at that age, having developed some skill by his early twenties and feeling the pressure to marry soon. He’d taken advantage of every opportunity while he’d had his freedom.
Good thing he had, since his married years had been dry.
“That wasn’t meant to sound like a challenge,” she added, sending him a look he supposed was intended as a rebuff, but as he held her gaze, her expression softened to yesterday’s absorption.
She didn’t realize it, but that mixed signal of defensiveness and yearning challenged him to show her what she was missing. Just touching her bare arm had filled him with excitement. Something more could be truly volatile and he was darkly tempted to discover the extent of it.
“There are other ways to find pleasure without going all the way,” he pointed out, mind already several hundred meters down that road with her. “I’m having trouble believing you’re so inexperienced you’ve never been kissed.”
“I didn’t say that,” she retorted. “Just that I haven’t—” Pain flashed across her expression and she fixed her attention on the children. “I’m no supermodel. Men don’t find me interesting.”
Her bruised confidence got to him. It made him soft and weak when he needed to be strong and resistant, but he understood the feeling of being spurned better than most. Her lack of self-assurance wasn’t something he could ignore and allow to grow like a cancer.
“Don’t underestimate yourself. Men are lazy and will pick the lowest-hanging fruit. It doesn’t mean the apples higher up aren’t appealing.”
“Says the man who turned up his nose at the only fruit in the bowl this morning,” she retorted, then went red. “Ignore that. You’re right. Let’s forget all of this. It makes me feel ridiculous.”
Such a quick, defensive reaction suggested he’d hit a nerve. Her insecurity went deeper than he’d realized. That made him uncomfortable. He ought to let her think he had rejected her and leave it at that, but he couldn’t.
“I covered you this morning because I didn’t want other men seeing what I want for myself. You have my interest, Fern,” he admitted.
His words snapped her head around, her shocked face framed in the brim of her silly hat. A vulnerable softness that was appealing and very temptingly receptive edged into her eyes.
He reached for what little control he had, which was surprisingly tenuous.
“But do you know anything about our history?” His low tone came out aggressive and rough, colored by lifelong bitterness at the hurdles put in front of him by the accident of his birth and now the addition of this...denial of something he wanted quite badly.
“My father’s affair with my mother caused a huge rift in our country. He called off his arranged marriage, flaunted his half-breed son as his heir. Any hint of my Western upbringing is seen as a flaw by my detractors. If we were in London, I would seduce you into my bed right this second, but we’re not. So even though one of my favorite things in the world is finding wild strawberries in a field, for the sake of my country and quite possibly my life, you and I can’t happen.”
* * *
His words poured lava through her arteries. Not the part where he made it clear the consequences of sleeping with her really might be dire, but the part where he acted like he truly wanted to. That made sensuous feelings pool into her loins as a hot, heavy ache turned her into the ripe fruit he was talking about. Reach for me. Consume me.
She couldn’t look away from him and didn’t know how to hide the effect he had on her. With a kind of desperation, she searched to be sure there was no laughter or subterfuge in his expression and only saw his pupils flare.
Her heart skipped.
“What kills me is knowing you have options,” he said in a begrudging growl, flicking a glance toward Tariq’s guard. “Several.”
“What?” She glanced at the man who was nudging beneath a stunted bush with a long stick. “I’m not attracted to him! Not to any of the men.”
“Only me?” he challenged, but even though there was a hint of belligerence in his tone, it was a statement, one that made him nod once in satisfaction. “Good.”
“No, it’s not!” she said loudly enough to make the children stop and look toward them.
Fern crossed her arms, annoyed with herself, but Zafir easily excused her outburst.
“Miss Davenport is taking issue with my calling England soggy. She doesn’t realize I’m speaking with the affection of a countryman.” Turning back to her, he contradicted quietly, “If you began visiting other men’s tents, I don’t think I would react very well.”
“I don’t... What does that mean? You’d be...” She couldn’t make herself say it. It would be reaching way beyond her grasp and she’d fall on her face.
“Jealous?” Zafir suggested through teeth set in a dangerous smile. “It’s worse than that. My ego likes knowing you react only to me. It’s not civilized, but only half of me is English. The other half is centuries-old barbarian. I want you, but if I can’t have you, no one else can.”
Her brain was doing three-sixties, stunned by his arrogance, cursing her inability to disguise her attraction, and some wicked part of her was deeply thrilled by his seeming possessiveness. It made her realize exactly how seductive it was to feel wanted by the person who intrigued you.
On the other hand... “This is ludicrous,” she muttered. “No one has ever... I am completely English. Is this how you talk to every woman you meet?” She was blushing—of course she was—but she was indignant enough to feel her spine lock into place. “Because I can’t believe you’re acting as if this is...something that could really happen. I barely know you.”
“But the way you look at me says I can have you. I want to have you,” he warned, looking every inch the desert warrior who stole women for his harem and kept every single one of them pleasured.
A swirl of excitement spiraled downward from her throat to sting her breasts, coil in her abdomen and end as a spark between her thighs. It was a promise of something that had eluded her all her life and she wanted to hang on to it, kindle it and watch it glow hotter.
“You could help me out,” he said with a feral growl, nostrils flaring. “Tell me I’m wrong. Refuse me.”
She opened her mouth, knowing she should, but he stood there so commandingly. This wasn’t about her being too shy or intimidated to assert herself. It was about her being an honest person who was overwhelmed with attraction for the first time in her life. She wasn’t a victim of her own urges or his aggression. She finally felt alive and wanted to embrace everything about this glorious awareness.
So not a good idea.
She lifted a hopeless hand. “I told you men don’t come on to me. How much experience do you think I have with refusing one?”
He bit out an old-fashioned English curse, one she supposed was apropos, and turned away, too athletic to lurch, but his movements were jerky as he joined the children and admired the shots they’d taken so far.
Fern forced her gaze to the footprints
