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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.
His tanned body was magnificent in the brilliant, blinding sunlight from the windows, casting a halo over him like a dark angel. Shadows flickered over his well-built chest and downward, against a line of black hair that stretched past his taut belly to the thick length of him, so hard for her, jutted and proud in its unyielding, brutal masculine demand.
A cry caught in her throat as she looked at him. He knelt over her on the bed, his muscular thighs stretching over hers as he ran his broad hands down the length of her flat belly.
His fingers, once rough, became tantalizingly light. His fingertips barely made contact with her skin as he traced her hips and thighs. He cupped her breasts, feeling their weight, worshipping them. Kneeling over her, he kissed her neck, then her mouth.
He kissed her with reverence that seared her to the ends of her soul. His hands caressed her heavy, aching breasts and she closed her eyes. She nearly protested as his lips left hers. Then she felt him move down her body as he lowered his mouth to her breast. Feeling his lips suckle her aching nipple, his tongue swirling against her and his teeth creating a pleasure almost like pain, she gasped, arching her back.
Whatever it cost her, she didn’t want him to stop.
His lips and tongue were pure fire against her skin as he tasted her, sucking and biting each breast until her breath came in short little gasps and she cried out. His hands cupped her, squeezing the full flesh with increasing intensity until her breasts lifted of their own accord to meet his mouth. She felt the warmth of the bright sun against her skin, heard her own gasps as if from a distance. His hard body moved against hers, and desire swept her up with the intensity of need, suspending her breathless in midair.
He kissed down the soft length of her belly, pressing her breasts together to lick the deep crevice between them.
She felt the coarse hair of his muscular thighs move against her legs as he moved farther down her body. She felt the hard jut of his erection press against her, demanding attention, jerking hard when it brushed briefly against her skin. But he didn’t position himself between her legs. Instead, she felt his hands caress her hips, between her thighs.
With a growl, he spread her legs apart.
She squeezed her eyes shut, blocking out the light. If she opened her eyes and saw his head between her thighs, she feared she’d lose control.
His jawline was rough and scratchy against her tender skin. She felt the heat of his breath against her thighs as, stretching her wide with his fingers, he took a long, languorous taste of her.
She cried out, arching her back violently. The back of her head sank into the soft piles of pillows as she shook beneath the shocking, unendurable waves of bliss.
The pleasure, oh God, the pleasure! Tension twisted and coiled inside her, sending her higher with every sweep of his tongue, with every tiny curling flick of his tip against her wet body. Her chin tilted back higher as her eyes closed, almost rolling back in her head. Her breaths came in increasingly desperate pants as his powerful tongue worked against her, widely lapping one moment, the next moment swirling light circles against the painfully taut center of her longing. Reaching up his hands to feel her breasts, he continued to lick her. His tongue was a wet, hard column of heat and he slowly thrust it inside her.
New trembling started deep inside Jasmine. She put her hands up against the headboard to brace herself. She felt dizzy, her body spinning out of control.
He thrust his tongue farther inside her, stroking her hard nub softly with his thumb. Then he moved his tongue upward to her most sensitive spot and suckled her there, swirling her with his tongue as he pushed a thick finger inside her.
Then two fingers. Then—three.
Oh God… She couldn’t take this, she couldn’t…
Her body shook as if by an earthquake traveling hundreds of miles an hour. Harder, higher, faster…Her body and soul opened to him like cracks in the desert rock, letting in the sun and wind. She felt him move up her body to kiss her neck, positioning his hard, wide length between her thighs. His hands grasped her wrists against the headboard, holding her fast. Holding her down.
But she was already caught. She looked up at him above her.
No man had ever been so beautiful. His eyes were a brilliant blue, searing her with his need and hunger. His jawline was taut and dark with new stubble. Sharp cheekbones cast shadows on his Roman nose, below the black slash of his eyebrows. He was her dark angel. Her husband. Jasmine’s heart rose to her throat.
His returning gaze whipped through her soul. Made her lose all sense of place and time. All sense of where she ended and he began. They were one.
Staring into her eyes, he slowly thrust himself inside her. Ruthlessly, he watched her face as he pushed himself to the hilt, right to her heart.
She gasped at the feeling of him inside her. The size of him hurt her. Pleasure and pain together rolled over her body in waves before she stretched to accommodate him.
He drew back and pushed inside her again, so hard and deep—with such force—that another new wave of pleasure hit her, knocking her over and sucking her beneath the waves. Slowly, he rode her, pushing deeper with each thrust, until the pleasure was too much, too much, beyond thought or reason.
Gripping his shoulders in her hands, she cried out, exploding like a fire scattering embers in the night. And as she shattered into a million pieces like stars across the sky, she dimly heard her voice gasping his name, crying words of love as she fell.
CHAPTER SIX
WHEN Kareef heard her gasp with joy, when he felt her tremble and shake around him, it was almost too much. His first thrust was nearly his last.
But he was no longer an eighteen-year-old boy. He took a slow, shuddering breath, holding back his raging desire, regaining control. He held himself in ferocious check as he pushed inside her. It took every bit of will that he possessed to hold himself back.
It was bliss.
It was hell.
It was everything he’d dreamed and more.
He looked down and saw Jasmine’s luscious body spread out beneath him, saw the afternoon sunlight against her full breasts, casting her pink, taut nipples in a warm glow as she arched her back. Her beautiful face was lost in an expression of fierce, agonized joy as he rode her. She triumphed in her possession of him, as he gloried in taking her.
The bright desert sunlight touched everywhere on her skin, like curling fingers. Her image washed over him like a wave of cool water. How long had he desired her? How long had he thirsted, like a perishing man for an oasis? How long had dreams of Jasmine Kouri tormented him, body and soul?
His hands shook as he gripped her shoulders, fighting to hold himself back from the thrust that would make him pour his seed into her.
He was no selfish boy, to take her quickly at his own pleasure. He would make it last. He’d brought her to fulfillment several times but it still wasn’t enough. He wanted to give her more—to make her feel more. He wanted to make love to her all day, all night until she could bear no more.
“Jasmine,” he whispered. His voice was raw even to his own ears.
He heard her soft, kittenish gasp in reply.
God, she was beautiful. He stared down into her face. The beautiful, beautiful face of the only woman he’d ever desired.
Lowering his head, he kissed her. She twisted beneath him, reaching her arms around his back, holding him down against her. He tightened in sweet agony.
Jasmine. He whispered her name soundlessly as he stroked up her naked body to her soft cheek. She was his, only his. There’d been no other lovers in her bed. He was the only man who’d ever possessed her.
The thought caused a surge to rush through his blood. Beads of sweat broke out on his forehead from the effort it took to hold back his own climax.
