Chapter Twenty-four #4
He had also told himself that he was doing this for the girl.
True, he was the one benefiting by her dilemma, but he wasn’t going to lose too much sleep over that, for she would benefit, too, in the long run.
He had thought long and hard about it the first night he’d seen her, and had finally concluded that if he didn’t take her for himself, Jamil would when he returned.
She would then be just one of so many, a circumstance that he knew any Englishwoman with a lick of pride would find utterly abhorrent.
Then, too, Jamil’s heart was already taken.
Derek just couldn’t see such an exquisite beauty taking second place to anyone.
She deserved to be loved and cherished, and this way she would be found a husband for herself.
Derek could insist it be a man with no other wives. He could do that much for her.
But that was for the future. Right now he had probably just frightened the daylights out of her, and he wanted nothing more than to explain that it wasn’t intentional, that he had simply lost control of his passion.
Only, Jamil wouldn’t explain his actions, especially not to a woman.
But Derek could make amends in other ways.
He sighed and bent his forehead to hers. Her breathing had quieted, but she was stiff in his arms.
“Shall we try this again?”
She immediately strained against him. “No, please—”
“Shh, little moon. I can be gentle, too. Put your arms around my neck and I will show you.”
“I don’t want—”
“Do it, Shahar.”
He regretted the tone that made her leap to obey him, but Christ, this was pure torture, denying himself for so long. Much longer, and he was going to forget his good intentions. He had to reach her. He had to make her want him, now, before his natural inclinations took over.
Chantelle braced herself for the onslaught of his mouth again as it lowered toward hers.
She felt his breath instead, and then his tongue, whisper-soft, smoothing over her upper lip, then the lower, soothing the soreness from his previous kiss.
One hand was holding her head again, but the other had come up to warm her cheek.
He leaned back and she caught the full potency of his emerald gaze. For some reason, it made her feel strange this time, almost as if his mouth were still pressed to her belly, causing that trembling inside.
And then his forefinger was tracing the same path his tongue had. “Open, Shahar. I want you to feel what it is like when a part of me is inside you.”
“But—”
His finger slipped inside her mouth the moment she opened it to protest. Her natural reaction was to close her lips against it and try to push it out with her tongue.
“Be still.” His lips rested on the corner of her mouth.
His finger was moving against her tongue, acquainting her with the salty taste of it.
“I want you to suck on it…no, Shahar, don’t question my motives.
Forget what you have been told in training.
It is my tongue I want you to accept in your mouth, no more than that.
But you must know what to do with it when it is there.
” At her groan, he smiled. “No one has instructed you about kissing yet, have they? I imagine they were only concerned with one thing. But kissing comes first, Shahar…or would you rather we move on to the lessons you have learned?”
She immediately began sucking on his finger. She heard his deep chuckle but didn’t care. And then, before she knew it, his mouth had covered her lips and she was sucking on his tongue instead.
“Gently,” he said after a moment. “Yes, now try to catch it.” He began plunging his tongue in and out and around, so she couldn’t get a grip on it. “Now give me yours.”
The sounds she was making deep in her throat only he heard.
She was obeying him mindlessly, caught up in something she had no control over.
How long it lasted she didn’t know, but finally she was aware of something other than the rushing, roiling maelstrom inside her.
She was aware of his hand where it shouldn’t be.
“How is it you were able to keep this soft bush, little moon?”
She moaned in embarrassment, trying to hide her heated face in his shoulder.
And she felt the fingers delving into the curls, touching that most intimate part of her body.
It was too much. She went cold, suddenly remembering everything about him that she despised.
How could she have let him do these things to her?
She should have resisted from the very beginning, and the devil take the consequences.
“Don’t!” she gasped, reaching for his forearm to yank it away from her.
He let her, but when she tried to rise from his lap, his arms locked around her. “What is it, Shahar?”
“I can’t do this!” she cried, squirming desperately now to break his hold. “I hoped I could, but I just can’t, not with you. Please, let me go!”
If she hadn’t said “not with you,” Derek might have tried to calm her.
But he was remembering the same thing she was, her meeting with his brother, and how Jamil’s actions had appalled and disgusted her.
It was going to take more than one meeting with her to make her forget her first impression.
Only that meant letting her walk out of here now, when he was aching so badly to have her that he could barely think straight.
Understandably, his voice was rather harsh, as were his hands on her arms as he pushed her away from him. “Go, and do it quickly, before I change my mind.”