The Royal House of Karedes: The Desert Throne
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Taking a bite of salad, so delicious with its herbs and spices and multicolored tomatoes, she deliberately changed the subject. “What’s your home like?”
He snorted. “The palace? It has not changed. A rich and luxurious prison.”
“I mean your house in the desert. In Qais.”
Taking another sip of wine, he blinked then shrugged. “Comfortable. A few servants, but they’re mostly for the horses. I like to take care of myself. I don’t like people hovering.”
She nearly laughed. “You must love being king.”
“No.” His voice was flat. “But it is my duty.”
Duty, she thought with sudden fury. Where had his sense of duty been thirteen years ago, when she’d needed him so desperately and he’d abandoned her?
Anger pulsed through her, making her hands shake as she held her knife and fork. But it wasn’t just anger, she realized. It was bewilderment and pain. How could he have done it? How?
Placing her hands in her lap, she turned her head away, blinking fast.
“Jasmine, what is it?”
“Nothing,” she said hoarsely. She would die before she let Kareef Al’Ramiz see her weep. She’d learned to be strong. She’d had no other choice. “I just remember you once dreamed of a house in the desert. Now you have it.”
“Yes.” His voice suddenly hardened. “And I will be your neighbor. My home is but thirty kilometers from Umar Hajjar’s estate.”
She turned with an intake of breath at mention of her fiancé’s name. Oh God, how could she have already forgotten Umar? She was an engaged woman! She shouldn’t be looking at another man’s lips!
But she could not stop herself. Not when the man was Kareef, the only man she’d ever loved. The only man she’d ever taken to her bed. And until yesterday—the only man she’d ever kissed.
Umar had kissed her for the first time only after she’d accepted his marriage proposal. His kiss had been businesslike and official, a pledge to seal the deal when a handshake wouldn’t do. He did not seem particularly keen to sweep her immediately into bed, which was just fine with Jasmine. Their marriage would be based on something far more important: family. And she wasn’t just getting back her parents and sisters. She would finally be a mother. She would help to raise his young sons, aged two to fourteen.
“Do you know his children?” she asked thickly.
He nodded. “I am godfather to his two eldest—Fadi and Bishr. They are good children. Respectful.”
Respectful? They hadn’t seemed that way when she’d met them last year in New York—at least not respectful to Jasmine. The four boys had glared at her, clinging to their father and their French nanny, Léa, as if Jasmine were the enemy. She sighed. But who could blame them for being upset, when their mother had just died?
“I hope they’re all right,” she whispered. “I met them only once. His poor children. They’ve had a hard time. Especially the baby,” she added, looking away.
“They need a mother,” Kareef said softly. “You will be good to them.”
She looked at him with an intake of breath. He leaned across the table, his gaze intense in the candlelight. He was already so close, his knee just inches from hers.
“Thank you,” she said softly. Sadness settled around her heart as unspoken memories stretched between them.
“Didn’t you know she was pregnant, my lord?” the doctor’s voice echoed in her ears, from the dark cave long ago. “She’ll live, but never be able to conceive again…”
Remembering, Jasmine dropped her silver fork with a clatter against her china plate. Clasping her hands tightly in her lap, she tried to close off the memories from her mind.
“You’ve always wanted children,” Kareef said. There was a grim set to his jaw. “And now you’re to be married to Umar Hajjar. A fine match by any measure. Your father must be proud.”
“Yes. Now,” she whispered. She shook her head. “He’s never cared about my success in New York. He even refused the money I’ve tried to send the family, as his fortunes have faltered while mine have grown.” She lifted her gaze. “But I’ve always believed some corner of his heart wanted to forgive me. My success in large part came from him!”
Kareef shifted in his chair.
She continued. “When I first arrived in New York at sixteen, I had nothing. No money. My only friend there was an elderly great-aunt, and she was ill. Not just ill—dying. In a rat-infested apartment.”
“I heard,” he said quietly. “Later.”
She narrowed her eyes at him, feeling a surge of bitterness. “I worked three jobs to support us both. Then,” she whispered, “out of the blue the month before she died, I got a check from my father for fifty thousand dollars. It saved us. I invested every penny, and gradually it paid off. But if not for him,” she said softly, “I might still be an office cleaner working sixteen hours a day.”
