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Chase stared into the corner, wondering if Kia had any idea how the light spilled from the bar and glistened over the winter white velvet wrap and dress she wore. She looked like a snow princess fallen from the cloudy skies. Soft creamy flesh, champagne blond hair, blue eyes, wide with a hint of nerves and fear. And something else.
Hell, he had to be drunk. That something else couldn't have been there.
"I wondered how long it would take her to get curious," Khalid remarked as he turned back to Chase.
"Curious about what?" Chase asked, watching as the lights caught the twinkle of diamonds in her upswept hair.
"About you, my friend, and the pleasures you could give her. I've watched her gaze sweep over you for two years now. And wondered what she hid beneath those lashes that swept over her eyes each time," he explained.
Chase snorted. "Hatred?"
Khalid shook his head. "Never that. " His smile was hard, curling with knowledge. "The two of you tiptoe around each other as though you're terrified of the electricity flashing between you. She knows what you are. " He leaned forward. "And still, she's curious. I, of course, would be available if you needed a third. "
"You're horny," Chase growled. "Who says I'd pick you for my third anyway?"
Khalid chuckled at that. "Who cares? A woman such as that one, you would have no hardship in finding a man willing to provide that service. But I would know immeasurable pleasure in being so chosen. "
The amusement in Khalid's black eyes had Chase . shaking his head at the other man.
"Perhaps it is fear that holds you back?" Khalid grinned then. "Your brother Cameron I have learned is floating in monogamous bliss where his woman Jaci is concerned. Perhaps you are afraid it is contagious?"
Chase tore his gaze from Kia. She looked cold. She was too close to the door to manage any warmth dressed as she was. As soft, as delicate as she looked in her outfit, she had to be freezing.
She tugged the wrap more firmly around her shoulders when Chase realized he hadn't torn his gaze from her for long. Perhaps a second. Maybe.
"Why not ask her to join us for a drink?" Khalid suggested. "She would be well hidden here with us. " He waved a broad hand at the corner next to Chase. "And I have no doubt she would be warmer. "
Chase was rising to his feet before Khalid was finished talking. He ignored the other man's laughter and moved across the room. She would join them, or he would take her home. Any other option was out of the question. She was tempting him to the point that his back teeth ached at the thought of touching her, and he wasn't thinking about the erection pounding beneath his slacks.
She watched him as he approached. He felt her eyes on him, raking over him, nervous little looks that made him tense in arousal. She'd been doing this to him even before her ex-husband had tried to force her into a ménage. And he'd been furious that Drew had chosen to try to draw her into that lifestyle without her knowledge beforehand.
"You look a snow fairy," he said, leaning against the heavy post that supported the ceiling, only a few feet from her table.
Her gaze lifted, her slender neck rippling as she swallowed tightly.
"Well, it is snowing tonight. " She cleared her throat.
It was there between them, he could feel it. He could see it in her eyes, almost taste it in the air around them. If she left that table to join him, it was going to be for much more than a drink.
He glanced away from her for a moment, acknowledging that every attempt he had made to stay away from her had just flown the hell out the window.
When he turned back, his jaw clenched.
"I'm not playing games with you, Kia. I have too damned much respect for you for that. " He held his hand out to her. "Would you like to join us?"
She looked over to where Khalid had turned in his chair enough to watch them. His dark eyes gleamed with sensual, sexual knowledge. Just as Chase's did.
She stared at his hand.
She had wondered for two years what being with him would be like. What the pleasure could be. The knowledge in his eyes when he told her it was only for the pleasure.
"What if I can't?" she whispered, knowing what he meant. "What then?"
"Then you can't. " He continued to hold his hand out. "It's your choice. "
It was her choice. She hadn't been offered a choice before—she had nearly been raped by her husband instead.
But this wasn't Drew. This was the man who had been honest with her from the start. He had, in small ways, perhaps, but in ways impossible for her to miss, protected her.
