by Delta James
What the hell was he doing here? Apparently, the duties of being Fariq’s second-in-command were as varied as the day and the man’s mood. He was used to doing everything—overseeing the books, keeping inventory, and making sure the ship was fully stocked with anything that might be needed. He bought guns, negotiated deals with warlords, drug cartels, and the secret agents of one ruling country, only to betray them at Fariq’s whim to another. He hired, fired, and buried the mercenaries they lost when they had a run-in with either their enemies or the Wild Mustang Security Firm. In other words, he managed the minutia. And now he was walking through a third-world bazaar with the pampered baby sister of the world’s most-wanted criminal, wishing she was his woman, and they were on vacation, so he could take her back to their hotel room, strip her naked, and have at her until she was screaming his name in need and surrender.
She was too beautiful for her own good. Every time she glanced back over her shoulder, as if to check that he was still there, then frown at him, he wanted to draw her into his arms and kiss her pouty mouth until it was bruised and swollen. Then he wanted to go to work on her lower lips, leaving them the same way before parting them and thrusting his way into her. He wanted to bury himself balls deep, then hammer her into submission—right here in the open, back at that non-existent hotel, or tucked into the relative privacy of some doorway out of this blazing hot sun… He honestly didn’t care where he had her, so long as she became his.
She never should have knelt between Fariq’s feet. She should have knelt at his, placed her pleading hand on his thigh. He wanted her between his legs, on her back beneath him, and on her knees as he pounded her from behind—first her pussy, then her ass. God, he wanted to fuck her ass—preferably after he’d turned it a deep shade of red.
Not that he intended to neglect her pussy or her mouth. He wanted to walk into her room to find her kneeling on the floor, head bowed, legs spread, and hands resting on her thighs with her palms turned up. He wanted her to submit, to present herself to him for his taking and use—any way, any time, and anywhere he wanted.
He had to stop doing this.
Hell, what he had to do was get back to the boat and make use of one of the professionals Fariq kept on the yacht to appease the men, a tall, chubby blonde as far from being Aliya’s type as he could find. Except he already knew, denied the one he wanted, he might as well fist his own cock in the shower as fuck anyone else—both would be equally unsatisfying.
When the hell had this happened? When had he developed feelings… no, not feelings—he couldn’t afford feelings. When had he become infatuated with this woman? She was Fariq’s sister! The man was a villain—every bit as deadly as he was rich.
Like he himself was any better, Christian scoffed. He’d been with Fariq, what… six years now? Already his picture was up on the Hague’s list of most-wanted criminals, right next to Fariq’s. He’d broken noses and fingers and shot people. Violence had become a constant companion. Hell, he couldn’t even fuck a woman anymore without first tying her up or putting his hand on her throat, so he could see that little spark of panic tint her pleasure when he squeezed, edging her, and bringing her right to the brink of coming, over and over again, without once letting her fall.
He liked that. He liked being in control of a woman’s orgasms. He liked giving little nips of his teeth, little pinches, and slaps that grew in frequency and force until the woman beneath him was gasping, writhing, and completely unable to distinguish the difference between the pleasure he gave her and the pain. He honestly couldn’t tell if he’d always had this proclivity or if he’d simply grown into it. Fifty Shades of Fariq, filling up the dark side of his soul.
By rights, Aliya should have been just as black on the inside as he was, as her brother couldn’t help but make the people he came in contact with on a daily basis. Yet as Christian watched her pause over the purses at yet another vendor stall, he couldn’t see a lick of darkness anywhere in her. She seemed so… pure, not a description he was used to applying to anyone these days. No, Aliya was anything but dark, and though his mind kept trying to conjure her as the world’s most alluring temptress—a shockingly innocent one—spoiled and in need of a good spanking, but innocent, nonetheless.
She needed to get away from her brother before he turned her the way Christian had been turned. Or before Fariq found that perfect business deal to use her for. Christian felt his gut clench. Was that what Fariq had planned for her? Had he raised her to use as a prize for some soulless warlord? Or maybe the whispers on the ship were right, and Fariq was grooming her for himself. Sick, but Fariq had called her his most precious possession.
