Shock had her drawing in her breath sharply. “You would have let him take me without you?” Confusion filled her.
Paige knew enough about the lifestyle Khalid and his friends were a part of, and she assumed Abram shared the same rules. That didn’t allow the third, unless it was a permanently agreed-upon relationship, to ever be intimate with the prime lover’s woman without his presence.
“That would have been your choice.” His expression was savagely tight now.
“My choice?” She shook her head at his comment. “Abram, do you think I don’t know the world you live within when you’re in Europe or in the U.S.? That I don’t know the associates you and Khalid are closest to, and the rules they adhere to in terms of their private sexual tastes?”
His gaze darkened in suspicion. “What would you know about it, Paige?”
“You say that as though it’s some deep dark secret that many of your friends and acquaintances share their ives with those who share their tastes.” She stared back at him in disgust. “Do you believe, Abram, truly, that no one but those who do it are aware of it? Do you think friends, brothers, and oh yeah—” Her eyes widened in false amazement. “Sisters, are not well aware of it? Do you take me for stupid?”
“I never imagined you were stupid.” His voice was rougher now, containing that dark, black velvet roughness that almost mesmerized her senses.
It would have mesmerized her senses if not for the anger burning inside her.
“Then what did you imagine?” she snapped. “What makes you think I’m not smart enough to see what goes on around me?”
“I never imagined such a thing, Paige.” Frustration filled his voice as he glared back at her. “I simply do not imagine that it is within my right to limit your contact with a man I have brought to the bed with you.”
Not limit her contact? Tariq was his third. The very idea of it implied, at the very least, a sense of possession in regards to a lover, if not a woman he had some feelings of depth for.
But evidently, that wasn’t the way it was for him.
The pain of that realization, the realization that whatever was happening between them was only physical, that it was without emotion tore through her like a searing flame, burning through her heart.
“Go f**k yourselves!” she hissed back at him as fury whipped through her along with the knowledge that he was showing no possessiveness, no dominance whatsoever in regards to either her body or her heart.
She slapped at his hands as they lifted to her, disgust and ragged emotions slamming a sense of pain through her senses.
“Don’t touch me. Don’t speak to me and don’t either of you think you will ever sleep with me again,” she cried out. “There’s not a chance in hell I want you now.”
She was dying for him. She was aching for him. She wanted to cry out at the knowledge that what she thought had been mutual desire had been something far different. Perhaps so different that it meant he hadn’t wanted her at all.
“The hell you don’t,” he growled.
“You’re damned right I don’t,” she cried out painfully. “Just kiss my ass and get the hell away from me, Abram. Damn you. Damn you!”
She wasn’t crying. There were no tears. The pain went far too deep, and hurt far too much for tears, yet.… instead of getting away from her, instead of leaving her in peace, Abram jerked her to him andpinned her in place against his chest.
“Kiss your ass?” He snarled down at her. “I’ll do that and more.”
10
God, what she did to him. She thought he had no intention of talking to he
r? That he could sleep with her much longer without losing his mind?
It wasn’t f**king her that he had no intention of doing. It was loving her. And he could see in her eyes that she hadn’t been merely talking about sex. She had said f**k, she had referred to sex, but she meant so much more.
Her heart was involved and she intended to involve his as well.
Holding her to him he turned his fingers into her hair, pulled her head back, and as he fought the grief he felt at the thought of never loving her, his lips covered hers.
Sweet heat, fiery feminine anger and passion overflowed from her lips. Her fingers curled into fists and pressed into his shoulders, stopping just the second before true rejection. She wasn’t saying no, but the threat of it was there.
Give her a chance to consider the true reality of what he might very well intend and she would be screaming her rejection from the rooftops, and he wouldn’t be able to blame her. Hell, he would agree with her.
He had no intention of giving her a chance.