by Lora Leigh
Yeah, that one really worried him into the deepest hours of the night.
“I think perhaps I might not have been paying attention then,” Sebastian murmured, not in the least interested in dragging his attention from Alyssa to the half-Saudi onetime bastard prince. “I’ll try to do better next time.”
He probably wouldn’t but sometimes it was best to pacify Khalid, just to shut him up.
“Ignoring such warnings isn’t considered advisable, Sebastian,” he drawled. “It wasn’t given casually, as you should know.”
Sebastian was getting tired of the warnings too. As far as he was concerned, Khalid could go to hell. Neither Alyssa nor his interest in her was anyone’s business but his and Shane’s.
“Isn’t it getting close to your bedtime, Khalid?” Sebastian asked. “Why don’t you hurry along so your pretty wife can tuck you in?”
A tense silence filled the air around them for long moments. Not that Sebastian paid much attention to it.
“Marty will wait for me.” Khalid’s brooding glare was ignored by Sebastian, his attention remaining on Alyssa as she stopped to chat with none other than Khalid’s wife, Marty.
His siren.
She’d shut herself down so completely that the laughter and warmth that had been so much a part of her seemed to have evaporated.
Eight years ago she’d walked through this same ballroom, laughing with friends, Summer Bartlett and Gia Bennett. She’d been young, more innocent than they’d imagined, and so very open. Now she was cool, distant, and mysterious.
Then Sebastian had had no doubt that he and Shane could seduce her. Now he was certain he’d have to kidnap her to get a dance. She ignored his texts, his phone calls, and refused the single written invitation he’d sent her for dinner.
She had his confidence a bit dented for sure.
“She’s far too fragile to deal with you and your cousin, Sebastian,” Khalid warned him again.
Sebastian’s jaw tensed. He heard the tone in the other man’s voice, the knowledge that added an edge of pure confidence to the accented tone. There were times Khalid could be a pain in the ass. This was beginning to look like one of those times.
Acquiring information was one of Khalid’s more interesting hobbies. Unfortunately, it appeared he’d become far too curious in the time Sebastian had been watching Alyssa. No doubt he would begin investigating why very soon. If he hadn’t already put that far too intelligent brain of his to work in a matter that didn’t concern him.
“That look of shattered pain in her eyes hadn’t been there until she returned from a trip she took after graduating high school. Many attributed it to her mother. They said Margot wasn’t kind to the girl, though I’m not one of those who believe it. A few of us deduced a broken heart. What do you think?” Khalid’s question almost caught him off guard. And he damned well knew better than to allow Khalid’s chatter to slip beneath his defenses. “I’m beginning to believe it was a broken heart myself.”
“I think you better go join Marty now,” Sebastian snorted as Alyssa moved to continue walking gracefully through the crowded ballroom. “You’re giving me a headache.”
Not to mention some heavily suspicious looks.
Khalid chuckled at the invitation, though he wasn’t quite finished yet, it seemed.
“Alyssa was once part of a rather unique little group. She joined just after her twentieth birthday.” Khalid lowered his voice further as he spoke of the Sinclair Men’s Club Khalid was a member of and Sebastian had managed for the past two years.
“I know this.” He was growing rather irritated with the other man now. Khalid merely stared back at him for long moments before evidently deciding to let that question pass.
“She maneuvered her dismissal from it very well about two years ago, though,” Khalid continued. “I was actually rather proud of how she killed two birds with one stone so to speak.”
Sebastian restrained the tug of a smile at his lips. He had to agree with Khalid, though he was still rather curious why she had maneuvered her dismissal rather than simply resigning from the club. She’d been married at the time. She’d never had an affair with any of the men; according to club files, she’d simply been a member, accepted under a special-circumstances clause in the Club membership rules.
Hell, she’d married six fucking weeks after she’d left Barcelona and no one knew why. There was so little gossip where she was concerned that it was impossible to figure out what the hell was going on.
