Ash covered her hand with his massive, scarred one. “He sees it in your face. I’ve never seen the boss so happy since you started smiling at him.”
Shania smiled shyly and glowed inside. She loved hearing that Khalid was happy with her. Despite their rocky start and her misgivings about him, they were forging a relationship together. One that was more solid than any other she’d known. She never doubted his affection for her, never doubted herself. He gave her that gift.
“I’ll be right back. I need to grab some more of the beef barley and thaw some biscuits for tomorrow,” she said to Ash, stepping back.
“I’ll come with you.”
She laughed and patted his arm before turning away. “Down boy! I think I can make it to the storage room and back without my constant shadow.”
He looked somewhat unconvinced, but finally nodded his head. Even the boss had told him to ease up while watching her. Shania was no longer confined to the casino. She could go anywhere she wanted so long as Khalid knew where she was going and she took Ash for protection. It wasn’t his job to watch her every move anymore.
The storage room was down the back hall, near the back door. Taking a set of keys off her belt Shania reached for the knob only to realize the door was already ajar. She frowned in annoyance. The shelter had strict rules about securing the staff and storage rooms so they wouldn’t be vandalized.
She pushed open the heavy door and entered the dimly lit room.
“Hello, wife.”
A heavy hand came down over her mouth before Shania could let out a surprised scream. Aiden held her tightly with one arm across her chest and face and the other around her waist. She gagged against his hand, the smell of booze and cigarettes assailing her senses. A flash of wonder that she had ever agreed to marry such a miserable specimen of man, when there were men like Khalid in the world, crossed her mind as he hauled her backwards out the door.
Shania struggled desperately against him, his fingers digging cruelly into her skin. He loosened his hold for a split second. Shania was about to take advantage when she felt the cold press of a gun barrel against the small of her back. She went rigid against him.
“That’s my girl,” he breathed against her ear, his breath feathering across her cheek. “You’re coming with me.”
Frightened, she nodded and allowed him to take her out through the back of the shelter and shove her into a car she didn’t recognize. It was a rusted shell that looked like it was on its last legs. No doubt he had won it during a poker game.
During the short drive to their old apartment, he kept the gun levelled on her. His interested eyes devoured every feature of her outfit, noting the quality of the denim jeans and sweater she wore. “Not doing too bad for yourself, are you girl?”
Shania shuddered as he ran the tip of the gun down her arm and nudged her thigh. “I bet he treats you real good, doesn’t he baby?”
Disgusted, Shania realized he was proud of her ability to get the notice of a man like Khalid, a man that held such power over others. “You sold me to him, Aiden, how was he supposed to treat me?”
“Don’t get me wrong, girl,” he said quickly. “It’s good that he likes you so much. This is real good for us.”
“I don’t know what you mean,” she said, pressing back against the seat to avoid the glide of his gun over her body.
He jerked the car to a stop out front of the rundown exterior of their old apartment building. As far as she knew, the old apartment they’d shared didn’t belong to them anymore, so she didn’t understand why he would bring her there. He pulled her across the interior of the car by the arm and dragged her out the driver’s side door, uncaring of the bruises she incurred along the way.
He kicked the door shut and cheerfully escorted her up to the apartment.
Shania wrinkled her nose in disgust as she entered the living room. All of the furniture was gone, because she had sold it to pay off Aiden’s debt. In its place was a blanket and pillow surrounded by booze bottles, ashtrays and trash. Aiden released her arm. “Welcome home, Shania.”
She stared at him. “Why have you brought me here?”
“I wanted to see you, baby. I missed you,” he said. “And I know you missed me too. I’m sorry about what happened. I figure we can spend a little time together, get reacquainted and then talk about the casino.”
Shania shook her head. “That makes no sense, Aiden. Didn’t you get the divorce papers?”
Aiden shrugged as though it didn’t matter. “Yeah, that rich bastard had his lawyer track me down. I don’t blame you though, Shania. I know you didn’t have a choice. A guy like that would want to keep his toys to himself.”
Shania hated the way he talked about her relationship with Khalid. “He didn’t force me to sign those papers, Aiden. I can’t stay married to you.”
He nodded. “Of course not baby, I got that. You got to go along with what he says so he plays nicely with you. I’m so proud of the way you have him wrapped around your finger. You played him better than I ever could have imagined.”
Shania gasped. “Don’t say that!”
He approached her quickly as though to soothe her. “It’s okay, baby. I didn’t mean to upset you. I know you’re sensitive.”
