Review
Praise for Guilty Pleasure:“Leigh’s latest menage tale is scorching hot and a lot of fun. Readers who like strong heroines, mysterious heroes and ertica with a side of suspense will love this one.” --Romantic Times“Guilty Pleasureis a rich, delicious story that’s filled with action, adventure and the sizzling hot sensuality that author Lora Leigh is known for.” --Fallen Angels Reviews“Guilty Pleasureis stimulating, passionate, and downright naughty!” --Joyfully ReviewedPraise for Only Pleasure:“A titillating surprise’ --Publisher’s Weekly“Romance readers who love a dominant, tortured, panty-ripping hero will adore Chase Falladay and won’t be able to help being a little jealous of the lucky Kia, regardless of how likable she is. ONLY PLEASUREis a wild ride into eroticism balanced with an equal measure of pure romance. You won’t put it down until you’ve reached the very end!” --Wild on Books“A sizzling hot love story guaranteed to heat up the cold winter nights.”--Fresh FictionPraise for Wicked Pleasure:“Wicked, intense, suspenseful.” --Romance Junkies“[S]ensual, exciting and totally erotic.” --Fresh Fiction“Intense and blazing hot.” --RRTEroticPraise for Forbidden Pleasure:“Highly intense, poignantly emotional, and wonderfully delicious...a truly decadent read.”--Romance
Junkies
Book Description
The sizzling new erotic tale from New York Times bestselling author Lora Leigh
Marty Mathews had always known about the secret, forbidden pleasures that the women she had grown up with enjoyed. Women whose husbands or lovers were members of the exclusive “Club,” where they took a selected “third” into their beds. And there is one man—a dangerous, forbidden man—who is part of this world and who has haunted Marty’s dreams for years. But she had been the FBI agent assigned to shadow him, making him completely off limits. . .That is until Khalid is cleared and Marty is released from her assignment. Now, all bets are off. . .
The beautiful, fierce Marty Mathews is the one woman Khalid hungers for like no other and is the one woman he dare not let himself have. His past dogs his every step and danger lurks around every corner. If he wants to keep her safe, he must stay away from her. But the power of their desire is something they cannot deny—and once Marty is his, Khalid will do whatever it takes to keep her in his bed and in his arms.
About the Author
Lora Leigh is the author of Live Wire, Forbidden Pleasure, and Enigma, among many others. Writing is her passion, her peace, and her lifeline, and she can often be found daydreaming and plotting and planning with the varied characters that fill her imagination. When she isn’t writing, she tends her flower gardens, watches horses romp outside her home, or spends time with the family and pets she fills her life with. She lives in the rolling hills of Kentucky.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
Prologue
“Traitorous fucking bastard!”
Marty Mathews stared at her boss, division chief Vince Deerfield with a hidden sense of surprise as he threw the thick file on Khalid el Hamid Mustafa across the desk.
The dull, yellow folder hit, slid then fell from the desk to scatter loose sheets of information and pictures at her feet.
Khalid el Hamid-Mustafa. The bastard son of a Saudi sheikh suspected of terrorism. His father, Aziz Mustafa was a religious hardliner, a man who ruled one of the more barren sections of Saudi Arabia, on the Iraq border. He had tarred his sons with his own brush and in doing so had subjected his bastard son, Khalid, to years of suspicion by the United States.
It was the reason Marty had been tailing Khalid for the past two years. As a FBI agent, one on the low end of the totem pole as far as her boss was concerned, Marty had been stuck playing babysitter and peeping Thomasina to one of the most sexually active men she had ever laid her eyes on.
A dark, brooding, dangerous man. There was no doubt in her mind that Khalid Mustafa would be a very dangerous man to cross.
If she had doubted it, then the information her godfather had given her over the past years would have confirmed it.
There was a reason why she had never reported any of the more suspicious activities Khalid had engaged in. Quite simply, it was because he engaged in them at the orders of her godfather, the director of the FBI.
“No comment?” Vince snarled, his heavy brows lowered, his hazel green eyes spitting fire and brimstone back at her.
“I’m the agent who’s followed him for the past two years,” she replied politely. “As my reports state, there’s no evidence to support the suspicion that Mr. Mustafa has any ties to a terrorist community.”
Vince threw himself back in his chair and glared at her now. That glare was nerve-racking. It boded ill to any agent on the receiving end of it. Unfortunately, she was the agent in question.
“Two years,” he snapped. “I gave you two years, Agent Mathews, to find just a shred of evidence to support the suspicions we have against him. Two years. I could have convicted a five-year-old with that amount of time on my hands.”
No doubt he could have, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t have had a godfather who was director of the entire FBI going over his reports, editing them and deleting minor points that could have supported that suspicion because Khalid was currently his favorite mole.
