The spike of ferocity in his eyes as they touched her full nakedness should have been alarming. It only sent her heart almost racing to a standstill with shyness, with anticipation. With pride that her sight affected him that intensely.

He tore his abaya off, finally exposing the body she’d known would make the gods of old fade into nothing. “Ya Ullah ya Gwen, koll shai ma’ak afdal menn ahlami. Anti ajmal shai ra’aytoh fi hayati…anti rao’ah.”

Her awed hands shook over his burnished, sculpted perfection, barely biting back the protest that everything with him was better than her dreams, that it was he who was the most beautiful thing she’d ever seen in her life, he who was the wonder.

“Habibati…” His groan roughened to a growl as he rubbed his chest against her breasts until she thrashed beneath him. He bent, opened his mouth over her breasts as if he’d devour her.

Pleasure jackknifed through her with each nip of his teeth, each long, hard draw of his lips, had her shuddering all over.

“Fareed, just take me…all of me…”

He told her he wanted exactly that. All of her now. Now.

“Bareedek kollek, daheenah, habibati. Daheenah.”

She lay powerless under the avalanche of need, her moans becoming keens as his surgeon’s hand glided over her, taking every liberty and creating erogenous zones wherever they fondled and owned, before settling between her thighs. His strong, sensitive fingers slid up to her intimate flesh, now molten, throbbing its demand for his touch, his invasion. They opened the lips of her femininity, slid between her folds, soaked in her readiness.

It took only a few strokes of those virtuoso fingers to spill her over the edge. She convulsed with pleasure, hazy with it, failing to imagine what union with him would bring if just a few touches unraveled her body and mind.

Among her stifled cries of release she heard something primal rumble in his gut, knew it was the sound of his control snapping.

He came over her and her hands fumbled with his to remove his pants, the last barrier between them. She went nerveless as his lips spilled worship into hers, proclaiming her soul of his heart, his need to be inside her.

“Roh galbi, mehtaj akoon jow’waaki.”

She couldn’t bear not having him filling her, couldn’t bear the emptiness he’d created inside her, couldn’t…couldn’t…

She couldn’t let him take her when she hadn’t told him…

No. She couldn’t tell him. And she couldn’t not have him. Just this once. She needed this once. It wasn’t too much to ask, to take. She’d live in deprivation for the rest of her life.

And she sobbed her need, her desperation. “Come inside me, Fareed, now. Don’t wait…just take me.”

“Aih, ya hayat galbi…take me inside you, take all of me.”

He bore down into her, as blinded, as lost. She cried out, in relief, in anguish, spread her legs wider for his demand, contained him, her heels digging into his buttocks, her nails into his back, demanding him, urging him.

His pained chuckle detailed his enjoyment of her frenzy as his muscled hips flexed, positioning himself at her entrance, prostrating her for his domination. Then in one burning plunge, he was there, inside her. Flesh in flesh.

The shock to her system was total.

Paralyzed, mute, she stared up at him, everything swollen and invaded and complete. He rested deep within her, stretching her beyond capacity, as incapacitated. Blackness frothed from the periphery of her vision, a storm front of pleasure advancing from her core. Fareed…at last.

It was he who broke the panting silence, his voice a feral growl now. “Gwen, the pleasure of you…ya Ullah…”

He rose on his palms, started to withdraw from her depths. She clung blindly, crazed for his branding pain and pleasure.

He withdrew all the way out, dragged a shriek of stimulation and loss from her. Before she cried out again for his return, he drove all the way back inside her.

On his next withdrawal, she lost what was left of her mind. She thrust her hips up, seeking his impalement. He bunched her hair in his fist, tugged her down to the bed, exposing her throat, latching his teeth into her flesh as if he’d consume her.

Then he plowed back into her, showed her that those first plunges had just been preparations. He fed her core more, then more of him with every thrust, causing an unknown, unbelievably pleasurable expansion within her, until she felt him hit the epicenter of her very essence.

She was destroyed, blind, mad, screaming, clinging to him, biting him, convulsing, the ecstasy rending in intensity.

He withdrew, and she saw his magnificent face seize with ferocity, with his greed for every sensation he plumbed her body for, had ripping through her. Tension shot up in his eyes, as if he was judging when to let go.

She begged him, for him. “Give me—give me…”

And he gave. She felt each surge of his jetting climax inside her. It hit her at her peak, had her thrashing, weeping, unable to endure the spike in pleasure. Everything dimmed, faded…

She had no idea when awareness started trickling between the numb layers of satisfaction. She was still lying beneath Fareed. Then she realized what had roused her. He was leaving her body.

Before she could whimper with his loss, he pressed back over her, his weight sublime pleasure. She moaned her contentment. More bliss settled into her bones as he swept her around, draped her over his expansive body, mingling their sweat and satisfaction.

She closed her eyes, let his feel and those precious moments integrate into her cells. She’d need the memories to tide her through the rest of her life.

But this wasn’t over yet. She had hours with him still.

She wouldn’t waste a second.

“And I thought it would be unprecedented with you.”

Everything inside her stilled.

Would his next words elaborate on the disappointment of his expectations? Had he given her her life’s most transfiguring experience, but she’d proved no more than a barely adequate one?

Suddenly, she wanted to bolt. She wanted to hold on to what she’d experienced. It would be all she had of him. And if it turned out to be a one-sided illusion…

“If I’d known how it would be between us, that it would far exceed even my perfectionist fantasies, I would have carried you off to my bed weeks ago.”

She raised a wobbling head, trembling with relief. She marveled anew at his beauty, and at how magical their bodies looked entwined.

And she wanted more of him. Of them. All she could get.

She bent to taste the powerful pulse in his neck, dragging her teeth down his shoulder and chest to his nipple, nipping it before she moved her head up, stroking his flesh with her hair.

“I hope you know what you’re inviting with this act of extreme provocation.”

Feeling all-powerful with his desire, reckless with having nothing to lose and everything to win, before it was too late, she squeezed his steel buttock even as she slid her leg between his muscled, hair-roughened ones, her knee pressing an erection that felt even harder and more daunting than before.

“Which act are you referring to?” she purred, nipping his lips, adding more fuel to his reignited passion.

He grabbed her around the waist, brought her straddling him, menacing lust flaring in his eyes, filling his lips. “I have a list now. Each with a consequence all its own.”

Her hunger, now she knew what ecstasy awaited her in his possession, was a hundred-fold that of her previous ignorance.

She rocked against him, bathing him in her arousal and their pleasure. “Terrible consequences all, I hope.”

“Unspeakable.” His hands convulsed in her flesh, raised her to scale his length. He dragged her down at the same moment he thrust upward, impaling her.