Текст книги "Dangerous Pleasure"

Автор книги: Lora Leigh

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Текущая страница: 5 (всего у книги 16 страниц)

3

Her apartment was simple, a kitchen and living area, a bedroom and a bathroom with a large soaking tub. That bathtub had been the selling point for her. The electric fireplace sat in front of the overstuffed couch and was the focal point of the room.

The kitchen was small, but roomy enough to cook and entertain a few friends in.

It was hers. She paid the bills, stocked the cabinets, and lived comfortably and happily on the salary she earned at the advertising firm she had gone to work for after graduating from college.

The floors were hardwood, gleaming around the large area rugs beneath the small kitchen table and the coffee table in the living area.

She didn’t have a television, yet. For entertainment she used her laptop, which she had left at her brother’s. She’d been so busy in the past year that she hadn’t really had time to watch television or enjoy movies as she once had.

She’d missed her home while she had been at Khalid’s. Her brother’s home was too big, too private perhaps. The suites were self-contained except for eating, and his house staff was always more than happy to fix a meal and bring it to her room.

She’d been lost there, and lonely. At first, she’d been sequestered there by herself, then with Khalid’s return it had been one lecture and argument after another until she was ready to go insane.

As she placed her purse on the small table inside the door, her cell phone rang again. The ring tone was a set of strident cymbals. It reminded her of her brother’s habit of demanding she answer the phone quickly.

She ignored it.

Pushing her fingers through her hair she walked through the apartment, checked each room, straightened a pillow on the bed then moved back into the living area where she turned on the electric fireplace and collapsed on the large pillows in front of it.

She felt exhausted.

Fighting with Khalid always left her feeling as though she had just run a marathon. It sapped her energy and made her question her own logic.

At the end of the day, what it came down to was the fact that whether it was logical or not, she was miserable living in that big house, unable to visit friends, unable to feel safe and secure in her own home because Khalid’s father was a crazy bastard.

He’d kidnapped their mother when she was seventeen, forced her to marry him and immediately raped her and forced her to conceive.

She’d been locked in a harem, forced to spend her days with only one pursuit, that of pleasing him.

Her mother had lived in hell while she had been imprisoned in the Mustafa stronghold, and only a stroke of luck had afforded her escape.

Pavlos Galbraithe, her then-fiancé and now Paige’s father, had learned of the meeting between Marilyn and Azir Mustafa while Marilyn was visiting family in Cairo, Egypt. Mustafa, he had been told, had been insistent on meeting Marilyn. He’d been entranced by her flame-red, silky hair and brilliant emerald green eyes.

He’d made her so uncomfortable with his stares and his disapproval each time she spoke that she had excused herself and returned to her room. Only to have her cousin, upset and concerned by Mustafa’s attitude, convince her to come back down because he was becoming so irate.

The next day, Marilyn had disappeared.

But still, Pavlos and his future brother-in-law, Henry Girard, wouldn’t have had a chance of gaining entrance into the fortress or rescuing Marilyn if she hadn’t found her own way out through a secret door in the stronghold’s outer wall. A wall that had surrounded the private gardens of the Mustafa harem.

Paige’s mother had in essence rescued herself and her newborn son, Khalid Mustafa. The baby Azir had forced on her, yet one she had come to adore.

Pavlos and Henry had been outside that wall, searching for the same secret door they had heard existed that led into the harem. They had been there as the stones seemed to part, push forward, and a slim, darkened figure had slipped out.

How her mother had managed to survive her time there, Paige had never understood. She knew Marilyn hated Azir Mustafa with a violence that could erupt into fury if his name was mentioned.

But she loved the son that had been forced on her. Khalid had been her salvation, she claimed. If it hadn’t been for her baby, and the knowledge of what she feared Azir would turn him into, then she wouldn’t have had the strength to keep searching for a way out.

To Pavlos’s credit, he had endured Khalid. Paige was always aware of the fact that there was an underlying tension between her brother and her father, but the truce was one that had always stood.

He’d raised Khalid, looked after him and educated him.

When Khalid had returned to Saudi Arabia after his high school graduation for the agreed-upon stay with his father, Pavlos had been furious. It had been negotiated years before between Marilyn and the Saudi ambassador who had been sent to negotiate what had become an international incident after Mustafa had attempted to kidnap Khalid. But Paige knew her father had arranged with a CIA asset in the area to watch over Khalid and to ensure he came to no harm.