“A five-year-old wouldn’t have the decadent lifestyle Mustafa has.” She rolled her eyes at the thought of it. “I rather doubt the man has the time to consort with terrorists. He’s too busy playing with his little friends.”
That was more truth than fiction, actually, no matter how much her father liked to smile and deny it.
Her boss stared back at her as though she were a slug under a rock that somehow had dared him to touch. The very fact that he couldn’t fire her without bringing down a heavy barrage of interest in his office was only the tip of the iceberg of reasons he hated her.
The man was slowly committing career suicide and didn’t seem to have a clue. Her godfather was Zachary Jennings, the director of the FBI and Deerfields boss. She didn’t run crying to Daddy Zach, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t well aware of the treatment she had been receiving in this office since being assigned to it.
“Well, you can stop protesting the assignment,” he bit out, his tone malevolent. “You’re off. The operation is dead in the damned water, thanks to your godfather and your incompetence. What did you do, go crying to him?”
Marty sat up straighter, a frown snapping between her brows at the accusation she had thought of only moments before. “I’ve never discussed this assignment with my godfather,” she informed him, bristling at the insult, but thanking God that her godfather had taught her how to lie when she was young. “And I stopped crying to him when I was three.”
“Then I don’t have to worry about a protest on my desk when I tell you that you have to be one of the lousiest agents I’ve ever had in my division,” he stated derisively.
“The only report you have to worry about is the one I may file, sir.” Frost filled her voice as she stared back at him, fighting to hide her anger. “Perhaps it wasn’t my lack of skill so much as your lack of foresight and inability to accept the fact that Mustafa is guilty of nothing but his own sexual excesses.”
She kept her tone respectful. She assured herself there was none of the animosity that brewed inside her leaking into her tone.
He sneered back at her, and it was all she could do to keep from telling him what a fruitcake he had become over the years.
His determination to .nd any shred of evidence that he could procure against Khalid had become a running joke within the office. He refused to listen to reason, refused to see that there was nothing to tie Khalid to any terrorist. Except those that her godfather had him secretly meeting with.
“Traitorous fucking bastard!”
Marty Mathews stared at her boss, division chief Vince Deerfield with a hidden sense of surprise as he threw the thick file on Khalid el Hamid Mustafa across the desk.
The dull, yellow folder hit, slid then fell from the desk to scatter loose sheets of information and pictures at her feet.
Khalid el Hamid-Mustafa. The bastard son of a Saudi sheikh suspected of terrorism. His father, Aziz Mustafa was a religious hardliner, a man who ruled one of the more barren sections of Saudi Arabia, on the Iraq border. He had tarred his sons with his own brush and in doing so had subjected his bastard son, Khalid, to years of suspicion by the United States.
It was the reason Marty had been tailing Khalid for the past two years. As a FBI agent, one on the low end of the totem pole as far as her boss was concerned, Marty had been stuck playing babysitter and peeping Thomasina to one of the most sexually active men she had ever laid her eyes on.
A dark, brooding, dangerous man. There was no doubt in her mind that Khalid Mustafa would be a very dangerous man to cross.
If she had doubted it, then the information her godfather had given her over the past years would have confirmed it.
There was a reason why she had never reported any of the more suspicious activities Khalid had engaged in. Quite simply, it was because he engaged in them at the orders of her godfather, the director of the FBI.
“No comment?” Vince snarled, his heavy brows lowered, his hazel green eyes spitting fire and brimstone back at her.
“I’m the agent who’s followed him for the past two years,” she replied politely. “As my reports state, there’s no evidence to support the suspicion that Mr. Mustafa has any ties to a terrorist community.”
Vince threw himself back in his chair and glared at her now. That glare was nerve-racking. It boded ill to any agent on the receiving end of it. Unfortunately, she was the agent in question.
“Two years,” he snapped. “I gave you two years, Agent Mathews, to find just a shred of evidence to support the suspicions we have against him. Two years. I could have convicted a five-year-old with that amount of time on my hands.”
No doubt he could have, but on the other hand, he wouldn’t have had a godfather who was director of the entire FBI going over his reports, editing them and deleting minor points that could have supported that suspicion because Khalid was currently his favorite mole.
“A five-year-old wouldn’t have the decadent lifestyle Mustafa has.” She rolled her eyes at the thought of it. “I rather doubt the man has the time to consort with terrorists. He’s too busy playing with his little friends.”
That was more truth than fiction, actually, no matter how much her father liked to smile and deny it.
Her boss stared back at her as though she were a slug under a rock that somehow had dared him to touch. The very fact that he couldn’t fire her without bringing down a heavy barrage of interest in his office was only the tip of the iceberg of reasons he hated her.
The man was slowly committing career suicide and didn’t seem to have a clue. Her godfather was Zachary Jennings, the director of the FBI and Deerfields boss. She didn’t run crying to Daddy Zach, but that didn’t mean he wasn’t well aware of the treatment she had been receiving in this office since being assigned to it.
