Molly experienced a sudden startling desire to smooth her fingers gently across one of those exotic cheekbones and so foreign was that forbidden prompting that her face began to flush as she questioned it. She had never before wanted to touch a man of her own volition. Her fingers fluttered and her nails bit into her palms, her breathing struggling in the new tightness of her chest. A kind of craving was snaking through her like a wildfire that burned everything that stood before it, and it shook her because that craving was so powerful it swallowed all common sense.
A drumming boom sounded outside the cave and she flinched.
‘It is only the storm,’ Azrael breathed tautly when a crashing roar seemed to shake the very rock walls of the cavern protecting them.
‘I would have hated being caught outside in that,’ Molly admitted shakily, ultra-conscious of the smouldering silence enclosing them and speaking in a deliberate attempt to shatter an atmosphere that was becoming suffocating. ‘I didn’t realise it would be so violent.’
‘The elements in our climate are often violent and perverse,’ Azrael declared huskily, reaching for her hand and tugging her closer, knowing that what he was doing was wrong but utterly unable to continue battling the urge to touch her. ‘Just as you make me feel things I don’t want to feel...’
Her hand engulfed in his, Molly looked up at him, knowing she should back away, knowing that she should be listening to the voice of reason inside her head. But that close to Azrael she couldn’t think, she could only feel. And what she felt just then was the incredibly seductive sensation of being thrillingly alive, her heart thumping fast while adrenalin raced in her veins.
‘Tell me not to touch you,’ Azrael urged thickly, brilliant dark deep-set eyes shimmering like gold ingots across her hectically flushed face.
AND MOLLY COULDN’T tell Azrael that because she didn’t want to. Even the innocent word, touch, awakened a storm of seething curiosity and volatile awareness inside her. Her body felt as primed as though a detonator were ready to set it off. She was on the very edge of that fierce craving and, without the smallest hesitation, her hands came up to reach into the front of his robe to bring him closer.
That fast Azrael’s mouth came down hard on hers, driving her lips apart for the savage plunge of his tongue. Molly shuddered, excitement leaping high as flames flared inside her, the hot liquidity at the heart of her swiftly becoming a burning, unbearable ache. Within seconds she wanted more than she had ever wanted before in a man’s arms and she was locked to every long, virile line of him on tiptoe, her hands lacing into the silky depths of his luxuriant black hair. More, more, more, her body seemed to scream with single-minded purpose as the raw hunger threatened to consume her. She couldn’t breathe, she couldn’t think of anything but her instinctive fear that he would let her go.
Azrael tried to let her go but because he had supressed the attraction so hard one tiny taste of Molly’s yielding mouth unleashed a ferocious surge of lust. He was utterly aroused, throbbing close to the edge of pain. She was plastered to him so that he could feel every soft feminine curve but it was nowhere near enough to satisfy his hunger. Her lips were open but he wanted all of her open. He wanted her spread under him naked and eager. He wanted to surge into the warm, wet welcome of her body and sate the need riding him as hard as the storm outside rode the land.
He lifted her high against him, her hands dropping to clutch at his shoulders for support. ‘I want you, aziz,’ he growled, settling her down on the worn Persian rug that she had slept on earlier.
And Molly wanted him as she had never wanted a man before. She was already wondering if such strong feelings were what she had always subconsciously waited and hoped to find. Outside the storm rumbled while, inside her, her heart thudded and raced and she angled up ecstatically to the sudden welcome weight of Azrael’s body as he ground down on her. The piercingly sweet, sharp arousal thrumming through her pelvis was unbearable.
He was crushing her mouth and she revelled in his urgency, tiny little flickers of excitement dancing through her wherever his body melded to hers. The plunge of his tongue into the warm, wet interior of her mouth sent a pulse of ferocious heat right down to the very heart of her. He was yanking up her dress and she made no protest because for the first time she too hungered for touch. In any case, she felt safe with Azrael, knew he would stop if she asked, somehow knew he would do nothing that she didn’t want.
Baring the soft ripe swell of her creamy breasts, Azrael was enraptured by her. There were so many possibilities that he hardly knew where to begin until the jutting prominence of a rosy nipple took precedence. He stroked that straining nub with a reverent fingertip.
‘You are so beautiful,’ he told her in Arabic. ‘So...perfect.’
And for once there was no thought of tomorrow or even what he was doing in Azrael’s usually very organised brain. He could do nothing but claim her luscious mouth again while his eager hands explored the warm, heavy weight of her silken breasts, skimming the pouting peaks with teasing fingers while she twisted and moaned under him, as impatient as he was for something to satisfy the craving that controlled them both.
An agonised gasp escaped Molly as Azrael eased between her thighs and moved against the most achingly sensitive part of her entire body. She arched up to him, wanting, needing. Was this it? Was this finally the moment when she would take the plunge? she was wondering helplessly. In the back of her mind, she was surprisingly calm, reminding herself that she was on the pill, not only to regulate her menstrual cycle, but also to ensure that she never ran the risk of an unplanned pregnancy.
Azrael’s lips engulfed a velvety pink nipple and suckled. Her spine arched, a startled moan wrenched from her parted lips. Every tiny sound of pleasure that escaped her ramped his desire higher still. Her lips tasted as ripe as fresh strawberries, Azrael decided, gazing down at her through the thick veil of his lashes in awe, revelling in her responsiveness. Long brown fingers skimmed down to skate over the stretched taut triangle of fabric between her legs, recognising the heat and moisture there, moving to uncover it and then freezing as a dilemma he had never thought to face gripped him. Birth control...and he had nothing. Teeth gritting, Azrael yanked his burning body back from her and rolled off her, a curse of frustration forming on his tongue and swallowed back with the steely control that was so much a part of him.
‘Azrael...?’ Molly framed uncertainly, lifting her tousled head.
‘We cannot continue. I have no contraception,’ he breathed in a raw undertone.
Dazed, Molly sat up, her entire body leaping and throbbing with a pulsing excitement that had yet to drain away. In some ways she was in shock because she knew she had been on the brink of giving up her virginity in the equivalent of a one-night stand. Logic and practicality warned her that she could never have anything more with a reigning king. She also recognised that for the first time ever she had met with pure sexual temptation and she had succumbed so fast to its allure that she was shattered. Even at that instant, acknowledging that she had not known what she was doing even while she thought that she did, she was tempted to part her lips and assure him that there was no risk of pregnancy because she was taking contraception.
But before she could speak she asked herself when she had last taken a pill and dismay swept her because she kept her pills in her handbag and she had not seen her bag since before she was kidnapped. Her bag had probably been left behind in the Djalian Embassy in London and she had missed a couple of pills and was no longer protected. Why hadn’t she thought of that reality sooner? Because it hadn’t occurred to her that a kiss could lead to so much more...
‘It is not a risk I can take,’ Azrael breathed tautly.
‘Of course not,’ Molly agreed circumspectly, her face burning like mad as she wondered what the source of Azrael’s fatal attraction was. He was gorgeous, yes, she accepted that...and when he touched her it was as if the whole world erupted in flames and suddenly she hadn’t cared about