Desert Warrior
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Nalini Singh
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19,8K
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13
One
“Do not put even one foot on Zulheil soil unless you are ready to stay forever. You will not get past the airport gates before I kidnap you!”
Hands trembling, Jasmine skirted around the small groups of people in the waiting area and headed for the glass doors that would lead her out of the airport, and into Tariq’s land.
“Madam.” A dark hand fell next to hers on the handle of the luggage trolley.
Startled, she looked up into the smiling face of a man who appeared to be an airport official. “Yes?” Her heart started to pound in a mixture of hope and fear.
“You are going the wrong way. The taxis and hire cars are on the other side.” He gestured toward a long corridor leading to another set of glass doors. Desert sands glittered in the distance.
“Oh.” She felt foolish. Of course Tariq wouldn’t complete his threat so literally. He’d been angry enough to scare her when he’d warned her against coming to his land. Now, Tariq was a cool, controlled man, whom she’d seen a number of times on television, leading peace talks between warring Arab states. Her Tariq was now Tariq al-Huzzein Donovan Zamanat, the Sheik of Zulheil, the leader of his people.
“Thank you,” she managed to say. When she began to move again, the pale blue fabric of her ankle-length dress swished around her legs in time with her steps.
“It is my pleasure. I will escort you to the vehicles.”
“That’s very kind. What about the other travelers?”
The corners of the stranger’s eyes crinkled. “But madam, you were the only foreigner on this flight.”
Jasmine blinked, thinking back over the trip. All she could remember were lilting vowels and flowing hands, beautiful sloe-eyed women and protective Arabian men.
“I didn’t realize,” she admitted.
“Zulheil has been closed to visitors.”
“But I’m a visitor.” She stopped, wondering if it was too much to hope that Tariq would actually kidnap her. No sane woman would want to be captured by a desert sheik who held her in contempt, but she was long past logic and sanity.
Her guide paused, and she could have sworn that he blushed under his golden skin. “It…Zulheil began letting in people again this last week.”
At his graceful wave, she started to push the cart down the marbled floor once more. “Was it closed because of mourning?” Her voice was quiet, respectful.
“Yes. The loss of our sheik and his beloved wife was a tragic blow to our people.” His eyes momentarily darkened with pain. “But we have a good sheik in their only son. Sheik Tariq will lead us out of the darkness.”
Jasmine’s heart skipped a beat at Tariq’s name. From somewhere she found the strength to ask, “He’s ruling alone, your new sheik?”
If the man told her that Tariq had taken a wife during the period of media blackout since his parents’ deaths, she’d get on the next plane out of Zulheil. Even now, her lungs protested every breath she took, and she hung on the edge of control.
The look her guide threw her was assessing. He nodded sharply, but waited until they were outside before speaking. The harsh heat of the desert hit Jasmine like a physical slap, but she stood firm. Wilting was not an option, not when this was her last chance.
There was a black limousine parked at the curb. She’d started to move away from it when her guide halted her.
“That is your taxi.”
“That’s definitely not a taxi.” Hope, she understood, came in many forms. Hers had arrived in the shape of a long, sleek piece of gleaming machinery.
“Zulheil is rich, madam. These are our taxis.”
She wondered if he expected her to believe that. Biting her lip to muffle the slightly hysterical urge to giggle, she nodded and let him put her cases into the trunk. She waited, heart pounding and mouth dry with anticipation, until he came around to the back passenger door.
“Madam?”
“Yes?”
“You asked if our sheik rules alone. The answer is yes. Some say it is because his heart has been broken.” His voice was a low whisper.
Jasmine gasped. Before she could continue the conversation, he swung open the limo door. Her mind in a whirl, she stepped inside the luxurious air-conditioned interior.
The door shut.
“You really did it,” she whispered to the man sitting across from her, his long legs encroaching on her space.
Tariq leaned forward, his hands on his knees. The darkness inside the limo threw the sharp lines of his face into vivid relief. None of the softness she’d seen in her Tariq was present in this hardened stranger.
“Did you doubt me, my Jasmine?”
Her body went into delayed shock at the sound of his voice. It was deep and compelling. Beautiful and dangerous. Familiar yet…different. “No.”
Tariq frowned. “And yet you are here.”
She bit her lower lip again and drew in a ragged breath. His eyes, deceptively dark in the confines of the vehicle, were fixed on her like those of a predator waiting to pounce. The opaque partition between passengers and driver was raised, further collapsing the space, leaving her nowhere to turn.
