Guilty Pleasure

5

The Sinclair balls were impossible to ignore, especially for those who were a part of the Sinclair club, or who knew Courtney. Members of the club were given a personal invitation by Ian Sinclair, with several reminders not to forget his wife’s ball. Those who didn’t attend endured his glares for weeks.

Married or single, the members knew better than to miss one. If there was one weekness Ian had, it was his delicate little wife and anything her merciless heart desired.

The end-of-summer event was in full swing when Khalid arrived, alone.

He moved across the ballroom to the bar on the far side and ordered a drink stiff enough to burn through the hunger riding him as he searched for Marty and Shayne. Apparently they hadn’t arrived yet.

“Khalid, thank you so much for being here.”

Turning, he accepted the fierce hug from the petite sprite dressed in red. Courtney smiled up at him. Behind her stood her brooding husband, Ian. And Ian always brooded whenever his wife was surrounded by hungry males. At least, that was how he described them.

“I only obey the commands given,” Khalid assured her, grinning, as she pouted back at him impudently, her chocolate-brown eyes gleaming with impish delight. “Though, I have to admit, your buffet is better than most.”

“Ian, he’s being mean to me,” she complained, frowning back at her husband.

“Stop being mean to Courtney, Khalid,” Ian ordered, with a mock glare that had his wife pressing her elbow sharply into his hard abs.

Khalid grinned at the move, though his gaze roved the ballroom, searching, as always, for that one delicate figure. If he hadn’t needed to discuss the situation with Ian, then he would have never allowed Shayne to pick up Marty for the party tonight.

“I need to talk to you a moment, if you don’t mind.” Khalid stepped forward, his voice low as he drew Ian’s attention.

“Of course. My study?” Ian nodded to the smaller doorway leading from the ballroom.

The newly constructed mansion boasted two stories and two wings. The shorter wing housed the ballroom and Ian’s offices, while the main house occupied the larger wing.

Following Ian through a short hall, Khalid stepped into the study while he the other man watched him curiously.

“Courtney and her parties.” Ian sighed as he strode to the small bar in the corner of the room and fixed two whiskeys. “I swear, you’d think they were world events the way she plots and plans around them.”

“For Courtney, they usually are,” Khalid drawled, accepting the drink.

“I believe Sebastian has been telling us all horror stories about the balls she and her mother used to throw.”

Sebastian had known Courtney before her arrival in Virginia nearly two years earlier. Before she had made the decision to win the elusive Ian Sinclair’s heart.

She had stolen Ian’s heart, and the friendship of everyone else she had touched since then. That didn’t mean they didn’t live in fear of her disapproval. Or her anger. She had a temper that could make a grown man whimper in fear.

Ian tugged at the tight neck of his evening shirt and shook his head.

“You wanted to discuss Courtney’s predilection to overdramatize her parties, or was there something more on your mind?” Ian asked as he walked to the desk and sat down, with a long, drawn-out sigh.

“Actually, there was more on my mind.” Khalid shoved his hands in the pockets of his tuxedo pants before turning and pacing to the French doors that opened out into Courtney’s personal gardens. “A situation has developed. I may need to make use of the club for a short time. And there could be some problems involved in it.”

“What sort of problems?” Ian kicked his feet up on the corner of the desk as he leaned back in the chair, with the air of a man taking advantage of a small reprieve.

“I may need a place to run to.” Khalid turned around, rubbing at his neck as he watched the other man carefully.

“Our doors are always open.” Ian shrugged and he smothered a yawn.

“Marty might be with me.”

He stopped mid-yawn. Ian stared back at Khalid as though he had lost his mind, before slowly lowering his feet to the floor and sitting to attention as his jaw snapped closed.

“You’re joking.” Ian’s dark blue eyes narrowed on him in warning. “You know the rules, Khalid. They’re not broken, for anyone.”

“Even if it could mean her life?” Khalid asked. He regarded Ian as he held back his grin. “I believe, during the Civil War, a small hidden cellar was built to hide the wives of the club members. Two senators’ wives and the wife and daughter of a general hid there for over week, while the club conducted regular business.” Ian sat back in his chair, lifted his gaze to the ceiling then closed his eyes as though the search for answers had just become too exhausting.

