Only Pleasure (Bound Hearts 10)

"I haven't heard my damned door close. " She turned, and he was there, standing just inside the kitchen, his expression faintly puzzled. "What?" She jerked the cork from the wine and lifted a glass from the glass rack. "I don't have time to deal with you today, Khalid. "

"You have other appointments?" he asked her.

"Several. " Her smile was full of teeth. "My schedule is filling up fast. Didn't you know?"

"And does Chase know of this?" He arched his brow quizzically.

"Chase wouldn't care if he did know. " She held back the sob on that note.

She turned away from him and sipped at the wine as she pulled the freezer open. Cardboard. She pulled a frozen meal out, ripped off the top, and opened the oven.

"That stuff is detestable. " He pulled it from her hand and dumped it in the garbage. "I'll take you to dinner tonight. Something decent. If Chase isn't. "

A mocking laugh left her lips. Yeah, she could see that one happening. "I asked you to leave, remember? Chase isn't here, Khalid. I can't—"

She turned to him, stared back at him. Pride, she reminded herself, was such a double-edged dagger. "I can't—" She swallowed tightly, unable to say the words "be with him sexually," as simple as they were. "I won't… without him. "

"Ah. I see. " He nodded, his voice quiet, his black eyes sharp as he watched her. "You're falling in love with him. "

"Not hardly. " Okay, pride was a dirty word, but she was entitled to a little bit of it. After today, she should be entitled to a whopping load of it.

He frowned then. "Why should it matter if Chase joins us or not?"

She pushed her fingers through her hair and turned away from him again. Exactly, why the hell should it matter? But it did matter.

"Why the hell are you here?" She set her wineglass on the counter, refilled it, and stared back at him, fighting to contain her hurt and anger.

She didn't want to come off as a shrew, or a bitch. She wanted to have a nice little weeping session, in private, and then get on with her life. She didn't want to deal with Khalid or the complications that seemed to have developed in her life lately.

"I came to be certain you were all right. " He finally shrugged his shoulders beneath the white silk shirt he wore and shoved his hands in the pockets of his slacks. "You were upset when you left the restaurant, and I wanted to make certain he hadn't—" He grimaced. "That he hadn't taken a bite out of your very lovely pride. But I see that's exactly what he has done. "

A bite? Drew had ground her pride into the dust, but that was no one's business but her own.

"And I'm still breathing. What do you think of that?" she retorted mockingly. "Go home, Khalid. Go find someone else to play with today. "

"It doesn't always work that way," he told her broodingly.

"And why doesn't it work that way?" She faced him across the kitchen, wishing he would just leave.

He sighed heavily. "How do you see this relationship between you and Chase, Kia?" he finally asked her. "When a man brings a third in, he has established a trust, a bond between his woman and the friend who touches her as well. Your welfare and your happiness may be his priority, but they are also my concern. "

"There would have to be a relationship first," she informed him, her voice brittle. "Only for the pleasure, remember, Khalid?"

He frowned again, his brows lowering heavily over his black eyes. "There is more to pleasure than simply taking you, Kia. "

Not as far as Chase was concerned, and Kia wasn't going to inform Khalid of that fact either. She had stepped into this with eyes wide open. She had known it was for the sex only; if she was starting to feel as though something were missing, then that was her fault, not Chase's.

She lifted her chin and stared back at him. "Did you know Drew asked him, two years ago, to be here?"

"To be his third?" Khalid clarified gently.

Kia nodded, seeing the knowledge in his eyes and forcing back a sob.

"I did not know this," he told her gently. "But Chase would not have mentioned it, little one. Such offers are always kept between those who make or accept them. Does it matter?"

She shrugged uncertainly, trying to figure out how it mattered.

"You feel rejected, do you not?" he asked her then, watching her quietly. "This man who is holding your heart now rejected you even at a time when you could not have accepted him. "