Maisey Yates - His Christmas Conquest - The Sheikh's Christmas Conquest / A Christmas Vow of Seduction / Claiming His Christmas Consequence

There was a pause as he glittered her a smile. ‘But that is where you are wrong, Livvy,’ he said softly. ‘Don’t you see that fate has played right into our hands? You are now free to take up my offer and return to Jazratan with me. You can forget about niggling domestic duties over the holidays and use your neglected healing powers on my horse, for which I will reward you handsomely.’

The sum he mentioned was so large that for a moment Livvy thought he was joking, and for a moment she was seriously tempted. Yet some stubborn sense of pride made her shake her head. ‘That’s far too much.’

He raised his eyebrows. ‘First time I’ve ever heard anyone complain about being paid too much.’

‘It should be a fair price,’ she persisted stubbornly. ‘Not one that sounds like winning the national lottery.’

‘What is fair is what I am prepared to pay for your services,’ he argued. ‘If your gift was more widely distributed, then obviously the price would be a lot lower. But it isn’t, and what you have is rare, Livvy—we both know that.’

She knew what he was doing. He was manipulating her and he was doing it very effectively. He was making her an offer too good to refuse and she was scared. Scared to try. Scared of failing. Scared of his reaction if she did fail. And scared of so much else besides.

‘But what if this so-called gift no longer exists?’ she said. ‘There’s no guarantee that my intervention will work. Burkaan may not respond to my treatment, we both know that.’

‘Yes, I know that,’ he said. ‘But at least I will have tried. I will have done all that is in my power to help my horse.’

She wasn’t imagining the sudden hollowness in his voice, or the accompanying bleakness in his eyes, and it was that that made up Livvy’s mind for her. Yes, Saladin Al Mektala had the kind of unimaginable riches and influence that other people could only dream of, but when it boiled down to it he was just a man who was desperate to save his beloved horse.

‘Very well.’ She bent down and picked up her bra. ‘I’ll come to Jazratan with you.’

‘Now what are you doing?’

She straightened up. ‘I’m getting dressed, of course. There’s a lot I have to sort out. I need to organise someone to feed the cat, for a start.’

‘I’m sure you do, but there is something of much greater urgency.’ His voice had grown silky. ‘And don’t look at me with those big honey-coloured eyes and pretend you don’t know what I’m talking about.’

Taking the bra from her unprotesting fingers, he dropped it to the floor and wrapped his arms around her waist, securing her to the spot, so that he could kiss her. And once he had started kissing her, she was hungry for more. She rose up on tiptoe to curl her hands possessively around his neck and he gave a low laugh of triumph.

But this time he didn’t push her to the rug and slowly thrust himself inside her. Instead, he bent and slid his arm underneath her knees, lifting her up so that she was cradled effortlessly in front of his chest.

‘Where are you taking me?’ she whispered as he headed for the door.

‘To bed.’

She looked up at him. ‘Why?’

‘Are you serious? You know exactly why. Because I want sex with you again, and once on a hard floor is quite enough when there is the promise of a soft mattress.’

‘Actually, my mattress happens to be very firm.’

‘That’s good.’ He slid his hand over her bottom and gave it a squeeze. ‘I like firm.’

Her cheeks hot with embarrassment and excitement, Livvy turned her face into his chest. He was taking control and she was letting him. I want sex with you again , he’d said—in a way that could almost be described as abrupt. There were no euphemisms tripping off his tongue, were there? No tender words of affection to feed her romantic fantasies. He’s being truthful , she reminded herself. He’s telling it as it is.

Yet it was difficult to keep fantasy totally at bay when a naked sheikh was in the process of kicking open her bedroom door and depositing her on her bed.

‘Now,’ he said as he straddled her, his fingers hooking into the soft silk of her knickers.

She thought he was about to slide them down as he’d done before, but the sudden sound of delicate fabric being ripped made her eyes widen in astonishment and, yes, in excitement, too.

‘I can’t...’ Her heart began to hammer against her ribcage. ‘I can’t believe you just did that.’

‘Well, I did—and here’s the proof,’ he drawled, dangling the tattered fragments from his index finger like a trophy.

‘Those are my best knickers,’ she protested.

‘Were,’ he corrected. ‘But they were an obstruction to my desire, and I don’t do obstruction. Ever. You shouldn’t have put them back on, Livvy.’

‘That is...outrageous,’ she spluttered.

‘Perhaps it is,’ he agreed unsteadily. ‘But you like me being outrageous, don’t you, habibi ? You like the sense that I am now free to do this...’ With a light and teasing movement, he began to brush his finger over her searing heat. Back and forth it went in a relentless rhythm so delicious that she almost leaped off the bed.

‘Oh,’ she breathed.

‘And, of course, I shall make sure you have new panties,’ he said unsteadily.

She felt his warm breath heating her face as he lowered his lips towards her. ‘What, just so that you can rip them off again?’ she managed indistinctly.

‘Of course. Because I think we’re both discovering what we like. You like me being masterful, don’t you, my beauty?’ His finger was continuing with its insistent, stroking movement. ‘Which is very convenient, since being masterful comes very easily to me.’

Livvy was so aroused by this stage that she barely noticed he must have been in possession of another condom all the while he’d been carrying her upstairs, because he was now stroking it on with practised fingers and easing himself inside her, and she gasped—her cry catching in her throat like a crumb. But this time there was nothing but glorious anticipation coursing around her veins like thick, sweet honey as he entered her. Because this time she knew what was coming.

‘Oh, Saladin,’ she said, the tender words tumbling out of her mouth—driven by her sheer delight in the moment and wanting him to know how special this felt. ‘You are...’

But her breathless words died on her lips as she felt him tense inside her, as if she’d wronged him in some way. She looked up to see that his face had become a mask—stony and forbidding.

‘Don’t say soft words to me, because I don’t want to hear them,’ he instructed harshly. ‘I don’t do tenderness, Livvy. Do you understand?’

‘S-sure,’ she said uncertainly, and closed her eyes so he wouldn’t see her hurt and confusion.

But something had changed—although maybe it was just her own perception of what was happening. He seemed like a man on a mission. As if he was intent on demonstrating his sexual superiority—or demonstrating something . Why else did he seem to set about showcasing how many times he could have her orgasm? Of having her plead with him not to stop? Over and over again he made love to her in different ways, as if he intended to make up for all the sex she’d missed out on in her twenty-nine years. Or was it all about power? About showing her who was really the boss?

CHAPTER NINE

SALADIN HEARD THE whir of helicopter blades long before the craft entered the immediate airspace of the house. Moving his wrist carefully so as not to wake Livvy, he glanced at his watch and gave a small nod of satisfaction. Exactly on time and exactly as he had instructed.

He glanced over at the head that was lying next to him—Livvy’s bright hair spread out over the pillow. Her lips were parted as she breathed and there was a rosy flush on her freckled cheeks. He felt another stir of desire and contemplated moving his fingertip down over one silken thigh as he thought back to the previous night and most of the subsequent day that he’d spent in her bed. They had taken short breaks for food and for a shared and very erotic shower, and at one point they’d even scrambled into their clothes and gone out tramping through the snowy countryside. But for the most part they had been shut in her bedroom, making love so often that he should have been exhausted, when all he felt was a delicious kind of high.