He could taste her, just for a moment. Just a moment wouldn’t endanger her, surely.

“You’re joking,” she breathed out, her voice rough, her hands shaking as one lifted from the robe to swipe at the strands of dark blond hair that fell from the clip atop her head. She seriously believed he wasn’t serious. He could see it in her eyes.

“Joking?” He tilted his head and watched her curiously. “Because I want to fuck you? Precious, there is no joke in the least in such a desire. The thought of touching you, of having your sweet flesh suck my cock inside you is enough to make me weak in the knees. I never said I didn’t want you. I said it would not be wise to give in to such desires.”

Her smile was scoffing. “It’s not nice to tease like this, Khalid. What happened? Did you lose your little black book? Need a little entertainment to fill in the few minutes before my father’s return?”

She watched the grin that tugged at his lips. She had never seen Khalid smile fully, she realized. A tug of amusement at the corner of his lips, a little quirk of a crooked smile, but never a true smile.

“As I’m certain you’re aware, I’m never at a loss for playmates,” he assured her, as amusement shone in his eyes.

Marty breathed in, slow and easy, fighting the dark fear that wanted to take hold of her as she saw the pure need that filled his eyes.

He hadn’t touched her; he had only moved closer. She could feel the heat of his body but not the touch of his flesh. Still, it was enough to make her feel fevered, flushed. She couldn’t seem to move away from him, to break the hold he had on her as his gaze stayed locked with hers.

“So I’ve heard,” she mocked him lightly. “The ‘playboy sheikh,’ I believe is what they call you. Quite a reputation to have, Khalid.” And one that bit at her every time she thought about it.

He reached out, his fingers feathering along the strands of hair that escaped her clip before brushing against her jaw. That smallest touch, that lightest stroke, had anticipation racing over her nerve endings.

“Oftentimes a reputation is no more than a shield to protect oneself,” he said, his voice quiet, reflective. “To hold at bay the very things you know you cannot have.”

Bullshit. This game was growing old, and it was one she was tired of playing.

“Stop messing with me.” Stepping back from him, she fought to keep her breathing under control, to hold back the desire that assailed her.

The sexuality that was so much a part of Khalid was beginning to wrap around her, to work its way inside her. She could feel him holding back, feel him fighting himself. The thought that he felt he had to stay away from her confused her, left her wanting to push harder, to find out the limits of the control he was imposing on himself.

“You believe I’m playing?” He reached out to her, slowly. His fingertips touched her cheek and smoothed down her jaw, and she forgot to breathe until his thumb rubbed against her lips.

Swallowing tightly, Marty forced herself not to shake, not to whimper with the response that tore through her. God alone knew how desperately she needed that touch, and how unwilling she was to beg for it.

“Of course you’re playing,” she scoffed. “You’ve proven it over the years, Khalid. What’s wrong, frightened of me?” She pursed her lips and blew him a mocking kiss.

“Fears are tricky things,” he said softly, the flavor of his accent whispering across her senses as he ran the back of his fingers down her arm. “They lock themselves inside your mind and become rooted in your very soul. Fighting them is never easy, but once you learn how to control them…” He lifted his gaze to stare into her eyes, to mesmerize her, lock her to him. “Once you learn how to control them, precious, then you control yourself.”

She wanted to roll her eyes at the teasing in his tone. She would have, except she heard the faintest thread of sincerity there.

“Then,” he continued, “you learn that control can be your best friend. Your wisest counsel. When tempted by a woman who you seem to have no defenses against, it comes in rather handy.” He whispered the last sentence softly against her ear. “Just as it comes in handy while showing a woman what should have always been hers.”

“And that would be?” If he didn’t kiss her, she was going to die. If he didn’t touch her again, her flesh was going to burn to cinders from the need.

“A woman should always know pleasure.”

She watched as his head began to lower, as he continued to whisper.

“A woman should revel in her sensuality, in that side of her nature that aches for touch, aches to be possessed.” His voice lowered, rasped, throbbed with desire as his lips finally brushed against hers. “A woman, precious, should always be able to fulfill the desires that haunt that sensual core of her being. Tell me, Marty,” he breathed roughly, “what desires haunt your woman’s core?”

“Desires for you,” she whispered back, and her breath nearly caught at the flare of response in his gaze.

He haunted her. She ached for his touch. She ached for his kiss. Her lips parted slowly as a near brutal need began to thunder through her body.

She had tracked him for two years. Followed him. She had seen the sexual excesses he immersed himself in, and she had seen the lonely nights where he stood in his window and stared down at her.

He had always seemed to know where she was, where she hid to watch him, how she ached. In his expression she had seen the brooding sensuality and a dark shadow of torment. A torment that sometimes reminded her of her own.

“I want to kiss you,” he said. “Sweet candied lips. I look at them, and my body tightens with the need to possess you, Marty. To fuck you until you’re screaming for more. Screaming for me. Common sense warns me to pull back. But the thought of those sweet lips keeps me coming back.”

His voice hardened with a surge of lust as his eyes flashed with an inner fire a second before his fingers slid into her hair.

He didn’t grab the strands. His large palm cupped the back of her head in a gentle if unbreakable grip as his head slanted and lowered.

Why she had expected a rough, bruising kiss, she wasn’t certain. But what came was anything but ungentle. Firm lips touched her own, parted them as a cry left her mouth.

She was shaking in his grip, her hands lifting to hold his wrist as his other hand gripped her hip and held her to him. She could feel her nails digging into his flesh, feel a plethora of sensations rocking through her system as it seemed to overload on the most exquisite pleasure that she could have known.

Electricity filled his kiss. Sensations unlike anything she had ever known whipped through her, destroying her senses as his tongue licked at hers, touching it with slow, thorough pleasure and destructive heat.

When he drew back, Marty could only stare back at him in shock. It was her first kiss in years.

She fought to draw in oxygen. She fought to simply stand upright as his head tilted, his lips moving along her jawline to the shell of her ear.

“So sweet,” he whispered, as her lashes drifted closed and she became immersed in the sensual, sexual world he was building around her. “I could take you just like this, Marty. So slow and easy, like a gentle summer rain.”

His fingers were at her shoulders, touching the bare flesh beneath her robe, drawing the material over her shoulders as she felt her breasts throb with the need for touch now. His calloused fingertips sent a blaze of friction over her skin and had her suddenly pressing closer, needing more, needing his touch like the land needed the sun.

“I’ve dreamed of you,” she said. “Of you taking me, Khalid. Fucking me slow and easy, fast and hard.” Her breath caught as his body jerked, as though he had been struck, while lust became a brilliant flame in his eyes and urged her on. “I want to watch while you take me. See your cock press inside me while the pleasure burns me alive. I fantasize about it. I masturbate to it.”