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“What’s wrong?”
“Don’t touch me,” I spat and tried to pull his arm away from my middle. “You might have saved my life, but that doesn’t give you the right to touch me inappropriately.”
His face was shadowed in the darkness as he glared down at me.
“Babe, if you think this is inappropriate, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” he murmured in a husky voice that sent tremors down my spine. “Now, settle down before you make us both fall off.”
Bastard! I peeked at the ground and regretted it immediately because it seemed so far away from me. Falling off this horse was a sure shortcut to heaven, and I hadn’t been through the battle of a lifetime to die so easily. I held on to Dheer tightly and ignored the soft laugh that vibrated through his chest.
CHAPTER 4
DHEER
Ihad just seen Diya kill a man. If I had any sense at all, I wouldn’t do my best to not piss her off. But I’d never had any sense where she was concerned.
Even when we were children, I had allowed her to goad me into trouble of all kinds. And as she grew up, she had morphed into quite a different kind of trouble.
She finally quit squirming in the saddle and settled down against my chest. I heaved a long sigh of relief because all that squirming had had an… embarrassing effect on me. We were sitting face to face on the saddle, or rather crotch-to-crotch. And try as I might, I could not will down the erection that sprang up at the feel of her softness against me.
I silently recited the names of the member countries of the ex-Soviet Union and their capital cities, but my body had a mind of its own.
Nine years.
I had yearned for this very moment for nine years. I had yearned to hold Diya in my arms and bury my face in her thick curly hair. I had yearned for the feel of her soft curves against the hardness of my body. I had yearned for the sweet smell that had lingered in my memory for years. And that’s what made this moment even more bittersweet because it reminded me of everything that I had lost. Everything that I had thrown away.
I moved my hips a few inches away from hers and hoped she couldn’t feel the betraying hardness. If she did, she didn’t react to it. But then, Diya was still in shock over the events of the past few minutes. I had no idea how she went from meeting Ayush for the first time to being attacked by his men within twenty-four hours.
But I knew for sure that his men would never have dared to attack Diya of their own accord because she was a guest in his house. Which only meant one thing. Ayush Goel had tried to kill Diya.
A wave of fury rose in my chest and I wanted to storm the Goel mansion and burn it down. Kill them all like the vermin that they were. It was bad enough that he had even aspired to marry her when he wasn’t worthy of even being in her presence. But to try and kill her? I was going to make Ayush regret his actions for the rest of his life, I decided viciously as I rode into the courtyard of my palace.
The valet rushed to help Diya off the horse, and the groom took charge of Pasha as I dismounted.
Diya winced as she took a few steps.
“What is it? Are you stiff from the ride?” I asked, reaching out to grab her before she fell.
She shook her head and bit her lip as she took a few more steps.
“Why are you limping?”
“My feet hurt,” she whispered. “From all the running.”
She stopped and stared at the palace for a moment before she turned to me.
“Thank you for rescuing me, Dheer. But I don’t want to trouble you anymore. If you could arrange for a car to send me home… eeeeep!”
She broke off with a little scream when I picked her up and began walking towards my front door.
Diya slapped my shoulder hard, but I ignored the sting and kept walking.
“Put. Me. Down,” she bit out.
“You’re hurt. You shouldn’t be walking in this state,” I replied.
“I agree! Which is why I asked you to arrange for a car to take me home.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that,” I informed her firmly.
