"They would have suffered had they not," he told her. "I would have ensured it."
She lifted a hand and gripped Chase's fingers where they lay against her shoulder. She turned back and saw in his eyes what she knew had been tormenting both of them. And her decision was made.
She had stepped into his lifestyle for the pleasure, and he had stolen her heart. But he had given her a hunger, a need for satisfying the same desires that had drawn them together to begin with.
She turned back to Khalid. She remembered that night with Drew as a nightmare, as nothing of pleasure. But Chase had pushed that memory to a distant part of her mind. Drew didn't exist for her any longer. Her life with Chase filled her, and this man had helped to bring about that life.
"I'm privileged to have you as a friend." She reached out and touched his face. "And even more privileged that Chase has you as a third."
Khalid stared back at her, and admitted, silently, to the amazement that washed through him. He had expected anger at the very least. Hatred certainly. But this he had not expected.
Her soft hand touching his face, and in her caress he felt her desire, in her eyes he saw the shadow of the needs that had filled her when he and Chase had first taken her.
When he had walked away from the relationship he had shared with Courtney and Ian several months back, he hadn't expected to ever find another woman with the same compassion and gentleness of spirit as Courtney had.
And as he stared at this woman, he knew that, somehow, Chase had found just as rare a gift as Ian had.
A woman of honor. Of strength.
Now she shifted, moved, and then bestowed upon him one of the rare pleasures Chase allowed within the ménages they shared.
Her lips touched his. They trembled at first, as though uncertain of her welcome. They whispered against his as his eyes went to the man behind her.
Chase wasn't concerned with the kiss. His eyes were flaring in that hunger that Khalid knew well himself. The need to touch the fire, to lose himself in the extremity of pleasure one woman could feel.
And he let her have her kiss.
Cupping the back of her head he pulled her to him, dragged her over his lap and let his eyes close. And perhaps there was a hint of disloyalty in this kiss. For, as always, it was another woman he thought of, another who filled him with regret as he gave pleasure to the one he held.
But that secret was his alone.
This woman had given him the ultimate gift of her forgiveness; he would ensure that he gave her nothing but pleasure to complement the heated, love-filled ecstasy her lover gave her as well.
It wasn't long before they had her stretched out, not in the bed they shared together, but in the guest room. Khalid understood that. The intimacy of their bedroom was a sacred place to those who loved, but here, here was just for the pleasure.
He watched, his senses processing the added depth to each kiss Kia and Chase now shared. The way Chase touched her, his large hands dark and gentle against her tender flesh. But there was the way she touched her lover as well. Her little nails digging into his flesh with more demand, with added dominance. And his lips twisted as he moved to lie alongside her, his hand cupping the full globe of her breast, his lips lowering to the peaked nipple.
She was velvet and steel. Strength, courage, and fragility. She was a woman worthy of nothing but pleasure, nothing but the tempestuous, demanding cries that left her lips.
And he couldn't help but watch as he touched her. As he spread her thighs and watched the hungry lips that enclosed her lover's erection. His cock twitched at the remembrance of those lips on his own, and the fantasies that filled him each time. Thoughts of the woman he was denied.
He lowered his lips and kissed the bare folds of her pussy, licked over them, drew in the sweet taste of her heated lust.
This was the ultimate of pleasures. It stilled the sweeping sorrows that rose inside him and stilled the bleak, dark pain he kept strictly to himself.
He loved the woman he could not have through the bodies of others. He gave the greatest of pleasures that he could bestow from hands stained with blood and death. And it stilled the memories while allowing him an outlet to the brutal, dark dominance that often tormented him.
He kissed and licked at the slickened, flushed folds. He drew her clit into his mouth and lifted his lashes to watch her give her lover pleasure.
With soft fingers and silken lips, she sucked at the hard, thick flesh Chase gave her. Khalid prepared her for the pleasure to come. She moaned, her expression taut with the needs that rose inside her, her breasts peaked with hard nipples, her body arching to them.
And he gave her pleasure. He ignored the imperative demand of his own body, his cock that ached and throbbed for release. He consumed her flesh, licked and stroked, eased her entrances, and prepared them.
When Chase lay beneath her, his flesh filling the soft silk and fire of her sex, Khalid eased slowly into the gripping heat of her rear.
And it was exquisite. He knelt behind her, feeling the tight grip, the tender tissue fluttering around his cock, and closed his eyes at the pleasure.
Such intimacy. Such trust. And pleasure. He was giving pleasure, he was not giving pain. A drop of penance in the ocean of guilt that filled him. But a pleasure that whipped through his mind and dimmed the dark memories and the hungers he couldn't escape.
He moved inside her, slowly, easily, then harder, giving her what she demanded, as Chase moved beneath her, stroking her into that little death that swept through her and released her pleasure in an explosion of sensations.
Only then did Khalid release his control. His semen filled the condom he wore, shudders of pleasure tearing through him, racing to the base of his skull and filling his mind with a few, fragile seconds of peace.
Below him, Kia was whispering Chase's name. Her love flowed from her voice, but he imagined another. Another voice. His name.
As he withdrew from her, he left the bed slowly, aware that the two who continued to lie within the warmth of the bed were in their own little world.
