The Prince of Pleasure (6 page)

Khan's arms tightened around Laurel as her lips met his.

She tasted like honey, warmed by a summer sun. Her mouth was as soft as rose petals.

The taste of it, the feel of it, had haunted his dreams since the night he'd made love to her.

Except, she was right.

They hadn't made love, they'd had sex.

Now, she was his to savor.

His hand slid to the base of her spine. He drew her closer against him, speared the fingers of his other hand deep into her hair.

She sighed into his mouth and pressed her body tightly against his. He could feel every delicate curve of her against him.

Khan tiled her head back. Changed the angle of the kiss, the depth of it. He could not imagine ever getting enough of the woman in his arms.

She moaned. Rose as high as she could against him, framed his face with her hands.

He nipped lightly at her bottom lip. She gave a breathless little whimper of pleasure. He exalted in the sound, soothed the tiny wound with the tip of his tongue, groaned when she sucked his tongue into her mouth.

In an instant, he went from wanting to prolong these first steps of the most ancient of dances to wanting to be inside her.

His body was on fire.

Slow down,
he told himself.
Give her what you were too selfish to give her last time.

"Khan," she said, whispering his name against his lips.

He loved how she said his name. It made his need for her burn even hotter.

She moved against him. All that warmth. That soft suppleness. She fisted her hands in his hair and he groaned again, a man in the most exquisite kind of pain.

He was not just hard.

He was like granite.

He'd always enjoyed women and sex and he'd had his fair share of both…

Why be modest? He'd had more beautiful women and fantastic sex than many men, perhaps more than most.

And yet, he could not recall wanting a woman as he wanted this one… but no. Not this way. Not tonight. Not fast and rough the way it had been that first time…

But she was tugging at his jacket.

"Laurel," he said, catching her wrists, bringing her hands to his lips, kissing her fingers, her palms. " Wait."

She tugged her hands free of his. The top buttons of his shirt were undone; she slid one hand inside the narrow opening. His breath caught in his throat at the feel of her fingers on his skin.

"Laurel," he said again, his voice harsh with warning.

"Khan." Her eyes, wild and blurry, met his. "I want to touch you." 

The plea, the honesty of her desire, turned him blind to everything but need.

He shrugged off his jacket; let it fall to the floor. Fumbled with the buttons on his shirt, cursed when his fingers seemed too clumsy to undo them, and tore the shirt open.

Laurel caught her breath. She had fantasized how he would look without clothes but the reality of him was better than any fantasy.

He was everything she had ever dreamed of.

Wide, muscled shoulders. Powerful biceps. Dark, silky curls over his chest.

She placed her palms against that chest.

He cried out, a sound of tightly-controlled pleasure.

It sent a shiver of anticipation through her.

His skin was hot, his muscles hard. She loved the feel of him under her hands, the knowledge that all this carefully-controlled masculine power belonged to her.

She leaned forward, her hair falling around her face, and pressed her open mouth to his sternum.

He hissed like a cat.

Like the leopard whose name was part of his title.

Those elegant titles that suddenly had all the meaning they were meant to have for a man who was strong and beautiful and in his prime.

She lifted her head. Kissed his throat, tasted the salt tang in the deep, pulsing hollow of it. Rose on her toes, again, put her mouth to his.

Khan growled.

Clasped her shoulders.

Pushed her robe back, the sleeves trapping her arms, the front opening wide…

Ah, dear God!

She was naked. 

And beautiful. Incredibly beautiful.

Her breasts were lovely. Rounded. Rose-tipped. She moaned when he stroked a finger lightly over one of them, circling its fullness, drawing closer and closer to its budded crest.

"Please," she whispered.

"Not yet," he said, his voice thick and rough and hot with promise.

The tip of his finger barely grazed her nipple. She moaned, arched toward him, her lashes making dark shadows against her cheeks. 

"Please," she said again.

His emerald gaze locked on her face. He could feel the tension coiling inside him.

