A Secret Birthright

chapter Eight

Something unbridled flared in Fareed’s eyes.

Gwen’s breathing stopped. She stood mesmerized by the ferocity that ate her up, finished her. Now…now he’d descend the last steps separating them, sweep her up in his arms.…

But what he did stopped her heart. With shock.

She would have never expected that he would…laugh.

But he did. Peal after peal of pure male amusement.

His laughter mortified her even as it inflamed her.

What had she said or done that he found so funny?

Maybe it was her braid, mommy robe and fluffy slippers? And the cartoon character pajamas beneath?

God, of course it was. He must have gotten a good look at her and rethought his intentions. No wonder he was laughing.

All thoughts scattered as he moved, still laughing, until he was on the same step, bearing down on her with his heat and virility. Then he leaned down, put his lips to her ear.

“I just have one question—” each syllable, each feathering of his lips shot arousal right to her core “—will you ever stop surprising me?”

She raised confused eyes up to his, found fire simmering just below the mirth.

“You exhausted me at every turn,” he whispered, intimate, maddening, “contesting my every declaration, my every decision, the minor before the major. Then I tell you I’m taking you to my bed and you just…agree?”

Her gaze wavered as his eyes lost their lightness, flames rising higher. She shivered as her own fever spiked in answer.

Then to her amazement, she heard her voice, husky with hunger and provocation. “I didn’t exactly say I agree.”

He caught her around the waist, slammed her against his hard length. Her breath and heartbeats emptied against his chest.

Twisting her braid around his wrist, harnessing her by it, ferocity barely leashed with gentleness, he tilted up her face, his eyes now a predator’s excited by his mate’s unexpected challenge.

His next words poured almost in her gasping mouth. “You said better. You commanded me not to wait. Now I’ll obey you, ya fatenati. No more waiting, ever again.”

Then he bent and swept her feet from beneath her, cut her every tie to gravity and sanity.

She went limp in his hold, becoming weightless, timeless, directionless, as she lay ensconced in his arms. She burrowed into him as the world moved in hard, hurried thuds, each one hitting her with vertigo, the pressure of emotion almost snuffing out her consciousness, like that day lifetimes ago.

And that was before he pressed his lips to her forehead in a branding kiss. “Never stop surprising me, ya saherati.”

She almost blurted out that he was the enchanter, the sorcerer. She choked on the words. She hadn’t let on that she knew Arabic, couldn’t bear lying if he asked why she did.

Every anxiety vanished as he relinquished his hold on her and she sank in the depths of soft dark beddings, was shrouded by the golden warmth of gaslight and the intoxication of incense and craving.

Then he came down over her.

She moaned with the blast of stimulation, emotional and sensual, of her first exposure to the reality of him, his weight and bulk and hunger, the physicality of his passion.

He rose off her, slid her robe off. She felt a blush creeping up from her toes to her hairline as he exposed her pajamas.

“Bugs Bunny.” He shook his head in disbelief. “And if I find you arousing beyond endurance in this, I might not survive seeing you in something made to worship your beauty.”

She crossed her hands over her chest, burning with self-consciousness. “I know how I look in this thing. I picked it to match one of Ryan’s…”

“Answer me this other question, Gwen.” His hand unlocked hers, before imprisoning them over her head in one of his. “Will I always have to say something over and over before you consider believing me? Will you ever believe I only ever say what I mean?”

She felt her flush deepening. “It’s not you I’m doubting.”

“Then how can you doubt your own beauty, your effect on me? If anything, I’m holding back, not telling you what you really make me feel, what I really want to do to you.” His eyes flared with mock-threat and too-real lust. “I don’t want to scare you.”

She shook her head against the sheets. “You won’t ever scare me. Show me everything you feel.”

Her ragged words elicited a smile that was sheer male triumph and assurance. “Amrek, ya rohi—command me.”

Yet his hands trembled in her hair as they undid her braid, spread its thickness around her. Then he buried his face in it, breathed her in hard, let her hear in his ragged groans that he was at the mercy of his need for her as she was for him.

“I’ve wanted you, I’ve needed this…” He bore down on her harder, pressed all of him into all of her. “Your flesh and desire, you scent and feel, since the first moment I saw you all those years ago. I craved you until I was hollow. Now you’re here and you’ll be mine, at last, Gwen…at last.”

She whimpered her agreement, her eagerness. He swooped up to capture the sound, his lips taking hers in a hot, moist seal, enveloping, dissolving, his tongue thrusting into her recesses, in total tasting, in thorough possession.

She’d imagined this until she’d felt she’d be forever empty, too, if she never experienced it. But this far surpassed the imaginings that had tormented her. The power and profundity of his kiss, his feel and scent, and his taste…his taste…

He bit into her lower lip, stilled its tremors in a nip so leashed, so carnal that it had her opening wider, deepening his invasion.

