He teased the tiny bundle of nerve endings that controlled her entire body and she writhed in the storm of intoxicating sensation. ‘Don’t stop … whatever you do, don’t stop!’ she warned him through gritted teeth, reacting to an overload of pleasure that wiped out every thought and consideration and left frantic desire in charge.
Black hair tousled, golden eyes hot as flames, the prince rose over her. ‘After this, there is no going back.’
In the merciless grip of unsated need, Ruby could barely focus on his darkly handsome features. ‘No going back?’ she repeated blankly.
Raja, as eager for completion as she was, was already pressing back her thighs and impatiently splaying his hands below her hips to raise her to him. As he positioned himself and pushed into her a sharp pain arrowed through her and she cried out. He stopped moving to gaze down at her with a bemused frown. ‘What’s wrong?’
‘Nothing … don’t stop,’ Ruby told him, taut with discomfiture for it had not occurred to her that losing her virginity might hurt. Her more experienced friend, Stella, might have told her a lot of things but that possibility had not been mentioned.
Dark eyes confused, he stared down at her. ‘But I hurt you.’
Ruby could feel her face getting hotter and hotter. ‘It’s my first time … that’s all. No big deal.’
It was Raja’s turn to be surprised and it was a very big deal on his terms. His bride was a virgin? The level of his ignorance about her annoyed him. He had made the wrong assumptions but not without her encouragement to do so. A slight shudder racked him as he endeavoured to remain still while every fibre of his being craved the completion of sinking into her as far and as fast as he could go.
‘It’s all right … it really is,’ Ruby whispered, deeply embarrassed by the enforced pause in their lovemaking.
The prince lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the rosy invitation of her mouth. For the very first time he allowed himself to think of her as his wife. It was a powerful source of attachment for a man given to ruthlessly guarding his emotions. Lithe as a cat, he shifted inside her and her eyes widened with wondering appreciation as the first swirl of sensation circled her pelvis and melted her inside to hot, liquid honey.
‘Oh …’ she framed, taken aback by that feeling of exquisite fullness, lips parting, eyes drifting shut on a heady vocal sound of appreciation.
‘I want it to be good for you …’
Ruby looked up at him, her entire body buzzing with electrified arousal. ‘It’s better than good …’
Raja shifted again, initially slow and sure, patiently teaching her his rhythm while he revelled in the velvety grip of her slick passage. In the still heat of the tent, perspiration gleaming on his sleek bronzed length, he pleasured her with long driving strokes. Excitement gripped her as the pace quickened and the only thing that mattered then was the pounding surge of his body into hers. Delirious with the pulsing pleasure, she arched her back and wild tremors tore through her. With a feverish cry she splintered into the electrifying heat of an earth-shattering climax.
Afterwards, Raja held her close, soothing fingers caressing the smooth skin of her abdomen while little quivers, aftershocks of that intense physical crescendo, still coursed through her. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you. If I had known that you were not experienced I would have been more gentle.’
Hugging a glorious unfamiliar sense of well-being along with the feeling that she was still floating on a fluffy cloud, Ruby fixed dazed eyes on his face. ‘I’m not sure gentle would have been quite so exciting.’
Raja laughed with easy appreciation and vaulted upright. He pulled on his boxers and strode out of the tent. She wondered what he was doing but was too lazy to ask or follow as she lay there with limbs that felt weighted down. At the corner of her mind a kernel of unease was nagging at her, keen to remind her that she had trashed the platonic agreement she had forged with Raja and made their relationship much more personal, much more intimate than she had ever envisaged.
Just at that moment such serious reflections seemed ridiculously irrelevant. They were marooned in the desert in circumstances neither of them could ever have foreseen and, as far as she was concerned, the normal rules no longer applied. It was just sex, she told herself urgently, not worth getting worked up about. Creating a fuss about it would only make her look deeply uncool.
Raja strode back in and knelt down by her side. One glimpse of that strong, dark face and sleek physique and her tummy flipped and her brain seemed to turn to mush. He smiled down at her, and it was, without a doubt, the most spectacular smile. Evidently her approval rating had gone from zero to through the roof. He reached down to uncurl her legs for she was lying coiled in a ball.
‘What are you doing?’ she muttered in bewilderment.
He didn’t answer, he simply showed her. He had soaked the towel in the pool and wrung it out. Beneath her stunned gaze he began to run that very welcome cold, wet cloth over her hot, damp body, cooling her feverish temperature, leaving her fresh and revitalised and unexpectedly touched by his thoughtfulness.
They ate in a surprisingly comfortable silence below the tent canopy. ‘I don’t think we’ll be here for much longer,’ Raja admitted quietly. ‘Once the fact that we were married in the UK is publicly announced there can be no reason for leaving us here.’
‘But that means that someone would have to own up to knowing where we are.’
‘There are many ways of passing information without the source being identified,’ the man by her side remarked shrewdly.
When she finished her drink and began to get up he rose with her and pulled her up against his powerful frame. Hot eyes raked her flushed and uncertain face and for an instant she was stiff, suddenly disturbingly lost in the brave new world of intimacy she had created with him. The balance of power had changed irrevocably. A low-pitched growl vibrating in his throat, Raja closed a hand into her tumbled hair and kissed her, hard and hungrily, unleashing a passion that was uninhibited. He thrust aside the sarong and cupped her bare breasts, teasing the tips between thumb and finger. An arrowing tingle of damp heat speared between her thighs and she ached. She quivered and clung, wanting and needing again even more than she had the first time.
RUBY suffered a rude awakening the next morning. Raja was shaking her shoulder, the tent walls were flapping loudly and her ears were ringing with noise.
‘Get dressed,’ he framed urgently as she blinked in bewilderment. ‘We’ve been found and we’re leaving!’
As he strode from the tent she peered out after him and saw a pair of what looked like heavy-duty military helicopters coming in to land. Galvanised into action as she registered that their desert sojourn appeared to be at an end, she yanked open her case in search of something decent to wear. She dressed in haste, choosing cropped trousers and a vest top teamed with a light shirt. As she hastily brushed her hair every movement she made ensured that she remained mortifyingly conscious of the intimate ache between her legs.
The events of the past twelve hours raced through her memory and her slender hands fisted in defensive rejection of her reckless behaviour. As a rule, Ruby didn’t do reckless. Ruby was usually thoughtful and cautious, never impulsive, yet she had, with very little thought, utterly destroyed the platonic marital agreement she had insisted on. All for what? Great sex, she acknowledged shamefacedly, but in the aftermath even greater regrets.
They had agreed to a fake marriage and now how was their relationship to be defined? The agreement had been broken, the boundaries blurred and their respective roles were no longer clear-cut. Raja’s unqualified passion had enthralled her. She had to be honest with herself about that. She found the Najari prince