Staring into the electric flames of the fireplace, Paige readily admitted that Khalid was as hard as he was for a reason. That he knew the dangers, understood the monster that never seemed to stop haunting him, and worried constantly that Azir would strike out at his family.

The man was insane.

But Abram wasn’t.

Khalid knew Abram, she understood that, just as she understood Khalid’s fears in regards to her broken heart. God knew, she didn’t want to face that pain unless she simply had no other choice. But the risk was one she was willing to take. She simply didn’t believe Abram was going to lock her into a harem and beat her each time she tried to escape.

Shaking her head at the thought, she got to her feet. She moved back to the bedroom to pack a few things to take back to Khalid’s with her.

She had only a few things of her own there. The way she had been snatched from work and taken to her brother’s home hadn’t given her time to pack.

She liked her own clothes, thank you very much. And the few things Marty and Khalid had collected for her hadn’t been enough, nor had they been her favorites.

It looked as though she would be there for a while, so she pulled out the full set of leather luggage her parents had bought her and packed the things she needed.

Her overnight bag held her shampoos, conditioner, makeup, and fenine items. Several bars of the soap her father kept her supplied with, the scent created especially for her.

Clothes were harder to choose. She had only two large bags and one lingerie bag. She packed those, zipped them closed, then hauled them to the door before walking through the small apartment one more time.

She sighed wearily as she stood at the window, staring out into the darkened park across the street. During the day, it was alive with the sound of children’s laughter. At night, occasionally, she had glimpsed lovers walking hand in hand.

Damn, she hoped she got to come home soon.

Moving back to the kitchen she was reaching for her purse to call Daniel when a knock at the door had a grin twitching her lips. He was obviously becoming impatient.

A friend of Khalid’s impatient? Go figure.

She moved to the door, unlocked it, and swung the door open.

Her eyes widened.

Her lips parted to scream.

A second later, the world went black around her.

Two hours later

Khalid stood inside the living area of Paige’s apartment and stared around, his chest feeling as though an open wound had been dug into it.

It was neat, like his sister was, sparsely decorated. She claimed she hadn’t developed her style quite yet. The electric fireplace was still on, and everything appeared perfectly organized.

“The majority of her clothes and toiletries are missing.” Daniel Conover moved from the bedroom, his expression foreboding, his blue eyes burning with rage. “Her bags aren’t in the closet.”

Khalid shoved his hands into the wool coat he wore, his gaze turning to where his lover sat in a comfortable easy chair, her hands covering her face.

She wasn’t crying, though he knew she was upset. Marty didn’t cry often, thank God. But at the moment, he wished she would, because he couldn’t.

“Would his men have packed her bags?” Daniel asked.

Khalid shook his head. Azir’s men would not have taken the time.

“She would have.” Marty lifted her head. “She was complaining she had none of her favorite clothes or her makeup. She could have packed herself before they arrived.”

“If the bags had been sitting there, and if they were sympathetic to Abram or to myself, then they would have picked up the luggage,” Khalid answered.

“That doesn’t sound like terrorists,” Daniel commented.

“Many of the new recruits are men and young boys who have been raised within the Mustafa province.” Khalid sighed. “They know me, they know Abram. They would have grabbed her luggage along with her if there was more than one. They’re aware this is something Abram would be furious over and they may want to garner leniency by providing her clothes.”

He felt like howling in rage, in pain. He couldn’t believe he had allowed his sister to be taken by that monster, and there was no doubt it was Azir who had taken her.

They knew Azir Mustafa had his men in the area, several of which were aligned with the terrorist cell Ayid and Aman had commanded.

“This is my fault,” he whispered as he stared around the apartment again, aware of Marty as she rose quickly to her feet and crossed to him.

“Khalid, this isn’t your fault any more than it’s Paige’s,” she protested. “You could only keep her confined for so long. She lasted longer than either of us thought she would. He would have been waiting, no matter the circumstances.”

His arms went around her, the need for her comfort like a beast raging inside him.

He had failed his sister.

