Midnight on the Sands. Оливия Гейтс
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rested his palm, still raw from the day he’d fallen into the broken vase shards, on the cold, painted wood of the door. It was a poor substitute for the warm, soft flesh of a woman. But it would have to do.
It had been so long since he’d touched a woman’s skin. But he would rather live as a monk for the rest of his life than force a woman into his bed. Not physically, and not through manipulation. He would have a partner who desired him. An impossible desire, perhaps. Pride still lived in him, as much as his injuries would allow. That, and humanity. He would never sink to such a base level. He might be known as a Beast, but he was still a man. No amount of sexual frustration would strip him of that.
He curled his fingers in, making a fist that still rested against the cool surface of the door. He was a man. He would not use her need for marriage, her altruistic intentions to save her country, to get her into bed.
But he was tempted. So much he shook with it. Tempted to disregard what she might want, how she might feel about him, what letting his guard down to that degree might do to both of them, and think of his desire alone.
“Ready.” She opened the door and stepped out in a pair of figure-hugging sand-colored leggings and a structured olive-green jacket. It was like the runway version of a riding outfit. Fitted, sleek and eye-catching.
It was also the antithesis of a solution as far as getting his libido reined in was concerned.
“Come out this way.” He started to head out toward the back of the palace, the exit that was nearest the stables, where the horses were waiting, already tacked up.
He looked down at her hand and was tempted to take it in his. As he had done yesterday. She had been his anchor then. Had kept him from slipping over into that abyss that always came just before his mind was assaulted by violent flashbacks.
He tightened his hand into a fist and denied the impulse, letting her simply follow him.
“I haven’t been out to the stables yet. I didn’t … I wasn’t really sure if it might be off-limits to me.”
“And yet you find my bedroom a nice place to pass time in the evening.”
“Well, I was looking for you. And I … I know I’ve made a mess of some things here, Zahir.”
“The mess was already made, Katharine,” he said, having to force his words through his tightened throat. “Why do you do that?”
“Why do I do what?”
“For a woman with such confidence, you seem to take on more than your share of fault.”
“I just … I want to be useful.”
“Is that all?”
She was silent then, no witty comeback to that response. For the first time, he felt sorry for her. She was doing what she felt was right, what she felt she had to do, and yet, by her own admission, this experience was comparable to being in a darkened tunnel. And she was waiting for the light. That moment when she could be free. Of all this. Of him. Of the disaster that he was.
“Perhaps,” she said, finding her witty comeback, he assumed, “you see it in me because the same tendency lives in you.”
“I have earned every ounce of my guilt.”
“No,” she said, “you haven’t. The guilt belongs to other men, Zahir. The men who attacked your family. All for what?”
“Money,” he said. “Power.”
“All things you don’t seem to care about. Or even want. I don’t see how you think you have a stake in this.”
“Because I am left. I had to have committed a sin to manage that,” he said.
“Or maybe you were blessed.”
“That’s the last thing I feel, latifa.”
He opened the door to the outside and relished the feel of the cool evening wind on his face. This was when he felt normal. Alive. Otherwise he just felt … nothing, either that or a crippling guilt. Well, he could add lust to the list now. Nothing, guilt and lust. It was a small step, but it was a step.
The horses, one bay and one black, were waiting just outside the barn, tethered to the fence. He walked over to the larger, black mare and stroked her nose. The horses didn’t fear him. “This is Lilah. You can ride her. She’s very gentle.”
“The sentiment is appreciated, but I don’t need gentle.”
That statement made a dark cascade of erotic thoughts spin through his mind, made him pause for a moment as he thought of all the hidden meanings her statement could possess.
“Noted,” he said, jaw clenched tight.
“And who’s your handsome gentleman there?” she asked.
He put his foot in the stirrup and swung his leg over his mount. “Nalah doesn’t appreciate being called a he.”
“Sorry. I assumed—” she pulled herself up onto Lilah “—that a big strong man like you would ride a stallion.”
“Oh, no, definitely not. Not a good idea to have two stallions together, you know?”
She laughed, a shocked burst of sound that echoed through the paddock. “Did you just call yourself a stallion?”
He felt a smile teasing the edges of his lips, such a foreign feeling, even more so the small bit of contentment that accompanied it. Such a strange thing to talk to another person like this. To find that barrier of fear and uncertainty absent. Pride grew in him, mingling with the surge of warmth that was trickling through his veins. He had made her smile, after she had looked so sad.
“I did,” he said.
“Mmm … quite the ego.”
“If you can beat me to that last fence post over there, the one just in front of the large rock formation, you might just put a dent in it.”
She grinned at him and urged Lilah on with her feet, not waiting for further word from him. Fine as far as he was concerned. He could watch her shapely backside rise and fall with the motion of the horse, and then pass her at the end, of that he had no doubt. He couldn’t drive safely, couldn’t walk without a limp, but on the back of a horse, things were seamless. Easy.
The sand pounded beneath Nalah’s hooves, a beat that resounded in his body, in his soul. It made him feel complete. Healed in some ways. The sun dipped completely behind one of the few flat mountains that dotted the Hajari skyline and bathed everything in a purple glow.
He could still see Katharine clearly, pale ankles and face visible in the dim lighting. She had such a delicate look to her, and yet nothing could be further from the truth. Delicate, she was not. She was strength personified.
But she wasn’t going to win the race.
He overtook her at the last moment with ease and she let out a short, sharp curse word when she came to a stop just behind him, her hair wild around her face, her breathing labored, cheeks flushed pink.
“Oh, you knew you were going to do that, didn’t you?” she said, gasping and laughing at the same time.
“Of course I did.” He slid off of Nalah, grimacing as pain shot through his thigh when his feet made contact with the hard ground. The sand was thinner here, the terrain a bit rockier, and his muscle noticed the lack of extra cushion.
Katharine dismounted, too, and shook her main of coppery hair out, sending the faint scent of vanilla into the air, into him. It was like a sucker punch straight to his gut.
“Fair enough. If we’d been on my home turf, I would have done the same to you.”
“Speaking of home turf,” he said, ignoring the tightness of desire that was making itself felt at the apex of his thighs, drowning out any muscle pain he’d been experiencing. “I want to show you something.”
This