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“Wait here,” she said, as though, limp and wrung out, there was any chance of his getting up.
She went to the tent opening and stepped out, hopefully to get rid of whoever was lurking. Raider didn’t want to see anyone right now, and he certainly didn’t want anyone to see him. Not like this.
CHAPTER 19
SETH HAD BEEN soundly caught. He hadn’t meant to get that close. He was not a voyeur. But something about hearing Raider moan had wormed its way past his better judgment, and he’d found himself nearly at the tent entrance before he’d had a chance to think.
“Uh …” he began oh-so-eloquently as Asha stepped out, dark eyes locked on him.
She was a lovely woman, and Seth would never judge a relationship based on age, but … he hadn’t thought their relationship was like that. He hadn’t thought Raider was interested in women at all. And while hearing that moan had sent a bolt of lust straight to Seth’s cock, he was also a little pissed off.
He didn’t have a right to be. He was well aware of that. Seth was the one who had cut things off, and he and Raider had barely spoken for two days. Raider was not his to claim. And yet …
For some reason, it didn’t feel that way.
“I didn’t mean to interrupt,” Seth said, more stiffly than he intended. “I was looking for Raider, but he’s clearly busy.”
Asha’s dark eyes twinkled. She regarded him for a long moment before saying, “It is not what you think. You may go in.”
Seth wanted to protest that he hadn’t been making any assumptions, but those twinkling eyes said she wouldn’t believe him. They also said she was making assumptions of her own. Seth felt like all the blood that had surged to his groin a few seconds ago was now in his face. Was he that obvious?
There was really no salvaging the encounter, so he ducked into the tent to escape.
Whatever he’d expected to find, it wasn’t this: Raider, stripped to the waist and lying on his stomach, face turned away, a greenish salve smeared all over his left shoulder and down his back.
It upset Seth instantly.
For the past two days, Seth had stolen every possible glance at Raider, but those had been fleeting glimpses. Of Raider’s face half shadowed by his dark red kaffiyeh, the material hooding him to offer only teasing slivers of cheek or nose, a flash of white teeth, a searing glimpse of amber eyes.
From a distance, Seth had watched the way Raider handled his sensitive horse so expertly, had watched him talk with everyone, had seen how Raider listened to their stories. Seth hadn’t been able to follow most of the conversations as they’d been largely in Sudani. Many of the Sudai did not speak the trade tongue, but Raider switched effortlessly between languages. Seth knew bits of many languages, but he was fluent only in a few. He loved listening to Raider’s smooth command of words that Seth didn’t know.
But that had been listening, not participating. He and Raider had barely spoken since leaving the oasis—because Seth had been determined to distance himself, to not care.
But looking at Raider now, with that salve telling him everywhere that Raider was in pain, he realized it was already too late—because he already did care.
He absolutely fucking did.
And it bothered the hell out of him that Raider hadn’t hidden his pain from Asha as he’d tried to hide it from Seth.
“Asha,” Raider said in a relaxed voice, “please tell me you chased off whoever—”
“It’s me.”
Raider jerked partway up, head whipping toward Seth. Before Raider could get up further than his elbows, Seth came over and sat down, hoping Raider would stay where he was. Seth hadn’t meant to startle him and didn’t want him to get up.
“It’s not just in the morning,” Seth said.
Though he remained on his elbows, still partly lying down, Raider’s body was tense, his expression wary. “Asha likes to spoil me, that’s all.”
Seth felt aware of every inch of Raider’s body that he’d already touched. His hands had been on that throat and back and chest. He’d gripped those legs and that firm ass. His fingers had tangled in that gorgeous, wavy dark hair, and his cock had been in that beautiful, sensual mouth. It had been deep inside Raider’s body.
Seth wanted to reach out and touch that body again, to smooth the wariness from Raider’s face, to work the soreness from Raider’s muscles. Seth wanted to feel Raider relax under his hands. He tightened his fingers on his knees to resist the impulse.
“I’m glad you let her help you.”
A strange look passed through Raider’s eyes, the same look that Seth had seen at the oasis when they’d argued about whether sex had changed anything between them. Seth half expected Raider to get hostile, as he had that morning, to tell him to leave, but Raider pushed himself up and pulled his legs into a sitting position, mirroring Seth.
Raider sighed. Then he said, as though resigning himself, “Asha has been scolding me.”