“What the hell is going on, Khalid, that you may need to protect your woman here, in this club?” Ian finally growled as his eyes opened again. He looked at him in frustration.

“My past.” Khalid sighed as he moved to the heavy leather chair on the other side of Ian’s desk and sat down. “Or more to the point, my half brothers. They’ve learned of a problem I might have created for them. One that may have cost them a large amount of funds, as well as respect of their peers.” Their terrorist friends. “They’ll definitely come after me. When they do, that will place Marty in the line of fire.”

Ian glared back at him. “You’ve been playing secret agent for Zach Jennings again, haven’t you?” he snapped. “Son of a bitch, Khalid. Every member of this fucking club has managed to get his ass shanghaied by Jennings, and I’m getting sick of it. I thought you didn’t enjoy following the crowd.”

Khalid restrained his chuckle. “I was perhaps the first,” he pointed out. “Needless to say, Jennings recruited me fresh out of high school, the year Azir Mustafa decided to assert his parental rights and tried to sue my mother for the years he had not been a part of my life.” Anger still churned inside him at the thought of what Azir had tried to do to his mother all those years ago.

It hadn’t been enough that he had bought her from her kidnappers, raped her, and locked her inside the walls of his palace, refusing to allow her to return home. But eighteen years later he had decided to torment her further by trying to sue her for the years she had kept Khalid hidden from him.

“Jennings can be a bastard.” Ian rose to his feet, moved to the bar and poured two straight whiskies. Returning to the desk he handed a glass to Khalid before resuming his seat. “So Daddy Dearest is doing what then?” he asked.

“Perhaps it would be more accurate to say it’s the evil half brothers who are now stepping in for him,” Khalid explained. “As I said, I’ve cost them a fair amount financially as well as personally. It may become imperative that I find a safe place where Marty will be protected until the situation can be resolved.”

“And you’ve discussed this with Marty?” Ian asked, still holding back his assent.

“I thought I should first make certain you had no problems with it,” Khalid answered with mocking innocence.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Ian growled, his voice dark. “Does Marty know about the trouble that could be coming?”

“I’m certain I’ll have to explain it,” Khalid assured him, though it was something he wasn’t looking forward to. Losing Lessa had been one of the dark points in his life, a failure he had never been able to forgive himself for.

“I’m fairly certain it’ll be a requirement,” Ian told him facetiously before a grimace tightened his face. “Hell, Khalid, you know I can’t make this decision alone.” He rubbed at the back of his neck in irritation before continuing. “But I don’t see the request being rejected, considering she’s the daughter of two of our more powerful members. But this is a hell of a position to put me in here. You know it’s going to require notifying all six hundred members of the need to open a single room to female occupancy and listening to the bitching over it until the situation is resolved.”

Ian had stated more than once that the majority of the club members were like ten-year-olds with nothing better to do than bitch and whine.

“I do understand the position this could place you in. Were it just myself, Ian, I wouldn’t worry as much.”

“Yeah, you proved how much you don’t enjoy living the minute you let Jennings pull you into his little games,” Ian said with a hint of mocking disgust. “I thought you knew better.”

Khalid hid a smile. Ian and Zach Jennings rarely saw eye-to-eye over what Ian described as Zach’s unconscionable use of knowledge and information that came through the club. More than once Ian had actually protested when the FBI director had managed to pull a club member into an operation. The reason Jennings got away with it was the fact that, so far, no one had been placed in any true danger.

“I appreciate it, Ian.” Khalid rose from his seat as he finished his drink. “I better return to the party. Marty should be arriving soon.”

“And Courtney will kick my ass if I hide in here all night.” Blowing out a hard sigh Ian rose from his chair, a flash of irritation gleaming in his eyes.

“She’ll kick both our asses,” Khalid reminded him with a grin. “She’s not the nice, tamable sort that used to be your norm, my friend.”

“That she’s definitely not.” Laughter replaced the irritation as they left the study and headed for the ballroom. “And that is what makes life with Courtney so damned much fun.”

The sprite made everyone around her laugh, Khalid thought as he re-entered the ballroom and spotted Marty on the other side of the room.

Sensation slammed into his gut, heated his insides and had his cock thickening immediately.

Damn her, she could do to him what no other woman could. Make him helpless against his desire for her.

