“It has been getting a little thinner.” Marty laughed, her gray eyes sparkling with pure happiness. “But it doesn’t change the fact that he does have reason to worry at the moment. Be a little patient with him.”
“I’ve been patient with him my entire life,” Paige scoffed. “Do you realize he’s lectured me twice today already? He’s treating me as though I’m not well aware of the fact that Abram and Khalid both share a penchant for having a third in their sexual relationships. Or that I don’t know damned good and well that Abram Mustafa can be a complete dominant ass**le.”
There was a look of genuine shock on Marty’s face before complete laughter filled her eyes and a throaty chuckle left her lips.
“You surprise me, Paige,” she admitted. “And here I thought a sweet little innocent like you wouldn’t notice the signs or understand the rumors if you heard them.”
“What does innocence have to do with anything?” Paige rose from the chair and paced back and forth across the room. “Would that exclude me from understanding what a threesome is or how it works? Come on, Marty, remember Courtney Sinclair is one of my best friends. I knew what a threesome was when she called me sobbing about the inexhaustible Ian Sinclair ha**ng s*x with her maids and calling them by her name. Do you know she would spy on him when he visited her parents’ home?”
Marty wasn’t having an easy time holding back her laughter. Courtney Sinclair and her husband Ian had one of those fiery, wonderful relationships most women dreamed of having.
“Come on, Paige, you have to admit with everything that’s happened, Khalid has a right to worry. Abram is ten years older than you, and on top of that, he does often have a third as I understand it. But while Khalid doesn’t want your heart broken, he also helped raise you. Accepting that you have sex is probably something he’s never going to do.”
“He needs to worry about something other than whether or not I intend to f**k his brother and if I let his cousin join in.”
Marty howled with laughter. Paige was about to join in but Khalid chose that moment to step into the room.
The laughter broke off immediately.
His expression was dark with anger, his black gaze snapping with it.
“Do you even have a clue what a man like Abram could be like?” he growled. “Do you think he’s going to be a gentleman? Be sweet and ask nicely to make love to you as his third pets you sweetly and whispers sweet nothings in your ear?”
“Don’t use that tone with me, Khalid,” she warned him calmly. “I didn’t invite you into this conversation, so if you don’t like it, then you can leave and keep your opinion to yourself.”
Marty turned to him, her expression concerned now. “Khalid, we were just joking, darling. You two enjoy poking at each other a little too much.”
“I wasn’t joking,” Paige informed them both as she crossed her arms over her br**sts and glared at her brother. “The only reason I’m not trying to slip into his bed right now is because he’s not here.”
Khalid’s lips thinned. #x201C;I’ll be damned if I’ll argue with you over this.”
“Of course you won’t,” Paige agreed mockingly. “It’s so much easier to have a little man-to-man chat with Abram.” She let her eyes widen. “Oh but wait, that didn’t work so well either, did it? The first chance he had, he ignored that too.”
She could feel years of anger rising inside her now. For as long as she could remember her parents had deferred to Khalid regarding her protection, and in any choices that they had to make in her life.
Khalid had chosen the schools she attended, the bodyguards she had as a child, her first ugly car, and was behind her father’s refusal to allow her to date her first boyfriend.
“She’s not a child anymore, Khalid,” Marty reminded him softly. But Paige knew her brother, and he wasn’t about to listen to anyone but himself. She was simply at the end of her patience.
“Do you even care how much it hurts or humiliates me to have you step in and play lord of all you survey with my life? I lost my job today, Khalid, because I haven’t been there in two weeks. Now, I can either lose my car or bum money from you or my parents. I’m twenty-five years old, not eighteen, and I enjoy taking care of myself,” she cried out furiously.
“And I enjoy waking up each morning knowing you’re alive and safe,” he bit out, his tone dark with anger. “Do you have any idea of the danger you are in at the moment, or the man you are tempting to take you into his bed? The two are entwined, Paige. Being with Abram draws you front and center into Azir’s attention, if you weren’t already there. And I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that no matter what happens, Abram will break your heart. He will not be an easy lover, Paige, nor will he understand your independence and your determination to do as you wish.”
“And none of this is your choice to make.” She dropped her arms to her sides and faced him without the anger she knew she should be feeling.
She was tired of arguing with him. She was tired of the lectures and she was tired of trying to force him to treat her like an adult rather than a child.
“Paige, would you come between Abram and me?” he finally questioned her harshly.
“Khalid!” Marty gasped as she turned on him furiously. “That’s low, even for you.”
But Paige wasn’t surprised in the least that he had attempted such emotional blackmail. It was reminiscent of her childhood years when he had used her emotions to get what he wanted every time she attempted to defy him.
“Would you really lose me over this?” she asked in return. “Because that’s what will happen if you keep standing me and Abram. Whether or not he wants me, or I want him, shouldn’t be tainted by your demands that we stay away from each other. Because honestly, Khalid, there have been times when the very fact that you didn’t want me to do something made it all that more appealing. Do you really want to chance that in this situation?”
“So I’m to just stand by and watch him break your heart when he becomes the man he is and he tries to subjugate you as we both know he will? He may have different ideas on sexuality and women’s rights on the surface, Paige, but trust me when I tell you that only in your sexuality will he be more accepting. He is still a product of the culture he was raised within.”