by Lora Leigh
"Well, this is true." Courtney nodded. "But perhaps he just needs a bit of a nudge and a small incentive." Her gaze twinkled in knowing amusement. "Sometimes a woman simply must use the right bit of bait to lure in the information she needs."
"Or the man she needs," Alyssa murmured, her gaze catching Marty's. "Stop holding back, Marty. You keep waiting for him to come to you, and we all know Khalid has a will of steel. He can control himself with exemplary strength. But he can't control you. You're your own ace in the hole."
"Damn, she's good." Courtney sat back and looked at Alyssa in admiration. "Aly, I want to be you when I grow up."
"You'll never grow up," Alyssa shot back, her expression never shifting, as she flicked a look Courtney's way. "You're frickin' Peter Pan."
"Well, if I ever do." Courtney shrugged with a laugh. "But I do believe you've pinpointed Marty's problem."
"Of course I have," Alyssa responded archly, as she sat back and straightened her dress. "She's always watching and waiting. Khalid's always standing back and finding other things to distract him, simply because he's a man. If she wants him, then she's going to have to stop worrying about getting hurt and throw herself into the ring."
Marty turned and found Khalid in the crowd once again. He was at a table with two other men. She knew those men. Sebastian De-Lorents, a Spaniard and one of the newest members of the social set Marty had been raised in.
If she wasn't mistaken, he used to work for Interpol and was now the new manager of Ian Sinclair's club and had been a friend of Courtney's for years. However, it was the man sitting with them who had her gaze narrowing. Shayne Connor was an undercover CIA agent who worked out of the Middle East and often infiltrated terrorist cells known to be moving into the United States.
He was a deep-cover agent, and a very dangerous one. A man that even the FBI was often wary of when working with him. Her question was, what the hell was he doing in Alexandria with Khalid and Sebastian?
"Interesting," Alyssa murmured at her side. "Now what makes you think those three are not discussing the latest stock reports?"
Marty almost snorted at that one. Each man's expression was carefully composed as they spoke. They appeared relaxed; they even smiled; but there was something about their eyes, about the tense set of their bodies that told another story.
"Shayne Connor," Courtney stated, her voice low. "I haven't seen him in years."
"You know him?" Marty's gaze swung to her friend.
Courtney nodded. "He and Bastian partied extensively in Europe and especially in Spain for a while. Shayne's family disowned him, you know, though a sizable inheritance from his American grandfather allowed him to maintain the lifestyle he had been raised in."
"Disowned him?" Marty's brow arched. This was a story she hadn't yet heard on the ever elusive Shayne. "Why?"
Courtney turned back to her, a hint of worry in her gaze now, before she breathed out roughly. "For his suspected involvement in a bombing in Spain. Bastian never believed he was involved, but his parents are very rigid. They threw him out of their home and publicly disowned him. It destroyed him. Shayne spent several years trying to exonerate himself before he simply disappeared."
He hadn't disappeared; he had been recruited, instead. She'd known he was born of a Spanish father and an American mother, and that they were considered wealthy. She'd never heard he'd been disowned, however.
"He and Sebastian are friends, then?" Alyssa asked, her normally quiet gaze glinting with the barest hint of curiosity.
"They were very close as boys, I know." Courtney shrugged as she and Alyssa sat back, their attention shifting between the three men. "Even as young men they were more like brothers before Shayne was sent away by his parents. I saw him only a few times after that."
Marty kept the three men in her peripheral vision. Interesting. An undercover FBI asset, a CIA operative, and a former undercover Interpol agent. What did the three have in common besides friendship?
It could be a chance meeting, she thought. Sebastian was friends with Shayne, just as he was with Khalid. This was a very popular establishment. It wouldn't be a surprise that the three would come together. Unless you knew for a fact that two of them had ties to information and resources that placed them squarely in some very dangerous situations.
Finishing her drink, Marty wiped her lips with her napkin before collecting her purse from beside her plate and smiling at her friends.
"I'm heading home," she told them. "It's been a long day for me."
"Already?" Courtney pouted. "I was hoping we could have a few more drinks before we left."
"Not tonight." Marty shook her head. "I'm driving. But next time, I promise."
"She's being a spoilsport, Aly." Courtney turned to Alyssa. "Do something about her."
Alyssa shook her head as a smile tugged at the corner of her lips. "She's not the only one who needs to make an early night of it," she said. "I need to head home as well. Perhaps next time."
"You're both going to give me a bad reputation if I begin arriving home before midnight," Courtney stated ruefully. "Ian may begin to believe I'm actually settling down."
"I'm sure you can convince him otherwise." Rising to her feet, Marty gave the other two women a little wave before moving from the balcony and heading along the wide hall to the stairs. As she left the restaurant she noticed that Khalid was no longer at his table.
She needed to get home to her computer, from which she could pull up the information she needed on the three men. There was a connection among them; there had to be. Despite appearances, those three should not be together, for the simple reason that they all had something to lose if the wrong people saw them together. Someone like Deerfield, or one of his agents.
