Black Lion’s Bride (Warrior Trilogy #2)

Chapter 17

And Sebastian was right. The storm did worsen, but the bluster and battering of the unseasonable torrent was nothing compared to the chilly silence Zahirah had endured upon joining the caravan with Sebastian. He had given her no eye contact, not a single word of conversation, in the endless half hour it took to find shelter for the traveling party along the road. He purchased rooms for the group at a village caravansary, then left Zahirah to her own devices while he went off to confer with his men.

She had no idea how long she sat there, alone in her modest chamber of the small, two-story inn. The owner and his wife brought Zahirah a prayer mat and a light repast to eat at her leisure, but she left both courtesies untouched. All she could think about was Sebastian, and the horrible mess she was making of both their lives.

More than once, she thought about slipping away from the caravansary and disappearing into the night, before she let her feelings toward Sebastian get any further out of her control. She could leave with a clear conscience where he was concerned. She had warned him of the raid; his safety was assured. In the morning, he would turn the caravan back toward Ascalon, and Halim's designs for an ambush would be foiled.

It should have been the easiest thing to do, getting up and walking out of that unguarded lodge. It should have been the most logical thing in the world to seize this chance to flee the Frankish captain who was but a hair's breadth from discovering her for who—and what—she really was. But to her dismay, Zahirah found that her limbs would not obey logic.

No, she realized, it was her heart that refused to obey.

It leaped into her throat not a moment later, when a hard rap sounded on her door. The panel creaked open, but to her alternating relief and disappointment, it was not Sebastian standing at the threshold. His brawny lieutenant seemed attuned to her uncertain reaction, for he gave her a small but reassuring smile.

“The captain wishes to see you now, lass. Come, I'll take you to him.”

She followed the big knight through the heart of the caravansary lodge, past a common room of tables and benches where some of the soldiers and caravaneers were having food and drink. The room opened out onto a courtyard, not unlike the ones at the palace in Ascalon, if far less lavishly appointed. Ordinarily, it would be there, under the stars, where pilgrims would converse and take their rest, but not tonight. The rains were quieting at last, Zahirah noted, glancing out into the dark of the courtyard before she was directed up a short flight of stairs. Gone was the furious beat of falling water, replaced now by a steady, soothing patter on the ground outside.

The worst of it had passed, she thought, feeling a measure of relief . . . until she was brought into another chamber and met with Sebastian's stormy gaze.

Divested of his armor, and limned by the wobbling flame of an oil lamp that burned on the table beside him, Sebastian sat on a divan, thoughtfully twisting the stem of a wine goblet between his fingers. He glanced up as she entered the room, then stood and gave a short nod to his friend. The big knight left her to Sebastian's mercy without a word, closing the door behind him as he departed. For the time it took his boot falls to die away, and for an interminable time thereafter, an awkward silence filled the small room. Finally, his brow rankled by a frown, Sebastian turned away.

“There is food here,” he said, indicating the meal on the table beside him as he seated himself once more on the divan. “Eat, if you like, Zahirah. Unless you fear it will taint the purity of your faith to break bread with the enemy.”

She drew a shaky breath, stung by the barb in his voice. “Have we become enemies, my lord?”

“I had hoped you might tell me,” he said tonelessly, regarding her from under the heavy fall of his forelock. “I must admit, you've had me wondering these past couple of days.”

She thought about the uneasy standoff that had existed between them since their confrontation on the roof terrace, her angry, defensive reaction to his questioning of her about Halim and the nightmare Sebastian had witnessed the night he had been with her in her chamber. She had said she hated him, but what she felt for him was far from that. “You are not my enemy, Sebastian. I would not have left Ascalon to be here if you were.”

His gaze narrowed on her, untrusting. “What made you decide to come? You must have known about the ambush for some time. Why wait, only to tell me now?”

“I did know about the ambush,” she admitted. “I knew, but I didn't realize you were planning to provide personal escort for the caravan until today—”

He grunted. “So, I am to believe you came forward out of concern for me?”

“It's the truth.”

“The truth,” he replied, eyeing her dubiously. “The same as when you told me the man you met in the mosque—the assassin who killed Abdul—was not your brother? That was the truth, too, so you said.”

“A partial truth,” she said quietly.

His face hardened, the bones in his jaw seeming sharper now, his gaze scathing in the dim light of the lamp. His voice was calm, far more painful to her ears than had he bellowed at her in anger. “A partial truth is no better than a lie, Zahirah. And by your own admission, Halim was there with you at the mosque. Do you now deny that he was the man who killed my friend in cold blood?”

