“You are beautiful,” he murmured appreciatively.
She bit down on her lip. “Thank you.”
Why was her willingness making him anxious? He had wanted this, so why was he hesitating now? Something about the whole scene was wrong. His instincts were warning him, and he’d never ignored them in the past. And yet, the visage of a half naked Olivia Anderson before him was overwhelming every compulsion he had to slow things down.
He was Sultan Tamir Al’Ani, and he was not a man who second guessed himself.
He crossed the space between them in two long strides, and pulled her to him firmly. Her sharp exhalation was an aphrodisiac. He lowered his mouth to hers, at the same time his hands found the strap of her bra and unhooked it. He tossed it across the room, thinking he would buy her more. Many more. His hands cupped her breasts, feeling the weight and warmth of them in his palms. They were soft and heavy, perfectly rounded. His fingertips brushed over her nipples, dusky pink and raised to an aroused peak. He dropped his mouth to lavish one with kisses, taking the nipple into his mouth and rolling it with his tongue, while his hands moved downwards, to push at her pants and lower the zip. She stepped out of them at the same time, leaving them discarded on the carpeted floor. Her briefs were just a scrap of lace, but he didn’t remove them. Not yet.
He lifted her easily and placed her on the bed gently. Her blonde hair spread around her like sunshine in a window. He traced it with his fingers, an expression of wonderment on his face.
“I imagined you naked the moment I saw you.”
Her eyes drifted closed, and she shook her head from side to side. “Why?”
“Because you move like an angel performing ballet. You smile like a goddess sharing a joke with a mortal. You are magical and beautiful and mythical and perfect.”
“I’m not perfect,” she promised, an embarrassed laugh sounding discordant after such a beautiful speech. She lifted a finger to his lips. “And you don’t need to say that stuff. I don’t need flattery. I don’t need anything from you. Except this.”
He frowned, as his mouth found her naval and flicked it. “You do not like to hear that I find you distractingly beautiful?”
“No.” She reached down and ran her fingers through his hair. Her body was on fire. She pulled for his shoulders, trying to sneak her fingers inside his collar, to find his warm skin and scratch it with her nails. “I think you have been with a heap of women who did like that kind of thing, though.”
“You’re not one of them?”
“Definitely not.” She arched her back as his mouth moved closer to the line of her underwear. His fingers hooked inside, pulling it down the length of her legs and exposing her feminine core to him. She cried out as the cold air brushed over her skin. The anticipation was too much to bear. His hands drove over her body, gliding past every single spot of skin, feeling and communicating, touching and teasing.
“Why not?” His lips were on her breasts again, and his hands were parting her legs, teasing her entrance. She bucked sharply off the bed, her hips lifting as pleasure and sensation ravaged her body.
“You’re still wearing clothes,” she complained, running her hands down his coat, pushing at the waistband of his pants, searching for contact.
“Very observant,” he laughed quietly. “You remember me saying that I want you here all night.”
She nodded. “But I feel at a disadvantage.”
“You are,” he grinned, lifting his head to meet her eyes.
Olivia shifted beneath him, her body feeling more alive than it ever had before. “Let me undress you.” His eyes widened, his lips twisted into a smile.
“In good time,” he promised throatily, padding his thumb across her womanhood.
“No, not in good time,” she contradicted demandingly. “Now.”
His response was a laugh, quiet and low in his throat. “You’re impatient.”
“Yes.”
“I like it.”
“Do you?” She pushed at his coat, and this time, he let it slide it down his arms. He tossed it across the room, earning a teasing smile of reproof from Olivia. “That thing probably cost what I earn in a month.”
He nodded. “Perhaps.”
Her hands were working his buttons, but it was difficult to lace them through the shirt holes when her fingers were quivering like a dandelion on the breeze. “Help,” she grunted finally, flicking her hair away from her face and looking up into his eyes.
