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Now he moves away from my button and his fingers, two of them, descend and thrust gently into my womanhood…my vagina. I know there are other words; I have heard them all before, but I do not want them in my head. I am fighting enough shame as it is. The sounds I am making are wanton, loud and shameless, even though my mind keeps trying to tell me to be quiet. I cannot. I have no control over my body now. I am a puppet, and Hunter’s fingers within me are controlling me.

  I crack my eyes open and glance down to watch him, seeing his hand, his middle and ring fingers pushing into my privates. He is inside me to the knuckle now. Watch it happen. Let it happen. Enjoy it. His palm faces my body, and now his fingers curl upward, explore my inner walls. My breath is coming short stutters, gasps, whimpers. His curling fingers brush me in a certain spot, high on the inside, and the lightning bolts shiver hotter than ever, send me into a writhing, helpless spasm, and he does not relent, but presses his thumb to my clitoris and moves it in swift circles, barely brushing me.

  Pressure wells up inside me, and my hips are moving on their own, rocking up into his hand as he moves his thumb against me and his fingers inside me. The pressure is rising, rising, turning into fire, into earthquakes within me. I do not know what is happening. Fear is a cold wave in my heart, threatening to douse the fires raging in me.

  I feel like a tea kettle about to boil over. His every touch makes me writhe and whimper. His head rests on my chest, on my shirt, and his breath washes hot against my neck. He, too, seems overwhelmed, barely holding on to his sanity or his control.

  I touch his chin so he looks at me. The vulnerability I see in his eyes is what does me in. I am on a ledge, about to fall over into madness. I want to see his eyes, so I may retain some semblance of my self through it all.

  HUNTER

  My god, she’s so beautiful. She’s barely holding on. I can see how afraid she is of what lies beyond that edge. She’s so close, about to come, but she won’t let herself. She’s gazing at me, fear in her eyes, desire in her eyes, confusion, need, worry, shame.

  Shame. She’s ashamed of this. I saw her blush when I first touched her. She is so wet, her desire a pungent aroma that has me so hard I could come if she’d only brush her thigh against my cock. Just the smell of her pu**y is enough to make me lose control. I can’t take her eyes on me any longer. I let my head thump down against her chest. The thin cotton of her shirt is strained by the swell of her br**sts, each mound pulled aside by gravity. Her ni**les are beads poking the cotton, tempting my tongue.

  Not yet. She’s not ready for that yet.

  My fingers slide inside her channel, and her body is writhing against me. I touch her clit with my thumb and I feel her nearly lose it right then, but she doesn’t. She’s afraid. How do I make her forget her fear?

  I kiss her. God, she tastes so good. Her lips drive me crazy, the way she nibbles at my lower lip, the way her tongue traces my teeth…I want to kiss her forever, but I can’t. Her clit is a hard little bump, intensely sensitive. If I so much as brush her clit, she whimpers. Her G-spot is a roughened, ribbed patch of skin, and she moans when I rub it with my fingers, her hips bucking against my hand.

  I’m so hard, so f**king hard. I’m about to come in my pants just touching her, just hearing her moan for me. Thank f**k she isn’t trying to touch me, because I wouldn’t have enough self-control to stop her. I desperately want to feel her slim little fingers wrap around my cock, stroke me and touch me.

  No. No. This is about her, not me.

  She moves beneath me, sliding down so her knees rise up, her heels bumping against her ass, thighs spread wide as I drive her wild with my fingers. Sliding down made her shirt bunch up even more, and now the bottom swell of one breast is visible.

  Page 38

 

  Fucking goddamn it. I can’t take it, can’t help it. I’ve wanted to kiss her br**sts from the very first moment she accidentally flashed me while changing. I’ve seen them again since, but I’ve always forced my gaze away. To look was to want. Now I have my fingers in her pu**y and her juices slathered on my hand, and all I want is to touch her br**sts. Need to.

  Fuck.

  I give in, nudge the hem up with my nose so her breast is bared completely. My god…so perfect. A taut, round globe of silky sweet skin with wide, dark areolas and tall, rigid ni**les begging for my mouth.

  I swallow hard, working my tongue to produce saliva. My mouth is dry, my throat clenched up. I’m nervous, oddly. It’s not as if I’ve never done this. Not by a long shot. But this, with Rania…it’s different, somehow.

