He tasted her, the sweet tang of her arousal exploding on his tongue as the scent of almonds mixed with musk created a heady perfume around him.
Each woman had her own unique scent, but he had never found one so alluring.
He pushed his tongue inside her and pulled it out again, kissing her in ultimate intimacy.
She mewled, but when he shifted his head so he could flick her clitoris before circling it with the tip of his tongue, she screamed. Long and loudly.
Her responsiveness was addictive and he went back again and again for more of her taste, more of her reactions, using his tongue to lave and then caress with his consciously hardened tip. He added a finger to her passage, reveling in the slick wetness he found there.
She moved against him, her sounds growing more and more desperate, her muscles contracting and relaxing until she went rigid and came. Her thighs locked on either side of his head.
He did not mind at all. He had no intention of moving.
He softened the caress of his tongue, though, pulling his finger from inside her, drawing out her pleasure but not to the point of discomfort.
She went rigid once more and then completely boneless, her legs flopping down to leave her completely open to him.
It was time for the next step: rebuilding her sexual need until she was whimpering for release.
And that was exactly what Sayed did, touching his habibti all over with hands first, but then his mouth—using teeth and tongue to bring her back to the edge of exploding.
However, by the time he rolled on the condom he had to be careful not to come from his own touch, and that never happened to him.
He wished they didn’t need the barrier. Making love with nothing between them had been one of the most profound experiences of his life, even if he’d thought it a dream at the time.
Perhaps it was better this way.
Sheathed to prevent the further sharing of his seed with her body and perhaps keep back some part of his soul from hers, he turned her onto her side and angled his body behind her.
“What are you doing?” she demanded, her voice heavy with passion. “I need, Sayed.”
“And I will give you what you need.” He pressed into her from behind, the position allowing him to touch her at will.
One arm tucked under her neck so he could reach her breasts, he reached down with his other hand to touch her clitoris as he began to move.
She gasped out sexy demands even as she moved her pelvis with instinctive rhythm.
This time they came together, their shouts mixing in a sexual song he could easily become seriously addicted to.
The thought was so disturbing, he did not let himself sink into afterglow. He took hold of the condom and carefully pulled out of her, but could not make himself move away completely.
She made a distinctly unhappy sound.
“Shh...” He kissed her sweaty brow, the affectionate gesture too natural to be comfortable for a man who knew his time with his love would be measured in days not years. “I need to take care of the condom.”
He made his way to the efficiency-size en suite on unsteady legs.
The mirror showed him a face he’d never seen before, one with eyes far too soft with vulnerability.
He was emir. Not merely a man.
Not a man at all who could afford to crave a woman like he’d learned to hunger for Aaliyah after such a short time.
He needed to find himself and put this other man away. Sayed owed it to his people and to the brother who had died before getting the chance to lead them.
Sayed should have been working strategy the whole plane ride, but he’d spent hours talking with Liyah and then making love.
He had to put distance between them, or he wasn’t going to be able to do what he needed to when the pregnancy test came back negative.
Let her go.
QUEEN DURRAH ESCORTED Liyah to her quarters in the palace harem herself.
Even the melecha’s personal attention could not mitigate Liyah’s feeling of abandonment upon Sayed’s nearly instant disappearance after their arrival to the palace, however.
Sayed had barely taken the time to introduce her to his esteemed parents before excusing himself to speak to his father privately. The monarchs had been surprisingly gracious, but Sayed’s desertion had stung.
Coming on top of the way he’d been acting since they made love, it was doubly hurtful.
He’d walked into the bathroom a man and came out one hundred percent emir, focused on affairs of state.
Sayed had dressed in silence and then turned to her, his gaze set firmly somewhere beyond her left shoulder. “Nap now. I’ll have the cabin attendant knock on the door in time for you to shower and dress for landing.”
She might have argued if her eyes hadn’t already been drooping, her body seconds from sliding into sleep regardless.
As he’d promised, she’d been alerted in time to shower and dress in clothes miraculously ironed while she’d been napping. However, even though she’d returned to her seat, Sayed had spent the entire descent and landing talking to Yusuf, who had joined them in one of the empty seats across the table.
Then Sayed had been fully occupied the drive to the palace with his smartphone.
Liyah knew he had important issues that had to be dealt with, but that hadn’t diminished her sense of the growing distance between them.
A distance that should never have been bridged in the first place, her brain tried to remind her. Her emotions foolishly balked at that truth.
Liyah had never warred so much within herself as she had since meeting Sayed, not even when she’d been deciding about going to England to meet her biological father.
No matter how unreasonable, how hopeless, how ridiculous, her growing feelings for Sayed were, Liyah could not deny them. However, she had no intention of sharing them with anyone else, especially the man himself.
Not by word, or deed.
Which meant she maintained her outward dignity and self-possession with particular care as she kept pace with the queen.
She led Liyah up a grand staircase that made the one at the Chatsfield London seem simple and unassuming in comparison. A strip of plush red carpet ran up the center of the mahogany steps shined to a glasslike finish. The matching elegantly carved banisters were held up by over a hundred ornate three-foot-high crystal newels.
Everything about the stone palace complex located on the shore of Zeena Sahra’s Bahir Sea was over the top and yet not in the least tacky.
After several turns and traversing a distance easily equal to a couple city blocks, they approached an imposing set of double doors. Liyah wasn’t even surprised to find a man dressed in the manner she’d come to associate with Sayed’s security detail standing to the left of the doors.
The queen nodded to him, but made no verbal greeting.
The guard opened the door on the right and Queen Durrah led Liyah through it, only the softest swishing sound indicating it closing behind them.
Queen Durrah smiled at Liyah, her amber gaze reflecting an impressive determination and confidence of spirit. “For the next five days, you will stay here as our honored guest, but your name and relationship to my son will not be revealed.”
She did not ask if Liyah understood,