Slave to Passion

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.

He hated that look of rejection on her face. He was responsible for that. After the way he’d treated her before… After the things he’d said… But he could change it now.

Brushing her hair back from her face, he leaned down to kiss her lips again. Gently. Sweetly. Over and over until she opened and slid her tongue into his mouth, drawing him deeper into something he knew he’d never escape. His blood was a roar in his ears once more. His cock so hard he hurt. But his suffering was worth it if it killed the worry in her eyes.

“I’m not ready to share you,” he said against her lips. “I don’t want them to take you from me yet.”

She eased back, stared up at him with even more confusion. But swimming in her sea-green eyes, he saw heat. The same heat burning him from the inside out. And followed quickly on its tail, a burst of tenderness that softened her entire face.

“Oh, Nasir,” she whispered, running her palm against his stubbly cheek.

His chest tightened. A sensation he hadn’t felt in so long he wasn’t sure what was causing it. But he liked it. So much that even though he knew this was futile, that eventually she’d be taken from him or one of them would die, he turned his lips into her hand, kissed her palm, then closed his eyes and hung on to the feeling.

Not of despair and misery but of hope. And the promise of a tiny speck of blessed light instead of all the wretched darkness he’d been living with.

She pushed him back so he was sitting, then moved into the water. Surprised, he looked down at her. At the wild tangle of red hair around her flushed face. At the same hunger he felt reflected in her eyes. She knelt on the steps, gorgeous and naked and his, and when she pushed his legs apart, then ran her hands up his fabric-covered thighs, sparks of heat ricocheted right up his legs and into his groin.

“I want to pleasure you, Nasir. The same way you pleasured me.”

He sucked in a breath. Unable to move. Unable to think. Unable to do anything but stare. And want. And lust.

“I want to feel you against my tongue,” she whispered, reaching for the button on his pants. “This time, I want to taste you come in my mouth.”

* * *

Kavin’s pulse beat so hard she was sure Nasir had to hear it.

Did he want that? Did he want her to touch and taste and pleasure him the way he’d pleasured her?

He’d said he wanted her. His words from moments ago—his reason for not claiming her—still rippled through her chest, sending warmth to every nerve ending in her body. No words had ever meant more to her. But did he want her mouth on him right now, the way his had been on her?

Please say yes. Please say yes…

For reasons she couldn’t explain, she was dying to see all of him, to feel him with her hands, to taste him with her tongue. Though she’d never felt the urge before, right now, she needed to make him feel as good as he’d made her feel. Craved it in a way she’d never craved anything else.

“Nasir?” she asked hesitantly when he only continued to stare at her with those heated, dark eyes. Eyes that sent desire skipping right back through her veins, mixed with a wariness she knew he saw.

“It’s been a long time for me,” he said in a low voice. A sexy voice. An oh-my-Allah, I-could-come-again-just-listening-to-that-voice voice. “I’m not sure that’s a good idea.”

“I want to.” He didn’t stop her when she unhooked the button at his waistband. And she took that as her sign, slowly sliding the zipper down his fly. “I need to.”

He tensed when she pushed her hands beneath his waistband, one on each side of his hips. His skin was warm against her palms, the muscles bunched below so damn alluring. Bracing his hands on each side of him, he lifted for her, letting her slide his thin black training pants past his hips and down his thighs.

His erection sprang up, so thick, so hard. And then it was her turn to draw in a sharp breath. Her hands faltered as she looked her fill. He was bigger than she expected—thicker, longer, darker at the tip—but it didn’t frighten her. If anything, the sight of him so aroused excited her. She drew in his scent—musk and man and need. Licking her lips, she dragged his pants the rest of the way off and tossed them onto the tiles beside the bath, then wondered—imagined—how he would taste in her mouth, how he would feel sliding inside her body.

Her pulse raced. Leaning forward, she braced her hands on his thighs and felt him tense all over again.

A smile curled her lips. He liked her touch. As much as she liked his. She tipped her eyes up to his. “You may need to help me a little. I’ve never done this.”

His eyes darkened, and he drew in another deep breath as she leaned forward and extended her tongue, licking just the very tip.

He was warm and hard and just the slightest bit salty. An interesting and unusual taste. But when he groaned low in his throat, she lost her inhibition and leaned closer still, running her tongue along the underside of his head, then opening and wrapping her lips all the way around him.

She knew, of course, what to do. As a jarriah in training, she’d seen pictures and drawings of the various sex acts. She’d even, secretly, been shown a live encounter between a jarriah and a highborn. A visual that had left her sick to her stomach at the thought of being forced to do any and all of the things she’d witnessed. But this wasn’t forced. And this didn’t leave a pit in the bottom of her belly. In fact, as she moved her lips lower, suckled, and drew back, her own arousal increased, until she had to press her thighs together to assuage the ache growing once more between her legs.

Nasir dropped his head back and closed his eyes. With his hands braced against the tiles, his torso tipped back, and his face angled toward the ceiling, Kavin had a great view of his body. Chiseled, hard, so incredibly perfect, he looked as if he’d been carved from stone. As she continued to work him over with her mouth, just as she’d seen that other jarriah do, she remembered how it had felt to have his hands on her body as he’d licked her. Growing more confident, she slid one hand up his belly and lightly pinched his nipple.

He moaned in response and lifted his hips, forcing his cock deeper into her mouth. “Oh yes, rouhi, that feels so good. Flick the tip with your tongue when you pull back.”

His words inflamed her, excited her, aroused her to explosive levels. She eased back, ran her tongue all along the head, just as he’d said, then took him deep in her mouth once more.

“Allah,” he whispered. “Just like that. Deeper.”

