Pain radiated from her body as she lowered her hand into the water. A pain that rivaled his own. She’d been enslaved just as he had been. But in her case, it had been done by those who were supposed to protect and love her. Something that was a thousand times worse than what he’d been through.
“Zoraida captured my older brother, Tariq,” he said before he could stop himself. Before he even thought to try. “As heir to the Marid throne, we were frantic to find him.”
“Heir? Then that means you’re—”
“Was. Here, I’m nothing more than a slave. No different from you.”
Her gaze searched his, soft, so full of emotion, the hard, protective barrier he’d built around himself slowly started to crumble. “Do the highborns know? About your lineage?”
“I don’t think so. If they do, they’ve never said. But then, Zoraida banished me here out of anger, so I’m not sure how much she communicated to them.”
“How?” she whispered.
“Tariq had been missing for more than five years. We didn’t know if he was alive or dead. When we got word her army was ravaging the Wastelands, I went in the hope I could learn something about his status. I did, all right. Too much.”
To keep the anger at bay, he went back to cleaning her arms, and noticed, as they’d talked, that her towel had loosened until the wet cloth was barely covering her breasts. His pulse picked up speed, and that arousal he’d felt before came back swift and strong. “She’d bound Tariq to a fire opal, just like this one, and was sending him to the human realm to corrupt the souls of mortal women. For all the shit her army is doing, Zoraida needs those souls to fuel her immortality. She’d sentenced him as a pleasure slave.”
“Like me,” Kavin said softly.
He didn’t want to think about that. Didn’t want to think about Kavin being subjected to the same things Tariq had been. Forcing the unwanted images aside, he rubbed the cloth down her arm, swiping away blood and grime, bringing back the pink hue of her skin that was so damn alluring. “She knew my brother and I would search for Tariq. He was refusing to do her bidding any longer, so she set a trap.”
“For you?”
“And our younger brother, Ashur. The bond between brothers in our tribe is strong. She threatened our lives if Tariq didn’t do what she wanted. And with all three heirs to the Kingdom of Gannah under her control? She knew it wouldn’t be long until her army was strong enough to challenge our tribe once and for all.”
“I’m so sorry.”
Her sympathy touched him in a way her gentleness hadn’t before. He brushed his fingers up her arm, ran the washcloth across her collarbone, and his stomach tightened all over again at the way she drew in a breath and seemed to lift into his touch.
“I don’t know what happened to Tariq,” he said, trying hard not to look at the towel, now just barely covering her nipples. Hard, pert nipples, the tips of which he could see through the wet cloth whether he tried to or not. The tips of which he suddenly wanted to draw into his mouth again and again. “Something happened between them—I’m not sure what—but she became enraged and banished me to the pits in retaliation. I don’t know what happened to Tariq or Ashur.”
She leaned forward to run her fingers over the opal once more. A touch that this time sent ripples all through his groin and vibrations straight into his cock. “And this?”
He swallowed hard. Allah, but he wanted this female. He didn’t even care that she was Ghul and he was Marid and that they were trapped together in this cell. He wanted to lose himself inside her and forget about sorceresses and wars and the arena that had become his one and only solace. “It means I’m still bound to her.”
“So if you were to ever get free of these pits—”
“She could call me back at any moment.”
Her eyes lifted to his. Eyes he wondered if he could see forever in if he looked hard enough.
“It seems we’re both trapped in a prison,” she said softly, “even outside these walls.”
“It seems we are.”
Her gaze slid back to the opal, but this close, all he could see and feel and smell was her. Her chest rose and fell with her shallow breaths, and when water rippled near the tips of her breasts—her
bare
breasts—he realized the towel had slipped to her waist, and that she hadn’t stopped it.
“What would you do if you only had a few days left, Nasir?”
Spend them with you
. The thought came out of nowhere, slammed into him, and stole his breath. Beneath the water, his dick tightened to painful levels. “I would make them matter.”
Dark lashes fluttered against her creamy skin as she looked up. “I would too.”
A thousand words hovered between them. Questions and answers he didn’t want to voice. But only one thing registered. Only one thing
mattered
.
