Читать книгу The Restless Billionaire - Эбби Грин - Страница 9

ANEESA could barely breathe as it was, especially with his big hand on her waist. She’d been drenched in mortification ever since she’d so boldly all but begged him to kiss her. Even now she burned. But in truth, ever since she’d seen him in the shadows earlier, on some level she’d wished for this moment, not even knowing that she’d see him again. Not even knowing what she’d really wanted. And what she wanted now, with a fierce need, was him.

‘I …’ she began, and stopped. Was she really going to do this? Just throw caution to the wind? He subtly moved her so that her body was flush with his, so that she could feel his thighs against hers through the material of their clothes. When she felt a hard ridge she blushed even fiercer.

She stalled, trying with a desperate feeling of futility to cling onto some kind of sanity. ‘I don’t even know you….’ An insidious suspicion struck her and she pulled back slightly. ‘Do you do this often? I mean, it’s easy for you to just offer to take women to bed like this?’

He quirked a smile, a devastating smile. ‘I’ve never before met a woman and wanted her so badly that I’ve been aching to take her to bed within minutes of meeting her. Trust me. And trust that what’s happening between us isn’t usual for me on any level. Or, I think, you.’

Sebastian realised the import of what he was saying. It was true. He’d never been so overcome with a desire to bed a woman that he hadn’t been able to take her out one night and then seduce her the next, but here now with Aneesa … there was an urgency in his body he’d never felt before. It made him feel vulnerable enough to make boundaries clear from the outset. ‘What I’m proposing is that we have just this one night, where we can act on this desire. Explore it to its fullness. And you … can have your wedding night, not as you planned it … but in your own way.’

Aneesa looked at him and tried very hard to be rational. ‘You’re not just doing this out of pity?’

He smiled again and there was a touch of pain to it. He pulled her even closer so that now she could be in no doubt as to the extent of his arousal. She almost groaned aloud, a liquid heat invading her lower body, making her tremble.

‘Does that feel like pity to you?’

She shook her head dumbly, incapable of speech.

‘I wanted you from the moment I saw you arrive in that courtyard—that’s the truth. Your fiancé used you to suit his own ends … but you are an extremely desirable woman.’

He was effortlessly honing in on the insecurity she’d felt about herself as a woman for as long as Jamal had avoided making love to her. ‘I saw you in the shadows—I thought of you … just before I decided to run….’

His hands moved up from her waist, brushing the sides of her breasts until he cradled her jaw, fingers tunnelling through her unravelling hair, caressing her skull.

This was right. She felt it in every bone of her body. The primal urge to mate with this man was almost overwhelming. She wanted him to be her first lover. She was meant to be here with him, tonight. And in the days and weeks to come when she would have to deal with the consequences of her actions, she would be able to hug this secret moment to herself. Tonight would be the oasis in the storm to come. This was her chance to become a woman with a man who truly desired her—on what should have been her wedding night—and she wanted that experience more than she’d wanted anything in her life.

‘I want you to make love to me, Sebastian. Just for tonight.’

He bent his head and came closer. Aneesa’s heart threatened to jump out of her chest, and just before his mouth met hers again he said, ‘Just one night.’

She nodded her head. How could she explain to him that if her family found out about this on top of what she’d just done she might as well emigrate to Alaska forever? Anything beyond tonight was not an option and she knew that.

The kiss, like last time, started slow and gentle. But any restraint or gentleness fast disappeared in an escalating mutual fire of need. Aneesa blindly took Sebastian’s lead and their tongues duelled in a heady dance. Her hands were on his chest, ostensibly to cling onto something solid, but now they wound up and around his neck, bringing her into even more intimate contact with his lean body.

With a muffled groan that resonated right down to her toes, Sebastian’s hands slipped down her back, skimming over the curves of her waist and hips, to cup her bottom and pull her into him even more. Her breasts were flattened against his chest, nipples chafing against her tight bodice.

When she felt the thrusting force of his arousal at the apex of her legs she broke away, breathing harshly.

Sebastian’s face was flushed, eyes glittering a dark blue. Throatily he said, ‘Aneesa, I know what we just said, but if you want to stop … just say the word.’

Everything in her rejected that thought. She’d been living behind a façade of her own making for so long and suddenly things felt clear and bright for the first time in her life. She shook her head fiercely. ‘No … I don’t want you to stop. Don’t ever stop.’

In a tender gesture that made her heart flutter, he smoothed back some hair from her brow. ‘Why don’t we go somewhere more comfortable?’

She nodded and, taking her hand, Sebastian led her towards the bedrooms. That clarity hit Aneesa as they walked through the quiet and darkened suite—the magnitude of what she was about to do … and yet she knew this was what she wanted.

In all honesty she had no idea what the immediate future held for her now, and this moment in time was something she had control over. Sebastian pushed open a door and they stepped in. Aneesa saw a huge room with floor-to-ceiling windows which looked out over a glittering night-time Mumbai. And then she saw the massive bed in the middle of the room. Her heart tripped once and then took up an unsteady beat.

He let her go briefly to turn on a lamp and it threw out a seductively low light, bathing the room in shadows and burnishing Sebastian with a kind of golden glow. Before she had time to think too much he was back, right in front of her and leading her close to the bed.

Gently he turned her around so that her back was to his chest. She felt him start to unbraid her hair and she dropped her head with a delicious shiver skating up her spine. Her hair fell in a sleek black curtain to just between her shoulder blades.

