Only Pleasure (Bound Hearts 10)

He lifted them, touched his lips to her clenched knuckles, and watched her, a hint of sorrow in his dark gaze.

"I had no idea you did not know I would be there," he told her. "I thought you had agreed to the experience, little one. I never imagined the lengths Drew would go to in forcing such a thing upon you. I do not ask for your forgiveness. Only that when you remember I was a part of such pain and fear, that you would try not to know true hatred for me. "

She shook her head.

"I understand if this is something you cannot do. " He laid her hands gently in her lap. "I should have refused to be Chase's third, but in my own defense, I had to know, to be there, to ensure you knew only the greatest of pleasure and not even a hint of the fear that once filled you. " He moved to rise to his feet. "I will leave you now. "

"No!" She gripped his arm, staring back at him as he sat back down slowly. "You saved me. "

He lowered his dark head and shook it. "I was the reason for your fear. "

"And if it had been someone else?" He had been the one who had kept Drew from actually raping her. "Would they have forced him to let me go? Would they have called my father and had him come for me?"

"They would have suffered had they not," he told her. "I would have ensured it. "

She lifted a hand and gripped Chase's fingers where they lay against her shoulder. She turned back and saw in his eyes what she knew had been tormenting both of them. And her decision was made.

She had stepped into his lifestyle for the pleasure, and he had stolen her heart. But he had given her a hunger, a need for satisfying the same desires that had drawn them together to begin with.

She turned back to Khalid. She remembered that night with Drew as a nightmare, as nothing of pleasure. But Chase had pushed that memory to a distant part of her mind. Drew didn't exist for her any longer. Her life with Chase filled her, and this man had helped to bring about that life.

"I'm privileged to have you as a friend. " She reached out and touched his face. "And even more privileged that Chase has you as a third. "

Khalid stared back at her, and admitted, silently, to the amazement that washed through him. He had expected anger at the very least. Hatred certainly. But this he had not expected.

Her soft hand touching his face, and in her caress he felt her desire, in her eyes he saw the shadow of the needs that had filled her when he and Chase had first taken her.

When he had walked away from the relationship he had shared with Courtney and Ian several months back, he hadn't expected to ever find another woman with the same compassion and gentleness of spirit as Courtney had.

And as he stared at this woman, he knew that, somehow, Chase had found just as rare a gift as Ian had.

A woman of honor. Of strength.

Now she shifted, moved, and then bestowed upon him one of the rare pleasures Chase allowed within the ménages they shared.

Her lips touched his. They trembled at first, as though uncertain of her welcome. They whispered against his as his eyes went to the man behind her.

Chase wasn't concerned with the kiss. His eyes were flaring in that hunger that Khalid knew well himself. The need to touch the fire, to lose himself in the extremity of pleasure one woman could feel.

And he let her have her kiss.

Cupping the back of her head he pulled her to him, dragged her over his lap and let his eyes close. And perhaps there was a hint of disloyalty in this kiss. For, as always, it was another woman he thought of, another who filled him with regret as he gave pleasure to the one he held.

But that secret was his alone.

This woman had given him the ultimate gift of her forgiveness; he would ensure that he gave her nothing but pleasure to complement the heated, love-filled ecstasy her lover gave her as well.

It wasn't long before they had her stretched out, not in the bed they shared together, but in the guest room. Khalid understood that. The intimacy of their bedroom was a sacred place to those who loved, but here, here was just for the pleasure.

He watched, his senses processing the added depth to each kiss Kia and Chase now shared. The way Chase touched her, his large hands dark and gentle against her tender flesh. But there was the way she touched her lover as well. Her little nails digging into his flesh with more demand, with added dom

inance. And his lips twisted as he moved to lie alongside her, his hand cupping the full globe of her breast, his lips lowering to the peaked nipple.

She was velvet and steel. Strength, courage, and fragility. She was a woman worthy of nothing but pleasure, nothing but the tempestuous, demanding cries that left her lips.

And he couldn't help but watch as he touched her. As he spread her thighs and watched the hungry lips that enclosed her lover's erection. His cock twitched at the remembrance of those lips on his own, and the fantasies that filled him each time. Thoughts of the woman he was denied.

He lowered his lips and kissed the bare folds of her pussy, licked over them, drew in the sweet taste of her heated lust.