He eased forward until his chest brushed the tips of her bare, enticing breasts. Lust, white-hot and overwhelming, arced between them, encouraged him. She didn’t ease away. Instead, her hands landed gently on his biceps, and her fingernails dug into his skin in such a deliciously wicked way, blood pounded in his cock.
“If I had only a few days left,” he whispered, “I would want to spend them pleasuring you.”
Approval flared hot in her gaze, and her nails dug in deeper to pull him even closer. So close her legs opened and her thighs brushed the outsides of his.
“Yes,” she whispered. “Yes, I would want that too.”
They weren’t talking in hypotheticals anymore. And knowing she—maybe even he—likely did only have a few days left, he intended to give her exactly what they both wanted.
He closed his arms around her, drawing her tight to his chest, then lowered his mouth to within an inch of hers. “Let me pleasure you, Kavin.”
Chapter Nine
She smelled like vanilla and honey.
Nasir wasn’t sure if it was her perfume or shampoo or what, but he loved the scent. And the soft, supple feel of her bare breasts pressing against his chest.
He waited, wanting…
needing
…her approval before this went any further. And when she whispered the word
yes
and lifted her mouth to his, victory ricocheted through him.
His mouth lowered to hers. Warmth and life tingled beneath his lips. Her fingers slid into his hair, then she tipped her head. And when he licked at the seam of her mouth, she opened without hesitation. Let him in. Gave him his first taste of something rich and exotic and hypnotizing.
Someone moaned. He wasn’t sure if it was her or him, but he didn’t care. All he could focus on was the slick wetness of her mouth, the way her tongue languidly stroked his, the way her breasts tickled his chest.
“Kavin…” He lifted one hand to cup her face, to tip her head the other way so he could kiss her more deeply. So he could taste another inch of her.
She scooted closer, more fully onto his lap, until the heat of her bare sex rested against his fly. The towel fell from her body to float in the water behind her. And everywhere, her heat consumed him. Entranced him. Overwhelmed him.
His lips slid from her mouth to her jaw, then trailed hot kisses across to her ear. She sifted her other hand into his hair, groaned, and tipped her head, offering more. Offering anything he wanted. And the way she rocked against his lap, rubbing against his throbbing cock, nearly did him in.
He wanted to hear her pleasure, wanted to feel it himself. He lowered his head, cupped her right breast, then lifted it toward his mouth. She answered by easing back just enough, then moaned all over again as his tongue brushed her wet, tight nipple.
“Nasir…” Her fingers tightened in his hair. Her hips pushed against his again.
He licked all around the areola, then drew her breast into his mouth, suckling as he’d wanted to do, until she dropped her head back and moaned long and low in ecstasy.
Blood rushed to his groin. Sent a blinding desire roaring through his veins. With one arm locked around her waist, he pushed out of the water and moved for the steps. Setting her down on the edge of the bath, he laid her out on the cool tiles and moved to her other breast.
She was responsive in ways he didn’t expect. Passionate in ways he couldn’t predict. As he continued to lick and nibble and revel in the sounds she made, something in his chest broke open wide. A part of himself he’d closed off when Talah had died.
He didn’t want to examine what was happening to him. Didn’t want to think. He just wanted to
feel
.
“Your skin is so soft,” he mumbled as he slid his lips from her breast to her stomach, tracing a line of wet kisses to her belly button. “I want to taste more of you. I want to taste all of you.”
She drew in a sharp breath. Pushed up on her elbows and braced her feet on the steps beneath him. When he nudged her knees apart, she didn’t stop him, but he felt her gaze on him. And when he moved his mouth lower, across her belly, he looked up and watched her eyes widen and darken with lust.
A jolt of arousal sent his pulse skipping. He looked down at her body laid out before him, at the triangle of red curls, then lower to her sex, already glistening with her arousal.
He palmed her breast with his right hand, slid the other down her belly, and parted her with his fingers. Then groaned long and low when he finally saw all of her.
Pink. Wet. So damn tempting it was all he could do not to rip off his pants and drive into her.
