‘Isn’t that the first rule of riding?’ he questioned. ‘That you get straight back on?’
She nodded as he swung himself up. He was persistent; she would say that for him. From having been shown the rudiments of riding by Khalim himself, he had persevered with learning the new skill every spare minute, like a man driven to conquer.
He was up by first light, out helping the grooms to muck the horses out. He told her that he was determined to learn as much as possible about this creature who seemed so reluctant to have him on its back. Lara was quickly learning that there were no half-measures where Darian Wildman was concerned.
Khalim had found him the most beautiful palomino—the usual metallic sheen even more pronounced in this case. The horse’s coat gleamed as golden as the eyes of the man who rode him. And when he did manage to stay astride Darian made the most magnificent vision, Lara was forced to admit. Though that shouldn’t have surprised her. Nothing really surprised her where he was concerned.
The night when he had held her in his arms had completed her captivation. He had disarmed her with his gentleness, leaving her happily open to the suggestion that they become lovers once more. Except that no such suggestion had been made, and neither had that comforting and innocent night been repeated—because Darian had taken to sleeping on the uncomfortable divan beneath the window.
She was the one all alone in the big, comfortable bed now, and she was the one who was lying awake until the small hours, while he slept as deeply as a child.
‘How’s that?’ he called.
She watched him trot around the dusty paddock and nodded. ‘Better,’ she called back. ‘But not so tight on the reins!’
He relaxed his grip by a fraction, enjoying the feel of the powerful animal between his thighs. He was getting the hang of this riding thing now, and about time, too. It had been galling to accept that not only was Khalim a superb rider but that Lara was, too. All those years of wholesome upbringing in the English countryside had made her into a confident horsewoman. She looked good on a horse—but then she looked good doing just about anything.
They had been here for just over a week, and this morning Khalim had had to go off to meet with a visiting dignitary and had left Lara in charge of Darian’s riding lessons.
‘You will take my place and teach him?’ he’d asked her softly.
Lara enjoyed the flash of irritation which sparked from the golden eyes. ‘Of course. I’ll enjoy cracking the whip!’ she joked.
‘You can try,’ Darian whispered softly.
Lara looked down at the dusty ground, afraid that Khalim would see the naked look of desire in her eyes, and afraid that Darian would see it, too. Horseriding was supposed to be an innocent pursuit, yet somehow he had managed to make the atmosphere heavy with tension and expectation—shimmering like the heat from the sun above them.
‘You won’t mind taking orders from a woman?’ she questioned, once Khalim had gone.
His tone was dry. ‘It will be another new experience.’
‘And do you enjoy new experiences?’ she asked, her eyes slanting at him.
Darian smiled. ‘Oh, yes,’ he murmured.
She was flirting with him again, he noted now. Indeed, she had been doing that ever since the night when he had held her so chastely in his arms. Women could be so contrary. Put something out of reach and they immediately wanted it! But the trouble was that now the boot was on the other foot he wasn’t sure that he wanted it. Not any more.
Because sex with Lara would be complicated this time around. He recognised that with a grim kind of certainty. And wasn’t his life complicated enough already? So much had happened—and not just between the two of them. He was only just getting used to the fact that he had a brother, a brother who he was getting to know little by little—not easy when both were men who rarely let their guard down, Darian through instinct and Khalim through necessity.
The two of them would sit up late at night, talking—sometimes into the early hours. They had described their childhoods to each other, and Darian had done his best not to feel envy at the privilege of Khalim’s early years. But the Prince had sensed it with an intuitive sensitivity.
‘Yes, I had the riches, Darian,’ he had said softly. ‘But you were given the gift of freedom. Riches can be earned, but complete freedom cannot—not when you carry the responsibilities which come with having royal blood.’
It was a different way of looking at things—but then, didn’t this place make you look at things differently anyway? And, yes, Khalim had all the burdens and responsibilities which came with governing his country—but his life was clearly defined in ways that Darian was growing to envy.
