His mouth curved into a speculative smile. He remembered the way he had ripped the robes from her body and the way she had moaned as his fingers found her wet heat. Pride was all very well, but sexual satisfaction was a far more powerful motivator. Wouldn’t that fast and furious encounter encourage her to go ahead with the marriage as quickly as possible, so that they could become husband and wife?
He rode for nearly an hour and was galloping back towards the stables when, suddenly, he caught sight of the gleam of blonde hair in the distance. Jazz. He felt his groin tighten as his gaze drank her in. In the light desert breeze, the folds of her robes had moulded themselves to her delectable body and he was reminded of clasping those luscious curves before bringing them both to orgasm. Was she eager for an early replay? he thought with hungry amusement Was that why she was here? Perhaps she wanted him to tumble her onto the stable floor and take her amid all the bales of hay, rutting into her like a stallion?
‘So this time you don’t mind being seen?’ he questioned as he slowed his horse and drew up beside her.
She blinked up at him in alarm. ‘Seen?’
He jumped down onto the dusty ground. ‘Didn’t I once observe you watching me from afar? Standing in a corner of the stables and watching while I took off my clothes?’ Her answering colour told him that her shadowed presence hadn’t been a figment of his overheated imagination and, although she was now glaring at him, he smiled. ‘Don’t worry, I rather liked you in the role of voyeur.’
‘I’m not worried!’ she flared back at him, her cheeks still flushed and pink.
‘So why are you here?’ he mused softly. ‘As far as I’m aware, we aren’t supposed to be meeting for another hour and I need to shower first. Unless what happened last night means you’re thinking you might like to join me? I’m quite happy for you to soap me off, my beauty. It’s far too long since we had a shower together.’
Jasmine wished he would stop making sexual allusions every time he opened his mouth because they were drawing her attention to his body, which she’d been trying very hard to forget. But how could she forget when the memory had kept her awake most of the night, as she’d recalled the way he had driven into her. Her cheeks grew hotter as she remembered her eagerness to have sex with him—backed up against one of the palace walls, of all places, with her legs wrapped tightly around his bare back as he had taken her on a quick trip to paradise. What had happened to her determination to keep things on an impartial footing until she had discovered whether she wanted to marry him? It had vanished the moment he had taken her in his arms and kissed her.
‘I don’t want to talk about that,’ she said. ‘Last night shouldn’t have happened.’
His eyes glittered. ‘Are you quite sure?’
‘Quite sure. I’m supposed to be getting to know you,’ she continued. ‘In a rather more formal way than that.’
‘As you wish. I’ve never had to beg a woman for sex before, Jazz—and I’m certainly not going to start now.’
‘It was usually the other way round, was it?’ she queried mischievously.
He gave a brief smile as they began to walk towards the stables, and Jasmine suddenly became aware of a sense of wistfulness as she breathed in a long-forgotten fragrance. ‘I love that smell,’ she said suddenly.
He turned to look at her. ‘What smell?’
‘You know. Horses. Leather. Dust. Sweat. The whole thing. Stables, I guess.’ She gave a sigh, which seemed to bubble up out of nowhere. ‘You’re very lucky to be able to ride out in the desert with no fences or houses or roads to get in the way. You must get a real sense of freedom out here—the kind you don’t really get back in England.’
He narrowed his eyes, as one of the grooms led his horse away. ‘You sound as if you know what you’re talking about.’
‘You seem surprised.’
‘Maybe I am. I thought you were the quintessential city girl. Are you telling me you can ride, Jazz?’
‘Yes, I can ride,’ she said quietly. ‘I used to love all things equestrian until the age of ten. Or did you think I’d always been poor and that riding is a rich person’s sport?’
He lifted his hand by a fraction, but the quirk of his lips indicated a signal of acknowledgement rather than command.
‘So what happened when you were ten?’ he continued curiously as they began to walk back towards the palace.
Jasmine tried to avert her gaze from the thrust of his thighs against his jodhpurs, but it wasn’t easy—particularly when she thought of her fingers roving over their hair-roughened power last night and the memory of what lay at their apex. She cleared her throat. ‘It was a continuation of the fallen-ice-cream episode,’ she said.
‘The fallen ice cream?’ he repeated blankly.
‘You remember. I told you about it in London. When my father left home.’ She gave an impatient shake of her shoulders. ‘Weren’t you listening?’
‘Yes, of course I was listening. Forgive me. I am feeling a little distracted. You can’t blame me for that, in view of what happened between us last night.’ With what looked like an effort, he dragged his gaze from her torso to her face. ‘So what happened—after your father left home?’
He had stopped walking and was looking at her, waiting for her answer.
‘We had to sell the house and the car,’ she explained. ‘And my pony was the first thing to go, obviously.’
‘Why?’
Jasmine felt a flicker of irritation at his incomprehension. Did he really lack the imagination to work it out for himself, or was he just incapable of putting himself into the shoes of a normal person? She stared down at her feet, aware of a fine layer of dust from the yard which was now covering her toes and wishing she’d worn something more substantial than beaded flip-flops.