Page 19 of Sheikh's Secret Love-Child

Everything went electric. Wild lightning and mad thunder.

She tasted like the kind of magic Malak had never believed in. White-hot. Lush and sweet. Her taste rolled through him, making him ache as if he’d never kissed a woman before. As if he never would again.

As if hers was the only taste he had ever known or could ever want.

He remembered this. The kick of her. The impossible sweetness. He remembered it, but now that she was right here again he couldn’t understand how he had ever walked away from her in the first place.

Because Shona was addictive. She was perfect.

Malak angled his head, taking the kiss deeper, wilder, and making it far more intense. He fit his hands to the fine line of her jaw, and held her where he wanted her. He was suddenly, fiercely glad that she’d refused to wear the clothes he’d gotten for her because it meant he could feel her against him without the bother of all that extra fabric. He was hard and she was soft, and he fit himself against her as if they’d been made to be pieces of the same puzzle—

And that thought should have stopped him. It should have horrified him because he was a king, this was not a child’s game and he did not believe in the kind of connection he felt with this woman. He had been raised by a man so heedlessly, hopelessly, sickeningly in love with his wife he’d failed entirely to notice either her indiscretions or his own children. Love had turned to grief and had ended his father’s reign after his mother’s death. Love had taken his brother, Zufar, from the throne shortly thereafter. Love was chaos and ruin, as far as Malak could tell. He had never wanted any part of that kind of sickness. Not even the faintest hint.

He had vowed that he would not allow love or any other foolish emotion to threaten his throne. Not him. He was the ignored son. The forgotten spare. He’d been the only one in his family who’d been capable of seeing just how terrible it had all become—even before his mother’s death and the abdications that had followed.

Malak had vowed that he, the least likely king alive, would be the ruler his people deserved.

He should stop this. Now.

But he was too busy drowning in Shona’s taste. The slick friction of her tongue against his.

She was like a drug.

And he wanted more and more, no matter what it cost him—

Shona pulled her mouth away from his then, bracing her hands against his chest as she gasped for breath.

And Malak forgot that he had taken the throne. That he was the king—or even that there was a kingdom to rule, out there somewhere in the dark.

Because all he cared about was Shona. And the dark, sweet joy of her taste.

He wanted more. He wanted everything.

“Malak...” she began, and her voice was different now. Hushed. Something like reverent, which should have been enough.

It almost was.

Because he knew that she was as shaken as he was that this thing between them was still so bold. So intense.

That it hadn’t been the alcohol after all, all those years ago. The way he’d told himself when he’d left that morning, leaving her warm and naked in his bed and forcing himself not to look back. Not to linger. Not to test their connection one more time...

Malak didn’t want to think about that. He just wanted more of her. That impossible taste of hers that licked through him like fire and made him feel like a stranger to himself.

He didn’t wait to hear what she might say. What new, ridiculous barriers she might throw between them in her endless attempts to hold back the inevitable.

Malak sank down to his knees and heard the way her breath left her in a rush. He slid his hands up the length of her gorgeous legs, marveling in the feel of her. The play of lean muscle and soft curves. He hooked his fingers in the waistband of her foolish trousers. And he could feel, as well as hear, the harsh, intense way she was breathing, as if she was running somewhere—though she didn’t move.

He paused, waiting for her to object, possibly. Or at the very least, question him.

But she didn’t say a word. She didn’t move. She only gazed down at him, her dark eyes gleaming.

Malak watched her lovely face as he peeled down her trousers, exposing her perfect legs to his view. He pulled them off, freeing one foot, then the other.

And he couldn’t tell if it was her harsh breathing that filled his ears, or his own. But he didn’t care. He set his hands to her legs again, tracing them and learning them as he smoothed his way back up the satiny soft skin he’d bared.

And when he made it to the delectable swell of her hips, he hooked his fingers around to the sweet, lush curve of her bottom, and pulled her toward him.

“Malak...” she said again.