Desert Sheikhs Collection: Part 1. Jane Porter
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off for the stables.
CHAPTER TWELVE
LARA burst into a peal of laughter and was met with a furious gold stare.
‘It isn’t funny,’ he growled.
‘Oh, I’m sorry, Darian, but it is. Very.’ She held her hand out to him. ‘Here.’
He eyed it suspiciously for a moment before grasping it, and then swung himself up from the dust onto which he had just tumbled, bringing himself right up close to Lara, enjoying the immediate darkening of her eyes.
‘Do you like watching me fall, Lara?’
Actually, it was strange watching him not being perfectly proficient at something, to see him cast in the role of novice. Strange and almost endearing. If it had been anyone else she might have said cute, except that four-letter words like nice and cute didn’t really sit well on Darian.
‘A fallen man?’ she mused. ‘Yes, I do think I like it!’ She could smell the sweat on him, and it gleamed on his skin as brilliantly as on the highly polished flanks of the Akhal-Teke horse from which he had just plummeted.
He let go of her hand and placed both his own on the horse again.
‘You’re getting back up?’ she asked, in surprise.
‘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