She turned back to him, staring at him in fury as he made his demands.
"You are the same man who didn't want me two years ago, right?" she finally asked him. "You know, when I got married, I thought all that preening and posturing to catch male attention was over. Who knew it only got worse? No, I wasn't shopping for a husband anymore. Hell no. I was shopping for a third. Who knew!"
She glared at both of them. They stood there, their gazes brooding as though she were the one who had somehow managed to lose her senses.
"Drew twisted what it's all about, Kia." Chase finally sighed. "You experienced something that was never meant to be."
"So just tell me what it was meant to be then," she demanded. "Or should I guess? Why, the husbands of your great and wonderful club just love their wives so much that they want to make sure there's someone to always watch over them," she said sarcastically. "So you have your little bunch of gigolos who play a nice little third in your beds so she's well and suitably watched over should something happen to you, right?"
"Gigolo?" Khalid murmured. "Should I be insulted, Chase?"
"Probably," Chase drawled, glancing at Kia with a hint of amusement.
"Definitely," she shot back at him. "So why don't you leave? Then you won't have to be insulted any longer."
"Sorry, baby, you got the terms a little off there." Chase tsktd.
"And you've got your arrogance a little off, Falladay," she snapped back. "I really don't care what your little boys club is or how their game-playing works. What I do care about is being humiliated, not once, but twice by one of your members. What I do care about is keeping my mouth shut to preserve your damned secrecy while that bastard you protect stands in public and begins informing me to my face that I was rejected in a dirty little game I didn't have any interest in."
"Dammit, Kia." He pushed his fingers roughly through his hair. "Do you think I didn't know you, even then? Did you think I wasn't perfectly aware of the fact that you would have never survived what Drew wanted from you?"
"You didn't even tell me what he was doing to me!" she yelled back at him. "You let him, Chase. You let him do that to me and then you made me take the blame for every sordid tale he told me about your perfect little club. Damn you!"
"Kia, it wasn't like that."
"Get the hell out of my apartment!" she snarled to both of them. "I've had enough."
"Stay away from Drew, Kia." Chase's voice hardened.
Kia stared at him. A year ago, hell, a month ago, she would have eagerly acceded to any such demand. It didn't matter that she had every intention of staying just as far away from Drew as possible. That was completely beside the point.
No, the point was, he was ordering her to do it. As though they had a relationship, as though she were something more to him than a hard little fuck whenever he and Khalid decided they had an itch.
And well, there was the wine. False courage. She really didn't drink it very often, for a reason. It clouded her mind just enough to make her forget a lifetime of lessons where her own anger and her smart mouth were concerned. And she'd had just enough that, combined with her anger, it made her tone just as cutting, as falsely sweet, as any debutante or society bitch ever created.
"You're not my husband, and you're not my father. You're not even my fucking lover," she stated coldly. "Unless you can claim one of those titles, keep your damned demands to yourself, Chase, because I'm not in the mood for them."
Chapter 9
Chase stared at her. He could almost feel his head getting ready to explode, the dominance that he kept carefully leashed tugging at its bonds.
She was like a flame, burning. Her blue eyes glittered with emotions and anger, her gently rounded face was flushed with it, and that stubborn little chin lifted as she defied him.
He was aware of Khalid leaning lazily against the kitchen counter, pouring wine into a glass and watching them curiously. As though it were some damned show he was enjoying.
He was aware of other things, too. The shoe that lay against the wall as though it had been thrown there. The spill of satin, lace, and silk across the couch and flowing to the floor. The blanket tossed across the room, the pillow that lay against the glass doors that led to the deck.
Subtle. The fury that had raged through the apartment was subtle. Like Kia. But the anger that raged inside her now wasn't subtle, and it sparked something inside him he didn't want to look at too closely.
"You don't want to push me on this," he warned her, holding himself in check, pulling back on the sexual core inside himself that sometimes seemed too tightly bound to her.
She laughed. A broken, pain-filled sound that had Khalid wincing and had Chase breathing roughly. She was hurt. He couldn't stand to see her hurt; he couldn't stand to see that disillusionment in her eyes.
"Perhaps you don't want to push me, Mr. Falladay," she warned him. "I gave you what you wanted two years ago, and you've gotten what you wanted from me in the past few weeks. Count yourself lucky and watch the demands you make. I'm not some spineless twit who's going to sit in a corner and wait for you to tell me when to move."
"Did I ask that of you?" he said carefully.
"And you're not going to," she informed him before gesturing to the door. "Go on. Run away now. You did what you came for; you warned me to obey you. I'll take your demands under consideration."
It was the smile that did it. That tight little facsimile of a smile that curled at the edges of her lips and didn't have a hope in hell of reaching her eyes.
Damn her, she looked like a fucking teenager standing in front of him. Snug jeans encasing her hips, that T-shirt dipping just a little bit too low with its deliberately ragged neckline. She was nothing like the other women he knew. She wore what she liked, not what she thought she should wear. She walked with stately elegance despite her petite frame, and he had no doubt she could bring kings to their knees.
She definitely had him ready to go to his knees.