“Mr. Mustafa, Mr. Sinclair sent you a drink.” A waiter stepped in front of him, drink in hand.

Giving it to Khalid, the waiter moved away. Khalid lifted it to his lips, paused, and swore he would lose his breath as he watched Marty turn, caught her profile, and the smile that curled her lips as she and Shayne stood amid a crowd of her friends.

She was a beacon of light in the darkness, her dark blond hair pulled back from her face and glittering with sapphires. The short dress she wore was sapphire silk, riding high on her thighs and paired with heels matching in color that lifted her height enough to nearly match Shayne’s.

Her sleek feminine curves were made even more sensual by the dress and heels. Her shoulders were all but bare, her breasts full and pressing temptingly against the material covering them.

Shayne stood at her side, his hand resting low on her back, his fingers splayed against her lower back with a hint of possessiveness.

Khalid hid his smile. Shayne did want to play house for a while, and in his estimation his relationship with Khalid and Marty would allow that.

Well, it was always best to let a man learn the hard way that such schemes weren’t going to pan out. Marty’s heart was his, Khalid knew, just as Shayne did. There was no jealousy required, but that didn’t mean Khalid wouldn’t silently put the other man in his place when needed.

“I can feel the dagger in my back,” Shayne whispered in Marty’s ear as she lifted the champagne glass to her lips while half-listening to a school friend recount her latest trip to the Bahamas.

Ignoring Shayne’s laughing comment, she focused instead on a conversation she really didn’t give a damn about, just to prove, incorrectly, that she really didn’t give a damn. She wasn’t in the least amused that Khalid had had Shayne pick her up for the ball rather than picking her up himself. When he had called and asked her to accompany him tonight, she had cautiously accepted, interested to see where he was going with this. He was up to something. She could feel it. And she wanted to know what the hell it was.

“Andrew’s yacht is simply exquisite,” Tanya was exclaiming, as Marty felt Shayne’s hand press more firmly against her lower back in warning. “And Andrew does know how to throw a party. You should join us next month, Martha. It’s so much fun.”

She was going to gag. Martha. In all the years Marty had known Tanya, she had never had the good grace to use the nickname Marty’s mother had declared Marty would be called by when she was a baby.

Martha was her grandmother’s name. She’d been named Martha to fulfill her grandmother’s dying wish, and Marty was proud to own it. But her name was Marty. She had been Marty all her life, and she didn’t like Tanya’s pompous little voice sneering out her given name instead.

“I’m sure it’s just megawonderful, Tannie,” Marty cooed back at her. “But I think I might have to work. You know how it is. Have to make the rent money.”

Tanya’s eyes widened, though she never for a second caught the small slur Marty had sent her way.

“Dear, I’m certain your trust fund could cover you,” Tanya drawled with self-important sobriety. “After all, I do know your grandmother left you rather well off, even if your parents aren’t inclined to do so.”

Marty gritted her teeth. Her parents had taught her a strong work ethic-something that was uncommon among the glittering trust-fund babies and silver-spoon angels she had grown up with.

People like Tanya didn’t realize the work that had gone into the fortunes they now lived off and rarely contributed to.

“And I still prefer to pay my own expenses.” Marty’s eyes rounded mockingly. “Go figure.”

Tanya blinked back at her before turning to her husband, as though in confusion. The husband, an executive with Tanya’s father’s engineering firm, hid a smile.

“She’s an aberration, sweetheart.” Her husband, Mike Collie, sighed, as though he, too, was confused by Marty. “Remember how we used to pat her on the head when we were children and pray for her before sleeping?”

Tanya glanced back at her sympathetically.

“Yes, and now, Mike, I pray for you,” Marty stated sweetly, as he chuckled back at her, clearly unoffended by her remark.

“And I appreciate each prayer, my dear.” His blue eyes gleamed with amusement. He was one of the good ones. They were few and far between sometimes.

As pompous and arrogant as some of her childhood friends may be, most of them still had a sense of humor where it counted.

“Excuse me, I need to find my father for a moment,” Marty said when she glanced to the side and saw that Khalid had managed to pry himself away from a small group of men who had delayed him and he was now trying to make his way across the room.

