“Did you trust her?” she asked quietly.

Paige watched his expression carefully, a part of her not even certain if she had truly trusted Chalah even before she saw the audio device.

“I trust no one with your safety or with your life, Paige,” he told her, his expression thoughtful, intent. “There have been moments in the past few days that I’ve even questioned my trust in Tariq.”

He moved to her, his much larger body dwarfing her as he stopped in front of her.

Her breath nearly stopped as he reached out, his fingers catching a curl that had fallen over her shoulder.

It was the only way he was touching her, his figure rubbing the soft strands slowly.

“I want you, Paige,” he stated softly, sending her blood pressure skyrocketing, pounding off the charts with the somber heat in his voice and in his face.

“You could have fooled me,” she whispered. “You haven’t even been here, Abram.”

She hadn’t liked admitting she had been frightened while he had been gone. That a part of her had been certain Azir would come for her while Abram was gone. That he would find a way to hurt her, to perhaps kill her.

She knew if he could do it, he would find great pleasure in it. She had seen it in his face, in his eyes, the day he had backhanded her across the room.

“I’ve tried to get you out of here first, Paige,” He sighed as he laid the strands of hair neatly against her breast before he stroked the backs of her fingers along the curve of her breast.

“But I don’t think I can wait much longer to have you. I don’t think I can sleep next to you one more night without touching you, without tasting you.”

Swallowing tightly she fought to catch her breath.

“You’ve managed the past three nights.” A frown jumped between her brows at the need, the sexual hunger in his voice. “What’s changed?”

His lips twitched with an edge of amusement.

“My misbegotten attempt, as I said, to have you comfortable in your forced surroundings.”

She shook her head. “I don’t believe you, Abram. Do you know what I think?”

His expression slowly tightened into one of dominant male lust.

“What do you think?” he drawled.

“I think you have no intentions of being my lover, Abram. At the most, you intend to do no more than fuck me while we’re here. And only then, if you simply can’t resist any longer.”

And exactly how right was she?

She watched his eyes narrow and glitter knowingly in his dark face. He knew she was right. She knew she was right.

“Don’t push this, Paige.”

The tone of his voice and the look in his eyes combined with the order sent a shaft of agony tearing through her.

“You’ve had me sleep between the two of you, naked, like a lover, with no intention of actually fucking me?” Mocking amusement and bitter realization filled her. “Tell me, Abram, did you order Tariq not to fuck me as well?”

His eyes narrowed further. “I do not order Tariq. As my third, that choice remained between the two of you.”

Shock had her drawing in her breath sharply. “You would have let him take me without you?” Confusion filled her.

Paige knew enough about the lifestyle Khalid and his friends were a part of, and she assumed Abram shared the same rules. That didn’t allow the third, unless it was a permanently agreed-upon relationship, to ever be intimate with the prime lover’s woman without his presence.

“That would have been your choice.” His expression was savagely tight now.

“My choice?” She shook her head at his comment. “Abram, do you think I don’t know the world you live within when you’re in Europe or in the U.S.? That I don’t know the associates you and Khalid are closest to, and the rules they adhere to in terms of their private sexual tastes?”

His gaze darkened in suspicion. “What would you know about it, Paige?”

“You say that as though it’s some deep dark secret that many of your friends and acquaintances share their ives with those who share their tastes.” She stared back at him in disgust. “Do you believe, Abram, truly, that no one but those who do it are aware of it? Do you think friends, brothers, and oh yeah—” Her eyes widened in false amazement. “Sisters, are not well aware of it? Do you take me for stupid?”

“I never imagined you were stupid.” His voice was rougher now, containing that dark, black velvet roughness that almost mesmerized her senses.

It would have mesmerized her senses if not for the anger burning inside her.

“Then what did you imagine?” she snapped. “What makes you think I’m not smart enough to see what goes on around me?”

“I never imagined such a thing, Paige.” Frustration filled his voice as he glared back at her. “I simply do not imagine that it is within my right to limit your contact with a man I have brought to the bed with you.”

Not limit her contact? Tariq was his third. The very idea of it implied, at the very least, a sense of possession in regards to a lover, if not a woman he had some feelings of depth for.

But evidently, that wasn’t the way it was for him.

The pain of that realization, the realization that whatever was happening between them was only physical, that it was without emotion tore through her like a searing flame, burning through her heart.

“Go fuck yourselves!” she hissed back at him as fury whipped through her along with the knowledge that he was showing no possessiveness, no dominance whatsoever in regards to either her body or her heart.

She slapped at his hands as they lifted to her, disgust and ragged emotions slamming a sense of pain through her senses.

“Don’t touch me. Don’t speak to me and don’t either of you think you will ever sleep with me again,” she cried out. “There’s not a chance in hell I want you now.”

She was dying for him. She was aching for him. She wanted to cry out at the knowledge that what she thought had been mutual desire had been something far different. Perhaps so different that it meant he hadn’t wanted her at all.