“He did kill Abdul,” she agreed, “but when I said I did not meet my brother, that was no lie. Halim and I are not related.”

The news surprised him, she could see it in his expression. But his acceptance of her confession now was not furious, as she might have expected. It was cool, a mere shade away from indifferent, as if he had known her for a liar for some time but was only just now assessing the depth of her perfidy. “That day he found you at the palace, when he struck you, he said he was your brother. You said he was.”

“We were raised in the same household,” Zahirah admitted, “but we are not kin. There is no bond between us.”

“And his threat that he would harm you? How much truth was there in that, my lady?”

“His threat is real. Halim will kill me if he gets the chance. Especially when he learns that I warned you of his plans for the caravan.”

“You could have told me this before, Zahirah. In all this time, have I given you any reason not to trust me?”

“You are Frank,” she answered simply. “In the past, that was reason enough.”

“And now?”

“Now,” she said, “it has become . . . complicated.”

“Indeed, it has, my lady. You are a complication I did not expect.” He frowned, then ran a hand through his damp hair. “God's truth, Zahirah, but you are a complication I do not want.”

She swallowed hard, hearing the edge of frustration in his carefully schooled voice. She did not know what to make of the storm of warring emotions that swelled and churned inside her. She knew her mission should be paramount, but it meant little when she was standing there before Sebastian, needing to be near him, yet knowing how difficult it would be for him to look past her lies. How impossible it would be for her to stay now, if he despised her .

“I'll leave, if you wish, Sebastian. I will understand if you would prefer that I not return with you to Ascalon . . . if, after all of this, you wish never to see me again.”

“What of Halim and his threats to do you harm, lady?”

She dropped her gaze to the floor and shrugged, thinking about the certain reaction of her fida'i accomplice, thinking about his promise that he would see her dead if she failed in her mission. She feared Halim, certainly, but no more than she feared her own weak emotions when she stood anywhere near Sebastian. Already her feelings for him had steered her away from her true course. The ambush was key to the commencement of her plan, and yet, here she stood, a willing saboteur. Allah, forgive her, but she was weak, and growing weaker with every beat of her traitorous heart.

“Come here,” Sebastian said when she could only stand there, torn between her loyalty to her clan and her growing attachment to the man who now held his hand out to her, beckoning her toward him with a gentle, if commanding, stare.

She went to him, feeling drawn as if by physical force and unable to contain the shiver of awareness that went through her as he grasped her hand in his and drew her close. He reached up to her, tipping her chin down to face him.

“I gave you my promise that I would keep you safe, my lady. My protection is yours, Zahirah, so long as you need it. I won't require you to leave, now or when you return to Ascalon.”

“You would do this for me?” she whispered, astonished. “After everything I have told you tonight—”

“I don't deny my displeasure for your having withheld information from me, but nothing you've said tonight changes my promise to you. My word is my honor, Zahirah. I don't give it lightly, and I have never broken it.”

By all that was good and true in this world, she believed him. It was there, in his eyes. She looked at this man, this dark, dangerous warrior, and she believed unequivocally that he would protect her—even now. Despite her lies, despite her unworthiness of the gift, she knew that his promise was good. And it shamed her to the very core of her being. She reached out to him, letting her palm rest against the determined line of his jaw. “My lord,” she said, “your honor humbles me.”

He held her stare for a long moment, then turned away from her touch, distancing himself from her with a scowl. “I warrant we've said all that needs saying tonight, Zahirah. You should go now and seek your pallet. Before it gets too late.”

She saw the blaze of interest light in his eyes, heard the warning in his choice of words and his low tone of voice. She knew he wanted to touch her, knew there was an anger in him tonight, and a wildness that seemed on the verge of breaking, but she was not afraid.

Not waiting for her to comply with his order to retire, he glanced down and began to unfasten the bandages that bound the mending wound at his waist. The wound she herself had delivered him all those weeks past, before she knew him. Before she understood the depth and nobility of the man who stood before her now.

Before she could have imagined the true cost of this mission she had come to loathe.

Her eyes rooted to the ugly evidence of her deception—a deception she was continuing to perpetrate with her very presence in the room—Zahirah touched him once more, pressing her fingertips to his forearm and stilling his hand on the bandage.

“Please, my lord,” she said. “Let me help you.”

