Total pages in book: 72
Estimated words: 68004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 68004 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 340(@200wpm)___ 272(@250wpm)___ 227(@300wpm)
He does it again, working that one spot inside me while I work my clit. I want to last, to draw out the show, to keep this forbidden feeling going longer. It’s too good. Too perfect.
I tumble over the edge, Jafar’s name on my lips as oblivion reaches up and sucks me under.
I must drift off at some point after Jafar cleans us up and wraps me in a warm blanket in his lap, because I wake in an unfamiliar room alone. I sit up and stretch, smiling at the ache in my body. The earlier nerves of being in this place are long gone, chased away by the grounding effect Jafar has on me. Foolish to trust him enough for that, even more foolish to let him draw me back to earth one rough stroke at a time. I’m not sure what other option I have.
I agreed to play his game the moment I ran from him.
I don’t see how to win this, though. He holds all the cards, and the only advantage I have is that he wants me. That’s it. A poor advantage as such things go. Jafar isn’t one to lose his head and let his cock take control.
The door opens and my heart actually skips a beat. He’s back.
Except the man who steps out of the shadows isn’t Jafar.
It’s Ali.
I yank the sheet up to clutch against my chest. “What are you doing here?”
He grins. Ali has a rakish short of charm that dazzled my father. It doesn’t dazzle me. No one else seems to notice or care that his smiles never reach his black eyes. That there’s a mean glint there that raises the small hairs on the back of my neck every time I’m in the same room as him. That, from the moment we met, he looked at me like he owned me.
And now I’m naked in a room with him.
“Ali, what are you doing here?” Surely he’s not a member? If he was, Jafar would have said something. I glance past him to the door, and he laughs.
“He’s busy. We have a few minutes.” He moves closer, but stops when I jerk back. His mop of curly hair might be charming on another man, and his slow smile certainly would be. But this isn’t another man. This is Ali. “Jasmine, I’m going to save you.”
I blink. “What?”
“He killed your father. Did you know that?” He takes another step. He’s nearly to the bed. “Took him into your backyard and shot him like a dog that needed to be put down.”
I know my father is dead, of course. I won’t mourn that man. I refuse to.
But I don’t know how I feel about this apparent execution Ali describes. “Please leave.”
“You’re right. No way can I get you out of here with all of Hades’s people around.” He reaches out, startlingly fast, and grabs my hand. I lose my grip on the sheet and it falls to my waist. Ali stares at my breasts for a long moment and I stare back, refusing to fight him despite the fear leaving me cold. I’m afraid of what he might do if I try to pull my hand back.
Playing that way with Jafar is one thing. Play. It might not look like it to an observer, but I know the truth.
Ali isn’t Jafar. This isn’t play. I want to shower off the filthy way he makes me feel with a single look. Fear clogs my throat, slowing my thoughts. A scream builds in my throat, a sound full of terror and rage. It leaves me hoarse from the fight not to set it free. “He’ll be back soon.”
I mean it as a threat. Jafar will kill Ali. Even if he didn’t intend to before now, if he walks in on this scene, I have no doubt how he’ll react. He won’t misread the situation.
Ali takes it another way. “You’re right.” He drops my hand. “Be ready, Jazz. I’m going to get you out.” He lunges forward and takes my mouth in a brutal kiss that sends shards of ice tearing through me. “Until then.” He’s up and out of the room before I can react.
I stare at the door until I’m sure he won’t return. Only then does my stomach lurch sickeningly. I scramble off the bed and through the open door to the small bathroom, barely making it to the toilet in time to be sick. I retch again and again, unable to stop feeling his mouth against mine. A promise that’s nothing more than a threat.
He wants me for the same reason Jafar wants me—a trophy in their game of tug-a-war. An outward representation of the power they claimed. Or, rather, the power Ali wants to claim.
“Jasmine?”
I tense for half a second before I register Jafar’s rumbling voice. Not Ali.