His brow arched. “I still haven’t fucked you?” he murmured.

Her pussy just had to respond. It just had to clench and ripple and spill her juices, again, to saturate the bare, swollen folds.

She needed panties before the dampness began easing down her thighs. But at this rate, she would end up using all she had within hours.

She stared back at him though, holding his gaze despite the response that flooded through her and the anger beginning to build.

“I’ll get around to it,” he promised her. “I first wanted to make sure you were on birth control, and secondly—” His lips twisted ruefully. “I may not have come, Paige, but you had me so fucking hot I spilled myself in my pants. Something I promise you will not happen again.” His gaze flickered over her, heated now, aroused. “The next time, I’ll spill in that sweet tight pussy, or buried in the snug clench of your ass. Either way, I promise you’ll not doubt the fact that I’ve definitely taken you.”

“I don’t think so.” She had to draw in a hard, tight breath to push those words past her lips, because it truly was hard to deny what her body so wanted.

A single, black brow arched with an arrogance that set her teeth on edge.

“Not while we’re here, and not while you’re acting like my jailer rather than my lover,” she explained tightly, nerves trembling in her voice as she fought to keep it firm, strong.

The smile he gave her was triumphant, dominant. “We’ll see about that.” He held his hand up as her lips parted to deliver a blasting retort. “Before we get into this argument, Tariq will be bringing in our dinner any minute and I know your appetite is affected when you’re angry. Let’s enjoy our meal, Paige, then you can tell me the ways you’re going to resist my touch while you’re lying in the bed with me nightly.” He leaned forward then, his expression no longer distanced but suffused with sensual hunger. “Tell me, Paige, how will you resist when you’re lying not just with me, but with Tariq as well? And the one thing I can promise you can have while you’re here is all the pleasure we can give you in that bed. More pleasure than you could ever imagine.”

Abram watched her face, her eyes. No matter the anger that could spike through Paige, it was her eyes that always told the truth of her emotions. The fear that had filled them as he forced himself to remain distant, to lay out the situation for her, had tightened his chest until he wondered that he could breathe for it.

But the minute he’d allowed his hunger to show, the only emotion, the only response he could give her, that fear had slid away and a matching, feminine need had blazed in her emerald eyes.

Sensual and warm, she was a woman willing to explore her hunger, but even more, she would be willing to explore his.

And before Tariq arrived with the meal he had prepared, he wanted her primed and ready for the hungers that raged through him. Knowing the situation, knowing from where the pleasure may well come later, would keep her off balance and hopefully, keep her too involved to attempt to escape before he and Tariq had a plan in place.

Until then, he had to be certain that the line he was forced to teeter on didn’t shift on him. He had to ensure it didn’t throw him to the ground, broken and lost, again.

He’d been there once. He’d been at the precipice where nothing mattered but the blood of his enemies and the future was a vision he didn’t want to face. He’d already lost one woman whose life meant more to him than any of his brothers, his compatriots, and the men and women who had died, and would die, for the future they dreamed of.

He couldn’t let it happen again, because he might not manage to pull himself back again.

Azir had known that once Paige was here that she would become his main priority. Sometimes, Abram thought, the old bastard knew him better than he knew himself.

Azir suspected Abram’s plans for defection, but he didn’t know the plan he and Tariq were laying in to escape with the information they had amassed since Jafar’s arrival at the fortress.

As though his cousin’s presence was all it had taken, the roaches were coming out of the woodwork. Suspected militants and terrorist organizers were roaming the streets and discussing in public in small groups what should only be discussed behind closed doors and in secure bunkers.

But even more, Azir was braver, more confident and more secure now in acquiring the funds that had been frozen more than twenty years before.

As dinner was finished and Tariq cleared away the dishes and prepared coffee behind a screen at the small kitchenette Abram had had installed, he leaned back in his chair and watched as Paige wandered back to the fire.

She was nervous. Not frightened, and definitely not really wary, but she was nervous, her senses hyped and adrenaline coursing through her body.

She was trying to ignore both of them and to ignore the declaration he had made earlier.

He almost grinned as he considered the night ahead. He had no intentions of taking her yet, not yet. There were a few matters that had to be taken care of first, and precautions established to ensure their safety before he and Tariq took her together.

The hunger for it was beginning to build in him though, and he could see it building in Tariq. They’d shared enough women, seduced enough to know each other’s responses as well as their woman’s.

“Azir and Jafar have made plans to take a ride in the morning,” Tariq told him as he carried the coffee back to the table. “They believe you and I will be too distracted to know that they’ve left.” Tariq nodded to Paige.

“Do you know where they’re going?” Abram lifted the cup to his lips as he murmured the question.

Tariq gave a quick shake of his head. “The equipment in Jafar’s room is just as good as ours, but I wasn’t close enough to the door to hear everything being said.”

“You know who to contact.” Abram dropped his voice as he spoke. The room was equipped with audio detection scramblers but he didn’t like taking chances. “If there’s a way to follow them, then he can figure it out.”

Abram frowned thoughtfully. Azir and Jafar had been bitter enemies until the months before Ayid and Aman had attempted to murder Khalid and Abram. Now, less than three months after the deaths of his youngest sons, Azir was conspiring with his nephew. The nephew whose father Azir had murdered more than twenty years ago.

“He definitely kidnapped her just to distract you,” Tariq stated as he nodded to Paige. “If we’re trying to protect her then we’re not following him. And he knows you’d never leave her here alone.”

“I wouldn’t trust her safety to just one of us either,” he said quietly. “Not this close.”

That was the catch. They were a team, and they had been working efficiently together for several years. But now, with Paige here, it would be impossible for Abram to be confident that either of them could protect her alone if Azir conspired against them.

If his cruelty extended to having Paige taken and circumcised as Ayid had had his manservant’s wife circumcised several years before. Or if the authorities arrived to have her—or all three of them—arrested for depraved or indecent sexual acts.

Azir wasn’t above either of those, or any other number of extreme acts to keep Abram from leaving Saudi Arabia.

“He doesn’t know we have help. At least in following him,” Tariq murmured as he leaned closer.

Eyes in the sky were what they had. A little help from their friendly neighborhood CIA asset. In the event of an extreme emergency, that asset could get them out of the fortress and to an extraction point, but it wouldn’t be easy. It would compromise positions and covers and that was something no one wanted to do unless they simply had no other choice.

If Azir moved in a direction that would compromise Paige’s safety, or her life, then he would call them in, and it was that simple.