Maybe she was adopted. Christian trailed in her shadow, watching her. Not only would that explain how she could be related to Fariq and still be so naïve, but it would also explain how she could seemingly have no concept of the money she was spending. At every stall they came to, she bought something—hair ribbons, veils, a pair of plain white canvas shoes.
It might even explain her guilelessness. At one point, when she thought he wasn’t watching, she’d slipped an old beggar man some coins. She’d leaned down and whispered to him before pressing something in his hands, glancing back at Christian over her shoulder as she’d done it, as though afraid she might get caught being kind. Considering her brother, he supposed that wasn’t an unreasonable fear. Fariq could be generous, but usually only if there was something to be gained. Under these same circumstances, it was hard to imagine her brother would have approved.
Like so many markets in the poverty-stricken countries where Fariq so liked to hide, the streets here were full of panhandlers. Thieves and conmen ran rife through the compounded earthen alleyways and along the rooftops. They had sharp eyes, capable of spotting a mark from blocks away. Certainly, they saw Aliya. Or maybe it was the sparkle of money being dropped from her hands into that withered, grateful old man’s, but they came from everywhere after that—the poverty-stricken and lazy alike, children forced to scrounge for whatever they could get to help feed their families… if they still had families. Once upon a time, the sight and plight of them had bothered the hell out of him. He remembered passing out money to as many as he could afford and being swarmed just like she was now.
He felt like an ass, shoving them out of the way and shouting in Darija for them to get back, but this was how kidnappings started. He wouldn’t just be damned if he had to go back to Fariq alone because he’d lost Aliya—he’d be dead.
He managed to make his way through the rabble and dispersed the beggars enough to catch up with Aliya, who’d somehow managed to slip through the thick of the crowd until she was several stalls away.
“Don’t do that again. Keep your money in your damn pocket,” he told her, grasping her by the upper arm.
“I’m shopping. People spend money when they shop. Besides, you’re not the boss of me,” she taunted, wrenching her arm away. Glaring at him with eyes that openly challenged him to stop her, she walked away with her chin held high.
That look was at once both mildly adorable and beyond aggravating, mostly because she was right. He had no business telling her what to do, but oh, did his palm itch to show her exactly what he could be the boss of if he was of the mind to be. The image of her tearful face, pleading with him to stop spanking her, that she’d be good, flashed through his mind, leaving him once more rubbing his mouth in frustration and ignoring his throbbing dick as he followed behind her.
The vast majority of merchants crowded along the catacomb of narrow streets that made up the bazaar held their shops under cloth canopies, their wares laid out on blankets and in baskets on the ground. For them, the line between poverty and feeding their kids at night lay solely in the number of sales they made each day, and they could spot a sympathetic heart every bit as easily as the thieves could. They threw themselves into hawking their wares for her inspection, making his job that much harder. He did his best to keep an eye on everyone around them, behind them, on every stall that Aliy
a visited, and the incredible swell of the crowd as it pushed like a living thing, constantly trying to get between them. Everywhere he looked, someone was looking at her.
Of course, they were—she was beautiful. Whether they watched because of her looks or her money, he had no idea, but they were staring as she moved from market stall to market stall, seemingly unaware of the attention revolving around her.
The fine hairs on the back of his neck prickled. Something was off. He didn’t know what, but it felt wrong, and… shit, Aliya was too far ahead of him again. Damnit. He had to push through people to catch up, and still, small as she was, she slipped effortlessly through the dense market crowd. She didn’t even look back when he called for her to wait.
“Shit,” he muttered.
All by herself, she was like herding a clowder of uncooperative cats. For the life of him, he couldn’t seem to keep up with her. The moment he glanced away to keep a watchful eye on those around them, she was gone. He spotted her at the spice merchant, buying cinnamon sticks, but by the time he got there, she’d vanished, only to reappear several heart-pounding minutes later at a clothing stall two stalls down.
