Guilty Pleasure (11 page)

“And I appreciate each prayer, my dear.” His blue eyes gleamed with amusement. He was one of the good ones. They were few and far between sometimes.

As pompous and arrogant as some of her childhood friends may be, most of them still had a sense of humor where it counted.

“Excuse me, I need to find my father for a moment,” Marty said when she glanced to the side and saw that Khalid had managed to pry himself away from a small group of men who had delayed him and he was now trying to make his way across the room.

Perfect timing,
she thought. No one made it through this crowd quickly, which gave her a few more moments before he got to her. Keeping Khalid carefully in her peripheral vision as she hid her smirk at the frustration on his face, Marty and Shayne made their way to where Joe and Zach stood along with Ian Sinclair, and the owners of Delacourte-Conovers, a rising electronics development and manufacturing firm in the area. The Delacourtes and Conovers were heavy contributors to her father’s political funds, as well as friends.

“Marty.” Joe stood back, making room for her and Shayne as they entered the small group. “I see you finally made it.” Turning to Shayne, he extended his hand. “It’s good to see you again, Shayne.”

“You couldn’t at least consort within your own branch of law enforcement?” Zach muttered beside her, though she heard the amusement in his voice.

“I thought it best to have friends in all branches. Besides, it doesn’t hurt to look outside the box,” she replied, looking up at him with a smile.

“You can always look,” Zach reminded her, his gaze moving over her head before coming back. “Doesn’t mean you’ll succeed.”

She could feel Khalid now. As though his very aura had reached out, wrapped around her, and claimed her; she could feel him moving behind her.

“Shayne. Thank you for escorting my lovely date. I’ll take her off your hands now.” His voice was dark, brooding, sending a surge of sensation racing up her spine as she and Shayne turned to him.

“Evenin’ Khalid. And I must say, it was my pleasure.”

There were days when it sucked being at the mercy of what she liked to believe were no more than hormones. After all, how could you love a man who made you insane every time you saw him? It couldn’t be love, therefore it had to be a biological/chemical/pheromonal reaction that bound her to him.

“Marty.” Khalid turned to her then, and the force of those dark eyes staring into hers seemed to steal her breath and the last bit of common sense she might have possessed as his head lowered and his lips brushed hers.

“Khalid.” She tried to pretend that her reaction to him didn’t exist, but the brush of his lips against hers stole her breath and left her knees weakening in response.

“Dance with me.” The tone of his voice as he gripped her hand and pulled her to him had Marty’s heart racing as heat began to swirl through her body.

The dark edge of hunger in his tone was barely hidden, but it was his eyes, midnight velvet, so deep and filled with sensual promise that had her flesh sensitizing, her breasts swelling and her clit suddenly pulsing in reaction.

“I must admit Khalid, I didn’t expect you to have your third pick me up tonight,” she muttered as Khalid drew her against him and began moving her across the dance floor. “I was beginning to wonder if you had changed your mind concerning a relationship with me. Again.” Innocence marked her face and belied the subtle mockery in her tone.

“I apologize again, love,” he murmured, his thick lashes screening whatever emotion was in his eyes.

“Since he did pick me up tonight, that does rather make him my official date.” Marty kept her voice calm, sweet. Innocent. “I believe, as such, he’s entitled to certain privledges. Wouldn’t you think?”

“I don’t believe I would agree with that statement.” He didn’t beat around the bush. “Don’t play games with me, Marty. We’ve gone too far for that.”

“Really?” Arching her brows inquisitively she forced back the amusement she wanted to feel. She wanted what she was entitled to, all of him, or nothing. “So tell me then, Khalid, what game were you playing when you invited me to attend this ball with you, only to send Shayne to pick me up instead?”

“That is an explanation for another time,” he answered, his tone brooding.

“Then perhaps this relationship that I’ve fought so hard for is meant for another time as well. I won’t be pawned off like a reluctant responsibility. I’m certain there are other interested parties who would be more than happy to actually escort me themselves.” Marty shrugged negligently, though she paid particular attention to the fact that Khalid was dancing them closer to the darkened hallway that led to the main house.

