Chapter 17
Fallen
“What is it? Speak, Jasmine.”
My brain hadn’t even processed Deidre’s sneaky escape, let alone figured out how to break the bad news to Karim.
“Jasmine.”
“Maybe you should sit,” I mumbled.
His brow furrowed further, but he did sit on the stone steps leading to the sofa. That way, we were eye level–me still perched on the edge of the bed.
I cleared my throat. “Please promise you won’t get mad at Deidre. It wasn’t her fault.”
“Tell me what happened.” His voice was calm, but there was tension in his shoulders I’d learned to notice. He was bracing for something bad.
I took a deep breath. “Katsia happened.”
His eyes narrowed. “Katsia? In here?”
“She appeared out of nowhere like some creepy, evil spirit,” I blurted out. I was too wired from nerves to even joke. I didn’t know how Karim would react, and that made the situation worse.
He sighed. “She saw you and Deidre together in my home.” At my hesitant nod, he ran a hand over his face, framed by his loose hair. “I ordered the guards to let only Deidre and Tisvali in. They will be punished for this.”
“The guards are the least of our problems,” I muttered. I shifted uncomfortably in my place. “Katsia… She saw Deidre and me… on your moss.”
His face went blank for a second before his features hardened.
“We weren’t doing anything!” I said in a hurry. “We were just resting and talking when Katsia walked right in and assumed who knows what–”
He jumped to his feet, dark eyes flashing with a mixture of anger and hurt. “Deidre was on my moss. Uninvited.” He didn’t raise his voice, but his tone cut like a knife. “Against my wishes. And lying next to you! Tisvali won’t save her this time.”
My blood turned to ice. What had I encouraged Deidre to do? A violation much graver than what I’d thought–that’s what it was. “What will you do?”
Karim began pacing. “First I have to save her from the Queen’s punishment, which may as well be execution. If I succeed, Deidre will still have to answer to me for betraying my trust. I’ve let her rule-breaking slide countless times, but this one crossed the line.”
I shivered at the firmness in his tone. Just how special was this freaking moss? “No, Karim, please don’t!”
He stopped in his tracks and settled his intense gaze on me. “Nai?”
I forced myself to hold that gaze instead of looking away like I usually did.
“You punishing her would break her heart, you can’t do that to her.
” When he didn’t respond, I pressed on. “She’s your friend who has always been there for you since childhood.
Who loves you so much that she would die for you.
I beg you, Karim, do not punish her over something that–that I played a part in. ”
That statement stunned both of us into silence. He surely hadn’t expected to hear that, and I hadn’t planned on saying it, not yet at least. But damning me or not, that was the truth.
“You.” His face and voice offered no hint at his emotions, but there was something dangerous lurking in his eyes now. Like a predator whose attention had been caught and was waiting to be unleashed upon its prey. “Explain.”
“I–I encouraged her to sit with me on the moss as we talked. I didn’t know it was a grave offense in your culture, Karim.”
His being as still and silent as a statue made more words pour out of me. “I saw it as a prank among friends. Nothing more. Had I known moss was sacred in your world, I wouldn’t have–”
I didn’t get to finish. One moment Karim was by the foot of the bed and the next, on the moss.
He moved so fast my eyes barely caught the motion. By the time my brain registered him leaping, I was already on my back with his body poised over mine. There wasn’t a single point of contact between us, but I was kept still underneath him by the power of his gaze alone.
The predator was right there, staring back at me–I should be afraid.
Karim’s face a breath away from mine, his long hair like a curtain on both sides of my face cutting me off from the world until there was only us–I should feel trapped.
Yet, I knew deep inside with absolute certainty that he wouldn’t hurt me. So all I felt was anticipation.
I must be losing my mind.
“Temptress is what you are,” he whispered, studying my face from this close, “not the delicate flower whose name you bear. I put my trust in you out there, on the surface. I let you into my home. Into my garden. On my moss. And what did you do?”
I couldn’t speak. I could barely breathe. My heart was racing, and I couldn’t tear my eyes away from his.
“You tempted, Jasmine. With your innocence, your sincerity, your courage, your humor…” He inhaled shakily, as though overwhelmed with emotions.
“With your care for a defenseless flower, your compassion, your strength hidden behind the softest exterior…” His voice grew less steady with each word.
“You tempted. And you won’t stop with Deidre. ”
“I tempted?” I whispered back. He was temptation personified.
Wisps of his hair, soft as petals, traced my cheeks as if they had a mind of their own.
Must be because he shook his head ever so slightly.
“You want me to fall. Do not deny it. I saw your groomed toes. Your smooth legs below the dress’ hem.
” He sighed wistfully, closing his eyes for a moment.
“This new form of temptation is meant to make me fall.”
Gosh, I had totally forgotten about that idea of mine and Deidre’s. Yet another bad idea. “I just freshened up–”
“A new form of temptation nonetheless,” he said softly. He rested his forehead gently against mine, the only point of contact between our bodies. “But it can achieve nothing.” Fire blazed in his gaze. “For I have already fallen.”
My lips parted on a gasp.
With the lightest of touches, as if afraid I might burn him, Karim slid his fingers to the back of my neck, then paused. “May I touch your hair?” His words were a faint whisper, a puff of air over my lips.
He was afraid I might say no? Like hell. I nodded eagerly. Him asking for my consent only made me want him more.
His fingers tentatively slid up into my curls. “Gods, Jasmine.” Those two words came out both like a plea for mercy and a last attempt to rein in the emotions warring within him.
They were finally clear to read on his face, so close to mine there could no longer be secrets between us. He was a man dying of thirst in the desert, and I was the shimmering oasis just within reach. But what if I was only a mirage?
“Don’t hold back, Karim.”
That did it. Whatever force of will he’d held himself at bay with, was no more. His silvery lips met mine in a searing kiss.
Holy. Moly.
Desire like no other flooded my veins. Heat coiled low in my belly. I moaned in need. A single kiss, and I was already desperate for more.
Karim’s tongue slid between my parted lips to dance with mine. His fingers threaded through my curls, angling my head just right for my mouth’s plunder.
I was breathless, lightheaded, burning all over. I needed him. “More.”
“Temptress,” he whispered reverently over my lips.
“Don’t stop.” I cupped his cheeks to bring him back to my lips.
A shudder coursed through him at my words or touch–I couldn’t tell. And when both his mouth and body descended on mine, I stopped caring.
His hot lips brushing against mine, his thigh between my legs creating delicious friction–it was all too much and not enough at the same time.
“I won’t, my flower,” he nipped the edge of my ear. “Say yes, and I won’t stop until we are both lying spent on the moss.”
The promise in his words and the fiery kisses he began trailing down my sensitive neck made me moan again. The image of us together, our naked bodies intertwined on the moss, appeared in my mind’s eye. My brain conjured it as easily as if us making love were the most natural thing in the world.
And perhaps it was. Maybe we were meant to be together. If magic existed, why couldn’t fated love?
“Yes, Karim. Yes!”
This time when he slanted his mouth over mine, I tangled my fingers in his hair to keep him right there, mine to taste and explore. I felt him smile against my lips, and I smiled back.
Yes, this was right. I couldn’t explain how I knew it, but some things didn’t need an explanation. I simply felt it in my soul. Insane or not, I wanted this, craved it with my whole being, and–
Someone coughed.
Karim and I froze. Then turned simultaneously to where the sound had come from.
At the entrance stood a she-elf, a delicate gold crown adorning her head.