“Aliya! Goddamn it!” he bellowed. “Wait for me!”
She stopped at the towels, the toys, and he finally caught up with her when she paused to chat with a man who let her pet the monkey on his shoulder and feed it bites of fruit.
Grabbing her arm, the minute he was close enough, Christian spun her around to face him.
“Stay with me. I mean it, do not leave my side again.”
She should have been intimidated, should have obeyed, yet the very next time he looked away, off she went again. There were so many people here, and the street was so narrow, it was aggravating. Every hackle he owned kept prickling the back of his neck, his soldier’s sixth sense telling him something was up.
That’s when he saw it—the shadows of two men racing across the sunbaked clay of the two-story building almost directly across from him. The flapping canopy of another stall quickly obscured it, but in the half-second he’d glimpsed them, he recognized the shadowy form of rifles clutched in their hands, rather than sticks or shovels.
It was sheer reflex that made him want to grab the arm next to him, and true to form, it wasn’t Aliya’s.
Fuck.
The burqa-cloaked woman yanked away, startled, and the shopkeeper yelled at him, but Christian was too busy searching above the crowd, up one side of this narrow street and down the other, before finally catching sight of Aliya’s dark hair as she slipped a scarf over her head. She ducked behind the flapping shield of a hanging blanket as he ran after her, shoving past shoppers too slow to get out of his way.
By the time he got to the other side of that blanket, she was even further ahead of him. He only just caught a glimpse of her pink sundress as she ducked into another alley. He put on a burst of speed, catching up with her before she could slip away again. This time, instead of her arm, he fisted her hair and dragged her back to him, ducking into a small café.
“Let go of me!” she snapped, attracting the attention of the patrons.
Quickly, Christian explained in their native language that Aliya was his bride and was having some difficulty understanding her new role as wife versus pampered daughter. Several of them nodded appreciatively.
“If you need, I have a private room in the back…” offered the sympathetic proprietor.
“Ibn haram,” she snarled, winning arched eyebrows from those close enough to overhear her.
“You think I’m a son of a bitch now…” he growled, taking the owner up on his offer and dragging her toward the back room. “You have no idea… but you’re going to.”
“Who do you think you are?” she demanded the minute he shut the door for privacy. “When I tell my brother how you manhandled me…”
“If you think that’s manhandling, you haven’t been with the right men.”
Her slap across his face was unexpected, but not nearly as unexpected as the right cross she landed on his jaw, which snapped his head back and made him see stars.
“Oh,” he breathed, almost laughing as he looked at her again. “You nasty tempered little brat.”
He grabbed her by the arm before she could shove past him and march back into the populated café. Spinning her around, he tossed her over a nearby table and lifted the hem of her dress, surprised when he encountered a pair of white cotton shorts. She definitely hadn’t been wearing those when she’d been scaling her way down the yacht’s ladder. He stripped those down as well.
“Naughty, naughty, Princess. Where did you get those?”
“Don’t you dare!” she screeched, kicking her legs, squirming desperately to wriggle away from him.
Hand raised, Christian stopped, mesmerized at the sight of her perfect, pale, dusky buttocks. Someone needed to put her in her place or, at the very least, teach her the danger of striking a man she knew very little about, but that she was now in position, not only to be spanked but to be fucked, was difficult to ignore. That portion of his brain that still retained the instincts of a caveman took over, emotion and need rushing to the forefront of all thought… or lack thereof. His cock became painfully hard and throbbed in anticipation, barely contained by his jeans.
“Ibn haram!” she spat yet again.
“Among many other things,” he assured her. Before she could dispute his right to punish her, he brought his hand cracking down on her left cheek, hard enough for color to bloom, leaving his perfect handprint on her gorgeous ass.
She would learn to obey him after this. She would also keep her distance, and he knew he probably would never have her like this again, but imposing his discipline on her became his driving need. He landed another harsh blow to her other cheek, rhythmically tattooing her entire backside with enough force to make her catch her breath.
