"The fucking scenery isn't that interesting," she burst out as he stared out the window. "Did you know about this? Did my fathers?"
Shayne turned to look at her and cleared his throat. "It's a rule. All members have to be informed in the eventuality of this. No names are given, nor the location of where you're staying. Simply that you are staying on the property and that your protection is assured by the club. That means we're all responsible for your safety and well-being." He stared directly at her then. "And we take it very seriously.
"Well, bully the hell for you and your club members!" she sneered. "But you can count me out. I do believe I have other plans."
"And those plans are?" Khalid wasn't happy, but at the moment, she really didn't give a damn. She couldn't believe he would dare attempt to stash her someplace safe while he and Shayne got to run around having fun catching terrorists. It wasn't going to work out like that.
"Anger Thornton is hosting a party in two nights," she informed them both as she sat back and crossed her arms over her breasts. "I'm scheduled to be there, as are the rest of the very powerful and elite here in D.C. There's enough gossip at those parties that if a person catches the right whispers, they may very well get a clue as to what is going on."
"We attend the party and do what?" Shayne asked. "We have no idea who to watch, question, or kill. You're reaching Marty."
"As long as I hide, Ayid and Aman will never show their faces or their intentions," she snapped back at him. "Put me out there. Show them we're not frightened, that we intend to fight back, and you'll piss them off. You'll make them move."
"And risk your life?" Khalid said as he leaned forward and all but shoved his nose against hers. "I don't think so."
Marty watched Khalid. It wouldn't work without his cooperation, without his help. He would have to be there with her as well as Shayne to present the correct image and to incite the brothers who hated him so desperately.
"I don't need your permission," she stated coolly. "Don't make this mistake, Khalid. You can work with me. I can even follow your lead. But I'm not a helpless little homebody that's going to be content to sit in some basement and twiddle my damned thumbs while you're out having fun catching the bad guys."
"I can't believe she's pissed off because she thinks we're going to have fun!" Shayne said.
"Call it what you will." She shrugged negligently as Khalid leaned back slowly. "Either way, you can work with me or I can work alone. Anger's party is perfect for this. There's always a fair number of Saudi businessmen in attendance, and trust me, those guys gossip worse than any other men I've ever met."
Khalid glared at her. She glared back. She wasn't backing down. She wasn't going to hide and play dead and hope the monsters went away. She was going to fucking slay them.
Long moments later elation seared through her at his slow nod. "Under the right circumstances, the right controlled conditions," he agreed. "And with your fathers' supervision."
She wanted to roll her eyes at the thought, but a part of her also agreed with him. Her fathers could ensure her safety as well as lay a trap that could catch anyone who may be watching or tailing them. If they caught the assassin, if his brothers were in the States, then the mole would be revealed, it was that simple. Khalid's sexual lifestyle was a sore point with the royal family, considering he was distantly related to them, she knew. Their faith didn't allow for the extremities which Khalid had made a part of his life.
"Dad and Zach can arrange the security we need as well as any extra surveillance to watch for your brothers and their assassin," she said. "It could be the chance we need to put an end to this."
"If they take the bait," Khalid pointed out, his voice, his expression dark and brooding now.
"We're the bait," she told him. "The very fact someone has already struck at me assures it."
"My original suggestion stands," Shayne drawled, his tone dangerously low now. "Someone would be doing the world a favor if Ayid and Aman simply disappeared."
Marty couldn't help but agree, from a personal standpoint. As a law enforcement agent, though, it was a harder call.
Khalid simply said nothing. His gaze remained locked on her, his eyes black, a flicker of light, like white-hot flames, gleaming in tiny pinpoints with the raw emotions she could feel tearing through him.
"Come to me." He held his hand out to her once again. "If you have to risk your life in such a way, then I'll at least have what you're willing to give me for now."
Marty restrained an instinctive flinch at the harsh tone of his voice. But she couldn't deny him. She knew how he felt. Knowing the danger he faced, that he had faced most of his life, left her insides shaking with fear.
Moving slowly she closed the distance between them, allowing him to draw her into his arms.
The second he did so, she melted. The warmth that surrounded her abated her previous anger and struck a spark to the flames of arousal that simmered, ever present, within her.
The intimacy she had missed in his bed was there now, as though he needed to hold her, to cushion her against his chest to assure himself that she was safe, that she was his to touch.
And he intended to touch her.
Tipping her head back, he didn't ask for permission to kiss her. As though the very thought of the danger she could be facing spurred the need he felt for her, his lips and tongue took hers with a hunger that burned through her.
Holding her to him with desperate hands, and lifting her closer to him, Khalid ate at her lips, licked at them. He drew her into a sensual, heated world where nothing mattered but his touch and the desires raging through her now that she was in his arms.
It felt as though it had been ages. Centuries. It had been too damned long. It had been since this afternoon, and as far as she was concerned, that was a lifetime ago.
As he kissed her, as his hands roved over her back, her hips, she felt the touch of another's hands at her thighs.
Shayne.
It wasn't a shock; it was an addition to the pleasure, a sensual, erotic enticement that stoked the fire burning inside her higher, hotter.
