LITMIR.BIZ

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entertainment area. ‘No stinting on comforts here...’

      ‘But we will have to share a bathroom,’ Jaul confided, casting open another concealed door to let her see the facilities. ‘We will be as comfortable here as we would be at the palace. For generations my forebears have visited the desert in spring and late summer to meet with the tribal elders.’

      Glancing in a mirror, Chrissie removed the coin headdress because, like the rest of the handmade antique jewellery she wore, it was very heavy. Stilling behind her in silence, Jaul undid the clasp of the necklace she wore without being asked and she caught it as it slid down and settled it on the mirror tray before pushing back her hair to detach the earrings.

      ‘Which outfit did you prefer?’ she suddenly asked him. ‘The wedding gown or this...?’

      ‘You looked fantastic in the white gown, like a model on a catwalk. But my heart raced when I saw you in this...’ He smoothed long brown fingers over a slender shoulder. ‘The colour reflects the shade of your eyes and your glorious curves are only hinted at, which I liked,’ he confided huskily. ‘Perhaps I am more like my ancestors than I ever dreamt and a hundred years ago I would have veiled you from all eyes but my own...’

      Warmth flared in her cheeks. She had expected him to tell her that he preferred her in the wedding gown and he had surprised her with an honesty that she found extraordinarily sexy. ‘Veiled?’ she teased.

      ‘Your beauty could blind a man,’ Jaul husked, trailing his warm mouth across the pale skin of her shoulder and drawing her back against him. ‘You blinded me the first moment I saw you but it was the wrong time in the wrong place and in the wrong company.’

      ‘Yes,’ she acknowledged, breasts swelling from the proximity of his hands and a very basic need to be touched as her breath feathered in her throat.

      Yet his allusion to the discomfiture of their first meeting surprised her, for nothing could have been more awkward than encountering him fresh from bedding her friend and flatmate the night before. Even though her friend had swiftly moved on to another man and indeed moved in with him, that unhappy connection had ensured Chrissie resisted Jaul’s advances.

      His lips caressed her throat as he drew her down on the bed and as a shiver of almost painful sexual awareness travelled through her she blinked as he lifted her hand, splayed her fingers and smoothly threaded a ring onto her wedding finger.

      ‘What’s this?’ she gasped, scanning the band of incredibly glittery gems now set next to her wedding ring. ‘Pink?’

      ‘Pink diamonds. A gift as flawless as you. My wedding gift.’

      ‘I never even thought of giving you a gift!’ she exclaimed with a groan of frustration.

      ‘But you gave me Tarif and Soraya, whose worth is beyond price,’ Jaul declared without hesitation. ‘I can never thank you enough for our children.’

      Her eyes shone luminous in the lamplight because she realised he was sincere. Her fingers shifted on the sheet beneath her hand and she frowned, glancing down to see that the bed had been sprinkled with silky pink rose petals. ‘Are these supposed to be a fertility aid or something?’ she asked suspiciously.

      ‘Roses have always been revered in our climate. The Marwan press has already christened you “Our English Rose”.’

      Chrissie laughed and rolled her eyes.

      ‘It is true. You are very beautiful.’

      Encountering the lustrous glint of gold in Jaul’s dark deep-set eyes, Chrissie flushed because a tiny ball of heat was suddenly igniting deep down inside her. The wild potency of his compelling sexuality made her mouth run dry and her heart pound. It had always been like that: one look from Jaul ensnared her.

      Long fingers curving to her cheekbone, he melded his mouth with hot, fierce pleasure to the lush softness of hers. As he licked along the sealed seam of her lips, it was like a lightning strike with electricity snaking through every fibre of Chrissie’s body. Something clenched low in her pelvis, an ache stirring wanton warmth and dampness between her thighs.

      ‘Jaul...’ she whispered shakily between reddened lips.

      ‘Very beautiful...and finally mine,’ Jaul growled, peeling off his headdress and hauling her onto his lap to embark on the tiny pearl buttons running down the back of her top.

      ‘Very much married anyway,’ she mumbled, her body taking fire at the mere thought of his touch. ‘That’s married three times over now. There’ll be no denying that.’

      ‘I will never deny you again, habibti,’ Jaul muttered raggedly, closing his hands round the firm swell of her unbound breasts, his fingers tugging at the straining tips before he rolled her back onto the bed. With deft ease, he tugged off her skirt and underwear and knelt down to slip off her shoes.

      Chrissie watched him strip and leave everything in a messy heap. His untidiness, the result of never ever having to clear up after himself, had once infuriated her, but now it struck a familiar note that gave her lips a wry curve. His lithe, lean bronzed body was fully, unashamedly aroused. His eyes burned gold with potent hunger below languorously lowered black lashes. ‘I want you so much...’

      Chrissie lay across the bed feeling as wondrously seductive as Cleopatra, for the first time ever unconcerned by her nakedness. The intensity of Jaul’s desire had always enthralled her. She was not perfect, she knew she was not perfect but Jaul had always vehemently disagreed. There had never been anyone else for her purely because only Jaul made her burn with earthy longing and only Jaul could look at her as though she were a goddess come to earth in human flesh. He slid down beside her, his stunning eyes all hot intensity as he claimed her mouth again with devouring hunger. She shifted fluidly under him, her thighs sliding apart, her legs curving up round his hips to bring the most needy part of her into line with his arousal.

      ‘You’re trying to hurry me again,’ Jaul censured. ‘This is a special night.’

      ‘Every night with you is special,’ Chrissie broke in, tilting up to him, inviting him into her with every weapon in her feminine armoury.

      He pulled back from her briefly to reach for a condom and returned to stroke the heated damp flesh between her thighs, teasing her in ways that made her writhe and jerk with a readiness she couldn’t conceal. When he finally thrust into her, she expelled her breath in a joyous hiss of sensual shock and pleasure and flung her head back. ‘Yes!’ she gasped.

      Jaul withdrew and glided into her again and her inner muscles clenched tight around him. With his every carnal thrust, excitement leapt higher, perspiration beading on her skin as her heart hammered. He pushed her back against the pillows, lifting her legs over his shoulders to gain better access to her willing body.

      ‘You’re a total minx, you scramble my wits,’ he told her raggedly, his control breaking as she lifted her hips to deepen his penetration and his pace quickening to a more forceful rhythm.

      And then there was nothing but the passion and the wild, crazy excitement he induced until she felt as though she were about to fly clean out of her skin. Molten heat consumed her as he pounded into her with fierce hunger and when the finish came it was spectacular for both of them and a blaze of ecstasy that was overwhelming.

      Chrissie lay with her cheek pressed up against Jaul’s shoulder. ‘I have to learn to trust you again,’ she mused, speaking her thoughts out loud because all barriers were down. ‘I know—intellectually speaking—that you didn’t choose to desert me but I’ve always had a hard time trusting men.’

      Jaul smoothed her tossed hair. ‘Why?’

      ‘Mum lived with a lot of loser men while I was growing up,’ she told him ruefully. ‘Either they were drunks or gamblers or they stole her money or beat her up.’

      Jaul was shocked, belatedly registering that Chrissie had always been cagey about her background and only now was he understanding why. ‘That does explain some things about

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