The coronation must proceed.
Which meant he could not wait for Aisha to make up her mind. They would have to consummate the marriage before the coronation, which meant he would have to go back to the camp and explain, once again, that she had no choice. But after the mess he had made last night, he just hoped he could word it in a way she would understand. She had to understand.
It was duty, pure and simple, after all.
Except, thinking about it, his groin already tightening, maybe this part was not so much duty.
He saw her as he rounded the point, probably one hundred metres down the beach. He stopped for a moment to watch her gallop along the shore, her long hair flying behind her, the hem of her abaya flapping in the wind, the rest of it plastered against her body as spray from the horse’s hooves scattered like jewels around her, and he realised the word ‘goddess’ came nowhere close to describing her.
Then she saw him, and he lifted one hand in greeting, but she pulled her horse up and turned before galloping in the other direction.
So she was still angry with him about last night, he thought as he set off in pursuit. Not entirely unexpected, but nevertheless not a good start when she was probably only going to get angrier with what he had to tell her.
His stallion powered down the shore. She was a good horsewoman and she had a decent head start, but her horse was nowhere near as big or as powerful as his and steadily his stallion narrowed the lead until they were galloping side by side across the sand.
She glanced across at him and dug her heels into her mount’s flank. It responded with a spurt of speed but it was no trouble for his powerful horse to catch her. ‘We need to talk,’ he shouted into the air between them.
‘I have nothing to talk to you about.’
‘It’s important.’
‘Go to hell!’
‘Listen to me.’
‘I hate you!’
And she wheeled her horse around and took off the other way. He pulled his mount to a halt, its mouth foaming, nostrils snorting as he watched her go.
‘You want a race, Princess,’ he muttered into the air as he geed the horse into pursuit. ‘You’ve got one.’
He was gaining on her again. She knew he would, she knew she couldn’t escape him for ever, but he wasn’t even supposed to have come this way. And she didn’t want to talk. She didn’t want to have to listen to him. She didn’t even want to see him. How dared he look so good on a horse, with his white shirt flapping against his burnished skin, looking like some kind of bandit? How dared he?
She glanced over her shoulder, saw him just behind and urged her mount faster.
Barbarian!
All night he had lain there as if she didn’t exist, as if he didn’t care that she was hurt and upset and angry. All that time he had made not one attempt to try to make up for what he had done. Not even one. He had let her lie there waiting for him to do—something—and he had done precisely nothing. He had let her lie there aching and burning and he had made not one move to comfort her.
Bastard!
‘Aisha,’ he called, alongside her once again. ‘Stop!’
He reached across, snatched the reins out of her hands and pulled the two horses to a halt.
She shrieked and smacked at his hand and realised it was useless, so she slid off the saddle, swiping at the tears streaming down her face. She splashed through the shallows, her abaya wet and slapping against her legs, tiny fish panicking and darting every which way before her frantic splashing feet.
She did not even know why she was crying, only that now the tears had started she didn’t know how to turn them off.
‘Aisha!’
She felt his big hands clamp down on her shoulders, she felt the brake of his body and his raw, unsuppressed heat, and she sobbed, hating him all the more for reducing her to this. ‘Leave me alone!’
But he did not leave her alone. He turned her in his hands and she closed her eyes so she could not see his face. There was nothing but silence stretching taut and thin between them. And just when she could not stand it any more, just when she was sure he must be enjoying this moment so very, very much, he crushed her to his chest. ‘Oh, Aisha, what have I done? What have I done?’
If he hadn’t been holding her, she would have collapsed in tears in the shallows.
Instead she sobbed hard against the wall of his chest.
‘Aisha,’ he said, one hand stroking her head, the other behind her, holding her to him, ‘I do not deserve you. I am afraid I will never deserve you.’ He cradled her head in his hand and she felt the press of his mouth on the top of her head; felt the crush of her breasts against his chest; felt the stirrings of unrequited need build again, as if they had been lying in wait for just such an opportunity, ready to resume their pulsing insistence.