The Royal House of Karedes: The Desert Throne: Tamed: The Barbarian King / Forbidden: The Sheikh's Virgin / Scandal: His Majesty's Love-Child

“Thank you,” Jasmine whispered again. Her fingers tightened on his arm. “Umar is a kind man, he tries to be good to me, but I did not wish to face this for the first time beside him, traveling through the desert on my wedding day.” She shook her head, lifting her luminous eyes to his. “He can’t understand. You do.”

At the light touch of her fingers, he shuddered.

If he were a civilized man, he thought suddenly, he’d set her free right now. He would divorce her immediately and let her go untouched to the man she wished to marry. His friend. But the thought of her with any other man was as sharp as a razor blade inside him.

Kareef wanted her for himself.

Wanted? Was that even close to the right word? His body craved her, like it craved food or water or air.

Wanted?

He wanted her so much that she made his body shake with need. It was an inhuman test of will that he should be so close to her, trapped in the back of a Rolls-Royce but unable to touch her.

With a shuddering intake of breath, he looked down at her hand on his arm, fighting to control himself when all he wanted to do was seize her in his arms and crush her lips against his own.

But after all his time living unselfishly to serve others, could he really allow himself to take what he needed, what he wanted most?

What would it cost her if he did?

Kareef heard the intake of Jasmine’s breath, felt her body move against his, and he knew she’d just seen the riding school on the other side of the road. He put his arm around her. He felt her body tremble. She stared out at the school as they passed, her face stricken, her brown eyes swimming with tears like an ocean of memories.

And in that instant he forgot about his own needs.

He forgot the heat of his own desire.

All he knew was that it was Jasmine in his arms, Jasmine who was afraid—and that he had to protect her. Holding her against his chest, he leaned forward urgently and barked out an order to his chauffeur. “Drive faster.”

The man nodded and pressed on the gas.

The riding school passed by in a blur of color. He saw the place where they’d first whispered words of love. The place where he’d drawn her into a quiet glade of trees behind the farthest paddock, and on a soft blanket beside a cool brook—the place he’d first made love to her, virgins both, pledging hushed, breathless, eternal devotion.

“I marry you,” she’d whispered three times.

“I marry you,” he’d answered once, holding her hands tightly between his own.

Kareef took a deep breath.

He would be unselfish—one last time.

In the old days, the king’s will in Qusay had been absolute. No one could deny the king the woman he wanted, under pain of death. He would have taken possession of Jasmine like a barbarian. He would have thrown her into his harem, locked the door behind them and not come out again until he was satisfied. He would have taken her on a bed, against a wall, on the soft carpets in front of the fire. He would have lifted her against him, the firelight gleaming off the sweat of her silken skin, until he made her gasp and scream his name.

But Kareef was not that barbarian king. He couldn’t be. Not when Jasmine trembled with fear in his arms.

“The memories can’t hurt us anymore,” he murmured, holding her tight as he stroked her hair. “It all happened long ago.”

“I know that. In my mind,” she whispered, her voice barely loud enough to hear. “But in my heart, it happened yesterday.”

They stared out the window as the motorcade flew past the humble outbuildings of the riding school, its paddocks and fields and stables.

The intimacy of being so physically close as they shared the same exact memories made him taut with an emotion he didn’t want to feel. His muscles shook from the effort of just holding her, of just offering comfort—thirteen years too late.

Then they were past it. The school disappeared behind them. Their limousine flew down the bumpy old road through the red rock canyon toward Qais.

He felt Jasmine relax in his arms. Closing his eyes, he breathed in the scent of her hair. She leaned against his chest. For long moments of silence, he held her. Just the two of them. Like long ago.

Then Kareef heard the cough of his bodyguard in the front seat, heard his chauffeur shift position. And he forced himself to pull away from their compromising position.

He looked down at her, gently lifting her chin.

“You’re all right then?” he said softly, offering her a smile.

Her eyes shone back at him with unshed tears.

“I was wrong,” she whispered. Her dark eyelashes trembled against her pale cheeks. “I see that now. I was wrong to hate you,” she said softly, reaching out to hold his hand. “Thank you for holding me. I couldn’t have faced that alone.”

He stared at her incredulously.

