Redeemed By Her Innocence / Sheikh's Royal Baby Revelation. Annie West

stared at him, and when he didn’t move she twisted out of his grasp and put her hands on his face, framing his mouth. She registered the surprise in his eyes, and heard the burst of black laughter that spilled from his throat.

      ‘You are impatient, aren’t you?’

      But as she opened her mouth to speak he grabbed her wrists and tugged them down to her sides. Her back arched and her breasts protruded and he growled and then finally, finally he placed his hot harsh kiss on her mouth. And his lips were hard and soft and wet and warm and she began to drown in each moment as the tug to have more and more began to tear at her. Then his tongue teased her lips apart, and now they duelled, and she gasped as another sharp tug built at her core. One of his hands now held her wrists, the other he trailed to her jaw, holding her steady.

      ‘So we’re clear—you’ll not set this pace. That’s not how things roll.’

      She had never done anything more than kiss or caress a man. And she knew that none of the kisses or caresses had ever felt like this. Being close to him, the anticipation, each single moment was like a lifetime love affair in itself. The pleasure and pain of waiting, the exquisite heat that was building and building. She was emboldened. She was sexually confident in a way she’d never been before, she’d never known this language, these words and phrases, and she was desperate to start to converse.

      ‘You don’t really believe that,’ she said, finding her voice. ‘We both know who’s really in control here.’

      ‘You’re deluded, Jacquelyn. You’re mine. And I will do anything I want with you.’

      ‘Anything?’ she laughed.

      She could barely keep the shivering desire from her voice. In the fleeting seconds she saw that she was in a new world. She’d never given away control of her body before, never fully relaxed.

      Sex had once seemed part of a wonderful world that she would one day be given a map to arrive at. Then, it became this giant immovable structure that dominated everything, everywhere she looked, everyone was part of it and she was locked out.

      She was tired of being the one on the outside. She wanted to know. She wanted to know so badly and she wanted to know now, tonight, with Nikos.

      She didn’t want to think about tomorrow, there was only now.

      ‘I think you’d succumb to pretty much anything I asked.’

      But still he did nothing other than glaze her with his eyes. Her spine felt bent as a bow, strung out, and his body was going to be the instrument that she played. She was almost reverberating with the tension of holding back. She longed to sing and throb and climb the heights with him. But she wasn’t going to break and beg.

      ‘You think very highly of yourself, don’t you?’ she asked, her voice tremulous and she knew he heard it too, because he smiled even more devilishly.

      ‘When it comes to lovemaking? I think we both know the answer to that. You wouldn’t be here if you didn’t think the same.’

      ‘Well, what are you waiting for?’ she said.

      ‘Good question.’

      Then he bent his head low, to the exposed column of her neck. And she could see the crown of his head, the thick, dark crop of his hair. He released her wrist and she sank her fingers into his hair, holding him to her neck, her décolletage, her breasts. He growled as he nuzzled first one nipple, then the other. She heard a song in her own throat, a call from her heart.

      Hungry, thirsty, greedy for every last bit of this man, she ran her hands over his head and down to his shoulders. She filled her palms with his muscle and drank deeply of the very air around him, the hot, humid night, the sky now bands of orange and mauve and the sun a tiny ball of gold sinking out of sight.

      And like an addict craving more and more, she could not seem to get enough of his tongue, his lips, the pleasure he brought. She marvelled at the solid mass of muscle across his shoulders, ached to touch the skin beneath and slid her fingers to the buttons to begin her greedy exploration.

      ‘Let’s get comfortable,’ he said, standing and scooping her up in his arms in one smooth movement.

      Her laptop slid from the seat, from the corner of her eye she saw it land and fold, and as it hit the ground her heart sank with a moment of dread, as she remembered why she was really here and thought of what was still to come—the unfinished presentation, the half-baked plan…

      But it was only a moment, a fleeting grey cloud of worry in this dazzling sky, and was gone, because she was up in his arms, her vision now his solid chest and the retreating terrace with all the ornaments of their brewing passion, the whisky bottle, the dining table, the half-drunk glasses of wine, the coffee pot, untouched, the candles flickering in the late evening breeze, to the billowing curtains of the daybed…

      And then down she was placed. Soft mattress, cream curtains all around, tiny lights within the canopy like some fairy-tale chamber and there, proud and male and staring down at her like the warrior returned, Nikos.

      She sat up on her elbows as he leaned over her and their lips found each other in a new familiarity. His tongue claimed hers, hot breath and wet mouths, his scent, his skin, his utterly irresistible Nikos-ness had her scrabbling up, holding him while he pulled off his shirt.

      And then she saw what she had needed to see, and he was magnificent and marvellous and she felt as if she was reeling at the sight. His shoulders, broad and golden, and biceps, inked and hard, and his chest, wide and dark, and his nipples, small and flat and beaded, and it was there her tongue went, as her hands touched and stroked and grabbed and she filled all of her senses with this man.

      What on earth had she been imagining? Not this! This was so much more, so wonderful. The more male he was, the more she felt her own femininity, the more emboldened she was. So this was making love. She was awake and alive for the first time in her life.

      She felt his arms slide under her shoulders; her legs wrapped around his waist as if they had a hundred times before.

      ‘Take your dress off,’ he said in a growl.

      His words splashed water on her fever, and she slid back from the discovery of his body to look up into his face. For a moment he looked distant, his eyes dark and impassioned, as if the fire that burned was darker now, and the light behind his eyes was almost out.

      For one horrible second a laser point of fear burned in her heart. She was on fire with lust, dishevelled, her dress around her waist, her breasts soaked with his mouth, her nipples taut, but the sweetness had gone, the sense that something uniquely special was building between them. Now she could be anyone lying here in this chamber.

      She could still stop this now. She could roll over, fix her clothes, run back to the terrace, collect her laptop and turn back into the person she really was. She had her life, her business, her family name, her little courtyard and her shop. She was never going to be this woman again. She had opened the door but she didn’t need to run through it.

      But then he moved. Back. He stepped back as if he sensed what she was thinking. He pulled out of the fiery circle that had been burning around them and she felt the chill of that. Was he having second thoughts? His eyes were trained on her but it was concern she saw there; she saw it and she scorned it. She didn’t want his concern, or anybody else’s.

      She was sick of being Jacquelyn Jones. She was sick of being the devoted daughter whose only goal in life was to replicate the goals of all the people who came before her. She was sick of waiting for a fantasy that hadn’t come true. This was her fantasy now—here in Greece, in the villa of one of Europe’s best lovers, and she would never be here again…

      In a moment she was up on her knees. She threw her arms around his neck and she found his mouth and she kissed him with everything she had.

      He paused, he stilled, and then the fire erupted in seconds, the roar of his voice and the cry from her throat as he, one-handed, laid her down, and unfastened his belt and flies and she scrambled out of