recently.
Now he knew the truth. His body had hungered for only one woman. The woman in front of him now.
He could hardly wait to satiate himself with her. It was a journey of several hours to the desert. His eyes fell upon her tiny bed. He was not sure he could wait that long…
But even as he considered the size of her bed, she’d already left the room, dragging her tiny suitcase behind her. He caught up with her, lifting up the suitcase on his shoulder.
“Thank you,” she said gravely.
“It weighs almost nothing.” And it truly did. He carried it easily with one hand. “Why did you pack so little?”
“Um.” Her lips turned upward at the corners. “To avoid baggage fees at the airport?”
He snorted a laugh. “Hajjar has his own plane.” He shook his head. “You always enjoyed dress-up as a girl, always had your own style different from the rest.” He smiled. “Has so much changed for you? You’re too busy to worry about clothes, now that you run your own multimillion dollar company in New York?”
“Ah. Well.” Her eyes shifted away uneasily. “Umar has already picked out the clothes he thinks appropriate for me. They will arrive from Paris in a few days. So he didn’t—I mean, I didn’t—see much point in bringing my own clothes from New York, especially since we’ll only be in Qusay until we’re married.”
“I see.” He was suddenly irritated by the thought of anyone telling Jasmine what to wear. He tried to shrug it off. If Jasmine didn’t care, why should he? Her relationship with Umar was none of his business. In fact, Kareef was determined to make them both forget his existence for the next few days.
Outside the palace, a bodyguard hefted the small suitcase from Kareef and carried it to the bottom of the sweeping stairs. Another assistant packed it in the front SUV of the motorcade.
Jasmine looked at the SUV and limousine behind it, and all the many bodyguards and servants bustling around the motorcade, with palpable relief. “I see we’re not traveling alone.”
“Don’t get too excited. I travel as the king of Qusay.” He gave her a sudden wicked grin. “But in the desert, that will change. As you said, in the desert I’ll be just a man. Like any other…”
He let his voice trail off suggestively and saw her shiver in the sunlight. As his chauffeur opened the door, she was very careful not to touch Kareef as she scooted past him into the backseat of the Rolls-Royce.
Sitting beside her, Kareef leaned back, glancing at her out of the corner of his eye as the motorcade drove out the palace gate. She was clinging to the farthest side of the car. It almost amused him. Did she really think she would get out of this without falling into his bed?
Well, let her continue to think so. He loved nothing more than a challenge.
And she had nothing to feel guilty about. Not in this case. Nor in the other—
Memory trembled on the edge of his consciousness, threatening to darken his sunshine. He pushed the troubling memory away. He wouldn’t think of what they’d lost in the past—what he’d caused her to lose. Today would be about one thing only: pleasure.
The motorcade moved swiftly out of the city, heading northeast along the coast. But with Jasmine sitting against the opposite window, doing her level best not to touch him, every mile seemed to stretch out to eternity.
He should have listened to Akmal Al’Sayr, he thought grimly. His vizier had tried to convince him to use one of his royal helicopters or planes currently shuttling foreign dignitaries to Qusay, rather than waste time traveling by car. Now Kareef wished he’d taken that advice. Coddling diplomats suddenly seemed a much lower priority than getting Jasmine into his bed.
Kareef glanced at her. She refused to look in his direction, continuing instead to stare stonily out the darkly tinted window. Behind her, he could see the bright turquoise sea shining beyond the smooth, modern highway.
Neither of them moved, but tension hummed between them.
He wanted her. Wanted to take her right here and now in the backseat of this limousine. But was that the private, discreet affair he wanted? Tossing her like a whore in the backseat of a Rolls-Royce, with bodyguards surely able to guess what went on behind darkened windows?
Kareef cursed beneath his breath. He would just have to wait.
But as they approached a fork in the road, he suddenly leaned forward.
“Turn here,” he ordered.
“Sire?” His chauffeur looked back in surprise.
“Take the old desert road,” he commanded in a voice that did not brook opposition. As his bodyguard communicated the order over a walkie-talkie to the SUV in front of the motorcade, his chauffeur switched lanes on the modern highway, heading toward the exit that would lead straight north through the sands and rock, toward the desert of Qais.
He sat back. He might have to be patient, but he’d be damned if he wouldn’t get it over with as soon as possible, by taking the most direct route.
The modern highway of Qusay stretched around the circumference of the island, a new way to travel north to the principality of Qais, a harsh landscape of desert sands and cragged, desolate mountains. Only two years ago, Kareef, as Prince of Qais, had finished the highway with the new influx of money brought by his developments, including the blossoming sport of horse racing. Qais was now second only to Dubai as the emerging hotspot on the thoroughbred racing circuit.
Ironic, Kareef thought, that after personally giving up the sport, the thing he’d once loved the most in the world, he’d turned it into a thriving industry for others.
Although that wasn’t entirely true. There had once been something he’d loved even more than horse racing.
He glanced at Jasmine. Her beautiful face was wan. Dark circles were beneath her eyes, hollows beneath her cheeks.
Damn it all to hell.
Why was she trying to resist what they both wanted?
He turned back to the window. Rolling dunes sifted scattered sand onto the road, brushed by wind beneath the hot sun. The road was very old, dating to his grandfather’s time. During sandstorms this road could disappear altogether.
Disappear. As he’d tried to do thirteen years ago.
He’d wanted to die rather than face the accusation in her eyes. He’d fled into the desert, praying to be sucked beneath a grave of sand.
Instead, Umar Hajjar had found him and brought him home. Unable to die, Kareef had thrown himself into a life of sacrifice and duty. The nomadic people of the desert had eventually looked to him for leadership, turning his family’s honorary title of Prince of Qais into a real one.
Against his will, Kareef had been brutally sentenced—to live.
He rubbed the back of his tense neck, giving Jasmine a sideways glance. He would never be able to make amends to her for what he’d done.
But should he try?
He