She was forgiving him? For one brief moment of sympathy, the kind any stranger might have offered to a grieving woman, she was willing to overlook what he’d done?

He looked away, his jaw tense. “Forget it.”

“But you—”

“It was nothing,” he bit out, ripping his hand from her grasp.

He would let her go, he told himself fiercely. His only way of making amends. Honor and duty were all he had left. He would not seduce her. He wouldn’t even touch her. As soon as they arrived at his home, he would immediately divorce her and send her on her way. He would leave her to her happiness.

His jaw clenched as he stared out at the sun.

For thirteen years, he’d buried himself so deeply in duty that he couldn’t breathe or think. He’d immolated himself like some mad desert hermit buried neck-deep in hot sand. But being near Jasmine had brought his body and soul alive in a way he hadn’t felt in a long time. In a way he’d never thought he’d feel again.

But he would let her go. No matter how he wanted her. He owed her. He would let her disappear from his life, and this time it would be forever. Umar Hajjar would guard her covetously, like the treasure she was.

Kareef would be unselfish one last time. Even if it killed him. He almost hoped it would.

The shadows of the red rock mountains moved in mottled patterns over their motorcade as they passed out of the canyon. As they went through the mountains into the wide sweep of the desert of Qais, he saw the wind picking up, swirling little spirals of sand, twisting them up into the sky.

Kareef felt the same way every time he looked at her. Tangled up in her.

He felt her dark head nestle on his shoulder. Looking down at her in surprise, he saw her eyes were closed. She was sleeping against him. His gaze roamed her face.

God, he wanted to kiss her.

More than kiss. He wanted to strip her naked and feast on every inch of her supple flesh. He wanted to explore the mountains of her breasts and valley between. The low flat plain of her belly and hot citadel between her thighs. He wanted to devour her like a conqueror seizing a kingdom for his own use, beneath his hands, beneath his control.

But the old days were over.

He was king of Qusay, yet unable to have the one thing he most desired. No strength could take her. No brutality could force her. He couldn’t act on his desire. Not at the expense of her happiness.

His muscles hurt with the effort it took to feel her against him, but not touch her. Clenching his jaw, he turned back out the window. He could see his house in the distance. In just a few minutes, they would be done. He would go inside, find the emerald and speak the simple words to set her free. And after today, he would make sure he never saw Jasmine again—

His thoughts were interrupted when he heard a sudden squeal, the sickening sound of metal grating against the road.

As if in a dream, he looked up to see the SUV at the front of the motorcade slam hard to the right, then smash against the rock wall along the road.

He heard his own bodyguard shout, saw his chauffeur frantically try to turn the wheel. But it was too late. Kareef barely had time to think before he felt the Rolls-Royce hit against the SUV, felt his body jackknife forward.

As their limousine flew up, rolling violently through the air, he looked down at Jasmine. His last image was her wide-open, terrified eyes—his last sound, her scream.

CHAPTER FIVE

JASMINE opened her eyes.

She was lying on a blanket, amid the cool shadows of green trees. Nearby, she heard a burbling brook and horses racing in the paddocks of the riding school. She felt the soft desert wind against her face. And the greatest miracle of all: the boy she loved was beside her, smiling with his whole face, love shining from his electric blue eyes.

He pulled her down against him on the blanket, reaching to tuck her hair behind her ear. Dappled golden light caressed his black hair as he rolled over her body with sudden urgency, his eyes gazing fiercely down into hers.

“I have no right to ask you this,” he whispered. “But I will regret it forever if I do not.” He cupped her face in his hands. “Marry me, Jasmine. Marry me.”

“Yes,” she gasped. He smiled, then with agonizing slowness he lowered his lips toward hers. He kissed her. Then, for the first time, they did far more than just kiss…

“Jasmine!”

His sudden harsh shout was jarring. She heard the panic in his voice, but couldn’t answer. Something was choking her. Slowly, blearily she opened her eyes.

And realized she wasn’t on the blanket by the stream.

She was strapped into a car upside down. Her knees were hanging against her chest and she could see the blue sky through the window at her feet. The seat belt felt so tight that she couldn’t breathe. Something warm and liquid dripped across her lashes.

“I’m bleeding,” she whispered aloud.

