The Desert Lord's Bride / Wed by Deception: The Desert Lord's Bride. Emilie Rose

down their length, following the outline of each bone and joint, mapping the pattern of each crease and line, testing the resilience of each pad of flesh. She lay back, enveloped in his sister’s cool, white cotton sundress, drenched in the cold sweat of stimulation, tormented, hypersensitive and praying that he’d never stop exposing her to his attention and appreciation.

      Suddenly she interrupted his account about the neighboring Damhoor. “I had no idea hands could be erogenous zones…”

      She started to bite her lip, stopped, sighed. They’d been talking almost nonstop for the past twenty hours, all but for the half hour she’d left to change and shower, followed by two separate half hours when he’d left her to do the same and then take care of other details. He was beyond certain by now that she had no filtering system in her brain to stop inappropriate comments from gushing through uncensored—and he kept assuring her he loved it.

      His smile knocked her breath from her. Ever since she’d accepted his invitation to go home with him, she’d sensed some change in him. A new intensity. As if he’d been holding back and had let go. It had worried her. For about a nanosecond.

      She trusted him, wanted him to feel as intensely about her as she did about him. And his intensity had so many levels and textures, it felt like a deep ocean she could plunge into forever, exploring and experiencing, and never come close to fathoming.

      “And I had no idea just holding your hands could awaken new erogenous areas, in both my body and brain.” Her heat shot up another notch at his confession. She was already addicted to how open he was about his feelings, too. He took her hand to his lips, flicked his tongue lightly along her lifeline. She hoped he wasn’t shortening said life’s expectancy. He had her squirming before he withdrew. “And by the way, we’ve arrived.”

      She twisted around to peer out the window. They were descending, approaching his island. It was shaped like an irregular kidney, with its concave side harboring bright emerald waters, its outer curve surrounded by much darker ones. In the noon sun its wraparound beaches shone almost silver, pristine except where mangroves covered them in areas on the convex side. The jet was now flying over one apex of the island, just above a low, huge building that overlooked a bay. Dense palm trees and what looked like all sorts of desert flora surrounded it on three sides. The jet was flying over other annexed structures heading to the other end of the island when it hit her.

      She turned to him, exclaimed, “It’s a real island.”

      His smile grew wicked. “That was the general idea when I said it was. You know, land surrounded on all sides by water.”

      She gave him a playful poke. “So I’m geographically challenged, but not to that extent. I thought it would be one of those tiny morsels of land advertised on the Internet as private islands. But this is just…just wow. How big is it?”

      She had no idea why, but her eyes dragged down his body until they stumbled on the bulge in his pants. She snatched them up only to find his gaze had been investigating the path of her fascination before it came up, steamy, challenging.