Shayne Connor might be an agent, but only a few within the FBI knew that. The operation that had brought her in contact with him had necessitated her keeping his true purpose for being there a secret. He was a valuable contact to have, and one she didn't want to cross.
Making her way from the club Marty strode along the sidewalk to the parking lot, preferring to walk rather than use the valet.
Shadows stretched along the area despite the lights that surrounded it. Customers milled around as they chatted and moved to and from the restaurant. No one appeared interested in anything other than their own concerns. No one paid attention to the lone woman walking through the parking lot until she neared her car.
"You didn't mention you were going out this evening, love." Khalid spoke from the shadows of the trees, stepping just close enough to allow her to make out his dim outline as the darkness wrapped around him like a jealous lover.
Leaning against the BMW she crossed her arms beneath her breasts, refusing to tread into the darkness where he watched her like a dark, hungry predator.
"I didn't know that I should give you my itinerary," she drawled, watching as he moved closer, the hungry glint in his eyes fueling the adrenaline coursing through her.
"Perhaps you should," he stated, his voice low, deep, throbbing with a hidden power.
She swore she could feel him under her flesh, the heat of his body sinking inside her as he stopped just before her.
"Perhaps you're living in a dream world," she said, challenging him, challenging the command in his expression as he stared down at her, his gaze dark, seductive.
"And perhaps you are trying to involve yourself in matters that do not concern you."
He didn't touch her, but the need for it was a hunger she could feel wrapping around her.
"I'm always getting into things I shouldn't. That is my job description. Remember?" She straightened, bringing her body closer to his, the heat of him nearly flush against her.
"Stop." His fingers curled around her upper arm as his expression tightened, his gaze narrowing on her.
"Stop what?" Brow lifting, she stared back at him archly. "Remember, Khalid, you sought me out, it wasn't th
e other way around."
"I know you," his voice was a heavy growl. "You're about to make a mistake, Marty."
"A mistake?" Her hand lifted, pressing lightly against his chest. "I'm not the one that made this mistake. I believe that was you."
She could feel his heart beneath her hand, beating hard and heavy, racing with the same power that she felt in her own.
"Your father warned me to stay the hell away from you." His fingers tightened on her arm reflexively. "I believe he should have warned you instead."
A smile tipped her lips. "He knows better." She moved closer, watching his expression, feeling the power of her own inexperience and the desperate need tearing through her. Seducing him was her goal, but it was going to take more than standing in the dark with him.
"You should know better than this." Suddenly, as though the power of her own need transmitted to him, he pulled her against his body, one hand pressing tight and hard against her hips to hold her flush against the strength of his erection.
The heavy, erect width of his cock pressed against her lower stomach, the heat of it sinking past his slacks and the silk of her clothes as her breath caught in her throat.
God, she felt like one of those damned stupid fainting misses from the old romances her mother used to read. The ones who swooned seconds before the pirates had their way with them. Yeah, the ones she had laughed at for so many years.
"Why should I know better?" Her hands slid over his chest to his shoulders. "Because you're meeting with a deep-cover CIA agent known to share his women, just as you do? Or perhaps you and the CIA agent are meeting with a man known to have ties to both of you? Tell me, Khalid, does my godfather know you're up to fun and games with the CIA and Interpol?"
It had been no more than a suspicion at first. Sebastian De-Lorents was a hell of an actor, but seeing them together, hearing the history Bastian and Shayne had, it had finally clicked.
"You don't know what you're talking about." The slow tension in his body told her otherwise.
She almost laughed. The sound came out more as a suspicious little snort. "Really, Khalid, you are talking to the woman who knows all your little games and how you play them," she reminded him. "Tell me what games you're playing with our local spook and his Spanish cohort, and I might be nice and not tell Daddy on you." The facetious threat didn't go over well.
Or perhaps it went over too well.
A heartbeat later he lifted her, pulled her into the dark shelter of the surrounding trees. Before she could think to struggle he had her back against a tree, her body lifted to him, his lips covering hers.
And he wasn't stopping there.
Sensation raced across her flesh as pleasure began to stream through her nerve endings from her lips to her thighs. His hand pushed beneath her skirt, flattened against the upper roundness of her leg and lifted it until she was crooking her knee over his hip.
His cock wedged against the mound of her pussy then, throwing her senses into overload as his head jerked back, his lips tearing from hers.
Marty stared at him in ecstatic shock as his hips rolled subtly, the heavy erection beneath the material of his slacks pressing, stroking against the swollen bud of her clit.
"You will destroy me," he snarled, as one hand curved around the nape of her neck to hold her head in place as his head lowered again.
His lips nipped at hers, sipped at them for long moments before he drew back once again.
"How will I destroy you?" The question raged in her mind with each warning he gave her. "Tell me, Khalid, how am I such a threat to you?"
His fingers stroked her neck as the other arm curled around her hips, lifting her higher, holding her against him as her knees clasped his hips now.
The feel of his cock pressing between her thighs was exquisite. The slight movement of his hips against hers sent hard, racking shudders racing through her system as flames of pleasure raced over her flesh.
"Perhaps, love, it is I who am the danger to you."