Perfect timing, she thought. No one made it through this crowd quickly, which gave her a few more moments before he got to her. Keeping Khalid carefully in her peripheral vision as she hid her smirk at the frustration on his face, Marty and Shayne made their way to where Joe and Zach stood along with Ian Sinclair, and the owners of Delacourte-Conovers, a rising electronics development and manufacturing firm in the area. The Delacourtes and Conovers were heavy contributors to her father’s political funds, as well as friends.

“Marty.” Joe stood back, making room for her and Shayne as they entered the small group. “I see you finally made it.” Turning to Shayne, he extended his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Shayne.”

“You couldn’t at least consort within your own branch of law enforcement?” Zach muttered beside her, though she heard the amusement in his voice.

“I thought it best to have friends in all branches. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to look outside the box,” she replied, looking up at him with a smile.

“You can always look,” Zach reminded her, his gaze moving over her head before coming back. “Doesn’t mean you’ll succeed.”

She could feel Khalid now. As though his very aura had reached out, wrapped around her, and claimed her; she could feel him moving behind her.

“Shayne. Thank you for escorting my lovely date. I’ll take her off your hands now.” His voice was dark, brooding, sending a surge of sensation racing up her spine as she and Shayne turned to him.

“Evenin’ Khalid. And I must say, it was my pleasure.”

There were days when it sucked being at the mercy of what she liked to believe were no more than hormones. After all, how could you love a man who made you insane every time you saw him? It couldn’t be love, therefore it had to be a biological/chemical/pheromonal reaction that bound her to him.

“Marty.” Khalid turned to her then, and the force of those dark eyes staring into hers seemed to steal her breath and the last bit of common sense she might have possessed as his head lowered and his lips brushed hers.

“Khalid.” She tried to pretend that her reaction to him didn’t exist, but the brush of his lips against hers stole her breath and left her knees weakening in response.

“Dance with me.” The tone of his voice as he gripped her hand and pulled her to him had Marty’s heart racing as heat began to swirl through her body.

The dark edge of hunger in his tone was barely hidden, but it was his eyes, midnight velvet, so deep and filled with sensual promise that had her flesh sensitizing, her breasts swelling and her clit suddenly pulsing in reaction.

“I must admit Khalid, I didn’t expect you to have your third pick me up tonight,” she muttered as Khalid drew her against him and began moving her across the dance floor. “I was beginning to wonder if you had changed your mind concerning a relationship with me. Again.” Innocence marked her face and belied the subtle mockery in her tone.

“I apologize again, love,” he murmured, his thick lashes screening whatever emotion was in his eyes.

“Since he did pick me up tonight, that does rather make him my official date.” Marty kept her voice calm, sweet. Innocent. “I believe, as such, he’s entitled to certain privledges. Wouldn’t you think?”

“I don’t believe I would agree with that statement.” He didn’t beat around the bush. “Don’t play games with me, Marty. We’ve gone too far for that.”

“Really?” Arching her brows inquisitively she forced back the amusement she wanted to feel. She wanted what she was entitled to, all of him, or nothing. “So tell me then, Khalid, what game were you playing when you invited me to attend this ball with you, only to send Shayne to pick me up instead?”

“That is an explanation for another time,” he answered, his tone brooding.

“Then perhaps this relationship that I’ve fought so hard for is meant for another time as well. I won’t be pawned off like a reluctant responsibility. I’m certain there are other interested parties who would be more than happy to actually escort me themselves.” Marty shrugged negligently, though she paid particular attention to the fact that Khalid was dancing them closer to the darkened hallway that led to the main house.

“You would only turn them down were they to extend such an invitation,” he growled as he stared down at her, his expression darkening. “You rarely attend these balls with a date.”

Which, unfortunately, was no more than the truth.

“I didn’t always turn them down,” she reminded him. “Just particular ones. There were several I accepted over the years.”

“Men who had no chance of controlling you,” he pointed out. “You dated men who had no chance in hell of naysaying you in any decision you should make.”

The words had her lips parting in outrage as he stopped at the entrance to the hall before gripping her upper arm and drawing her into it.

“Couldn’t handle me?” She glared up at him as he led her through an opened doorway into a small library before closing the door behind them. “Khalid, no man handles me.”

Jerking her arm from his grip she rounded on him, every insult she could think of rising to her lips, ready to fall from her tongue.

“I do.”

