He moved slowly from the other side of the room, his expression brooding as he watched her, intense. “It may be a while,” he finally told her. “And I don’t want to take chances.”
“I’m not staying here a while.” A frown jumped between her brows. “Call someone. Khalid or my father, either one could have a transport here to fly me out within hours.”
“And Azir will have you killed the moment he learns that a transport is heading in this direction.”
Paige stared back at him miserably. She couldn’t risk staying here. God, why had she left Khalid’s home?
“Tell me what I need to know, Paige, then we’ll fight over the rest of it later.”
Her lips thinned. She knew that expression on his face. The hard, steely-eyed expression that assured her he meant exactly what he said.
If she wanted to discuss going home, then she would tell him exactly what he wanted to know.
Once she got home, if he decided to resume whatever started here, then he would have to rethink these stubborn tactics of his.
“I only take the medication once every three months,” she finally told him, though she hated the necessity of it. “My last dose was just before your less-than-sane father had me kidnapped.”
Crossing her arms over her breasts, she all but stomped to the couch positioned in front of the fireplace and plopped into the amazingly comfortable cushions. That comfort didn’t make up for the fact that the Abram she was facing right now was little more than a stranger to her.
“Now, when am I going home?” she questioned him.
“When it’s convenient to send you home.” He shrugged as though it didn’t matter, as though she were there for a friendly visit rather than being brought there forcibly.
“When it’s convenient?” she asked him carefully. “And when do you think it might be convenient to take care of that little matter?”
“Once I’ve satisfied my hunger for you?” He tilted his head to the side as he answered her with a question rather than allowing her to know exactly what was going on.
That wasn’t like the Abram she knew. Of course, there was always the chance she hadn’t known him as well as she thought she had.
“That’s not a satisfactory answer, Abram.”
His eyes were cool and hard. She hated that look, that impassive, emotionless look so similar to Khalid’s. A look that had been honed in the hellish existence where they had fought to survive, here in this foreign desert.
“That’s the only answer I have for you at the moment. But I will have some answers from you. How did Azir’s men manage to kidnap you?”
Paige crossed her arms over her breasts as she leaned back in the couch and glanced away from him.
“I went home,” she finally answered, knowing it was the wrong time to become stubborn.
His expression tightened further, this time in anger.
“Are Khalid and Marty safe?”
She nodded jerkily. “They were at the Conovers’. Tally’s party.”
He closed his eyes in frustration before wiping his hand over his face and giving his head a brief, hard shake. When he looked at her again, he didn’t bother to hide the anger heating inside him.
“You were told to stay safe.” He growled as the irritation rose. “What happened, Paige? Don’t try to tell me Khalid attempted to throw you out either.”
Paige wanted to laugh at the comment, but the expression on his face didn’t exactly invite amusement.
Instead, she dropped her arms, her hands clenching into the the couch cushions as she leaned forward, her own anger surging inside her.
“Do you realize I’ve lost my job because of this mess?” she snapped back at him. One hand lifted to wave at his room to emphasize the situation. “I haven’t worked in over two weeks now, I have bills to pay and responsibilities to meet. Do you think I was meeting those responsibilities by playing the cowering puppy at my brother’s home? Do you think my landlord is going to just nicely wait for me to pay my rent?”
“Since when did your parents refuse access to your trust fund, Paige?” His tone was chillingly uncompromising and unforgiving.
It was her own fault she had been taken and she knew it; she wasn’t trying to claim otherwise. But he made her feel about two inches tall and responsible for the fall of the modern world with that look and tone.
“I didn’t say it was the smartest idea I’d ever had,” she burst out furiously. “But for God’s sake, Abram, it had been two weeks. Khalid and I were at each other’s throats and starting to go for blood. I just wanted to go home long enough to figure out how to handle him and his insistence unning my life.”
“And that did you how much good?” He grunted irritably as he shot her a look of complete male frustration. “You were being protected and you insisted on leaving that protection. Now you can settle in here for the next three weeks and twiddle your thumbs until I can send you home.”
She stared back at him in shock. “Abram, I can’t stay here for three weeks,” she whispered. “I have to go home.”
“Khalid will take care of your bills and any problems that arise, and I’m certain he’ll have a nice little discussion with the owner of the company you worked for so you can return. You have no choice but to cooperate here, Paige. Attempting to make me feel guilty for your situation will do you no good.”
“You could send me home,” she retorted angrily.
“If I could send you home I’d have you on a transport now,” he snapped back as anger flashed across his face. “Unfortunately, that isn’t possible at the moment, trust me on this.”
Her lips thinned as she glared back at him. “Then let me call Papa. He’ll come get me.”
“Oh, there’s a good idea.” His smile was tight and hard. “Let’s call Pavlos Galbraithe and have him arrive to antagonize Azir further.” His bark of laughter was filled with sarcasm. “I can see that one working out well.”
