Читать книгу Modern Romance May 2017 Books 5 – 8 - Bella Frances, Louise Fuller - Страница 14
ОглавлениеHE TOOK HER hand and led her from the dance floor but as they reached the double doors he dropped it.
‘For this to work,’ he told her, ‘we must be discreet.’
Alim was talking of the weeks and months ahead while Gabi was thinking just of this night, but nevertheless she nodded. Her cheeks were flushed and her mind was flurried with hormones like a snow-globe, and so she was grateful that he could think of sparing her blushes in the morning.
His thoughtfulness spurred her to think of tomorrow also.
‘I need to get my coat, or they’ll know that I stayed the night.’
‘Do so, then,’ Alim told her. ‘Just say goodnight and that you are collecting some dresses...’
He knew her routines for he had noticed her... Often, before she went home, Gabi would head up to the dressing suite, where bridesmaids and such got changed, and leave the hotel with her arms filled with tulle.
She blinked at the fact that he knew.
‘I’ll head up,’ Alim said. ‘I have a private elevator...’
‘I know that you do.’
‘I shall send it back down.’
Alim left the ballroom and a moment later so too did she.
It was like any other night.
He walked to his elevator and pulled open the antique gate as Gabi smiled at Silvia, the receptionist on duty tonight.
‘I just have to get some dresses and then I’m done,’ Gabi said. ‘Can I just get my coat?’
‘Sure.’
Gabi slipped behind the desk and into the small staff cloakroom, where she collected her coat and put it on.
And just like on any other night she walked through the foyer.
There was a loud couple by the lifts who Gabi recognised as guests from the wedding and as she turned her head she saw a polished group coming in through the brass revolving doors.
No one was looking at Gabi.
The doors to the elevator were heavy and for a moment they did not budge and she wondered if he had forgotten to unlock them.
She was almost frantic, but suddenly they slid to one side and she stepped in and closed them.
His exotic fragrance lingered in the air and she leant against the soft cushioned wall.
The light was dim and she took a second, or maybe ten, just to imprint this moment for, she knew, things between them could never be the same again.
Oh, she accepted this was just one night, but it would be the absolute night of her life and she would never regret it, Gabi swore.
She went to press the button but before she did so the elevator jolted, and she guessed Alim would have known she was inside and was impatient for her to arrive.
It was he who had pressed the summons.
For he was impatient.
Alim was an ordered person.
Even as the elevator lifted her towards him, he made plans. Tonight was not the time to offer her a position here at the hotel and as his lover; he would wait until tomorrow when his head was clearer.
For now, he would take her to the bedroom and make very slow love to her, for he knew she was inexperienced and deserved due care.
And for once there was tomorrow.
Yes, Alim made plans...but then he saw her. She was flushed in the face and her hands moved with his to open the gated doors. Their fingers met, and haste was born.
Gated elevators were not so good for self-control, for they started to kiss through the gates. Dirty, fevered kisses as their hands reached through the bars.
It was ridiculous—one second apart and they could open them and be together, but even a second apart felt too long.
For the greater good she stepped back as Alim wrenched open the gate and rather than behaving shyly and reticently, as in her dreams she had been, she simply toppled into his arms.
How, he wondered, had he resisted her for so long?
‘I hated it when you came up here with her...’
They were jealous words but she felt free to say them and he knew exactly the time Gabi referred to.
‘You will recall that I sent her back down,’ Alim said as he kissed her hard against the wall.
‘Why?’ she demanded.
‘I was at risk of saying your name.’
‘Why?’
‘You know why,’ Alim said, and mid-hallway, a long way from the entrance to his lounge, let alone the bedroom door, he recalled that incident. ‘Because I was hard for you.’
He was hard for her now.
Her hands were in his hair and though she was unskilled in her kiss, so untamed and frantic was her mouth it was effort that was rewarded.
His hands dug hard into her bottom as they kissed; he felt her wriggle and Gabi let out an ‘Ow’ as he dug into her bruise.
‘It’s sore there,’ she said, for all her senses felt heightened and she saw him frown in concern that he had hurt her. ‘Where I fell,’ she further explained.
Oh, yes.
His apartment might just as well be in Venice, for the corridor was simply too long for both of them; he would have to drag her, like a marathon runner across the finishing line. Oh, her determination was there but her willpower had gone at the same moment as his.
Still he kissed her hard against the wall, his tongue forcing apart her lips and his hands holding Gabi’s wrists by her sides.
She ached to touch him, but he held her tight as he kissed her hard. Her arms attempted to flex, but his grip tightened and then suddenly released.
‘Bed,’ he said.
‘Please,’ she told him.
They fell through the door and were greeted by warmth and the scent of wood and pine and a fire lit in the grate.
It surprised Gabi, for she had expected opulence but not warmth.
He was behind her and the intention was bed but so warm was the room and so wanting the flesh that his hand came to her zipper.
‘Show me where you hurt,’ he said.
Gabi screwed her eyes closed for she wanted pitch blackness before she was naked but her dress was already sliding down.
She had felt beautiful in it, but now she was scared that the unwrapping of the parcel might reveal less than delicious contents.
Instead, she heard a low moan as he ran a finger down her spine.
‘Alim...’ Gabi breathed as she felt his fingers in her knickers, sliding them down.
Then he knelt and she felt his breath on her bottom and then his mouth soft and warm, and she thought she might fold over.
Her thighs were shaking as she stepped out of her knickers.
