kissing her.
He gave her a look, but didn’t deny it.
‘Subtlety never was your strong point,’ Casey observed, fighting hard not to look at Raffa’s lips.
‘Try this,’ he said. ‘You have to stay.’
‘I don’t have to do anything.’
‘May I finish?’
Casey signalled her assent, but remained tensely aware of Raffa’s body heat and sexual charisma; all the things she had sworn off for life, she remembered.
‘A’Qaban needs you—and my people need you—here, with them—not delivering disembodied instructions from afar. Didn’t you see those children’s faces when you arrived?’
‘Oh, that really isn’t fair,’ Casey protested.
‘So now I’ve touched you?’ Raffa remarked dryly.
‘Only because you play dirty.’
‘I play to win.’
‘I don’t know how I could stay.’
‘You’d move in with me?’ he suggested casually.
‘You’re short of a room-mate?’ Casey said cynically.
‘No, I’m short of a wife.’
‘A WIFE?’ Casey looked at Raffa for a moment, and then burst out laughing. At least it had relieved the tension, she reasoned. Raffa always had had a keen sense of humour. ‘Yeah, right,’ she intoned dryly. ‘Queen Casey. Like that’s ever going to happen.’
‘What’s wrong with your name?’ Raffa asked, apparently deciding to play it straight for a change. ‘Though in A’Qaban you would be known by an A’Qabani name, of course. You would be free to choose something you like—something you think reflects who you are as a person…’ He narrowed his eyes in thought for a moment. ‘Atija, for instance.’
‘Does that mean stubborn too?’ Casey said wryly, remembering the shawl Raffa had referred to as his atija.
‘You might find out one day…if the conditions are propitious.’
‘Propitious?’ Casey scoffed, shaking her head. ‘I can’t believe you’re interested in progressing this fantasy. Aren’t I supposed to be the fantasist and you the realist?’
When Raffa shrugged and raised his brows in infuriating challenge, Casey knew she had to stop this before it got out of hand and she started believing it. ‘You’ve known me— what? A week?’ she reminded him.
‘How long does your rule book say it takes to fall in love?’
‘My rule book?’ She sighed. They both knew her experience prior to A’Qaban was nil. And as for love—how could Raffa make light of love? He was discussing it as casually as he might have discussed any other statistic with her.
‘I know you rather well from your personnel file,’ he continued, as if all this was for real. ‘And I know you even better from our close association over the past few days.’
You could say that, Casey silently conceded.
‘You’ve been put to quite a few tests,’ he reminded her.
‘That’s as may be—but I don’t know you.’
‘What does your heart tell you, Casey?’
Her heart? No way. Her heart had never been her best advisor.
‘How did you feel when you discovered you couldn’t fly home?’
Relieved. ‘Anxious.’ She’d go with that. Anxiety was her safest option.
She should have known Raffa would challenge her right away.
‘Anxious? That doesn’t sound like you, Casey. When something goes wrong you find a solution. You don’t sit around feeling sorry for yourself, or…anxious.’ He mocked the offending word.
‘I’m anxious now because you won’t let me go.’ She stared pointedly at his hard-muscled arms, currently lodged either side of her face, while his fists rested against the tree trunk.
‘I don’t think you are,’ he argued softly. ‘I think you rather like it…’
‘No, I don’t…’ She did. She adored having him look at her this way. All she wanted was for Raffa to want her as much as she wanted him.
‘How did you feel when I brought you here?’
Elated. ‘I was really glad the children could have their art equipment right away.’
‘Now at last I believe you,’ he said, pulling back. ‘Was that a sigh of disappointment?’ he added.
She couldn’t afford to be so careless about her feelings when Raffa was around. ‘It was a sigh of relief,’ she informed him briskly, brushing her arms to remove the imaginary hand-prints he had left. The truth was he hadn’t even touched her, but had held her in front of him by sheer force of will. And because she had wanted to be there, Casey admitted silently. She had been waiting…okay, hoping, for a deservedly punishing kiss—one she could really have a go at him about.
‘Haven’t you forgotten something?’ he called after her as she started to walk away.
‘Have I?’ She kept on walking.
‘You’ve got a riding lesson booked. Or…you could sit in the helicopter and wait for me to get back?’
Balling her hands into fists, she rounded on him. ‘You—’
‘Arrogant brute? Just a suggestion,’ he said dryly. ‘Why don’t you let me help you mount up?’
‘Because I’m quite capable of lengthening the stirrups myself.’
‘So you are coming with me…’
A little quiver of anticipation ran through her. ‘Better I know what you’re doing.’ Maybe. But she couldn’t see what he was thinking now Raffa had started winding his howlis round his head. With the western jeans, boots and snug-fitting top, the black cloth over his face gave him the appearance of a brigand on the loose, and it was a struggle to ignore his particular brand of confidence as she heaved her way determinedly into the saddle.
She wouldn’t have known which way they were going even with a compass and a map. The desert all looked the same to her. But Raffa didn’t hesitate once. He led the way on Raad, keeping to the shadows beneath the dunes, and less than an hour had passed before he steered her into a place of extreme shade and surprising cool, between two towering walls of rock. The horses’ hooves clattered eerily in the silence, and Casey was glad when a stream of brilliant sunlight finally