“You would only turn them down were they to extend such an invitation,” he growled as he stared down at her, his expression darkening. “You rarely attend these balls with a date.”

Which, unfortunately, was no more than the truth.

“I didn’t always turn them down,” she reminded him. “Just particular ones. There were several I accepted over the years.”

“Men who had no chance of controlling you,” he pointed out. “You dated men who had no chance in hell of naysaying you in any decision you should make.”

The words had her lips parting in outrage as he stopped at the entrance to the hall before gripping her upper arm and drawing her into it.

“Couldn’t handle me?” She glared up at him as he led her through an opened doorway into a small library before closing the door behind them. “Khalid, no man
handles
me.”

Jerking her arm from his grip she rounded on him, every insult she could think of rising to her lips, ready to fall from her tongue.

“I do.”

Demanding, arrogant, his voice lit a fuse to her temper that had her lips parting to inform him otherwise, quite vocally. Instead, she found herself in his arms, his lips on hers, his larger, broader body bent to her as the hunger and the need held barely in check at the best of times, flamed out of control.

This was where she needed to be. All arguments aside. All pride aside. God help her, but she needed to be in his arms.

Her fingers clenched at the fine silken material of his evening jacket as she felt his hands splay against her back, drawing her closer. Small, sharp kisses fueled an already growing demand for his touch as Marty fought to get closer, to crawl into the hard, heated body holding her tight to his chest, to his kiss.

She felt as though she were flying. The pleasure whipped through her body, slicing through any hesitancy, any shyness. This was Khalid. The man she had been much too aware of since she was too young to even understand what it meant.

She wasn’t too young now. She was a woman, and though she may be technically innocent that didn’t mean she didn’t know what she wanted, what he would want, eventually.

“God, what you do to me.” His lips moved from hers, traveling to her jaw, her neck. “You destroy me, Marty.”

It was no less than he did to her.

His teeth raked against the sensitive flesh just under her jaw, causing rioting sensations to her nerve endings. Her nipples hardened beneath the material of her bodice; between her thighs, her clit throbbed, her juices spilling onto the silk of her panties.

Heat washed through her body, her thighs; her breasts tingled. His hands roved over her back, her shoulders, gripping the tab of the zipper at her back and slowly easing it down.

Weakness flooded her, a sensual, heated rush of pleasure rocking through her body and sending flares of sensation tearing into erogenous zones that she hadn’t known she possessed.

The feel of the silk bodice slipping over her hardened nipples made pleasure steal her breath. They ached with the same white-hot need that possessed her clit, the core of her body.

She could feel the need tearing through her unlike anything she had felt before.

“You make me forget.” The hard, hot growl followed by a sensual nip at her ear, as the cool air met the heated tips of her breasts, forced a strangled cry to escape her lips.

She wanted his lips all over her body. She wanted his hands lower, touching her, stroking her.

Sliding her fingers beneath the edges of his jacket, Marty sought to find a way to the warmth of his flesh beneath. She needed his touch. She needed to touch.

“Sweet. Sweet Marty.”

His hands gripped her waist, lifted her until she felt the cool wood of a desk against her thighs, as her fingers tore at the buttons of his shirt to reveal the hard, muscular contours of his chest.

This was what she wanted. What she needed. Her fingers curled against the light covering of rough curls on his chest, her nails raking through them as she felt his hand sliding up her side to the curve of her breast.

“I need you,” she whispered, as he pulled her closer, stepped between her thighs, and bent over her until Marty felt the desk meeting her back.

There was no time to think about where they were. They could be caught. Anyone could walk in on them.

Then his head was lowering.

Marty reached up, her fingers going to the leather tie that held back the long, coarse strands of black hair at his neck. When she loosened it, his hair fell around her fingers as his lips smoothed over the rise of her breast, his tongue licking, tasting her flesh, going ever closer to the aching peak of a breast.