“Your chatter is irritating me, Khalid,” Sebastian sighed. “And that nose of yours is going to get you into trouble. Stay out of it.”
He didn’t need Khalid in a troublemaking mood. It didn’t happen often, but when it did happen the other man could become a problem.
“Have I mentioned I sometimes get bored when Marty’s busy?” Khalid asked curiously, crossing his arms as he settled in against the heavy support. “It’s a terrible failing, I must admit.”
He got bored when Marty was busy?
Khalid didn’t have enough sense to give himself time to get bored. He jumped right into everyone’s business without invitation or warning.
“How long has it been since you’ve touched her, my friend? Since you broke her once tender heart?” Khalid queried then, his voice much lower, more dangerous, than before. “And still you watch her with the hunger of a new lover. Tell me, were you and your cousin the reason she returned from Spain eight years before with all the passion and love for life she held, silenced?”
And his cousin Shane accused him of getting overdescriptive and poetic? He obviously hadn’t been paying attention to Khalid over the years.
“Shut the hell up, Khalid,” Sebastian ordered him, still watching her profile as she moved for the wide French doors that led to the gardens.
It was in those gardens that he and Shane had first seen her. They’d been attempting to seduce another CIA courier they had worked with before heading back to Spain.
How they’d managed to miss the beauty who had found them in the farthest corner of the garden that night so long ago they had never figured out. They’d spent several hours in the ballroom, yet they hadn’t seen Alyssa until she nearly stepped into a sheltered arbor where they’d stood with another woman.
“Excuse me.” He moved to follow Alyssa, stopping when the other man blocked his exit with a subtle move of his body.
“Have I mentioned Alyssa is a friend? One I am quite fond of, actually. This could be a problem for me. Loyalty issues, you know? I’m very protective of the opposite sex in general. Friends even more so.”
The warning in his voice could be a prelude to something far more dangerous, Sebastian knew. Not that the danger worried him; he was fairly confident he could at least match the other man in any fight. It was the sheer aggravation of time taken to do so that had resignation drawing a frown to his face.
Sebastian turned his full attention on Khalid then, tension beginning to prepare him to confront anyone daring to keep him from his siren.
“Stay away from her, De Loren,” Khalid ordered with dark menace. “Don’t make me tell you again.”
“Do you really want to deal with me, Mustafa?” Sebastian stared back at him, his determination to get to Alyssa tightening in each muscle of his body. “Because, trust me, tonight’s not a good night for that.”
“I would deal with you now or whenever I feel the need.” Khalid’s smile was cold, and Sebastian was certain he thought it was intimidating. “I said she’s been through enough. She does not need the pain you and Shane would no doubt bring her, because your hearts are not your own. I’ve checked into your pasts. Two men rumored to have lost their hearts as well as their souls, years before—”
“Don’t get between me and Alyssa, Mustafa.” Sebastian barely managed to keep the snarl in his voice from attracting undue attention. “You won’t like the consequences. I promise you that.”
Pushing past the far too nosy Khalid, he strode through the ballroom, foll
owing the woman his soul was still bound to.
He’d waited too damned long for this. The need for her was like a sickness in his gut, destroying him from the inside out.
It was bad enough Summer had made certain she forced the cousins to wait the full two years projected for Alyssa’s full recovery and tortured the hell out of them with texts and pictures. She’d been cruel. Pictures of Alyssa in her sexy little gowns, barely there bikinis … just the memory of them threatened his control.
They could wait until Alyssa’s first public appearance, she’d demanded when he and Shane had put their CIA ties behind them. Alyssa wasn’t well enough yet. And each time they’d tried to slip past the woman she’d turned into a damned bulldog blocking their way.
Until two months before.
Headed out, y’all. Good luck [Summer had texted them].
The text had come the day after she and Alyssa had left for an undisclosed location for vacation. At the same time Shane had been called away to Barcelona to give the details of Gregory Santiago’s death. Again. It seemed there had been some pages missing from his statement.