Chase had not finished with the woman he loved. He turned her to her back, moved over her, and was taking her again.
Hunger and love filled this room, and it was no place for one such as him.
He collected his clothing and moved to the bathroom. There he disposed of the condom, cleaned the sweat from his chest and shoulders, and dressed. Moments later, he was slipping from the apartment and taking the back steps to the enclosed yard that surrounded the converted warehouse.
Abdul had parked the limo in the back as requested. As Khalid aphis chauffeur jumped from the driver's seat and moved to open the door. Khalid was gripping the doorframe, moving to step in, when a shift of shadows across the street caught, and held, his attention.
From the gloomy darkness a figure emerged. Dressed in jeans and a heavy black coat, her hands shoved into the pockets, her pale blue eyes staring back at him somberly, was the woman he knew he could not have.
He let her hold his gaze, and in hers he saw knowledge. She knew what he had just come from. She knew the secrets of him, whether he wished it or not, and that knowledge bound them. It moved through them with sorrow and with rage.
As he stared, he lifted his hand, touched two fingers to his lips, and turned them to her. She didn't move, she never responded, and his movements had been subtle enough, smooth enough, that any eyes that watched, other than hers, would not have caught the gesture.
But she did. Even across the distance he saw the flinch of her expression, and the need that filled her.
He swung into the back of the car, silent, furious, as Abdul moved around the vehicle and slid into the driver's seat.
"When we return to the house, you will prepare for a trip," he told the other man.
"Yes, Mr. Khalid." Abdul's voice was strangely subdued.
"Have the jet waiting at the airfield. We will leave before noon."
"Where should I tell the pilot we are going?"
The limo moved out onto the deserted street and the shadows eased in behind him.
"Away," he said softly. "We are just going away." Away from the shadows. Away from her.
Kia curled against Chase, back in their own bed, warm and sated, and loved.
"Thank you," he whispered against her hair, his voice lazy and relaxed now.
"Thank you." A whisper of a laugh left her voice before she stilled again. "He was hurting."
She could feel it. There had been something in Khalid's expression, in how he held her, touched her, that reverberated with a sense of sorrow.
"I know." He kissed her forehead, her cheek, before rolling away from her and pulling out the drawer on the bedside table.
Kia watched as the light snapped on, the soft glow glistening over his hard, muscled shoulders as he turned back at her.
"You okay with what happened?" he asked her then, leaning against the headboard and pulling her into his arms. "With Khalid being there with Drew?"
"Okay in the sense that I'm glad it was him." She shrugged. "He really did save me, Chase. He pulled Drew from me and allowed me a chance to get away. I could not have done that with Drew." Her voice lowered as she frowned.
So what made it different with Chase? It was more than just loving him. Perhaps it was the freedom he gave her. The lack of chains, but the bonds were still there.
He picked up her left hand, played with her fingers for a moment, and then, as she watched in amazed surprise, slid a diamond onto her ring finger.
"Chase?" She lifted her head, stared into his eyes.
His black hair was mussed around his face and only emphasized the light green color of his eyes.
"You're marrying me."
She almost laughed. He wasn't asking. It was a demand. A demand that had a smile tipping her lips.
"Am I really?"
"Yes, you really are." His hands framed her face. "If I have to live much longer without knowing you're mine, forever, I might not be able to function. Ian could fire me. Then where would I be?"
Her lips twitched. "Rutherford's could always hire you," she suggested.
He stared back at her with steely determination.
"I thought it was only for the pleasure?" she asked him then, knowing, just as he did, it had always been more.
"For the love, Kia," he whispered. "I love you with everything I am. Marry me."
"You just asked," she pointed out.
He stared back at her, and she saw all that love, felt all that love.
"I want nothing more than to marry you," she said softly.
He touched her cheek. His thumb whispered over her lips.
"I love you," he whispered. "More than I ever thought I could love."
"And I love you, more than any woman should be able to love."
Their lips met, their hearts, and for the first time in memory, Chase knew something, someone, was totally his. But even more, for the first time in his life, he belonged to that someone just as well.
Cameron came awake slowly, disoriented, then his expression eased and a smile lifted his lips.
He was sleeping in the new bed Jaci had bought months before. A monster king-size, heavy, four-poster of dark wood and masculine lines. So he would always be comfortable in it, he knew.
She was curled against him, her rear tucked into the curve of his body, his arms around her as she slept.
It wasn't Jaci who had awakened him, but Chase. Once, as twins, they had been aware of each other's nightmares. There were no more nightmares, and it seemed that now they could sense each other's joy as well.
He could sense that in his twin.
He smiled and let his eyes close again. Once, long ago, they had planned for just this. A life where they held love in the palms of their hands, where their families would always be close, always secure. And those dreams, so fragile at the time, were coming true.
But even more important, his twin was happy. He was complete.
Chase, unlike Cameron, hadn't lost the need for the darker passions, but Chase's reasons for them had always been different, too. For him, it was the pleasure; for Cameron, it was for the distance.
And Jaci allowed no distance.
He tucked her closer and let sleep take him once again. It had taken a while, but life was finally just
right
.