Crossing The Chasm (Sequel to Given to the Prince)

Crossing The Chasm Part 2

Califar gaped at the woman clinging to his leg. Given three lifetimes, he could never have envisioned such behavior. The depth of her distress gutted him.

He tried to pry her arms from around his leg without doing further harm to her injured wrists. She clung tighter. He talked to her, calling her name. She whimpered and shook with violent tremors. If he didn't break through the hysteria, she might retreat so far he would never reach her again.

He dropped to one knee. Filling both his hands with a mass of auburn curls, he forced her head away from his leg and lifted her mouth. He didn't know who was shaking more when he claimed her lips.

Heat rushed to his head as a hidden well sprang open to spill out torrents of denied need, not hers-his. He slid his mouth from her lips and circled her face with hard, short kisses, all the while, murmuring an oath.

"By Allah, no one would ever hurt you again."

He didn't know how long he'd been satisfying his own need when his crazed mind registered the fact that she had released her grip on his leg.

In a heartbeat, he lifted her off the floor and into his arms. Her fingers dug into his shoulders. He felt the warm caress of her breath as she buried her face in the hollow of his neck. He walked to the cot. Not ready to release her, he sat on the edge and positioned her as comfortably as he could across his lap. Snatching his robe from the floor, he covered her. Gently, he rocked.

The dawn's purple hues tinted the morning light when the woman in his arms finally slept. She lay limp as a wilted oleander blossom at sunset. Her cheek rested against his chest and the fingers of her right hand lay softly across his heart.

The damp trail of her tears made rivulets of moisture down his skin. Strangely, what she seemed to crave most was the safety of his arms.

Deciding it would be best to lay her down and give his aching back some relief; he stood and began to lower her to the cot. She stiffened, her hands clutching his shoulders. Even in sleep, she didn't want to be alone.

There was only one way to give her what she needed. He lay down on his back and positioned her on top of him. Though she was tall, she lacked the six or eight inches it would take to match his height.

A little more maneuvering and he finally got her long legs stretched along the length of his. Since there were no protests, he took that to mean she had no objection to using him for a mattress, in her semi-unconscious state, anyway.

His body certainly didn't agree. He smirked. That wasn't true. The blood pulsing in his head and other parts of his body was proof of that. Her womanly softness pressed snuggly into him. Days of heat and sweat could not mask her feminine essence or the faint hint of jasmine in her hair. He froze as she wiggled her bottom and finally settled in a position more to her liking.

He covered them both with his robe and willed his body to relax. He stroked the hair from her face and wrapped both arms around her. As long as he lived, he would never forget the sound of his name as she had sobbed it over and over in the night. Not his name actually, but her shortened form of it.

"Cali...Cali..."

He willed his thoughts in the direction of their first meeting. Having accompanied Prince Rashid to New York for his marriage to Jacob Ballard's daughter, he and Rashid had been in Mr. Ballard's reception area when Jessica entered the room like a desert storm. The sight of her had fragmented his thoughts and turned his blood into liquid heat under his skin. Clad in minuscule top and skirt, her bare shoulders covered in bouncing red curls, she was easily the most beautiful creature he'd ever seen.

They had met several more times over the course of the past year. As Princess Davar's friend, he could not have avoided her company, or the resentment she still held for him.

When Princess Davar had resisted her arranged marriage and refused to acknowledge her husband, Prince Rashid literally picked up his wife and carried her away. Jessica tried to stop the abduction. The task of stopping Jessica had fallen to him.

She'd fought him like a tiger. He'd mastered her with a kiss he'd neither intended nor had the power to stop. The memory of those heated moments haunted him even now. She had not known how to deal with the forces ignited by that kiss, and ever since, she had despised him for it.

Jessica moved again. This time scooting her body upward until her head rested on the pillow next to his. The breasts crushed to his chest imprinted her seal on him with each breath she took. Her legs parted as she let each one rest on the cot beside his hips. It was a good thing this woman slept because he was sure the fires of defeat burned in his eyes.

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