“Yes. I’m here.” The car moved off at that moment, unsettling her precarious balance. She fell forward and barely caught herself on the edge of the seat. Tariq’s arms came around her anyway and he lifted her into his lap.
Jasmine clutched at his wide shoulders, the fine material of his white tunic crumpling under her fingers, but she didn’t fight, not even when he gripped her chin with his fingers and forced her to meet his gaze. He was so angry. She could see the turbulence in his vivid green eyes.
“Why are you here?” He tightened his hold around her when the car bounced over something on the road. His muscled body was so much bigger than hers that Jasmine felt surrounded, overwhelmed. But still she didn’t fight.
“Because you needed me.”
His laugh was a harsh, ragged echo of pain that hurt her inside. “Or have you come to have a liaison with an exotic man, before you marry the one your family has chosen?” With an oath, he dumped her unceremoniously back into her seat.
Jasmine pushed her fiery plait over her shoulder and lifted her chin. “I don’t have liaisons.” His distrust of her was clear, but she refused to let that silence her.
“No,” he agreed, his voice cold. “You would have to have a heart to experience passion.”
Her already fragile confidence was shaken by the direct hit. All her life she’d struggled to be special enough to deserve love and acceptance. Now it appeared that even Tariq, the one person who’d ever treated her as if she were worth cherishing, found her wanting.
“You can’t hold a man like Tariq. He’ll forget you the minute some glamourpuss princess comes along.”
Uninvited, Sarah’s spiteful words from four years ago burst into Jasmine’s mind. Back then, they’d delivered the last emotional blow to her belief in herself, coming from an older sister who knew so much more about men. What if it hadn’t just been spite? What if Sarah had been right?
When Jasmine had made the fateful decision to find Tariq again, she’d been uncertain of her ability to reach the man she’d known. How could she hope to reach the man he’d become? Buffeted by doubt, she turned and stared out the tinted windows. There was nothing to see but endless desert.
Strong fingers on her jaw forced her attention back to the panther lounging opposite her. His green-eyed gaze caught her own and held her in thrall. “I will keep you, my Jasmine.” It was a statement, not a question.
“And if I don’t wish to be…” She paused, unable to think of the right word.
“Owned?” Tariq suggested in a silky whisper.
Jasmine swallowed. A part of her was terrified of the dark fury she saw swirling in his eyes, but she’d come too far to fall victim to her fears now. “Like a slave?” Her voice was husky, her lips parched. However, she didn’t dare moisten them with her tongue, afraid of how Tariq would react.
He narrowed his eyes. “You think I am such a barbarian?”
“I think you’re going out of your way to give me that impression,” she retorted, before she could caution herself not to bait the panther.
The corners of his lips tilted upward in a slight curve. “Ah, I had forgotten.”
“What?” She lifted a hand to his wrist and tried to break his hold on her jaw. It proved impossible. Under her touch, his pulse beat in a slow, seductive rhythm that promised her both exotic pleasures and darkest fury.
“That the fire of your hair does not lie.” He moved his thumb over her lower lip and frowned. “Your lips are dry. Moisten them.”
Jasmine scowled at the command. “And if I don’t?”
He lifted one brow in response to the defiance in her tone. “Then I shall do it for you.”
Betraying color stained her cheeks at the erotic image of Tariq moistening her lips. His intense gaze made her feel like a tasty morsel he’d be only too happy to devour. Breathing in shallow gasps, she flicked out her tongue and wet her lips.
“Better.” His approval was apparent in the deepening timbre of his voice and the way his thumb slowly swept over her lower lip, now soft and wet. When he abruptly set her free, surprise kept her perched on the edge of her seat for a moment, leaning toward him. Sanity returned with a shock. Face flushed, she scrambled back and across the seat until she was in the opposite corner of the car.
“Where are you taking me?”
“Zulheina.”
“The capital?”
“Yes.”
“Where in Zulheina?” She refused to back down despite his repressive monosyllabic replies.
“To my palace.” He lifted one foot and placed it next to her right hip, effectively caging her against the door. “Tell me, my Jasmine, what have you been doing these four years?”
It was clear that he wasn’t going to answer any more questions. Jasmine bit back her frustration, wanting to push but aware that she was on very shaky ground. “I was studying.”
“Ah, the business management degree.” His words were a soft taunt, a reminder of the times she’d cried on his shoulder, sobbing out her dislike of the subject.
“No.” There, she thought, let him suffer for a minute.
He moved and suddenly he was sitting next to her, his shoulders blocking her vision, his legs caging her in the corner. He wasn’t the one suffering.
“No?” His deep voice evoked memories of huskier tones and sensual laughter. “Your family let you change?”