Demanding, arrogant, his voice lit a fuse to her temper that had her lips parting to inform him otherwise, quite vocally. Instead, she found herself in his arms, his lips on hers, his larger, broader body bent to her as the hunger and the need held barely in check at the best of times, flamed out of control.

This was where she needed to be. All arguments aside. All pride aside. God help her, but she needed to be in his arms.

Her fingers clenched at the fine silken material of his evening jacket as she felt his hands splay against her back, drawing her closer. Small, sharp kisses fueled an already growing demand for his touch as Marty fought to get closer, to crawl into the hard, heated body holding her tight to his chest, to his kiss.

She felt as though she were flying. The pleasure whipped through her body, slicing through any hesitancy, any shyness. This was Khalid. The man she had been much too aware of since she was too young to even understand what it meant.

She wasn’t too young now. She was a woman, and though she may be technically innocent that didn’t mean she didn’t know what she wanted, what he would want, eventually.

“God, what you do to me.” His lips moved from hers, traveling to her jaw, her neck. “You destroy me, Marty.”

It was no less than he did to her.

His teeth raked against the sensitive flesh just under her jaw, causing rioting sensations to her nerve endings. Her nipples hardened beneath the material of her bodice; between her thighs, her clit throbbed, her juices spilling onto the silk of her panties.

Heat washed through her body, her thighs; her breasts tingled. His hands roved over her back, her shoulders, gripping the tab of the zipper at her back and slowly easing it down.

Weakness flooded her, a sensual, heated rush of pleasure rocking through her body and sending flares of sensation tearing into erogenous zones that she hadn’t known she possessed.

The feel of the silk bodice slipping over her hardened nipples made pleasure steal her breath. They ached with the same white-hot need that possessed her clit, the core of her body.

She could feel the need tearing through her unlike anything she had felt before.

“You make me forget.” The hard, hot growl followed by a sensual nip at her ear, as the cool air met the heated tips of her breasts, forced a strangled cry to escape her lips.

She wanted his lips all over her body. She wanted his hands lower, touching her, stroking her.

Sliding her fingers beneath the edges of his jacket, Marty sought to find a way to the warmth of his flesh beneath. She needed his touch. She needed to touch.

“Sweet. Sweet Marty.”

His hands gripped her waist, lifted her until she felt the cool wood of a desk against her thighs, as her fingers tore at the buttons of his shirt to reveal the hard, muscular contours of his chest.

This was what she wanted. What she needed. Her fingers curled against the light covering of rough curls on his chest, her nails raking through them as she felt his hand sliding up her side to the curve of her breast.

“I need you,” she whispered, as he pulled her closer, stepped between her thighs, and bent over her until Marty felt the desk meeting her back.

There was no time to think about where they were. They could be caught. Anyone could walk in on them.

Then his head was lowering.

Marty reached up, her fingers going to the leather tie that held back the long, coarse strands of black hair at his neck. When she loosened it, his hair fell around her fingers as his lips smoothed over the rise of her breast, his tongue licking, tasting her flesh, going ever closer to the aching peak of a breast.

Her fingers speared into his hair, her head tipped back farther, pleasure whirled through her system as her knees gripped his hips, her pussy cushioning the hard ridge of his cock beneath his slacks.

Shifting her hips beneath him, Marty felt the thick press of his erection as he thrust against her. His lips parted, his tongue licking over her nipple before drawing it into the heated dampness of his mouth.

The stroke of his tongue, the flex and suction of his mouth over the ultrasensitive tip, made her hands clench his hair tighter, holding him to her as she arched closer to the flick of his tongue over the heated tip.

The pleasure was torturous. She felt a searing sense of complete abandonment in his arms. Control had no meaning. Common sense had been lost long ago. There was just this, this man, this moment, this fantasy she had never been able to let go of.

“Do you know what you do to me?” The rough caress of his voice stole through her senses as her lashes lifted to stare into the black heat of his eyes.

“I know what you do to me.” She fought to breathe through the pleasure, through the sensations tearing through her as he brushed his jaw over her nipple, the light stubble on his flesh abrading with sensual roughness.

Staring back at him, Marty fought to hold on to her senses as she felt his palm sliding along her leg to her thigh. The feel of his calloused fingertips was a sensual rasp of exquisite pleasure.

