Midnight in the Desert. Jane Porter

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СКАЧАТЬ knife gliding through butter. His confidence shocked her, for she had believed that she was being bold but his words made hers meaningless and little more than a sulky expression of innocence. Indeed almost a lie, she adjusted uncomfortably, jolted by her sudden unexpected collision with the scorching challenge of his gaze. Just at that moment she knew that she had sought him out again quite deliberately and that he was experienced enough to know it.

      ‘A woman hasn’t made me ache since I was younger than you are now,’ Raja told her huskily, vaulting upright with an easy grace of movement that tensed every muscle in her slim body. ‘You’re very beautiful …’

      So was he, but she was too wary and proud to tell him that that lean dark-angel beauty of his had taken up residence in her brain and dug talon claws of need and desire into her very soul. When he kissed her she felt as dizzy and uncoordinated as though she had drunk too much alcohol. He made her feel out of control and she didn’t like that but, regardless of that fact, every time she looked at him it was a tougher challenge to look away again. She moved closer and somehow he met her in the middle, a possessive hand closing on her slight shoulder to hold her in place, his mouth or was it her mouth eagerly melding with the temptation of his again. And that crushing kiss was good, so good, her bare toes curled and her nerve endings sang. Her arms went round him, her fingers spearing into his hair, and with her eager encouragement his mouth got rougher and harder, his lean, powerful length sealing more forcefully to her softer curves.

      It was too much: she couldn’t breathe, broke her mouth free to pant for breath and yet immediately sought him out again with renewed hunger and blindly impatient hands. In the midst of it he eased back from her to haul off his robe but just as quickly he pulled her back into his arms. The sarong fell at her feet but she didn’t notice because Raja was already lowering her down on the quilts while pressing taut open-mouthed kisses along the slender expanse of her neck. She squirmed helplessly as the tip of his tongue scored the pulse there and then he nipped at her responsive flesh with his strong white teeth. Need was driving her now, all the while the heat in her pelvis was building and building into a furnace.

      Her bra fell away. His palm closed over a small, pert breast and she gasped, back arching as he plunged his mouth down to the swollen pink tip and let his teeth graze the straining nipple. She dragged him up to kiss him again and ran an appreciative palm down over the hair-roughened expanse of his superb torso. He caught her hand in his and brought her fingers down to the rampant length of the shaft straining against his hard flat stomach. A shudder ran through his big frame as she took that invitation and stroked him, moulding the smooth hard heat and promise of him with reverent fingers.

      He moved her beneath him and again put his carnal mouth to her tender nipples. He was gentle at first but still she writhed and when he got a little more ardent she cried out, struggling to find herself again in the thunderous, greedy surge of the hunger he had awakened.

      ‘Very beautiful,’ Raja groaned in reply. ‘And wonderfully passionate …’

      The hollow ache between her thighs had her hips shifting back and forth. He traced the tender pink flesh there and she shivered, violently and with longing, driven by feverish want and need. He slid a finger into her and she was hot and wet and tight and he groaned with masculine appreciation, capturing her lips with his again, letting his tongue dart into the sensitive interior of her mouth with a skilful flick that made the blood drum insanely fast through her veins.

      He teased the tiny bundle of nerve endings that controlled her entire body and she writhed in the storm of intoxicating sensation. ‘Don’t stop … whatever you do, don’t stop!’ she warned him through gritted teeth, reacting to an overload of pleasure that wiped out every thought and consideration and left frantic desire in charge.

      Black hair tousled, golden eyes hot as flames, the prince rose over her. ‘After this, there is no going back.’

      In the merciless grip of unsated need, Ruby could barely focus on his darkly handsome features. ‘No going back?’ she repeated blankly.

      Raja, as eager for completion as she was, was already pressing back her thighs and impatiently splaying his hands below her hips to raise her to him. As he positioned himself and pushed into her a sharp pain arrowed through her and she cried out. He stopped moving to gaze down at her with a bemused frown. ‘What’s wrong?’

      ‘Nothing … don’t stop,’ Ruby told him, taut with discomfiture for it had not occurred to her that losing her virginity might hurt. Her more experienced friend, Stella, might have told her a lot of things but that possibility had not been mentioned.

      Dark eyes confused, he stared down at her. ‘But I hurt you.’

      Ruby could feel her face getting hotter and hotter. ‘It’s my first time … that’s all. No big deal.’

      It was Raja’s turn to be surprised and it was a very big deal on his terms. His bride was a virgin? The level of his ignorance about her annoyed him. He had made the wrong assumptions but not without her encouragement to do so. A slight shudder racked him as he endeavoured to remain still while every fibre of his being craved the completion of sinking into her as far and as fast as he could go.

      ‘It’s all right … it really is,’ Ruby whispered, deeply embarrassed by the enforced pause in their lovemaking.

      The prince lowered his head and pressed a kiss to the rosy invitation of her mouth. For the very first time he allowed himself to think of her as his wife. It was a powerful source of attachment for a man given to ruthlessly guarding his emotions. Lithe as a cat, he shifted inside her and her eyes widened with wondering appreciation as the first swirl of sensation circled her pelvis and melted her inside to hot, liquid honey.

      ‘Oh …’ she framed, taken aback by that feeling of exquisite fullness, lips parting, eyes drifting shut on a heady vocal sound of appreciation.

      ‘I want it to be good for you …’

      Ruby looked up at him, her entire body buzzing with electrified arousal. ‘It’s better than good …’

      Raja shifted again, initially slow and sure, patiently teaching her his rhythm while he revelled in the velvety grip of her slick passage. In the still heat of the tent, perspiration gleaming on his sleek bronzed length, he pleasured her with long driving strokes. Excitement gripped her as the pace quickened and the only thing that mattered then was the pounding surge of his body into hers. Delirious with the pulsing pleasure, she arched her back and wild tremors tore through her. With a feverish cry she splintered into the electrifying heat of an earth-shattering climax.

      Afterwards, Raja held her close, soothing fingers caressing the smooth skin of her abdomen while little quivers, aftershocks of that intense physical crescendo, still coursed through her. ‘I’m sorry I hurt you. If I had known that you were not experienced I would have been more gentle.’

      Hugging a glorious unfamiliar sense of well-being along with the feeling that she was still floating on a fluffy cloud, Ruby fixed dazed eyes on his face. ‘I’m not sure gentle would have been quite so exciting.’

      Raja laughed with easy appreciation and vaulted upright. He pulled on his boxers and strode out of the tent. She wondered what he was doing but was too lazy to ask or follow as she lay there with limbs that felt weighted down. At the corner of her mind a kernel of unease was nagging at her, keen to remind her that she had trashed the platonic agreement she had forged with Raja and made their relationship much more personal, much more intimate than she had ever envisaged.

      Just at that moment such serious reflections seemed ridiculously irrelevant. They were marooned in the desert in circumstances neither of them could СКАЧАТЬ