His Pregnant Prisoner

Part 30

The whisper of rustling clothes brought Nakayla awake from the deep slumber she had fallen into. She blinked and sat up, the flickering light of lanterns illuminating her surroundings for her.

It took her a few seconds to realize she was at the desert hideaway, and that it was...her wedding night. Pushing her hair away from her face, she grimaced at the tangles. She had fallen asleep the moment her head touched the pillow, and had neglected to take her pins out. Wondering what time it was, she looked up.

Standing at the edge of the bed, his sparsely haired, lean chest bare, a white towel slung low around his hips, there was Karim.

Her husband, hers to hold and obey and...love.

Her vows came back to her word by word, but panic was only a mild flutter in her chest now.

Faced with such potent masculinity, knowing that this powerful man had pledged his fidelity and respect and his body to her, everything else paled in significance.

This time, she was prepared for the burning flame of her own need, of the blast of heat that punched low in her belly.

Golden light bathed the musculature of his chest, delineating every ridge of tightly roped muscle and sinew. Droplets of water clung to his skin, skin that she knew would feel like rough velvet. Muscle and sinew, he was breathtakingly gorgeous and he had never been bared to her like this.

She must have made a sound—a needy whimper, because he turned around then.

Tawny eyes met hers and she gasped aloud.A savage light filled those golden depths. He looked fierce, dark, like one of the warriors he had told her about, as if there was a well of some bright fire inside of him that lit him from the inside out. Power and confidence radiated from him in waves.

Fear of some unknown crashed through her, and she clasped her hands together to stop their shaking. This was ridiculous. She knew this man, but the reassurance rang hollow.

"Karim?" His name was an entreaty on her lips, a soft intonation. As if she could tame whatever it was that clung to him like a second skin. As if she could call forth that veneer of civilized sophistication that she'd always known was only skin-deep.

The hand in his hair with a towel stilled and he looked up at her. A thoroughly possessive light glinted in his eyes as his gaze lingered over her brow, her nose and finally rested on her mouth.

"Did I wake you?"

Clutching the voluminous folds of her dress, she pushed her feet to the ground and stood up. "No. How long have you been back?"

Another rough tumble of his hair and then the towel went flying into the corner. "An hour, maybe." Catching her look around, he said, "It's almost dawn."

"It took so long?"

Powerful shoulders rose as he shrugged. "Go back to sleep, Nakayla."

She licked her lips to moisten them. "No. I'm fine." An infinitesimal shudder racked the tense line of his shoulders. "You went for a swim in the oasis in the middle of the night? You must be freezing!"

"I needed to cool down."

That matter-of-fact statement hung in the room, sparking into life a simmering fire.

He was half-naked and she was drowning in silk and yet, she felt as if she was the one utterly bared to him.

Reaching him on barely steady legs, she stilled. The skirts of her dress fluttered against his legs. She thought his mouth must have twitched at how strange she was acting, but when she looked into his eyes, there was only that deeply disconcerting hunger again.