Chapter 10
The Mistake
Iris
I hate Rakan. I hate him so much. For lying to me, for keeping me trapped here. For making me want him, anyway.
The taste of smoke and ancient magic fills my mouth, and I moan as our tongues entangle in a frantic duel. Beneath the fabric of his shirt, the rhythmic thud of his heart races against my palm.
“You don’t get to do that,” I gasp, breaking the kiss just enough to catch my breath.
“Do what?” he asks as he presses a kiss to the curve of my ear.
“Pretend this is simple. That you didn’t just rip my life apart.”
He laughs, but the sound holds no amusement. “I’m not pretending, Iris. I already told you. Nothing about this is pretense.”
His mouth crashes down on mine again. It’s sudden and terrible, and it completely undoes me. Am I supposed to fight him? To shove him away? Maybe, but under his touch, my survival instincts simply dissolve.
The reality of my abduction should matter.
So should the casual arrogance of him destroying an ancient scroll just to prove a point.
But here, pinned beneath his heat? None of it holds any weight.
I don’t even care about the other djinn, the man who’s apparently hunting me.
Right now, the only one who matters is Rakan.
My body answers purely on muscle memory. Maybe it was trained by a hundred fleeting touches over a coffee counter. Or maybe my whole life, I’ve just been waiting for him.
He’s pinning me against the shelf, yet somehow, impossibly, the wood doesn’t dig into my spine. I’m pretty sure my glasses have disappeared, and I have no idea when that happened. The sheer absurdity of everything he does infuriates me, but I can’t bring myself to pull away.
Rakan’s large hand cups the back of my neck, his fingers tangling in my hair. I press my body closer to his. The world shrinks. There is only the rough scrape of his jaw, the solid wall of his obsidian skin, and the heavy drag of our shared breath.
“Tell me to let you go.” His breath ghosts hot across my wet lips. The raw edge in his tone carries a desperate plea. It makes the fine hairs on my arms stand on end. “I will, Iris. I won’t force you.”
His eyes seem to burn into mine, glowing brighter than ever before. Is he searching for the fear he planted inside me? Measuring the lingering shock of the murder against my ragged breathing?
There’s no point, and this is a battle I’ve already lost. “You don’t have to force me, and you know that. Asshole.”
He hisses against my mouth. Then, a dark laugh tears out of his chest. I drag my palms up to claw at the broad, hard planes of his shoulders, desperate to anchor him to me. “Come on. Take me to bed.”
The moment the words leave my lips, the air around us fractures. A rush of thick smoke, tasting heavily of desert sand, swallows the library whole. The shift yanks the breath straight from my lungs. One second I’m pinned against a wooden shelf, and the next, my spine hits a mattress.
The sheets are dark silk, shockingly cool against my overheated skin. Rakan follows me down instantly, the bed groaning under his weight as he cages me in. He catches both my wrists, his grip unyielding but careful as he pins my arms above my head. His thumbs brush over my racing pulse.
“You’re shaking.” His teeth graze the sensitive skin just beneath my ear.
“I’m not scared of you,” I snap back at him. It’s a lie, though not because he can erase me with a thought. I’m scared because even now, I want him to be as greedy for me as I am for him.
Letting go of my wrists, Rakan sweeps his hand over my side with deceptive gentleness. If he were anyone else, this might be the moment when he’d take my clothes off. But he doesn’t. He only cups my breast through my shirt, and just like that, every scrap of fabric on my body is gone.
When he’d done it to the scroll, it had startled me. Now, I can’t help but be thrilled at how convenient it is.
The cold air of the bedroom bites into my chest for only a fraction of a second before his blistering heat replaces it.
His palms flatten against my bare ribs. The golden fire flickering over his dark skin sends shadows dancing across my pale stomach.
It’s gentle, yet… somehow not. It’s a brand, the type only Rakan al-Rashid could ever leave.
Meanwhile, Rakan remains fully dressed in his tailored clothes. When he shifts back and rakes his eyes over my naked body, he seems infuriatingly in control. Power rolls off him in waves, so intense it should keep me pinned to the mattress. He’s the kind of man who owns everything he touches.
And as I look up at him, a different kind of heat coils in my gut. Defiance. I don’t want to just lie there and let him consume me.
I want to take him apart.
When I push myself up from the mattress, Rakan stays perfectly still. His golden eyes track my every movement as I shift onto my knees, leveling myself with his hips.
I reach for the expensive leather of his belt.
The metal buckle clinks sharply in the quiet room.
He lets out a shallow breath, his massive hands twitching at his sides.
But he doesn’t stop me. He lets me strip the control right out of his grasp.
I yank the zipper down, pushing the dark fabric of his slacks and boxers down his powerful thighs.
His cock springs free, violently aroused and searing hot. His obsidian skin is flushed darker with blood, and a thick drop of precum gleams at the blunt ridge. His sheer size makes my breath stutter in my throat. But I’ve come too far to turn back.
I wrap my hand firmly around his thick base. A guttural sound rips from Rakan’s chest. His hips jerk forward involuntarily, chasing the contact.
Maybe I should draw this out, tease him and deny him. After all, he’s done it to me in the past. But I can’t bring myself to wait any longer. I lean forward and take the head of his cock into my mouth.
His taste explodes on my tongue, salty heat layered with that distinct, intoxicating flavor of ancient spices. I swirl my tongue around the broad head, pressing down hard on the sensitive slit. “Iris,” he hisses. “Dear gods, yes.”
I sink down, swallowing him deeper. It hurts to take him in so fully, and I come very close to choking.
My eyes water, and I can feel him all the way down my throat.
But his hands bury themselves in my hair, holding on for dear life.
And there’s a vicious sense of triumph in drawing this type of reaction from such a powerful man.