Just as she felt she’d come apart, he severed their meld, groaned, “Gwen, habibati, hayaati, abghaaki, ahtaajek.”

She sobbed again as she pulled him back. He’d called her his love, his life, said he coveted her, needed her.

She knew those were the exaggerated endearments his culture indulged in. They didn’t have to be literally meant, and in those moments, were likely driven by arousal.

It didn’t matter. Just hearing him say those things was enough. And if it were possible to give him of her life to fill his needs, she would have surrendered it.

She surrendered what she could now, all of herself.

He swept her pajama top over her head, his arm beneath her melting her into his length, circling her waist, raising her against the headboard to bury his face into her confined breasts.

She moaned at seeing the dark majesty of his head against her, let her hands fulfill what she’d thought would remain a fantasy, burying them in the luxury of his silken, raven mane, pressing his head harder to her aching flesh.

He groaned something deep and driven, the sound spearing from his lips into her heart as his hands went to her back. She arched, helping him release breasts now peaked with arousal, throbbing for his ownership.

He gathered her hands again above her head, drew back to gaze at her. Naked to the waist, the image of abandon, on wanton offer. She turned her face into the sheets, unable to withstand his burning scrutiny.

“Look at me, ya galbi.” His demand overrode her will, drew her eyes to his. “See what your sight does to me.” He let one of her hands go, took it to his heart, let her feel the power of its thundering, then to his erection. “Feel it.”

Her hand trembled as it fulfilled the ultimate privilege of feeling his potency. She stroked his daunting length and hardness through the heavy silk of his pants.

He undid the drawstring, slowly, maddeningly, holding her eyes as he guided her hand underneath. Her hand shook at touching him without barriers, couldn’t close around him. But even with the nip of awe and alarm, knowing all this would soon dominate her, she reveled in his amazing heat, his satin over steel, the edge of anxiety making her readiness flow heavier, soaking her panties.

He came down over her again, thrust his tongue inside her mouth to her stroking rhythm, groaned inside her, “Your touch is a far better heaven than any I imagined.”

She was lost in his feel when he suddenly drew back, spread her again, closed trembling hands on her breasts. She arched off the bed, in a shock of pleasure, making a fuller offering of her flesh. He kneaded her, pinched her nipples, had her writhing, begging, before he coaxed and caressed the rest of her clothes off her burning flesh.

The spike of ferocity in his eyes as they touched her full nakedness should have been alarming. It only sent her heart almost racing to a standstill with shyness, with anticipation. With pride that her sight affected him that intensely.

He tore his abaya off, finally exposing the body she’d known would make the gods of old fade into nothing. “Ya Ullah ya Gwen, koll shai ma’ak afdal menn ahlami. Anti ajmal shai ra’aytoh fi hayati…anti rao’ah.”

Her awed hands shook over his burnished, sculpted perfection, barely biting back the protest that everything with him was better than her dreams, that it was he who was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her life, he who was the wonder.

“Habibati…” His groan roughened to a growl as he rubbed his chest against her breasts until she thrashed beneath him. He bent, opened his mouth over her breasts as if he’d devour her.

Pleasure jackknifed through her with each nip of his teeth, each long, hard draw of his lips, had her shuddering all over.

“Fareed, just take me…all of me…”

He told her he wanted exactly that. All of her now. Now.

“Bareedek kollek, daheenah, habibati. Daheenah.”

She lay powerless under the avalanche of need, her moans becoming keens as his surgeon’s hand glided over her, taking every liberty and creating erogenous zones wherever they fondled and owned, before settling between her thighs. His strong, sensitive fingers slid up to her intimate flesh, now molten, throbbing its demand for his touch, his invasion. They opened the lips of her femininity, slid between her folds, soaked in her readiness.

It took only a few strokes of those virtuoso fingers to spill her over the edge. She convulsed with pleasure, hazy with it, failing to imagine what union with him would bring if just a few touches unraveled her body and mind.

Among her stifled cries of release she heard something primal rumble in his gut, knew it was the sound of his control snapping.

He came over her and her hands fumbled with his to remove his pants, the last barrier between them. She went nerveless as his lips spilled worship into hers, proclaiming her soul of his heart, his need to be inside her.

“Roh galbi, mehtaj akoon jow’waaki.”

She couldn’t bear not having him filling her, couldn’t bear the emptiness he’d created inside her, couldn’t…couldn’t…

She couldn’t let him take her when she hadn’t told him…

No. She couldn’t tell him. And she couldn’t not have him. Just this once. She needed this once. It wasn’t too much to ask, to take. She’d live in deprivation for the rest of her life.

And she sobbed her need, her desperation. “Come inside me, Fareed, now. Don’t wait…just take me.”

“Aih, ya hayat galbi…take me inside you, take all of me.”