He picked up his glass, taking a sip of wine.
Jasmine frowned, tilting her head. “But when I tried to thank my father for that money today, he claimed not to know anything about it.”
Kareef stared idly at the ruby-colored wine, swirling it in the candlelight.
And suddenly, she knew.
“My father never sent that money, did he?”
He didn’t answer.
She sucked in her breath. “It was you,” she whispered. “You sent me that money ten years ago. Not my father. It was you.”
Pressing his lips together, he set down the glass. He gave a single hard nod.
“The letter said it was from my father.”
“I didn’t think you would accept it from me.”
“You’re right!”
“So I lied.”
“You…lied. Just like that?”
“I intended to send you more every year, but you never needed it.” Kareef’s voice held a tinge of pride as he looked at her. “You turned that first small amount into a fortune.”
“Why did you do it, Kareef?”
He turned to look at her. “Don’t you know?”
She shook her head.
Reaching over the table, he took her hand in his own. Turning it over, he kissed her palm.
A tremor racked her body, coursing through her like an electric current, lit up by the caress of his lips against her skin.
He looked up at her. His blue eyes were endless, like the sea in the flickering light. “Because you’re my wife, Jasmine.”
Silence filled the blue room, broken by sudden booms of fireworks outside, rattling the windowpanes.
She snatched back her hand. “No, I’m not!”
“You spoke the words,” he said evenly. “So did I.”
“It wasn’t legal. There were no witnesses.”
“It doesn’t matter, not according to the laws of Qais.”
“It would never hold up in the civil courts of Qusay.”
“We are married.”
Through the high arched windows, she saw fireworks lighting the dark sky. Struggling to collect her thoughts, she shook her head. “Abandonment could be considered reason for divorce—”
He looked at her. “Your abandonment?” he said quietly. “Or mine?”
She sucked in her breath. “I was forced to leave Qusay! It was never of my free will!”
He looked at her. “I had cause to leave you as well.”
Yeah. Right. Her eyes glittered at him. “We were barely more than children. We didn’t know what we were doing.”
As the explosions continued to spiral across the night sky, booming like thunder, he leaned forward and stroked her face.
“I knew,” he said in a low voice. “And so did you.”
The tension altered, humming with a hot awareness that coiled and stretched between them.
Her cheek sizzled where he stroked her. His gaze dropped to her mouth. She felt her body tighten. Her breasts suddenly ached, her nipples taut with longing.
No!
“If we once were married,” she choked out, “speak the words to undo it now. All I care about now…is my family.”
“And what of you?” he said, cupping her face in his strong hands. “What do you want for yourself?”
She wanted him to kiss her. Wanted it with every ounce of her blood and beat of her heart.
But she wouldn’t allow this insane desire to destroy the life that was finally within reach, the family life she hungered to have. She lifted her dark lashes to look into his eyes. “I want a home.” Her voice was as quiet as the whisper of memory. “A family. I want a husband and children of my own.”
A loud crash boomed in the night sky outside them, shaking the palace.
Kareef looked down at her, his eyes suddenly dark as a midnight sea. He dropped his hands from her face. “Umar Hajjar loves his children, his horses and his money—in that order,” he said harshly. “As his wife, you will be valued a distant fourth on his list.”
“He values my connections in America. He thinks I will be the perfect wife—the perfect hostess. That is enough.”
“Not enough for him.”
“What else could he want from me?”
He looked at her.
“You’re a beautiful woman,” he said thickly. “No man could resist you.”
She stared up at him for several heartbeats, then turned away, hiding her face.
“That’s not true,” she said in a low voice. “One man has had no trouble resisting me, Kareef.” She looked up. “You.”
He grabbed her wrist on the table. His fingers tightened on her skin. “You think I don’t want you?”
His voice was dangerous. Low. She felt tension snapping between them, rippling through her body, sharp against every nerve.
