"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 ni**les hardened beneath the material of her bodice; between her thighs, her cl*t throbbed, her juices spilling onto the silk of her panties.
Heat washed through her body, her thighs; her br**sts 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 ni**les 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 br**sts, 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.