He bore down into her, as blinded, as lost. She cried out, in relief, in anguish, spread her legs wider for his demand, contained him, her heels digging into his buttocks, her nails into his back, demanding him, urging him.

His pained chuckle detailed his enjoyment of her frenzy as his muscled hips flexed, positioning himself at her entrance, prostrating her for his domination. Then in one burning plunge, he was there, inside her. Flesh in flesh.

The shock to her system was total.

Paralyzed, mute, she stared up at him, everything swollen and invaded and complete. He rested deep within her, stretching her beyond capacity, as incapacitated. Blackness frothed from the periphery of her vision, a storm front of pleasure advancing from her core. Fareed…at last.

It was he who broke the panting silence, his voice a feral growl now. “Gwen, the pleasure of you…ya Ullah…”

He rose on his palms, started to withdraw from her depths. She clung blindly, crazed for his branding pain and pleasure.

He withdrew all the way out, dragged a shriek of stimulation and loss from her. Before she cried out again for his return, he drove all the way back inside her.

On his next withdrawal, she lost what was left of her mind. She thrust her hips up, seeking his impalement. He bunched her hair in his fist, tugged her down to the bed, exposing her throat, latching his teeth into her flesh as if he’d consume her.

Then he plowed back into her, showed her that those first plunges had just been preparations. He fed her core more, then more of him with every thrust, causing an unknown, unbelievably pleasurable expansion within her, until she felt him hit the epicenter of her very essence.

She was destroyed, blind, mad, screaming, clinging to him, biting him, convulsing, the ecstasy rending in intensity.

He withdrew, and she saw his magnificent face seize with ferocity, with his greed for every sensation he plumbed her body for, had ripping through her. Tension shot up in his eyes, as if he was judging when to let go.

She begged him, for him. “Give me—give me…”

And he gave. She felt each surge of his jetting climax inside her. It hit her at her peak, had her thrashing, weeping, unable to endure the spike in pleasure. Everything dimmed, faded…

She had no idea when awareness started trickling between the numb layers of satisfaction. She was still lying beneath Fareed. Then she realized what had roused her. He was leaving her body.

Before she could whimper with his loss, he pressed back over her, his weight sublime pleasure. She moaned her contentment. More bliss settled into her bones as he swept her around, draped her over his expansive body, mingling their sweat and satisfaction.

She closed her eyes, let his feel and those precious moments integrate into her cells. She’d need the memories to tide her through the rest of her life.

But this wasn’t over yet. She had hours with him still.

She wouldn’t waste a second.

“And I thought it would be unprecedented with you.”

Everything inside her stilled.

Would his next words elaborate on the disappointment of his expectations? Had he given her her life’s most transfiguring experience, but she’d proved no more than a barely adequate one?

Suddenly, she wanted to bolt. She wanted to hold on to what she’d experienced. It would be all she had of him. And if it turned out to be a one-sided illusion…

“If I’d known how it would be between us, that it would far exceed even my perfectionist fantasies, I would have carried you off to my bed weeks ago.”

She raised a wobbling head, trembling with relief. She marveled anew at his beauty, and at how magical their bodies looked entwined.

And she wanted more of him. Of them. All she could get.

She bent to taste the powerful pulse in his neck, dragging her teeth down his shoulder and chest to his nipple, nipping it before she moved her head up, stroking his flesh with her hair.

“I hope you know what you’re inviting with this act of extreme provocation.”

Feeling all-powerful with his desire, reckless with having nothing to lose and everything to win, before it was too late, she squeezed his steel buttock even as she slid her leg between his muscled, hair-roughened ones, her knee pressing an erection that felt even harder and more daunting than before.

“Which act are you referring to?” she purred, nipping his lips, adding more fuel to his reignited passion.

He grabbed her around the waist, brought her straddling him, menacing lust flaring in his eyes, filling his lips. “I have a list now. Each with a consequence all its own.”

Her hunger, now she knew what ecstasy awaited her in his possession, was a hundred-fold that of her previous ignorance.

She rocked against him, bathing him in her arousal and their pleasure. “Terrible consequences all, I hope.”

“Unspeakable.” His hands convulsed in her flesh, raised her to scale his length. He dragged her down at the same moment he thrust upward, impaling her.

She screamed his name, body and mind unraveling at the unbearable expansion, the excruciating pleasure.

She melted into him, felt the world receding with only him left in existence. Along with one thought.

She’d had him. She’d been his.

Tomorrow, when she lost him, nothing could erase the experience from her body and soul.

Gwen had returned to her bedroom in the guest apartment as soon as Fareed had left her in bed. She’d hoped he’d stay away all day until she’d made her escape.

He hadn’t stayed away an hour.

He’d just entered the bedroom, was walking to her in strides laden with urgency, something fierce blasting off him.

Before she could say anything, he hauled her into his arms and drowned her in the deepest kiss he’d claimed yet.