She heard Kareef’s curse and suddenly the passenger door was wrenched open, causing scattered pieces of broken glass to clatter from the window to the road. Suddenly, the seat belt was gone and she was in Kareef’s arms, sitting on his knees in the dusty road.

She felt his hands move over her head, her arms, her body. “Nothing’s broken,” he breathed. He held her tightly against his chest, kissing her hair, whispering, “You’re safe. You’re safe.”

She closed her eyes in the shelter of his arms. She pressed her cheek against the warmth of his neck.

Time felt as mixed and confused as the smashed, upside-down cars in the road. For the space of a dream, she’d been sixteen again, with her whole life ahead of her, certain of Kareef’s devotion and his strong arms around her.

Those same arms were around her now, even more powerful and muscled than they’d been before. What had happened?

“Get a doctor!” Kareef turned and thundered.

She was dimly aware of bodyguards rushing around them, shouting into cell phones, but they all seemed far away. She and Kareef were at the eye of the storm.

She looked at him and saw the blood on his clothes, the tears in the white fabric of his shirt, and a chill went through her. Trembling, she reached her hand toward his face, toward the thin lines of red streaking his chiseled cheekbone. “You’re bleeding.”

He jerked his head away. “It’s nothing.”

He didn’t want her to touch him. That much was absolutely clear. She felt her cheeks go hot as she put her hand down. She pressed her lips together, wanting to cry. So much had changed since the time of her beautiful dream. “But—you should see a doctor.”

He rose to his feet, holding her. “Unnecessary. But for you…” He looked down at Jasmine. “Can you stand alone?”

“Yes.” Her head was pounding, but she would not try to lean against him. She would not make him push her away. If he did not want her to touch him, she would stand alone on her own two feet if it killed her.

Releasing her hand, he brushed dirt off the shoulders of her pink blouson minidress. “Your hat is gone,” he muttered.

She looked up at him in a daze. “It doesn’t matter.”

“We’ll have someone find it.” Taking a damp towel from a bodyguard, Kareef wiped her forehead, then paused. “You’ve got a small cut on your scalp,” he said matter-of-factly, his voice calm, as if trying not to scare her. He turned back to his bodyguard. “We must take Miss Kouri back to the hospital.”

Miss Kouri. So he’d reverted to that. He was already keeping his distance, as if he’d already divorced her.

The bodyguard shook his head at Kareef. “The cars are totaled, your highness.” His voice grew bitter, angry. “That mare escaped into the road again. Youssef had to swerve to avoid her.”

Kareef looked past the smashed, upside-down Rolls-Royce toward the black horse still standing in the road. “Ah, Bara’ah. Even put out to pasture,” he murmured softly, “you’re up to your old tricks.”

Jasmine followed his gaze. The slender black mare, chewing lone wisps of grass that had grown through the cracks of the pavement, looked back with placid amusement.

“Get her back in her paddock,” Kareef said. “Get a new car from my garage.”

His garage?

Jasmine looked down the road and saw a wide, lowslung ranch house of brown wood, surrounded by paddocks and palm trees.

Comfortable and peaceful, without any of Umar’s gilded, lavish ostentatiousness, Kareef’s home was a green oasis in the vast wasteland of the desert.

He’d done it. He’d created the house he’d once promised her. But he’d done it alone…

Her hands tightened. And Kareef wanted to take her away. He wanted to take her back to the city, to leave her in some sterile, beeping hospital room—alone. Perhaps he intended to run inside and get the emerald, and divorce her on the way?

It was what she’d thought she wanted—a quick divorce without seduction, without entanglements. But now, she suddenly felt like crying.

“I don’t want to go to the hospital.”

At the sound of her voice, Kareef and the bodyguard turned to her in surprise, as if they’d forgotten she was there.

“But Jasmine,” Kareef replied gently and slowly, as if speaking to a recalcitrant child, “you need to see a doctor.”

“No hospital.” Dark hair blew in her eyes from her collapsing chignon. Pushing back her hair, she saw blood on her hands. Looking down, she saw drops of blood on the pink silk of her dress.

Just like the last time she’d been in an accident. The last time she’d seen her own blood. After the accident—before the scandal…

She suddenly couldn’t get enough air.

