There was a pause. A slowing of the earth’s rotation while he heard her hitched intake of air, while he waited for her eyelids to open after they’d been jammed so firmly shut, before finally she acknowledged his words with a slow nod, her smile once again reappearing in a way that rubbed raw against him.
‘Don’t you think I know that?’ Her voice was hushed but the tone was rapier-sharp. ‘Don’t you think I’ve lived with the knowledge that you must surely hate me for what happened all those years ago? I realise that. I understand it. And what makes you imagine for a moment that I need another man in my life? What makes you think I need or want you? I came up with the idea of the wedding gown for your bride so that you might win the deal. Not because I was somehow trying to engineer a wedding between the two of us.’
And his barb of irritation grew sharper and more pointed, working its way deeper into his flesh. She was a widow and he was now a prince—a wealthy prince. He could give her everything she wanted: status, money and privilege. And now she was saying she didn’t want him.
She did. Of that he was sure.
So he didn’t let her go. Instead, he toyed with her hair with a playfulness he didn’t feel, weaving his fingers through its heavy silken curtain, trying hard not to pull it tight, trying hard not to pull her face against his. ‘That’s not how it looked to the Marrashis.’
She kicked up her chin, glared at him, resentment firing her eyes. ‘And whose fault is that?’
His fingers curled and flexed with aggravation before they would relax enough for him to be able to stroke her neck, and he felt the tremor under her skin even as she tried to suppress it. ‘I’m not the one who put the wedding idea into their heads.’
‘And I’m not the one who kissed you!’
His eyes dropped to her lips, slightly parted. Her breathing was fast, her chest rising and falling with the motion.
Maybe not, he thought, but she hadn’t been an unwilling party. He remembered the feel of her mouth under his own, her delight at her success right there to be tasted on her lips, and the way she had so easily melted into his kiss. Neither would she be an unwilling party now—he’d bet on it.
All it would take would be to curl that hand around her neck and draw her closer.
He breathed deep, looking for strength but instead filling himself with her beguiling scent, the herbs that she used to rinse her black hair, the soap she used against her satin skin.
Twice now he’d kissed her—impulsive, unplanned kisses that had ended abruptly, leading nowhere but to frustration—kisses that had been doomed to come to nothing from the very beginning because they had not been alone.
But still those kisses had given him something. Two things. A taste for more, and the knowledge that she wanted him. She might say she didn’t want to marry him, but she wanted him. He’d as good as read her confession in the tremors that plagued her skin when he touched her—he’d read it in the way her mouth opened under his. Her melting bones had told him. She wanted him. Of that he was sure.
And right now that was the only truth that mattered.
He smiled at her, finally tearing his eyes from her lips to see her looking uncertain, bewildered, almost as if she had expected he was going to kiss her again, almost as if she had anticipated the press of his lips against hers.
And his smile widened.
‘Don’t be disappointed,’ he whispered, so close to her ear that he could feel the soft down of her earlobe, his lips tickled by the cool gold of the hoop that circled through it. ‘I will kiss you again. But not now. Not yet. For the next time I kiss you it will be somewhere we cannot be interrupted.’
And this time she trembled in his embrace, her dark eyes conveying surprise. More than surprise, he noticed. For there was the smoke of desire there too, turning them cloudy and filled with need.
He breathed deep, dragging in more of the air flavoured with her signature scent, letting it feed his senses. For now, in the back seat of a car, descending a mountain track, it would have to be enough.
He squeezed her shoulder one last time before sliding his arm out from behind her, stretching back into his own seat, for the first time noticing the sunset that blazed red and gold in the distance as the vehicle wound its way down the switchback road. Soon it would be night, and they would stay once more at the encampment by the sea. Which meant that soon he would have her.
He took another desperate gulp of air, suddenly needing the oxygen, needing to shift in his seat to accommodate his growing tightness. Maybe he should concentrate on the sunset for now, instead of what might come after. But knowing that made no difference. For it was near impossible to drag his mind away from thoughts of Sera in his arms, her long limbs naked and wound around him as he plunged into her silken depths.