"Take it under consideration, will you?" he drawled, aware of Khalid finishing the wine with a grimace before he straightened in interest at the tone in Chase's voice.
"I'm certain I will." She propped her hands on her hips, and his control slipped. "One of these days."
He'd had enough. His dick was so hard beneath his slacks that it throbbed. Blood pumped hard and fast through his veins, and a haze of lust began to dim his vision.
"I'm going to spank your ass." He kept his voice as calm, as certain as the decision he was making.
"You and who else?" she sneered back at him.
"Why, his third, of course." Khalid chuckled behind her as she swung to him.
Khalid's black eyes gleamed with anticipated pleasure, his expression suffused with it. "Have you been spanked, Kia?"
Khalid held her attention as Chase unbuttoned his shirt and stripped it from his shoulders. She turned back to him as he strode to her, her eyes widening, but not in alarm. Anger and excitement flickered together in her eyes now, flushed her face, and loosened the tight line of her lips.
"You wouldn't dare!"
He curled an arm around her hips and jerked her to him.
"Do you feel what you do to me, Kia?" he growled as her fingers buried into the light mat of hair covering his chest. "Do you feel how fucking hard you make me?"
She felt it. She couldn't help but feel it, and he knew it. His cock pressed into her lower stomach as he threaded his fingers into her hair and pulled her head back.
"Drew is dangerous," he told her. "You will stay away from him."
She licked her lips. "Make me."
Make me. Ah, God.
His lips came down over hers as he lost the last thread of control, which he had sworn he would keep. Her defiance, his knowledge, a damned certainty that Drew posed some risk to her, flared inside him. Her determination to stand toe to toe with him and refuse to consider her own safety raged inside him.
Damn her.
Make me! It was tantamount to waving a red cape at a bull. The primal, primitive male instincts snapped into place, and it was all over but for her screams of pleasure. Those still had to come.
His lips covered hers, taking the kiss he needed like he needed air to breathe. He held her to him, ignoring her struggles. He knew the difference. He'd been born to know the difference between a woman's struggles to be free and the struggles to establish her own dominance.
She fought his kiss, and he let her nip his lips before he nipped back. Not hard. Just enough that she felt it. Then she stilled, her lashes lifting to allow her gaze to meet his.
Anger warred with her own sensuality, with her strength. She stared back at him, and he saw the strength inside her that he had only suspected for years.
That strength was exciting, erotic, dangerous.
When it came to her safety, he couldn't allow it.
He couldn't explain why her refusal to heed his warnings had the dominance rising inside him now. He could have argued her down. He could put a bodyguard on her. Instead, sexual, powerful, she called to that dominant core inside him that he always fought.
She nipped at his lips again. He nipped back, held her in place, then devoured her kiss. His tongue plunged into her mouth, licking and stroking, tangling with hers as her nails scratched against his chest, raking a path of fire to his abdomen without breaking the skin.
He groaned at the extremity of the pleasure before pulling back. His arm tightened around her hips, lifted her, and her legs went around his hips, clasping him as her lashes fluttered and her hot pussy ground against his cock.
Damn her.
Make me! The words echoed in his head as he took her to her bed, coming to his knee on the mattress and laying her back along the comforter.
"Have you ever been spanked, Kia?" His fingers moved to the buttons of her soft cotton blouse.
Seconds later, the material fell away and he had to clench his teeth on the moan that threatened to tear from him.
Those bras were going to be the death of him. Silky lace cupped and lifted the swollen mounds as her nipples peeked over the edge of lace. Hard, tight little nipples that blushed and drew attention made his mouth water for the taste of them.
Khalid moved onto the bed behind her head as Chase lifted her closer to the other man. Khalid's hands moved for the clasp of her jeans as Chase moved back, holding her gaze and undressing.
He practically tore his clothes off as Khalid eased the zipper down the material, revealing silken, soft flesh. God, he was going to explode with the need to have her, to take her, to shove his cock inside her and listen to her scream in pleasure.
He toed his shoes off and stripped off his socks before gripping the legs of her jeans and pulling them from her body.
Soft white low-rise lace panties barely covered the waxed mound of her pussy. Chase felt his hands begin to shake as he brushed his fingers against the damp crotch.
"Chase, are we going to spank her?" Khalid's voice was low, amused, as he stretched Kia's arms above her head and her head turned, sharp little teeth nipping at Khalid's tight abdomen.
Chase felt his own abdomen tighten, in need of her teeth, their scraping, nipping.
"How utterly delightful." Khalid chuckled, his black eyes gleaming as they lifted to Chase. "I think you should punish her."
Chase was mesmerized by her. She turned her head back to him, gave him a look from beneath those lowered lashes and something in his chest ached, almost in fear. He'd never met a woman who didn't bow down to him sexually. Never met one who charged him with such dominance as Kia did. Who challenged the sexual dominance.
The challenge was in her eyes, and there was nothing coy about it.
His fingers hooked in the lace of her panties and he pulled them slowly over her thighs, revealing the peaches-and-cream perfection of the glistening folds between her thighs. Those sweet lips beckoned him, the memory of her taste made him insane to lick at the slick juices.