Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 98767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 98767 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 494(@200wpm)___ 395(@250wpm)___ 329(@300wpm)
The weed would help me keep that promise. It would let me focus on one thing and one thing only.
Her.
It would let me remain calm and not shatter out of my skin.
It would kill me, wound me, make me beg upon every genie lamp in Morocco to break my self-imposed ban, but I wouldn’t.
Because she needed to understand her own power.
To claim her own beauty.
To take possession of her own body.
Perhaps then, she’d be strong enough to bear me taking what I wanted.
With my fingers turning white and my heart racing a mile a second, I growled, “I won’t ask again, Pim. Strip. I want to see every inch of you.”
Chapter Twenty-Four
______________________________
Pim
HIS VOICE ricocheted inside my skull.
I want to see every inch of you.
See every inch.
It didn’t make sense.
He’d seen me. I’d been naked more often than clothed. He’d touched me, been inside me—he’d seen me.
Why ask as if he’d never seen a woman strip before? Why sit as far away from me as he could with his body vibrating and fingers turning blue-white from clenching so hard? Why try to dull his senses when his eyes smouldered with a thousand bonfires?
“Pim.”
The growl reached inside me, tugging on every heartstring and passionate nerve. I jumped, my hands crawling to my throat.
The same throat that still harboured recollections of rape and restraint and ravaging awful masters.
“Take off your dress.”
I forced my hands to drop down my body, refusing to let them bunch up and shield me. Hadn’t I asked for this? Hadn’t I pushed for this to happen?
Why then, when it was happening, was I absolutely petrified?
I dropped my gaze, fingering the fringe flapper dress. I never thought I’d trade the freedom of being naked with the claustrophobia of remaining dressed. But here I was, reluctant to move because his eyes burned me until I threatened to combust into fire.
He would incinerate me if I stood bare before him.
His neck muscles rippled as he swallowed, never taking his gaze off my body. He stared at me as if I was his, as if I wasn’t human with opinions and decisions of her own. He didn’t make eye contact. He didn’t check to see how uncomfortable his intensity made me.
He merely gave hunger a new symptom, turning everything against me.
My heart swelled for sex. My pussy clenched for sex. My nipples pebbled for sex.
Sex.
Sex.
Sex.
How was this possible?
I hated sex.
I wanted nothing to do with sex.
Yet the craving only grew worse.
With a choir singing in my veins and a marching band pounding my chest, I stood taller.
Sex was just something two consenting adults did together.
Consent being the key word.
I’d never had sex.
I’d only had rape.
This was new.
This was fresh and unknown and nothing to be afraid of.
Slowly, ever so slowly, I reached to my side and unzipped the dress from under my arm to halfway down my hip.
I shivered as the heavy material gaped, letting warm hotel air slip against my waist, drifting around my navel and down.
Elder didn’t move.
He didn’t breathe as I reached up to tug the thin straps off my shoulders, both at the same time, moving maddeningly slow as my instincts to run fought with my courage to stay. The fabric slid to my elbows and hung there, teasing the line of my bra, asking me politely if this was truly what I wanted. Did I truly want the dress to say goodbye and abandon me for the carpet? Did I honestly want Elder’s savage eyes to see what was hidden?
My answer switched from yes to no to yes to no a million times over in a matter of seconds. I fought a war between the slave I’d been and the woman I wanted to become. Pim and Tasmin. Captive and free.
With a heavy gulp, I dropped my arms.
The heavy beaded dress skipped down my curves, licking my legs until falling into a lifeless black pool around my high heels.
Elder grunted, short and deep, as if the simple act of unsheathing had affected him far more than he would ever acknowledge. Brushing his lips against the back of his hand, his gaze burned midnight, drinking me up and down.
“Believe me when I say this. You are the most beautiful creature I have ever seen.” His eyes met mine for just a second before dropping back to the black velvet and lace lingerie I wore.
All dinner, I’d cursed the tight elastic, the unforgiving underwire, the scratchy garter and slippery stockings. Having so many sensations clinging to me had caused more than one distraction throughout dinner. Not to mention the strappy black heels cutting into my feet, highlighting bones that hadn’t healed right and arthritis that shouldn’t have found me until I was much older.
I would never be entirely limber. I wouldn’t be a gymnast with my fused cartilage and abused ligaments, but I could be beautiful.