by Lora Leigh
“Khalid, Abram, Tariq, Marty, and you,” Zach stated gently. “The information and reports we received state that Jafar is unwilling to leave any chance of an heir being conceived or born that can later risk his, or his family’s control of the land.”
Paige lifted her gaze to Abram’s once more. God, she needed him. She felt as though she were losing her entire balance, and none of it made any sense.
Jafar owed her more than this. There had been a time when Chalah had been confused, so at odds with her brother and her family that she had nearly made a very unwise decision. At Jafar’s request, at his plea actually, Paige had returned to America from Spain, allowed Chalah to live with her, and encouraged the young girl to give college a try rather than returning to the Mustafa province and honoring a marriage contract Azir had arranged for her to a much older sheikh in another part of Saudi Arabia. Fear for her brother had guided her, but Paige had convinced her how much Jafar had been against her marriage to a man so old. He also objected to her marrying so close to the time he had chosen to leave Saudi Arabia himself.
He had sworn he owed her and that she need only ask and he would grant her any request.
And still, he had nearly killed Abram in Saudi Arabia and now? Oh God, now she could lose the only brother she had. The one she could depend upon, who she could trust to hold her secrets. She risked losing him as well as the man she loved.
“Paige will go with her mother and me to the villa in Greece.” Paige was shaking her head as her father spoke. She had no desire to go to Greece or to leave Virginia.
“We need her here, Mr. Galbraithe,” Zach advised him. “We need them in the same location to ensure their protection. We’d like to return Paige to her brother’s home along with Abram, Marty, Tariq, and Khalid, when he’s released.”
It was another confinement.
“Why do this?” she whispered. “It’s over.”
“No, Paige, it isn’t.” Abram stepped over to her, fury and grief filling his eyes. “It won’t be over until one of us dies. I’ll be damned if I’ll allow him to get away with attempting to kill Khalid because he was unable to force me to his will.”
“What if it was not Jafar who gave that order?” Chalah’s voice seemed to echo around the room.
Paige swung around to stare at the other girl. Her jaw tightened at the sight of Jafar’s sister, here at this time, when Paige was so ambivalent about the last time she had seen her.
Crossing her arms over her breasts, Paige stared at the other girl angrily. “Does anyone have a bug detector? Chalah enjoys allowing her brother to listen in on her conversations. Next it will be your girls’ nights out.” Her eyes widened in mocking shock. “Where will the perversions end?” Chalah ran her hands nervously along the sides of the faded, worn jeans she wore.
The frayed hems, holes at the knees, and almost see-through thinness of the material suggested the jeans were simply at the wrong end of worn out, as did the denim jacket she wore over a faded T-shirt.
“I told you I was sorry, Paige,” she whispered, her eyes filling with tears and making Paige feel like a bitch.
She was being a bitch, and she hated herself for it.
Pushing her fingers through her hair, Paige ignored both Abram’s and her father’s attempts to comfort her.
“Jafar called me,” Chalah said, her voice low. “He’s enraged. He swears on his father’s grave that he neither ordered nor instigated this attack on Khalid.”
“He called or came to see you?” Abram questioned her coolly.
Turning, Paige watched the confusion that filled Chalah’s face. “He called,” she whispered.
“From the Mustafa province.” At that point Zach moved closer to her.
“Ms. Mustafa, your brother is in the States as of today. He arrived in Virginia within hours of Paige, Abram, and Tariq’s arrival. And all reports we have confirm he gave the order, over Azir’s protestations, to kill Khalid, Abram, Tariq, and Paige. And all things considered, I believe we’ll need to ensure your protection as well.”
Paige stared back at the FBI director in shock. He couldn’t be serious?
But of course he was.
Turning back to Chalah she saw the dazed shock in her eyes, and the betrayal. Jafar hadn’t told her where he was, nor had he attempted to protect her. She was an incredible actress. But she really wasn’t, Paige thought. Chalah didn’t have the patience for such games.
“Jafar wouldn’t hurt me,” she whispered as she turned to Paige, her eyes large and dark and haunted with fear now.
Oh yes, she knew exactly how that fear felt. She was personal friends with it now. At this rate fear would soon be a part of her personality. She wouldn’t know how to live without it.
“Paige.” Chalah’s lips trembled when no one answered her claim that Jafar would never hurt her. “Tell them. Tell them he wouldn’t harm me.”
Paige could only shake her head. “He’s the same man who put his blade against Abram’s neck after he lost the fight to determine if we could leave or be forced to stay,” Paige whispered. “I’m so sorry, Chalah. He’s capable of anything.”
“No.” Chalah’s denial was weak though.
“He’s not the brother you knew and he’s not the friend I once claimed, Chalah. So no, I don’t believe he would protect you. And if he could use you against Khalid and Abram he would do it in a heartbeat. Think of that. Remember it. Because if you help him again then our blood may well be on your hands.” And if Chalah made that mistake, Paige promised herself, she would ensure the other girl paid for it.
