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And he turned and left, his body taut and his craving unfulfilled, but his self-pride beginning to slowly stitch itself back together.
Raffa hadn’t been exaggerating. The town was an exquisite window into the country’s past. Each relic had offered something new. Rudimentary knives, made from animal bones, tapestries and carpets of colours that remained bright despite the sun’s assault, and in one house, a woman’s necklace, made of oddly shaped stones that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight.
It was hunger that eventually brought an end to their tour. Her stomach grumbled and when she looked at the sky, she saw the sun was high overhead.
“There’s food in the bags,” he said with a laugh. “I hadn’t realized the time.”
“I’m sorry,” she returned his grin. “I got so caught up in this place. It’s unlike anything I’d ever imagined.”
“You can come back anytime you like,” he heard himself offer. “A helicopter makes the journey in under twenty minutes.”
“You’re not offering to ride me out any time it takes my fancy?” She asked, the words holding the same challenge that had filled the first bedroom of the first house.
How to answer it? What to say? Raffa rarely experienced uncertainty, but now, he felt it in spades.
“Relax, your highness,” she said, her American accent thicker than usual. Or perhaps he was just noticing it more, noticing everything about her as though they’d been hyper charged. “I was joking. I know you’re too busy to pander to my every curiosity and need.”
He grimaced. Great. He’d just achieved the exact opposite of what he’d set out to. As she walked past, he wrapped his fingers around her wrist and pulled her to his body, holding her there. Her eyes flew wide and her lips parted. It would have been so easy to drop his lips to hers. To drive his tongue into her mouth and kiss her until she was purring like a kitten. To make love to her here in this city that had seen so much, and meant so much, to his people.
“Let us have a rule then,” he said, the words softly seductive. “You will not come here without me.” He lifted his hand and padded a thumb across her lower lip.
“What if I want to come here every day?” She said logically, but the words were throaty and thickened by breath.
“Then I shall have to join you.”
She swallowed and turned her head, something like misery fleeting across her beautiful face. “You don’t have to protect me, Raffa. And you don’t have to … pretend … to care for me either.” She took a step away and there was such a dichotomy in her slender body that he ached for her. She was beautiful and strong, fiercely so, but there was a vulnerability underscoring that strength that made him want to wrap her in his arms and hold her to him always. “If I come to the ruins, I’ll be sure to bring a security detail. Okay?”
No, he wanted to shout. That wasn’t okay! He didn’t want her out tinkering with artefacts and gasping at carpets unless he was there to see her pleasure, to vicariously experience her delight for himself. But wasn’t that exactly the problem? He put his needs above hers – always. He wanted to see her pleasure, and so what? He would deny her experiencing it if he couldn’t witness it?
“Fine, if you wish,” he agreed with a sinking feeling in his gut. “Shall we eat?”
“I’m okay. Just thirsty.” Her eyes didn’t meet his and he wanted to shout into the sky, to peel back the blankets of time and reach into their past, to change things from the very beginning.
“Your stomach was like an orchestra a moment ago.”
“Thanks a lot,” she murmured softly. “I can eat when we get back to the palace.”
His gut kicked, and he felt as though he’d been knifed through his chest. She just wanted to go back to the palace? She wanted to be away from him?
So what if he continued with the outing he had planned? Would that be yet another example of him riding roughshod over her needs?
“I had intended to show you something else,” he said, reaching into one of the horse’s bags and pulling out a glass bottle of water. He handed it to her, their eyes locked. “But if you would prefer to return to the palace, of course that is your choice.”
Chapter Thirteen
HER CHOICE? THAT’S WHAT he’d said, and yet as Chloe stared across at her husband, her heart twisted and her stomach hollowed out.
Her choice?
Nothing would ever be her choice again.
Not because they were married, not because he was a King.
But because she loved him, and she needed him. Not just sexually – in every way. Whatever time he was willing to spend with her was a breadcrumb she couldn’t ignore.
It was pathetic. Weak.
Desperate.
