Midnight in the Desert Collection. Оливия ГейтсЧитать онлайн книгу.
peeling the damp silk from her legs as he pressed kisses to her ankles, to the backs of her knees, to the inside of each thigh.
And, just when she was gasping in anticipation and expectation, he lifted himself and eased the bunched fabric over her hips, sliding his hands up either side of her waist and past her sensitive breasts, freeing her of the gown, before raining kisses on her eyes, nose and mouth, her shoulders, breasts and every part of her. With every silken touch of his fingers, every magical glide of his hands on her skin, every hot kiss of his mouth, her fever built, until a tear slipped unbidden from the corner of each eye.
The moment was as poignant as it was bittersweet. For she had dreamed of a night like this so very many times. She had dreamed of him returning to her, of admitting he had made a mistake, of begging her forgiveness, and in a thousand different ways, in a thousand different scenarios, she had welcomed him back.
She had dreamed of a magical night when he would return and say he was sorry, that he had been wrong and that he loved her. And she would take his hand, place it on her ripe belly and tell him that it was his child inside her, created in an act of love.
Until finally she would realise that he was never coming back, that he would never seek her out. That it was finished.
And yet, even though she knew nothing ultimately would change, he was here now—and even if it wasn’t what she had longed for, even if it would never be enough, it was something.
‘You are the beauty,’ she heard him say, and she opened liquid eyes to see him kneeling back and staring down at her, his eyes filled with what looked like worship. Yet still she waited, breathless with wondering if he might still notice the changes to her body since they’d last lain together, the changes that motherhood to his child had wrought. ‘So beautiful,’ he repeated.
She held out a hand to him to pull him down and end this desperate need. ‘Please make love to me, Bahir.’
He surprised her by taking her hand, turning it in his and kissing her palm, saying, ‘I will. But first …’ before he let her hand go to skim his hands up the inside of her legs, parting them, pushing them apart to dip his head lower.
She gasped when she realised his intention, and not only in anticipation of the pleasures to come. But they had so very little time and she had expected him to take his pleasure as many times as he could. She had not expected him to want to spend his time giving it. Besides, as much as she had missed the pleasures his wicked mouth could bring, it was the feel of him inside her that she craved.
‘Bahir,’ she cried as he wrapped his arms around her thighs and opened her to him. ‘Please.’
But her pleas were answered by the heated swipe of his tongue along her cleft, and the arch of her spine in response. ‘Oh God,’ she cried as his tongue made magic with every flick, sending her senses reeling with no time to recover before his lips closed on that tiny nub of nerves, drawing her into his mouth and teasing her senseless with the skill of an artisan—a man who knew exactly what she needed and when.
‘Please!’ she called, knowing she was already lost, not knowing what she called for.
But he knew. At the hitched peak of her pleasure she felt his fingers join his mouth, pleasuring her inside and out and sending her over the brink.
And that was how it ended, in a million shattering ways, in a million different colours. Years of ecstasy foregone forged into one shattering rainbow moment as she climaxed all around him.
He had always been the best, she thought as the tremors rolled away. Nothing had changed, it seemed, she registered in the pleasure-filled recesses of her mind.
He pulled her into his kiss as she returned to earth. She tasted herself on him, tasted hot sex, heated desire and his burning need, and that need fed into hers, needing him inside her now more than ever.
‘God, you look sexy like that,’ she heard him say as he drew back. ‘Do you have any idea how much I want you?’
She smiled up at him and thought through flickering eyelids about protection, was just about to say something, but he was already reaching across her to retrieve his wallet from a side table, extracting a packet that he tore open impatiently with his teeth. ‘Just as well one of us is responsible.’
She blinked, the fog in her blown-apart world clearing. ‘What did you say?’ she asked, not sure she’d heard him right, not sure she’d understood what he’d meant if she had.
He rolled the condom down his length, his erection bucking and protesting its latex confines in his hand. ‘I said …’ he dropped back over her, nuzzling a pebbled nipple with his hot mouth as he moved his legs between hers ‘… it’s lucky one of us can think straight.’
She stilled, the magic his mouth producing negated by the toxic content of his words. ‘You think I’m irresponsible.’
‘I didn’t say that,’ he said, before finding her other breast with his teeth, angling his hips for her centre.
‘You did,’ she said, squirming her hips up the bed and away from his attempts to join her. ‘That’s what you meant—that you were responsible because you thought about protection. You said I was lucky you’d thought of it.’
‘It’s not important!’
‘It is important, if that’s what you think.’
‘Marina, don’t do this. I didn’t mean anything.’
‘But you did! You think I’m irresponsible, don’t you? Just because you mentioned protection before I did. You assume I was never going to ask.’
‘Come on, Marina, you’re hardly the poster girl for safe sex.’
‘And you’re the poster boy, I suppose?’
‘I’m not the one with two illegitimate children. I would have thought you’d be happy not to be lumbered with a third.’
Blood rushed to her head at the sheer injustice in his words, pounding in her temples, a call to war. ‘How dare you?’ she cried, twisting her body underneath him, pushing at him with her hands and pounding him with her fists, desperate to get away. ‘How dare you talk about my children and say that I’m irresponsible? Get off me!’
‘Listen!’ he said, grabbing one wrist before it could find its target on his shoulder. ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’
She glared up at him, her eyes blazing. ‘That’s too easy. You’re what’s wrong with me. I told you this was a mistake. I knew it was. I’m just sorry I didn’t realise how big a mistake until now.’
‘I wouldn’t worry on that score,’ he said through gritted teeth as he rolled away and let her go so that she could clamber from the bed and swipe up her gown from the floor. ‘It won’t happen again.’
She tugged the gown over her head, shrugging, uncaring when she realised that the seams were on the outside, already heading for the door. ‘You better believe it.’
If the flight thus far had been unbearable, the flight to Pisa was torturous, the atmosphere so strained that this time even the cabin attendants sensed the tension in the cabin and left them alone as much as possible. The lack of distractions was no help at all. Marina put her book down again in frustration, wondering if this flight would ever end. She’d tried to read the same passage at least a dozen times now and still the words didn’t stick.
But how could anything stick in a mind already overflowing with self-recrimination and loathing? She hated that she had let herself fall under Bahir’s heated spell last night. She hated that he had peeled away every shred of logic, accumulated wisdom and life experience that she possessed, just as easily as he had peeled her nightgown from her body.
She hated herself that she had let him.
And when she remembered the way she had come apart in his bed, she wanted to curl up and die. Oh God, how could she look at herself in the mirror? But one thing she knew. She