The Ice Maiden's Sheikh by Alexandra Sellers Page B

the walls of the beautiful but neglected garden, their work finished, the women declared that the council would have broken up by now. They left Jalia in the lamp-lighted, sweet-scented bedroom, wearing the silky jade tunic and trousers, and went off, promising to send Latif to her.
    And within the hour he was there, bathed, oiled and perfumed in his turn, and wearing a white outfit, beautifully embroidered, whose flowing silk only underlined his powerful masculinity.
    He was unbelievably gorgeous as he entered the room, a bemused smile playing over his dark falcon’s face.
    He stood for a moment looking down at her in the soft shadows cast by the candle lamps, and Jalia’sheart leaped at the expression that came into his eyes—possessive and hungry and determined.
    With a curious shifting the atmosphere grew thick around them, and he gazed at her with green eyes gone black, a signal her body already understood directly. It responded with melting hunger, and she tossed her head in the way he knew so well, pressed her lips together, and let her eyes smile at him.
    â€œThe…the women left food for you,” she murmured.
    But he didn’t hear. He was gazing at her, smelling her, almost tasting her across the room.
    She was hauntingly beautiful now, in the traditional bridal robes of his tribe, which breathed across her body, hiding and revealing the curve and length, the softness and strength of her. Her hair was woven with flowers and shimmer, her skin oiled and scented, so that the least move announced itself to his desperately hungry senses.
    His woman, prepared as a bride is prepared, in silks and perfumes, her eyes kohled and inviting, prepared as he had longed to see her since that first moment of glancing into cool slate-green eyes…
    In two strides he was across the room, and he lifted his hands to cup her head and hold her face up, a flower, a perfect flower with two wide green centres so full of sweetness that his heart stopped.
    â€œYou are mine,” he said, his voice rough with feeling. “You have promised. You have told the women.”
    Before she could protest that it was not so, he bent his head, and tenderly, tastingly, his mouth strokedhers, as a man might kiss a delicate bloom, to absorb its perfume through his lips.
    The touch trembled against her mouth, and a thousand nerve endings sent shimmers of delight all through her. She shivered, and her lips parted. Her hands pressed his shoulders, and his mouth moved more and more hungrily against her, seeking the sweetness it tasted, as if the more he tasted, the more his need was fed.
    Then his hand slipped under the silken shirt she wore, and she felt its heat and strength push along the length of her back, drawing her slowly, determinedly in against his body in a curving arc as he bent over her, lifting her almost off her feet. Her head he wrapped in the crook of his other arm, and she lay supported in his embrace, breast to breast, mouth to mouth.
    With the flick of his thumb her jacket fell open, and he stroked her stomach, her chest, her breasts.
    From every contact honeyed electricity poured through her, body and soul, setting fire to her mind, igniting her blood. Fever burned her, the fever of a deep hunger that was all new to her. When he lifted his mouth, his eyes, black with passion and intent, devoured her with answering hunger, and her throat of its own accord murmured its need.
    With a directness that shook her, his hand left her back and moved between her thighs, and the million nerve endings there leaped to obedient awareness, and she swooned.
    She lay helplessly arced in the air, supported between her feet on the floor and her head in his arm, and his mouth kissed her lips, her ear, her throat,while his other hand slid to her waist and unerringly found the tie of the pyjama trousers. Then she felt the whisper of silk over her stomach and down her thighs, and a moment later her lower body was naked and exposed. A