The Sheik Retold(30)

My gaze was at the level of his chin. I slanted it upward an inch or two to study a mouth curved in bemusement. I darted higher to his eyes. There was a hint of challenge in them, nuanced with disbelief that I would take this any further, but he was mistaken if he thought I would back down.

No, on the contrary, I was more emboldened. I felt much like I had the first time I donned that daring green gown, venturing out in shyness and trepidation, but once I knew how well the garment suited me, I wore it unabashed and proud. So it was with my new mantle of seductress, I would wear it brazenly or not at all.

I did not wait for him to claim the kiss from my lips but took what I wanted from his. I had spent the last decade fending off rather than initiating kisses, but he had already shown me what he liked. And I was ever a quick study.

I was amazed at my own temerity. Though my heart beat wildly, I marshaled my resolve. Without prelude or the least sign of timidity, I darted out my tongue and licked it slowly across the smooth, soft, sensitive seam of his mouth. I then sucked his lower lip between mine, catching it between my teeth and biting down gently, relishing the feel of this pliant little piece of his flesh, but this tiny bite only sharpened my hunger for much more of him. I was dizzy with the pure headiness of being in control—or at least with the brief illusion of it, as he quickly demonstrated.

My sheik, for I had already decreed that he would be mine in precisely the same degree that I would be his, opened his mouth and ravaged mine, invading with his hot, wet tongue. With it he swept my mind clean of every thought but his body and mine. His hands came around me roughly, sliding down my back to squeeze my buttocks and then jerking me hard against him. There was no question of his arousal. It surged between us thick and hard.

"You have had a change of heart, ma belle?" His tone was rough and guttural. There was an equally savage flicker in his gaze. "It is a dangerous thing to tempt the beast." With his hands on my arse, he guided me, ensuring that I felt the full length and breadth of his erection. "I would have been patient and gentle with you, but it appears the tigress has come out to play."

My teeth scored over my lower lip. He would not be gentle with me.

But when had I ever done anything in my life gently? Or genteelly? The thought was almost laughable. I rode hell-for-leather, never shirking the highest fences. I hunted big game. I set out alone in the Sahara. I was no longer the cowering creature I had recently become. She was someone else, someone I despised. No, I was fearless. I was Diana Mayo.

"No, not a tigress, but a huntress," I corrected him with a seductress' smile. "I was named for Diana, the goddess of the hunt."

"And you seek a trophy now, my huntress?" He fell easily into the game.

"Yes. Only the biggest and the best for me, only game with strength and stamina, or there is no pleasure in it.

"Yes," he agreed, eyes and voice heavy with lust. "The hunt must always present a challenge."

I was breathing rapidly. My heart was palpitating in an erratic rhythm in my chest. Suddenly, my hands flew to his shirt, tearing at the linen, ripping away the buttons in my desperation to feel the heat of his bare flesh to mine. Before I could finish, his hands were beneath my thighs, lifting me, wrapping me around his body, bringing my hot, wet core in full contact with his rigid staff. I wrapped my legs tighter around him and locked my ankles. He squeezed my arse and moved me up and down on his shaft.

I bit down hard into his shoulder with a muffled cry of pleasure. "Don’t. Stop." I moaned, feeling as if I would do anything for him to continue the sweet torturous friction.

"No, ma belle." His chuckle rumbled through my entire body. "There is no stopping tonight." He laid me on the bed, and I watched him undress, eagerly eating him up with my eyes.

His chest was big and powerful and dusted with crisp, dark hair that met in a peak at his midline. I followed the dark trail over his sculpted abdomen and lower yet to where his manhood jutted, imperious and proud, much like the rearing young stallion. Yes, very much like a stallion, I thought wryly, but I was not intimidated.

Perhaps I should have been, but I understood the mechanics of coitus even if I had never performed it. Moreover, I had never seen either a bitch in heat or a mare in season shy away from what she most wanted regardless of its size.

And yes, I wanted him with the same wild animalistic abandon.

Had I had my pick of any man I have ever seen to deflower me, I would have chosen him. Only him. He was the only man I had ever known who had fired any passion in me, and I was most definitely on fire. Burning like an inferno as my gaze tracked even lower from where it had rested on his magnificent instrument to his iron-hard thighs, wrought from countless hours in the saddle.

My gaze slid back up again to his harshly handsome face and the mesmerizing eyes that had fascinated me from the very beginning, even before I knew who he was. Yes, I wanted him deep inside me and moving between my legs. I wanted him with a fiery passion I hadn't even known I possessed.

"You do understand?" he asked as he came to me, and came over me, dominating my body with his, and caging my head between his elbows.

"Yes. I understand. You will drive your cock into me continually until you have achieved your satisfaction."

His mouth twisted. "Such a vulgar word from such beautiful lips."

"I know well enough what the Englishmen call it." My own mouth quirked. "Do you prefer I use another nom de guerre? I've been with enough gentlemen in their cups over the years to have heard them all."