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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.