Then she reached down, somewhat hesitantly, to take the tail of the bandage from his hands. Zahirah knelt before him on the floor, in the V of space he made for her between his knees. His powerful thighs radiated heat, a warmth that was imminently stronger than the flame glowing from the lamp beside them. He lifted his arms and watched in guarded silence as she bent forward and reached around him, carefully unwrapping the thin lengths of cloth. She heard his constricted exhale, felt the warmth of his breath against her brow, as she freed him of the last of the bindings, then set them aside on the floor.

The gash was sealed clean and healing well, but the cut had been deep, and the scar would be with him for the rest of his days. Zahirah gently touched the place where her dagger had bitten him, her fingertips skating over the ravaged skin. She felt a rush of regret flood her to know that she had done this damage.

“Would that I could take it away,” she said, her voice catching in her throat.

Sebastian did not answer, but she felt the heat of his gaze, and when she looked up, she saw that his eyes were dark and hooded, his jaw held tight. His elbows rested easily on the back of the divan, but his hands were fisted, his knuckles glowing white in the spare lamplight.

She realized with startling clarity the eroticism of her position: she on her knees before him, her head at a level with the firm plane of his abdomen, her breasts nestled mere inches from the bulging juncture of his thighs. It was a position she had surreptitiously witnessed in the harems at Masyaf, when a slave girl endeavored to pleasure her lover with her mouth. She remembered the look of ecstasy on the man's face as the odalisque kissed and suckled him, and found herself imagining what it would be like to do the same now for Sebastian. Her gaze traveled the length of him, slowly appreciating the strength and contours of his hard warrior's body. She moistened her lips, and dared a quick glance at his face.

“Lady, be warned,” he growled. “You are stoking a fire tonight that may not bank.”

She knew what he was cautioning her against, but she could not find the sense to care. Not when she wanted more than anything to be with him—even if just for this one night. She wanted to show him why she was there, why she could not let him go to Darum. She wanted him, the way a woman wanted a man, and as much as it terrified her to know what that meant, she could not turn away from it .

Zahirah brought her hands up from her lap and lightly braced them on his thighs. The fabric of his hose was coarse, and molded to the shape of his strong legs. She watched her hands slide up the sinewy length of his thighs, felt the muscle clench beneath her palms as she neared the heat of his groin. A flood of sudden shyness made her stop short of reaching it.

She heard Sebastian growl low in his throat as her hands retreated back toward his knees, but when she looked up to gauge his response, she saw that his head was tipped back on his shoulders, his eyes closed tight. The tendons in his neck were drawn taut; the planes and angles of his face seemed somehow harsher, stark and feral. His nostrils flared with the deep breath he sucked in as she leaned forward and pushed her hands up onto the steely smoothness of his abdomen, then let her fingertips wade higher, into the crisp mat of dark hair that covered his chest.

Something coiled deep inside of her as she touched his bare skin, something warm and alive. Something needful. It ignited like the flame he warned her about, slowly burning away her inhibitions and leaving only a keen yearning in its place. Zahirah let it guide her fingers, let it command her beyond her inexperience.

She bent forward and pressed a kiss to his abdomen, then another, lower this time, nuzzling him and letting her mouth linger meaningfully against his satin warmth of his skin. Sebastian's breath rasped out of him as he brought his hands down onto her shoulders, his touch blunt and heavy, his entire body going rigid beneath her. His thighs pressed in at her sides; the bulge at his groin swelled and hardened, lengthening where it nestled between her breasts.

He moaned, and with a vicious curse, came forward to seize her by the arms and set her away from him. “Zahirah,” he rasped, “if you care about your virtue, you will leave me now. Go back to your room. Bolt the door.” His gaze flashed, searing and hungry, raking her like a caress, so hot it nearly stole her breath. “Don't think I'll be gentleman enough to tell you again. Not when I am wanting you the way I am right now.”

Ignoring the tremor of fear racing through her for what she was about to invite, she reached up to touch the muscle that jumped in his stern jaw. “If you want me, then I have no wish to leave. I am where I want to be, my lord.”

His smile was brief, a baring of straight white teeth that was at once exultant and tortured. “Foolish girl,” he chided softly, but then he plunged his hand into her hair, catching her behind the neck and hauling her closer for his kiss.

