Lora Leigh - Guilty Pleasure

Amazingly, he was hard. His cock stood out stiff and heavy from his body, the thick, engorged crest throbbing enticingly as rivers of water and suds flowed around it.

Marty resisted the urge to lick her lips as she jerked her gaze to his face.

A flush stained her face as she caught him watching her, his black eyes narrowed, the sign of emotion in his expression being the glimmer of hunger in his black eyes.

“There is no need for you to search for answers,” he said, his voice still cold. “I told you. Lessa has no more to do with this than Abram and I had to do with her death. It requires no more explanation than that.”

“I’m sorry, but it’s not that easy.” After wringing the excess water from her hair, she reached for the shower door as she stared back at him intently. “I need to know what happened, Khalid, and I need more than you gave me as an explanation for your brothers’ behavior. Otherwise, I’m going searching for answers whether you want me to or not.”

“Is that a threat?” he asked, his tone snapping with ire.

“It’s an alternative,” she informed him. “It’s information I deserve to know, whether it’s part of this investigation or not. If a woman died because she was a lover to you and to your brother, then as your lover now, it’s something I need to be aware of. Something I deserve to be aware of.”

“Damn it, it has nothing to do with you,” he growled, the anger she knew was brewing in him shading his voice.

“It has everything to do with me.” Emotion erupted as her voice rose slightly, the pain she was beginning to feel tearing through her now. “You have all of me, Khalid. You have parts of me I swore I’d never give a man, and you share them. Don’t you bloody well tell me that I have no right to the answers I need. Don’t you dare even think you have a right to deny me those answers.”

Marty was shaking. She felt the tears rising to her eyes and stepped quickly from the shower, slamming the door behind her as she placed a stranglehold on the screaming pain beginning to radiate through her.

Why this hurt so desperately she couldn’t fully explain. She was fighting to protect him. She had lain her own career on the line even before becoming his lover to protect the innocence she believed in. To protect the man who already held a part of her heart.

He’d refused point-blank to ever discuss the time he had spent with his family in the Middle East. She’d assumed it was because of the ill feelings he harbored toward them. She had never imagined it was because someone had died, that there had been a woman, one he had shared with his brother, whom he hadn’t been able to forget.

That was what hurt. She’d seen the look in his eyes, the sudden chill that had filled his expression. Khalid felt something for the mysterious Lessa. There was a part of him that still belonged to her.

How the hell was she supposed to fight a dead woman for his heart?

Jerking the towel from around her body, she dried quickly before heading to the bedroom. She dressed quickly as well. Panties; loose, dark blue pajama bottoms; and a matching T-shirt that fell well below her hips. Sitting down on the side of the bed, she gripped the thick socks she held in her hand and fought to breathe past that hurt.

She felt chilled, uncertain. Naked.

God, what was she doing to herself? She felt as though a part of her was splintering from the inside out in pain.

“Why is this so important to you?” His voice was low, brooding, as she jerked her socks on.

Marty lifted her head and stared back at him in pain.

“I have the right to know.” Perhaps she didn’t; she could be wrong. Her heart assured her she wasn’t. He was becoming so much a part of her that she wasn’t certain anymore where she ended and he began inside her soul.

Plowing his fingers through his damp hair, a heavy sigh left his chest as he moved into the bedroom and jerked a pair of loose white pants on over his dark, muscular legs.

Silence filled the bedroom. It was thick, heavy with tension, as Marty waited to see what he said, or what he would do.

“She was our lover,” he finally said softly.

Marty stood slowly, turning to him only to find herself staring at his back as he stood in front of the heavily tinted windows.

“Yours and Abram’s,” she said.

He nodded. “More Abram’s. She was his wife.” He shrugged as though in afterthought.

She watched his profile as he rubbed at his face and grimaced heavily.

“What happened?”

He gripped his neck tight for long seconds before blowing a hard breath and turning back to her.

“As I told you before, we thought Ayid and Aman as well as their wives had been killed in that explosion. We didn’t know Ayid and Aman had surivived. I was attacked hours later, taken out into the desert and nearly killed. Abram went to Riyadh at our father’s request to learn what had happened to Ayid and Aman. Once we were both out of the way, Ayid and Aman returned to the palace.” He closed his eyes as he turned away from her and fought back the tightening of his gut at the knowledge of how Lessa had been found.

“Ayid and Aman did it?” she asked.

He nodded. “They weren’t where they were supposed to be. Their wives were there, but they weren’t. The moment the building was bombed, they knew I had betrayed them. They knew, because I had been at their home and seen the paper that the location was written on. They knew that. Ayid caught me reading it. I told him it was near my favorite coffeehouse. We laughed about it.”

Marty felt the raw agony that glittered in his eyes.

“There was no reason for them to believe I would think anything of it.” He breathed out roughly. “No reason to think it would affect their plans. After all, I was no more than the bastard brother who wanted nothing more than to make the world my playground.”

Marty sat silently, watching the emotions that flitted across his face.

Hatred and fury flashed in his eyes for a second before he shook his head and moved from the window to the small sofa that faced the bed. Sitting down, he laid his arms on his knees and stared at the floor for long seconds.

“Shayne found me in the desert,” he continued wearily. “When I made it back to the castle it was to find Abram screaming in rage at our father. As strong as he was, as unbendable as he could be, still, he cried when Azir called his wife a whore. Then he admitted he knew that Abram had shared his wife with me, and that because of that he would do nothing to Ayid and Aman for her murder.” He turned away from her for a long moment before continuing in a voice thick with grief. “I had sworn to protect her as I would my own wife. I swore to love her as I would love my own. And I failed her.” When he turned back to her his gaze was bleak with sorrow. “You have always watched me with such pride, with such confidence in my strength. To have you know the truth, to know I failed Lessa when I swore to protect her, to love her with all I was…” He gave his head a hard shake. “It was a truth I did not want you to know.”

“And you think this affects how I see you?” she whispered painfully. “That I would blame you?”

“I blame me,” he stated simply. “I failed, when I should have been more diligent.”

“Your father failed.” A tear slipped down her cheek as she read the pain in his eyes, in his face. He had made a promise, a vow, and the knowledge that fate had conspired against him had obviously nearly destroyed him.

“I watched that crazy old bastard that day. I saw a monster who had helped create me, and I wanted to be sick.” He jumped to his feet and paced the room again as Marty watched, aching for him.

“She was so young.” He turned back to her, his gaze tortured. “We were so young.” A sharp laugh left his throat. “So stupid to believe that we could ever change what hasn’t changed in the history of the world.”