Пиппа Роско – Reclaimed By The Powerful Sheikh (страница 7)
Even bundled up in the thick winter wool coat she wore, she seemed impossibly small. Something that clearly suited her chosen occupation. How on earth she was able to wrestle control over a powerful thoroughbred, he couldn’t fathom, but somehow he relished the chance to discover. The thought fired the blood in his veins and he silently cursed himself. He should know better. But as a stray tendril of that honey-brown hair escaped the confines of where she’d pushed it into the collar of her coat, he desperately wanted to sweep it back, just to feel the silken smoothness of it.
He let her lead him through the streets, almost sure she didn’t have a particular destination in mind, especially when she paused at a crossroads, looked up and down, and as if at the last moment decided on a left-hand turn.
‘So where in Australia are you from?’
‘Ah, well done. Americans often mistake my accent for English somehow. The Hunter River Valley. It’s in New South Wales.’ The longing in her voice prompted his next question.
‘You miss it?’
She looked up at him with a smile that was both wondrous and a little sad.
‘Yes.’ She shrugged her slim shoulders in the overly large winter coat. ‘This is...strange, and... unfamiliar—but oddly familiar if you know what I mean? Too many TV shows, I suppose.’
She scrunched her nose up as she chose her words. He liked it. It was cute. Though he couldn’t remember liking
‘New South Wales is beautiful. And open. Not like...’ She gestured with her hands towards the tall buildings around them in explanation.
‘It takes a while to get used to.’
‘Different to where you’re from?’ she asked, cocking her head to the side, as if trying to work something out about him.
‘Yes, very different to Ter’harn,’ he replied, putting stress on the name of his country.
‘And Ter’harn is...?’
‘On the African continent. But it has the benefit of being a coastal country, so has deserts, mountains and a seafront.’
‘What more could you want?’ she asked, smiling, stirring the pit in his stomach.
But he didn’t say those things. He never said those things.
‘So why are you here in New York?’ he asked instead of voicing his secret thoughts. Because he was genuinely concerned that she’d somehow be able to pull them from the vault he kept them in.
‘To study, train and learn. I’m going to be a jockey,’ she said with pride. Genuine pride, not embarrassment or shame, not coy. ‘My father trained some of the best riders in the world.’
‘And he trained you?’
‘Oh, God, no,’ she said, laughing easily again. ‘He wanted me as far from professional riding as possible. But I had the bug. I
For a moment he wondered if someone in the palace might have put her up to this. But there was nothing in those eyes apart from truth. And suddenly, he was just a little jealous. He’d give almost anything to feel that way about being a future ruler. To want it, to want to be good at it. He wondered if he ever would.
They rounded the corner and found themselves at Washington Square Park, still open even at this time of night. It was littered only with the die-hards, freezing their backsides off in the middle of winter. He was about to ask about her mother when she spun around to face him.
‘So what do I call you?’ she asked, rubbing the bite of the cold winter air from her hands. ‘My liege? Your Highness? O Great One?’ she asked, turning back to cross the road, leaving him standing in a stream of her gentle mockery.
‘Danyl’s fine,’ he said with a laugh as he caught up with her. ‘And you?’
‘Mason,’ she tossed over her shoulder as she walked through the iron fencing around the park. She’d been marching ahead at such a pace, he almost walked into her as she pulled up short to look at the figures playing chess.
‘Chess!’ she exclaimed wholly unnecessarily, though he enjoyed the sheer delight in her voice. ‘I’ve always wanted to play but I never had time to learn. Not with all that was needed doing on the farm.’
‘Lucky,’ Danyl replied. ‘My father made me play almost every night. He would spend hours preaching the importance of each piece, valuing the Knight above all others and how it could teach me to be a better ruler.’ She’d turned to look at him and narrowed her eyes at his tone. Could she sense the slight bitterness he tried to hold back from his words?
She turned back to the players—old men sitting at the small tables, chessboards etched into the surfaces, wrapped in layers clutching steaming cups—and Danyl felt oddly nostalgic.
‘My father gave me a set when I left to come here for university.’
‘That’s lovely,’ she said with a gentle appreciation.
‘He kept back the Black Knight,’ Danyl amended drily.
She laughed a little and stepped back towards him. ‘I think that’s sweet,’ she decreed.
‘I think it’s silly,’ he responded, taking a step closer to her, bringing him into the warmth she emanated, that slight trace of lime and bay he’d caught earlier.
* * *
Mason looked up at the Prince before her, wondering at the ease that had descended between them. The laughter he drew from her, the memories. Usually she was much more self-contained, ‘closed off’ as Francesca had complained once. But walking with him, talking to him...it felt as if she were a different person, as if she were being her true self, but better. It was a strange feeling.
From the streets and out of the surrounding buildings, voices began to cry out. The countdown to the New Year had begun. The cries rose up around them, breaking into the moment of silence Mason might have held for ever. They were standing so close she could feel the heat from his body.
He was so much taller than her, she had to angle her head back to look up at him. Rather than making her feel small, as her diminutive height usually did, it made her feel protected, surrounded by him.
‘Would it be inappropriate for me to kiss you at midnight?’ he asked. His voice, lower and huskier than it had been before. She felt, rather than saw, his palms flatten out against his legs, as if he were preventing himself from reaching for her. Until she gave him permission. Until she allowed it.
She shrugged her shoulder as the subtle tension that had hummed between them since leaving the Langsford built to fever pitch. Her heart was pounding in her chest. The way it had been as she’d led them further away from the hotel. It increased as the time to midnight decreased. Was she really going to let a prince kiss her?
‘I suppose it’s not as if you’re spoilt for choice,’ she replied, looking around them briefly at the few groups that had spilled onto the roads around the park, before being pulled back to his gaze—the one that had not left her.
‘There’s always a choice, Mason.’
He was giving her an out. He knew it, she knew it. But, looking into his deep smoked-whisky-coloured eyes, she thought she might drown, thought she might not be able to breathe if she didn’t take the chance...the chance to act on the heady desire sparkling between them.
In answer to his question, she reached up to his tie and gently tugged his head down towards hers.
His firm lips pressed against hers, sending a thousand little bursts across her skin...but it wasn’t enough. As his tongue gently swiped over her bottom lip, flames licked up her spine and shivered out over her entire body. Another swipe begged entry, a third demanded it, and she opened her mouth and met his tongue with hers. Her hands came up to the lapels of his coat, pulling him towards her, clinging to them as if she could no longer stand on her own two feet. Need and desire almost crushed her. Adrenaline poured through her veins as she pulled him deeper into a kiss she would never forget.
December, present day
‘YOU DIDN’T LEAVE me with much choice.’
‘There’s always a choice. You told me that once, remember?’ His own words, spoken in her Australian tones, echoed across the ten years almost to the day since he’d spoken them.
‘Will you put the gun down now? Or are you really going to shoot me?’ he asked.
‘It’s tempting. What are you doing here?’ Mason asked,
‘Can I turn around?’
‘Slowly.’
‘Slowly? For heaven’s sake, would you put it down before you hurt yourself? Or worse,
‘I’m not stupid, I do know how to use—’
Danyl pushed the barrel of the gun away from both of them, leaned in, grabbed the toe of the gun with his palm and pushed up, effectively releasing her grip whilst tangling her arms up in each other. He pulled the shotgun towards him slightly, breaking her hold, and dropped it to the floor. The resulting force, however, brought her forward against him, and left her flush along his chest.