His hands splayed her thighs so that she stood in her lovely high heels with her legs spread a little apart. He kissed the sensitive flesh of her inner thigh, then kissed the new purple bruise and it was bliss, but a bliss that could not last, for either of them, for more was needed for such pleasure to be sustained.
He stood then, undid her bra and turned her around.
He was completely dressed.
As if he had just come in to check on his staff.
You could not tell he had been on his knees between her thighs.
‘I feel at a disadvantage,’ she admitted, for she was naked apart from her shoes.
‘Yet you have the complete advantage,’ Alim said, for she could bring him back to his knees if she so chose.
Instead, she took off her shoes.
They made her unsteady—or was that Alim?—for his eyes never left her face as he shrugged off his jacket.
Gabi stood perfectly still, yet her breath came in pants as if she had been sprinting. His fingers reached for a nipple, taking it between finger and thumb, and then he looked down. Gabi swallowed as he lowered his head and took a leisurely taste; to steady herself, her hand went for his head.
But he removed it.
Her breast was wet and cool from his mouth as he removed his tie and shirt.
Oh, she had wanted to see him for so long. His skin was like burnt caramel and his chest was wide, his arms strong. She looked at the fan of hair and the dark puckered skin of his nipples, and she too wanted her taste. For a moment she resisted, for there were other feasts to be had.
She ran a hand along his upper arm and it was an unexpected move for Alim but he liked the soft touch of her hands and the slight pinch of her fingers.
Then she looked down at the snake of hair and the swell beneath and she bit on her lip because she knew tonight was going to hurt.
‘I’ll be gentle.’
‘Really?’
And there was a dry edge to her voice, a smoky provocative edge that even Gabi had not heard in herself before.
She was stroking the crinkle of hair on his stomach and then her mouth went to his flat nipple; she licked the salty skin and this time it was Alim who held her head and moaned at the soft nip of her teeth. And it was Gabi who slid down his zipper.
Alim had anticipated reticence, yet her touch was eager.
They both stood naked now, so there was no disadvantage, not a single one.
She could see and feel and touch his desire, which she did, stroking him at first then abandoning him erect so that she could reclaim his kiss.
He was damp and hard against her stomach and she was burning on the inside. She had dreamed of being kissed on his bed.
Instead, they did not make it past the fire.
They knelt, though their mouths remained engaged, sharing hot, wet kisses as they sank back onto their heels. His body was magnificent, his shoulders were wide as she ran her hands over them.
Always, she had felt cumbersome.
Not tonight.
He felt her lips stretch into a smile.
‘What?’ he asked, and pulled his head back a fraction.
‘You always make me want to sit up straighter.’
‘Sit up straighter, then.’
She had to fight to do so because, as he traced her clavicle with his tongue, she wanted to fold in two. Then down to her breast and he tasted it again, only slowly and deeply while massaging the other, rolling the swollen nipple between finger and thumb.
‘Sit up straight,’ he warned, as she started to sink into his skilled caress, which crept lower and lower.
She rested her arms on his shoulders as his fingers slipped into her tight hollow; she let out a sob of both pain and pleasure as he stretched and probed her, readying her for him.
She could sit up straight no more so he laid her down on the floor, stroking her and kissing her all the while.
His fingers did not rush, though his hand was insistent.
She went to push it away at one point for he made her want to scream, but instead Gabi clenched her jaw. He spoke in Arabic and his words, though not understood, matched her urgent desire.
He was passionate, sensual and far from cold as he coached her those final steps home.
‘Come,’ he told her, licking his lips, and she felt that if she did not then his lips would ensure that she did. Gabi succumbed to the pleasure, simply letting go.
She was tight around his fingers as her thighs clamped and her bottom lifted. Watching her pleasure was intense for Alim, and he fought his urgent need to take her.
Alim too was breathless as she lay there, temporarily sated, her hand over her mound.
She had not lied as others had, for there was blood on his fingers as he removed them.
Now they would retreat to the bedroom, yet still his hand roamed her thighs. Unwittingly, Gabi parted them for him, her mouth awaiting his kiss.
He fought with temptation and lost.
A little way, he decided, because he ached for her.
‘It’s going to hurt,’ Gabi said, torn between fear and desire.
‘A little,’ he accepted, but despite his size her wetness eased him in.
It was nothing like her imaginings.
In her dreams it was a seamless, tender dance as he gently took her while telling her he loved her. In reality it was the tearing of flesh and the rising of pain as he inched into her.
Gabi found that she preferred the latter.
‘Gabi...’
He had sworn just a little way in, but the grip was too inviting, the scent of sex urged him on and he thrust in deeply.
She sobbed, loudly, and he cursed his lack of care. Alim stilled. It took a moment for her to acclimatise, to regroup, and then she begged him to do it again.
Alim obliged.
Over and over.
They rolled and they kissed, they dragged from each other pleasure beyond imagining, and she, the virgin, pushed him to extremes, for he fought hard not to come.
His life, his identity, even his seed was always protected.
Yet his abdomen was tight and he was lifting.
He did not withdraw and she did not resist. Instead, she coiled her legs tighter around his loins, and this time, when Gabi came, it was around his thick length.
He felt the throb of her demand.
‘Alim...’ Her voice told him now, in fact it pleaded, and Alim bade farewell to restraint and rained deep into her.
The rush of his release and the moan he made procured a tiny cry from Gabi that abruptly died, for she was back to his mouth, being consumed by his kiss and a slave to their bliss.
They lay there a while, until both the room and their bodies were cool. But the fires of passion had not dimmed.
‘Bed,’ Alim said, and he stood and helped her up.
For still it beckoned.