So, maybe that wasn’t the wisest course of action, but staying here for three weeks wasn’t acceptable either, not when old man Mustafa was bouncing around the place trying to find his little lost Marilyn.
The thought of it was sickening.
It sickened her and God only knew how her mother was feeling at the moment.
Raking her fingers through her hair she stared back at Abram in frustration, wondering where the heated, hungry lover of earlier had gone.
With that thought came another. Why, once she’d come until she thought she was going to die, hadn’t he taken her fully and achieved his own release?
“Do I have your agreement to behave?” he asked her.
“I agree to follow the rules I know about.” She shrugged. “But I think you know this is going to suck.”
“Sucking or not, that’s the way it is,” he informed her, his voice as hard as the black onyx of his gaze. “And sucking beats dying, wouldn’t you say?”
She had to look away from him.
She couldn’t imagine how he had survived within this world. He was a man who enjoyed tastes, textures, touch, and laughter. She couldn’t imagine there was much of a chance of those things existing in the cold, stone confines of this fortress.
Crossing her arms she rubbed at them, trying to bring a little warmth back to her body as a chill raced through her.
“Why did he do this?” she finally asked, wondering why his father would take a vendetta to this extreme.
“To punish Khalid for killing Ayid and Aman, no matter how they deserved it.” Regret and guilt flashed across his gaze. “To punish your mother for escaping and in an attempt to find something or someone that he believes is my weakness.”
“And of course, I’m no weakness of yours, am I, Abram?” The tone of his voice, the remoteness of his gaze as he spoke sent a spike of aching need tearing into her chest.
“I can’t afford a weakness.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, you can be used as one, simply because your presence here will be more of a temptation than I can resist. We learned that earlier, didn’t we?” He nodded to the disheveled bed where she had lain gasping for air as she orgasmed violently in his arms.
A flush washed over her face and she shot him a hateful look. “It’s not as though I tempted you too far,” she shot back. “You still haven’t…” She ran out of words, flushing heavier. It was much harder to say as she faced the distance he was placing between them.
His brow arched. “I still haven’t fucked you?” he murmured.
Her pussy just had to respond. It just had to clench and ripple and spill her juices, again, to saturate the bare, swollen folds.
She needed panties before the dampness began easing down her thighs. But at this rate, she would end up using all she had within hours.
She stared back at him though, holding his gaze despite the response that flooded through her and the anger beginning to build.
“I’ll get around to it,” he promised her. “I first wanted to make sure you were on birth control, and secondly—” His lips twisted ruefully. “I may not have come, Paige, but you had me so fucking hot I spilled myself in my pants. Something I promise you will not happen again.” His gaze flickered over her, heated now, aroused. “The next time, I’ll spill in that sweet tight pussy, or buried in the snug clench of your ass. Either way, I promise you’ll not doubt the fact that I’ve definitely taken you.”
“I don’t think so.” She had to draw in a hard, tight breath to push those words past her lips, because it truly was hard to deny what her body so wanted.
A single, black brow arched with an arrogance that set her teeth on edge.
“Not while we’re here, and not while you’re acting like my jailer rather than my lover,” she explained tightly, nerves trembling in her voice as she fought to keep it firm, strong.
The smile he gave her was triumphant, dominant. “We’ll see about that.” He held his hand up as her lips parted to deliver a blasting retort. “Before we get into this argument, Tariq will be bringing in our dinner any minute and I know your appetite is affected when you’re angry. Let’s enjoy our meal, Paige, then you can tell me the ways you’re going to resist my touch while you’re lying in the bed with me nightly.” He leaned forward then, his expression no longer distanced but suffused with sensual hunger. “Tell me, Paige, how will you resist when you’re lying not just with me, but with Tariq as well? And the one thing I can promise you can have while you’re here is all the pleasure we can give you in that bed. More pleasure than you could ever imagine.”
Abram watched her face, her eyes. No matter the anger that could spike through Paige, it was her eyes that always told the truth of her emotions. The fear that had filled them as he forced himself to remain distant, to lay out the situation for her, had tightened his chest until he wondered that he could breathe for it.
But the minute he’d allowed his hunger to show, the only emotion, the only response he could give her, that fear had slid away and a matching, feminine need had blazed in her emerald eyes.
Sensual and warm, she was a woman willing to explore her hunger, but even more, she would be willing to explore his.
And before Tariq arrived with the meal he had prepared, he wanted her primed and ready for the hungers that raged through him. Knowing the situation, knowing from where the pleasure may well come later, would keep her off balance and hopefully, keep her too involved to attempt to escape before he and Tariq had a plan in place.
Until then, he had to be certain that the line he was forced to teeter on didn’t shift on him. He had to ensure it didn’t throw him to the ground, broken and lost, again.
He’d been there once. He’d been at the precipice where nothing mattered but the blood of his enemies and the future was a vision he didn’t want to face. He’d already lost one woman whose life meant more to him than any of his brothers, his compatriots, and the men and women who had died, and would die, for the future they dreamed of.
