Dangerous Pleasure (28 page)

Each generation, at the age of thirty-six the eldest heir would give his vow to the Saudi king and his emissary to protect the land and to ensure its borders remained a part of Saudi Arabia. The heir must vow to conceive sons to protect it and to ensure no one ever used the province to threaten the regime.

Only in the event that the heir had no sons to take the vow, would the land revert entirely to the throne for the king to decide himself which family or tribe would control it.

Abram was the only Mustafa heir to have had no legal heirs born. He could willingly abdicate the guardianship with no repercussions except those his father was now enacting against him and Khalid in revenge for the deaths of Ayid and Amam, the two youngest sons of Azir Mustafa who had died at Abram and Khalid’s hands.

“He’ll never give up,” Paige whispered. She looked across the room to where Abram and Tariq stood leaning against the wall quietly discussing Khalid’s condition.

As though he couldn’t stand to be around her, he’d moved from her, putting the entire width of the private hospital waiting room between them.

“Do they know Jafar was behind it for certain?” she asked.

She wanted to find a way to deny it but there was no way to excuse his actions.

Abram’s gaze suddenly lasered in on her as though he’d heard the question.

“Paige, darling, Jafar isn’t the friend you knew then.” Her mother laid her hand comfortingly against Paige’s arm.

“How do we know that unless we know for certain he gave the order to kill Khalid, Abram, and Tariq?”

“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.

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 deliberate, 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.