"I've wondered who held your heart." Shayne's voice was a caress against her senses as Khalid's lips stroked from hers to her jaw, her neck. "Then I wondered if I had a chance at being his third."
Fingers pulled her blouse from her jeans; she didn't know whose, she didn't care. All that mattered was the touch, the pleasure, and Khalid.
All that mattered was the feel of the fingers slowly unbuttoning her blouse, pulling the edges apart, and revealing her lace-covered breasts as Khalid's lips brushed from her neck to her bare shoulder.
Sensual weakness filled her muscles, making her feel dazed, mesmerized. Their touch mesmerized her. She had expected pleasure, but she hadn't expected what she was feeling now.
The front clip of her bra was released, the lace was peeled away from the swollen mounds. Marty's head tipped back on her shoulders as Khalid supported her, held her against his chest and stared down at the fingers brushing over, against, around her breasts.
The window between the front and back had been raised. She didn't know when he had done it; she didn't care.
They didn't undress her, though she felt as though the material of her clothes were too rough against her sensitive flesh. Heat burned her bared flesh as the tips of calloused male fingers rasped against it gently.
"I want to watch," Khalid whispered against her ear. "I want to see your pleasure, Marty. I want to see the hunger in your eyes. I want to watch your face flush with pleasure."
The overwhelming desire, the need, roughened his voice and sped through her own system like a wildfire racing out of control.
Her eyes opened as she felt his arm brace the back of her neck, lifting her head to meet his gaze. She felt too drowsy, too inundated with the exquisite pleasure tearing through her to protest anything he wanted at the moment. Perhaps not at a later moment, either.
She didn't pretend to understand the need the men of the club had to share their women. At the moment, she didn't care. At the moment the pleasure racing through her was all that mattered.
"So pretty," he whispered, his gaze moving from her face to where Shayne was caressing her breasts. His palms cupped the swollen mounds, his thumbs rubbing over them as Khalid leaned back and shifted her body until she was facing Shayne.
He leaned forward, his dark blue gaze heavy-lidded, his cheekbones flushed with lust as he watched Khalid's palm curve around the side of her breast, lifting the tight, hard nipple to him as though in invitation.
A whimper left her lips as Shayne's head lowered. Her hands clutched at the outside of Khalid's thighs, and her head fell back against his shoulder as Shayne's lips covered the ultrasensitive peak of her breast.
Heated moisture surrounded her nipple as Shayne sucked it into his mouth, drawing on it, his tongue flickering over it with wicked intent as Khalid drew her arms up and back until she curled them around his neck.
The taut arc of her body seemed to make her nipples more sensitive, as though it stretched the nerve endings, revealing more of them for Shayne to torture with the sensual licks of his devilish tongue.
"Feel good?" Khalid's lips brushed against her neck as a hoarse cry tore from her throat.
"Khalid, please . . ." Each heated draw of Shayne's mouth sent sizzling sensations down the neural pathway from her nipple to her clit. She swore she could feel each lick of his tongue on the tight, hard knot of nerve endings between her thighs.
"Oh, I intend to please you, baby." His teeth raked against her neck. "Shayne and I both intend to please you all over."
All over. She was shaking, trembling with pleasure as she tried to arch closer, to bury her nipple deeper into Shayne's mouth as he sucked at it hungrily.
"Damn, that's pretty," he breathed, his voice rough with hunger as a hand curled around her other breast and fingers began to pluck at the hard peak.
She tried to writhe against his lap, the feel of the heated length of his cock pressing against his slacks had her pussy throbbing and spilling her juices into her panties.
When Shayne drew back, she watched in an agony of need as he slowly drew the cups of her bra back over her breasts and fixed the latch.
His gaze locked on hers, he drew the edges of her shirt together and buttoned them.
Marty fought to breathe, the act of having Shayne redress her as Khalid held her in place was almost as erotic as being undressed by them.
"We're home," Khalid told her softly, as the last button was pushed through its hole.
The limousine came to a stop in front of the house as Khalid let his lips caress the sensitive flesh just beneath her ear.
She wanted to scream out at the intrusion of reality. She wanted to order Abdul to keep driving, to stay in the car, to give her just a few more moments of a pleasure that she hadn't imagined could be so exquisite.
She wanted just a few more minutes in their arms.
Chapter 14
Khalid had promised himself years ago that he would never allow himself to love a woman--not that true, undying love that could destroy a man when his woman was gone, as it had destroyed Abram. As they neared the house, though, he was beginning to wonder if he hadn't broken that rule without even knowing when or how it had happened.
The thought of losing Marty left him in a cold sweat. The thought of what his brothers would have done to her if their hired killer had managed to take her left his guts cramped with fear.
Sitting on his lap in the limo, she had been the most beautiful woman in the world. Locked in pleasure, her lithe, slender body arching, reaching for more. She had nearly had him coming in his jeans.
As they stepped from the limo he watched as she blinked, trying to force her mind to clear, her senses to steady. He knew almost the moment she managed to reenter reality. And if the thoughtful, suddenly contemplative look on her face was any indication as they started up the steps to the front door, then she was coming up with more questions already.