Chapter 1
L’Amore Sofferente Hotel:
Base of the Matterhorn, Switzerland
Christian jerked his head up between his aching shoulders, surprised to find he wasn’t lying down. He was hanging, his tightly bound hands caught on a meat hook dangling by a chain from the ceiling. His head hurt, pulsing where he’d been struck. His whole body ached, dull throbs that echoed every blow he’d received from the beating he’d taken both before and after he’d been knocked unconscious. Even his feet hurt, the tightness of the bonds that bound his splayed ankles to metal floor rings cutting into his flesh and preventing him from standing upright, forcing him to hang by his wrists at an awkward diagonal angle. Taking stock of both the pain and his captive situation, he also noticed they’d stripped him naked.
“Aliya!” He bolted upright in bed, cold sweat pouring off his body.
“I’m here, Christian,” she said, waddling back to bed from the bathroom, fresh from the shower with a towel on her head. The room was still mostly dark, lit by the soft glow of the nightlight, meant to keep her from stubbing her toes and the graying hue of early morning, glowing on the walls around the drawn window curtains.
Relaxing slowly, Christian Reid watched his very pregnant and naked wife cross the room to him and wondered at the confluence of events that had brought him to this peaceful place. Well, she wasn’t that pregnant, not yet, but she was carrying the baby up front and had such a small frame to start with.
Funny how that small frame had been one of the first things that had struck him about Fariq Abdal’s little sister. That and her stunning beauty, something her pregnancy had only enhanced, in his opinion, anyway. It had taken several spankings and fucking her daily to convince her carrying his first-born just made her all the more irresistible to him. While she might protest and caterwaul through each of the former sessions, she remained a more than eager participant in the latter. In her second trimester, Aliya’s hormones were in full swing, and she craved sex every bit as insatiably as she had Cobb’s smashed-avocado chopped-chicken salad during the first semester. He occasionally still teased her if their child was born avocado green, those salads were the reason why.
She sat on the edge of the bed, gently drying her hair.
“Was it the nightmare again?” she asked, leaning down to kiss him deeply. He nodded. “Ibn haram,” she hissed.
“Aliya,” he scolded. “Is the mother of my baby allowed to curse?”
She barely managed not to roll her eyes. “No, but he was, and I’m glad I killed him.”
“Me, too.” Christian grinned. “Still, I don’t think that’s any way for a loving wife to greet her husband when he wakes with a hard-on.”
“When,” she demanded with the light, bubbly giggle he never got tired of hearing, “have you ever awakened and not had one?”
Grasping her by her middle, he tossed the towel aside and gently rolled her over his body onto the bed next to him. His hand descended to swat her luscious backside three times. Even pregnant, his wife was happiest when reminded who was the Dom and who was the submissive.
Who was he kidding? That was the state that made both of them the happiest.
“Christian!” she protested, laughing.
He swatted her again. “Up on your knees and present yourself to me.”
Her reaction to the mock sternness in his voice was immediate. Aliya shivered, a slow flush of desire rising to stain her chest and quicken her breathing. She raised herself onto her knees, resting her upper body on her forearms. He loved fucking her from behind—hell, he loved fucking her every way—but now, with her pregnant and on her knees, he could better control his penetration.
Leaning over her, he ran his hands from her backside up her spine and sighed. This was the best way he knew to banish the vestiges of the nightmare that still plagued him all these months later.
“You are so beautiful. I’m the luckiest sonofabitch in the world to call you mine.”
“Yes, you are,” she said, her dark hair falling forward, hiding her face from him, although her amusement was evident in her voice.
Grinning, he rose quickly to swat her backside harder still, loving how the brief sting made her breath catch.
“Watch yourself, Princess. A piece of ginger stuck up your ass won’t hurt the baby and might do you a world of good.”
“No, no, no!” She still laughed, although her protests sounded far more genuine. “Please, Christian. I’ll be your good little pregnant wife.”
He snorted.
“No ginger.” She laughed again. “Please, just take pity on your poor sub.” She looked back at him over her shoulder. “Fuck me instead?”
Chuckling, he took his cock in his hand and guided it to her entrance. Her soft cry as the broad head breached her entrance was the best music he’d ever heard. She loved it when they fucked, but he was convinced her favorite part was the moment when he penetrated her fully, impaling her until her ass was snug against his pelvis. It was a good feeling, but his favorite would always be those precious few seconds after he’d spent himself in her—when all was right in his world.
He pressed forward, enjoying the way her wet heat encompassed him and loving how she shivered in the throes of her first orgasm just from his possession alone. He rubbed her back and mindful of her pregnancy, thrust in small, careful movements until her pussy had fully accepted him, then his fucking took on long, hard, deliberate strokes. When he rocked his hips back and forth, his cock driving powerfully deeper, he felt as though he might just be the hero she believed him to be. He held her in place, not allowing her to move with him. He controlled sex—controlled her pleasure and her orgasms—and she gave him everything in return.
“More!” she cried, grabbing the bedclothes as she came. Her pussy pulsed and quivered all along his length, begging him to join her, but he wasn’t ready yet. He increased the driving power and tempo of his thrusts.
Surging forward, he drew her body up, so he could hold her, her back to his chest, her breasts filling his hands. He squeezed, pinched, and rolled her nipples with one hand while his other cupped her mons, keeping her snuggly trapped against him, a slave to his orgasm. The submissive who made his heart race—the only person in the world he literally could not imagine his life without.
He came hard, holding her tight against him and pumping his cum into her as she ground back against him in the throes of another orgasm. Nuzzling her neck, he nipped her ear as she leaned her head back against his shoulder. She sighed, relaxed and replete.
“I hate to remind you, but the season opens today, and we have a full house. Paid guests as well as the Wild Mustang bunch.”
Christian groaned. Bad enough, his sister and Croft had come to visit, but Zara and Avery had accompanied them, and those two were a terrible influence on Aliya.
Not that it was a bad thing. He grinned. Spanking Aliya always ignited her libido again.
Chapter 2
Six Months Earlier…
“Please?” Aliya wheedled, making it incredibly hard for Christian to concentrate on what he was doing. Pretending to crunch financials while furtively copying encrypted information off the database of the world’s most-wanted criminal was hard enough. Trying to do it with Fariq in the same room was nothing short of suicidal. It was uncanny how the man seemed to know everything going on around him. Under no other circumstance would he have risked something this stupid, but time was fast becoming of the essence, and Aliya’s presence was—he hoped—just enough distraction to make the risk worth taking.