She couldn’t breathe.

Panicking, she put her hands on her head as she tried to get air in her lungs. More dark tendrils tumbled from her chignon as the world started to spin around her.

Kareef’s eyes narrowed. “Jasmine?”

Her breath came in short, shallow gasps as she backed away from him. Everything was a blur, going in circles faster and faster. No matter which way she looked, she saw something that trapped her. The home of her dreams. The man of her dreams. The blood on her dress…

Kareef grabbed her before she could fall. His intense blue eyes stared down at her. She dimly heard him shouting. She saw his men rushing to obey.

She saw Kareef’s lips moving, saw the concern in his blue eyes, but couldn’t hear what he was saying. She could only hear the ragged pant of her own breathing, the frantic pounding of her own heart.

Colors continued to spin around her as her knees started to slide. In the distance she saw the black mare staring back at her. Black like the horse who’d thrown her long ago. Black like the accident that had caused her to lose everything.

Black.

Black.

Black…

Suddenly, Kareef’s worried face came into sharp focus.

“You’re awake,” he said in a low voice. “Do you know who I am?”

Jasmine discovered that she was lying on her back in a bedroom she didn’t recognize. Her head was pounding; her throat was dry.

She tried to sit up. “Where—where am I?”

“Don’t try to move,” he said, pushing her back gently on the bed. “My own doctor’s on the way.”

Her head was flat on the pillow as she looked slowly around the bedroom. It was large, rustic and comfortable, with a king-sized bed and spartan furnishings. It was very masculine, smelling of leather and wood. She looked at the small fireplace made out of hewn rock. “I’m in your bedroom?”

“So you know who I am,” Kareef said, sounding relieved.

Jasmine gave a derisive snort. “The illustrious king of Qusay, the adored and revered prince of Qais, the delight of all harem girls everywhere, the…”

“How hard did that glass hit your head?” he demanded, but his mouth quirked up into a smile. He’d been worried, she realized. Very worried.

“Did I faint?” She tried to sit up, to show them both she was all right.

“Don’t move!”

“I feel fine!”

“The doctor will be the judge of that.”

“You said I have a small cut on my scalp. That doesn’t require a team of specialists. Stick a bandage on my head.”

“And you fainted,” he reminded her.

Her cheeks went hot with embarrassment. She felt sure her fainting had nothing to do with the bump on her head and had been instead some kind of panic attack—but how could she explain that without bringing up the long-ago accident she absolutely, positively did not want to talk about?

She didn’t need to bring it up. His next words proved that.

“What is it about you and doctors?” he said softly, looking down at her. “Why do you refuse to let me take decent care of you?”

Their eyes locked, and she sucked in her breath. She knew what he was thinking about.

After the horse-riding accident, he’d pleaded to fetch a doctor. But she’d refused. She been desperate to keep her shame a secret, to protect her family. Please, Kareef, just hold me, I’ll be fine, she’d cried. But when she’d started shaking with fever, he’d broken his word. He’d returned with a doctor and two servants he thought he could trust.

One of the servants had been Marwan, who’d betrayed them the instant Kareef disappeared into the desert. Her family had been devastated, nearly destroyed. Because of her.

Blinking fast, she turned her head away.

Kareef leaned over the bed. With the prison of his arms on the mattress around her, she slowly looked up into his face.

Their faces was inches apart. Tension coiled between them.

“Here,” he muttered, looking away. “Let me fix this.”

He reached behind her and rearranged the pillows. He lifted her, and she closed her eyes, relishing the warmth and strength of his arms. Then he gently pushed her back against the pillows, into a sitting position. He stroked her hair.

“Better?” he said in a low voice.

His mouth was inches from her own. She felt the warmth of his breath against her skin. It made her shiver from her mouth to her earlobes to her nipples and neck. Even her supposedly injured scalp tingled with a feeling that had nothing to do with pain and everything to do with—

She cut off the thought. With Kareef so close to her, she was having difficulty thinking straight. What question had he asked her? She licked her lips. “I’m much…much better…”

“The doctor will be here soon,” he said hoarsely. The hard muscles of his body seemed strained, almost shaking, as if he were struggling to hold himself in check. “Any moment, he will be here…”

He started to pull away. And suddenly Jasmine couldn’t bear to lose his arms around her. Not after she’d been so cold for so long. Not when they were this close, this man she’d tried to hate, this man she’d never stopped craving.

