AllFreeNovel
Share Us
This was her opportunity to prove it.
He took his time walking over to the bed and stretching out on the colorful comforter. Cleo watched him, admiring the play of all that sculpted muscle, the sheer beauty of so much masculine perfection right there before her. Then, when she saw he was watching her, his amusement still so bright in that gray gaze of his, she pulled in a deep breath and started moving.
First she went to the chest of drawers that stood opposite the bed. She rummaged around in the top drawer and pulled out what she wanted—an old pair of panty hose and a light summer scarf. She carried both over to the bed and smiled down at Khaled, pretending she wasn’t seriously tempted to forget this half-cocked plan of hers and simply melt all over him.
“Losing your nerve?” he asked her, a quiet taunt that proved he really could read her. She decided to view that as a positive thing.
“Not at all.” She nodded toward the wrought-iron headboard above him. “Grab hold of that.”
He shifted, something she couldn’t quite interpret moving over his arresting face, but he reached above him and grabbed on to the iron as she’d requested.
Cleo pulled the length of the scarf taut between her hands and leaned in close, fastening his strong wrist to the dramatic curl of iron nearest it. Khaled’s other hand came up and grabbed hold of her high up on her side, his fingers just brushing the lower slope of one breast.
Her hastily indrawn breath was much too loud in the quiet of the room, and she had no doubt that he could see how fast and hard her heart was beating in the crook of her neck. That he could feel that instant fire in her, radiating out from the simple touch, making her burn everywhere, the way she always did.
She looked down. His dark eyes were glittering. His mouth moved—but he didn’t say anything, and she had the impression, somehow, that it cost him.
“Khaled,” she said softly, her gaze fast on his. Challenging, even. “Obey.”
* * *
He thought it might kill him. She might kill him.
Cleo was soft and close, leaning against him, her honey-colored eyes defiant and demanding, that distracting mouth of hers within reach—
But he was a man of his word, for all the good it had ever done him. He reached up and grabbed the headboard again, and then he lay there in what passed for obedience when every part of him was tense and hard, and let this tiny little woman tie him to her bed.
Because she wanted to do it. And he’d agreed to let her do what she liked, like the colossal fool he was.
“I had no idea you were so kinky,” he murmured, and she pulled the length of panty hose tight. Too tight.
Then only smiled serenely when he slid a dark look her way.
She shifted back away from him, admiring her handiwork for a moment. “I don’t think the faintest hint of bondage really counts as kinky, do you?” She laughed when she saw his expression. “This is the Big Easy, Khaled. The rules are a bit different here.”
“And what are these rules, exactly? They seem increasingly opaque.”
“The rules are what you said they were. Me in total control. All night long. Without interference from His Excellency, the Sultan of Jhurat. Are you ready?”
He was sure it would kill him, then. Without a doubt. Perhaps that was her goal.
“Do your worst,” he invited her, as if he was completely at ease.
He didn’t know what he expected her to do, but she only kicked her shoes off and then pulled her knees up beneath her, settling next to him on the bed. And then she looked at him for a very long, uncomfortable moment.
“Is this your worst?” he demanded, with perhaps a touch too much aggression. “Staring at me?”
“You might be in for a long night, Khaled,” she said, a faint hint of a smirk on her lovely mouth. “You’ve been under my control for exactly three minutes and you’re already cracking.” She eyed him until he sighed in some version of surrender, and then she leaned a little bit closer. “I want to know why.”
A faint chill of foreboding moved over Khaled’s skin, then settled in his gut. He couldn’t keep himself from testing his bonds, though he didn’t break them. She watched him do it, and he thought he saw a sadness in her pretty eyes that nearly undid him.
It humbled him, certainly. And that made him lie still. Grit his teeth and take it.
“Why what?” It came out far gruffer than he intended, but she didn’t so much as blink.
“What happened between your parents, for a start?”
“You cannot possibly wish to know such ancient history. How can it matter now? My mother is dead and my father doesn’t know his own name.”