He knelt between her legs and ripped the shirt off, sending it on a similar trajectory his jacket had sailed. Naked from the waist up, Olivia couldn’t help but stare. His chest rippled with muscles. It was bare and smooth but for a line of coarse dark hair that ran to his pants. She lifted her hands and trailed the muscles, biting down on her lip as she felt them bunch in response to her contact.
“Now who’s perfect?” She asked quietly, pushing up onto her elbows so that she could kiss him. She wrapped her fingers around his neck and pulled him back to the bed, on top of her, his weight like an essential life ingredient she hadn’t even realised she’d been missing. The evening was cold, and he was warm. Warm and strong, and everything she needed in that moment.
Olivia didn’t dare think about the moments that would follow. How she would feel afterwards. No, she didn’t dare think of that. She didn’t allow herself to wonder if she’d regret this. If she’d wish she’d been more circumspect and prudent.
She’d only slept with two other men. One had been a long term boyfriend, and the other had been a rebound after Simon had broken her heart. So what was her excuse this time?
Her eyes crashed down to his perfect back, rippling as he moved over her, and she knew. Who could resist Tamir Al’ani? He was a man more desirable than three thousand others. He was truly heaven-sent.
She wrapped her naked legs around his waist, wishing his pants were no longer present. She pressed her hips against his arousal, thrilling at the promise of what was to come. “I want…” She cried into the dark room. “I need…”
“I know,” he whispered, tickling her ear with his tongue. “I understand.”
Her fingers searched for his belt, and she loosened it, pulling it from his pants and dropping it to the bed. It slithered off, landing with a resounding thud against the plush carpet. Olivia didn’t notice. She was one step closer to seeing him naked and feeling him.
“Did I really only meet you last night?” She groaned, pulling at the button and snapping her nail in her haste.
He didn’t answer, but he had the same sense of surprise. The orchestral performance had lasted two hours, and he’d watched her the entire time. He had stared at her, experiencing the performance through her emotive responses. He’d spent thirty minutes in a back room with her, wanting her and denying himself that pleasure, and then he’d dreamed of her, and thought of her, until he wondered if he was going insane. Now, she was here in his bed, and nothing about it felt too sudden. But it was. Tamir was used to bedding women he hardly knew, but they were different. Women who approached him, wanting to be a part of the Sultan’s life, if only briefly. They understood what he had to offer.
Did Olivia?
Did she know sex was all he could ever offer? That sex was all he would ever allow himself to want from her?
Or was she a ‘happily ever after’ kind of girl, holding out for the perfect, magical romance to sweep her off her feet.
“Olivia,” he said gruffly, looking at her pink face, her pupils dilated. His intentions were honourable. He wanted to protect her. But as he opened his mouth to lay out the framework of what he could see happening between them, her fingers freed him from his pants. She wrapped her hands around his length, tossing her head back with complete satisfaction as they felt his hard arousal.
“I need you,” she ground out, lifting her hips so that he was only one thrust from joining with her.
He swore softly in his own tongue, and reached across her for protection. Avoiding unwanted complications had been dru
mmed into him as soon as he’d become sexually active. His crown deserved better than an unwanted bastard. His obligation to his royal position was immense.
“This is just sex, Olivia,” he managed to say, as he paused at her entrance. “You are very beautiful, but all that I’m offering is sex. You get that?”
His breath was coming in spurts; his passion matching hers.
Olivia nodded. She didn’t want to question why his words felt like acid was being dribbled across her skin. She kept her eyes lowered for fear they might show how his words had hurt her. “You think you’re just using me for sex?” She asked, surprised at how normal her words sounded. “Think again, your highness. It’s the other way around.”
He lifted his head in surprise, and she took advantage of the moment to push him backwards, so that she was on top of him. She lowered herself onto his erection, groaning as he filled her completely.
She had caught him off guard, her apparent acceptance of his callous statement shocking him, and disappointing him, too. It had given her temporary control, but he took it back immediately, rolling her back beneath him and pushing his full length deep inside her. Her eyes widened as her body stretched and expanded to meet his. Her muscles tightened around him, making him exclaim in response to the depth of his pleasure.
