It was, Kalila knew, Aarif.
He had found her.
Her mind froze, and so did her body. Kalila stood there, the winds buffeting her, the sand stinging her eyes, flying into her open mouth. She closed it, tasted grit, and wondered what would happen now. Her mind was beginning to thaw, and with it came a fearful flood of realisations, implications. Aarif looked furious. Yet with the realisation of his own anger was her own, treacherous sense of relief.
He had come.
Had she actually wanted him to find her? She was ashamed by the secret manipulations of her own heart, and she pushed the thought away as Aarif slid off his horse, leading the pathetic animal towards the shelter of the rock. His body was swathed in cloth, and she could only see his eyes, those dark, gleaming, angry eyes.
Kalila swallowed; more grit. Aarif came closer, the horse stumbling and neighing piteously behind him. Kalila still didn’t move. Where could she go? She’d already run away and he’d found her. He’d found her so very easily.
He dealt with the animal first. From the corner of her eye Kalila saw him soothe the horse, give her water and a feed bag. He patted her down with a blanket, his movements steady, assured, yet Kalila could see the taut fury in every line of his body; she could feel it in the air, humming and vibrating between them with the same electricity that fired the storm.
The horse dealt with, he turned, and his gaze levelled her, decimated her. She swallowed again, choking on sand, and forced herself to keep his gaze, even to challenge it. Yet after a long moment she couldn’t, and her gaze skittered nervously away.
The wind whistled around them with a high-pitched scream; in half an hour, less perhaps, the storm would be at its worst, yet still neither of them moved.
‘Look at me,’ Aarif said. His voice was low, throbbing, yet even with the shrieking wind Kalila heard it; she felt its demand deep in her bones, and she looked up.
Their eyes met, fought, and Kalila felt the onslaught of his accusation, his judgment. Aarif stared at her for a full minute, the dark fury of his gaze so much more than a glare, so much worse than anything she’d ever imagined.
She’d been so stupid.
And he knew. She knew.
Aarif muttered something—an expletive—and then in two quick strides he was in front of her, one hand stealing around her arm, the movement one of anger yet control.
‘What were you thinking, Princess?’ he demanded. His voice was muffled by the cloth over his face and he yanked it down. Kalila saw sand dusting his cheeks, his lips, his stubble. She swallowed again, desperate for water, for air. ‘What were you thinking?’ he demanded again, his voice raw, ‘to come out here in a storm like this? To run away like a naughty child?’ He threw one contemptuous arm towards the tent. ‘Are you playing house, Princess? Is life nothing but a game to you?’ His voice lowered to a deadly, damning pitch. ‘Did you even think of the risk to you, to me, to our countries?’
Kalila lifted her head and tried to jerk her arm away, but Aarif held fast, his grip strong and sure. ‘Let go of me,’ she said. She would keep her pride, her defiance now; it was all she had.
He dropped her arm, thrust it away from him as if she disgusted him. Perhaps she did.
‘You have no idea,’ he said, and there was loathing and contempt in his voice, so great and deep and unrelenting that Kalila felt herself recoil in shame. ‘No idea,’ he repeated, shaking his head. ‘And I thought you had.’
‘You have no idea,’ Kalila shot back. ‘No idea what has gone on in my head, my heart—’
‘I don’t care,’ he snarled and she jerked back proudly.
‘No, of course not. So why ask what I was thinking? You’ve condemned me already.’
His gaze raked her and Kalila kept her shoulders back, her spine straight. She wouldn’t cower now.
‘Maybe I have,’ Aarif said.
Another piercing shriek of wind, and then a louder, more horrifying crack. Aarif glanced up but before Kalila’s mind could even process what she heard he’d thrust her back against the rock, her back pressed against the uneven stone, his body hard against hers.
The rock above them had broken off, a stress fracture in the stone that had finally given way in the wind, and fallen below with a sickening thud. Kalila swallowed. That could have—would have—fallen on her if Aarif had not pushed her out of the way.
She looked back at Aarif, and with a jolt of alarmed awareness she realised how close he was, his face inches from hers. His eyes bored into hers, his gaze so dark and compelling, yet with a strange, desperate urgency that caused an answering need to uncoil in her own belly.
