroking her from the inside as he matched those movements with his tongue. She cried out. The single sound tore through him like a blade, finding sanctuary in his heart. Then all was forgotten in the convulsion of her muscles as her body contracted in waves of release. She pulsed around his fingers and he moved against the beats, drawing out the moment to make it last longer. He touched her more and more lightly until she was still, then he rose over her and plunged himself inside.
She grasped him to her and spoke his name over and over, like a talisman against the dark. As he moved in and out of her, the contractions began again, the quick, deep pulses making a mockery of his attempt to make it last longer this time. Instead he found himself speeding toward his own release, lost in the pleasure and the welcome he saw in her blue eyes.
She was, for this one brief, glorious night, his very own. And he would lose her in the morning, with the surety and speed of sand slipping through an hourglass.
Last night had been, hands down, the absolutely most amazing experience of her life, Liana thought hazily, some time the next morning. She lay on the soft bed and stared up at the tent’s ceiling. She knew that she was grinning like a fool and she couldn’t stop herself.
“You’re not supposed to be able to do that to me,” she said lazily.
Malik had already risen and dressed. The man had more energy than was human, she decided, watching him pull on his boots.
“I would say we did it to each other.” He looked at her and smiled. “But if you want me to take all the credit, I don’t mind.”
She rolled over and onto her stomach and pressed her cheek into the pillow. “I’d been married and I didn’t know it could be like that. Obviously Chuck and I needed to take a remedial course in sex or something. I had no idea my body was capable of doing that.”
And with a virtual stranger, she thought, still bemused by all that they’d been through together.
“I’ve always thought those romance novelists were lying,” she murmured as Malik sat next to her on the bed and rubbed her bare back. “I mean they write about all that great sex stuff and I figured it was just poetic license. But now I have to say those ladies do their research.”
Malik leaned down and kissed her. “While I want to take all the credit for last night, I can’t. I’ve never experienced anything like it before, either.”
She turned to face him. The sheet didn’t travel with her, and she was naked under the covers. When she realized her br**sts were now bare before his gaze, she found she didn’t much care. Especially when he began to gently stroke the full curves.
“So it’s chemistry?” she asked.
“Or fate.”
“Fate, huh?” She kind of liked the sound of that.
Liana closed her eyes, giving herself over to Malik’s sensual touch. Maybe she’d been hasty to assume they couldn’t have any kind of a relationship. Maybe a short-term affair wasn’t out of the question. She was going to be in El Bahar for two years, and if he wanted to be intimate with her for a few of those months, was she crazy to agree?
The trick would be to keep her heart firmly out of reach. She couldn’t risk caring about him. In fact, if she were completely honest with herself, she was already a little nervous about having bonded. She didn’t think she was the one-night stand type. So she would have to be careful to keep her heart firmly locked up. Still, it might be worth it. After all how often did a woman like her get to—