No matter the cost to herself.
Chapter 14
She was back where it all began, but this time, Khalid wasn’t going to show up and surprise her.
He wasn’t going to come pounding on her door at three in the morning just to deliver yet another lecture on the many and varied reasons why it was ill-advised to sleep with his brother. His brother and his brother’s cousin.
Those lectures haunted her as she lay in bed. She stared up at the ceiling in the darkened bedroom, her brother’s many arguments echoing in her head. She remembered the anger that filled his eyes, his knowledge that no matter how much he lectured, still she ached for Abram. She was fascinated with him. She needed him like she had never needed anything else in her life.
And because of her need for Abram, she had caused Khalid to worry more for her safety than he worried for his own. Had Azir, Mustafa and Jafar not suspected she was Abram’s weakness, something he wanted, then neither of them would have been as intent on kidnapping her. And Khalid could have concentrated on his own safety.
Despite Chalah’s protestations that Jafar would have never gone to that extreme, Paige couldn’t help but remember that knife to Abram’s throat, sharp enough, pressing hard enough to actually draw blood. And she couldn’t help but believe Chalah’s brother would actually kill if tested.
And Jafar was definitely being tested with the date of the emissary’s visit coming closer and the paperwork on Abram and Tariq’s defection being filled out and prepped to deliver to the U.S.
ambassador to Saudi Arabia. And this was the price Abram and Khalid would pay for their determination to break from the Mustafa legacy.
She could lose her brother as well as the man her body burned for, her heart ached for.
Turning, she stared toward the balcony doors and blinked back the tears that threatened to fill her eyes.
She missed him. She was so used to sleeping, cushioned between him and Tariq, that the past three nights she hadn’t truly slept at all.
As a weary sigh left her lips her gaze jerked to the bedroom door. It opened slowly, pushing inward a second before Abram stepped into the room. A dark shadow against the moonlit expanse of the window across the room, he moved slowly toward her.
He didn’t close the door. There was no need to. Her heart raced at the sight of Tariq moving in behind him, closing and locking the door with a delibe
rate, audible click.
Her eyes met the dark glitter of Abram’s as he paused at the side of the bed. She slowly sat up, the high mattress placing her head just above his hips.
She swallowed tightly, fighting to breathe at the sight of the heavy bulge beneath the denim.
She had to force her gaze to lift, to stare up at him, rather than beg him to fuck her immediately.
“I need you, Paige.” He’d only said that to her once before. That bleak, cold winter he and Khalid had arrived from Saudi after the death of his second wife and their unborn child.
“I’ve always been here for you. I told you that.” She’d been eighteen and so infatuated with him that it was all she could do not to tremble in his presence.
He’d been drunk, racked by grief and he’d come to her even though he’d known he would face Khalid’s rage if it was ever found out.
Her gaze flicked to Tariq. Abram hadn’t had a third with him then, but he did now.
“No matter what I need?”
Her heart tripped in her chest at the question.
“No matter what you need.”
His fingers moved to the metal button of his jeans as he toed the shoes from his feet, his gaze never leaving hers.
“No matter how I need it?”
Her thighs clenched as her gaze moved to Tariq, feeling his eyes watching her, probing the darkness.
“No matter how you need it,” she whispered.
As she finished that affirmation Abram and Tariq were undressing. There was nothing hurried or rushed about their movements. They removed their clothes with a sense of anticipation, but patience. A patience that had Paige wondering if she would survive it.
She felt the world narrow to the two men, to the hunger she could feel surround her and the need she glimpsed in Abram’s face.
Slowly, she watched as his hand circled the base of his cock, holding it firm and steady as he stepped closer to her, his fingers tangling in her hair.
Staring up at him, she felt the wide crest of his cock at her lips, the heated, throbbing flesh drawing her tongue to taste the heat and hardness. The salty male taste exploded against her senses, intoxicated her.
“That’s a good girl,” he whispered as his cock head pressed between her lips. “Suck my dick, baby. Show me, Paige. Show me how much you want me.”
How much she wanted him? She felt as though she had wanted him all her life, needed him all her life.
Her lips parted, a moan falling from them as his cock slowly sank into her mouth.
It was so erotic. The feel of the strongest and yet the most vulnerable part of him held securely within her mouth as she sucked him inside. Her tongue licked over and around the head as she heard a low, muttered groan rumble in his chest.
“I need to see you, sweetheart. We’re going to light a candle.” His tone was rough, rasping sexually.
“Just a bit.” He assured her as she tensed, her drowsy gaze starring up at him as her pretty lips stretched around his cock. “I just need to see when Tariq touches you, baby.”
