Page 39 of Hot Zone

Rustam was not beside her.

She sat upright in alarm but relaxed when she spotted him across the clearing, saddling her mare. Polaris already was tacked up and ready to go.

“Good morning, fair goddess of my heart,” Rustam called teasingly.

Okay, he’d said that as a joke. There was no reason at all for her pulse to trip over itself and then take off racing like that. But there was no denying the fact that just looking at him made her heart beat faster. Almost as if he could sense her reaction to him, he grinned at her over Cygna’s back. She restrained herself from sticking her tongue out at him.

“Shall we be off?” he asked, after giving the girth a last tug. “If we ride hard through the day, we should have enough of a head start to stop for some rest tonight.”

“Why not ride at night when it’s cooler, and rest during the heat of the day?”

“Terrain’s too rough ahead. The horses need to see where they’re going. Besides, Polaris and Cygna were bred for and raised in this heat. They’ll be fine.” He added, “But thank you for your concern for them. Many humans care nothing for beasts of burden.”

Her joints creaking painfully, Tessa climbed to her feet. Note to self: sleeping on rocks did nothing for her overall health and well-being. But Rustam had suggested that the bare slab of rock would be less likely traversed by scorpions or spiders than the inviting patch of grass beside the stream. Besides, now that patch of grass was cropped short, and both horses bore green stains around their lips.

She moved over to take Cygna from Rustam.

“Need a leg up?” he murmured.

“One wouldn’t hurt. I’m depressingly stiff at the moment.”

Instead of reaching for her bent leg, though, he placed his hands around her waist. She glanced over her shoulder at him, startled.

Mistake.

Their gazes met.

She could no more have stopped herself from turning in his grasp to face him than she could’ve stopped herself from breathing. As a new day broke around them in this isolated little pocket of nowhere, it suddenly felt as if they were the only two people in the entire world. A sense of peace enfolded them. A songbird of some kind twittered nearby, and one of the horses snuffed quietly.

She gazed up at Rustam, and he gazed down at her, a slow, easy smile lighting his eyes. His hands continued to rest on her waist, warmth radiating from his palms. She laid her hands on his chest, and felt his heartbeat thudding, slow and steady against her fingers.

Oddly enough, her own pulse exactly matched the rhythm. She felt connected to him at the most fundamental level. As if one blood supply flowed between them, one circulatory system. One heart.

The sparkling display of fireworks she usually spied out of the corner of her eye whenever they touched each other was quieter this morning, a blue-and-violet swirl that flowed around them like water, caressing them both and drawing them gently closer to one another. Instead of the usual prickle across her skin, this morning it was a light tickle, like gossamer butterfly wings fluttering around her.

Rustam murmured, “Have I told you today how beautiful you are?”

Her lips curved. “No. And seeing as the day is a whole half hour old, I would have to say you’ve been seriously negligent.”

The smile in his eyes spread to his mouth. His right hand drifted up, his fingers slipping under her hair to cradle her neck, his thumb caressing the line of her jaw. “You are moonlight and marble, a goddess of beauty and love, as cool and pure as fresh fallen snow. And yet there is fire within you. The strength and heat of new-forged steel.”

Tessa inhaled in surprise, and he leaned down, capturing the sound with his mouth. His lips brushed across hers, undemanding yet beguiling. As tall as she was, she still had to rise onto her tiptoes to turn the touch into a full-blown kiss.

This morning a new tenderness blossomed between them. Maybe it was just her gratitude that he’d rescued her from the attack and had come with her on this uncertain journey.

But it felt like more than that. Much more.

His hands skimmed up her bare arms, chasing away the goose bumps caused by the chilly air, replacing them with goose bumps of delight. His languid sensuality enveloped her, expanding to fill the entire golden morning. She swayed against him, and he absorbed her weight easily.

“You make me think of romancing a woman,” he murmured. “Of courting you and winning you over.”

“Mmm. That sounds nice.”

His chest rumbled with a chuckle. “Yes, but I don’t do that. Women fawn all over me, and I grant them my attention.”

She frowned up at him. “I’m not much good at fawning. And arrogant men turn me off.”

“For you—” he dropped a light kiss upon her mouth “—I will do my best—” another kiss “—not to be arrogant. Or to make you fawn.”

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