He slanted his mouth over hers, sliding his hips forward on the divan so that their bodies were pressed hard against each other, his fingers gripping her tightly at her nape. It was a possessive hold, a possessive kiss. Zahirah nearly wanted to drown in it. She felt Sebastian's other hand slide down the length of her spine, felt the soft friction of her silk pantalets as his palm curved around the arc of her buttock. Then, both strong hands were there together, kneading and parting the mounds of sensitive muscle as he pulled her higher, deeper into his embrace.

His tongue pressed insistently against her lips, and like the wanton he made her, Zahirah let him in. She plunged her fingers into the thick gloss of his hair, her mouth and hands becoming as questing and hungry as his. There was need in their kiss, and in their touch. So much need in their bodies; they both trembled with the force of it.

Allah, here it was, Zahirah realized through the dizzying haze of her senses. Here was the one truth that could exist between them despite who they were, and what they could never be together. This need was real. It knew no power above its own, and tonight it would abide no pretense or denial.

“Make love to me, Sebastian,” she demanded as his mouth left hers to explore the tender skin beneath her ear. “Please. I need you to make love to me.”

He moaned against her shoulder and reared his head up to look at her. His eyes were dark and stormy, the harsh planes of his cheeks somehow tighter than she recalled. “What you're asking for,” he said thickly, “once given, it cannot be taken back.”

She gave him a faint nod of understanding, then touched her fingertips to his lips. “Make love to me,” she whispered.

Sebastian's curse was low and reverent. He turned his face into her palm, his breath raggedly leaving his lungs. “Come up here,” he said.

He took her hand and helped lift her to her feet. She stood before him in trembling anticipation, waiting for him to tear her clothes off and ravish her. Part of her wanted their mating to be fierce and swift—all the better to snuff the fevered raging of her body—but another part of her was just a little bit terrified, and uncertain of precisely how to proceed.

Sebastian seemed to be at no such loss. Seated on the divan, his hands were at her hips, his caress both soothing and exciting. He found the hem of her tunic and slid his hands beneath it to stroke the line of her ribs, then he splayed his fingers and held her waist in his hands, as if measuring the petiteness of her form. He looked up at her as he cupped her naked breast in his palm. Zahirah sighed, transfixed by the intensity of his gaze and the sheer witchery of his touch.

She realized somewhat dazedly that he now had one hand at the front of her waist, his fingers nimbly loosening the ties of her trousers. He tugged the drawstring waistband open and pushed the fabric off her hips, leaving it to sag low around her thighs. Then his hand was on her skin, his knuckles brushing the place where she ached for him, and Zahirah sucked in a ragged breath.

“Do you remember my touch?” he whispered, pressing his mouth to the dip just below her navel. “That night I came to your chamber . . . do you remember?”

“Yes,” she gasped, mindless as his breath stirred the down between her legs.

“Do you remember the pleasure? ”

“Oh, yes.”

“I've been burning for you ever since,” he said, nudging her thighs apart with the barest stroke of his thumb. “I've been wanting to taste you, to feel you melt around me the way you did that night.”

“Sebastian,” she sighed, her legs going boneless as his fingers slid between them and into the moist cleft of her womanhood. “Oh, yes . . . “

He stroked her with an artistry that left her quaking and panting, seeming to know just when to alternate from a slow, rhythmic slide of his finger between her petals, to a frenzied titillation that had her clutching at him and clenching her teeth in exquisite torment. She thought she would go mad with the raw pleasure of the moment, but it was nothing compared to the bolt of awe that struck her the instant he put his mouth to her flesh. His tongue touched her, warm and wet and hot against the pearl of sensation nestled high in her woman's place. She cried out and tried to push him away, for the intensity of the contact was too much, too raw.

“Shh,” he sighed against her skin. “It's all right. Trust me, Zahirah.”

He held her hips to keep her steady, and bent his head back down to taste her again. He was gentler with her now, coaxing her back under his spell with tender kisses and tentative brushes of his mouth and tongue. The wonderment she had felt before returned quickly, then swelled into something stronger, something far more demanding. She began moving her hips in time with Sebastian's carnal kiss, finding that she wanted more than he was giving her.

“That's it,” he murmured. “Reach for it, Zahirah.”