  I glance at her eyes, and she’s watching me again through hooded lids. I slow my fingers inside her, and her hips lessen the wildness of their bucking. Her mouth is open, and her eyes betray her weltering emotions.

  “Please,” she whispers.

  I don’t know what she’s asking. Stop? More? Make her come? I don’t know. I don’t want to hurt her or scare her. I want her to experience this. The fear in her eyes tells me she’s never felt this before, and I’m not surprised. Sex for her must be an impersonal thing, a transaction. I can’t image anyone has ever taken the time or expended the effort to give her pleasure. This must be confusing and frightening for her, especially if she thinks I’m going to use her like she’s accustomed to being used. I can’t tell her I won’t. I don’t have the words, and I do want to. I want to be inside her. She’s so close to coming, and I want—need, so f**king bad—to move over her and push into her and feel her tight around me.

  She is tight, too. I didn’t expect that, considering. Guilt and shame at the thought burn into me, but it’s true. I didn’t expect her to be tight, but she is.

  “Please,” she whispers again, and touches my face so I look at her.

  She arches her back and rocks her hips. She wants more.

  She stares into my eyes, and then peels her shirt off so she’s naked from the waist up, glorious br**sts bare to my touch, bare to my mouth. I let myself look this time, take in the expanse of skin and mounds of flesh.

  Her breath is coming in shallow pants, and I can feel the tension in her muscles. Baring herself like this is taking effort, courage. I want to touch her br**sts. I wish I could kneel above her so I have both hands free to touch her all over, but my wounds won’t let me, and I don’t think she’d react well to having me above her like that.

  I take my fingers out of her, and she moans in protest. Her cheeks flame with shame as I lift my fingers to my nose to inhale her aromatic scent. I think she’s ashamed of the musk of desire from her juices. I put my fingers to my mouth and taste her essence, meeting her eyes all the while. Her eyes widen in pure shock and disbelief, perhaps even something like disgust. I can’t help a little laugh from escaping at the expression on her face. I swipe into her slit again, gather essence on my fingers, and lick it off again, just to prove the point. Her brow wrinkles, and she shakes her head.

  I slide my palm across her ribs, and her expression smoothes out into pleasure as I cup the heavy weight of one breast in my hand. She watches me as I lower my face to her skin, kiss her flesh between her br**sts, kneading it. I rub my palm across her nipple, and she gasps. When I roll it between my fingers, she bites her lip to keep from moaning out loud. I wish I could tell her how much I love the noises she makes for me. I can’t, don’t try. Words would fail me. Her beauty has captured me, imprisoned my capacity for language. All I can do is pay homage to the temple of her body.

  I pinch her nipple again, delighting at the gasp that tears from her, and then I take her nipple into my mouth and suckle, and I feel joy rocket through me when she moans so loud it’s almost a scream.

  I find myself wondering how mad with ecstasy I could make her if I went down on her. God, she would respond so beautifully. I can almost feel her thighs clenching my face as she writhes against my mouth. I can almost feel her fingers tugging my hair and hear her voice raised in pleasure.

  I don’t know if she’s re
ady for that.

  I lick her skin, flick her ni**les, each one in turn, with my tongue, and I return my fingers to her pu**y, slide them against her clit slowly, circling gently, mindful of her sensitivity.

  She gasps and moans and whimpers, all control over her vocal responses shot to hell now. I love it.

  Fuck, I have to stop thinking that word. That word isn’t possible.

  She feels so f**king good. Her skin is flaming hot against me, her br**sts softer than the softest silk, her hips rocking and writhing against my fingers. I have to fight myself to stay up here, to keep myself from startling her too much. She’s still skittish. But, dammit, I want to taste her. I know she would like it, once she got past the shock.

  I really shouldn’t. It would freak her out.

  But I want to make her come, want to taste her as she comes apart around me.

  RANIA

  Allah, I am so lost in the wilderness of ecstasy Hunter gives me that I have no control over anything I do. I hear my mouth making such shocking sounds, not faked now, but real. My knees are sticking up in the air, my heels against my backside, my hips moving as if they’re alive as Hunter moves his fingers against me.

  His mouth is on my br**sts, moving from one to the other frantically, nibbling, kissing, licking. Every once in a while he bites my nipple, just hard enough to make me insane, to send jets of pleasure whirling inside me.