Her heart beat frantically in her chest. As he leaned toward her, she breathed in his masculine scent, laced with the flavor of wine and spice. His body, in all its strength and power, was so close to hers. She yearned to lean across the table, to lose everything in one moment of sweet madness and press her mouth against his.…
Another loud boom exploded outside. It broke the spell. Made her realize she was perilously close to doing something unforgivable.
Rising to her feet, she stumbled back from the table.
“Divorce me,” she whispered. “If you’ve ever cared about me, Kareef, if I was ever more than a warm body in the night to you…divorce me tonight.”
He stared at her, his jaw tight. Then he shook his head. Tears rose to her eyes and she fought them with all her might.
“You bastard,” she choked out. “You cold-hearted bastard. I’ve known for years you had no heart, but I never thought you could…never thought you would—”
But the tears were starting to fall from her lashes. Turning before he could see them, she shoved open the double doors. They banged loudly against the walls as she fled down the hallway.
“Jasmine! Stop!”
But she didn’t obey. She just ran.
Fireworks boomed outside the tall windows as she raced past the corner where she’d first crashed into Kareef—literally—by sliding on the marble floors in her socks, playing with her sisters. When she slid too fast around the corner, he’d grasped her wrists, catching her before she could fall. His blue eyes had smiled down at her with the warmth of spring’s first sun. She’d loved him from that first day.
Now, after thirteen years of trying to forget Kareef’s existence, this one day had brought it all back, times ten. A single word from his deep voice, a single look from his handsome face, and he’d caught up Jasmine’s soul like a fish in his net.
Racing down the hall, she pushed open the first door on her left and ran down the wooden stairs into the courtyard. Cloaked in darkness, she took deep rattling gasps of the warm desert air. She stood beneath the swaying dark palm trees of the garden, beside the dark water shimmering in the silvery moonlight, and wrapped her arms over her thin cotton sundress. She could not allow herself to cry. She could not allow herself to collapse.
Because this time, if she fell, there would be no prince to catch her.
CHAPTER THREE
KAREEF nearly staggered in shock as Jasmine fled the dining room. Jasmine thought he didn’t want her? Didn’t she know her power?
When he heard the double doors bang behind her, he leapt to his feet. With an intake of breath, he pursued her. He saw her disappear through a wooden door in the hallway. The door to the royal garden, forbidden to all but the king’s family. He followed her outside.
He stopped at the foot of the stairs, turning his face up to the night sky. He heard an owl’s distant echoing cry. He felt the warm desert wind against his face, blowing open his white shirt.
He was on the hunt. He no longer felt like a king, constrained by the rigid boundaries of duty and appearance. Suddenly, he felt wild. Uncontrolled. For the first time since he’d returned to the palace in Shafar, he felt like himself again.
No. It had been longer than that since he’d truly felt like himself. Far longer…
Where was she? He looked to the right and left, searching across the dark shadows of trees and shimmering pools of water like a Qusani hawk seeking his prey. Had she disappeared into the night? Did she truly exist only in dreams?
The moonlight cast a silvery glow on the swaying palm trees. He could hear the wind through the leaves, hear the burbling water of the fountain. In the distance, he could hear the Mediterranean pounding beneath the cliffs.
Booms like cannons ricocheted with increasing vigor across the sky. Explosions spiraled like pale flowers of smoke across the night—fireworks provided by the city of Shafar to celebrate his coming coronation. He knew he should be thanking the city council right now, instead of pursuing this ghost from his past—this woman who’d given herself freely to another man.
But not yet. She was still his. She was still his.
He saw a sudden flash of white. He saw her lithe body cross the garden, darting and shimmering between the dark shadows. Silvery moonlight twisted through her onyx hair, causing her short, filmy white gown to glow. She was a creature of seduction, a faerie creature of the night, illuminating it like any man’s fantasy.
Jasmine. How long had he hungered for her? How long had he thirsted, like a man crossing oceans of hot sand?
He stood still, watching her in the moonlight. Afraid to breathe, lest the dream disappear.
His expression hardened as he moved forward.
Too many years of hunger. Too many years of denied desire.
She wished to have her freedom. He would give it to her. But not yet.
Tonight, she was still his.
For this night, she was his to possess.