He ran his hands over her long hair, down her back and up her arms. She shuddered in disgust, but he misread her. “I missed you too, baby.” He leaned forward, nearly the same height as her and crushed her lips in a kiss meant to stoke her passion.
Shania felt nothing and, if it weren’t for the gun pressed against her back, she would’ve shoved him away. Instead, she turned her head to the side and gasped for air. “Aiden… Aiden, please, I just need a minute.”
She was amazed at how delusional her ex-husband had become. He somehow imagined she would want to kiss him, make love to him, after he virtually sold her into sexual slavery. He also somehow had convinced himself that she was there willingly, despite holding a gun on her.
“It’s fine,” he said, leaning his forehead against her cheek. “Take all the time you need, we got hours yet baby girl before we need to get you back to him.”
She despised the nickname he called her.
She gently extricated herself from his hold. “You wanted to talk about the casino Aiden?”
He nodded vigorously. “Yeah, let’s talk about the casino. The sooner we set my plan in motion, the sooner we can be together.”
“Plan?” she asked.
He pushed a hand through his disheveled, sweat-soaked hair and looked at her with shining eyes. She suddenly realized that he must be high on something. He had never taken drugs that she knew of when they were together, but he was clearly high now. His movements were jerky, he wasn’t making much sense and he was moving around with relative ease despite sustaining serious injuries only a few weeks prior.
She edged away from him and tried to take a few steps toward the door. He didn’t seem to notice.
“The plan for you to keep fucking Khalid and making the bastard happy while I pawn the gifts he gives you and use the cash to set us up for a new life together,” he said earnestly, looking to her for approval.
Shania gaped at him in astonishment. That was the stupidest plan she had ever heard. Even if her conscience let her scam Khalid in any way, she was pretty sure this was a plan that would get them both killed if she even considered agreeing to it.
Aiden took her silence as approval and continued talking in fast, jerky sentences. “We’ll meet at the shelter whenever you work and you can hand over whatever you got your hands on. Maybe not all the jewelry, because he might notice, but the most expensive pieces. And I bet he keeps cash in his desk, you can check there too. Even if he noticed it missing, he’s so far gone for you he wouldn’t care. Just tell him you needed to buy something.”
Shania let him talk nonsense in the hopes that his distraction would allow her to reach the door without notice. She was about halfway across the room when the door flew open and Khalid and Ash stepped into
the room. Shania stood in between Khalid and Aiden.
Ash tried to shove Khalid back behind him, but he brushed the bodyguard off and stepped forward.
“Stop!” Aiden shouted, swinging the gun up and training it on Khalid.
“Khalid!” Shania gasped, searching his face with terrified eyes.
Khalid looked her over with eyes made dark by fury. “You okay, princess?”
She nodded and swallowed against a suddenly dry throat. “I’m so sorry!”
“You have nothing to be sorry for, love. I’m sorry I wasn’t there to protect you. It won’t happen again,” he said. “From now on, I go everywhere with you. Even to work.”
Aiden watched their exchange with growing realization. Shania had never been able to hide her feelings from anyone and now she stood in their old apartment staring with undisguised love at the man that had broken Aiden. Khalid was watching her like a lion watching his mate. With sudden clarity, Aiden knew he wasn’t going to leave the room alive. He would die for the crime of touching Khalid’s woman.
“She’s mine!” he bellowed into the silent room. “You took her from me!”
Khalid sneered in disgust. “You sold her to me, vermin. She is not yours. She never really was.”
Shania gasped as Aiden’s hand shook in anger, the gun barrel jumping. She looked at Khalid, then looked at Aiden and then calmly stepped in between the two.
“Shania!” Khalid snarled her name, anger and terror warring in her voice. She had never heard him so upset with her, even when she had run from the casino to escape him. “Get the fuck out of the way, Shania. Now.”
She looked desperately at him and shook her head. “No, I won’t let him shoot you.”
Khalid moved forward to shove her out of the way, but Aiden screamed, “Stop moving before I fucking shoot you all!”
Khalid stopped moving and looked at Aiden over the top of Shania’s head. “You don’t want to do that.”
“Yes I do!” Aiden whined. “You took her from me, she was all I had and now she doesn’t even want me.”
“Shania, honey, look at me,” Khalid said, sensing in Aiden a broken man reaching the end of his tether. He was about to break completely and try to take them all down with him.
“Khalid,” she whispered, saying his name as though it was a prayer. She was turning toward him, away from Aiden, when the gun went off.
A split second later another gunshot echoed in the room.
“Shania!” Khalid bellowed as her body jerked and would have fallen to the floor if he hadn’t leapt forward to catch her.