  I feel him moving, but I cannot fathom what he might be doing. I cannot think, cannot form coherent ideas. All I know is his fingers inside me, his mouth on my br**sts. His fingers never cease their movement, and I am about to explode, but cannot. Not yet. I do not know why, but I cannot fall over the edge. I am afraid of what lies beyond, what that will feel like, but I also want it, more than I have ever wanted anything.

  I feel him moving slowly, adjusting his position, but my eyes are glued shut as the lightning from his fingers, moving slow and then fast and then slow, fills me. I feel his shoulders brush my knees, and I know he is going to mount me now, and I am not even afraid, especially if it means relief from this boiling pressure within me.

  But he does not mount me. His lips touch my br**sts, his shirt-clad chest brushing my stomach. Then, impossibly, terrifyingly, he moves downward. Toward my privates. No. No. I tense, freeze, but his fingers on my clitoris take over for me and I move once again, yet my fear does not abate.

  Page 39

 

  When he licked the fingers that had been inside me, I nearly died of shame. The smell is embarrassing enough, but when he licked the wetness off, the moisture that I could see glinting on his fingers, that was mortifying. And now…and now he is moving as if to put his mouth on my vagina. I have heard of this, of course. Soldiers are vulgar beasts, and they tell vulgar jokes, suggest vulgar things. They suggest this very thing, but when they visit me with their greasy, folded dinars, they do not follow through. Not that I would have let them. I have to retain some sense of power if I am to survive. I dictate what they may do, and to let a man do what Hunter is about to do, that would be giving up the little vestige of power I actually have. That would be vulnerability.

  Except I am letting it happen. His mouth leaves my breast and I feel his breath on my stomach, and now it is hot on my privates, burning me. I know I am panicking, truly panicking now. My breath is ragged gasps, and my heart is thundering like the hooves of a thousand horses. His fingers continue to move, and the diversion of pleasure centered powerfully on my core is enough distraction that I do not go completely mad.

  And then his tongue laps at my core, and I am undone.

  HUNTER

  My god, she tastes so good. Her strong soft thighs rest on my shoulders, trembling like a leaf in the wind, and I can’t believe she would let me do this, but she is. Her whole body is shaking, quivering. Her breathing is panicked, each inbreath a whimper, each outbreath a moan.

  This position, on my stomach, is excruciating. It’s too much weight on my healing ribs, and I can barely breathe for the agony, but nothing—nothing—matters except Rania in this moment.

  She’s closer now. I swipe my tongue up her slit and she groans low in her throat, shaking her head, denying I don’t know what, and her hips lift, fall. I lap my tongue against her clit, an upward thrust with the tip of my tongue, and she gasps a shriek. I do it again and again, and each time she makes a sound so impossibly erotic that my c**k jerks and I nearly lose it again. I have to clamp down with every muscle in my body to keep from exploding right there, as if I was fourteen and a virgin again.

  I lick her clit in a rhythm, and now her hips go wild, and yes, god, yes, her fingers clutch my hair. She doesn’t seem to know whether to push me against her pu**y or push me away. She settles for just tangling her fingers in my hair tightly enough that it hurts, but that pain is a mere drop in the bucket compared to the fire in my ribs, the burning in my lungs. I mean, f**k it hurts. I don’t stop, though. I’ll stop when she comes. She’s close, so close.

  I want to feel her shatter around me. Her legs are clenched so hard I’m almost worried she’ll pop my head like a grape, but then she remembers on her own and lessens the pressure.

  I slip my fingers beneath my chin into her pu**y, focusing my tongue on her clit in ever-faster circles, and I rub her G-spot with my fingers to match the rhythm. I take her clit into my mouth and suck on it, flicking it with my tongue like La—no, not going there, not even thinking her name—she liked it like this.

  Rania screams past gritted teeth, her body arched off the ground, fingers tangled in my hair.

  Yes, now…

  RANIA

  Oh, God, oh, Allah, oh, sweet Heaven…

  I call on the Christian god, on my parent’s god. Words are ripped from my lips, actual screams. I am past feeling shame at the noises I am making. His mouth does things to my body that I cannot fathom, cannot understand, cannot bear. It is too much, too intense.