“When Mother brought her home from the hospital, I stared at this ugly, red-faced little piece of a thing, and I swore I would protect her.” A dagger was digging into his soul. “I swore she would not know what my mother had known. That she would not face that hell if I lived and breathed. And now, he has her.”

“Then Abram will have her.” She pulled back just enough to glare up at him. “Khalid, no matter what you believe about your brother, he will protect Paige. You know he will.”

“What I believe about my brother.” He sighed as he met her gaze. “I believe Abram is a good man, Marty. But even good men have their faults. And his fascination with Paige bothers me. He’ll fight against Azir until hell freezes over, and he’ll walk away from that land without a backward look, but he’s still a product of the desert and how he was raised.”

“Khalid, you know Abram would never do anything to hurt Paige.”

He shook his head. “But he’ll end up hurting her just the same. If he can get to her before Azir kills her.”

And that was his nightmare.

The enmity between Khalid and his father was at a breaking point. Khalid had gone to one of the reigning princes and the Saudi ambassador concerning Azir’s sanity and Ayid and Aman’s attack against him. And he knew it was a matter that was being investigated. Azir would know it as well. He had his own spies within the monarchy, and his own ways of gaining information.

Thank God Abram hadn’t officially defected after Ayid and Aman had been killed. If he had, there would have been no one there to protect Paige.

“It’s been about two hours since I found the door open and Paige gone,” Daniel stated. “We have all the airports covered and we’re checking all the private planes on the ground. There are officers checking out the private landing strips as well.”

Khalid shook his head. “They were in the air within thirty minutes or less of having taken her. She’s gone, Daniel.”

And it was his fault.

He looked down at Marty again, misery crawling through his body as guilt raked sharpened talons across his heart.

“I need to contact Abram.” He sighed. “I can only do that from the house. The satellite link we’ve established can only be made from one location and only at certain times of the day.” He checked his watch as Marty moved back.

Catching her hand with his he looked around the room once again. “It will be another two hours before I can send the message to Abram. Until then, I can still get ahold of a few contacts I have in Saudi and see what can be done.”

“Someone needs to tell your mother and Pavlos,” Marty reminded him gently. “They’re flying into D.C. tonight. We should be there when they arrive.”

His mother had been worried. She had been certain Azir wouldn’t wait much longer to attempt to take Paige, and she had been right.

God, this was going to kill her.

Fragile, gentle, his delicate mother may not survive if her daughter never returned home to her.

He breathed out heavily.

“We’ll meet them,” he told her. “After I send a message to Abram. Let’s get back to the house.” He turned to Daniel. “Lock up the apartment. Check with her neighbors and see if they heard anything. We may not be able to catch them, but hopefully we can track down whoever helped them. They couldn’t have pulled this off without help.”

Daniel nodded, then paused. “I’m sorry, Khalid,”he said, his voice low. “This happened on my watch, and it shouldn’t have. I take full responsibility for it.”

“As Marty said, he would have found an opportunity eventually,” he stated, though a part of him blamed the investigator/security consultant. It had been his job to protect her and to ensure no gaps were open in her security.

It was a no-win situation though. Sooner or later, it would have happened, Khalid knew. Everyone had to blink eventually.

Holding Marty’s hand, Khalid turned and headed for the door. He was almost there when something caught his eye. A glimmer of gold on the floor.

Stopping, he bent and picked up the delicate little hoop with its fragile, dangling chains attached to tiny gold feathers.

The earrings Abram had sent to her for her twenty-first birthday.

He grimaced at the thought.

He’d fought to keep them apart over the years, even knowing it was doing little good, and that the day would come when nothing could stop it.

It wasn’t that he believed Abram would hurt her, or even that he wouldn’t be good for her. It was simply that Khalid knew his brother, and he knew, after the deaths of his first two wives, any lover he had would suffer the ultraprotective possessiveness Abram would feel.

Independence would go to hell along with the hearts. Abram wouldn’t be able to control himself, and all that dark, tortured hunger inside him would become a ravening beast in the face of Paige’s determination.

And this was where Paige would struggle.

There was no hunger strong enough, no love vital enough and no woman with enough patience or enough understanding to stand against a man determined to lock her away from the world.

Khalid had always feared that was exactly what Abram would attempt to do with the fiery independence that was so much a part of Paige.

And there wouldn’t be a damned thing he could do to save her from it.

4

She was so screwed.

