“I don’t know. Answers, mostly. Is Hassan my father? Do I belong here? Actually I have the answer to the last question. I don’t belong here and I’m not sure I ever will.” She paused and glanced around to make sure they were alone. “Can you keep a secret?”
“Yes. Although if this is about something that involves your safety, I have to warn you that I may tell the king.”
She pressed her lips together. “Don’t you ever go off duty?”
“No.”
She sighed. “This doesn’t affect my safety. I just wish—” She leaned against the tiled wall and closed her eyes. “Sometimes I wish I hadn’t come here. That I didn’t know the truth. Although the blood test might show that I’m not Hassan’s daughter.”
“Don’t count on it.”
“I know.”
Rafe studied her pale face. His fingers itched to trace her pretty features. He wanted to pull her close and kiss her, running his hands up and down her body. He wanted to feel her delicate curves, touch her bare skin and taste every inch of her.
The erotic fantasy produced predictable results. Rafe swore silently as blood rushed to his groin, hardening him in an instant.
“Come on,” he said, taking Zara by the hand and gently tugging her down the hall. “It’s time for princesses to be in bed.”
“Are you tucking me in?” she asked playfully.
“Not in this lifetime.”
They stopped in front of her door. She looked at him. “You know, it’s strange. In my regular life I would never come on to any guy, and if I did, any hint of rejection would leave me devastated for the rest of my life. Yet here I’m very comfortable begging you for the smallest of favors and despite your constant refusal, I survive.”
“You’re tough.”
She shook her head. “I think it’s because every time I mention something illicit, your eyes darken with fire. I like the heat.”
Desire poured through him. Rafe would have sold his soul that second if he could have hauled Zara up against him and taken her. He ached to fill her with his arousal, to teach her exactly what kind of magic went on between men and women.
“You’re imagining it,” he said instead.
“Nope. Not even for a second. Oh, I almost forgot to tell you that Byron invited me to go horseback riding with him in two days. Apparently, it gets really hot in the afternoon so we’ll be heading out early. I hope that’s all right with you.”
It was as if she’d slapped him. Rafe felt the sting, but didn’t allow himself to show any kind of reaction. Her personal affairs didn’t matter, he reminded himself. This assignment was temporary. Soon he would be back in the City of Thieves, and Zara Paxton would be little more than a memory.
“Just let me know when and where,” he told her. “I’ll be there.”
“Armed?” she asked teasingly.
“Always.”
Her smile faded. “Tell me you want to kiss me good-night, Rafe. I think I’ve earned that.”
Involuntarily he dropped his gaze to her mouth. He remembered her taste, the sweet intake of her breath when he’d stroked her tongue. Oh, yeah, he wanted to kiss her.
“You’re making my life hell, Zara. Is that good enough?”
She raised herself up on tiptoes and lightly kissed his cheek. “Almost,” she told him, before taking her shoes from him and slipping into her room.
This was so not what she’d planned, Zara thought two days later as she rode across the desert. Somehow in her mind the experience had become a cross between a scene in a movie and a perfume commercial. She’d imagined dew glistening on the lush foliage, the sun rising in the east, herself riding elegantly next to a handsome man as their horses galloped across the rolling hills of the desert.
To begin with it was darned hot, even a few minutes before sunrise. Second, lush foliage didn’t fit into the desert and any dew had long been sucked up by the dry, heated air. Last but certainly not least, her half a dozen experiences on tired rental horses at a local stable had not prepared her for the reality of trying to stay on a purebred Arabian gelding.
“How are you doing?” Byron asked.