She moaned in frustration, not sure what it was that lay just beyond her grasp, but certain she would perish without it. She buried her fingers in Sebastian's hair and pulled him closer, but still he wasn't close enough. She was still empty, still needing. She clung to him, half-sobbing as the hunger twisted tighter. “Sebastian,” she whimpered, “I can't . . . please, I need you now. ”

She was vaguely aware that he was moving her, pivoting her until she was lying back on the cushioned divan, her legs bent over the front of it, her pantalets bunched around her ankles. He pushed up the hem of her tunic and she gasped, jolted momentarily by his apparent intent to disrobe her completely. The light of the oil lamp was slim, but it would not keep her secret if he wanted her naked beneath him. She stilled his hand and he looked up in question.

“Please,” she whispered, shaking her head.

His frown was curious, but slight, and his need was strong. He moved his hands down her bare abdomen, kissing her belly before descending to suckle her throbbing mons while he worked to remove his hose and braies. Zahirah saw him through a mist of sudden tears, saw the shadowy form of his body, thick muscled and beautiful, his limbs and torso bronzed by the sun and cast into intriguing relief by the thin flicker of the lamp.

She saw the glory of his sex, the stiff member thrusting proudly from the thatch of dark curls at his groin. She saw the sheer power in his organ, the frightening size of him, and she knew that this was what she wanted. He was what she needed to fill the void in her that ached like nothing she had ever known before.

“Are you sure?” he asked her, bracing his hands on either side of her shoulders as he brought himself up between her legs. The hard length of his erection pressed against her belly, hot as fire, and smooth as silk. A droplet of pearly moisture beaded on the thick, blunt head of his penis. It slid between them, warm and slick on her skin as Sebastian moved against her, torturing her with his intimate caress. “Tell me this is what you want, my lady.”

“It is. This is what I want, Sebastian. You are what I want.”

He whispered her name like a prayer, then lowered himself to kiss her, tilting his hips to let his sex slide into position at the juncture of her thighs. Zahirah parted her legs, and her pelvis rose up to meet his, her loins flooding with anticipation, pulsing for want of completion. She did not realize she was holding her breath until she felt Sebastian push past the barrier of her maidenhead. There was a fiery tearing as he thrust the length of himself into her virgin sheath, a burning that lanced through her and left a wash of perspiration on her brow.

But there was pleasure, too. An infinite pleasure that came from the exquisite fullness of her womb as it stretched to accommodate Sebastian's sensual invasion. He moved within her, slowly, as if he held himself back from taking the full measure of his passion. He was careful, but he was large, and his steely shaft proved unforgiving to the small mouth and tender skin of her body.

Zahirah clung to him, suspended in a dizzying place somewhere between pleasure and pain, as he plunged and withdrew, each deep thrust of his hips seeming to impale her to her very soul. She would take all that he gave her tonight—the pleasure and the pain. The pain she had earned, certainly; the pleasure was hers because in taking this bliss from their union, she also shared it with him.

She felt him hesitate as if he meant to stop, as if he knew he was hurting her and was deciding whether to continue. Zahirah arched into him, lifting her hips to encourage him further, squeezing her eyes closed against the discomfort and holding fast to the sweet ache of passion. She buried her fingers in the crisp hair at his chest, clutching at him as he rocked into her, his hips pumping faster as she panted and whimpered beside his ear.

She was losing hold of the world around her. She felt it slipping, felt the pain of her breached maidenhead dissipate, and a coiling wonderment begin to swell deep inside of her. Her world was tilting wildly, the force and passion of Sebastian's lovemaking pushing her higher and higher, into an oblivion of weightless, breathless ecstasy. She cried out as she brushed the edges of that place, digging her fingernails into Sebastian's shoulders for fear that she would slip away completely.

“Allah,” she gasped, her back coming up off the divan as Sebastian pumped deeper than ever before, burying himself to the hilt inside of her, each thrust getting faster, and stronger. She soared higher into the void of pleasure, nearly to the point of shattering, holding him to her as he began to thrust with a sudden intensity. She felt the rapture coming, felt the earth fall away beneath her as a dizzying wave of release scooped her up and swept her high into the heavens. Distantly, she heard herself cry out as she climaxed, heard herself sobbing Sebastian's name as she floated slowly back into herself.

“That's it, my lady. Let it go,” he growled, nipping at her slack mouth as he continued his sensual assault on her quivering, too-sensitive body. “God, Zahirah, I can't take much more . . . “

With a wordless groan, he impaled her fully, shuddering as he then withdrew nearly all the way. His curse was savage-sounding as he reared up and grabbed her hips, holding her in a bruising grip as he pumped furiously into her, his every muscle tense and strained. She felt him swelling, growing harder, becoming bigger, filling her more than she dreamed was possible. He lifted her pelvis off the divan, angling her higher to meet his fierce thrusts, his face contorting in evident anguish as a spasm began to shake him. With a shout, he jerked out of her, and Zahirah clung to him as he shuddered atop her, his member throbbing between them as a rush of hot moisture spurted onto the flatness of her belly.