  I want to shove his face away from my privates, but I cannot make myself do it, because it is too much to stop. His tongue flicks my clitoris and I nearly sob, but gasp instead. His fingers slide into me just as I begin to think it cannot feel any more impossibly intense, and I could die from the storm of fire in my belly.

  How can this keep going? How can he do this? I can hear the grunt in his chest, the stubborn refusal to capitulate to the pain, and I cannot believe he is able to move at all, let alone give me such incredible pleasure.

  This is a gift, I realize. I will treasure this all my life, whatever may happen once this is over.

  My body is writhing like a serpent, my back undulating, my hips lifting and falling. My hands are on his head, my fingers in his hair. I am still torn between conflicting instincts to push him away and pull him closer.

  When his fingers go inside me again and find that spot unerringly, I lose the fight. I clutch him, pull him wantonly, selfishly against my womanhood. Then his mouth forms a suction around my button and I scream.

  The fires in my belly, the pressure, the storm, it is about to break.

  He slows, just at that moment, and I moan in protest.

  “Hunter…” His name comes out of my mouth, torn from me.

  I tighten my fingers in his hair until I know it must hurt him, but I am past the ability to care about anything. I pull him against me, push his face deeper into me, my legs around his shoulders. It takes all my power to not crush him with my legs.

  And then…

  And then it happens.

  “HUNTER!” I scream his name as I explode, coming apart at the seams.

  Every fiber of my body is on fire and I am helpless, caught by the lightning, every muscle clenching and releasing, lights bursting behind my eyes, my hips thrusting against his mouth crazily as he sucks and licks and flicks with his tongue, driving the detonation inside me into ever more furious waves of orgasm.

  I cannot sustain this and go limp, unable to move, wrung into exhaustion. Hunter
stops then, when I collapse. He rests his face against my hip, and I can feel the sweat smearing on his forehead. His body trembles.

  I lean forward and pull at his arms. He crawls slowly back up next to me and then crashes to his back. He is gasping; sweat is pouring from his face, and his eyes are shut tight. His hands are fisted into the blankets.

  I touch his chest. “Hunter? Are you okay?”

  He nods. “Fine. Just…need a minute,” he answers in English.

  I can barely breathe, and I feel my eyes burning. I am still trembling, and even as I lie worrying about Hunter, an aftershock hits me, a mini-explosion rocking through me, and I curl against Hunter’s side until it abates. His arm wraps around me, pulling against him. We shake and tremble together for long minutes.

  My gaze roams his body, his thick muscles slack as the pain recedes, his stomach no longer heaving with every breath. My eyes catch on his groin. I can see his manhood outlined behind the buttons of his pants. He is huge and hard. He adjusts himself with his hand, pushing at his manhood through his pants, shoving it aside, one way and then the other, as if seeking comfort that will not come.

  Page 40

 

  It is time to repay him. I touch his stomach, let my hand drift down, but he catches my wrist yet again. I meet his gaze.

  “Why?” I ask, in English.

  He responds in Arabic. “Not for me. Not this night. Another. Maybe. ” He kisses me softly. “This was for you. Only you. ”

  His eyes betray the fact that he is still in agony, the lines of his forehead deep, the corners of his eyes wrinkled in focus. He twines our fingers together on his stomach, as if to assure himself that I will not try to touch him.

  This really was a gift to me. He expects nothing in return. He put himself through unimaginable pain to give me pleasure, the greatest pleasure I have ever known, and will not let me do anything for him in return.

  I cannot stop the sobs then. He is too much for me to bear. What will I do when he is gone?

  Another thought strikes me, and this one is worrisome, making me sob uncontrollably: How will I work now? I have tasted heaven, and I cannot forget it. I have known the pleasure that is possible. It will be difficult.

  No, it will be impossible.

  I glance at Hunter. He is asleep, his handsome features relaxed. His forehead is still wrinkled with pain. I cannot stop my hand from touching his brow, smoothing the lines. I touch his cheek and marvel that one man can contain such fury as I saw when he fought Abdul, along with the tenderness with which he kisses me, the strength and stubbornness to refuse pain its paralytic hold over him. So many contradictions. I know he wants me. I see the way he looks at me. I sensed it when he touched me, when he kissed my br**sts, when he moved over me to begin his journey downward. He denied himself pleasure, taking instead pain.