He was an incredible lover. Within the briefest of moments, she felt her whole body begin to reverberate with a sense of desperation like nothing she’d ever known.
She dug her toes into the soft mattress and lifted her pelvis, moaning over and over as her nerve endings began to burn. She exploded with a loud cry, digging her nails into his shoulders as she fell apart, shaking from top to toe with pleasure.
Tamir’s expression showed pleasure mixed with arrogance. Her orgasm was the most beautiful thing he’d ever seen. And it was only the beginning for them. He had all night. He ran a palm down her naked torso, between the valley of her breasts and her indented waist, loving the way her skin was textured by goosebumps.
His eyes met hers, challenging her and silently demanding to know how she felt.
As though she understood, Olivia lifted her palms to his face and let a slow smile spread across her features. She had a dimple in her cheek. How had he just noticed it? He lowered his mouth and kissed it tenderly.
“You are all right?” He asked quietly, as he shifted inside of her, stoking her flames anew. How could she still be aroused? Her pleasure had been satiated, yet lust deluged through her veins.
She sucked in a deep breath and nodded. “Better than that.”
“I am pleased.” He increased his tempo, making her whole body shudder in response. “Come to Talidar with me.”
Olivia laughed. “I can’t.” But she was tempted. It was just sex, and lust, making her yearn for more and more of this and him, but the instinct was one she was loathe to ignore. “I really can’t.”
He pulled at her nipple, making her cry out as a sharp needle of pleasure drove through her. Her body was hot and cold, frozen but aflame. She groaned as his fingers continued to tease her sensitive skin. “Tamir…” She called out, wrapping her legs tightly around his midsection as though she were drowning and he her only salvation.
Her ears were ringing, buzzing; a noise that wouldn’t stop. It wasn’t until Tamir swore that she realised a phone was ringing, somewhere. Somewhere close by. Without breaking the sweet invasion of her body, he reached across for the black telephone beside the bed. His eyes were dark as they studied her passion-ravaged face.
He spoke in his own language. His hands, against her breast, stilled.
Olivia hardly knew him. Not really. But when his face flickered, she somehow understood that the news he’d received was bad. Serious. He concealed the reaction quickly enough, and ended the call. But Olivia stared up at him, worry evident in her symmetrical face. “What is it?”
He shook his head; his mouth was a grim line in his face.
“Tamir?”
“No. Not now.” He thrust deeper inside her. He was not gentle, he was perfectly firm and demanding. And if possible, the second time Olivia found pleasure in Tamir’s arms, it was an even greater experience than the first. This time, her whole body seemed to sing, and fly high above the earth. She was floating over London, higher and higher into the heavens, on a wave of pure, cloud like delirium. Tamir erupted with her, holding her to him as his body shook from the force of his own orgasm.
Olivia had never had truly great sex. She’d experienced that awkward, ‘I want it to work because I think you’re nice’ kind of sex, and drunken, ‘I can’t believe my boyfriend left me when he was supposed to propose’ kind of sex. Never, ever, had she known animalistic, passion-fuelled, ‘just because I want you’ sex. Until that moment.
She scarcely wanted to breathe, lest it break the incredible magic of that moment. Her hands ran down his back, tenderly. Though he’d made sure she understood that they were sharing a ‘just sex’ relationship, her body still craved the intimacy that followed such an intense coming together.
But this man was not any man! She couldn’t expect him to lay with her and cuddle. And it would be better for her pride if she were the one to end things. Yes. She had to appear nonchalant and unconcerned, even though the thought of never seeing him again filled her with a stone cold sense of dread. She cleared her throat.
“I didn’t come here for that, but it was… lovely.” She inwardly cringed at the pathetically unsuitable word. Saying what they’d just shared was ‘lovely’, was like saying the nights were dark or the winters cold. She tried again. “I’m glad that happened. But I should go now.”
