The quivering in her stomach had become a shaking throughout her body. Need was drawn dangerously tight, hovering between desire and anxiety. She couldn’t move, was afraid the shuddering would become something else she couldn’t contain, couldn’t control.

You don’t need control, habiba . That’s my job. Lie back on the pillows, and give yourself the release you so desperately need. Put your fingers into that soaking wetness I can smell, imagine it’s my cock and let yourself go. I want you to spread your legs wide, as I would do, massage your clit with your thumb.

“No, no . . .” He didn’t look toward her, didn’t distract the others at all, but she wanted to close her eyes anyway. She couldn’t, though. She had to see Mason withdraw, so gently, from Amara, help Enrique ease her to the cushions. It wasn’t lost on Jess that she herself was as weak, as if she’d been mentally taken and left as limp, even without the release her body craved. She was glad she was on the pillows, because she wasn’t sure she could rise.

Enrique stretched out on his wife’s body, giving her long, drugging, postcoital kisses. He penetrated her again, his cock still erect. In this position, Jess could see his buttocks, the pantaloons pulled down to his thighs, moving in a slow, up-and-down rhythm, building again, or maybe just giving her the pleasure of aftermath stroking.

As absorbing as their tableau was, her attention left them. Mason had moved to the edge of the circle, where a basin of water, cloth and soap had been left on a short pillar. It had been placed on a thick, circular rug to protect the floor from water. Since his robe was still open, she watched him soap his hands and clean his semierect cock.

It wasn’t as if he was flaunting himself. He wasn’t even turned all the way toward her, but that made it even more tantalizing, seeing him half in profile. Had Enrique or Amara ever done this for him? Sitting on their knees before him, cleaning the folds, the ridge under the head, teasing him with the wet cloth and stroke of their hands, their mouths, to bring him to arousal again? Vampires had a much faster recovery time than human males. Though third-marks apparently did, too, if Amara’s gasps and the increase in Enrique’s thrusts were any indication.

I’m waiting, my love. Bring yourself pleasure. Give that gift to yourself.

Was he teasing her deliberately, pointing out the detested obvious she couldn’t deny, that she craved the release of a climax, but only at his direction? Her body trembled again as his amber gaze lifted at last, pinning her through that tiny slit in the curtain. His hand still rested on his cock, his body so virile and powerful, revealed by the robe. His hair was loose, brushing his shoulders.

Give that gift to me.

Because she couldn’t look at him any longer, she crept back to the cushions, but then she was easing herself down on them as if his hands were taking her there, her fingers finding herself under the dress.

Legs spread, habiba.

She adjusted, but tears pricked her eyes, her heart torn between betrayal of herself and what her body seemed determined to accept.

Shhh, my love. No thinking. Give in to your pleasure. My demand for it.

The moment she touched herself, any struggle, no matter how token, was over. Her clit screamed for friction, her mind filled with the images she’d just seen, the connection between the three below. The way Amara had moved, dancing for them both. Dropping to her knees before Mason and bending back in that vulnerable move, offering her whole self to him.

From her position, Jess could still see through the crack. Mason had set aside the cloth and reclined back on his divan. He left the robe open, immodestly male as he propped on one hip, one forearm resting on a crooked knee. His cock was hard and thick again, probably leaving a damp, heated track across that section of his abdomen, the remains of his last release. He waited for her to serve his pleasure with her cries.

She moved her fingers over herself, dipping into the wetness, stroking it over her clit, imagining without any conscious thought his mouth on her there, or his broad head, about to push in and stretch her. Raithe hadn’t liked to fuck her there. He preferred her ass, her mouth. And his horrible friends . . .

Here, habiba . It is my mouth on your clit, teasing you. Licking your honey, cherishing you as I prepare you for my cock.

And when I thrust in, deep and strong, like Enrique with Amara, I would lie upon you, holding you down, surrounding you.

With my fingers tangled in your hair, my thumbs on your lips, I would drown in your eyes . . .

“Oh, God . . .” She dropped her head back as he switched to Arabic in her mind, the flow of sensual words drowning her as well.

She didn’t need to know what he was saying, because the music of it was taking her where he wanted to go. Where she wanted to go as well. The climax seized and shoved her over, over the fears of her body and mind, over all the terrors and pain, but she couldn’t get high enough for them not to tear jagged holes in her vulnerable soul. She was like a parachutist jumping from a burning plane, the wreckage falling all around her flimsy chute. Safety, the hope of rescue, was an illusion.

I can’t, I can’t . . . Help . . .

