He stroked, kneaded. His fingers clenched into the sensitive mounds and parted them, sending shooting arcs of sensation racing along the hidden entrance that the narrow cleft concealed.

She had touched herself there, just to see what it felt like. She had wondered what Khalid's touch there would do to her senses. Now she knew. His fingers slid deeper into the parted flesh, stroked, pressed.

There was too much pleasure. Sensation upon sensation began to attack her, building and flooding her senses with waves of nearing ecstasy as she fought to hold on to just enough control to memorize every touch, every arc of the hungry flames licking through her now.

"Damn you." He jerked back from her again, but he didn't let her go.

As she stared up at him, her body riding high on the pleasure racing through her, his fingers pressed beneath the silk of her panties and found the hot, slick juices.

"Stop pushing for this," he commanded, but still his fingers slid through the rich essence, gathered it and drew it back to the tight, shy entrance of her ass. "Before you destroy us both."

Her head fell back again as shock rounded her eyes and pleasure stole her breath. His finger pressed against the snug entrance, then entered just enough to send a pinch of pleasure pain tearing through her before halting.

"Khalid." His name tore from her lips.

"God help me." His eyes glittered in the darkness as his thumb pressed into the clenched opening of her pussy. "You're so fucking tight I ache to be inside you." His finger and thumb flexed, moved inside her, creating shards of sensation that threatened her sanity.

This wasn't the place for it, a part of her whispered. The other part, the woman dying for his possession, was screaming for it in silence.

Her knees tightened on his hips, her lashes fluttering at the exquisite sensations overtaking her.

"Then why fight it?" She was almost begging now. "You're teasing me, Khalid. Teasing us both."

"I'm drowning in you." His lips sipped at hers again. "And you're doing nothing to save either of us."

"But I don't want to be saved," she whispered against his lips as he rubbed his own against hers. "If I wanted to be saved, I wouldn't be here. I'd be in another man's bed instead of begging to be in yours."

And that was what she was doing. Begging. Pleading, in all but words.

"Damn you." He pulled back again.

His finger slid from the heated, too sensitive grip of her anus as his thumb slid free of her pussy. Feeling him release her nearly destroyed her. Her knees were weak as she took her own weight, her system overloaded with desperation and the ache for release.

"This has to end now," he ordered, his voice rough. "No more."

"Coward." Jerking back from him she nearly stumbled as she pushed away from him and the tree, glaring back at him as she fought to get her breathing, her emotions, under control.

"Be careful, Marty." His hand jerked out, his fingers curling around her wrist as she tried to turn and head back to her car. "I could take that as a very serious threat."

"So sue me," she snapped back, pulling her arm out of his grip and stumbling from the shadows. "Better yet, don't bother, you'd lose. The evidence is all on my side, sweet cheeks."

Jerking her key from the small hidden pocket of her dress, she grabbed her purse from the ground where it had fallen and stalked to the door of her car.

Releasing the auto lock she pulled open the door and stared back at him from the dubious shield between them.

"You could never understand," he said, his tone filled with dark bitterness.

"And you'll never have the guts to explain," she accused him. "But I'm at a point where I really don't give a damn. Seducing you is starting to bore me anyway. I think I'll go home and see if I can find out why the hell Connor is in my town and what the three of you are up to. I do believe I would find that vastly more entertaining."

He moved fast. Coming from the shelter of the trees he was nearly upon her before she slid into the car, slammed the door closed, and shoved the key into place.

She didn't look at him until she was backing out of the parking space, and what she saw then sent more than shock racing through her. There was a thrill of arousal, and a spark of knowledge.

Behind him, Shayne did nothing to hide the fact that he was there. In the second that she caught his expression she saw the hunger, and knew he had been there watching, listening.

It was no more than she had already suspected, but she hadn't anticipated her own response to it. If she had been wet before, then her panties were soaked now. If she had been aroused before, then lust was flooding her now.

All for nothing.

Reversing quickly she pressed her foot to the gas and shot from the parking lot. It was time she took off the gloves where Khalid was concerned and show him that she may want him until hell froze over, but he sure as hell wasn't the only damned man in the world.

And quite frankly, she was sick of waiting on a lover who did nothing but deny her. It was time to check out other possibilities. And perhaps to show him exactly what he was going to be missing.

Chapter 3

A week later, Khalid stepped into the secured meeting room Sebastian had prepared and faced a part of his past that he had avoided at all costs.

Staring back at the man who could have been his twin brother, Khalid felt his chest tighten, felt the pent-up agony of guilt, and fought not to apologize once again for events he had been unable to control.

Abram el Hamid-Mustafa rose slowly from the couch, his muscular frame standing tall and proud as fierce black eyes stared from a face that had turned to stone years before.

A short, neatly trimmed beard and mustache now covered his lower face. Thick, heavy black lashes would have given his black eyes a sensual, drowsy look had it not been for the pure ice that filled his gaze.

That ice melted as Khalid closed the door behind him and watched as Abram approached him. Behind the other man, Sebastian remained sitting, just as Shayne did.

