Chapter 19
“You are nervous.”
Rachid did not say it in a way that Aicha should have taken offence at. There was no humour hidden beneath his tongue as he spoke; instead, she perceived it as a gentle observation. As if voicing it would ease the tension in her body. It did.
“A little,” she admitted, breath hitching in her throat as Rachid’s fingers trailed across her arm.
It was something he had done thousands of times, and always with the same patience and desire. Except this time, it would lead somewhere—and the fire that hummed in the pit of her stomach would not need to be doused out by cold water.
The lone candle that illuminated the room was the only light they had. Outside, the moon had emerged, and Aicha was sure that it was past midnight.
“I could describe what I would like to do to you.” His tone was warm, gliding across the shell of her ear.
“Go on…” she pressed, voice barely above a whisper.
Rachid bent over her shoulder, lips grazing the curve of her throat up to beneath her jaw. “I would begin with kissing your neck, like the many times I’ve done before.”
His fingers pulled apart the wrappings that kept her hair out of her face. “Then I would run my fingers through your hair, slowly.”
The strands tickled her skin, eliciting goosebumps as it tumbled down her back and she momentarily closed her eyes.
Rachid circled her, moving to stand chest to chest as the pads of his fingers ran along her bottom lip.
His eyes focused on any detail he could, and Aicha believed he was committing every crease in her eye, every small scar on her cheek, to memory.
“I would lay you across the bedroll, unlacing your clothing until nothing was left.” Her chest blazed with a hunger that she did not know how to sate.
She took an unsteady breath as he bent low to place a kiss beneath her earlobe.
“While you begin to breathe heavily, I would dip my fingers into you, slowly, feeling how damp you have become for me.”
He was yet to touch her with his hands, and she could only feel the ridge of his nose dancing across her neck. Tilting her head backwards, she felt her thighs clench with a feeling that had only made itself known when Rachid’s hands became carried away with her in the past.
“Then I would taste you while you wrapped your legs around my head, until you could neither think nor feel anything that was not the pleasure I dragged from you. I’d have to use my fingers too, pushing them inside you so that you can be ready for me.
” His voice had become deeper with want, strained and on the precipice of losing sense.
She could feel the deep set of his jaw against her own as he fought for control, much like her.
When Rachid leaned back, watching her with a gaze that promised so much more than what he’d already said, she found herself edging towards desperation.
“And then what?”
“Kiss me and find out.”
Pulling hard at the collar of his worn tunic, Aicha kissed him deeply. It had momentarily taken Rachid off guard, not anticipating the level of strength she would pull with, and in her lustful, hazed mind she lost the ability to laugh at it all.
But he responded with the same fervour that she felt.
His lips were softer than usual, she realised, provoking a hot buzz of excitement across her skin.
His mouth was hot, wasting no time as his tongue slipped between her lips.
It was done without thought, as if second nature, and Aicha opened her mouth as she craned her neck for him.
There was a hint of desperation in his kiss, an urgency that if they stopped he would never be able to taste her again.
Aicha moved one of her hands to touch his jaw, the pads of her fingers pressing into the skin and stubble.
The fullness of his lips pressing against hers, as her tongue ran along the curve of his own, released a heated slickness between her thighs.
No words were reciprocated as he leaned in, his fingers pressing into the back of her neck in a way that was deeply familiar.
Because Rachid had already learned each crease and dimple of her skin, but they had never got past the point of heated kisses.
What followed was new terrain for Aicha, though the same could not be said for Rachid, and for once instead of potent jealousy, she felt relief that he knew how to navigate this for her.
His fingers moved deftly to her trousers, pulling at the leather laces roughly as she tasted his tongue.
Impatience surged through Aicha despite his swiftness, and she pulled her face back by millimetres to whisper urgently against his lips.
“Rip it open.”
She should have reddened at the desperation that edged into her voice, but the breathless short chuckle that escaped Rachid had her casting her embarrassment aside. It made her laugh, too, and eased her nerves. He was always so good at that.