He pushed up onto his elbow, his eyes flashing as he stared down at her face. She couldn’t be sure, but she thought she saw derision there. Condemnation.
Something strange flicked inside of her.
“Tamir?”
“I’m afraid we have a problem.”
Her hands were still wrapped around his back. She forced herself to let them drop to her sides now. “What problem?” She asked calmly, though her heart was popping like a firecracker.
“You’re a thief, and a liar, and I cannot let you go anywhere.”
Chapter Four
“WHAT?” She pushed at his shoulders, but he didn’t move. He was still inside of her, her body was sapped of energy by the pleasure he’d exerted over her, and he was calling her names she just didn’t understand. “What are you talking about?”
“Was this all part of your plan, Olivia?”
His voice was so cold. None of the delicious melting warmth she’d come to expect. It still had the power to send shivers down her spine, but for entirely different reasons.
“Was what part of my plan?”
“Do not keep lying to me.”
“I don’t understand.” Her frown was a nervous flicker. “I really don’t. Start at the beginning. What am I supposed to have stolen? What have I lied about?”
“Not you,” he contracted harshly. “Your friend.”
“Jack?” Her heart turned over with fear. She closed her eyes as the reality of what might have happened sunk in. Her words had a strangled desperate quality to them. “Please, Tamir. Just tell me what’s going on.”
“Worse than stealing from a man like me is lying about it after the fact.”
Panic made her voice high pitched. “No. Get off me.” She pushed at his shoulders again, but still he didn’t move. Instead, he shifted his weight, sending waves of traitorous pleasure tingling through her.
“At least I know you enjoyed your part in the duplicitous plan.”
“I wasn’t part of any plan,” she whispered, mortified to find her body responding to his. Mortified to feel herself lifting her hips, digging her feet into the mattress and lifting her knees to the ceiling, to take him deeper.
His laugh was soft. Soft and accusing. “There will be time for that. Plenty of time, it turns out.” He pressed his lips against her breast, and this time, he sucked at her pink flesh until he was close to
crossing the line between pleasure and pain. He moved his mouth higher just when she could handle no more, and he kissed her neck, hard, tasting and sucking until he left a bright pink cluster of blood just beneath the surface.
“What are you doing?” Olivia demanded fiercely, lifting her hand to her neck.
“Hush, Azeezi. I am marking you as mine. You know it, and I know it, and unless you wear the clothes I give you, everyone in Talidar will know it.”
She narrowed her eyes. “That’s barbaric,” she whispered, digging her fingers into the mark. “God. I haven’t had a lovebite since high school. What’s wrong with you?”
His smile was marred by cruelty. “You do not even know what a serious position you are in, do you?”
“I’m not in any position,” she said with a calmness that she was nowhere near feeling.
“You are in my embassy, and subject to my laws.”
Olivia felt something heavy lodge in her gut. She swore to herself and shook her head. “So?”
“So, when you and your friend came here and decided to steal irreplaceable Talidarian jewels, you enabled me to punish you in accordance with Talidarian laws.”
She closed her eyes again. What had Jack done? She thought of her friend, her confusing bizarre kleptomaniac friend, and groaned. “Jack’s… he’s… sometimes he does this. He does it for fun. He would have returned whatever it is he took. He doesn’t need the money. I’m sorry. I really am, but he’s actually very harmless.”
“Harmless?” Tamir laughed, but it was without humour. “The tiara he placed into his jacket is worth over two million pounds. It is five hundred years old, and an item of great cultural significance. Do you really think his attempt to remove it from the embassy will be seen as harmless by anyone in my government?”
Olivia shook her head. “You have to let me explain. He isn’t a thief. He really isn’t.”
“The facts seem to state otherwise.”
“Yes, I know, but you have to believe me, Tamir. Please. I promise he would have returned it.”
“Do you know what the punishment for such theft is in my country?”