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

He turned to her. Her beautiful brown eyes were shimmering with light.

“Do you wish to stop?” he asked in a low voice.

She shook her head. “I want to drive through the mountains as quickly as possible.”

“Are you afraid?”

This time, she had no bravado in her.

“Yes,” she whispered. “You know what I fear. I see it in my nightmares. Don’t you?”

Kareef’s throat closed. He gave a single unsteady nod.

Here on the old desert road, they would drive right past the riding school and the red rock mountains beyond. The cliffs. The hidden cave. The place where he hadn’t protected her, where he hadn’t protected the child neither of them had known she was carrying. Where Jasmine had nearly died of fever because he’d given the ridiculous promise not to tell after the horse-riding accident. As if love alone could save them.

He’d been helpless. Useless. He’d failed at the most basic test of any man. Jagged pain cracked his throat, making his voice husky as he said, “We will not stop.”

He saw her take a deep, grateful breath. “Thank you.”

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak. Long ago, they’d escaped the prying eyes of the palace at the riding school. Her friend Sera had distracted the girls’ aged chaperone so Kareef and Jasmine could have some precious time together—alone.

The remote school, surrounded by paddocks and stables, had been where Kareef felt most truly alive, the place he’d loved to race his black stallion, Razul. He’d loved to feel Jasmine’s eyes on him as he showed off for her.

“Ride with me, Jasmine,” he’d begged, adding with a grin, “You’re not afraid, are you?” And one day—she’d finally agreed.

They’d thought themselves so clever, to evade the restrictions set by her parents and find a way to be together. But in the end, fate had punished them all—even her strict but well-meaning parents whose only crime had been trying to protect Jasmine from a man who might bring destruction and shame to her loving, innocent soul and fairy-tale beauty. A man like him.

As their motorcade traveled through the desert, he stared out at the sharp light of the sun reflecting against the sand. Scattered clouds like yin and yang symbols of darkness and light moved swiftly against the bright blue sky. He wondered if a storm was coming.

Then he felt her small hand on his arm and knew the storm was already here. Inside him.

“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.