Sebastian had no doubt Summer was behind that as well.
Now Khalid thought he could stand in his way?
One more time, Sebastian thought, and the other man was going to have to back up those threats that kept spilling from his mocking lips.
Slipping past the French doors, Sebastian stared around the dimly lit gardens, searching for the slight, graceful figure of his dark siren. A satisfied smile curled at his lips when he saw the path Alyssa was taking. Narrower than the others, more dimly lit, and less used. The same path she’d taken eight years before that brought her to him and Shane.
It wasn’t winter, but neither was summer in full bloom. It was cool enough to be comfortable, a light breeze playing along the sheltering trees and ornamental shrubs, whispering of far too many years of hunger, too many years of pain, and the woman he was dying to hold once again.
13
Alyssa had attended parties at the Collier mansion several times a year after returning from Barcelona. For some reason, she was one of the few guests to receive invitations to every party Landra Collier threw, even before the widow had become Alyssa’s father’s lover.
The first invitation after her return had been for the second Winter Ball. Though she didn’t venture from the ballroom and she hadn’t stayed long, still,Alyssa had accepted the invitation.
Just being there had been hell that year.
It was hell now.
A part of her wanted, ached, to run and hide. She wanted to pull the blankets over her head and stay there until she could face the world without the pain that followed her every waking second. Until she could emerge whole. She hadn’t been whole for so long that she didn’t even remember what it felt like.
She definitely didn’t know what being whole felt like whenever she came to the Collier parties. She only drifted through the crowds, feeling Shane and Sebastian with such strength she’d not known if it was agony or comfort she’d felt. And she had no idea why she even cared. They’d torn her soul from her body. They’d taken everything, everything, from her and she’d had so little left to hold on to.
She’d felt them. As though they lingered just behind her, just out of sight, their warmth touching her, she had felt them each time she accepted Landra Collier’s invitations to her parties and balls.
It was because this was where she’d met them, she told herself. This was her first memory of them. Because of that, she would always feel them there. But it was the gardens she was drawn to, the gardens she’d always refused to make her way to.
She’d been a mess that first year. Not that she’d improved much with each visit to the Collier mansion. And despite Margot’s anger and disapproval, Alyssa had attended every social event Landra Collier sent her an invitation to.
Had she glimpsed either Shane or Sebastian, she would have had no choice but to leave. And no matter the temptation she had never returned to the darkened arbor. The memories were too painful and until tonight, until this particular ball, she’d sworn she could feel them pulling her to that darkened section of the shadowed gardens. Which made so very little sense. Why send her parents those pictures and their demands and still attempt to ambush her in the dark? It had been her silly imagination and hunger for them, she’d told herself. Nothing more.
That sense of being pulled there wasn’t present tonight, though. That second sense she’d been convinced she had of them in Barcelona had been no more than a fantasy. A girlish attempt to excuse her need for love, Margot had suggested regretfully. But still there were moments it tortured her.
Moving along the softly lit path she paused for a moment before looking behind her. She almost smiled at the sense of being followed. How paranoid she could be whenever she was here. Always imagining they were so close. Always certain she was being watched.
She was pathetic and weak, just as Harvey had once accused her of being. Too weak to get over whoever broke her heart, he’d sneered. Then somehow, he’d learned of her time in Barcelona and the fact that there had been two lovers rather than one who shared her bed. No one but her parents had known whom she’d shared those months with. She hadn’t even told Summer whom she had been with and the other woman was her dearest friend. One of only a few friends, actually.
Once Alyssa stepped cautiously along the path it didn’t take her too long to find the hidden, sheltered arbor where she’d first met Shane and Sebastian. How charming they had been. The Spanish goof and the South Texas cowboy. They’d stolen her heart that night, locked it up so tight that no one else could have penetrated it even if they had been willing to face Margot’s icy regard to attempt it. Not that any of the young men she’d known had been willing to face Margot. Her mother had been such a strong, forceful personality during her life that nearly everyone walked warily around her.