That was the first thought that drifted through her mind as Paige’s eyes blinked open and she found herself in an unfamiliar room.

If she thought her suite at her brother’s home was too expensive and opulent, then it was nothing compared to where she found herself now.

The room was huge, at least twelve feet tall with several motorized fans turning lazily overhead and creating the slightest breeze.

She was laying on a huge bed, its comfort unlike anything she had known before. Beneath her naked body she could feel the excellent grade and cool perfection of the silk sheets.

Laying over her was more silk, the sheet against her flesh airy and cool while the ultra-thin cashmere throw laying on top of her added a measure of warmth.

Looking around, she saw velvet upholstery on the chairs next to a fireplace, and what appeared to be a silk-covered chaise lounge positioned at the side of the room. There were large pillows tossed in front of the hearth in differing sizes and in different expensive materials.

The windows were high and arched with wooden shutters pulled closed against the sunlight. The slats in the shutters allowed the fragile, heated rays to slip in and pierce the dim light.

White stone walls peeked out from behind several large tapestries, reminding her of the ancient castles she’d visited in England.

Stone floors were covered here and there with matching tapestries, and in front of the fireplace lay what appeared to be a thick, cashmere rug.

Swallowing tight, Paige felt the gummy, sticky feeling of her mouth. She wondered how long she had been unconscious as she fought to keep her hysteria under control.

If she didn’t concentrate on something else, then she wouldn’t make it. She collapsed into a heap of pure hysterical fear.

Because she knew exactly where she was. She’d heard her mother describe this room so many times it was burned into her brain.

This was the room she had lived in during her stay when she wasn’t locked in Azir’s bedroom. She ate in this room, wept in this room, and plotted her escape from this room.

She was in the Mustafa stronghold on the Saudi Arabian and Iraqi borders. A wasteland of unproven ground, where even oil didn’t reside.

Nothing of consequence lived here, as she had heard Abram and Khalid say, except the people who had been born here, worked here, and eeked out their living here.

The fortress had been built centuries before, the castle a mix of both Middle Eastern and English influence well before the days of the Knights Templars and the holy wars.

She had seen pictures of it. Khalid and her mother had put together a map of sorts of the castle and the outlying areas around it.

There were ways to escape; Paige just had to find them.

Terror was crawling through her now. She hadn’t believed Azir Mustafa would retaliate against Khalid. He’d threatened before. How many times had Paige been locked behind protective walls because Khalid and Azir were feuding again, or because Azir had, in one of his periods of insane fury, threatened to kidnap Paige’s mother and bring her back where he believed she belonged?

There had been too many times to count. And he’d never done it before. Evidently he had grown tired of simply threatening.

He had actually managed to kidnap her, and evidently Abram had no idea. If he knew, he would have been there when she awoke, she told herself. He wouldn’t have allowed her to face this alone.

Now he had her. A monster.

Her chest tightened, her throat nearly closing with fear and tears as she fought against it. She wasn’t going to allow him to see her cry. It was a sign of weakness, and like any jackal, she couldn’t allow Azir Mustafa to see her weakness. Or her fear.

Pulling the sheet and throw closer around her nakedness as fear began to send shudders through her body, Paige’s breath hitched as she pushed back her screams.

She was stronger than this, she assured herself. Azir Mustafa would be looking for fear. And he might have her now, but not once Abram found her, or learned she was there, which would be as soon as Khalid contacted him. If he hadn’t already.

No. Her hands tightened on the sheet and throw convulsively. If Khalid had contacted Abram then Abram would be here. He would be assuring her everything was going to be okay. He would be finding a way to get her home. And he really needed to get on that. Sometime before her heart burst from terror.

She was naked, in a bed. Breath hitching, gasping from her lips she began to check her body, to feel between her thighs. Desperation was an oily stain across her mind as she checked her body, praying to God she hadn’t been raped, because she knew Azir Mustafa wasn’t above drugging a woman to rape her.

There were no signs of it, but the fact that she was naked, that someone had undressed her to bare skin while she was unconscious was a violation as well. It made her feel helpless and out of control and that terrified her.

She’d always sympathized with her mother for what she’d gone through with Azir. She’d hated the bastard for it. But now, she understood much better exactly how her mother had felt, and she was scared.

