Silence met his proclamation.
Didn’t she believe him? Did she think it the empty promises of a man drunk on ecstasy, panting for more?
“Janaan …?”
The faintest snore answered his questioning whisper. Then she turned her face into his chest and her breath became soundless again. She was asleep!
Of course she was. It was another miracle she’d weathered all he’d put her through in the last hour.
He spread himself more, hoping to provide her with more comfort, dragged the cover over them, gathered her tighter in his arms. “Sleep, ya maboodati, get well. You will need all your strength when you wake up. For a very, very long future together.”
He could swear she smiled in her sleep.
Jay woke up with a start. She realized one thing at once.
This time, she was in heaven.
She was wrapped in it. It was a huge desert lion of a man, the epitome of maleness and manhood and humanity. Malek.
His legs enveloped hers, one heavily muscled arm propping him up on one elbow, the other cherishing her protectively around her waist. He was looking down at her with eyes that had replaced the sun in her world, his smile adoration, possession and barely leashed voracity.
Awareness burst inside her brain, bringing with it every single second and sensation of their union. Then he moved, a deceptively lazy shift bringing his legs around to massage hers, the arm at her waist taking her to his wide chest.
“Ma arwa’ek fee uhdani, ya maboodati.” His bass rumble dripped with satisfaction. And just that edge of imperiousness that so befitted him.
“That made zero sense to me.” She leaned back over his arm, for a more comprehensive view of the force of nature that had claimed her, transfigured her. The movement brought her breasts pressing into him. A fresh wave of heat drenched her. “And I thought I was getting good at Arabic.”
“You are. I’m just saying things you’ll never hear from anyone else. Where else but from my lips would you hear how magnificent you are in the depths of my embrace, my goddess?”
God—could he talk! As if he needed to enhance his hold on her.
“In one of those ancient desert poets’ works?” she whispered, trying to bring her emotions to a manageable level.
“I’ve been becoming one ever since I laid eyes on you. I am this close to becoming your lunatic, like our history’s most famous poet. But I’ll go mad with too much unconditional love, rather than a thwarted, unrequited one.”
And he wasn’t even joking.
She had to lighten this up, before she made a fool of herself, weeping with the sheer beauty of it, of him, of the memories.
“I want this formidable mind of yours intact,” she quipped. “Maybe on cessation of exposure, your condition will reverse?”
He pressed her into him more, his eyes flaring. “Don’t even joke about it. Expose me, ya mashoogati, flay me with your love.”
She looked at him, everything she’d never hoped to find, let alone have, spread beside her, beyond dreams and comprehension, surrendering his uniqueness to her to worship.
She hiccupped, buried her face in his chest.
“You’re shy again?” He tried to bring her face up and she squirmed, dug deeper into him. “After you gave me what I never thought could be given, made me feel what I never thought could be felt? After you made me understand what it means to give one’s all? You gave me your all, took mine, ya hayati.”
She nodded, tickling her nose on his chest hair. “Hence this bout of crippling shyness.”
This made him put her away and sit up, a scowl knotting his brow. “You regret it?”
Her lips twisted. “Is it OK to scoff at a crown prince and a future king?” He raised one imposing eyebrow, reading her mischief, promising retribution for the anxiety the very thought of her regret had caused him. “But to tell the truth, shyness is always caused by naughty thoughts one is unable to handle.”
“Enti janaani—you’re my Janaan. You can handle anything. You can handle me. In every sense of the word.”
And she dove into him, wrapping her arms around his endless back. “Love me again, Malek.”
He growled deep in his chest, spread her back in bed, blazed down her body with hands and lips. She realized his intention and was overcome by another tidal wave of memories and embarrassment. She tried to keep her legs closed, but he insisted, caressed them apart.
“Open up yourself to me, let me feast, let me heal you.”
“I’m healed,” she cried out. “Please … !”
“Your injuries, yes, but it will be pain unmixed with pleasure if I take you now.” She started protesting, and one of those long, perfect fingers found her entrance. She lurched with a jolt of stimulation-laced burning. Then he dipped in, and each slow inch felt like a red-hot skewer driving deeper into inflamed tissue. He held her eyes all through, drawing the admission that there was no way she’d accommodate him right now.
Then she looked down on his promise of endless pleasure lying daunting in length and thickness over his abdomen, and nothing mattered but having him inside her.
She tried to wrap her legs around him in silent supplication, and he only opened them fully, smiled his pledge, cherishing and carnal, burned it in licks and nibbles and ragged confessions down to her core. She collapsed, not one muscle functioning anymore as his magnificent head settled between her thighs and his lips and tongue soothed and scorched her sore flesh, the very heart of her secrets that she could surrender to no one but him.
She was lost again, and again, in the tumult of the body and soul-racking ecstasy he detonated in her depths, holding his eyes all through, as they demanded, as he needed her to.
Finally he came up, wrapped himself around her as she lay trembling, stunned, long drowned, guiding her on the descent, cupping her, defusing the surplus of stimulation, completing her bliss, murmuring how he’d never seen or felt or tasted anything so beautiful as her and her desire and pleasure, how he’d never thought sexual intimacy could be so sublime, his eyes heavy with awe and satisfaction.
Then he suddenly murmured, “Why didn’t you tell me?”
That he’d be her first.
“It didn’t occur to me.” Which was the truth. She wouldn’t have told him he’d be her only either. “Now I realize I should have. A man might decide to opt out if he knew, might think it an unwanted responsibility that could become some kind of obligation.”
He seemed to darken and expand at her every word. “All my consideration is, has always been, and will always be, for you.”