Only Pleasure (Bound Hearts 10)

"Then she can get a cab," Khalid snarled.

Abdul cleared his throat again. "It's very cold, Mr. Khalid. Her hotel is not far from here. "

Khalid stepped into the elevator, grinding his teeth.

"Does she not have a coat?"

"No, sir. " Abdul did the throat-clearing thing again. "Well, yes, sir, but it is very thin. "

He felt his nostrils flaring. "And I should care about this why?" he snapped.

"Mr. Khalid," Abdul's voice was shocked. "It is very cold tonight. "

"He's being a bear again, isn't he?" Martha's voice sounded through the phone. Too damned cheerful and too fucking perky. "Tell him to get over it. "

"Get over it?" he snarled.

"Now, Mr. Khalid, her hotel, it is just down the street. "

"Go," he said harshly. "Get her out of my limo, immediately. Take her to her hotel, give her her coffee and her donuts, and get your ass back here. Are we clear?"

"I drank the coffee and donuts," Abdul said mournfully.

Khalid was forced to massage his temples as he heard Martha making compassionate sounds in the background.

"Abdul, ten minutes," he said furiously. "You had best be back in front of this building within ten minutes, without her. Are we clear?"

"I am going now, Mr. Khalid," Abdul promised nervously. "Ten minutes. Should I, umm, replace her coffee and donuts?"

Khalid swore he would have to make his first trip to the dentist ever if he didn't stop grinding his teeth.

"Let her get her own," he growled slowly, just to make certain Abdul understood. "Ten minutes, Abdul. "

Abdul cleared his throat. "Ten minutes, Mr. Khalid. "

And in the background, Martha, damn her hide, laughed.

Chase awakened as Khalid left the apartment. His eyes opened and he stared around the bedroom, feeling strangely content. And content wasn't a feeling he should be experiencing in Kia's bed. His arms wrapped around her. His legs encasing hers. Her head against his heart, her breathing deep and even, as though she belonged there.

He had to force himself not to jerk away from her, to jump away as though in fear. He didn't fear anything. He hadn't feared anything since he had stared down the woman whose finger was tightening on the trigger of a gun aimed at his brother, Cameron.

He forced the memory, the thought, back and closed his eyes, allowing himself to hold Kia just a few moments longer.

During the years when he had been his brother's third in his relationships, sleeping with a woman hadn't bothered him. It had been his responsibility to make certain more than their sexual needs were fulfilled.

Hell, now he knew why Cam had fought sleeping with Jaci, or in taking her without a third. Because there was this intimacy. He could feel it, working its way inside him, filling him with something so damned unfamiliar he couldn't make sense of it.

The feeling that if he didn't get the hell out of that bed now, then he might never make it out of her bed, and then he would never keep her out of his heart.

Like Khalid said, women were gentle creatures with fierce desires. And one of those desires was the need to be touched and held outside sex. It had never bothered Chase to be the one to supply that, until now. Now it frankly scared the shit out of him. Because the longer he held her, the more he. felt her.

He turned and stared down at her in the darkness. Thick blond lashes lay against her cheeks; her lips were relaxed in sleep, though they were still swollen from his kisses, from the thrusts of his cock.

He swallowed, brushing his thumb over her cheekbone in the lightest caress.

Sometimes, he knew she saw into his soul. It was an uncomfortable feeling for a man who had learned to hide who and what he was. She knew parts of him that he knew other women could never guess. And though she hadn't vocalized it, hell, he had given her a chance to, he wondered if perhaps she didn't know more than he did about himself.

It was going to have to stop.