Page 6 of Desperate Measures
His mouth goes tight, and I have the presence of mind to wonder if my father is still among the living. He may not stay that way for long with the fury emanating from Jafar.
Funny that he wasn’t angry until this point.
He unbuttons his shirt in neat, precise movements and shrugs out of it.
I skitter back a step. “My room is upstairs. I’ll get my own clothes.”
“You know better.”
Damn it, but I do. This is as much about a power play as it is about anything as mundane as lust. Jafar might want me, but it’s not simply because he’s a man who wants a woman. I’m a symbol, an indicator that his victory over my father is complete on every level. Power, money, home, daughter.
Likely in that order.
Jafar pulls his shirt on me and buttons it up as if he dresses me in his clothing regularly. I’m tall enough that it barely covers my ass, but apparently that isn’t the point.
The conqueror must parade his stolen goods in front of his men.
“Why not just throw a collar on my neck and lead me around naked to really seal my degradation?”
His lips curve. “Maybe another time.” He brushes my hair back, and then his finger is there, tracing the shape of the bruises coloring my cheekbone. Marking it. Memorizing it.
Yes, if my father is alive, he’ll come to regret that strike. I have no doubts about that.
“You’re in my world now, Yasmina.”
Is that supposed to comfort me? He’s a snake in the garden, tempting me into delicious sin and then abandoning me in every way that counts once the deed is done.
Jafar doesn’t seem to need a response. He simply tosses me over his shoulder like some old-world war prize. I want to scream and curse and flail, but it’s only his upper arm across the bottom of my ass that holds his shirt in place. If I fight him, I won’t get free, and everyone will see every part of me.
Just more humiliation.
“You’ll pay for this.”
“Unlikely.” He starts down the hallway with an easy stride, as if my weight on his shoulder is completely inconsequential. As if I’m nothing more than another token of his superiority.
I’m thankful that my long hair hides my face as we leave the hallway and enter the main foyer. It’s a ridiculously overdrawn room with a giant curving staircase leading up to the second floor and more than enough space for fifty people to stand comfortably.
It sounds filled to capacity.
A murmur goes through the people gathered. It’s speculative and filled with no small amount of gleeful malice. They think Jafar raped me, that he took by force something they followed with covetous eyes since the time I hit puberty and developed breasts.
They could never comprehend the level of my betrayal, that I wanted him to defile me the way he did, that I welcomed his touch even as I mouthed all the protests I could muster. Every word but the one that would make a difference.?4
Jafar knows.
He owns me, and I have no one to blame but myself.
“Well done.” His voice booms out, silencing everyone. “Tonight is for celebrating.” He lets them cheer, lets the ugliness of their glee wash over me. “Tomorrow, we get to work.”
“Where you taking the girl, boss?” A voice from the crowd.
I know that voice. It’s Richard, a man who served on my personal protective detail despite my begging my father to remove him. Another fight I lost.
He laughs, the sound buoyed by others around him. “Share the spoils of war!”
Share me.
I tense. I can’t help it. Surely he wouldn’t…
