he took his other hand and reached up, pinched her nipple lightly between his thumb and forefinger while continuing his sensual torture with his mouth and she broke completely, shattering into a thousand, glimmering pieces. She wasn’t sure she would ever be whole again, and she wasn’t sure she cared.
She was lost in the pleasure, in the release that kept coming, wave after wave, so big, so intense she didn’t know if she could withstand it. He kept tasting her, kept sliding his tongue over her damp skin until she shook, until her body was racked by tiny tremors, aftershocks of the release that had undone her completely.
And when it was over, Alik was there. And she wanted to run. But she’d promised she wouldn’t. So she lay there instead, shaking.
Alik rose up and kissed her lips, his skin damp with sweat and her own arousal. He sat on the edge of the bed, his expression flat. “I don’t know what happened,” he said.
“You don’t…”
“Usually I am more considerate than that. I lost my control for a moment. It won’t happen again. Good night, Jada.” He sat straight for a moment, indecision flashing across his face, then he leaned in and kissed her again. “I’ll see you in the morning.”
He got up and walked out of the room.
Jada hadn’t run. But Alik had.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
ALIK DID HIS BEST TO WASH the impression of Jada from his skin with a cold shower. When that didn’t work, he went for a run, hoping the rain and a bit of physical punishment would take care of things for him.
It didn’t. By the time he collapsed in his bed, the sky was turning gray, the sun rising up behind the clouds.
He growled and got back out of bed, stalking down to the kitchen. His cook had just gotten in. He gave terse orders in French for her to prepare breakfast to be served out on the patio again. He wanted to eat out there like they’d done yesterday morning. Like they’d done before Jada had stripped his skin from his bones, left him feeling raw and exposed.
It was because he’d come before she had. That had to be it. He hadn’t been that quick on the draw since he’d been a teenager. But damned if he could have stopped himself. And that was just far too telling.
He had never considered himself a man who held control in high esteem. He did what he wanted, when he wanted to do it. Some had called him debauched, and they weren’t that far off. There were years of his life that he could barely remember, and it wasn’t for any good or honorable reason.
Now he wondered how much of himself he’d truly kept bound up. How much of that sense of emotionless came from control. How much he had inflicted on himself. Because what had happened with Jada disturbed him, and it was beyond a simple matter of male pride.
“I thought I heard you growling down here.” He turned and saw Jada behind him, in the clothes she’d been wearing the night before. Clothes she’d stripped off for his pleasure.
“I am not growling.”
“You most certainly were. I could hear a rumbling coming from down here and no distinct words.”
“I didn’t sleep well last night.”
“Join the club.”
She was angry, he could tell. Not shooting sparks at him with her eyes, but definitely angry.
“Where is Leena?”
“Sleeping. Like a sane person. It’s barely five o’clock.”
“And why are you up?”
“The same reason you are, I imagine.”
“We aren’t going to have a heart-to-heart, Jada. Something like that requires both parties have a heart.”
She stalked forward and fisted his T-shirt in her hands, tugging hard. And he followed the direction of the pull. She pressed her mouth to his, took his lower lip between her teeth and nipped him lightly. Then she released him.
“You can’t run from that, Alik. I tried it already, remember?”
“Yes, Jada, I remember. And I don’t run. I’ve withstood artillery fire…I’m hardly backing down from a woman who barely comes up to the center of my chest.”
“Yeah, yeah. I keep hearing about all that. Big Bad Alik Vasin. But you ran last night.”
“I don’t spend the night with women I…” The look on her face forced him to swallow the last crude word he’d been about to say. “I’m not the kind of guy who cuddles after.”
“Fine,” she said, so clearly not fine it was almost comical. “But it would be nice if you stayed for more than five seconds.