She made sounds—sometimes a sob, sometimes a moan, sometimes his name, begging, whimpering, her head thrashing against the bed, her throat dry. Spiraling need pulled at her, pushed her out of her skin, building when he was there, fragmenting in the infinitesimal moments his touch retreated.
And then he sucked at her core.
Her orgasm rocked through her with the force of a sandstorm. She gasped for breath, the sound spilling from her mouth was erotic to her own ears. Waves of pleasure—acute, breath-robbing—drenched her inside and out. And yet he didn’t stop. His hands locking her hips, he continued stroking her with his tongue until he wrung every ounce of pleasure from her body, until she was nothing but a mass of quivering sensations.
The aftershocks of her climax still tumbling through her body, she fell back against the bed. A shiver climbed up from the base of her spine and this time it arose from something inside her, something that wouldn’t settle down, something that asked questions she couldn’t answer. Keeping her tied hands above her, she moved to her side, a strange shyness coming over her.
His face a dark shadow in front of hers, Ayaan pushed the damp hair from her forehead and kissed her temple. His palm moved over the curve of her hip, over her shaking legs, over her back. The way he cocooned her soothed something inside her that shouldn’t have needed soothing. “Zohra?”
Her name on his tongue nestling deep into her, Zohra heard the unasked question and gave an answering nod.
Unwilling to look into the strange feeling, she pushed her bound wrists toward him.
He shook his head, pure masculine arrogance brimming in the golden brown depths. “I have never seen anything so erotic as you coming.” His fingers traced the curve of her butt, drew maddening lines up and down her spine. “I think I might get addicted to it.”
When he touched his mouth to hers, she moved her head, although not before the taste of him seeped into her lips. “I think the entire encampment heard me, Ayaan,” she said, her lust-soaked body catching up to the niggling warning from her mind. “Is it—”
“Nowhere near enough, ya habibati,” he said, grasping her question without being asked. Pushing her back into the bed, his body settled on top of hers. The hair on his legs rasped against her, the angular contours of his hips an intimate caress. He felt heavenly on top of her, the heavy weight of him a pleasure that rendered her mute.
“Ayaan?”
His face buried in her nape, he smiled. “Hmm...?”
“I...” the words she wanted to say rose to her lips and fell away. Fear was a tight knot in her throat. This moment with every inch of him flush against her, the ever-present shadows in his eyes at least held back for now, she didn’t want to fracture its fragility, she didn’t want to risk another’s name entering it.
She arched as he sucked at her neck, and then licked it. “I want something from you.”
His grip on her hips tightened an infinitesimal bit. “Tonight, anything you want, ya habibati.”
“I have dreamed of touching your scar, of kissing it, of tracing it with my tongue.”
She felt the rush of his exhale between her breasts. In the next second, her wrists were unbound. And he fell back against the bed.
She took in the sight of him, her breathing, raspy, shallow.
His hair falling onto his forehead, his arms resting above his head, the contours of his chest narrowing to his waist, the hard, tight abdomen, lean hips covered by the sweatpants, olive-colored skin gleaming with a sheen of sweat—it was an intimate sight she hugged to herself, a sensual feast that would forever be etched onto her mind.
Staying on her side, she ran tentative fingers over the winding scar, felt the puckered tissue. Tears rose in her throat and she swallowed them down. No, there was no place for sorrow in this moment either. “How did you get it?” she breathed the question into his skin, hiding her face.
The tangy scent of him held her in place, the gentle stroke of his fingers in her hair rooting her to that moment.
“They bound me with a metal rope that had several knots in it.”
A matter-of-fact reply.
She caught the sound of horror before it left her mouth. Sliding close, which rubbed her breasts against his side, she pressed her lips to the scar. His hands tightened in her hair, his abdomen bunched so tight that it took her a moment to understand.
He liked it.
Pulling herself up on an elbow, she ran her tongue slowly over the length of it, peppering it with kisses. “Turn around,” she said.
And to her delight, he did. With his darkly hungry gaze trained away from her, she was bolder. Sliding to her knees, she kissed it all the way across his torso. Her nipples grazed him again and this time, they both groaned.