* * *
When Tariq touched her? Paige knew it was coming but she still lost her breath, she still felt adrenaline speed through her, racing out of control.
Sitting on the bed, her legs folded to the side, she found strong, large male hands slowly drawing them out as the two men worked in perfect unison until Abram was kneeling on the bed over her and she was laid back, his cock between her lips as she felt Tariq begin to touch her.
There was no sense of discomfort, no feeling of shame or embarrassment.
She had always known what being with Abram meant, and she had always looked forward to it.
“How very pretty you are,” he groaned, his expression tight with lust as she felt Tariq’s lips at her hip bone, kissing her gently a second before he licked the area, tasting her as if he hungered for her.
“I’ve dreamed of this, Paige. Dreamed of watching Tariq touch you, pleasure you.” His cock jerked between her lips as he spoke. “Watching him touch you.” His words became even rougher, the need in them fueling her own sensual hunger.
“Touch her stomach.” He whispered the order to Tariq. “The flesh there is sensitive, and brings her great pleasure.” His accent thickened and became deeper.
A second later her lashes fluttered in pleasure. She hadn’t realized how sensitive the flesh there really was.
His fingertips stroked over her stomach, calloused and firm. They heated and excited the nerve endings beneath the skin.
“Such satiny flesh,” Abram whispered. A second later she felt Tariq’s tongue lick, his teeth scrape.
“Tariq has spoken often of this moment,” Abram told her. “When the nights were long and dark.”
As Abram spoke he slowly pulled back, forcing her to release the feel and the taste of his desire.
He took her hands and pulled them above her head, holding them in place as Tariq’s hand eased up her side until it was curving around the firm, aching mound of her breast.
His thumb stroked over her nipple, his calloused pad sending sharp, heated strikes of ecstatic pleasure to her womb, clenching her cunt.
Staring up at Abram she felt her vision dim as Tariq’s lips surrounded the fragile bud. His fingers cupped the underside of her breast, lifting her, stroking the nerve endings to fiery responsiveness.
Her body felt as though it were overloading with sensation. Incredible, lush pleasure surged through her in a wash of rich, heated rapture.
As Tariq’s lips covered her nipple, Abram released her wrists after pressing them carefully into the mattress.
Forcing herself, she stared up at him, her lips parting to draw in a ragged breath.
“The memory of the taste of your sweet pussy is making me crazy,” he growled as he knelt on the bed, one hand stroking his dick as he stared down at her.
His thighs bunched and clenched with each tightening of his fingers at the base. The head glistened with pre-come as his gaze flickered to where Tariq was slowly driving her sensations with the draw of his mouth around her tender nipple.
His tongue last, his teeth pressed against the nerve-laden tip.
“I want to watch Tariq eat that sweet pussy.” He reached out, his fingers stroking down the side of her face.
“Abram.” She could barely think. All she could manage was forcing herself to breathe through the pleasure and the thought of Tariq’s touch becoming even more intimate.
“I want to watch his tongue part your pretty pussy lips, watch it lick and stroke your slick cunt.” As he spoke, Tariq drew his lips back from her nipple and stared up at her. “Is this what you want, love?” As he spoke, Abram’s fingers whispered over her clit.
A low, desperate moan escaped from her at the touch. Her clitoris seemed to swell further. It ached with a pleasure and pain she found agonizing and ecstatic.
“Paige, answer me, love.” Tariq leaned closer, his lips lowering to hers as she felt Abram’s fingers part the juicy folds between her thighs. “Tell me,” he demanded against her lips. “Do you want me to eat your pussy, Paige?”
The sudden, furious thrust of two broad male fingers into the clenched, creaming depth of her cunt had her hips jerking, eyes widening, and a harsh cry tearing from her lips as they met Tariq’s in a first, juicy, desperate kiss.
Between her thighs Abram’s fingers worked inside her pussy. Stretching the tight depths, fucking past tender, ultrasensitive tissue then arcing his fingers for a too-loving stroke of incredible pleasure at the inner flesh located behind her clit. Tariq’s tongue pushed past her lips to find her tongue and tangle with it erotically.
Loyal to the quick, forceful thrusts inside her, Paige fought to keep her senses and lost.
There was too much pleasure, as Tariq’s head lifted, his lips moving along her jaw to her neck, her eyes opening to find Abram.
“How sensual you are, little cat,” he groaned, his fingers pushing deep again as T
ariq’s lips moved along her neck to her shoulder. There he nipped at her flesh erotically.
“Answer me, or we stop.”
Abram’s fingers stalled inside her. Still stretching her as her juices gathered around them, his fingers were a destructive pleasure even as they did no more than possess her.
“Don’t stop,” she begged desperately, her hips wrestling with his fingers. “Fuck me.”
“Answer me,” Tariq growled. Both men stared down at her, their expressions assuring her they wouldn’t allow her to ignore the question further.