Page 299 of Wild Mustang Security Firm

“Fair enough.” Fariq swatted Aliya’s ass several times with little force, more like brotherly pats, then let her go.

She scrambled off his lap, slapping to get the folds of her skirt down in place before clasping and reclasping her hands fitfully in front of her. Humiliated, her cheeks wet with tears, her chest heaving, she didn’t look at either of them.

“What do we say?” Fariq drawled.

“Thank you for correcting me and teaching me,” she replied, each word tumbling out on the heels of the last so swiftly, Christian could barely understand them.

“You may pick up your panties,” Fariq said.

Snatching them off the floor, she wadded them into a tight ball in her hands.

“You are grounded,” Fariq said in a dismissive tone. “You may not leave your room for the next five days and until I give you leave. Run along.”

Snapping around, she fled his office, leaving his door thrown open wide behind her. One of the guards in the hall eventually reached back into the room far enough to close it.

Yeah, he hated himself all right.

Fariq stared at him, and Christian burned with the loathing effects of what his gutless lack of action had done to her, long after he could no longer hear her footsteps racing down the hall.

“I’d have smacked her harder.” Christian despised himself, but the comment had its intended effect.

Fariq brightened. “True, but you enjoy beating women. I prefer not to have to hurt my toys to make them submit.”

“You realize you just called your sister your toy.” The minute those words were out, he wished he could take them back. The amusement vanished from Fariq’s eyes, although he managed to keep his smile.

“Sister, toy, it doesn’t matter. She’s mine,” he repeated. “I’ve taken care of her for years, watched her grow, saved her life. Saved her from marriage to a pedophile. Saved her from the mutilation of circumcision my father would have inflicted on her had he not died when he did. She is alive today, whole today, the person she is today,onlybecause I have allowed it.That, my friend, that is power.” His smile twisted. “My darling sister owes me more than she realizes, and when at last the day comes I decide to collect, she will do whatever I demand because I have spent years conditioning her to heed my commands. I am her brother, father, savior, disciplinarian, care provider. She simply doesn’t know any better than to love and obey me.”

And just like that, Fariq, the serpent who had been so ready to strike just seconds ago, once more became Fariq, the businessman.

“We have work to do.”

For the rest of the afternoon, they reviewed tapes, altered the shift schedule to make up for Lamar’s absence, and made the proper phone calls and condolences to smooth the political waters after the fucked-up raid on the marketplace. It didn’t matter what Fariq did or how often he smiled, whenever Christian glanced at him, all he saw was the serpent.

That, and Aliya, mortified beyond belief with her panties crumpled in her hand, so no one would see and wonder what she had just been made to do.

While he did nothing, except sit there and watch.

Chapter

Five

Aliya locked her bedroom door, not that she felt any safer. Fariq had a key to every door on his yacht, and her room was certainly no exception.

She broke down, melting against the door, dissolving into tears, but even that brief fury of sobs didn’t last or come out as more than just a hitching breath or two. Then she was running again, this time into the bathroom. Ripping off her clothes and dropping them on the floor, she ran the hottest bath she could stand to sit in.

She could still feel Fariq’s hand between her thighs as she scrambled to scrub herself clean. She could feel those half-hearted smacks of his hand bouncing off her bottom cheeks just before letting her go. They had felt nothing like the stinging swats delivered by Christian. While Fariq’s handling had brought only disgust, Christian’s had evoked far different, far more erotic feelings. Hugging her legs against her chest, Aliya buried her face between her arms and cried.

She remembered to turn off the water, but only because it overflowed the tub. In the end, she ran out of tears long before she ran out of sadness. In due course, the water grew cold. Eventually, Fariq even came to check on her. She never heardhim come in. The first she became aware he’d entered the bathroom was when she heard his tsk as he reached for a towel, spreading it out on the floor to mop up the spilled water.

“You know better than this,” he chided. “What is wrong with you?”

Rolling up his shirt sleeve, he reached into the water to unplug the tub. She hugged herself tighter, trying to hide her nakedness, but he paid no attention, simply shook out another clean towel and held it out for her.

“Come now. Up. You’ll catch your death.”

If she moved, she’d bare herself to him even more, but there was no way to refuse, not without risking another punishment.

Standing, she let him wrap her in the towel, the overlarge terrycloth folds covering her from shoulders to mid-thigh. Her legs didn’t want to work, she’d sat for so long. He had to help her balance as she stepped over the high side of the tub onto the damp floor.

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