Page 6 of Sheikh's Quarantine Triplet Baby Daughters

Diane

If Diane had been thinking at that moment, she might have asked what in the world she was doing. She might have told herself to pull back before she did something she couldn't take back.

If she had thought about kissing Samyar for a moment, she would have known that she shouldn't. It was a bad idea. It was old ground that she didn't want torn up again. She was proud, she always had been, and it wasn't even that her pride had been hurt five years ago. What had happened with Samyar had hurt her in ways that she didn't even want to think about years later, and that hurt should have kept her from reaching for Samyar again now.

This is what moths feel for the flames, Diane thought, even as she sank blissfully into the kiss that still felt like fire and home all at once. They don't care how it hurts or how it will destroy them. It doesn't matter to them what might come later. All that they care about is how good it feels to burn in the present...

The kiss consumed her. There were no more voices telling her what a bad idea it was, or how dangerous it might be. Her pride was forgotten, as were all the things she had thought over the years. So was her caution and her need to protect herself.

The only thing that mattered was how good it felt being in Samyar's arms, how good he tasted, and how very strong his body felt under her hands. She swept her palms up and down his back as if she needed to reacquaint herself with him. There was a time when she had known his body almost as well as she had known her own, and now Diane found herself greedy to learn how he had changed.

He was and wasn't the man she had known. He was familiar, and yet in the time he had been apart, she could tell that he had matured as well. His shoulders were broader than when he was twenty-one, his body more thickly muscled.

“It doesn't matter,” Diane found herself saying. “It's you.”

“It's you,” Samyar echoed, as if he knew perfectly what she meant. “Diane, I have missed you so very much—”

She kissed him again, her mouth greedy, because she couldn't stand to hear that. Even that simple phrase made her heart beat faster, and she knew that she couldn't stand very much of it. She could be in his arms again, she could taste the lush perfection of his mouth, but letting him close to her heart, well. That was something else. She couldn't.

Instead they kissed as if they had only been separated by a few hours rather than five years, and then Samyar's hands traveled from Diane's waist down to her rear and her thighs, his fingers raking across her lush flesh with need.

“So beautiful,” he crooned. “So perfect.”

Before she could respond to his melting words, he scooped her up in a display of the strength that had always surprised her. She wasn't very tall, but she was sturdy, and it was simply not in her experience that men would simply pick her up so easily.

“Samyar!”

Her surprise was kissed away as Samyar carried her to the bedroom. Diane got a dizzying glimpse of gold wallpaper and velvet drapes before he laid her down on the king-sized bed. She sank down in the plush mattress, and then Samyar was coming to rest beside her. One heavy muscular arm was thrown across her waist with a proprietary need that made Diane shiver, and his mouth devoured hers with an assurance and a hunger that set her on fire.

There was nothing she could do but twine her arms around his neck, letting her eyes close so that she could feel everything he was giving her. Somehow, he felt her surrender, and his kisses lost some of their urgency, replacing need with something more longing and slower.

Diane fell into a sweet kind of haze as his kisses roved from her mouth to her throat to the collar of her blouse. One by one, he undid the buttons going down her chest, laving every bit of new-discovered skin with kisses that sent sparks of pleasure through her. He spread her blouse like the wings of a butterfly, and nuzzled at the rise of her breasts, lifting first one and then the other out of the confinement of her bra.

“I've dreamed of this,” he murmured, suckling one of her nipples to hardness before turning to the other.

Diane gasped at the sensation, reaching down to sweep her fingers through his dark hair.

“My breasts?” she asked teasingly, because all right, he had always loved them, but he laughed, a deep and purring rumble that sent a shudder of need through her.

“No, of having you open in front of me. Of having you want me, of being allowed to do whatever it is I want so long as it makes you feel good...”

He ran the sharp edge of his teeth over the lower curves of her breasts, making her catch her breath with how good it was and how much she wanted him. Suddenly it was as if she couldn't bear having any space between them at all, and she reached up to take a fistful of his clothes.

“You need to take these off,” she said. “Come on, please, it can't be just me.”

She had no idea what she meant, only that it felt too lonely to be half-uncovered and to have Samyar still dressed. She needed him with her, and Samyar smiled as if he understood.

“Of course, darling,” he said, and the dark promise in his voice made her eyelids flutter.

She watched as he knelt up to strip himself with quick economical motions. He was a strong man, still lean and with plenty of muscle on him. In their Paris days, he had kept in shape with swimming and running. She wondered how he kept fit these days, whether he swam in the coastal oceans of Alraed or if he simply had a pool somewhere in the palace that was kept just for him.

Then he was peeling off his trousers and his boxers at once, naked and returning to her.

“Is that better?” he asked, and she leaned in to kiss a line up his chest, making him chuckle with surprised pleasure.

Her hands roamed him possessively, as if she needed to make sure that he was still who she thought he was. He felt good to her, so good, and he let her have free rein for a while before he pressed her down to the mattress again, this time removing her clothes as quickly and as efficiently as he had removed his own.

“I have always thought that you were too beautiful to be hidden by clothes,” he said. “You should simply stay naked so that people could marvel at your beauty.”

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