"Look at me," he demanded.

Laurel's lashes rose. Her eyes were as blue and deep as the Sapphire Sea; her mouth trembled.

Lightly, he stroked her nipples with his thumbs. She jerked against his hands, trembled at his touch.

"Do you like me to do this?"

He knew the answer but he wanted to hear it. Wanted to watch her as he rolled her nipples between his thumbs and forefingers. Her response was everything a man could hope for; she was everything a man could hope for.

He wanted the moment to last forever, to be etched in her memory and his so that this night would be something carried forward in time.

"Khan."

She said his name in a voice ragged with hunger. She reached for him, but her arms were still caught in the sleeves of her robe. She made an impatient sound, started trying to free herself…

He reached behind her, caught her hands, held her captive to his desire.

There was nothing she could do to stop him from bending his head and closing his lips around one tightly-furled nipple. He sucked at it. Scraped at it gently with his teeth.

She was panting. Struggling against his hand.

Khan lifted his head. Looked at her face, saw the color in her cheeks, the flare of her nostrils…

And turned his attention to her other breast. Kissing the nipple. Licking it. Blowing softly against the dampened, sensitized flesh.

She gave a long, keening cry of ecstasy.

He groaned.

Gritted his teeth.

Silently repeated the mantra.
Wait. Wait. Wait.

Slowly, he undid the robe's sash. 

The robe parted. Now, all of her was bared to his eyes.

"Look at you," he whispered thickly. "Look at how exquisite you are."

It was the only word to describe her. 

Her body was an elegant study in curves and angles, her waist narrow, her hips lushly feminine. Dark curls marked the apex of her thighs; her legs were long and lovely, and he remembered how she'd wrapped them around him the night he'd taken her against the door.

He bent his head to hers, took her mouth in a deep kiss, promising her everything she desired with his lips and tongue.

Her taste was the dark wine of the vineyards in the foothills of the Finarian Mountains, but a hundred times richer.

And as sweet as this torment was, he knew that he had to end it.

He freed her hands.

She sighed his name, rose to him, wound her arms around his neck and arched against him as he kissed her.

He was almost at the edge of sanity.

He had to bury himself inside her.

He pushed her robe off her shoulders.

She reached for his belt, sobbing with frustration when she couldn't open it.

His hands joined hers.

Together, they undid the buckle.

Her hand fell away and he drew down his zipper. His erection pushed against his shorts. She reached out. He caught her hand, and a groan tore from his throat.

"Laurel," he said, the single word filled with warning. "If you touch me… If you touch me…"

She cupped her hand over the straining cotton fabric, and he knew he was done for. Quickly, he swept her up in his arms, kissed her and asked the only question that mattered.

"Where?"

There was a sofa on the opposite wall but he didn’t want to take her there. He wanted to take her to bed, as he should have that first time.

Laurel clasped her hands at the nape of his neck.

"Down the hall. At the very end."

The room he brought her to was small and shadowed, lit only by a small lamp near the door.

Later, he would see that her bedroom was almost surprisingly old fashioned. Silk wallpaper. Polished, dark wood floor. White drapes and white furniture.

Now, all that mattered was the four-poster bed that awaited him and the woman in his arms.

Slowly, he set her on her feet, relishing the feel of her hands sliding down his chest, the stroke of her breasts, belly and thighs against his.

"This is what I wanted that first time," he said softly. "Forgive me for not—"

Her lips curved in a soft smile. She took his hand, brought it to her lips and kissed his palm.

"Make love to me," she whispered.

Eyes locked to hers, he put his thumbs in the waistband of his Jockeys, drew them down and stepped free of them.

Her gaze swept the length of his body, paused, then leaped to his face. Her lips were parted; he could see the rapidity of her breathing in the rise and fall of her breasts.

