His coaxing kiss went from gentle to pure heat in the space of one heartbeat. Her mouth opened automatically under his when his tongue ran along the seam of her lips demanding entry. She gave it to him instantly, just like she’d given him everything else. Instantly. Without thought. There was no thinking when she was melting into him. When his hands slid down her back, taking in the curve of her bottom and going lower until he cupped both bare cheeks and brought her up on her toes so that her mound was pressed tightly against the thick hard bulge his trousers covered.

His kiss turned to pure fire pouring down her throat like lava, melting her insides, wrapping her heart in… him. She knew she was giving herself to him and he was claiming her. His kiss said that. It was hard and possessive and even demanding. She gave… everything. Everything she was and would ever be. Everything he demanded and even more.

He lifted his head, his eyes dark with desire. With passion. Lust was etched in the lines carved deep, but there was gentleness there and it turned her heart over as nothing else could have.

“You ask me what I have done to you, and I ask you what you have done to me. I can’t think about anything but you.”

She liked that. No, she loved hearing that. His voice was a smooth silken web she was trapped in. He wrapped her up in all that beautiful silk and velvet, his arms strong and his body hard. He was safety. Heat. Paradise. He could give her everything. She knew that just by kissing him. Her body remembered his and craved him. She had a taste in her mouth, an aphrodisiac that set up a hunger she didn’t understand.

He kissed his way down her throat and over the swell of her breast. She felt his breath on that spot, on the mark he’d left on her like a brand. Her sex clenched again, a need so deep she could barely breathe with wanting him. Her hands slid up around his neck, drawing him closer while her own breath hitched in her throat.

His hair was thick. Soft. Her fingers sifted through it and then clenched into fists as she cradled his head while he bit down and the pain lashed through her like a silken whip, striking every nerve ending, sending her crashing into the world of pure feeling.

Her lashes drifted down and she held him to her while his mouth pulled at that spot, tongue moving soothingly while he suckled. His tongue slid over the throbbing pulse as he kissed his way down to her bare breast, drawing her aching, demanding flesh deep into his mouth, his tongue lashing down, pressing, flicking, a weapon of destruction – destroying her. Her body fragmented, came apart, and she could only cling to him as the orgasm took her hard.

His hands pulled at her legs so that she wrapped them around him, locking her ankles at the small of his back. She had the sensation of floating. When she was with him, she couldn’t quite orient herself, and even when she tried to lift her lashes, it didn’t work. She fought for one moment to be strong, to at least look and see where they were going. He couldn’t take her down the hall absolutely naked. And if he took her back to Lourdes’s room and the child came in…

“See me, sielamet.” Tariq whispered the words in her ear even as his body drove hard into hers. The hands on her hips slammed her down over him, and she sheathed him, her tight muscles reluctantly giving way for his invasion.

The air left her lungs in a rush of shock. He was big, pushing through soft folds, a steel intruder that dragged over the bundle of nerves and set every part of her body on fire. Charlotte lifted her lashes instantly, as if by his command; her body suddenly responded when all it really wanted to do was feel. His eyes blazed down into hers. So much heat. So much passion. She would burn forever in his passion, and yet eternity wouldn’t be long enough.

Her gaze went from his to the familiar room. It was the room she’d been in with him before. She recognized it, although there were more sconces lit, allowing her to see more detail.

“See me, sielamet,” he insisted.

Once again her gaze jumped to his face as he planted one knee on the bed, easily lowering her with one arm, proving his strength. He was as naked as she was, his suit gone and his body hard and powerful, all rippling muscle and driving cock. He never stopped moving and each brutal thrust jolted her body, setting her breasts swaying and lightning radiating from her very core to every single nerve cell in her body, inflaming them.

Her mouth moved over his chest, while her nails scored down his back as he pushed her higher and the wild tension coiled tighter and tighter. She needed… so much. That taste in her mouth refused to leave, making her crave him, like some terrible addiction. She nuzzled at the heavy muscles, licked at the spot where she’d left her mark. His hands tightened on her and he groaned softly.

She had the sudden urge to bite him, to leave her mark on him in the way he had her. Before she could, his hand was suddenly in her hair, jerking her head back, and his gaze blazed down into hers.

“You feel this? What we have?” He didn’t stop moving, thrusting hard, burying his cock in her over and over, deeply and roughly, as if he wanted to stay inside her for all time. “Charlotte, sielamet, you have to feel this. You have to know this is real between us. The start of us.”

She took a breath. There was no looking away from his eyes, so dark with lust and passion. His desire raw and possessive, but so much more. The more caught at her, robbed her of what little air she’d managed to draw in. He looked at her as if she were the only woman in the world. No one had ever looked at her that way and the thing was – she believed him.

It was incredibly naïve and silly to believe a sophisticated, very wealthy, gorgeous man who was photographed with countless women on his arm, but she did.

“Charlotte.” He tugged at her hair, a reminder to answer him. All the while his cock slammed home hard, jarring her, sending fire streaking through her and building that volcano inside her so high she thought she might implode. “Do you feel it?”

“Yes.” She hissed the word, her need audible.

“Yes what?”

“Yes I feel it,” she admitted softly, because it was the stark truth. “The beginning of you and me.”

Satisfaction etched into the handsome face, and gentled the blaze in his eyes.

She couldn’t lean in to kiss him, because he still had a fistful of her hair. The sharp bite in her scalp drove her a little mad for him. “You are so beautiful.” She gave him that because she had to. She had to tell him. It wasn’t just his physical looks – and truthfully, he’d been gifted far beyond the normal – it was what she found in his mind.