Nan Ryan (21 page)

A tightness filled his own chest. The muscles in his arms bunched, and his hands tightened on the leather reins as he envisioned sweeping her into his arms and carrying her to the shadowy privacy of his bedroom. There he would strip her naked, put her into his bed, and keep her there, wallowing in the evil splendor and primitive ecstasy until he was totally sated.

Sharif again spurred the stallion, and the lathered beast responded with a great burst of speed, sensing the depth of his master’s desperation.

His black eyes narrowed against the burning sun and stinging wind, his heart drumming with rising anticipation, Sharif raced toward the encampment. When he reached the outskirts of the oasis, he ignored shouted greetings from his men, galloped past them, heading directly to his tent.

There he leapt off the winded stallion, threw the reins to the ground, stepped under the shade canopy, and yanked back the tent flap.

He ducked inside, saw her, and trembled. He wanted her so badly that a vein pulsed on his dark forehead and his groin swelled and ached painfully.

But, he realized angrily, he could not do it.

He could not take her by force. He could not make love to her when she didn’t want him, when she hated the sight of him. She was far too beautiful, too fragile.

* * * 

Temple stared at the Sheik, whose black eyes were glittering in the dimness of the tent. His usually spotless white robes were covered with sand and grime. A dark stubble of beard covered his handsome face, accentuating the small white scar above his lip and the menacing aura that clung to him. He flung off his turban, and his black hair was dirty and plastered to his noble head. Sweat gleamed on his dark face and ran in rivulets down his dark throat.

He was dirty, unkempt, and mean visaged.

Never had he looked more appealing.

Wordlessly Temple rose from the divan and moved toward him as if he had ordered her to come. She reached him as he shrugged out of his soiled white robe and tossed it aside. His imposing height never more in evidence, the Sheik towered over her. Her face was on the level of his sweat-soaked chest.

“Sharif,” she murmured, and laid her hands on his soiled shirtfront.

He shook his dark head and said, “I am not clean.”

“I know,” she said softly. “I don’t care.”

And as if in a dream, she leaned forward and pressed her lips to his gleaming brown throat. The taste of his salty flesh on her tongue made her instantly weak in the knees.

The Sheik’s labored breath caught, and he lifted his right hand and cradled her golden head as she opened his shirt and began sprinkling kisses over the broad expanse of his chest. His dark eyes closed with tortured pleasure.

Temple inhaled deeply of his unique masculine scent as her lips traveled eagerly, caressingly, over his smooth, hot flesh. She felt herself swaying against him, felt the strength of his tall, hard body thrumming through hers, felt her knees buckling.

Shuddering as Temple put out the tip of her tongue and licked the hollow of his throat, Sharif put both hands into her hair, pulled her head up, and looked at her beautiful face. He saw in her expressive emerald eyes a passion that matched his own, and he knew that the power of their physical attraction could no longer be denied.

Still, he warned her, “If I so much as touch you, I will not stop until you are naked beneath me.”

Breathlessly she replied, “I was about to say the same thing to you.”

The Sheik put his hand
behind the back of Temple’s neck and began to draw her to him. His sultry black gaze focused on her parted lips, he pressed her back into the curve of his supporting arm, bent his dark head, and—just before he kissed her—murmured softly,
“Naksedil.”

Temple was given no opportunity to ask what the Arabic word meant. Sharif’s mouth closed over hers in a stunning, breath-stealing kiss that began softly, gently, his smooth warm lips tasting and teasing hers, leisurely exploring.

The surprisingly sweet beginning of that devastating kiss would be the last slow part of their lovemaking. What started as a tender, closed-mouth caress swiftly graduated in intensity to an open-lipped, stroking-tongued kiss of such blazing passion, the pair were immediately set afire.

By the time the highly erotic kiss ended, they were like two wild animals finally freed from their cages. Unleashed passion made sexual savages of them both, as practiced control disintegrated in the raging, enveloping heat.

His mouth melded hotly with hers, Sharif grasped the front of Temple’s bodice. A firm, forceful yank and the delicate fabric tore.

Temple was just as rash, just as aggressive. Her mouth open wide to his thrusting tongue, she gripped his half-opened shirt and tugged hard. Buttons flew. Linen ripped. The shirt hung open. She pushed it over his left shoulder, pulled it down his arm and off. She couldn’t get to his other arm. It was wrapped around her, supporting her head as he pressed her against it. Her hand went to his back, and she spread her fingers wide to touch as much of him as possible.

Temple trembled.

It was as if under the smooth hot skin she could feel the sinew of steel, reminding her just how strong he was. But his superior strength no longer frightened her. It excited her. Enraptured, she ran her hand up and down the deep cleft in his long, beautifully configured back. And she promised herself that when the opportunity presented itself, she would press her lips to each and every one of the vertebrae.

Continuing to kiss her hungrily, Sharif swept apart Temple’s torn dress and yanked at a delicate lacy strap of her chemise, breaking it. He impatiently pushed down the gauzy undergarment, freeing a soft, full breast. Both moaned in rising arousal when that freed breast with its taut, throbbing nipple was pressed against his partially bared chest.

Gasping, Temple finally tore her lips from Sharif’s. Trembling with anticipation, she looked into his fiery black eyes as he deftly lowered her ruined dress to her waist. His gaze holding hers, he slipped the tip of his little finger under the other strap of her chemise. He slid it over her shoulder and down her upper arm, then released it. But the lace-trimmed satin stayed in place, snagged on her full breast. Temple lifted her shoulder and drew in her breath. The chemise whispered to her waist.

They hurriedly changed positions so that Temple could get Sharif’s remaining shirt sleeve down his arm. Anxiously she tugged and yanked while he extended his arm to aid her, his lips traveling eagerly over her face, her throat. Temple exhaled with delight when the shirt fell to the floor.

