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.