As he caught up with her, he saw her long dark hair tumbling down her pale, bare shoulders in the moonlight. Shoulders now shaking with silent sobs.
A branch snapped into the grass beneath his foot as he stopped abruptly.
She didn’t turn around, but he knew she’d heard him by the sudden stiffening of her posture.
“I know I shouldn’t be here.” Her voice was sodden, muffled. “Have you come to kick me out?”
Grabbing her shoulder, he turned her around. “This garden is forbidden to all but the royal family.”
“I know—”
“And you are my wife.”
She looked up at him with a gasp. Her eyes were wide and dark, her tears glimmering in the moonlight like endless pools. “But I can’t be,” she choked out. “You are the king. And I must marry—”
“I know.” His eyes searched hers. “I will give you your divorce, Jasmine.”
“You will?”
“Yes,” he said in a low voice. “But not yet.”
“What do you want from me?” she whispered.
His hand tightened on her bare shoulder. What did he want?
He wanted to strip the flimsy dress off her body and lay her down beneath him in the moist, cool grass. He wanted to close his eyes and feel her wholly in his grasp, to feel the beat of her heart and warmth of her skin.
He wanted to kiss her senseless, to lick and suckle every inch of her naked body, from that slender, delicate neck to her full breasts, down her tiny waist to the wide sweep of her hips.
He wanted to dip his tongue into every crevice of her, to taste and bite every delicious curve. To savor the spicy sweetness of her skin until he could bear it no longer, while he plunged himself into her so hard and deeply that he would never resurface again.
Part of him—the civilized part—knew it was wrong. Jasmine was another man’s betrothed. And she was under his protection.
But as he held her in his arms…Kareef was no longer a civilized man.
“You,” he growled in reply. “I want you.”
“No,” she gasped. Her brown eyes shimmered with fear. “We can’t!”
He breathed in her scent of spice and blood oranges and something more, something distinctly her, the intoxicating feminine warmth of her skin. He smelled the fragrant night-blooming jasmine, and he didn’t bother to answer. He just lowered his head to kiss her.
With a jagged intake of breath, she turned her head away, toward the darkness of the trees.
He put his hand on her cheek. “Look at me, Jasmine.”
She stubbornly refused.
“Look at me!” He twisted his hands into her hair, forcing her compliance. He lifted her chin, looking down into her face. “You are my wife. You cannot refuse what we both desire.”
She took a deep breath, then closed her eyes. Moonlight illuminated a trail of tears streaking down her pale skin.
“No,” she whispered, trembling in his hands. “I cannot deny what you say.”
He felt her surrender. Gloried in it. His calloused hand stroked her bare arm. Her skin felt soft, so soft beneath his fingertips. Just touching her face, as he breathed in her delicious scent, caused a sizzle like fire to spread through his veins. He felt her shudder beneath his touch.
Kareef was king of the land, but there was one thing that had always been beyond his control. One thing that had always been more powerful than his own strength.
His desire for her.
She made his blood boil with longing. Her memory had driven him half-mad with the unsatisfied desire of thirteen years.
And now…she was in his arms.
He looked down at Jasmine’s beautiful face with a shudder of longing. Holding her close, he cupped her chin. Lowering his head, he kissed her closed eyelids with a feather-light brush of his lips.
Then, with a hunger he could barely control, he slowly lowered his mouth toward hers. He paused, his lips inches from her own. Then he ruthlessly kissed her, searing her lips with his.
Jasmine gasped as he kissed her.
The hot dark pleasure of his embrace was beyond every fantasy of her endless lonely nights. As his lips crushed hers, she felt herself slide beneath the waves of her longing. Even as she knew it was wrong, she felt herself drowning in desire.
Kareef. Her husband. She could not resist him. She could not deny him. Body and soul, she felt herself pulled down, down, down into the consuming passion of his savage embrace.
His lips plundered hers with power and skill. As his tongue swept her mouth, entwining with hers, she sagged in his arms, shaking with explosive need. Her knees were weak, but every other part of her was taut and tense. Her nipples tightened painfully, her breasts aching and heavy. Nerve endings sizzled down her body, coiling low in her belly.
