Читать книгу The Desert Princes - Jackie Braun - Страница 26

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

‘SO…IS your palace far from here?’ Casey asked Raffa, remembering she had thought that was the point of this expedition.

‘My palace?’ Loose-limbed and sexier than ever in the aftermath of sex, he rolled onto his back to stare into the brightening sky. ‘This is my palace…’

‘This…?’ Joining him, Casey exclaimed softly when she saw what he was looking at. A pair of eagles was swooping and wheeling in what appeared to be an intricate courtship dance.

‘Can you think of anything more beautiful?’ Raffa murmured.

No, she couldn’t Casey thought, watching the great birds swerve and dive.

Raffa sat up, completely unconcerned that he was naked. ‘Shall we go for a swim?’

‘Has the water warmed up yet?’

Wrapping a rug around her shoulders to keep her warm, he cupped her chin and dipped his head to drop a kiss on her lips.

Her eyes were closed, and she was suspended in that moment longer than he was, Casey realised, opening her eyes to find Raffa already slipping his robe over his head. Reaching for her clothes, she started to put them on. A sense of inevitability had gripped her, as if this marked the beginning of the end. She shook it off determinedly as Raffa turned to speak to her.

‘Come as you are,’ he said; ‘that’s all you need.’

As he reached for her hand, she took hold of it with confidence. He hoisted her to her feet and then paused by the cliff edge, staring out across the vast plain.

‘Are you expecting someone?’ she teased him. There wasn’t a sign of human trespass other than theirs.

‘The wilderness grounds me,’ he said. ‘It reminds me who I am and where I’ve come from.’

And where he must go back to? Casey wondered with a shiver of dread. ‘Will you tell me about your parents?’ she said, clinging on to what felt like their rapidly disappearing time together.

For a moment she thought she had gone too far, but then with a shrug Raffa lifted his powerful shoulder. ‘What I can remember of them,’ he said.

‘If you don’t want to—’

‘No, I do…’ He came away from the edge and stood in the shadow of the mountain. ‘They were killed in a coup many years ago. I was just a baby at the time. My mother could have left the country and fled to safety with me. Instead she sent me to England with a relative, while she stayed on in A’Qaban with my father.’

‘What a beautiful love story—and how tragic.’

‘Yes, it was both of those things.’

As Raffa spoke, his voice so cool and distant, Casey’s heart went out to him. ‘They certainly gave you something to live up to.’

‘Something to live for…’ He spoke firmly, and there was a message in his words that made her fears that their time together was limited all the more real.

She reached for his hand. At first he was unresponsive, but then slowly his fingers relaxed and laced with hers. He’d made her think about the close-knit family she had left behind in England. She couldn’t bear to think that all the good the desert had done Raffa had been undone because of her.

‘I had a very lucky upbringing, and I didn’t mean to pry—’

‘Yes, you did.’ The tug of the old humour on his lips was more than she could have hoped for. ‘That’s not unreasonable,’ he went on. ‘In your place I would have done exactly the same.’

‘And now?’ Lifting her hands, she let them drop to her sides, wondering why she had to blurt out everything in her head.

‘Stop worrying,’ Raffa said, reading her as easily as he always had. ‘Now we swim.’

‘Okay…’ She made a pretence of smiling. This was as good as it seemed. She was having the adventure of a lifetime, and maybe it was the start of something even more than that…

Why shouldn’t it be? Casey demanded, when smutty little doubt demons came to haunt her.

‘What’s this?’ Casey ran excitedly from tree to tree when they reached the rock pool. She reached up to free a plump ripe peach from a palm tree. ‘Did you do this?’

Raffa held out his arms and smiled. ‘That’s the trouble with you city girls.’ He caught her to him when she returned with her prize. ‘You’ve got no imagination. No,’ he insisted when she brought the ripe fruit to her lips, ‘you can’t eat it before you’ve paid for it.’

‘And how am I going to do that with no money to hand? You’re impossible,’ she exclaimed, seeing his expression.

She was happier than she had ever been, Casey realised as Raffa kissed her, and when he released her she realised she was still staring at him like a lovesick fool. She quickly turned her attention to the peach, to distract both of them.

‘Mmm, this is delicious,’ she said, juice running down her chin.

‘Let me help you,’ Raffa suggested. Holding her, he sucked the peach juice from her lips.

‘Aren’t you going to have one of your own?’ She was in no hurry to let him go, and could have stared at him for ever, but there were peaches hanging from every tree. ‘I must have been sleeping when you did this.’

‘You ask too many questions.’ Raffa stared her in the eyes. ‘Why can’t you just enjoy?’

‘We’re never going to make it into the water.’

‘Who says we won’t?’ Raffa turned from teasing the sensitive hollow just below her chin to throwing off his robe in seconds. Standing in front of her like Hercules, he challenged, ‘I’ll race you.’

‘You have an unfair advantage.’

