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

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СКАЧАТЬ would be a most unexpected sight for them, wouldn’t it?”

      Picking up his clothes from the ground, she shoved them into his arms. “Get dressed!”

      He smiled down at her, and she couldn’t help smiling back. For one instant time hung between them, breathless with the anticipation of endless future joys.

      Then she heard his men shouting, heard the pounding of machines against the earth. Heard a rush of heavy footsteps coming toward the cave, growing louder.

      Sighing beneath her anxious, pleading gaze, he moved with rapid military precision, stepping into his boxers and black pants. As he pulled on his shirt, she peeked one last look at his handsome physique and marveled that she was the only woman who’d ever experienced the incredible pleasure of being in his bed. How was it possible? How was she so blessed?

      She thought again of the reverent, hot, tender way he’d touched her in the night. And in the day…

      “Sire? Sire!”

      Kareef’s chief bodyguard peered over the piled sand at the mouth of the cave, then fell to his knee in gratitude and relief. Behind him were a dozen men, geared up as if for battle. “God be praised! That blasted mare returned riderless right before the storm hit the house. We thought…We feared…”

      Buttoning his ragged white shirt, Kareef stood before them, tall and proud. He looked every inch a king.

      “We are safe, Faruq. Miss Kouri and I were riding when we were caught in the storm and took shelter here. Thank you for finding us.” He gestured at the black stallion tied to the rock. “Please see Tayyib is cared for. He bore us well.”

      “Yes, sire.”

      “And my people? My home?”

      “No injuries,” the bodyguard replied. “Little damage. A great deal of sand. We brought a doctor for you just in case.”

      “I am unhurt. He will check Miss Kouri for injury.”

      Faruq glanced at her uneasily, then bowed and backed away. She felt the other bodyguards giving her sideways glances, and her face grew hot.

      “The helicopter will return us to the royal palace immediately,” Kareef said. He turned to her, holding out his hand. “Miss Kouri?”

      As Kareef escorted her out of the dark cave, lifting her back into the hot white sun, he smiled down at her. And all her sudden anxiety disappeared as if it had never been.

      He led her to the waiting helicopter, and she smiled at him, trying to ignore the grim-faced bodyguards trailing behind. They would manage to keep their affair secret for one more day. One more precious day before Kareef would be forced to realize he had no choice but to divorce her, and they each parted to face the separate lives that fate had decreed for them.

      One more day, she thought desperately. No one would be hurt by one more selfish day. A single day could feel like a lifetime.

      Kareef would find a way to keep it secret. She’d never seen a secret kept at the palace, but he could find a way. He was magic. He was power.

      He was king.

      Kareef’s shoulders were tight as he stormed through the corridors of the royal palace, scattering assistants in his wake.

      Every minute of his schedule since his return to the city had been meticulously dictated by five different assistants and undersecretaries working in conjunction, overseen by the vizier. The king’s duties were endless. Treaties to negotiate. False smiles under cloak of courtesy. Diplomacy. Politics. Saying one thing and meaning another. What did Kareef know of those?

      He growled to himself. He was already learning far more than he’d ever wished.

      He despised keeping Jasmine a secret.

      She’d slept against his shoulder on the helicopter journey from the desert. He could still feel her, somehow still smell her intoxicating scent of oranges and cloves against his body, though he’d showered and changed out of his clothes and into white robes at the royal palace.

      The moment he’d set foot back at the palace, he’d wanted to take her to his bedchamber; but she’d demurred, glancing at the endless secretaries and assistants waiting for him in the hallways. “Later,” she’d whispered, and with a sigh, he’d let her go. He’d told himself he’d be able to cut his meetings short and return soon to her little room in the servants’ wing.

      That was ten hours ago. His elderly vizier, Akmal Al’Sayr, was still tearing his beard out at the days Kareef had missed. It seemed even being lost and halfpresumed dead in the desert wasn’t enough to excuse a monarch from his duty.

      It was now twilight, and he hadn’t seen Jasmine since they’d arrived at the palace. His entire day had been wasted. A day devoted to cold duty in a palace full of hidden corridors and sly whispers of gossip.

      His hands tightened. He hated all this secrecy. He had to convince her to give up the marriage. He would smooth things over with Hajjar somehow. Once she agreed to call off her wedding, Kareef would be willing to divorce her. When she agreed to be his longterm mistress.

       How could my parents ever hold up their heads in the street, if I let myself be branded as your whore?

      The word made him flinch. No. Damn it, no! If any man dared insult her, Kareef would throw him into the Byzantine dungeon beneath the palace. He would exile him to the desert without food or water. He would—

      You would kill your own subjects for speaking the truth? He heard the echo of Jasmine’s whisper in the cave. Let me go. Set me free.

      Clenching his jaw, he pushed the thought firmly from his mind. He would keep her as long as he desired her—whether that took ten years or fifty. He was young yet, only thirty-one. He would keep her for himself, and put off his own marriage as long as he could.

      He quickened his pace down the hall, growling at any servant who dared to look his way.

      Was Jasmine awake yet? he wondered. Was she naked beneath the sheets, with her dark hair mussed across the pillow? He felt rock-hard, aching for her. He went faster, almost breaking into a run.

      “Sire, a word?”

      In the hallway near the royal offices, he saw his vizier hovering in the doorway.

      “Later,” he ground out, not stopping.

      “Of course, my king,” the vizier said silkily. “I just wanted you to know I’ve begun negotiations for your marriage. You needn’t worry about it. I will present your bride to you in a few weeks.”

      Stopping dead in the hallway, Kareef whirled into the reception room and closed the door behind them.

      “You will arrange nothing,” he said coldly. “I have no interest in marriage.”

      “But sire, these things take time. And you are not getting any younger…”

      “I’m thirty-one!”

      “After all the chaos caused by your cousin’s abdication, your subjects need the comfort and security СКАЧАТЬ