His pulse picked up speed. Was she asking him to…?
“I’m assuming that, typically, you’re the one who does the”—her cheeks turned red all over again, and she swallowed, looking at his throat rather than his face—”pleasuring. But if you don’t mind—and you’re up for it—I’d like to be the one to do that. Maybe you can tell me what I’m doing right. Or wrong. If, that is, it’s okay with you…”
She finally met his gaze full on, and his breath caught at the hope he saw reflected in her eyes.
“So your wish,” he managed in a voice that didn’t sound like his own because he was still too surprised to think clearly, “is to…?”
“Yeah,” she said softly. “My wish is to pleasure you. What do you think?”
CHAPTER FOUR
Tariq could barely breathe.
She wanted to pleasure him. And she wasn’t ordering, she was asking. For permission.
No one had asked his permission for anything in longer than he could remember. No one but her.
“Well?” she asked again. “What do you think?”
What did he think? He thought he had to be hallucinating. But he wasn’t. He was in the human realm, and she was real. Real and so completely unexpected, he knew he needed to thank her. To show her just how much what she’d wished for—how she’d wished for it—meant to him.
“Mira,” he said in a raspy voice. “Close your eyes.”
She hesitated. Assessed. But when her lashes fluttered closed, he found himself touched again at how easily she trusted him.
He stepped close, wrapped one arm around her waist, drawing her flush up against him. She sucked in a breath but didn’t open her eyes, and his pulse picked up speed because she felt so sinfully good. Smelled like heaven.
He shouldn’t be enjoying this, not when his brothers were suffering, but he couldn’t help himself. He pictured their destination. Gathered his powers. And when Mira felt them flying and gasped, he tightened his arm around her and whispered, “It’s okay. Just hold on to me.”
Her eyes popped open as soon as their feet met solid ground. And he watched with amusement as she pushed out of his arms, whipped around, and those mesmerizing eyes of hers grew wide all over again. “Where…? “How…?”
He smiled as she took in the swaying palms above, the turquoise water lapping the sandy beach, as the warm breeze blew her silky hair across her cheeks. He normally didn’t transport humans when he crossed into their realm. It could be risky. Especially if they moved during flight. But after what Mira had done for him, he wanted to do something special for her.
“Where are we?” she asked
“A little island in the Tahitian chain.”
“No way.”
“Close your eyes again, Mira.”
This time she looked at him as if he’d grown a third eye, and the expression was so damn sexy, he laughed. “Trust me. No more flying. Not yet, anyway.”
“I don’t know what to expect around you,” she said, but she closed her eyes once more.
“And I with you, Mira.”
He lifted his hands, called up a simple spell. Then he turned a slow circle and spoke the ancient words.
When he was done, he said, “Okay, you can open your eyes again.”
Her lashes fluttered, and she looked down, gasped to see herself dressed in a thin white cotton dress with cap sleeves, a gathered bodice with ties open at her cleavage, and a flouncy skirt. A dress that accentuated her breasts, her curves, even her skin tone. One that looked as if it had been made just for her—which it had.
“How did you do that?”
“Magic.”
Her gaze darted past him to the hut he’d also conjured. “Wh-where did that come from?”
He would never tire of this woman’s reactions. So unexpected. So…honest. He reached for her hand. “Come.”
She let him draw her toward the hut with its thatched roof and bamboo porch. Gleaming hardwood floors spread beneath their bare feet. Gauzy curtains blew in the breeze as they stepped inside. A sitting area filled with pillowy white furnishings opened to a four-poster bed covered in dreamy white netting.
Mira tensed beside him. Perspiration coated the palm of her hand against his. And for the first time, unease settled in. Unease he never felt. Not with anyone. “Do you not like it?”
“No, I…” Her cheeks turned pink as she looked around. “It’s beautiful. I just…”
She was nervous. Again, not the reaction he was used to.
He stepped in front of her, blocking her view of the bed, and brought his hands up to frame her face. “Before we start your wish, I have one request.”
“What?”
“For you to trust me. In order to give pleasure, you must first experience it yourself. Has a man ever pleasured you, Mira?”
A flush rushed over her cheeks again, and she looked down at his chest covered in the thin T-shirt. “I told you I’m not a virgin.”
“I didn’t ask if you were a virgin. I asked if you had been pleasured. Thoroughly. Completely. By someone who knows how to focus solely on you.”
Her blush deepened. “Um…”
Just the fact she had to think about how to answer told him no. At least not in the way he meant. He tilted her face up to his, forcing her to meet his gaze. “Then let me.”
“That’s not part of my wish,” she whispered.
“No. It’s mine.”
Her eyes darkened. And in their depths he could see that his words relaxed her. Excited her. Aroused her. But she was still hesitant.
He needed to do something to ease her stress.
He slid his hands down to hers, clasped her fingers, and drew her around, walking backward out onto the porch again. She followed, her brows drawn low, questions swirling in her glittering eyes. “I thought—”
“There is no rush. Only time. Only this. Turn around.”
Hesitation swirled in her eyes, but she turned to face the double chaise that appeared on the porch. “What’s this for?”
“For you.” He muttered words in his language, and the chaise dropped flat, the thick, plush cushion smoothing out before her. “Lie down on your stomach.”
She looked over her shoulder with are you for real? eyes. Eyes that brought a smile to his lips and warmed the chill deep in his chest. “I promise, nothing will happen that you do not want to happen. Lie down and let me rub the tension from your shoulders.”
She hesitated, then finally climbed onto the chaise and stretched out. He handed her a throw pillow, which she tucked under her head and wrapped her arms around. “You don’t have to massage me.”
“Shh,” he said as he smoothed the back of her dress across her hamstrings. “Just enjoy.”
She drew in a breath, let it out, relaxed into the cushion. He moved around the front of the chaise, knelt down, and brushed her hair to the side, then began kneading the muscles of her shoulders.
She exhaled a long breath, relaxed even further, and as he felt the tension begin to ease, he moved his hands over the back of her dress, down to her waist, and up again, never touching her bare skin, never pushing her farther than she wanted.
“Do you like that?” He trailed his hands up her spine, pressed fingers into the muscle as he worked his way down to her lower back.
“Too much. You have magic hands.”
He moved to her ribs, slid his hands up her sides, felt her suck in a breath when his fingertips barely brushed the outsides of her breasts.
She was soft where a woman should be soft, firm where she should be firm, and as his gaze strayed to the hem of her dress, resting just above the backs of her knees, he had a wicked, erotic flash of dragging the skirt up with his teeth, of massaging the soft, rounded globes of her backside, of lifting her hips and sinking into her from behind.