She sucked in a breath. Held very still while he looked his fill. As a
jarriah
in training, he knew she’d likely been instructed—at least academically—in all manners of pleasure. But from the hesitation on her face, he was sure this was the first time anyone had seen her. Knew this was going to be the first time anyone touched her. And the knowledge of that sent a thrill through every inch of his body.
He lowered his head and, slowly, stroked his tongue up her cleft. Then groaned all over again when he reached the swollen nub of her clit and she shuddered.
“Nasir…” Her head dropped back. Instinct took hold. She lifted her hips, seeking more.
He did it again, this time circling her clit with his tongue and finally suckling until her whole body trembled.
“Oh…”
“Feel me,
rouhi
. Feel me licking you. Tasting you. Feel me pleasuring you with my mouth.”
She moaned. Lifted her hips again and again while he lapped at her. And, as her arousal grew, he felt it everywhere. In his cock. In his skin. In his soul.
He pinched her nipple as he circled and swirled. Lowering his other hand, he brushed his fingers against her sex. She was wet and dripping. And so very hot. He wanted nothing more than to slide inside her, feel her clench around his fingers, but didn’t want to do anything to give her master a reason to take her from him. At least not yet.
“Let go,
rouhi
.” He blew hot against her mound, rolled her nipple. “Let go and come for me.”
She gasped. Tightened her muscles. Panted on the verge of blinding ecstasy. He lowered his mouth to her clit once more and suckled as he continued to tease her breasts. As he drove her wild with his fingers. With his lips. With his tongue.
Her whole body tensed, and she cried out. And as her release consumed her, he rode it with her, licking her gently, drawing out every ounce of pleasure he could, enjoying it through her, in a way he’d never known before.
She fell back against the tiles, twitched from the aftermath. Lifting his head, he looked up her gorgeous body to make sure she was okay. Her chest rose and fell with her rapid breaths. Her skin was slicked with sweat, her eyes still closed, her cheeks flushed and hot. But when a slow smile began to curl her tempting lips, he knew she wasn’t just okay. She was sated and relaxed, enjoying a satisfying post-orgasmic glow.
Sheer pride rippled through him. That he’d done that to her. That he’d been the one to give her pleasure no one else ever had.
He pressed his lips against her lower belly, then kissed her higher, moving back up her body as he crawled out of the water and eased over onto his side next to her, marveling at the way she didn’t flinch from his touch. At the way she sighed in complete contentment.
His fingers grazed her right breast, and she trembled again. Bracing himself on his elbow, he looked down at all her luxurious hair laid out beneath her, wondering how he could have thought she was a highborn that very first day. Wondering how the hell he hadn’t seen the goodness inside her. It was his anger, he realized as he took her in. All that pent-up fury he’d shielded himself with after Talah’s death. He hadn’t thought Ghuls were all evil before that day. Hadn’t ever expected it would take a slave—a Ghul slave—to show him they weren’t all evil now.
“Did you enjoy that,
rouhi
?”
Her eyes fluttered open. Glossy, seductive, radiant eyes met his. Eyes that drew him in and pushed all other thought right out of his head. “Yes,” she whispered, brushing her fingers against his arm. “Very much.”
“Good. That’s what I wanted.”
He lowered to take her mouth. Intended it to be a gentle kiss. But when she threaded her fingers into his hair and dragged him closer, all that pent-up arousal pushed his need right back to the forefront.
Her mouth… Her breasts pressing against his bare chest… The way she lifted her leg and parted her thighs, inviting him, luring him, drawing him closer to all her succulent heat…
“Kavin,” he managed, trying to pull back from her lips, failing miserably. His cock was so hard against her thigh, his need so great, he didn’t know how much longer he could resist.
“I want you, Nasir. I want to feel you inside me.”
Oh, Allah. So did he. So much so he could barely see straight.
It took every ounce of strength he had to ease away. “I…can’t.”
“But I thought—” She looked down her body, to her bare hip, where his throbbing erection pressed hard and hot and so eager to get inside her. Then her gaze snapped back to his. But this time, it wasn’t brimming with desire; it was laced with confusion. And disappointment. A whole lot of disappointment that speared straight to his chest. “I thought you wanted me,” she said in a small voice.