Aiden crumpled to his knees and then forward onto the dirty floor, dead before he even fell. Ash stood to the side where he had edged during the drama, a gun trained on the body.
Khalid kneeled on the ground with Shania cradled in his arms. She stared up at him with wide, pained eyes.
“Thank god!” he mumbled, his fingers touching the spot on her arm where blood was slowly seeping. From what he could tell, it had pierced the fleshy part of her bicep.
Her eyes filled with tears and she reached up to touch his jaw. “I couldn’t let him kill you. I’m so sorry, I shouldn’t have left Ash. This is my fault.”
He shook his head. “It’s not your fault princess, Aiden was a sick man. Selling you was his first step toward a psychotic break. If you had stayed, he would’ve dragged you down with him.”
Tears spilled down her cheeks as she nodded. “He’s dead, isn’t he?”
Khalid captured the tears with his thumb. “Yes.”
She nodded, hating that he was dead, but understanding why. He had threatened their lives, it was them or him, and Khalid would never allow a threat to her to survive.
“Can we go home?” she asked quietly.
“Always,” he replied. He lifted her in his arms and strode out the door, away from the body of her ex-husband.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
“Where’s Ash?” Khalid demanded, approaching his wife of three months with a fierce frown.
Shania turned to him, her arms laden with boxes. Khalid reached out and plucked them from her. Dropping them onto the couch, he pulled her into his arms and nuzzled his favourite spot between her neck and shoulder. She always smelled so fresh and sweet. He licked the spot, enjoying the feel of her pulse speeding up against his tongue.
“I sent him on an errand to the shelter. Now that you’ve made me cut my hours back, he and I worry about Evelyn getting enough of her meals at the shelter. He’s going to pick her up and take her himself this afternoon and then drive her home afterward.” She tilted her head to the side, giving him better access. “Now, can we talk about the absurd amount of gifts you’ve sent up? I mean, seriously? I thought you had an empire to run, how do you find the time to buy out all the baby boutiques in town?”
Shania wished she was exaggerating, but the staggering amount of baby supplies he had bought since finding out about her pregnancy a few months ago was enough to make even the most cavalier spendthrift take pause. He had been so happy at her news that he had immediately proposed and then dragged her out to buy the biggest ring he could find for her. Then he had mega baby-proofed their condo, set about selling some of his less savoury business interests and proceeded to attempt to wrap Shania in bubble wrap.
Time had given her a better understanding of Khalid’s background. He had lost his family at a young age and spent years clawing his way out of gutters and building a life for himself. He didn’t know how to love her without smothering her. He feared she would leave him, something terrible would happen to her or she would disappear into thin air.
Patiently loving him had convinced him that she wasn’t going to leave him. Slowly, he had allowed his control to slip and for her to take a place next to him as his partner.
Khalid reached down and picked her up gently in his arms. Despite her extra baby weight, he easily carried her into the bedroom and placed her gently on the bed. She watched with shining eyes while he rapidly stripped off his clothes.
“I love you,” she said, reaching up to touch his bearded jaw. Her fingertip lingered on the tiny scar at the corner of his eye.
He growled and dropped down on top of her. Taking her wrists in his hands, he pulled them over her head and, holding them there with one hand, began pulling off her clothes with the other. “It’s this body you love and what it does for you, admit it insatiable woman!” he demanded with a growl, peppering kisses down her throat and her now exposed cleavage.
He loved how her generous breasts had grown to impossible proportions and took every opportunity he could to cradle and squeeze them.
She giggled. “I admit it! I love that sexy body! Now take me, husband!”
Not having to be asked twice, Khalid finished stripping her clothes. He worshipped her breasts and now rounded belly with lips and tongue. He trailed the dark line running from her belly button down to her wet pussy with his tongue. She squirmed and opened her legs wider for him, knowing he wouldn’t rest until he had wrung at least three orgasms out of her with his wicked mouth before possessing her with his cock.
As she was coming down from her fourth orgasm, her body soft and sweet, he growled into her thigh, “I fucking love you woman,” before covering her body possessively with his and thrusting into her. She clung to him, crying out as he found that exquisite balance between making sure he wasn’t hurting her and ensuring her pleasure. They rode their orgasm together and drifted back down, wrapped tightly in each other’s arms.
THE END
Other books by Nikita Slater
If you enjoyed this book, check out some other work by Nikita. More titles are always in progress, so check back often to see what's new!
Fire & Vice Series
Book One – Prisoner of Fortune
Book Two – Fight or Flight
Book Three – (Coming soon!)
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Prisoner of Fortune Page 9