Coming to a stop outside the arbor, she stared at the stones beneath her feet for long moments. She was terrified to look inside. Knowing it was empty, knowing there was no one there but needing them to be there. Needing a closure that only facing them would ever bring her.
Lifting her head, she made herself peer into the shadowed shelter. And it was empty. Shadows lay thick inside it; the lights used for holiday parties were absent, the shadows thicker, heavier, than they had been years before. Ornamental trees and flowering shrubs surrounded it, increasing the darkness. Still, she had to force herself to step inside and walk to the now cold fireplace where she’d stood that first time.
Turning slightly, she faced the brightly upholstered padded bench that sat along one side. It was wide and appeared incredibly comfortable. Comfortable enough to lie back on, or to lie atop the hard, powerful body of a lover as another moved behind her.
She had to smother the whimper that threatened to escape as the jagged, ever-present pain swelled inside her. It was always waiting to strike. Always there, willing to ambush her at the most inopportune times. To remind her, to overwhelm her with memories she had no business allowing free.
She had to burn the memories out of her mind. She had to find a way to cauterize the wounds in her heart and soul that refused to allow her to heal. She couldn’t face them or she risked those pictures being released to the media as well as every porn site in existence.
Pictures of her between her two lovers. Explicit, erotic pictures of them penetrating her. Both of them penetrating her. One beneath her, the other behind her.
As she stood in front of the fireplace, her gaze focused on the brightly colored padded bench in front of her, Alyssa realized she was clenching the sapphire and diamond stones that hung from the gold chain around her neck. She held them like a talisman. As though they were all that held her from the sometimes overwhelming need to let loose the fury raging inside her.
She’d been certain the necklace was taken while she slept that last day in Barcelona when Shane and Sebastian had collected their other belongings. She had grieved for it
, missed the weight of it with such desperation that it had been agony at times.
“Why?” The word was torn from the deepest part of her, ragged and filled with grief. Closing her eyes, she felt the bleak fear that she would never be free of one fantasy summer spent amid two men’s lies.
“Siren,” soft, aching, the whisper eased around her, light as air, as a familiar warmth enfolded her. “Sing for me, siren.”
Oh God. It was so real.
Like a dream come to life, Sebastian’s whisper at her ear, his warmth against her back.
Eyes closed, she swayed for a heartbeat, her knees weakening as the sensual, erotic needs rushed from the dark, hidden well she’d forced them to so long ago. His presence was so clear that the feel of his strong arms sliding around her, enfolding her, had her fearing she was finally succumbing to madness.
“I feel you, siren,” he breathed at her ear. “Your sweet song wrapping around me. Pulling me to you.”
Heated male lips brushed her neck, setting fire to every nerve ending in her body. Her breasts swelled, engorged nipples rasping against the snug fit of her gown. Between her thighs the folds there became drenched with need, her clit throbbing, coming to full, aching life. The complete lack of sexual need outside her dreams flared to life, the sensation of touch, of sound, had her fearing she was no longer able to separate fantasy from reality.
“How I’ve longed to touch you, to taste you again.” The brush of air against her neck, the softly accented sound of his voice, took fear to certainty.
“How sweet you taste,” Sebastian’s voice rumbled at her neck. “What I wouldn’t give to lay you down and taste all the sweet cream flowing from your pussy. Are you wet, siren? Are you ready for me to fill you?”
She’d been ready. God help her, she’d been ready for so long.
“I want to lay you down.” His teeth rasped along the sensitive tendon of her neck. “Push your gown to your hips and eat all that candy syrup spilling from you. And when you’re crying out, shaking from your orgasm, I’ll push my cock inside you.” His voice thickened. “Feel your tight little pussy milk me. Feel it, so hot and tight, clamping on my dick as you beg me to take you hard. To shove every inch inside you hard and deep.”