“Khalid,” she panted his name, fought to still the trembling of her body as he leaned back enough to watch the progress of his fingers.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you?” His voice was dark, hungry. “Far longer than I should have, Marty. Far longer than I thought possible to want one woman.”

Moistening her lips with her tongue, she drew in a hard, deep breath as those adventurous fingers moved along the elastic of the silk panties at her thigh.

“I should stop.” The expression on his face, the dark hunger in his eyes weren’t that of a man intent on stopping.

The fingers dipping beneath the elastic leg band of her panties definitely weren’t those of a man intending to stop. Marty all but held her breath as those knowing, wicked fingers began to play seductively beneath the silk.

They parted the silken folds of flesh and his eyes locked with hers as she caught her breath at the feel of his fingers gliding through the satiny, slick dampness gathered there.

Lips parted, a cry trapped in her throat, Marty could do nothing but whimper as those diabolical fingers slid upward to circle the tender, straining nub of her clit and torture it further.

“All I can think about is fucking you.” His voice was a harsh rasp of hunger that had her womb clenching in demand. “Day and night, for years, the hunger for it has tormented me.”

She bit her lip, whimpering little moans leaving her throat as his head lowered, his lips finding a tender nipple and sucking it inside as his free hand began to push her dress higher up her thighs.

“Tasting you.” He breathed against her breast as his head began to move lower down her body. “I need to taste you, Marty.”

Marty stared unseeingly up at the ceiling as she felt her panties being pulled to the side, and a second later she felt the heated rasp of a hungry tongue as it licked up the slit of her pussy.

Pulses of brutal pleasure raced through her, flinching through her body as his tongue worked to her clit, circled it, and sipped at it before moving lower again.

She wanted to scream out at the sensations tearing through her. The desperate ache that resulted from each lick was torture. An agony of sensation washed through her body as his tongue flickered and licked, driving her crazy with the need for more.

Khalid ate the tender flesh like a connoisseur tasting nectar. A little groan vibrated against the tender bud, nearly sending her senses exploding in sensation before his lips moved again. His tongue licked lower, rimmed the clenched opening, then with a hot, wicked glide of his tongue, slid inside the clenched, ultrasensitive opening in a smooth, white-hot thrust.

Marty’s feet pressed into the edge of the desk, her hips rising in a desperate jerk as her hands clenched in his hair to hold him to her.

She couldn’t hold back the cry that tore from her throat, just as she couldn’t stop the heated rush of her response from spilling to his tongue.

Knowing, hungry thrusts of his tongue had her reaching desperately for an orgasm he held just out of reach as his hands clenched her rear, lifting her closer to him.

Marty felt lost, suspended between pleasure and torture as sensation after sensation attacked her nerve endings. Heat blazed through her body, tore through her mind. The feel of his tongue fucking her drove her to a precipice she hadn’t known existed as she fought to find release.

Male groans vibrated against her flesh as she arched, pressing closer, desperate mewls falling from her lips as she felt the blazing sensation building inside her body.

In that moment, the door opened and Shayne Connor stepped inside.

Embarrassment should have seared her. As he closed the door quickly, his hand clenched on the doorknob, his gaze turning from curious to a blaze of arousal, something ignited and flamed inside her as Shayne locked the door and swiftly moved closer.

Pleasure was agony. It was tearing through her body, burning her nerve endings as Shayne stopped at her side, his hands cupping her breasts, his fingers finding her nipples and tugging them deliciously as his lips moved to her neck.

Khalid chose that moment to slide a finger along the crevice below her pussy. Drawing her juices, stroking, massaging, the tip of his finger slipped inside the clenched opening of her anus as Shayne licked his lips in hunger.

Sensation detonated. Marty’s lips opened for the scream that would have ricocheted from the room, but Shayne was there. His lips covered hers, his kiss stealing her cry as her fingers gripped his shoulders tight and she arched into the orgasm racing through her.

Her thighs clenched around Khalid’s head. Her free hand clenched in his hair as she began to shake, to tremble. A surge of pure electric pleasure raced up her spine and radiated in static ecstasy that shook her entire body.

It was like flying, falling, burning, freezing. Nothing mattered, nothing existed but the pleasure and the pure heated release surging through her.

Nothing mattered but the men touching her and the knowledge of the hunger she knew she couldn’t escape.