Leaning up, she pressed her mouth to his.

It was a short kiss. A peck. Just enough to feel the roughness of his lips, his masculine power and strength. But it caused a hot fever to spread through her body.

Kareef looked down at her in shock. She heard his hoarse, ragged breath as his hands gripped her shoulders.

Then, with a growl, he pushed her back against the pillow as the simmering conflagration exploded into fire. He kissed her, hard and deep. His kiss was hungry. Brutal.

He kissed her as if he’d been starving for her half his life.

His arms wrapped around her, pressing Jasmine back against the pillows. He enfolded her small body with his larger one. His mouth was rough and savage against hers, bruising her lips even as his hands caressed the back of her head, holding her like a fragile rose.

The hot demand of his kiss seared her, sending sparks down her body. Her breasts felt heavy, her nipples tightening to painful intensity. An ache of longing coiled low in her belly, curling lower, lower still, between her thighs.

His mouth never left hers as he stroked down the front of her body, from the smooth curve of her collarbone to her flat belly, seeing her with his fingertips. His feather-light touch against the smooth pink silk of her blouson dress caused exquisite agony of sensation. His kiss deepened, became more demanding. He gripped her bare arms, her shoulders, holding her down.

How many nights had she dreamed of this? Of feeling his hands on her skin, of being in his bed?

She was dreaming. She had to be. And she prayed she would never wake.

His large hands splayed across her silken belly in the bright sunlight of the windows. He plundered her lips, spreading her mouth wide to accept his tongue.

A soft moan escaped her. She wrapped her hands around his neck to hold his body against her. Their tongues intertwined, mingled, fought. His lips bruised hers—or was it the other way around? She no longer knew. Neither of them could hold thirteen years of desire in check. They barely kept themselves from causing injury to the other beneath the weight of their mutual, insatiable hunger.

It was better than it had been at sixteen. Now, at twenty-nine, she knew how rare this fire truly was.

She reached her hands beneath his shirt and felt the heat of his skin, the hard knots of his muscles and taut belly. Felt the soft coarse hair between the hard nubs of his nipples. With an intake of breath, he pulled back, grabbing her wrists.

“Tonight, you are mine. Whatever the cost.” His voice was low and dark, as if ripped from the depths of his soul. “I will make you forget all the others.”

Their eyes locked in a moment that seemed to stretch out to infinity. She swallowed.

“There have been no others,” she whispered. “Only you. How could I give my body to another, when I am still your wife?”

Her cheeks went hot, and she couldn’t meet his eyes. Would he mock her pathetic fidelity? Would he laugh at her?

Then she heard his harsh intake of breath. “Jasmine.”

Suddenly, his hands were in her long tangled hair, his body pressed against hers. His blue eyes were dark and hungry as he tilted back her head, exposing her throat.

“Jasmine. My first,” he breathed. “My only.”

Her heartbeat tripled. Could he mean…?

No! It wasn’t possible. He was a handsome, powerful sheikh, the king of Qusay. He couldn’t have spent the last thirteen years as she had done—with a lonely bed and an aching heart!

But as Kareef’s eyes burned through hers, she felt the truth. He stroked down her cheek, tracing his thumb against her bottom lip. Trembling, she closed her eyes as he touched her. This couldn’t be happening…couldn’t be…

Cupping her chin in his hands, he kissed her fiercely. His kiss was so deep and pure that she was reborn in the blaze, fired in the crucible of their desire. His hands moved beneath the pink dress, pressing rough and raw against her skin. He ripped the silk off her body, and she felt his hands everywhere. On the skin of her back as he undid her bra in a single swift movement. On her belly and hips as he pulled her white panties off, ripping them down over her long legs.

And suddenly, she was naked and spread across his bed.

Rising abruptly from the bed, he pinned her with his hot gaze as he slowly unbuttoned his tattered white shirt and cuffs. He dropped the shirt to the ground, then kicked off his black shoes and pants. From where she lay, naked on his white bedspread, she looked up at him and drew in her breath.