He had not imagined being more aroused than he already was but when he saw her reaction to his erection, he grew even harder. Was that apprehension in her eyes? He was big; he knew that. It was the kind of foolish thing a man took pride in but—

He took her hand, brought it to him. Bit back a groan at the delicate brush of her fingers against his flesh.

Her hand curved around him.

This time, he couldn't stop the sound that rumbled from his throat.

She stepped closer. Closer still. She stood on her toes and, holding him, brought him to the juncture of her thighs.

Her eyes closed.

Her head fell back.

She whispered his name.

That was when he knew he was lost.

"Now," he said, and he tumbled onto the bed with her. She dug her hands into his biceps as he settled between her thighs, and he thrust into her.

Laurel gasped in frenzied joy, lifted her hips and met him, thrust for thrust.

He filled her, filled her with his size, his heat, his hunger, but it wasn't enough. How could it be enough when she had dreamed of this all week, ached for his possession even as she'd told herself she never wanted to see him again?

She felt her body stretching,  her heart racing, her soul soaring to take all of him inside her, within her, around her even as he drove her higher, up and up and up until she found herself standing  on a precipice that looked out over the moon, the stars, the universe.

Khan drew back one last time, then surged forward.

He groaned her name; she sobbed his.

Then he spilled himself inside her and she wrapped her arms around him, drew him tight against her, and wept.

********

Tears?

Khan felt them, hot on his neck.

 Not a good thing, he thought, his heart dropping, until Laurel sighed, turned her face, and kissed the hollow of his throat.

His lips curved.

"Good tears, then," he said softly.

She nodded. He closed his eyes as her silky curls slid gently over his jaw.

"Sorry. I don't know why I—"

In one easy motion, his arms still around her, he rolled onto his side and smiled at her.

"It's the best compliment you could have given me, sweetheart. Thank you."

"I've never—I mean, crying like that isn't—I mean—"

She was blushing. It was a lovely thing to see.

"An even more welcome compliment," he said solemnly, and when the color in her face didn't ease, he said, "My people  have an old saying. When a woman weeps with happiness in her lover's arms, fortune has surely smiled on him."

She looked at him, her eyebrows delicately arched.

"You made that up."

He grinned. "Maybe."

She laughed softly, put her palm against his face and stroked the end-of-day stubble on his jaw. "Mmm," she said. "I like the feel of that."

"In that case, I'll grow a beard."

She laughed again. Her laugh was lovely, open and honest and generous.

"Stubble isn't the same as a beard, Lord Khan."

He caught one of her fingers between his teeth, gave it a playful nip.

"Exactly what a prince needs," he said with a mock scowl. "A woman who knows the proper way to address him, at all times."

Laurel stuck out her tongue. Khan bent quickly, met it with the tip of his own tongue. Her eyes turned an ever deeper shade of blue.

"I love the way you taste," he whispered. "Like fine wine."

"Is that a good thing?" she whispered back, and threaded her hand into his thick, dark hair.

He shifted against her. She gasped, arched her hips at the feel of him, hot and hard and instantly swollen.

"It is a very good thing," he said, kissing her mouth, her throat, her breasts. "An excellent thing."

"Khan," she said, his name a long, lovely sigh, and he moved over her, entered her, and took her with him, again, on that long, wonderful journey to the stars.

********

She fell asleep in his arms.

He lay in a bed too short for him, in a room softly lit by a lamp when he could not sleep in anything but absolute darkness, the muscles in his shoulder cramping.

He raised his arm, just enough so he could see his watch.

It was three in the morning.

He had an early meeting tomorrow, with a realtor. Caleb had made the arrangements at the same time he'd given him Laurel's address.

He added up all the excellent reasons he had to slip from her bed and go home.

And, of course, there was one more reason, the best one of them all.

He never stayed the entire night in a woman's bed. 

It led to complications, the simplest of which was The Morning After. He'd done it a few times when he was in university and then in graduate school, and the memory still made him shudder.

The only good thing about The Morning After was early morning sex.