She was beautiful, and he wanted her…but he wouldn’t take her. She was a golden trap.
Cam stepped back, drove every X-rated image from his head.
“Do what you want with her,” he said coldly. “I’m not interested.”
There was a silence. Then the woman’s head came up. Her lips curved in an insolent smile as her eyes swept over him, lingered on the taut fabric at his groin, then rose to his face.
“What he means, Lord Asaad,” she said softly, her eyes never leaving Cam’s, “is that he’s not man enough to use me properly.”
She spoke in English but the insult was clear. A collective roar went up from the assembled men. After a shocked moment, the sultan threw back his head and shouted with laughter.
The world went black, narrowed down to only the woman’s taunting smile and the contempt on the face of the sultan.
Cam growled an obscenity, pushed past him, curled his hand around the narrow band that joined the golden cups of the woman’s bra and ripped it in half.
Her face went white. She threw up her bound hands in a frantic attempt to cover herself but Cam grabbed her wrists and pulled her hands down.
Now, the only sound in the vast courtyard was the rasp of his breath.
“You like to play rough?” he said softly. His mouth twisted in a cold smile. Slowly, purposefully, he let his eyes sweep over her.
Her breasts were perfect. Round and high, just the size to fill his palms. The tips, beaded by the rapidly chilling night breeze, were the shade of ripe apricots.
“Very nice,” he said in a voice he barely recognized as his own.
Eyes locked to hers, he lifted his hand, ran his knuckles lightly over her breasts. When she tried to jerk away, her guards grabbed her arms and forced her to stand still as Cam stroked her nipples, warm silk against his fingertips.
“I’ve changed my mind,” he said thickly. “I’ll take her.”
Her scream was lost in the delighted howl of the crowd as he scooped her up, tossed her over his shoulder and headed for the palace.
CHAPTER THREE
THE laughing crowd of barbarians parted like the Red Sea as the American strode through it.
Leanna had come up with a plan, but it had all gone wrong.
A hand reached out, fondled her bottom. She shrieked. The pig who’d touched her said something that made the others laugh even harder.
“Please,” she gasped to her captor, “please, you’ve got this all wrong.”
He grunted and shifted her weight. For all she knew, he couldn’t even hear her. She was hanging over his shoulder like a bag of laundry, bound hands clutching desperately at the ragged ends of her bra.
As if modesty mattered at a time like this.
As if anything mattered, except forcing this man to listen.
A couple of hours back, it had all seemed so clear. What she’d do, how she’d do it. The giants had brought her to the sultan who’d looked her over and smiled as if she were a mouse in the paws of a cat.
“Very nice,” he’d said softly.
Then he’d told her that he’d have to put off their first time together, as if, dear God, as if being raped by him was something to look forward to.
“I have a guest,” he’d said, “an American business associate. Take him to bed, keep him occupied so that he hears and sees only you. I will reward you by having you taken to the airport and sent home.”
And Santa and the Easter Bunny were kissing cousins.
Asaad would never set her free, but Leanna had decided that seeming to go along with things was her best bet.