“They had no choice.” She’d followed their dictates and cut herself off from Tariq, but it had almost destroyed her. Her weak state had alarmed even her family, and no one had commented when she’d switched studies. By the time they’d tried to change her mind, she’d grown up. Disillusionment with the selfishness of those she’d trusted had followed fast on the heels of her sorrow.
“What did you study? Hmm?” He curved one big hand round her neck in a blatantly possessive gesture. The heat from his body swirled around her.
“Do you have to sit so close?” she blurted out.
For the first time, he smiled. It was a smile full of teeth, the smile of a predator tempting his prey to venture out into the darkness. “Do I bother you, Mina?”
He’d called her Mina. She remembered the way he’d always shortened her name to Mina when he’d been coaxing her to do something, usually involving kissing him until she felt like liquid honey inside. He hadn’t needed to coax much. One look of sexy invitation, the husky whisper of her name against her lips, and she’d softened like a sigh in the wind.
When she didn’t answer, he leaned down and nuzzled her neck, his warm breath seeming to burrow through her skin and into her bones. He’d always loved to touch. She’d relished his affection, but right now it was making her more off balance than she already was.
“Tariq, please.”
“What do you want, Mina?”
Jasmine swallowed. He traced the movement down her throat with his thumb. “Space.”
He raised his head. “No. You have had four years of space. Now you are mine.”
His intensity was almost frightening. As an eighteen-year-old, she’d been unable to cope with his sheer, charismatic power. Though he was only five years older than her, his strength and determination even then had been enough to command unswerving loyalty from his people. Now, four years later, she could see that he’d grown impossibly stronger, impossibly more charismatic. However, she was no longer a sheltered young girl, and she had to learn to cope with Tariq if she wanted a future with him.
Holding his gaze, she lifted her hand and placed it over the one curled around her neck. When she tugged, he released her, his curiosity apparent in the quizzical look in his green eyes. Raising his hand to her cheek, she turned her face to drop a single kiss on his palm. His breath grew harsh, loud in the confines of the car.
“I studied fashion design.” His skin was warm against her lips, his masculine scent an irresistible aphrodisiac.
“You have changed.”
“For the better.”
“That remains to be seen.” His eyes narrowed. The hand against her cheek tightened. “Who taught you this?”
“What?” Shivers threatened to whisper down her spine at the sound of that dark, rough tone.
“This play with my hand and your lips.” His jaw could have been carved out of granite.
“You did.” It was the truth. “Remember the time you took me to the Waitomo caves? As the canoe floated in the glowworm grotto, you picked up my hand and you kissed it just so.” She moved her head, and he loosened his hold enough to allow her to repeat the soft caress.
When she looked up, she knew that he’d remembered, but his features remained stony and his eyes boiled with emotions she didn’t have the experience to identify.
“There have been others?”
“What?”
“Other men have touched you?”
“No. Only you.”
He curved his hand around to tug at her plait, arching her neck and making her vulnerable to him. “Do not lie to me. I will know,” he growled.
He was threatening to overwhelm her. In response, she relaxed into the exposed position that he’d engineered and slid her arms around his neck. “I will know, too,” she said quietly. Under her fingers, his hair was soft, tempting her to stroke. Below that was the living heat of his skin.
His jaw firmed. “What will you know?”
“If you’ve let other women touch you.”
Tariq’s eyes widened. “When did you become fierce, Mina? You were always so biddable.” She knew he was taunting her with the way she’d let her family control her life, even to the extent of ignoring her heart.
“I had to grow claws to survive.”
“And am I supposed to be frightened of your puny claws?” He raised one dark brow, daring her.
Deliberately, Jasmine sank her fingernails into the back of his neck. She forgot that she was goading a panther. To her surprise, her panther didn’t seem to mind her claws. He smiled down at her, a dangerous, tempting smile.
“I would like to feel those claws on my back, Mina,” he whispered. “When you are in your place—flat on your back, under me—then I will.”
“In my place?” Jasmine jerked out of his hold. When he continued to loom over her, his body crowding her against the door, she pushed at his chest. Masculine heat seared her through the fine fabric. “Move, you…you male!”
“No, Mina.” He put one hand against her cheek and turned her toward him. “I will no longer follow your commands like a dog on a leash. From this day forth, you will follow mine.”
He held her in place as his lips descended over hers. He needn’t have bothered. Jasmine was transfixed by the raw pain she’d glimpsed on his face, before his shields had risen. She’d done this to her panther. It was, she acknowledged, his right to demand restitution.