She should have listened to Khalid and not left the house. If she had just stayed in place, this wouldn’t have happened. At least not yet. Not this way.

Every time she ever refused to listen to him, she had paid for it. That was why she hadn’t fought against him as hard as she could have when he first had her taken to the house by Daniel Conover. Because she knew Khalid wouldn’t have done it without good reason.

Rising from the bed she moved around the room, searching for the clothes that had been taken from her. Her jeans and shirt, her underclothes. Her shoes. Oh God, she really needed her shoes. How was she supposed to escape without running shoes?

She couldn’t bear to be naked as she was. She felt too exposed, despite the sheet and throw she had wrapped around herself. The material didn’t even begin to be protective. Not that clothing would have been.

She couldn’t bear to feel this helpless. That was what Khalid didn’t understand, and what she could never tell him. She had only been this helpless once before in her life and the memories of it sent a surge of terror racing through her again.

She tried to shake the memory away. Dealing with the memories of that night right now would shred what little control she had left over the hysteria bubbling inside her.

She had to clear her head. She had to be able to think and find a way out of this.

She had to find a way out. She had found a way out the last time she was this helpless and had escaped. She had to do it again. She didn’t think her sanity could survive otherwise.

The door was locked. The shutters on the windows were locked. Her mother hadn’t mentioned hidden doors or passageways in this room.

She couldn’t find her clothes. There were no dressers and the four armoires in the room only held bedding materials. There were no clothes.

Her breath felt trapped in her lungs. Her heart was racing out of control and panic was beginning to close in.

She would go crazy in this place.

Abram sat back in the comfortable leather of the modified Land Rover as Tariq drove into the fortress compound. His gaze narrowed at the men and women milling around in the outer yards. The women were covered from head to toe in the required burka, while the men were dressed in fatigues or combat-ready pants and shirts.

The face of the Mustafa province was changing and he hadn’t been able to stop it during the years when stopping it had mattered to him. All he did now was look on in regret.

Once, this land had thrived, if not from oil then from the small mines outside of town where precious ore was eeked out and sold to the government. It had been a minimal income, but when added to the funds the monarchy had once sent, the lands and mines had been sufficient to keep the small farms pulling precious water from the deep wells and the crops growing.

The province had held a small but thriving area of trade due to those crops and the ore. Something it no longer held because of Azir’s greed and murderous inclinations.

“Look who showed up.” Tariq nodded toward the fortress castle where a lone figure stood at the top of the stone steps against the stone wall.

The tall double doors were his backdrop, emphasizing the slender, muscular form, his dark hair pulled back from a lean, Arabic face.

The man who had been slowly overtaking the Mustafa fortress even before the deaths of Ayid and Aman Mustafa. No matter how Abram had fought over the years, still, Jafar Mustafa—along with Ayid and Aman—had facilitated the steady introduction of men Abram was certain were no more than soldiers to the terrorist cell Ayid and Aman had commanded. A cell Jafar was now rumored to command.

First cousin to both Abram and Tariq, Jafar was the son of the youngest of the three Mustafa brothers who had inherited differing sections of the province from their father.

Until the two youngest brothers had died under highly suspicious circumstances. Abram had always suspected Azir had had his brothers killed, but he had never been able to prove it.

“He can’t want anything good,” Abram assured him as Tariq drew the Land Rover to a stop before the castle. Stepping from the vehicle Abram allowed Tariq to move in behind him and cover his back. They mounted the steps and moved up to the entrance where Jafar awaited them.

The dark arrogance in the other man’s expression was a forewarning. Abram could feel the tension emanating from him, the animosity that had been brewing between them mixing to create a heavy, barely civil atmosphere.

The cynical amusement in Jafar’s odd green eyes was a clue to the fact that he wasn’t going to like whatever the other man had to say. Fortunately, there was at least a shred of information in anything Jafar said. He enjoyed the games he played and the fact that Abram couldn’t do a damned thing to stop the steady infiltration of the terrorists moving in.

Like Abram and Tariq, Jafar’s mother had been American. But unlike them, Jafar had actually inherited some of his mother’s traits. His hair was a deep, dark brown, rather than black, and the celadon green of his eyes was damned off-putting in a land of mostly dark eyes.