She felt the loss of his hands as he released her neck, the absence unwelcome as he reached for the dagger he kept sheathed at his waist, drawing the blade and swiftly ripping the fabric of her tunic directly down her chest. A laugh escaped Aicha in both surprise and delight at the eagerness in Rachid’s movement as he sliced away the laces that held her breeches together.
Rachid stepped forward once more, dropping the knife, to place a pattern of kisses across her collarbones as he pushed her tunic from her shoulders.
Shivers racked her body as the cold air touched her wet skin following each kiss, and she hungered for Rachid in a way she could not recognise.
Left her parched, grabbing for him as only he could quench her thirst.
His fingers reached down to her waist, pushing her trousers down until they slid to the floor and pooled at her bare feet.
Anticipation lashed from the depths of her stomach, and she felt another clench between her thighs at the sudden tug of his hands as he pulled her down to the bedroll.
He hovered over her, and her nervousness became intertwined with hot eagerness as Rachid’s fingers caressed her bare thighs, the skin soft as he slowed his pace.
She almost found it tortuous, her veins alight with both fire and ice.
“You are so beautiful.” His callused pads trailed across her inner thighs as he leaned forward, and Aicha released a soft, broken sigh as she let her head drop back.
Her eyes closed in anticipation as she spread her thighs wide for him, nodding for permission he had not asked for with words, but with his touch.
“Every scar, every mark, every spot on your skin,” he murmured. “So beautiful. I am a lucky fool.”
Rachid’s nose nudged against the seam of her opening, the dampness coating his skin as he mumbled.
Aicha ached, desperate for the feeling of him between her thighs. She gasped, her pleasure woven between strands of nervousness. He anticipated this, thumb rubbing at her knee. “I will only do what you want me to.”
Aicha’s answer was to press her pelvis closer to him.
He moved back up towards her, capturing her lips in another heated kiss that made her restless.
Her breath left her as he slowly slipped his middle finger inside her, catching her off guard.
The pain was instantaneous, and Rachid hesitated, beginning to withdraw his finger.
Aicha ceased her kisses and gripped onto his wrist before letting out a breathless “no” to halt the withdrawal.
Her head fell back at the sensation of his finger curling inside her. It dragged a moan from her.
“You are soaked, habiba,” Rachid mumbled, his lips grazing her cheek, and the deep baritone in his voice vibrated against her skin. “I cannot wait to taste you.”
She clenched around him, causing a groan as he began to move his finger, practised and assured, in a curling motion inside her. It was as if he knew exactly where to caress with the pad of his finger, his rhythm steady, and applying just the right amount of pressure to set her nerves on fire.
“R-Rachid,” she gasped, and the use of his name had him releasing a pained groan of his own. Feeling his hardness up against her inner thigh, Aicha pulled herself closer to him by gripping onto his hair, one leg wrapping around his waist. “Don’t stop.”
He used his thumb to caress the skin between her folds, collecting her wetness and teasing her until he located the bundle of nerves.
Aicha’s fingers tightened in his hair, and she arched her back, unable to hide the sound of pleasure that tumbled from her lips.
The corner of Rachid’s mouth tilted upwards in a smirk.
Shivers racked her body at the sensation of both his finger and thumb coaxing waves of pleasures from her.
As her back arched, Aicha felt a shudder burn through her and a low thrum of heat simmering in the deepest corner of her stomach.
Edging closer to the surface in a way that was so abruptly new she found herself unable to explain her need to chase it, and clenched around Rachid’s finger.
She caught his eyes before he smiled playfully and dropped his head to place kisses in the valley between her breasts.
His hands never ceased their movement as his lips danced across her bare stomach.
Aicha bucked her hips, and Rachid’s low, heated voice burnt through her haze. “What do you need?”
How was she supposed to know! Her lips trembled, unsure of what to say. Rachid’s forearm rested beside her cheek, and his fingers reached out to caress her skin. “I need your words, my wife.”
Her teeth sank into her bottom lip, as her addled brain tried to find the words. Eventually, she settled on one. “More.”