Because for all the paraphernalia and trappings which came with his royal status—the palaces and the servants—Khalim enjoyed such simple pleasures. Perhaps it was because his riches had always been taken for granted that he was able to look beyond material things. It was another lesson to be learnt.
Khalim had taken Darian walking beneath the star-filled skies, pointing out constellations which were not visible even from his penthouse apartment in London. There were no cars out here in the isolated splendour of the countryside which surrounded the palace. Nor noise, nor crowds.
In fact, the only blot on this surreal landscape remained Lara herself. With his self-imposed sexual limits, he had begun to get to know her. And to like her. Even though liking her was something he had tried to put up barriers against, telling himself that she was an actress, that she had deceived him, and if she could do it once she could do it again.
Which was why he had taken up riding with such fer-vour. Apart from wanting to excel at it—which was inherent in his nature—he also used it as a form of diversion, driving himself at it, hour after hour, so that by the time he fell onto that damned concrete block of a divan he was so bushed that he slept the night through.
And he would be lying if he did not admit to taking a certain amount of pleasure at the sight of Lara’s dark-rimmed eyes which met his each morning.
A servant arrived, bearing a tray of iced orange water, and he watched while he set it down in the shade and Lara sat down prettily in her jodhpurs and beckoned him over.
His throat felt dry as he dismounted, but it was a dryness caused by more than mere thirst. Khalim had gone, and for the first time it was just the two of them. As he approached he could see the shape of her breasts peaking beneath the fine silk shirt, and he felt the debilitating jerk of desire as he imagined slowly peeling the shirt from her body.
Forget it, he told himself. Lara’s trouble. She’s been trouble since the moment you first set eyes on her, and if you get involved with her then there’s plenty more where that came from.
But that didn’t stop him from issuing a curt command to the groom, who bowed his head in response.
Lara had been watching the little interchange and looked up at him in surprise as he approached. ‘Wasn’t that Marabanese you were speaking to the groom?’
‘It was.’
‘Who taught you?’
The golden eyes glittered. ‘Khalim has been instructing me in the basics of the language.’
He sat down beside her, took the glass from her and drank deeply, putting the empty glass down and wiping his lips with the back of his hand.
‘You’re acting more and more like a sheikh every day!’ she teased.
‘Yeah.’ He stared moodily into the middle distance.
‘And sounding like one, too!’ She wished she knew what was going on in that head of his. She’d thought they were supposed to have abandoned hostilities and declared an unspoken truce of sorts. Were they or were they not able to exist in relative harmony? In theory, yes, of course they were—except that there was this terrible hunger bubbling away inside her. An overwhelming longing to feel his lips on hers once more.
Maybe it was one-sided. Maybe he just didn’t feel it any more and the way she had deceived him had killed his desire for her stone-dead. They were sharing a bedroo
m, but that was the one place she barely saw him. He crept into the bedroom in the early hours, completely ignoring her and the large, empty space in the bed beside her, and was gone when she woke in the morning.
She watched while the groom led the horse away. ‘Exotically beautiful, isn’t he?’ she remarked.
‘Mmm,’ he said, non-committally.
‘They’re a unique breed, you know.’
‘Are they?’
Lara drew a breath. ‘Yep. Arguably the oldest surviving cultured equine breed.’
‘You don’t say?’
Well, she had to say something, or else she was going to come out with something like, Don’t you find me attractive any more, Darian?
‘They’re known for their speed, stamina and intelligence,’ she continued, the words coming out in a flurry.
He turned his head to look at her, drowning in the blue of her eyes, then looked away again. ‘A little like me, then?’
Her heart pounded. ‘A little, I guess.’
There was a split-second pause, and when he spoke his voice was lazy. ‘What else about them, Lara?’
‘They’re hot-bloods, definitely not warm-bloods.’
He didn’t say anything.
‘And unusually sensitive to the way they are treated,’ she rushed on. ‘They’re responsive to gentle training, and can be stubborn or resentful if treated rudely.’ She paused and held her breath as he turned to her again, only this time he didn’t look away. ‘A little like me, in fact.’