Both were now naked to the waist. They kissed again, clinging to each other, relishing the stirring touch of flesh on flesh. Their hearts thundering in their naked breasts, their heated, perspiring bodies pressed closely together, they kissed greedily and sighed loudly and finally sagged weakly to their knees.

Her arms wrapped around his neck, Temple arched her back and thrust her bare breasts into the crisp hair covering the flat hard muscles of Sharif’s broad chest. The tickling, tantalizing texture teased at her sensitive nipples, sending tingles of sensation through her swelling breasts and fluttering stomach and pulsing groin.

Their lips finally separated. His breath was labored, his chest heaving. A vein throbbed on his dark forehead. In his hot black eyes was a dangerous wildness that thrilled and pleased Temple. Missing was his armor of calmness and self-possession. Gone was the impassive, unreachable man who took no notice of her. In his place was an anxious, fiery lover who wanted her as much as she wanted him.

His teeth clenched as if in pain, Sharif began tearing off her remaining clothes, intent on stripping her bare. He could not wait another minute to get her undressed.

Temple was just as eager, just as ardent, as the Sheik. While he yanked at her skirts, her hands went to his belt buckle. Feverishly she worked, her nervous fingers managing to unbuckle the belt and move on to the buttons of his snug riding breeches.

All restraint was gone.

They literally tore the clothes off one another, frantic to get at each other. Sharif was surer, swifter than Temple. In seconds he had stripped her of everything and she was naked in his arms. Holding her, kissing her, he managed—with her frenzied assistance—to shed the rest of his own clothes.

When both were wonderfully bare at last, they fell over onto the thick Persian rug, panting from exertion and excitement. Their hot bodies slippery with perspiration, they lay on their sides, facing each other—but only for a second. Quickly Sharif urged Temple onto her back and rose above her, making a place for himself between her slender legs.

Temple trembled when she felt his hard heavy flesh pulse against her burning groin. His weight supported on an elbow, his hand gripping her hair at the crown, Sharif laid his fingers to her lips. Instinctively Temple knew what to do: she put out her tongue and licked the tips of his fingers until they were wet.

She watched, enthralled, as he lowered his hand between their bodies and hastily rubbed the rocket-shaped tip of his throbbing tumescence until it glistened wetly. Then he moved his hand to her. He touched her gently, his licked-wet fingers stroking coaxingly, inquiringly.

At the sudden look of pleased surprise on his face, Temple felt herself flush with embarrassment. She knew exactly what he was thinking: that there’d been no need to moisten his fingers because she was already wet and ready for him.

And it was true.

She was so hot for him that she could feel the silky wetness flowing freely from herself.

Sharif waited not one second more.

He positioned himself perfectly, thrust into her quickly, and Temple, looking into his night black eyes, winced only softly at his deep penetration. The pain was so minimal, it was quickly overridden by the pleasure. New infusions of heat engulfing her, Temple instinctively tilted up her pelvis to receive him as Sharif drove into her deeply, forcefully, stretching and filling her with his awesome pulsating power.

Logic and reason no longer existed in their special world.

The two of them were pagans, naked in a hot desert paradise, determined to taste all the delicious forbidden pleasures of their carnal universe. Their heated, hurried mating there on the tent’s plush Persian rugs was totally wild and uninhibited. With an animal passion and brute sensuality, they made such love as few mortals ever experienced.

Surrendering to the outrageous urges of burning desire, they gladly gave themselves up to each other. Moaning and panting, Temple bucked and thrust against Sharif, giving as good as she got, urging him on, daring him to go even farther, matching him movement for movement in his almost brutal lovemaking.

She loved every savage second of their ruthless mating.

The dry oppressive heat of the still Arabian afternoon only intensified the pleasure of the frenzied naked pair who were on fire for each other. The heat rising from the desert floor mingled delightfully with the heat rising from their joined, surging bodies. Both kinds of heat felt good. Good, right, wonderful, as their perspiration-soaked bodies slipped and slid oh so sensuously together.

Every bit as aroused as he, Temple did not whimper or stiffen when Sharif drove into her repeatedly. She did not demur or try to pull away when he impaled her. She made no attempt to evade him when, buried deeply inside her, he put his hands on her knees and urged her legs to fall wider apart so that he might sink even farther into her.

If he seemed intent on claiming and conquering her completely, Temple was equally eager to capture and keep him there. She pushed her pelvis up as she allowed her open legs to fall more widely apart. Outside herself, fever-hot with passion, she felt as if she wanted to pry herself more fully open to him, for him. To happily offer it all for his taking. To make of her body a hot receptive sacrifice to his potently aggressive masculinity.

She would hold nothing back, she would give everything to him.

And she would take everything from him as well, refusing to let him go until all that he had was hers.

Writhing in her building ecstasy, Temple clutched Sharif’s sweat-slick biceps and looked into his hot black eyes as he pounded into her, the force and feel of him thrusting and throbbing inside her filling her with an indescribable excitement.

Temple was so aroused and lost in him, she no longer cared what he was or who he was. She had never known this kind of passion existed. Had never dreamed she could feel like this with a man.

It didn’t matter that the lover responsible for such exquisite pleasure was a pirate sheik who had abducted her. She didn’t care. It made no difference that this dark-skinned god of love was heartless. Wicked. Disreputable. Lawless. Nothing mattered but the burning touch of his caressing brown hands on her tingling skin, the taste of his searing kisses on her lips, and the feel of his hard, hot flesh pulsing strongly inside her.

All she wanted, now or ever, was to lie here beneath this naked chieftain while he made primitive, passionate love to her. She realized, without the slightest degree of shame, that whatever he wanted her to do, she would do gladly, eagerly. Wherever he wanted to take her, she would go. Whatever he wanted her to be, she would be.