There was no chance to argue, to retaliate, as her lips parted, his tongue stroking past them to hers, his lips sealing in the shocking, heated moan that would have torn from her lips.
She was drowning in the pleasure. Her knees gripped his hips tighter as her arms wrapped around his shoulders to bring him closer to her. His hands stroked her back, her hips, bunched the material of her dress between his fingers and dragged it over the curve of her ass before cupping the bare rounded rise of flesh.
He stroked, kneaded. His fingers clenched into the sensitive mounds and parted them, sending shooting arcs of sensation racing along the hidden entrance that the narrow cleft concealed.
She had touched herself there, just to see what it felt like. She had wondered what Khalid's touch there would do to her senses. Now she knew. His fingers slid deeper into the parted flesh, stroked, pressed.
There was too much pleasure. Sensation upon sensation began to attack her, building and flooding her senses with waves of nearing ecstasy as she fought to hold on to just enough control to memorize every touch, every arc of the hungry flames licking through her now.
"Damn you." He jerked back from her again, but he didn't let her go.
As she stared up at him, her body riding high on the pleasure racing through her, his fingers pressed beneath the silk of her panties and found the hot, slick juices.
"Stop pushing for this," he commanded, but still his fingers slid through the rich essence, gathered it and drew it back to the tight, shy entrance of her ass. "Before you destroy us both."
Her head fell back again as shock rounded her eyes and pleasure stole her breath. His finger pressed against the snug entrance, then entered just enough to send a pinch of pleasure pain tearing through her before halting.
"Khalid." His name tore from her lips.
"God help me." His eyes glittered in the darkness as his thumb pressed into the clenched opening of her pussy. "You're so fucking tight I ache to be inside you." His finger and thumb flexed, moved inside her, creating shards of sensation that threatened her sanity.
This wasn't the place for it, a part of her whispered. The other part, the woman dying for his possession, was screaming for it in silence.
Her knees tightened on his hips, her lashes fluttering at the exquisite sensations overtaking her.
"Then why fight it?" She was almost begging now. "You're teasing me, Khalid. Teasing us both."
"I'm drowning in you." His lips sipped at hers again. "And you're doing nothing to save either of us."
"But I don't want to be saved," she whispered against his lips as he rubbed his own against hers. "If I wanted to be saved, I wouldn't be here. I'd be in another man's bed instead of begging to be in yours."
And that was what she was doing. Begging. Pleading, in all but words.
"Damn you." He pulled back again.
His finger slid from the heated, too sensitive grip of her anus as his thumb slid free of her pussy. Feeling him release her nearly destroyed her. Her knees were weak as she took her own weight, her system overloaded with desperation and the ache for release.
"This has to end now," he ordered, his voice rough. "No more."
"Coward." Jerking back from him she nearly stumbled as she pushed away from him and the tree, glaring back at him as she fought to get her breathing, her emotions, under control.
"Be careful, Marty." His hand jerked out, his fingers curling around her wrist as she tried to turn and head back to her car. "I could take that as a very serious threat."
"So sue me," she snapped back, pulling her arm out of his grip and stumbling from the shadows. "Better yet, don't bother, you'd lose. The evidence is all on my side, sweet cheeks."
Jerking her key from the small hidden pocket of her dress, she grabbed her purse from the ground where it had fallen and stalked to the door of her car.
Releasing the auto lock she pulled open the door and stared bac
k at him from the dubious shield between them.
"You could never understand," he said, his tone filled with dark bitterness.
"And you'll never have the guts to explain," she accused him. "But I'm at a point where I really don't give a damn. Seducing you is starting to bore me anyway. I think I'll go home and see if I can find out why the hell Connor is in my town and what the three of you are up to. I do believe I would find that vastly more entertaining."
He moved fast. Coming from the shelter of the trees he was nearly upon her before she slid into the car, slammed the door closed, and shoved the key into place.
She didn't look at him until she was backing out of the parking space, and what she saw then sent more than shock racing through her. There was a thrill of arousal, and a spark of knowledge.
Behind him, Shayne did nothing to hide the fact that he was there. In the second that she caught his expression she saw the hunger, and knew he had been there watching, listening.
It was no more than she had already suspected, but she hadn't anticipated her own response to it. If she had been wet before, then her panties were soaked now. If she had been aroused before, then lust was flooding her now.
All for nothing.
Reversing quickly she pressed her foot to the gas and shot from the parking lot. It was time she took off the gloves where Khalid was concerned and show him that she may want him until hell froze over, but he sure as hell wasn't the only damned man in the world.
And quite frankly, she was sick of waiting on a lover who did nothing but deny her. It was time to check out other possibilities. And perhaps to show him exactly what he was going to be missing.
Chapter 3
A week later, Khalid stepped into the secured meeting room Sebastian had prepared and faced a part of his past that he had avoided at all costs.
Staring back at the man who could have been his twin brother, Khalid felt his chest tighten, felt the pent-up agony of guilt, and fought not to apologize once again for events he had been unable to control.
Abram el Hamid-Mustafa rose slowly from the couch, his muscular frame standing tall and proud as fierce black eyes stared from a face that had turned to stone years before.