He saw the pulse at her temple begin a frantic little beat, and suddenly all his defences left him. He brushed a line over the fine skin there and felt its throbbing beneath his fingertip. ‘Is that so?’ he murmured.
‘Y-yes.’ She held her breath as his fingertip traced its way down her cheek, lingering on the line of her jaw, then down to the hollow of her neck. She could feel the flutter of her heart and the honey-rush of sweet desire, but she didn’t dare move. It was like being in the middle of a spell—one wrong word or gesture and it would be broken, and she would be back to frustrated longing once again.
‘What else?’ he murmured, only now his fingertip was teasing the tip of her breast.
Lara swallowed. ‘Their eyes are…’
‘Are what, Lara?’ He felt the nipple bud and harden and he sucked in a breath.
‘Are 1-large and expressive. And sometimes almond-shaped.’
The golden blaze almost blinded her. ‘Like your eyes,’ he observed softly. ‘What else?’
Now his hand was drifting down over her torso and she could scarcely breathe.
‘Tell me, Lara,’ he urged. ‘I want to know.’
‘Their…their bodies are long and lean.’ She swallowed again. ‘The muscling well-defined, s-smoothly hugging the bone.’
‘That’s me,’ he whispered. ‘Isn’t it?’
By now his fingertip had edged down to the fork in her legs, drifting forward and back, forward and back, so that Lara closed her eyes and gasped.
‘Isn’t it, Lara?’
‘Well, yes. You know it is.’
‘Don’t you want to feel for yourself how it feels?’ he purred. ‘Feel the muscle which hugs the bone…?’
She didn’t need to be asked twice. Her hands flew to his chest, feeling the masculine heat of him through the damp shirt, and all the while his finger continued its erotic little dance, the material of the jodhpurs both restricting and heightening her pleasure.
‘Darian!’ she gasped.
‘Mmm?’
‘We can’t do this here!’
‘Do what?’ he questioned innocently, enjoying the way her thighs were now parting, revelling in the urgent little grind of her hips. ‘We’re not doing anything, are we? Not really. I’m just playing with you a little. Touching you there.’ He felt her squirm. ‘And there.’ He increased the pressure of his finger and her head fell back.
‘Someone might come!’ she protested, in a thick, slurred voice which didn’t sound like her own.
‘I think someone might,’ he agreed unsteadily. ‘But all the grooms have gone, if that’s what you’re worried about.’
Too late, she realised just where he was taking her. ‘Kiss me, Darian,’ she pleaded on a moan. ‘Please. Just kiss me.’
‘No.’
The single word should have terminated her pleasure with all the finality of a bucket of cold water being thrown over her, but it did no such thing. If anything, the cold, harsh word only increased her ascent into that tantalising, nebulous place which made such mockery of almost everything else which existed. Maybe she wasn’t so like the Akhal-Teke at all, she thought desperately, for there was no resentment on her part about the way he was treating her—and shouldn’t there have been? Shouldn’t there have been?
But then it happened, great wave upon wave of engulfing pleasure, and she opened her mouth, the pleasure so intense that she wanted to scream. And that was when he kissed her at last, swallowing up her cries with the fierce, hard pressure of his mouth, clamping his hand possessively over her jodhpurs while she still pulsed with sweet, dying spasms and her head fell uselessly to his shoulder.
‘Oh,’ she moaned. It was a helpless little cry, and it was edged with sorrow as well as fulfillment—for hadn’t the kiss been merely a silencing technique instead of a demonstration of affection?
‘Touch me,’ he urged. ‘Please.’
Her hand moved down and her eyes snapped open. ‘Oh!’ she breathed. He was hard, so very, very hard.
‘Yes—oh,’ he murmured wryly.
‘Wh-what do you want to do now?’
‘I want you,’ he shuddered. ‘That’s what I want. And I want you to undress me. Now.’