The wonderment of what they had just shared, the awe of what their bodies had been together, left Zahirah trembling with emotion. It was all she could do not to cry in that moment, feeling Sebastian warm and heavy atop her, hearing his breathing begin to slow along with hers, their heartbeats thudding strongly, matched in time. She had given him her virginity this night, and he had given her wings. Her heart was still soaring, even if her body remained tethered to earth by the pleasing weight of her lover and the more substantial press of her regrets.

A brush against her cheek made her dazedly open her eyes. Sebastian was there, watching her face as he braced himself on one elbow above her. Her vision was watery; she felt a tear slide down her temple and into her hair. Sebastian swept its track away with his thumb, frowning. “It was too much,” he said, his words hoarse in the darkness as he caressed her cheek. “You should have told me to stop.”

“No,” she whispered. She shook her head and blinked away another swell of hot tears. “No. I didn't ever want you to stop.”

He gave her a rueful smile. “I should have been more gentle, but you just . . . God, you felt so good.” He leaned down and kissed her, a sweet but heated joining of their mouths that stirred her, even in exhaustion. It stirred him, too. His sex began to rouse, lengthening and growing harder where it rested between her thighs. “You should know that deflowering maidens is not something I do very often,” he confessed, his deep voice a heavenly rumble below her ear. “In fact, you are the first.”

“I am?” she asked, surprised.

He drew back to look at her and inclined his head, but his expression was oddly distant as he traced his finger along the line of her shoulder. “The women I have known before have all been . . . experienced.”

She felt a sudden twinge of embarrassment, suspecting her own awkwardness should he now lie beside her and compare her to the lovers that had come before her. Lovers like the pretty dark-haired serving girl at the palace, and the Frankish washerwomen who likely charmed him into their beds with their witty banter and expert methods of seduction. How she must have paled in his regard. “Was I . . . was I a disappointment to you, then?”

“God, no,” he breathed, quelling her doubts with a look of complete sincerity. “Zahirah, my lady, you were exquisite. Too exquisite by far, and I had no right taking all that you have given me tonight. I only pray you won't come to regret this evening and look upon me with loathing come the morn.”

“Never,” she vowed, a similar prayer edging its way to the tip of her own tongue. “Sebastian, I will never regret this. I've never known anything as perfect as what you have just given me.”

Her smile trembled on her lips, but his was prideful and sensual—dazzlingly male. He bent toward her and captured her mouth with his, teasing the seam of her lips with his tongue as he shifted above her on the divan. Zahirah welcomed him into her mouth the same as she welcomed him back between her thighs, spreading her legs to accommodate him as he slid into position at their juncture. His arousal nudged into the moist cleft of her body, blunt and warm and hard. She moaned as he moved against her, teasing her with his rigid length as his erection cleaved her quivering flesh, then withdrew short of penetration.

Zahirah wrapped her legs around his hips, arching hungrily for that which he denied her. She deepened her kiss, taking his tongue into her mouth and nipping his lip when she could stand the wanting no longer. “Please,” she gasped, arching into him.

He did not make her ask again.

A subtle shift of his pelvis put him at the mouth of her womb, and this time, when he gently thrust into her sheath, there was no pain, only a faint tightness that blurred quickly as Sebastian gathered her into his arms and slowly made love to her. She gave a shaky sigh as her body wakened to his once more, her heart and soul unfolding and rising toward the heavens.

“Tell me if you want me to stop,” he whispered roughly, slowing his pace when she bit her lip to hold back a cry. “I only want to give you pleasure, my lady.”

“You are,” she sighed. She cupped his jaw, and, holding his stormy gaze, she arched her hips against him, then back again, moving her body around his when it seemed he might deny her the sweet friction of their joining. “Don't stop, Sebastian.”

Sliding her hands down the hard muscle of his back, she grasped his firm buttocks and lifted into him once more. This time, he met her with a deep, shuddering thrust. She smiled as he slowly withdrew, then began his rhythm again, his strokes long and purposeful, achingly sensual. “Please . . . don't stop,” she begged him.

And, by Allah's grace, he didn't.