They were the only ones to attend this meeting, the first in more than two years.

"Khalid, you are of course looking as decadent as ever." A glimmer of a smile warmed Abram's dark gaze as he took in the jeans, the untucked white shirt, and casual leather shoes that Khalid wore.

Khalid grunted at the description as he shot a disgruntled look at his brother's attire. "Slumming today?"

Abram wore a baseball cap, jeans, and a black T-shirt with the name of a popular hard rock band emblazoned on it.

"Ah, the things we must do to survive, eh?" Abram plucked at the front of his shirt before giving Khalid a brief, strong hug and murmuring quietly, "It is good to see you again, little brother."

"Five minutes doesn't make me your little brother," Khalid reminded him as they parted.

"Of course it does." It was their lifelong argument. "Just because you are the son of his prized, redheaded pigeon doesn't make you any less younger than I. It simply makes you luckier."

Khalid's mother, Marilyn Kobrin, a French college student who had been kidnapped while on vacation had had a brother, as well as a fiance, who had been determined to find her. Marilyn hadn't been the type to sit around and wait on rescue, however.

No more than a few weeks after Khalid's birth, she had wrapped her child in a blanket, tied him to her back, and escaped the palace she had been locked inside, for the desert beyond.

She should have died. The desert was no place for a woman alone with a child to care for and very little water for her on her journey.

Fortunately, her brother and fiance had managed to track her to Azir's lands and had been watching the palace as she scaled down the wall that had enclosed the gardens that the women were allowed to gather within.

Azir's "redheaded pigeon," as he had called her, had flown the cage and quickly escaped with the son Azir had claimed as his second heir. An heir he hadn't seen again for eighteen years.

"I'm not so certain about the 'lucky' part." Khalid shrugged. "It seems to me that neither us have much influence in the luck department."

"Luck is what you make of it." Abram sighed wearily as they both moved to the bar.

Sebastian and Shayne joined them, the two men remaining quiet as Khalid and Abram fought to find that comfort level they had once shared.

They had been nearly inseparable after Khalid had returned to the desert to meet, and to destroy, the man who claimed to be his father. Now, more than ten years later, Khalid wondered if he and Abram weren't the ones who would eventually be destroyed.

"So, I hear from Shayne that your woman has you running in circles." There was an edge of amusement to Abram's voice, as well as something else. Something darker, something edged with danger or warning.

"She's definitely making life interesting," Khalid agreed as Shayne poured their drinks and handed them across the bar.

"She's got him watching the shadows and pacing the rooms, Abram." Shayne grunted. "He doesn't know if he's coming or going."

Khalid's lips tightened as he turned away from the bar.

"There is no need for guilt, Khalid." Abram's quiet statement made him pause.

"Isn't there?" Khalid asked before shaking his head and continuing to the sitting area arranged in the middle of the room. "Why are you here, Abram?"

He couldn't imagine what would make his brother risk his life, as well as his place within Azir Mustafa's heirship, to visit his little brother.

"Actually, I managed to manipulate Azir into ordering the visit." Disgust filled Abram's tone as he spoke of their father. "He wishes the trip to remain a secret from Ayid and Aman. According to him, it would only upset them needlessly."

Rage ignited inside Khalid at the thought of Azir's loyalty to his two youngest sons. They were terrorists, men who sought to destroy everything the royal family, Azir's distant cousins, had ever fought to maintain.

Azir had protected them for far too many years. He had lied for them, defended them, stood in front of his king and swore that Khalid lied, and that, as an American citizen, Khalid had no loyalty to Saudi Arabia or to the ruling family. And therefore, there was no basis to believe his account of the death of Lessa Mustafa, Abram's young wife.

"And how did you manage such a manipulation?" Khalid sneered, thinking of Azir and his own manipulations where his two youngest sons were involved.

"There are rumors." Carrying his drink, Abram moved to the sofa across from Khalid and took his seat once again. "Azir has heard that you were involved in the capture of a small terrorist cell moving into D.C. several months ago. Two of the men were killed. Ayid and Aman were involved with this terrorist cell. Azir fears you're going to target this once again."

"So I have." Khalid sipped at his drink as he stared back at Abram, reading the hatred and icy rage in his brother's gaze.

It was a rage that filled Khalid as well. A rage born of blood and death, of deceit and hatred.

"Azir does to Ayid and Aman the same as he does to us." Abram grimaced in anger. "You know this well. He defends them, refuses to believe the truth. That we will destroy Ayid and Aman, no matter what it costs, and vice versa. The world he lives in is not one that reality touches."

"At least not in this matter," Khalid agreed. "Did the old bastard send you to beg me again not to kill them?"

Each time his brothers fucked up, Azir sent a plea to Khalid to stay his hand, to leave his brothers unharmed. Khalid ignored each plea, and with every bit of information and proof he could garner, he sought to take his brothers down.

"This is a fair description of the reason he sent me," Abram said, his tone rasping with fury and pain. "As though the past had never happened." Abram shook his head. "As though the blood of my wife does not stain their hands."