His fingers threaded into her hair, massaged the back of her scalp, applied just the slightest amount of pressure so she drew him deeper. Easing back again, she looked up to see his reaction and realized he was watching her through dark and hooded lashes, his eyes as smoldering as she’d ever seen, his face flushed and sparkling with a thin sheen of sweat.

She was making him feel as good as he’d made her feel. But it wasn’t enough. The need to make him come, to make him lose control just as he’d done to her, overwhelmed her.

She refocused on her task, tightened her lips, lowered, and took him even deeper, until he brushed the back of her throat. And when he groaned again, when he lifted his hips again and again as if he couldn’t stop, she didn’t let up. She drove him closer to the edge with her mouth, raked her fingernails across his balls with one hand, and pinched his nipples with the other.

“Rouhi… Allah, you need to stop. I won’t be able to hold back much longer.”

She didn’t want to stop. She wanted to taste all of him. And the strain she heard in his voice told her he didn’t really want her to stop either.

She continued to suckle him, pushed his hands away when he tried to ease her off his cock, then took him as deep as she ever had. And then she swallowed again and again until her throat worked around his length and he groaned long and low.

“You feel so good, rouhi. Oh yes, keep swallowing, just like that. Fuck, I’m gonna come. Do you want me to come in your mouth?”

He grew even harder, thrust deeper, faster. She looked up, continued to work him over with her lips and tongue and throat in answer, continued to give him everything he’d given her. His hand tightened in her hair; his eyes glazed over. Then his entire body trembled.

A growl burst from his chest just as his cock twitched in her mouth. “I’m coming.”

His seed burst across her tongue, filling her mouth with a salty sweetness she loved. She swallowed, drawing out his orgasm, watching as it overwhelmed him, consumed him, and left him as boneless as hers had left her. His hand dropped from her hair to the tiles. His muscles quivered as he braced his weight against his arms. Only when she felt him soften slightly against her tongue did she finally let go.

He blinked several times, seemed to have trouble focusing. Then finally rasped, “By Allah. Where did you learn to do that?”

Heat burned her cheeks as she eased back to sit on her heels in the water. She knew his question wasn’t meant as an accusation, but it hit her as such, dousing the arousal she’d felt before and reminding her just what she really was. Suddenly very aware of her nakedness, and his, and the fact that, even though he’d just orgasmed, his erection was still hard and big, lying against his thigh, she swallowed, then lifted her gaze back to his face. “I… They make all of the trainees…watch. I’ve never done that before, though. I mean, that was the first time I…”

She clamped her lips together before the words could get all the way out. Sickness flooded her belly, a sickness she’d kept at bay by not thinking too much about the future. But now…

He was in the water before she saw him move. His arms wrapped around her body, drawing her close, his lips closing over hers to kiss her crazy all over again. And as he held her, as his strong, muscular body pressed against her and his tongue stroked hers in that wicked, erotic way as it had before, it pushed away the dark thoughts and drew back every inch of that desire she’d felt before. When he’d pleasured her. When she’d pleasured him.

A devastatingly handsome smile turned his lips when he eased back from her mouth. A smile that made him look years younger and so full of life, it stole her breath. “I’ve been trying to plot my revenge against the highborns since the day I was brought here. But you just proved pleasure is the very best revenge there is.”

She wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she didn’t dwell on it, instead brushed the dark hair back from his face so she could see his eyes better. “You’re not upset?”

“Why would I be upset?”

“Because they’re right. I just demonstrated I can be as big a”—she fought back the hitch in her voice as she looked down at his chest—“whore…as the others in the harem.”

“Rouhi, look at me.” He tipped her chin up with his finger. “Did I force you to do anything you didn’t want to do?”

“No.”

“Did you enjoy it?”

Her cheeks heated all over again when she remembered his mouth on her sex, when she remembered how hot he’d been against her tongue. She glanced at his lips. His luscious, sweet, tempting lips. “Yes.”

“Then you’re not a whore.”

“But some jarriah in the harem enjoy what they’re made to do.” Her stomach rolled when she remembered Hana telling her that many jarriah learned to crave what the highborns did to them, alone, in multiples, whenever and wherever they wanted.

“Enjoy or tolerate, because they don’t know any better?”

Slowly, her gaze shifted to his eyes. His soft, fathomless eyes. “Are you saying they lie?”

“I’m saying they’re not given a choice. You are. With me, here, now, everything is up to you. You are not one of them, rouhi. With me, here in this cell, you’re mine, and I am yours.”

Warmth unfurled in her stomach. A warmth she felt all the way to her toes. Rouhi… He’d called her that several times now. Did it mean the same in his language that it did in hers? She wanted it to. She loved the thought that he was calling her “his soul.” Because that was how she was suddenly thinking of him.

He was not at all what she’d expected. He was kind and sweet and so damn sexy she could barely believe she’d once thought him a monster. She knew it was silly to romanticize what was happening between them. He’d told her—flat out—that pleasure was a form of revenge. But she didn’t want to be just another way for him to get back at the highborns who’d imprisoned him. She wanted to be more. She wanted to be his in every sense of the word.

As he lowered his head and kissed her again, she cupped his face, opened for him, and drew him into her mouth and heart and soul. His erection pressed against her thigh, sent a jolt of arousal rushing through her veins all over again. Told her, oh, yes, he wanted her as much as she wanted him. And though she was desperate to feel him slide inside her body, she knew he wouldn’t—at least not yet.

But that was okay with her. Because she didn’t want to give him up yet either. If he took her—when he finally took her—she’d revel in the moment and carry it with her for the rest of her life.

However long or short that might be.