“Jaci and Cam are putting up the Christmas tree tonight.” Chase grunted. “One of the reasons I ended up in a bar rather than reading comfortably in my apartment. They threatened earlier to make me help.”

“You don’t like Christmas trees?” She risked looking up at him now, and the light green orbs held her, mesmerized her as they always did.

Each time his gaze caught hers, she wanted to sink into it, live within it forever. There was something mysterious, something completely male and forbidden each time he held her gaze with his.

Of course, she knew the forbidden. It was here, in this limo. Chase and the third he had obviously chosen, and they were nothing compared to the husband and the third who had terrified her years before.

No, it hadn’t been terror, it had been rage. He had attempted to get her drunk and when he thought she was, he had then snuck another man into their bed.

“I love Christmas trees,” Chase finally told her softly. “But some things, Jaci and Cam need to do alone.”

It was said gently, as though a message was hidden there. Was he telling her he no longer shared his women, or just his brother’s woman?

She had wondered, she admitted. She had often wondered if Jaci Wright enjoyed each night what Kia was too afraid to reach out for.

“I haven’t decorated a tree in years,” she told him then, attempting to smile, almost lost in the memory of the last time she had done so, at her parents’ home.

“No?” He brushed a strand of hair from her cheek as the fearful tension receded, only to be replaced with something darker, more heated.

“I don’t have a tree,” she said. “There’s just me.”

“You buy presents?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “Just for my parents. They don’t require a tree in my apartment.”

Her life had become barren in the past two years. A desert landscape that still had the power to hurt.

“Friends?” He tensed a bit, as though anticipating the answer.

“Friends are busy with families for the holidays.” She shook her head. “I don’t need a tree.” She didn’t buy friends presents because she didn’t allow herself to have friends.

“You need a tree,” he breathed against her ear. “A very tall one.”

“I’d never be able to decorate it.” Her head tilted to the side, almost without her permission, her neck suddenly tingling to feel that little breath. “I’m short.”

“You’re exquisite.” He kissed her behind her ear. A soft brush of his lips that had her lashes drifting closed and pleasure streaking through her.

Khalid’ was watching. She could feel him watching. She could feel the tension rising in the back of the monstrous limo and the heat of sexual desire beginning to move over her flesh.

She should move. She should be frightened, as she had been earlier. Instead, she felt that strange courage rising inside her again. No, not courage, insanity, because she knew she wasn’t going to deny them. She was going to be wild and wicked and do the forbidden. Here, in this decadently large limo, she was going to let Chase have her, Chase and Khalid.

She opened her eyes and turned her head to stare back at him. This man, he was her fantasy, and whatever he wanted to give her tonight, she would allow him. As much as she could.

“It’s only for the pleasure?” she whispered.

His eyes dilated in surprise, as though shocked she had remembered what he had told her.

“Just for the pleasure,” he promised her.

“Just between us?” she asked then.

One finger caressed her cheek. “Do you ever hear of the women I’m with, Kia?” he asked her.

“Not like this. But it’s known that you do it.” She shook her head, glancing at Khalid as he watched, waited. Relaxed, assured that he would touch her.

“And you won’t,” he promised her. “Where is the pleasure in allowing your lover to be gossiped about? Or your woman to be embarrassed?”

She was breathing roughly now. She could feel her clothing rasping against her flesh, the curling tendrils of anticipation rising inside her.

“I was only with Drew,” she whispered. “That’s all.”

He had been her only lover. She had come to him a virgin and couldn’t remember a single time they had been together that her pleasure had mattered much to him.

Chase knew what she was telling him. He could see the edge of uncertainty, her desire and her confusion over her desires rising inside her.

He knew what she was doing. This wasn’t about the pleasure or the manage, it was about the temptation he had offered her the day he came to her apartment. It was about the temptation he had held out to her every time he had seen her after that.

He let his head move lower, let his lips brush across hers, aware of Khalid moving silently, opening the door beneath the bar’s counter to draw free the requirements of pleasure.

Lubrication, massage oil, condoms. Khalid was a true sensualist. Nothing was hurried when he was involved. The pleasure was all that mattered. He gained his pleasure from the pleasure of the woman he touched. Or helped to touch.

Kia’s lips parted beneath Chase’s. Her breath, softly scented with a hint of the beer she had drunk earlier, and the clean soft taste of the woman herself. They parted slowly. He watched her lashes drift over her eyes and his lips caressed hers. He didn’t take her kiss. He wanted to take nothing from her. He wanted to give to her. He wanted her lost in the pleasure, giving herself to it until nothing existed but the touch, the need, and the hunger for release.

Kia assured herself that was all it would be for. Just the pleasure. She wasn’t going to allow herself to care for anyone again. She had made that promise to herself two years before, and she wouldn’t break it now.

But she needed this touch. Chase’s touch. His lips brushing against hers. She was certain that when Khalid touched her, she would be wild and wanton then as well.

She had never been wild and wanton, though she had often wondered what it would be like. She was going to find out tonight. Now. She had dressed for it. She had longed for it.

“Okay?” Chase’s voice was darker now, deeper.

Kia opened her eyes to see that the light green of his eyes had darkened. There was a stain of red against his dark cheekbones and his lips were sensually fuller than before.

Lust suffused his expression. For a second, just the barest second, , she wished there was more than lust in his eyes, before she pushed the thought away. She had no right to want more, to need more.

She obviously had no concept of how to choose friends or lovers. Chase was safe, and if he wanted Khalid there, then she trusted his choice.

Chase hadn’t lied to her. He had kept his promises to her, he had made certain Drew never struck her again, and she knew it was by his hand that her divorce had come so easily.

As she felt his lips nipping at hers, watched his eyes as his hands stroked her bare back and her arm, she let herself become immersed in the sensations. His calloused palms stroking her, his strong lips taking small, greedy kisses from her.

Her arms twined around his neck. She turned to him, needing more, aching for it. A deeper kiss, a longer kiss. She wanted to feel him taking her lips, controlling her passion as she had no idea how to control it.

As though he knew, sensed what she needed, his lips did just that. His tongue delved in to tangle with hers, and his hands tightened on her.

A moan whispered past her lips as she shuddered at the sensations.

This was all she needed. Just the pleasure.

Kia stared into Chase’s face as she laid back in his arms, her head resting against a cushion that Khalid slid beneath it.

Chase’s hand moved slowly down her arm, gripped her wrist and lifted it above her head, where Khalid’s fingers then encircled it.

“If you want to stop, you have only to say so,” Khalid whispered as she stared back at Chase. “This is only for you, sweet Kia.”