Every time I slide all the way down to his base, the veins of amber fire beneath his skin flare brighter. When I drag my teeth lightly against the underside of his shaft, he curses in a language I don’t understand. It’s the same one the djinn in the alley used, and the thought should scare me.
But the memory is barely there now, as if it happened to someone else entirely, or in another life.
Rakan tugs at the roots of my hair, forcing me to pull back. A sheen of sweat glosses over his dark skin. “You’re still fighting me, aren’t you, Iris?”
I lick the lingering taste of him from my bottom lip, staring right up into his blown-out golden eyes. “Maybe I don’t like losing.”
“No one has to lose,” he replies. “Because as you and I both know, this isn’t a game.”
Rakan catches my waist and drags me up with him, forcing me off my knees.
He stands at the edge of the mattress, towering over me.
I reach for the hem of his dark shirt, my fingers fumbling blindly with the buttons.
He’s apparently feeling sadistic, because he doesn’t vanish his own clothes, like he did with mine. He really is such an asshole.
It takes me longer than I’d like to finally get his shirt off. By then, I’m shaking, my pussy clenching around empty air. Every second that passes is a reminder of the moments we spent together in the club. “Can you stop teasing me already?” I snap at him.
“Demanding, aren’t you?” he purrs. But he doesn’t deny me.
He leaves his shirt and pants on the floor and pushes me back down onto the dark silk sheets.
His massive hands slide up the backs of my thighs, parting them wider.
He settles his weight between my legs, opening me up completely to the suffocating heat rolling off his skin.
The blunt head of his cock presses flush against my slick folds.
“Iris.” My name is a raw, breathless warning on his tongue.
“Stop talking.” I wrap my legs around his waist, locking my ankles over his lower back. I tilt my hips up, demanding the contact.
Rakan surges forward, sinking all the way to the hilt in a single violent thrust. He fills me so completely that his sheer presence forces every lingering thought right out of my head. I gasp, my nails digging deep into the hard muscles of his shoulders.
“Oh, God… Move, Rakan. Move!”
He pulls back and drives in again. The pace is slow at first, deliberate and punishing.
Each sliding thrust draws a ragged sound from my throat.
My anger tries to claw its way back up in jagged flashes.
But every time the defiance flares, he hits the exact spot inside me that makes my spine bow off the bed.
His hands are everywhere. One arm slides under the small of my back, lifting my hips to meet his brutal rhythm. The other hand tangles in my hair, anchoring my head as his mouth claims mine.
He moves faster, driving into me so hard the solid wooden bedframe protests.
The agonizing stretch and the intoxicating friction begin to consume my sanity.
The sound of my own desperate cries almost drowns out the wet slap of our bodies colliding.
And throughout it all, the golden light of his fire flashes in the dim room, sometimes settling over my skin in a near-physical caress.
It’s so intense it becomes unbearable. I try to look away, to shield at least a tiny part of my heart from this man who will no doubt destroy me. But he grips my chin and forces me to face him again. “None of that,” he demands. “Don’t hide from me. You’re mine, Iris.”
There’s something so simple and honest about that last sentence. Something that, despite everything, I can’t help but believe. At that moment, I truly feel that I’m the only thing in the room that matters to him.
The tension coiled tight at the base of my spine suddenly snaps.
My climax erupts over me, burning through my blood and hollowing me out completely. My inner muscles clench violently around his thick shaft. I dig my fingers into the hard expanse of his shoulders, and I cling to him as I ride out the blinding aftershocks.
Rakan groans and drives his hips forward one final time. His cock pulses inside me, thick and heavy, as he finally lets go. The moment I feel him come, my body responds to his release. I sob as a pleasure bordering on agony takes control of my flesh.
At this point, I can’t even tell where he ends and I begin. It feels like we exist on the same plane, sharing something only we can touch. Maybe I’m imagining it, but the fire that burns through his veins seems to rush through mine.
Slowly, the waves of overwhelming sensation begin to fade.
Rakan collapses forward. His weight presses me down into the mattress, his arms wrapping tight around my waist to anchor us together.
The rapid thud of his heart hammers directly against my breastbone.
For a long minute, the only sound in the room is the overlapping rush of our breathing.
I want nothing more than to lie there, in his embrace, forever. But that’s just not the kind of life I live.
Reality comes rushing back in, and I realize just what we’ve done. Cursing, I pull away from him and drag the sheets over my naked body. “You don’t get to fix anything with sex, Rakan.”
“I don’t think that was my intention,” he replies. “Just like it wasn’t yours.”
It’s a fair argument, and in my heart, I know it’s unfair to blame him for what happened between us. So I don’t. I have enough self-respect to acknowledge my own stupidity. “You’re right. This was a mistake. One we both made.”
He opens his mouth, perhaps intending to argue. I want to hear what he has to say, to force him into admitting I’m more to him than a diversion or a witness he’s protecting.
But Rakan suddenly goes very still. He tilts his head, as if he’s just heard something I can’t. To my surprise, he flicks his fingers and a phone appears in his hand. It’s still ringing, but he doesn’t pick up. Instead, he steals a single look at the screen and steps out of bed.
“We’ll return to this conversation once I’m back, Iris. For the moment, get some rest.”
“Back?” I call after him. “Where are you going?”
Rakan is already clean and dressed before I’ve even managed to finish the sentence. “To solve our problem, like I should have from the beginning.”
Our problem. The way he says that should bring me comfort, and in a way, it does. But then, the smoke invades the bedroom again, and within the blink of an eye, he’s gone.
I’m left alone, lying in a djinn’s bed, more confused and shaken than ever before. And I hate myself for it, but instead of leaving, I bury my face in his pillow and take in his scent.
Because as much as I hate Rakan, I’m in love with him, too.