Her fingers speared into his hair, her head tipped back farther, pleasure whirled through her system as her knees gripped his hips, her pussy cushioning the hard ridge of his cock beneath his slacks.

Shifting her hips beneath him, Marty felt the thick press of his erection as he thrust against her. His lips parted, his tongue licking over her nipple before drawing it into the heated dampness of his mouth.

The stroke of his tongue, the flex and suction of his mouth over the ultrasensitive tip, made her hands clench his hair tighter, holding him to her as she arched closer to the flick of his tongue over the heated tip.

The pleasure was torturous. She felt a searing sense of complete abandonment in his arms. Control had no meaning. Common sense had been lost long ago. There was just this, this man, this moment, this fantasy she had never been able to let go of.

“Do you know what you do to me?” The rough caress of his voice stole through her senses as her lashes lifted to stare into the black heat of his eyes.

“I know what you do to me.” She fought to breathe through the pleasure, through the sensations tearing through her as he brushed his jaw over her nipple, the light stubble on his flesh abrading with sensual roughness.

Staring back at him, Marty fought to hold on to her senses as she felt his palm sliding along her leg to her thigh. The feel of his calloused fingertips was a sensual rasp of exquisite pleasure.

“Khalid,” she panted his name, fought to still the trembling of her body as he leaned back enough to watch the progress of his fingers.

“Do you know how long I’ve wanted you?” His voice was dark, hungry. “Far longer than I should have, Marty. Far longer than I thought possible to want one woman.”

Moistening her lips with her tongue, she drew in a hard, deep breath as those adventurous fingers moved along the elastic of the silk panties at her thigh.

“I should stop.” The expression on his face, the dark hunger in his eyes weren’t that of a man intent on stopping.

The fingers dipping beneath the elastic leg band of her panties definitely weren’t those of a man intending to stop. Marty all but held her breath as those knowing, wicked fingers began to play seductively beneath the silk.

They parted the silken folds of flesh and his eyes locked with hers as she caught her breath at the feel of his fingers gliding through the satiny, slick dampness gathered there.

Lips parted, a cry trapped in her throat, Marty could do nothing but whimper as those diabolical fingers slid upward to circle the tender, straining nub of her clit and torture it further.

“All I can think about is fucking you.” His voice was a harsh rasp of hunger that had her womb clenching in demand. “Day and night, for years, the hunger for it has tormented me.”

She bit her lip, whimpering little moans leaving her throat as his head lowered, his lips finding a tender nipple and sucking it inside as his free hand began to push her dress higher up her thighs.

“Tasting you.” He breathed against her breast as his head began to move lower down her body. “I need to taste you, Marty.”

Marty stared unseeingly up at the ceiling as she felt her panties being pulled to the side, and a second later she felt the heated rasp of a hungry tongue as it licked up the slit of her pussy.

Pulses of brutal pleasure raced through her, flinching through her body as his tongue worked to her clit, circled it, and sipped at it before moving lower again.

She wanted to scream out at the sensations tearing through her. The desperate ache that resulted from each lick was torture. An agony of sensation washed through her body as his tongue flickered and licked, driving her crazy with the need for more.

Khalid ate the tender flesh like a connoisseur tasting nectar. A little groan vibrated against the tender bud, nearly sending her senses exploding in sensation before his lips moved again. His tongue licked lower, rimmed the clenched opening, then with a hot, wicked glide of his tongue, slid inside the clenched, ultrasensitive opening in a smooth, white-hot thrust.

Marty’s feet pressed into the edge of the desk, her hips rising in a desperate jerk as her hands clenched in his hair to hold him to her.

She couldn’t hold back the cry that tore from her throat, just as she couldn’t stop the heated rush of her response from spilling to his tongue.

Knowing, hungry thrusts of his tongue had her reaching desperately for an orgasm he held just out of reach as his hands clenched her rear, lifting her closer to him.