His eyes searched her mind, her soul, and what did he find? What did he see? What did she want him to see?
She was suddenly conscious of his heart beating against hers, an unsteady rhythm, a staccato symphony of life. And with a knowledge of his heartbeat came another, more intimate awareness of his body pressed against hers. Even through the layers of dusty cloth she could feel the taut length of his torso, his thighs, his—
She gasped aloud, and with a curse Aarif jerked away as if she’d scorched him. Kalila stood there, her back still hard against the rock, stunned by her new knowledge.
Aarif had desired her.
‘It is not safe out here,’ he said brusquely, his eyes not meeting hers. ‘You must go into the tent.’
Kalila nodded, her mind still spinning with this new, surprising knowledge. Even facing the bleak prospects of her future, she had no desire to be left for dead in the desert, pinned by a fallen boulder.
She opened the tent flap and struggled in, only to realise after a prolonged moment that Aarif was not coming in with her.
He’d strode towards the horses, and, squinting, she could see him crouched on his haunches in the Eastern style between their lathered bodies, his back against the rock, his expression undeniably grim.
Exasperation, relief, and disappointment all warred within her. Of course a man like Aarif wouldn’t want to share the cramped intimacy of the tent. Of course he would stoically insist on weathering a sandstorm outside, with the horses for company. It almost—almost—made her want to laugh.
But then she remembered the feel of his body against hers, the betrayal of his own instinct, as well as her answering need, and she pressed her hands to her hot cheeks.
Desire. It was a strange, novel thought. She hadn’t felt desire for anyone; not what she thought of as desire, that inexorable tug of longing for another person. She’d never been close enough to another person to feel that yearning sweetness. Even in her years of freedom in Cambridge, she’d known she must be set apart. A princess had to be pure.
Yet in that moment, feeling the evidence of his own desire and need, she’d felt an answering longing for Aarif and it had been as sweet, as sensuous a pleasure as a drug. It had uncoiled in her belly and spiralled upwards like warm wine through her veins, until all she’d been aware of was him.
Him.
It was the same feeling she’d felt at dinner, in the garden…since she’d met him. She just hadn’t recognised it, because she’d never felt it before. Yet now it was so apparent, so obvious, what that feeling was. That hunger, that need. She knew enough about nature and humanity to recognise what Aarif had felt for her moments ago, and she understood the physical reaction of his body—and hers. She might be innocent, but she was not a child.
She did not feel like one.
She took a deep breath; it hurt her lungs. She needed water. Kalila scrabbled through the saddlebags for her canteen, taking only a few careful sips to ease the raw parching of her throat.
Another breath and reason began to return. It had been a heated moment, she acknowledged, a moment of passionate anger. That was all it could be, what it had to be. It wasn’t real; she didn’t think Aarif even liked her. At least, he certainly didn’t after what she’d done today.
She wasn’t even sure she liked herself.
Kalila peered out of the tent flap. Even though Aarif was only a few metres away she could barely see him. Sighing in exasperation, she struggled out of the tent and stumbled in the near-darkness towards Aarif.
‘You shouldn’t be out here.’
‘I’ve experienced worse, Princess,’ Aarif told her flatly. He sat crouched on his haunches, his arms crossed. ‘Go back in the tent where you belong.’
‘You know the desert as well as I do,’ Kalila returned. ‘It is foolish to wait out here, not to mention dangerous. Why do you think I brought a tent?’
‘I can only assume,’ Aarif returned, his voice still tight with suppressed fury, ‘that you had been planning your little escapade for some time.’
Kalila sighed, then sat down. ‘Not as long as you think. If you’re going to stay out here, then I am too, and it’s likely the tent will blow away.’
She folded her arms, squinting to see him, the wind whipping her hair in tangles around her face. Aarif was silent, and Kalila waited, determined to win this battle of wills.
It was incredibly uncomfortable, though; the ground was hard, the wind merciless, the sand stinging every bit of exposed skin, and Aarif’s glare was the harshest element of all. Still, she waited.
‘You are the most stubborn woman I have ever met,’ he said at last, and, though it wasn’t a compliment, not remotely, Kalila smiled.