“What do I do with it?”
“If he comes back in here... if he tries to pick up where he left off, shoot him.”
Shoot her own brother? Despite what he’d tried to do to her, she was still appalled.
“I…”
“If you can’t take the shot,” he cut in harshly, “then don’t pull the gun. Don’t let him know you have it, or he’ll know where you got it.”
That it would go badly for them both was a sentence he didn’t need to finish. She put the gun on the stone rail, every tingling nerve in her body in revolt. The heavy coldness of the gun was the last thing she wanted to hold. Standing this close to Christian, it was harder for her to feel the unpleasantness of her brother’s touch that still lingered on her skin, but it was there. Tiny tingles ran up the backs of her thighs where he’d straddled her. A faint humming sensation moved under the skin of her cheek, her lips, and the back of her neck.
She hesitantly touched his cheek, her fingers tingling at the contact, a reminiscent touch of what Fariq had done to her, but the resulting sensation was so not the same.
Christian flinched. “Don’t,” he said harshly, his voice husky and low, dipping into ‘bedroom’ tones that made her shiver.
“What?” she asked, unable to stop looking at his mouth. What would it feel like to have his lips brushing across the back of her neck? His big hands throwing her down on the bed, tearing off her panties to bare her for his taking?
“What you’re doing now,” he snapped. “Looking at me like I’m some sort of damned hero. I’m not.”
But wasn’t he, though? Didn’t heroes do exactly this sort of thing, promise to help where help was needed? She bit her bottom lip, her thumb moving of its own accord to caress his mouth.
He caught her wrist but didn’t snatch her hand from his skin, almost as if he couldn’t. At that moment, for just a flash, she thought he was angry with her. It was right there, glittering inthe depths of his intensely blue eyes right before he swore under his breath.
In the next moment, he yanked her hand away, throwing off her touch before capturing her face in his hands and crushing her lips beneath his own in a kiss so passionate, her toes curled. Her back arched, melting into him as her breasts pressed hard against his chest, the ache to feel him, skin to bare skin more than she wanted to endure.
She tried to catch his shoulders, for the stability as much as to ease her need to feel him, but he grabbed her arms again, twisted them up behind her back, and pinned her wrists together just above her ass, holding them in one of his big hands while his other grabbed the front of her silk nightgown. The fragile fabric ripped when he yanked it, tearing one fragile spaghetti strap at the shoulder seam, baring her left breast. The heat as he engulfed her nipple, catching it in a suckling wet kiss, stole her breath away.
She wanted to be quiet. There were men—armed guards—stationed outside her door. The last thing she wanted was to have them come in to investigate any sounds of ‘distress,’ but a tiny mewl escaped when his suckling kiss ended in a nip, the sharpness of his teeth sending zings from her breast straight to her pulsing womb, titillating more than it hurt. Looking at her, his face darkened with a war of desire and reluctance.
Her breath caught, and her whole body ached with need.
“More?”
Abruptly he let her go, and in his harsh, low bedroom voice, said, “Don’t, Aliya. I’m not gentle.”
When had she ever known gentle?
“I didn’t ask you to be,” she countered.
That didn’t bring him closer, though. He backed away, one shaky step after another with a warring look in his eyes that said he knew better than to give in to this, no matter how much hewanted it. The bulge in the front of his jeans made that much unmistakable. Her fingers ached to touch it, to fill her grip with it, and feel for herself just how hard, long, and thick he was with his desire for her.
She edged back into her room, stopping just across the balcony threshold to stand in the last rays of light from the dying sun, nothing but a line of brightness along the ocean horizon. The water and sky behind Christian were painted in streams of purple with a blue-black blanket growing to cover it from the East. Retreating just a little deeper into her bedroom, she stopped again. Sliding the only remaining spaghetti strap off her arm, she let the remnants of her silk nightgown slip down her body until it was nothing but a pink puddle at her feet.
She’d never done this before, not for anybody. Always under her brother’s watchful gaze, when had she ever had a chance? When had she ever wanted to? His eyes fixed, first on her hands, then on her breasts when she bared them, until she finally stood there, naked before him, hesitantly offering up her hands—offering herself to him.
The dark hunger grew so fiercely, it was all she could see on his face as he gazed his fill of her.
“More,” she whispered again.
“Shit,” he said as he broke free of the fragile tethers his self-control had tried to bind him in.
He tore off his shirt as he stormed toward her, casting it aside to grab her. His hands clapped onto her ass, lifting her hard and fast against him, her feet leaving the floor. It was so exhilarating and natural to wrap her arms and legs around him, clinging to him with the whole of her body as he carried her to her bed, consuming her with hungry kisses every step of the way.
Dropping her on the mattress, he crawled over the top of her.
“You think you want more? Be careful what you ask for, little girl. I’m just the kind of man to find out exactly how much you can take.”
He whipped his belt off, the maneuver mesmerizing her, but not in a fearful way. She felt the strong pulse of her pussy as she watched him use the length to bind her wrists above her head, fastening her to the rail of her headboard. That caught her by surprise, but she didn’t panic. She could have got out if she wanted… but she didn’t. As tight as the leather felt around her skin, he’d buckled it so loosely to the rail, with a little pulling, she’d have come free.