She wanted the real deal. She didn’t know how that was possible now, but that didn’t stop her from wanting it. She had held on to that dream for too long to give up on it completely.
‘It’s not that easy,’ she whispered against his stubbled jaw. ‘I can’t just—’
‘Of course you can,’ he soothed, his hot mouth stealing her words and making magic to convince her it would be the easiest thing in the world. ‘I am a man, you are a woman and we want each other. What else matters?’
His hand scooped down her back, squeezing her behind, his fingers so perilously close to her heated core. She knew she must tell him or she would be on her back before he found out. She did not want him to find out that way. She could not bear it.
‘Then maybe there is one more thing you should know,’ she said, looking uncertainly up at him, feeling herself colour even as she spoke the words, ‘because I have never done this before.’
The side of his mouth turned up, and the eyes that had so recently been molten with heat turned flat and hard. ‘If you’re still trying to get out of this, Princess, you should know I am not as gullible as my half-brother.’
CHAPTER TEN
HE SAW her flinch and caught the hurt in her eyes before she shoved herself away from him. He let her go, watched her putting distance between them as disbelief bloomed and grew large in his gut. A virgin? There was no way it could be true. ‘You can’t be serious. You’re how old? And your sister …’
She spun around. ‘Oh, of course! Because I’m twenty-four, and because my sister has two illegitimate children, then I must have slept with any number of men and somehow got lucky and escaped the same fate? How many men did you think, Zoltan? A dozen? One hundred? How many men did you think had broken down the gates and paved the way for your irresistible advances?’
‘Princess,’ he said. ‘Aisha, I never thought—’
‘Of course you did. You didn’t believe me before when I told you why Mustafa had not touched me. You thought it was some kind of joke. Well, the joke’s well and truly on you. And if I had my way, even though we are married already, the gods would surely curse you as I now do.’ Then she turned and strode away down the beach.
He watched her go, adding his own curses and feeling the effect of hers already. What a fool! He’d had her in the palm of his hand, supple and willing, so close to exploding she was like unstable dynamite. If only he’d reacted to her confession by telling her he’d be gentle with her, or that he thought her all the more precious for it—as he would have, if he’d thought for a moment she was speaking the truth—then she would have been his.
And that should have been his reaction, given what she had told him earlier. But back then he’d heard her story and had seen in it only the chance to laugh at Mustafa’s stupidity. Because that was what he’d wanted to see.
He hadn’t considered her in any part of it.
But then, he had never considered her.
He’d only seen what he had to do to satisfy the terms of an arrangement he’d had no part in making. He’d only wanted to grind his half-brother down to the nothing that he was in the process.
He was a fool, on so many counts. He’d been the stupid one.
As for Aisha? She was indeed a goddess.
A virgin goddess.
He watched her walk towards the camp as long as he could along the dark stretch of beach, watched until her flapping abaya was swallowed up by the night. Only then did he look up at the silvery moon and stars and feel the weight of his obligations sit heavily on his shoulders, feel the watchful eyes of the gods looking down on him, no doubt laughing at this sad and pitiful mortal who threw away destiny when it was handed to him on a platter.
And what to do? For she must be his wife in all senses of the word in time for the coronation if he was to become king, and there was one more night for that to happen.
That should be his most pressing imperative. But right now he wondered, for right now he was faced with choices he’d never seen coming.
He could have the kingdom and a wife he lusted after but who might hate him for ever if he took her before she was ready. Or he could have a wife who wanted him but who might take her own sweet time falling into his bed, in which case the kingdom might well in the meantime fall into the hands of a man he hated more than anyone.
And, when his duty to his country had been his prime motivating force until now, why was that suddenly such a difficult choice?
He slept badly that night. But how could he not when he’d lain awake not ten feet away from her all night? He’d heard her toss and turn through the night, he’d heard her muffled, despairing sighs and pillow punches when it was clear sleep was evading her too despite the gentling sounds of the sea on the shore. He’d registered the exact moment her breath had steadied and calmed and then he’d listened to the sounds of her sleeping. And all the time he thought about the waste of night hours and what they could have been doing if only he hadn’t been such a damned fool.