He took unfair advantage of it too, diving in seconds before she arrived. He was already swimming strongly when she joined him, exclaiming in shock at the cooler water on her overheated skin. ‘You said it would be warm.’ She turned around, but he was nowhere to be seen.

‘It is warm,’ Raffa said, making her shriek as he surfaced.

‘You frightened me.’

‘Then may I suggest a drop of chilled juice to dilute your fear?’

‘Here in the pool? You’re joking—’

‘No, I’mnot…’ Taking herbythe hand, he ledher through the shallows to where the waterfall tumbled into the pool, making that part of the water icy cold. ‘Put your hand in here.’

Casey could see nothing beyond the wall of water, but at Raffa’s insistence she thrust her hand into it.

‘Now, feel around…Here, let me help you,’ he shouted above the crash of spray.

The touch of Raffa’s warm arm and shoulder was more than welcome, but she was determined to find it first. ‘I’ve got it,’ she exclaimed triumphantly, pulling out a large glass bottle. Champagne.

‘And glasses,’ Raffa prompted, taking the bottle from her.

‘You must have planned this like a military campaign,’ she said, bracing herself for another sortie.

‘Are you complaining?’ Raffa murmured dangerously close to her ear.

‘Far from it,’ she told him with a happy laugh.

‘Then let’s go and have breakfast.’

She was in over her head, Casey realised, pulling on her clothes. Losing sight of the fact that this could never last because of their relative positions in life was the least of her worries. She was deeply in love and loving every moment of this. She was committed to living the fantasy, Casey thought, following Raffa into the shallows.

And should be committed for doing this, her sensible self insisted.

Maybe, Casey thought, frowning, but in her heart she was totally committed to Raffa and to A’Qaban. How could it be otherwise, when her whole life seemed to have been leading up to this moment?

They got dressed quickly—Raffa in his robe and Casey already regretting the fact that she had scorned the robe he’d offered her in favour of fiddly trousers and a buttoned-up top. Robes were far more accommodating to still-damp bodies, Casey realised, hoiking her undergarments into some sort of order as Raffa went ahead around the sandy rim of the lagoon. He was leading her towards what might have been best described as a shady dell, if there had been oak trees instead of palms. As they rounded a rocky promontory she gasped in disbelief. ‘Croissants?’

Casey stared at the feast laid out on a rug in front of them. There were even cushions to sit on, in the shade at the edge of the lagoon. On a clean linen tablecloth a mouthwatering display of fruit, bread and cheese was spread out, and everything was neatly covered in a net cloth to keep the bugs away.

‘You’re full of surprises,’ she said, shaking her head in disbelief.

‘For a wild man of the desert?’ Raffa suggested dryly, throwing her a glance.

‘Oh, please don’t be insulted. I mean it as a compliment. But did we really bring everything here on the horse? I remember the bulging saddle bags, but I had no idea you’d brought so much.’ Clapping her hands together, she stared at Raffa and then at the food.

Suddenly she saw the light. Raffa must think her really dumb, Casey concluded.

‘What’s wrong?’ he said.

‘You didn’t prepare any of this, did you?’ She gestured in disappointment and let her hands drop back to her sides.

‘Did I say that I did?’ Raffa’s luminous gaze sharpened.

‘You didn’t have to. I presumed…’ She glanced around. ‘But then I’m also guilty of presuming we’re alone out here. And that can’t be true, can it, Raffa?’

‘Does it make a difference?’

‘To walking around in the nude? To swimming in the nude? To believing this is our private paradise? Yes, it does.’ She moved away from him as icy dread trickled down her spine. ‘You misled me,’ she said, swinging around. ‘I feel like I’ve been had. Is this how it’s going to be?’ She made a gesture and then stopped, the words freezing on her lips. There was no ‘going to be’, because there was no future for them. When was she ever going to get that into her head?

Raffa walked over to her. ‘We were alone,’ he said quietly. ‘We were alone right up to dawn this morning, when the camel train came in with the supplies I’d asked for from the camp we visited. I wanted to do something special for you— something you would never forget.’

She’d never forget how she felt now, Casey realised. Raffa couldn’t see that he didn’t need to do anything for her, that he only had to be. And this was the second time she had misjudged him so badly.

Confused and full of emotion, she passed a hand across her eyes as if to wipe the debacle from her memory. ‘I’m sorry.’

‘Casey?’

‘I’m sorry that I spoiled everything; that I always spoil everything.’

‘You don’t. You only feel so bad because you’re mentally exhausted from wrestling with your conscience and still throbbing from our lovemaking—something life-changing for you.’

And not for him?

‘Don’t,’ she said quietly when Raffa rested his hand on her arm.

To discover she was just another notch on his bedpost would finish her. But perhaps she had needed this to bring her up short and make her face the truth. She had no alternative now but to be the one to finish this; she was in far enough. She was in love, deeply and for ever…and utterly pointlessly. Nothing Raffa could say or do would ever change that.