“No—no, it’s just I didn’t know what you meant when—when …”

“I promised forever?” he completed for her after a fierce kiss aborted her stammering distress. “I meant everything. All the way. Always. I must have it all with you. I can’t live otherwise. And once we’re away from here, I’ll see to all the formalities and procedures. But here I married you with the oasis people, all twenty thousand of them, as witnesses. Here marriage is just this, what we have, what we did, a man and a woman being together before others, pledging to be each other’s alone.” He paused at her widening eyes. “Yes, alone. Polygamy may be sanctioned in Damhoor, but here it’s unheard of. Here a man weds for life. As I do you. I’ll protect you, honor you, worship you all through this life. And into any other life beyond. I’d die for you.”

The tears that had filled her eyes brimmed, slithered down her cheeks. “Oh, Malek, don’t say that. I’d lay down my life for you to be whole and happy.”

He pressed her head hard into his chest, his rasp full of remembered dread. “You already did that. Never again. No more sacrifices, ya hayati, of any kind.” He put her away a few inches, looked down at her with possessive, entreating eyes. “Now, enough talk. I need to worship you again.”

“Here?” She jerked out of his arms, looked around in alarm. She’d lost just about every inhibition with him, but she drew the line at having an audience, non-conservative or not.

Malek took her lips, began to undo the strings lacing her traditional toab‘s front, pushing it off her shoulders, spilling her breasts into his palms, weighing and kneading them until she felt they would burst if he didn’t devour them. Then he did, and she changed her mind. She would risk anything.

She could try to be quiet, and if he didn’t draw out her torment like he so loved to do, maybe they could get away with it.

He returned to her lips, his tongue surging inside her, taking every intimacy she lavished. Her moans of stimulation became wild keens. They would get caught.

“Shall I take you now?” She could only nod her assent, her legs buckling. He held her up, smiled. “I only wanted to know if you would do anything to be with me.”

“You mean this was a test?” His smile widened and she bit into his maddening lips. “Now you’d better ride us back home quickly. I have this elaborate revenge to exact on you!”

“Wouldn’t you rather exact it here?”

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“But you said—”

“If you think I’d ever expose you to any discomfort, you still don’t realize a fraction of the depth of my love for you. We have the place to ourselves, ya hayati.”

“What did you do?” She gaped at him. “Send twenty thousand people out on an errand?”

“I only put their wish to bestow any privilege on me to good use, to make a fantasy of mine come true. Making love to you out in the open, under the sun and moon, melding with nature. No one will come within a mile of here till dawn. Now enough talk, I’m hungry for you again, ya mashoogati.”

Her toab snagged on her hips. He reversed his efforts, to get it over her head and she croaked, “Rip it.”

His eyes widened. Then with a growl of voracity he ripped the red satin in two. She lurched and moaned to every ripping sound, relishing his frenzy, fueling it.

He could have taken his own white toab off in one sweep. He gave her a ferocious strip-shredding show instead. Sunshine trickled between the breeze-swaying palm crowns, an hypnotic light show accompanying his performance. Passion rose from her depths at the savage poetry of his every straining muscle. To her disappointment he was still wearing jeans underneath.

Before she could beg him to complete his show, he rushed to Zeenah, brought back a thick spread, threw it over the sand at her feet. He came down before her, buried his face in her flesh, muttered love and hunger, dragged her down, spread her on her back, eliciting more frenzy as he probed her with deft fingers.

He growled his satisfaction at her response as her slick flesh gripped his fingers. “Do you know what it does to me—to feel you like this, to have this privilege, this freedom? Do you know what it means to me that you let me, that you want me, that you’re mine?”

Sensation rocketed, more at the maelstrom of emotions and passions fueling his words than at his expert pleasuring. She screamed, opened herself fully to him, now willing to accept pleasure any way he gave it, knowing he craved her surrender, her pleasure. She’d always give him all he wanted.

His tongue thrust inside her mouth to the rhythm of his invading fingers, while his thumb ground her bud in escalating circles. He swallowed every whimper of agonized pleasure, every tremulous word detailing it, every tear at its overpowering effect, until she shuddered in his arms.

She collapsed. Totally nerveless and sated. For about two minutes. Then she was kneading his masculinity through his jeans, and he rasped, “Release me.”

She undid the zipper with shaking hands. Her mouth watered as he sprang heavy and throbbing into her hands. He groaned in a bass voice that shook her insides, spilled magma from her core.

“Play with me, ya galbi. Own me. I’m yours.”

“And do you know what hearing you say that means to me?” she groaned back, her hand nowhere near closing around his girth, again stunned that her hunger was so vast it accommodated so much demand. “This, you, are literally to die for, ya habibi.”

He snatched her in his arms, groaning with revisited anguish. “To live for. Live for me, be happy with me, be mine and let me be yours, Janaan.”

He roared as her hands traveled up and down his silken steel shaft, pumping his mind-blowing potency in delight. Then she slithered down his body, tasted him all the way down to his hot, smooth crown. His scent, taste and texture made her whimper with need for all of him. She opened her mouth and took all she could of him inside. Growling his ecstasy, he thrust his hips to her suckling rhythm.

Suddenly, his hand in her hair stopped her. Then she was beneath him, impaled, complete, the pleasure of his occupation insupportable.

“Ma’ boodati,” he ranted in her mouth, driving deeper and deeper into her. “Hayati elek—my life is yours, ya habibati …”

Answering pledges spilled from her until she felt the pulse of pleasure tighten, the heat focused in her loins desperate for one more stoke to burst into the fire that would consume her. He gave her just what she needed for her world to implode, fed her convulsions, slamming her into the soft sand, pumping her to the last abrading twitches of fulfillment.




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