"So just tell me what it was meant to be then," she demanded. "Or should I guess? Why, the husbands of your great and wonderful club just love their wives so much that they want to make sure there's someone to always watch over them," she said sarcastically. "So you have your little bunch of gigolos who play a nice little third in your beds so she's well and suitably watched over should something happen to you, right?"
"Gigolo?" Khalid murmured. "Should I be insulted, Chase?"
"Probably," Chase drawled, glancing at Kia with a hint of amusement.
"Definitely," she shot back at him. "So why don't you leave? Then you won't have to be insulted any longer. "
"Sorry, baby, you got the terms a little off there. " Chase tsktd.
"And you've got your arrogance a little off, Falladay," she snapped back. "I really don't care what your little boys club is or how their game-playing works. What I do care about is being humiliated, not once, but twice by one of your members. What I do care about is keeping my mouth shut to preserve your damned secrecy while that bastard you protect stands in public and begins informing me to my face that I was rejected in a dirty little game I didn't have any interest in. "
"Dammit, Kia. " He pushed his fingers roughly through his hair. "Do you think I didn't know you, even then? Did you think I wasn't perfectly aware of the fact that you would have never survived what Drew wanted from you?"
"You didn't even tell me what he was doing to me!" she yelled back at him. "You let him, Chase. You let him do that to me and then you made me take the blame for every sordid tale he told me about your perfect little club. Damn you!"
"Kia, it wasn't like that. "
"Get the hell out of my apartment!" she snarled to both of them. "I've had enough. "
"Stay away from Drew, Kia. " Chase's voice hardened.
Kia stared at him. A year ago, hell, a month ago, she would have eagerly acceded to any such demand. It didn't matter that she had every intention of staying just as far away from Drew as possible. That was completely beside the point.
No, the point was, he was ordering her to do it. As though they had a relationship, as though she were something more to him than a hard little fuck whenever he and Khalid decided they had an itch.
And well, there was the wine. False courage. She really didn't drink it very often, for a reason. It clouded her mind just enough to make her forget a lifetime of lessons where her own anger and her smart mouth were concerned. And she'd had just enough that, combined with her anger, it made her tone just as cutting, as falsely sweet, as any debutante or society bitch ever created.
"You're not my husband, and you're not my father. You're not even my fucking lover," she stated coldly. "Unless you can claim one of those titles, keep your damned demands to yourself, Chase, because I'm not in the mood for them. "
Chapter 9
Chase stared at her. He could almost feel his head getting ready to explode, the dominance that he kept carefully leashed tugging at its bonds.
She was like a flame, burning. Her blue eyes glittered with emotions and anger, her gently rounded face was flushed with it, and that stubborn little chin lifted as she defied him.
He was aware of Khalid leaning lazily against the kitchen counter, pouring wine into a glass and watching them curiously. As though it were some damned show he was enjoying.
He was aware of other things, too. The shoe that lay against the wall as though it had been thrown there. The spill of satin, lace, and silk across the couch and flowing to the floor. The blanket tossed across the room, the pillow that lay against the glass doors that led to the deck.
Subtle. The fury that had raged through the apartment was subtle. Like Kia. But the anger that raged inside her now wasn't subtle, and it sparked something inside him he didn't want to look at too closely.
"You don't want to push me on this," he warned her, holding himself in check, pulling back on the sexual core inside himself that sometimes seemed too tightly bound to her.
She laughed. A broken, pain-filled sound that had Khalid wincing and had Chase breathing roughly. She was hurt. He couldn't stand to see her hurt; he couldn't stand to see that disillusionment in her eyes.
"Perhaps you don't want to push me, Mr. Falladay," she warned him. "I gave you what you wanted two years ago, and you've gotten what you wanted from me in the past few weeks. Count yourself lucky and watch the demands you make. I'm not some spineless twit who's going to sit in a corner and wait for you to tell me when to move. "
"Did I ask that of you?" he said carefully.
"And you're not going to," she informed him before gesturing to the door. "Go on. Run away now. You did what you came for; you warned me to obey you. I'll take your demands under consideration. "
It was the smile that did it. That tight little facsimile of a smile that curled at the edges of her lips and didn't have a hope in hell of reaching her eyes.
Damn her, she looked like a fucking teenager standing in front of him. Snug jeans encasing her hips, that T-shirt dipping just a little bit too low with its deliberately ragged neckline. She was nothing like the other women he knew. She wore what she liked, not what she thought she should wear. She walked with stately elegance despite her petite frame, and he had no doubt she could bring kings to their knees.
She definitely had him ready to go to his knees.
"Take it under consideration, will you?" he drawled, aware of Khalid finishing the wine with a grimace before he straightened in interest at the tone in Chase's voice.