Pleasure this overwhelming had to be a threat, taking her away from herself, as Raithe always took her away from herself. She’d climax no matter how revolted, frightened or in pain she was. Afterward, her tears were his prize. Eyes were the window of the soul, and whenever she’d had to look in a mirror, she saw it dying. He’d prolonged her life with his marks while shredding her soul.

She couldn’t stop it. She was frightened, falling, burning. Her mind, always trying to save her, scrambled for Farida, but she couldn’t quite get there, couldn’t reach the fingertips of the long-dead woman.

The climax yanked her out of range like an opening parachute in truth, bringing a pain beyond bearing, a pleasure that was so lonely, desolate tears poured down her face. She rippled and bucked in the clamp of the ruthless orgasm, a release for a body that hungered for any fulfillment, no matter what consequences the poison she consumed would bring.

It would be the lash this time. A barbed cat-o’-nine that pulled ribbons of flesh from her belly and breasts, her thighs. He stood over her, watching her scream. His cock rose, becoming a rod of steel at the sight of her combined pain and orgasm. He’d fuck her even as she bled.

Jessica. “Jessica.” The thunderous command jerked her away from Raithe, tumbled her through her darkness and dumped her back onto the balcony, crying and hunched into herself, tearing at her face, trying to get out of her skin, because it was burning, he was burning her . . .

Strong hands circled her wrists, and she was pulled up into a male body, one that didn’t smell like Raithe or his sweaty, fear-filled dungeon. But he would take her there, to that dark place, and leave her there for days with no light. Silence brought its own horrors, but the dungeon was rarely silent. He bred rats and spiders down there, so she heard the rodents’ scratching movements, the scrapes on her bare toes as they tried to climb up her body. He’d suspend her a few inches off the ground so they had to leap.

She was screaming to be freed, feeling the spiders in her hair, on her shoulders . . .

It’s me, habiba . Mason. Farida’s Mason. Shhh, come back to me. Come back here. You’re with us, and we won’t let anyone else harm you.

There were other hands on her. She struggled at first, but then realized they were gentle, soothing, stroking her back, surrounding her. Amara. Enrique. Mason. She wasn’t in the dungeon. The three of them were holding her together, protecting her on all sides, like a fortress of flesh and bone, instead of a prison. Not apathetic, not standing back leering, laughing or bored with her agony.

Being noticed was no longer a bad thing.

“Easy, dearest.” Amara’s voice. Enrique was murmuring to her in soothing, musical French. And Mason’s strength was around her, his body closest of all. Holding her against him, almost as though they’d been on Coman, outrunning the past, him calling out that wild yell, defying fear and darkness.

She drew in shuddering breaths, trying to pull it together, glad when rationality started seeping back into her cracked consciousness. Jesus, God, that had been a terrible one. Her last panic attack that severe had been in a marketplace in Egypt, when she thought she’d been spotted by one of Raithe’s friends. She’d stumbled away, not sure where she was going, and woken up hidden in a vat of trash, with maggots crawling over her skin . . .

“Stop. Look here, in my eyes.” Mason lifted her chin, made her look into the brilliant amber gaze. “Jessica, this is going to stop, right now.”

Why was it his touch helped? When everything about him should repel her? Why did he make her feel safe?

“Because I will die to keep you that way,” he said. “I will tolerate no more of this. You are safe here, and well, and you are going to learn to trust us.”

Despite herself, Jessica blinked, and something else filtered through. A wry, weary humor. “Why didn’t I think of that before, my lord?” she said hoarsely. “Command the fear and nightmares away and pfffffft”—she managed to spray a light saliva on him—“it’s all gone.”

Amara’s hand caressed her nape. “It’s a male thing, dearest. They can’t stand to see us in pain, so they must order us to stop, as if we are doing it deliberately to disturb them.”

She caught Enrique’s serious, quiet smile in the corner of her eye, but Jess didn’t see any smile in Mason’s eyes. Instead, he glanced at the other two, his mouth firm. “Let’s get her to bed. And I don’t want her left alone. Amara, stay in the room with her.” Jessica tucked her chin on his chest as he lifted her. Closing her eyes, she shut it all out. Not only because she couldn’t bear to face any more tonight, but because she couldn’t understand why what she most wanted was for him to stay in the room with her. And, knowing he could hear her thoughts, she wondered why he remained silent and unresponsive, even as he carried her as if he’d carry her to the ends of the Earth to keep her safe.

14

GOD, that had been embarrassing. As she ran a currycomb over Coman’s flanks, Jess forced herself to consider it a blessing that she hadn’t seen or heard from Mason for the past several days. When she’d told Amara the next morning that she was fine, she was better, and she really didn’t need her to stay in the room when she slept, she expected Amara to smile and babysit her anyway.