“Stop it,” she hissed as he continued to deliver what he was sure was a first and long overdue spanking. If she thought she could stoically endure his treatment, she had another thought coming. When she tried to get up, he forced her back into place, pinning her down by the neck.
“Nice try, Princess, but I don’t think so. The next time you hit a man, you better make sure he can’t get up again. You’re too small, with far too tempting a bottom to get away with it.”
“Ah!” Aliya squirmed to get away, but he held her fast as his open hand punished her now blushing globes. She fought him in earnest, but he never missed his target, and she was no match for his size, strength, and determination. Panting and biting her lip to keep from crying out again, she finally acquiesced to his control. Only then did he cease his torment.
That was when his began. Her bright red ass quivered, beckoning beyond all resistance for him to caress away the hurt. Let her go and back away. He touched her instead, his fingers trailing down into the cleft of her clenching buttocks until he reached the dark rosebud of her back passage.
“Let… l-let me go!” She threw herself back into her struggles, shoving with both arms in a vain attempt to get up, but he had her trapped.
Removing his hand, he punished her resistance with another swift series of stinging swats, not stopping until she was yowling, anything but stoic now, and once more fighting herself to hold still—to submit to his punishment.
To him.
He slipped his hand between her thighs, pinching the sensitive skin when she didn’t soften to his touch and open her legs. Obedience came with a gasp as he went from pinching to light, stinging slaps that spanked directly over her sweet pussy lips, steadily increasing in force until she finally gave in. Was that wishful thinking on his part, or did she really moan as she shifted her feet apart, opening to him? He grinned. There it was—evidence of her arousal, nothing but her sweet perfume and a copious amount of slick for his use.
He cupped her wet outer lips, the throbbing of his cock intensifying as he squeezed. What had started out as a disciplinary spanking, meant to teach her a lesson, devolved into easing both t
heir need. They were in the back room of a public café. She was the pampered little sister of the most ruthless criminal in the known world. And still, he shoved two fingers into her cunt, plunging in and out of her tightening heat to her accompanying gasps. Her hips twisted as she writhed on the desk, moaning as her body went flush with desire.
“Don’t worry, Princess.” He stepped up behind her. “I have just what you need.”
He parted her legs, pinning her hands behind her back to hold her in place while he unfastened the fly of his jeans. She could have got up if she truly wanted to. He wasn’t a rapist. He might even have let her go if she’d only tried, but Aliya’s protest was little more than a wiggle of her hips and a clench of her fingers, clawing uselessly at empty air. He rewarded the token effort with exactly what it deserved—another hard swat to what by now must be a very painful bottom. Then he freed his cock and with his other hand, grasped her hip and mounted her from behind. With a heavy groan, he sank deep, shocked when he encountered the thin membrane that proved her temptress aura a liar and her innocence as shockingly true.
“Shit, Aliya,” he growled, letting go of her hands and trying to draw back.
“No!” Pushing back against him, she impaled herself all the way to the base of his cock.
Her heat was heavenly. The velvety softness of her pussy as she shivered up and down his length was mind-blowingly good.
She was trying to move on him, the writhing of her untried body instinctive and driven by the same need that dissolved her into soft tears. It was her quiet weeping that undid him. Groaning, he forced himself to be still and allowed her velvety sheath to accept being invaded for the first time. The pulsing of her heartbeat thrummed around him, engulfing him from the tip of his cock to the base. It was the most sensual anguish he’d ever endured, and good intentions be damned, he couldn’t stop himself.
His hips moved, thrusting a gentle rhythm Aliya swiftly responded to, arching her back, her body straining to achieve its first real orgasm. As she stiffened with a sharp gasp, shaking with the intensity of her climax, he increased his plunging, taking her to the heights of ecstasy a second time before flooding her pussy with his cum. He pressed her down flat against the table, forcing her still as his cock finished spending itself inside her. Her sheath was still contracting around him, spasming rhythmically, greedily milking his cock for every last drop, and savoring every bit of bliss she could win from the encounter.