She felt the flush move from her neck to her cheeks, so that they burned like fire. It was a stark and unequivocal sexual command, dark with promise but devoid of all tenderness. ‘Wouldn’t you rather go back to our room?’
He was sliding her jodhpurs down now, with difficulty. ‘Practically?’ He groaned. ‘Lara, I don’t think I can. Take your boots off.’
With trembling hands she obeyed him, sliding the soft leather down over her calves and kicking them off into the dust.
‘Now, come here,’ he said softly. ‘Come here, Lara.’ And he lifted her up, slithering her jodhpurs and her panties away with one brief, economical movement, then lowering her down on top of him, closing his eyes and groaning again as he felt himself encased in her tight, molten heat. ‘Oh, yes,’ he bit out. ‘Oh, yes!’
She held onto his shoulders and began to move.
He opened his eyes and watched her through his lashes. ‘Ride me, Lara,’ he urged thickly. ‘Ride me.’
She abandoned all restraint and misgivings, and all inhibitions, too, forgetting everything except just how delicious it felt, with the hot sun beating down on her and the hot feel of him inside her. She closed her eyes and let her hips slide towards him so that he filled her completely, and she gave a soft, low moan of pleasure as they began to move in rhythm.
Darian was lost in a place more magical than Maraban, his hands holding onto her slender hips as she moved on him and around him, feeling the warmth rise and rise until he heard her shattered and disbelieving little cries once more. And then it was impossible to contain his own pleasure for a second longer as his world split into a thousand shards of sharp-edged ecstasy.
There was silence, bar the distant sound of the mountain wind the Marabanesh called the rabi, which seemed to echo the sounds of their small, gasping breaths.
Lara wiped the palm of her hand over her damp, flushed cheeks and looked down at him, just as the thick black lashes parted and the golden eyes gleamed up at her.
She wanted to bend her head to kiss him, but this did not seem to be the kind of situation which demanded soft and tender kisses. What had just happened had been fulfilling, yes, but in a purely physical way, she recognised with a heavy heart. She wanted more than just physical perfection—but he was not the man to give her more than that.
‘I’d better move—’ she began, but he halted her with a touch to her belly, making her shiver.
‘No, don’t. Not yet. Stay there—just for a minute.’
‘But the grooms—’
‘They won’t return. I told them not to.’
Lara raised her eyebrows in surprise. ‘I didn’t know your Marabanese was that good.’
He smiled. ‘It isn’t. But, like I said, Khalim taught me a few…key…phrases.’
Lara’s heart began to pound. ‘Like what?’
He felt her move away from him, and he missed her warm, sticky heat. ‘Oh, just the kind of command to ensure a certain degree of…privacy. You know.’
Yes, she knew…or rather she was beginning to get the idea. Royal men took lovers, and for that they would not want a retinue of servants hanging around in the wings. But it was more than just privacy, she realised. For hadn’t Darian just demonstrated in the most efficient way possible just how much he had been accepted into the royal fold?
What else had he discussed with Khalim, apart from how to ensure you could make love to a woman undisturbed? And that was the difference between the two men—Khalim would confide in Rose, but Darian would not do the same with her. Why would he? They were barely more than lovers, and even that was a tenuous link—one which would be broken once they had left Maraban.
Lara reached out for her jodhpurs, and the pair of panties which were still rumpled up inside them, biting her lip as she thought how compliant she always was around him.
‘Stop frowning, Lara,’ he urged gently. ‘Get dressed and we’ll go back to our room.’
Her senses leapt in response to what he obviously had in mind, but she was troubled, too.
She had fallen for Darian big-time, but she had no idea where it was leading.
Or maybe she did. Maybe it was that which troubled her. For this thing between them—whatever it was—wasn’t leading anywhere other than to the inevitable road to heartbreak.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
BACK in their room, Darian turned to her and smiled. ‘I feel pretty hot and dusty,’ he murmured. ‘And that bath is big enough for both of us. Shall we take a bath together, Lara?’
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