Annie West - The Royal House of Karedes - The Desert Throne

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.