“Well, you can stop protesting the assignment,” he bit out, his tone malevolent. “You’re off. The operation is dead in the damned water, thanks to your godfather and your incompetence. What did you do, go crying to him?”
Marty sat up straighter, a frown snapping between her brows at the accusation she had thought of only moments before. “I’ve never discussed this assignment with my godfather,” she informed him, bristling at the insult, but thanking God that her godfather had taught her how to lie when she was young. “And I stopped crying to him when I was three.”
“Then I don’t have to worry about a protest on my desk when I tell you that you have to be one of the lousiest agents I’ve ever had in my division,” he stated derisively.
“The only report you have to worry about is the one I may file, sir.” Frost filled her voice as she stared back at him, fighting to hide her anger. “Perhaps it wasn’t my lack of skill so much as your lack of foresight and inability to accept the fact that Mustafa is guilty of nothing but his own sexual excesses.”
She kept her tone respectful. She assured herself there was none of the animosity that brewed inside her leaking into her tone.
He sneered back at her, and it was all she could do to keep from telling him what a fruitcake he had become over the years.
His determination to .nd any shred of evidence that he could procure against Khalid had become a running joke within the office. He refused to listen to reason, refused to see that there was nothing to tie Khalid to any terrorist. Except those that her godfather had him secretly meeting with.
Now wasn’t that fucked up?
“My lack of foresight has never been an issue.” He rose to his feet and paced to the wide windows that gave views out over DC as he blew out a hard, disgusted breath. “Either way, the operation has been ordered shut down. You’re off the case, Mathews. You can begin the vacation you’ve been crying over for the past two years.”
Crying over? She rather doubted it. She had submitted the request the month before she had been assigned to Khalid, and had merely resubmitted it every six months. She deserved her vacation. She hadn’t had one in over three years.
“Thank you, sir.” She just barely managed to keep the mockery out of her voice.
Not that Director Deerfield was fooled. He glared back at her as he clasped his hands behind his back and straightened his shoulders to stare down his hooked nose at her.
“You’re excused.” He grimaced, as though there was a smell that offended him. “I’ll see you back here in one month. Hopefully by then I can find an assignment worthy of your mediocre skills.”
Damn. She could wait longer than four weeks before returning to this office or Deerfield’s questionable mercies. The man was a fiend. She would have nightmares while on vacation concerning her return.
“Thank you, sir.” Rising to her feet, she gave him a short-lived, less than sincere smile. “I’ll see you in a month.”
Marty turned on her heel and walked quickly to the door, desperate to get away from the malevolence she could feel pouring from her boss.
Running to her godfather wasn’t going to be a problem though, because she had a feeling her time at the agency was history. At the moment, she was being courted by more than one private protection firm and she was seriously considering one very lucrative offer. “Mathews.” The sound of his voice as she opened the door had her turning back.
“Yes, sir?” She kept her tone calm and even. It wouldn’t due to clue him in on the fact that he was the type of director that gave the bureau a bad name.
“Mustafa is part of your little social clique.” There was a sneer in his voice.
Marty’s brows arched. “He often socializes in the same circles as my parents and godfather,” she agreed, reminding him yet again that her father was a U.S. senator and her godfather was the director of the bureau. Her mother had been a federal judge before her retirement three years earlier due to health concerns.
“So I’ve seen.” His lips were thin, pinched. “I’d be careful of my own associations if I were you, though. There have been rumors that Mustafa has been interested in you over the years. That interest could affect your career. I’m certain your godfather might protest being forced to protect you against your own bad judgment.”
Geeze. The man was a paranoid bastard just to start with, and an asshole on top of it.
“As you said, this assignment is over.” She glanced at the pages still littering the floor before looking back to her boss. “What I do with my free time is my business now.”
And if she wanted to sleep with a former suspect then that was her damned business.
Closing the door behind her, Marty strode quickly from the bureau’s unassuming offices and into the heated warmth of a DC summer day.
The first day of her vacation. A month free of strife and Deer. eld’s screaming rages because she hadn’t managed to come up with so much as a shred of suspicion against Mustafa.
If the man only knew exactly who Khalid was to the bureau. His code name was Desert Lion, the missions he had successfully completed for the bureau had been imperative.
But why didn’t Deerfield have the information that Khalid was one of her father’s in dependent agents? Why had she been told but he hadn’t been? That was information that her godfather, Zachary Jennings, still hadn’t given her, but she had her own suspicions.
Deerfield was likely on his way out, if she knew her godfather, Will. Otherwise Vince Deerfield would have been given the information that would have exonerated Khalid of the suspicions Deerfield had against him.
While she was striding along the sidewalk, a sm...