The men of Mustafa seemed to have a particular fondness for pale-haired or redheaded women. Jafar’s mother had been a Scandinavian blonde and like Abram and Tariq, he had taken his height from her ancestors.

It was a fondness their sons seemed to share as well, Abram thought.

“What the hell do you want, Jafar?” he growled as he topped the stone stairs and faced his cousin.

Jafar chuckled, the amusement in the sound matching that of his eyes as his gaze flicked between Abram and Tariq.

“Perhaps I just want to wish you a good afternoon, cousin. After all, it’s been a while since we’ve visited. Don’t tell me you haven’t missed me.”

“I haven’t missed you,” Abram assured him with a sneering lift of his lip. “Is that all you wanted?”

The smirk on Jafar’s lips assured him otherwise.

It was too bad they seemed to have gravitated to opposing ends of their own beliefs. There had been a time when he and Jafar had been close. When they had both spoken of the dream of a far different future than the ones they had embraced.

Abram waited for long, tense moments for Jafar to reveal why he was waiting, but when he didn’t, Abram’s patience began to dissolve.

“Go to hell, Jafar,” he grunted. “Let me know when you’re doing more than fucking off.”

Jafar’s eyes narrowed at the deliberate vulgarity. He and his cousin had been in more than one battle in the past years over Abram’s language or Jafar’s deliberate disrespect. Many times their disagreements had almost turned violent and nearly resulted in a punch being thrown.

“Tell me, Abram, do you believe your friendship with the son of a prince will save you forever? Or the fact that the unpaid funds owed to the land of Mustafa can only return at your inheritance assures your safety from those who suspect your depravities?”

His depravities. What a damned joke. He enjoyed a good whiskey, a beautiful woman, and on occasion he was prone to enjoy watching his lover become a willing sensual feast for not just him, but a third as well.

Those were his depravities.

“Friendships rarely stand when you need them to, Jafar. I believe we’re both aware of that.” He stared back at his cousin mockingly.

Jafar’s lips thinned. “I knew nothing of Lessa’s crimes, nor did I know of the plans to punish her.” It wasn’t the first time he had denied the knowledge, and it wasn’t the last time Abram would accuse him of it. Because he knew his cousin had to have at least suspected.

“Nevertheless, I vowed I would never again have to depend upon those I call friends to aid me,” Abram informed him. “That is a commodity that only a fool can expect.”

Better Jafar believe to the bone that Abram expected no help from anyone should the religious police decide to actually take action against him for his suspected s, especially the son of a prince, the government contact in charge of investigating the terrorists taking over the Mustafa lands and focusing their attention on Paige Galbraithe.

Until he learned Azir’s plans for her, he couldn’t rest. And so far, he hadn’t been able to learn anything except that Azir was definitely planning something.

Abram would take them all down to keep her safe. Jafar, Azir, the son of a prince, he’d see them all laying in the dust if that was what it took to keep the evil infecting his father from touching her.

“I’m busy, Jafar,” he finally stated. He fought to push back his anger as he moved to pass his cousin once again.

“Abram.” Jafar stopped him again as he moved to enter the castle.

“What do you want, Jafar?” he questioned impatiently, his teeth clenching at the anger he couldn’t seem to stop from surging through him.

“Do you remember when we were sixteen and I caught you and that American student you were friends with at the whore’s apartment?”

Abram’s lips thinned. “She was no whore, Jafar.”

They had been in America visiting with cousins who had lived in D.C. Abram had met up with friends of Khalid’s and from there, had done his best to enjoy the time there rather than involving himself with a family that had escaped years before.

“She was taking two men into her body at the same time,” Jafar reminded him mockingly. “In any culture, she is called a whore.”

“Only in this one,” Abram snarled. “Now tell me what you want.”

“Answer me first,” Jafar told him. “Do you remember?”

“I remember,” Abram snapped. “Now what does it have to do with anything?”

Jafar’s lips thinned. “I warned you about bringing your hungers from America to your home,” Jafar reminded him. “And you brought them not just to your home, but to your wife.”

“Don’t make me kill you, Jafar.” Even now, more than ten years later, the memory of what had happened to Lessa had the power to enrage him.

“Don’t make me have to deal with the religious police, Abram,” Jafar warned him in return. “Keep your depravities under control. The battle we are involved in together, I prefer to win fairly.”