Tamed: The Barbarian King by Jennie Lucas Read Free Book Online

muscles of his thighs strained against her own. He held her so tightly she no longer knew where she ended and he began, and she realized she’d wrapped her arms around his neck.
    A soft cry came from deep inside her, a gasp for breath. Her head fell back, exposing her neck. He pressed small intense kisses along her throat, sending sparks up and down her body. He caressed her body, whispering words of tenderness in the ancient dialect of Qais before suckling the tender flesh of her earlobes. His hands moved against her bare arms, cupping the full breasts that strained toward him beneath the fabric.
    How long had she desired this? How long had shetold herself she would never feel this way again—that at twenty-nine she was too old, too used-up, too numb to ever feel such pleasure? How long had she told herself she should settle for being useful, for earning money, for trying to be a good daughter, a good sister, a good wife?
    Hands in her hair, Kareef whispered ancient words of longing and tenderness against her skin. Around them, she was dimly aware of dappled moonlight through the dark waving silhouettes of palm trees, of the stars scattered across the violet night. They were entwined in each other.
    Kareef. The only one who’d ever made her feel such explosive joy. The only one who’d made her feel the night was magic, and life as infinite as the stars above her.
    Opening her eyes, she stared at him. She saw the new tiny crinkles at his eyes, the way his shoulders had broadened with muscle. He’d grown into his full strength, with a warrior’s posture and brutal power.
    But his smile hadn’t changed. His voice hadn’t changed.
    His kiss hadn’t changed.
    As he lowered his mouth to hers, every inch of her skin sparked with awareness, as if there were a magnetic attraction between them. Pulling them together. Forcing them apart.
    Everything else might have altered in their lives, but somehow in his embrace, time stood still. She was sixteen again. They were in love, in longing, full of faith for the future.
    That feeling was the most dangerous thing of all.
    She shuddered, and with all her strength, she pushed him away.
    “I can’t,” she choked out. Above them, she could hear only the waving palm fronds, the sigh of the wind, the plaintive cries of night birds. “I’m sorry.”
    “Sorry?” Kareef’s voice was barely more than a growl in the darkness. “I am the one to blame. I wanted you then.” Reaching down, he caressed her cheek and whispered, “I want you now.”
    The timbre of his low voice, sharp and deep, caused a seismic shift inside her, breaking her apart in bits like the emeralds hacked from Qusani mines beneath the earth. Gleaming facets and chinks of her soul scattered beneath his touch.
    She closed her eyes as she felt his rough fingertips against her cheek. She felt his thumb slide lightly across her sensitive lower lip. Her mouth parted, her body ached, from her nipples down her belly and lower still.
    “I will make you a wife, Jasmine,” he whispered, stroking her cheek. “I will make you a mother.”
    Her eyes flew open. He was looking down at her with intensity, his face so boyishly handsome it took her breath away. As teenagers, they’d had many innocent trysts in this very garden so long ago, in another life. But here in the warmth of the desert night, with the spice of the air sifting the salt from the sea, anything seemed possible.
    “What do you mean?” she said in shock, searching his eyes.
    “If Umar Hajjar is the man you want to marry,” he said, “I will not stop you. I will give you away at the wedding myself.”
    A lump of pain rose in her throat. Oh. “You will?”
    His sensual lips spread into a half smile, his eyes heavy with desire. “But not yet.”
    She trembled.
    From a distance she heard a servant calling for the king. She tried to pull her hand away. “I have to go.”
    The cell phone in his hip pocket started to buzz. Even here in the forbidden garden,