She felt his turmoil collide with hers, until she couldn’t bear it, think of nothing but easing him.

She tugged at his hair gently, bringing his head up. And what she saw in his eyes almost brought tears to hers.

She’d seen this in his eyes off and on since they’d come here. This despair. Every time, being with her and Ryan had managed to erase the darkness that seemed to grip him heart and soul.

She’d never asked about the reason behind his anguish. Not only because she didn’t feel she had the right to, but also because she thought she knew the answer. But what if she was wrong and there was some other reason? Something she could help with, at least by lending a sympathetic ear and heart?

“What is it, Fareed?”

He pulled her back, hugged her tighter, pressing her head to his chest, which heaved on a shuddering exhalation.

He spoke. And she wished she hadn’t asked. For he told her, in mutilating detail, about his dead brother and the depth of futility and frustration he’d been suffering in his ongoing, fruitless quest to find his family.

“Then, a week after you came here, Emad found a lead that looked the most promising we’ve had yet. He’s just told me it turned out to be another false hope.”

Even had she had anything to say, the pain clamping her throat would have made it impossible to speak.

This was all her fault. And no fault of her own. She wished she could tell him to stop looking, to have mercy on himself, that he had nothing to blame himself for, had already done more than anyone would have dreamed. But she couldn’t.

She could only leave and pray that in time, he’d end his search, come to terms with his failure, so that it would stop tearing at him.

Now all she could hope was that he’d go away again, give her a chance to leave without further heartache.

Before she pushed away, his hands were all over her, over himself, ridding them of their clothes. She knew the moment her flesh touched his, all would be lost. She had to act now.

She struggled out of his arms, hating herself and the whole world for having to say this, now of all times.

“I’m leaving Jizaan today.”

He froze in mid-motion as he’d reached back for her, stared at her for a long, long moment.

Then his lips spread. In another moment a chuckle escaped him and intensified until he was laughing outright.

He at last wiped a tear of mirth. “Ah, Gwen, I needed that.” He caught her back to him. “I love it when you let your wicked humor show, loved it when you teased me in bed. Teasing me out of it—if not for long—is even better.”

He thought she was joking! And who could blame him, after the nightlong marathon of passion and abandonment?

He pulled her back into his arms and she gasped, “I’m serious, Fareed.”

That made him loosen his arms enough so he could pull back, look at her, the humor in his eyes wavering.

She tried to maximize on her advantage, injected her expression and voice with all the firmness and finality she could muster. “With your follow-up of Ryan over, there’s no reason to stay in Jizaan anymore. In fact, we should have left long before now. We’ve taken advantage of your generosity for far too long.”

Devilry and desire ignited his eyes. “If last night has been your taking advantage of my…generosity, as you can feel—” he pulled her back against his hard length, his arousal living steel pressing into her abdomen “—I am in dire need for your exploitation to continue.”

“What happened between us doesn’t change a thing.”

“Not a thing, no. Everything.”

She tried to turn her face away. “No! Nothing has changed or will ever change. We have to leave, Fareed. Please, don’t make this hard. I have to—”

“I have to, too.” He latched his lips on the frantic pulse in her neck, suckled her until she felt her heart pouring its beats and love into him. “I have to take you again, Gwen. I have to pleasure you again and again.”

Then as she struggled to hold on to her sanity and resolve, he defeated her, practiced every spell of seduction on her viciously awakened body and starving heart.

She found herself naked, delirious with arousal and pleasure, straddling his powerful hips, her palms anchored on his chest as he dug his hands in her buttocks.

He held her by them, had her riding up and down his shaft, showing her the exact force and speed and angle to drive them both beyond insanity, egging her on.

“Ride me, Gwen, ride me.”

Lost, mad, she obeyed him, rising and falling in a fever, milking his potency with her inner muscles, mines of pleasure detonating in her every cell.

It built and built. She rode and rode, faster, harder, her hands bunching in his muscles, her eyes feverish on his, her mouth open on harsh inhalations vented in frenzied cries.

When it became too much, she wailed, “Fareed!”

“Aih ya galbi, take your pleasure all over me. Take it.” He crashed her down on him, forged to her womb.

She imploded around him for long, still moments, shaking uncontrollably as the tidal wave hovered. Then it crashed, splintered and reformed her around him, over and over.

He took over when she lost her rhythm, a convulsing mess of sensation, changed the angle of his thrusts, hitting a bundle of nerves that triggered a fiercer explosion. It wracked her, drained her to her last nerve ending.

Yet she needed more, him, joining her in ecstasy, begged for it.

This time when the world vanished and nothing but him remained, around her, inside her, she promised herself.

This would be the last time.

Or maybe another time when next they woke up. Or maybe just one more day. Yes, one more day wouldn’t hurt.

But after that, there would be no more. Never again…