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.
'Can you ever, ever forgive me for the way I have treated you?'
She sniffed. His shirt was sodden against her face. 'I don't want to forgive you,' she whispered against his skin, afraid to pull her face away. Afraid to look at him. 'I want to hate you.'
There was another achingly long pause and this time she was sure the thin wire connecting them would snap before he answered. 'I don't want to be hated.'
'I can't,' she said, releasing another flood of tears. 'I want to. I've tried, but I can't. And I hate you for it.'
He laughed then, no more than a rumble in his chest, and she wanted to hit him for being able to find humour where there was none-until he said, 'You do not know what a relief that is. I don't think I have ever heard more wondrous words in my life.' He lifted her chin between his fingers and she resisted at first, hating that he was seeing her like this, tear-streaked and swollen-eyed. But his persuasive fingers had their way, and she blinked up at him, saw his dark eyes upon her, the dark features of his face so-tortured.
'I could never live with myself if you hated me, Aisha, even though I know I deserve it, even though I have made such a mess of this. Can you ever, even in some tiny way, forgive me?'
The tears welled anew. She sniffed. He leant down and kissed first one eye, and then the other. 'I do not enjoy knowing that I make you cry.'
She pressed her lips together, her skin tingling where his lips had pressed. He leant down and kissed the end of her nose. And, in spite of herself, she jagged up her chin so her nose butted up harder against his lips, wanting the contact, needing more.
His hands grew suddenly warmer around her, scooping down lower and less soothing, more appreciative; the air around them was suddenly super-charged and electric and his dark eyes spoke of more than torture. For in their dark depths she saw heat and desire and the promise of pleasure like she'd never known before.
'Aisha … '
And she knew before his head dipped that he intended to kiss her. She knew it and did not a thing to prevent it. Because it was what she wanted, this kiss with this man in this time.
His arms tightened around her as he drew her close. 'Aisha,' he whispered in the second before their lips connected.
It was like coming home. It was like every time she'd been away from home and returned to the palace in Jemeya and felt its welcome warmth and familiarity wrap around her. It was just like that. Only one thousand times better.
For his kiss didn't just deliver familiarity. It offered a new dimension. It promised pleasures unbound.
And as she feasted on his hot mouth, and fed from the magic dance of his lips and tongue, all she knew was that she wanted all of those pleasures and she wanted them now. She could all but taste them.
She groaned into his mouth, her hands clutching at his shirt, fisting in the fine cotton as his hands cupped her behind and pulled her close, pulled her hard against the long, hot heat of him. And this time, she knew, she would not be left waiting and wondering. This time she would discover the pleasures she had waited for all these years.
It would not be so bad, she told herself; she would not be giving up on her dream, merely recognising life had changed the parameters. It did not mean it could not still work eventually. And meanwhile.
Meanwhile she could not breathe. Someone had sucked the oxygen out of existence and all that was keeping her going was the heated sweep of his hands on her body, the molten lure of his mouth and the rigid promise of his erection. Those things fed into her own need and stoked the fire beneath her until she was redhot and rabid with desire. Until she knew kissing was not enough.
'Please,' she begged. 'Please!'
He lifted his hot tongue from her throat. 'What do you want, my princess?'
And her hunger and desire coalesced into one indisputable fact. 'I want you, Zoltan. I want to feel you inside me.'
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SHE felt him lift his head from hers and look up to the sky. She heard his roar. She felt his triumph in hers. Because she knew she was right.
He carried her back to the camp as he had done that first night, in front of her on his stallion, but this time she was not wrapped in a cloak and bound to him. This time she clung to him herself, looking up at all the harsh angles and dark shadows of his face, wondering how she had never thought them beautiful before.
For he was. Darkly, supremely beautiful.
When they arrived back at the camp, he slid out of the saddle and reached up for her, taking her in his arms as if she were weightless and looking at her as if she were the only woman in the world.
She liked that look as he swung her down. At that moment she wanted to be the only woman in the world for him for ever. But this moment and how it made her feel would do, even if there was no other. Because surely it couldn't get better than this?
He carried her into the tent and pulled the flap closed, signalling they were not to be disturbed. She swallowed at that. Everyone outside would know what they were doing inside, yet instead of stultifying her somehow that only managed to heighten her excitement.
Then Zoltan was there in front of her again and there was no room to care about anyone else because there was only the two of them. He slid one hand behind her neck. 'You are so beautiful,' he said, and even though she knew he was being generous, that her kohl must be smudged and her eyes swollen from tears, the knowledge he could see past that fed into her very soul.
As did the assurance they were already married. He didn't have to impress her now. He didn't have to pretend. She was already his wife in name and he could take his time making her so in fact.
She was so grateful he hadn't pushed her. Maybe she might have taken longer to get to this stage if they hadn't already been married, but for now there was no reason to delay. This was the man she was wedded to. This was the man she was bound to.
And when she looked up at him, tall and broad and wanting her, it felt not such a bad place to be.
'Are you still scared?' he asked as he gathered her into his arms. She nodded, afraid to speak lest he hear the quake in her voice, before he said, 'Then I will do my best to make it as pleasurable as possible. I owe you that, at least.'
His hot mouth went to work on her to smooth her concerns away as he laid her reverently on the bed. He made no move to undress her, and she wanted to cry with relief, for she wasn't yet ready to bare everything to him. It felt so good, anyway. He made it feel so good.
He made her feel so good.
She liked the way he kissed, giving her all he had to give. Their mouths meshed, his tongue inviting hers into the dance. She liked the way his hands skimmed her body, curving over a hip or cupping a breast, making her gasp when his thumb flicked over a sensitive nipple.
She liked the way his body felt under her hands. Firm. Strong. Sculpted.
Except she was too hot and he was wearing too many clothes. Way too many clothes. She pulled his shirt from his trousers so she could slide her hands up the bare skin of his back, relishing the feel of skin against skin, only it was not nearly enough to satisfy her.
And all the while the need inside her built, the heat inside her escalated. She felt as if she was losing herself, drowning under a wave of sensations, but wanting more, driven to find more.
He gave her more.
His mouth dipped to her breast, his hot tongue laving at her nipple, and she gasped as heat met need in a rush that sent sensation spearing through her, a direct line from breast to her heated core.
She was way too hot, and if his hand hadn't already been at her knee, smoothing her abaya up from her legs, she would have ripped it off herself. His hand scooped higher, deliciously higher, as his mouth wove magic at her breast and she wound her fingers through his hair hoping that he would pause, there, where her need was so great.
But he did not pause. She whimpered a little as he moved on and drew her gown higher over her belly. He lifted his mouth now, so that he could slip her gown higher, his fingers trailing sparks under her skin, or so it seemed. She unwound her arms and he eased the gown over her head and rocked back on his knees, looking down at her in just her underwear, drinking her in from her toes to her eyes, looking at her in a way that banished her fears that he might find fault with her now when she was so close, that put a fire under her blood. 'You are beautiful, Princess,' he said as he unbuttoned his shirt. 'You are perfection.'