She was breathless, helpless with desire. He possessed her as no man ever had.
Then his kiss somehow changed. His lips gentled against hers, and she wasn’t just submitting to his power. She was kissing him back. His sensual mouth moved against hers in a languorous dance, and every part of her body beneath her thin dress felt on fire where he pressed against her. She was fragile against the hardness of his chest, and the muscles of his thighs strained against her own. He held her so tightly she no longer knew where she ended and he began, and she realized she’d wrapped her arms around his neck.
A soft cry came from deep inside her, a gasp for breath. Her head fell back, exposing her neck. He pressed small intense kisses along her throat, sending sparks up and down her body. He caressed her body, whispering words of tenderness in the ancient dialect of Qais before suckling the tender flesh of her earlobes. His hands moved against her bare arms, cupping the full breasts that strained toward him beneath the fabric.
How long had she desired this? How long had she told herself she would never feel this way again—that at twenty-nine she was too old, too used-up, too numb to ever feel such pleasure? How long had she told herself she should settle for being useful, for earning money, for trying to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good wife?
Hands in her hair, Kareef whispered ancient words of longing and tenderness against her skin. Around them, she was dimly aware of dappled moonlight through the dark waving silhouettes of palm trees, of the stars scattered across the violet night. They were entwined in each other.
Kareef. The only one who’d ever made her feel such explosive joy. The only one who’d made her feel the night was magic, and life as infinite as the stars above her.
Opening her eyes, she stared at him. She saw the new tiny crinkles at his eyes, the way his shoulders had broadened with muscle. He’d grown into his full strength, with a warrior’s posture and brutal power.
But his smile hadn’t changed. His voice hadn’t changed.
His kiss hadn’t changed.
As he lowered his mouth to hers, every inch of her skin sparked with awareness, as if there were a magnetic attraction between them. Pulling them together. Forcing them apart.
Everything else might have altered in their lives, but somehow in his embrace, time stood still. She was sixteen again. They were in love, in longing, full of faith for the future.
That feeling was the most dangerous thing of all.
She shuddered, and with all her strength, she pushed him away.
“I can’t,” she choked out. Above them, she could hear only the waving palm fronds, the sigh of the wind, the plaintive cries of night birds. “I’m sorry.”
“Sorry?” Kareef’s voice was barely more than a growl in the darkness. “I am the one to blame. I wanted you then.” Reaching down, he caressed her cheek and whispered, “I want you now.”
The timbre of his low voice, sharp and deep, caused a seismic shift inside her, breaking her apart in bits like the emeralds hacked from Qusani mines beneath the earth. Gleaming facets and chinks of her soul scattered beneath his touch.
She closed her eyes as she felt his rough fingertips against her cheek. She felt his thumb slide lightly across her sensitive lower lip. Her mouth parted, her body ached, from her nipples down her belly and lower still.
“I will make you a wife, Jasmine,” he whispered, stroking her cheek. “I will make you a mother.”
Her eyes flew open. He was looking down at her with intensity, his face so boyishly handsome it took her breath away. As teenagers, they’d had many innocent trysts in this very garden so long ago, in another life. But here in the warmth of the desert night, with the spice of the air sifting the salt from the sea, anything seemed possible.
“What do you mean?” she said in shock, searching his eyes.
“If Umar Hajjar is the man you want to marry,” he said, “I will not stop you. I will give you away at the wedding myself.”
A lump of pain rose in her throat. Oh. “You will?”
His sensual lips spread into a half smile, his eyes heavy with desire. “But not yet.”
She trembled.
From a distance she heard a servant calling for the king. She tried to pull her hand away. “I have to go.”
The cell phone in his hip pocket started to buzz. Even here in the forbidden garden, they were not completely alone. But he ignored it. As she tried to pull away, he tightened his hand on hers. “Come with me where no one can reach us. Come with me to the desert.”
She shook her head desperately. “I have no reason to go anywhere with you!”
He pulled her close against his chest, looking down at her. His face was inches from her own and suddenly she couldn’t breathe. He looked down at her, brushing tendrils of hair off her face.