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Zane and the Kholadi chieftain would thrash out whatever had been bothering them and that would be the end of it. None of it was her business, because she wasn’t Zane’s woman. End of.
But as she drifted off to sleep Kasim’s words echoed in her head—over and over again—and, unlike yesterday, when the thought of being pregnant with Zane’s child had filled her with raw panic, now all it did was make the sweet spot between her thighs throb, and the hollow, empty space in her stomach glow.
* * *
Damn Kasim—the man was an inveterate flirt.
Zane cursed his half-brother and the loss of temper that had led to an hour-long stand-off between the two of them after Catherine had left them.
He glanced up at the glittering canopy of starlight above his head, and let out a heavy sigh as he made his way back through the camp. After an hour spent with her pert bottom wedged between his thighs was it any surprise he’d had a major sense of humour failure during Kasim’s charm offensive?
Catherine had lapped up the attention. But he could hardly blame her for that. The fact he hadn’t been able to tell Kasim, in no uncertain terms, to back the hell off hadn’t helped with his frustration.
He’d been forced to watch the two of them while he choked down the evening meal, and tried not to give free rein to a jealousy he knew he shouldn’t be feeling. But damn it, the woman had come apart in his arms less than forty-eight hours ago. She might even now be pregnant with his child. Having to watch his half-brother hit on her had been the last straw after a whole hour of feeling each slight shift of her body and not being able to do what he wanted to do.
Was it any surprise he’d been furious with Kasim?
Especially as he had no doubt Kasim had known exactly what he was doing. His half-brother was a bastard in more ways than one.
He checked the knee-jerk thought.
Kasim’s legitimacy, or lack of it, had never come between them before tonight. Had never been a part of their rela
tionship. He’d made sure of it once his father had relinquished his grip on the throne and he’d finally made peace with the Kholadi, or rather their young chieftain. The boy his father had cast out of the palace without a backward glance when he’d installed Zane as his reluctant heir.
Neither one of them had had a choice back then, both forced to be part of their father’s machinations. He’d worked long and hard to persuade Kasim they were brothers, that whatever had happened back then had not been his choice. And he’d nearly blown five years of diplomacy to smithereens tonight because of jealousy—over a woman of all things.
He nodded to the guards on the outside of the tent where he always stayed when visiting the Kholadi.
The scent of jasmine and lemons filled the air, reminding him of when he’d left Catherine here earlier. He pictured her being bathed and massaged by two of Kasim’s servant girls. The familiar arousal pounded to life in his pants.
Stop thinking about her, naked and yearning. You ordered her sent to another tent. Precisely because you’re not going to give in to the lust again.
Not only that, but he’d just spent the last hour insisting to Kasim that Catherine wasn’t his woman. Which had made it even harder to explain away his snarky response when Kasim had revealed their sibling relationship.
During the evening, he’d dug himself into a hole. And it had taken him over an hour to dig himself out of it again. The fact he’d got the definite impression Kasim had been enjoying baiting him for the last thirty minutes or so—once Zane had convinced him his surly behaviour had nothing to do with Kasim being the son of a prostitute—hadn’t exactly helped him to relax.
And now he was wound tighter than a damn spring.
You tell me she is not your woman, brother. And yet you look at her like a starving man.
The whole evening had been some weird power play on Kasim’s part. He was sure of it—because, despite all the charm and conviviality, the brotherly bonhomie, Zane knew the guy still held a grudge for the appalling way he’d been treated by their father. That Zane didn’t blame him for that though, wasn’t making him feel any less pissed with his half-brother about the way Kasim had used Catherine to get a rise out of him.
She was inexperienced, wholly unaware of her own charms and she didn’t know she was being played by a serial womaniser to make him jealous. For that transgression alone Zane had been hard-pressed not to punch his half-brother’s lights out. But he’d been forced to sit on his hands all evening, pretending it didn’t matter, forced to disguise the fact that Catherine was his woman. Or had been.
He crossed to the bathing area to rinse his face and noticed the copper tub was still full of water, probably from Catherine’s bath that afternoon. The scent that had clung to her filled the air.
His groin throbbed like a sore tooth. And he knew the deep dreamless sleep he needed before the torture of tomorrow’s return journey was likely to elude him.
Damn Kasim. And damn Catherine for being so alluring without even trying.
The blood throbbed painfully in his groin, so he stripped off his clothes and stepped into the tub. He gathered a cloth and sluiced his aching body with the cool water. Unfortunately the water wasn’t cold enough to deflate the rampant erection.
Taking the rigid flesh in hand, he began to pump the hard shaft in fast, efficient strokes—while struggling not to imagine the woman he couldn’t even claim as his servicing him instead.
* * *
Cat shivered awake to the sound of movement in the tent. A cooling breeze whispered across her skin, but heat engulfed her body—as if in an erotic dream—as she heard the splash of water and...a muffled grunt.