Then he took the ornately decorated end of the sari that was wound up and over her shoulder and pulled it away where it fell to drape over her arm. She could feel the air caress her bare skin where her bodice was revealed and cut very low. She heard Sebastian’s indrawn breath and then felt his knuckles gliding over her skin. She shivered and said with a tiny moan, ‘Sebastian …’ his name dropping effortlessly from her mouth as if she’d been saying it all her life.

He pulled her hair over one shoulder and pressed a kiss to the place where her shoulder met her neck and she realised that he was undoing the tiny fastenings holding her bodice together. It was loose in seconds and he pushed it apart to bare her back completely.

Aneesa couldn’t and didn’t want to stop him when from behind her he pushed her top down her arms until it fell to the floor along with the end of her sari. She was naked from the waist up and Sebastian came right up behind her and snaked his hands around her, trailing them with infinite slowness up over her belly to the underside of her breasts.

Eyes closed, Aneesa beseeched him silently and couldn’t stop the convulsive shiver when his hands came up and cupped her breasts fully, trapping her nipples between his fingers. She arched her back which pressed her bottom into him and she could feel his arousal, rock hard and insistent.

Little moans were coming from somewhere as Sebastian kneaded her breasts, making her nipples stand even more erect, and she only realised then that she was the one making the sounds.

With a smooth move he finally turned her around to face him and Aneesa bit her lip, knowing she should be feeling embarrassed or shy, but unable to drum up anything other than intense need. Sebastian’s eyes dropped to take in her breasts and down to where her hips flared out from a small waist.

Almost reverently he touched her curves. ‘You’re so beautiful, like nothing I’ve ever seen before …’

He slowly started to unravel the sari from around her waist, until he reached to where it was tucked into her underskirt. With a flick the voluminous material fell to the floor and he was undoing the catch on the skirt so that it, too, fell. Aneesa stood before him now, naked but for a gold chain around her waist.

She flushed hotly and felt the need to explain. ‘The women who got me ready had no idea that I wouldn’t be indulging in a traditional wedding night with my husband. They didn’t know that this would have been … wasted on him.’

Sebastian’s eyes lifted and caught hers, his jaw clenched. ‘Well, it’s not wasted on me—it is an honour for me to see you uncovered like this.’

Absurdly Aneesa felt tears threaten. But then Sebastian was bending down to her feet where he lifted first one foot and then the other to take off her shoes. Taking each foot in his hand, he kissed where the henna tattoo snaked up in an ornate design to above her ankles.

And then he took her hands and pressed kisses into each hennaed palm. From where he was, crouched before her, he slowly slid his hands up her legs, first one and then the other, until she had to lean on his shoulders because she was afraid she might fall.

Her long hair slipped over one shoulder as she looked down. With one hand cupping her bottom Sebastian slid his other hand up between her legs, gently encouraging her to part them for him. Aneesa’s heart stopped dead and her breath caught in her throat as those long fingers delved through her dark curls to her most intimate place, stroking along plump moistness where she could feel a pulse throb.

Her legs wobbled, knees threatening to give out, as she gasped, ‘Sebastian.’ Her hands tightened on his shoulders, as he seemed to effortlessly know just what to do to stoke her desire higher and higher. Her belly was clenched, her skin tingling all over and her head felt like it might explode.

‘It’s … too much …’ It’s not enough! The contradictory thoughts rang in her head.

She wanted him to stop and never to stop, and it was overwhelming. She nearly cried out when he took his hand away and stood again. He pressed a hot kiss against her mouth and said, ‘Sorry … we’ll take it slower …’

Aneesa was immediately contrite. ‘No … I mean, I don’t know … I just—’

He shushed her with a finger to her lips. ‘You don’t have to say anything … it’s OK. This is just the beginning.’

And then he started to strip, making her mind go blank. His shirt came off to reveal that stunningly beautiful chest again and then his hands were on his trousers. Helplessly her eyes dropped and she watched in fascination as he pulled them down over lean hips and dropped them to the floor. He stood before her, naked except for a pair of briefs and they bulged with his powerful arousal.

When he pulled them down too, lights exploded behind Aneesa’s eyes to see him revealed in all his glory, massively aroused, and she longed to reach out and explore.

As if he’d heard her wanton thought, he said huskily, ‘Touch me, Aneesa.’

Too scared to touch him where she really wanted, hesitantly she lifted her gaze and then reached out to run her hands over his chest, feeling how satin smooth his skin was under the light covering of hair. She scraped his blunt nipples with her nails, exulting in his indrawn breath and the hiss between his teeth.

And then because it was too hard not to, her gaze dropped again to take in that intimidating arousal which looked as if it had grown even bigger. Tentatively she reached out to touch him. His penis jerked and she bit her lip, reaching out again this time to wrap her hand around him.

She had a sudden memory of giggling over the Kama Sutra when she was in her teens with friends, when hilarity would disguise their genuine fascination with the explicit pictures they saw. She’d always felt slightly guilty by how fascinating the pictures had been to her, and when on a school trip they’d visited the sacred temples of Khajuraho, famous for their erotic sculptures, she’d been mortified at the achy hot feeling she’d felt in her belly after inspecting them, thinking that there must be something wrong with her.

But now Aneesa followed a feminine instinct as old as time and she bent down and took him in her mouth. He tasted salty and musky and her belly clenched with desire, but Sebastian was pulling her back up and she could see the fierce slash of colour across his cheeks and his eyes burning.

‘Stop … that’s enough for now. I won’t be able to go slowly if you keep doing that …’

When he’d seen her hennaed hand encircle him and felt the wet touch of her tongue, Sebastian had feared for his control when he’d never had to worry about it before. But something about the way she’d so innocently looked at him with such blatant hunger and had then bent down, giving him an enticing view of the curve of her waist and buttocks, had nearly sent him into orbit.