“The hell you don’t,” he growled.

“You’re damned right I don’t,” she cried out painfully. “Just kiss my ass and get the hell away from me, Abram. Damn you. Damn you!”

She wasn’t crying. There were no tears. The pain went far too deep, and hurt far too much for tears, yet.… instead of getting away from her, instead of leaving her in peace, Abram jerked her to him andpinned her in place against his chest.

“Kiss your ass?” He snarled down at her. “I’ll do that and more.”

10

God, what she did to him. She thought he had no intention of talking to he

r? That he could sleep with her much longer without losing his mind?

It wasn’t fucking her that he had no intention of doing. It was loving her. And he could see in her eyes that she hadn’t been merely talking about sex. She had said fuck, she had referred to sex, but she meant so much more.

Her heart was involved and she intended to involve his as well.

Holding her to him he turned his fingers into her hair, pulled her head back, and as he fought the grief he felt at the thought of never loving her, his lips covered hers.

Sweet heat, fiery feminine anger and passion overflowed from her lips. Her fingers curled into fists and pressed into his shoulders, stopping just the second before true rejection. She wasn’t saying no, but the threat of it was there.

Give her a chance to consider the true reality of what he might very well intend and she would be screaming her rejection from the rooftops, and he wouldn’t be able to blame her. Hell, he would agree with her.

He had no intention of giving her a chance.

As his lips covered hers, his tongue brushed the seam. He considered for less than a second the seduction he had actually considered each night he lay with her, her naked body curled into him.

He decided against it.

Dominance rose inside him. The need, the overwhelming hunger for her sexual submission rushed through him like a tidal wave of epic proportions.

Need beat at his brain. Control disintegrated. Only instinct remained. The instinct of a primal animal, determined to fully possess his woman on every physical level that could possibly exist.

He tugged at the strands of hair he tangled his fingers in. Just enough pressure to drag a moan from her lips and have her arching into his hold.

This was her acceptance of him and her acceptance of what she had to know was coming from him.

He wasn’t her lover, and easy had never been a part of him.

Sliding one hand from her back to her buttocks, his fingers curled around her firm, wounded globes as he lifted her off her petite feet, turned, and all but stumbled to the large bed at the far end of the room.

He paused only long enough to strip the hated throb from her body. If he never saw another of those hated garments shrouding the perfection of her body then it would be far too soon.

“Lay down,” he growled as he stripped himself. The loose tunic and trousers came off, along with the even looser white underpants and the custom-made hiking boots he had worn.

She didn’t move to obey him, rather she stared back at him defiantly, her breasts rising and falling quickly, tight, hard little nipples beckoning him.

“You lay down.” Breathless, heat filling her voice along with the defiance. The sound of it had the head of his dick throbbing imperatively.

He almost allowed a smile to tug at his lips.

“Do you think it works that way?” he asked silkily. “Oh Paige, precious, it doesn’t work that way.” She was pushing at him, defying him and expecting to get away with it.

Turning his fingers in her hair, he pulled her head back and took the taste of her hunger with his lips again.

She tasted innocent. Her lips moved beneath his with just a hint of hesitancy, as though she hadn’t kissed in a while. As though she had never been kissed by a man intent on drowning out her deepest hunger.

A hunger he would have, no matter the lengths he had to go to.

Jerking her against him until his cock pressed firmly into the flesh of her belly.

The heat of her body seared the sensitive head of his cock, drawing a pulse of precome from the bloated head.

Sinking his tongue past her lips to possess the sweet nectar of her hunger.

It wasn’t submission she gave him. As his tongue pressed against the seam of her lips, they tightened, and pushing forward past their resistance he found her teeth locked tight to him.

Her fists were unclenched, her nails rasping against his shoulders like a little kitten kneading in pleasure.

Removing his hand from her hair he gripped her jaw instead, his thumb and two fingers pressing into the back of her jaw to force her teeth and lips to part.

A ragged little groan left her throat as his tongue forged inside to stroke against hers and to taste her need. It was there, the hunger and heat meeting his and flaming out of control.

Her nails pricked at his flesh as he arched her closer to him. The demand in his cock was beating through his body, thundering through his bloodstream.

Damn her. She nearly had his knees trembling from no more than her kiss. No more than her heated body arching, her stomach stroking against his dick.

Pumping his tongue into her mouth he nearly groaned as she suckled at it, hungry, sweet dreams of her heated mouth that had his cock jerking and throbbing from the engorged crest along the heavy thick shaft.

He wanted her mouth there. He wanted to stare down at her, watch her take him, watch her suck him, watch as her hot little tongue licked around it.

He pulled his head back, the breath rasping from his chest as he watched her eyes slowly flutter open.

Pleasure reflected in the brilliancy of her emerald eyes, the flushed features of her face. Her tongue peeked out to flutter against her lips, the sight of it drawing his balls tight with desire.

“Suck my cock.” The demand had her face flushing further and lust deepening in her gaze.