Liyah just looked at him.
He moved to get what they needed, never quite losing contact with her body. Moments later, he settled back into his intimate position between her legs after putting on a condom from the brand-new box she’d put there herself in anticipation of an engaged couple’s stay at the hotel.
His smile could have melted ice a lot thicker than that around Liyah’s heart. “Perhaps expedient is the right word.”
Her answering smile was as inevitable as what came next.
Sayed shifted so he pressed against the opening to her body. Everything inside Liyah stilled, her world shrunk down to this exact moment, this space, the breaths they shared between them. Nothing outside Sayed had a hope of registering.
Not with him on the brink of joining them in the most intimate way, an experience that if Liyah was honest with herself she’d never actually expected to have. With anyone, much less this prince.
“This is going to be hard and fast.” The words were guttural and low. “I am too excited.”
Despite their detour into the mundane, she was still floating on a cloud of bliss, pretty sure fast and hard would work for her. “It’s all right.”
She wanted―no, craved for―him to experience the same pleasure she had.
He shook his head. “You are too perfect, habibti.”
“Not per—” Her words choked off abruptly as he pressed for entry.
Even though he’d warned her he was going to go fast, he moved inside her body with measured deliberation.
Liyah stretched around him, feeling full and connected like she’d never been to another person. Then a sharp sting shot through her core, making her gasp.
He must have encountered the barrier to her body. Liyah didn’t feel like she was tearing, more like a stabbing pain.
He looked down at her. “It is good?”
She doubted he realized he’d asked the question in Arabic.
“Yes.” It was good, even if it hurt.
“You are so tight.”
She could only nod, gritting her teeth against the searing ache.
He drew back a little.
Despite the pain, she whimpered in protest at his withdrawal. “No.”
His own breathing labored, his jaw was clenched as tight as hers, his arms shaking. And she realized it was using all his control to hold back.
Unfamiliar emotion seeped past the barrier around Liyah’s heart.
“I’m not going anywhere, ya ghazal.” He laughed, the sound sexy and dark. “Believe it.”
Again, his endearment touched her more deeply than he probably meant it to, but Liyah’s mother used to call her a gazelle. She’d claimed Liyah had the gracefulness and beauty of the animal so often used in Arabic poetry.
Sayed’s addition of the possessive my only added to its impact, insuring this experience went far beyond the physical for Liyah.
He pressed forward again, the pain so sharp she couldn’t breathe. She bit back a cry, terrified he would stop. And was infinitely grateful she had when the pain transformed into a whole new level of pleasure.
“That is it,” he gritted out. “You have relaxed.”
“More than,” she managed to gasp out.
“You said you had not been on a sexual fast.”
She just shook her head.
“Say what you like, habibti, but no woman is this tight and tense upon initial penetration when she has been sexually active regularly.”
“I want you.”
“I have no doubts.” He thrust once, twice, three times.
Her body reacted with delight even as residual pain hung at the edges of pleasure.
“I admit I like knowing I am the first in a while.”
She swallowed, trying to agree, unable to get another word out as he continued his slow, sure thrusts.
“Tonight, you are absolutely mine,” he claimed a second time with an almost savage satisfaction.
And once again, she could only nod, the overwhelming ecstasy of the moment crashing over her.
For tonight, she wasn’t just his.
He was hers.
Inside and surrounding her with his big body.
“Ready?” he asked her.
“Yes,” she finally managed. Though she had no idea what she was supposed to be ready for.
Weren’t they already making love?
He pulled back and then surged forward powerfully.
Oh. Yes.
All vestiges of pain drowned in ecstasy as he pistoned inside her body again and again. Here was the speed and intensity he’d warned her about.
Her body tightened under and around him as indescribable pleasure built again.
Her climax took her by surprise, the waves of bliss so intense she couldn’t even cry out this time, her throat strained with a silent scream.
Moments later, Sayed went rigid above her, his shout ringing in the room around them.
And her pleasure was complete.
He collapsed down, but somehow managed to keep most of his weight from crushing her. “I am sorry, ya ghazal.”
“Why?”
“That was too fast.”
“But it felt incredible.” A sudden thought worried her, and because her inhibitions were down, it came right out of her mouth. “Didn’t you think so?”
“Oh, yes, habibti. But if I had lasted longer, it would have been mind-blowing.”
He was still hard inside her.
She smiled up at him. “Show me.”
He did.
* * *
Sayed woke to the pleasure of a warm, silken body against him. He opened his eyes cautiously, the early-morning sun revealing not his suite but another luxurious room.
Tahira’s suite.
Tahira. Memories came crashing back. She’d eloped with a palace aid. And he’d come here to drown his sorrows in ouzo, only to end up experiencing the most intense and pleasurable night of his life.
Thankful he did not get hangovers, he tipped his head to see the top of Aaliyah’s dark head peaking above the sheet. She was curled on her side, the Egyptian cotton sheet pulled up to cover her face, even as her body snuggled trustingly into his.
Which shocked him.
She might be used to sleeping with someone else, but he was not.
Sayed never took lovers to his own bed and had never spent the night in theirs.
Yet he’d slept more soundly last night than he had in months, even with the knowledge of Tahira’s betrayal and its ramifications looming over him.
It must have been the ouzo.
He started to tug his hand back from where it rested against Aaliyah’s stomach and she made a soft sound in her sleep, showing no signs of waking. For some reason he was loath to relinquish contact with her soft skin and he allowed his hand to settle again.
Just for a moment.
He could not make himself