Authors: Amber Bardan
The veins on his neck stood up, and he rolled my leg back over and settled above me. His hard abdomen slid over the slick, lubed-up skin of my stomach. I rubbed myself against him, wound my arms around his neck and absorbed the glide of his chest against my breasts as he moved in me. He thrust hard, his neck and back stiff under my hands. I drew my knees higher, and he sank deep—pushed in and ground his hips against me.
A low growling sound rumbled from his chest. He grabbed my ass, squeezing me to him. I scraped my teeth over his shoulder, tasted his skin and his sweat, inhaled his scent, taking in everything of his that I could.
He rolled us to the side. I closed my eyes. His hands moved to my hair, smoothed it all back from my face. He pressed his lips to mine, just a soft little kiss.
I opened my eyes.
He kissed me again and again.
Light little pecks while he held my face. My chest filled with warmth, and I no longer knew what I felt with my heart, my head, or my body, only that I was, indeed, feeling
everything.
TWENTY
E
VEN
WITH
HIS
heat radiating against me, my skin eventually cooled. I’m not sure how long we’d lain there—could’ve been ten minutes, could’ve been an hour. I’d always expected he’d be the kind of man who’d shag and leave. I didn’t need that much experience to know that there are very different ways things like this can go.
That some men are cold, and others are not.
I didn’t think he’d keep touching me after we were done. His fingers trailed down the curve of my spine. I almost wished he’d stop. Almost wished he’d stop holding me as though I were precious. I pushed my cheek deeper into his chest. If he didn’t stop, there was a good chance I wouldn’t be able to stand it when he eventually did. His heart throbbed against my ear. I hurt in places I didn’t know I had.
From the inside out.
He stroked down the back of my arm.
I shivered.
He drew back and looked down at me. “Well, look at this.”
Cool air brushed my chest, and the surface of my skin prickled. He touched the bumps on my breast, then ran the pad of his index finger over my nipple.
I shivered again, in a different way.
“I might have to keep you cold if you keep this up.”
I swallowed. I couldn’t speak, didn’t know what I’d say. Didn’t know what I could say. My head was a jumble, my brains scrambled.
Crazy things lurked in there.
He rested his hand on my shoulder. “You feeling okay?”
No
.
“Just sticky.”
He laughed a soft, intimate laugh that pierced my heart.
“Come on then, dirty girl.”
He slapped my backside lightly and helped me off the bed, led me into the bathroom and turned on the shower. I stepped inside, and he stepped in after me. There was room for us both, yet he took all my breathing space. Haithem and me, the hot water raining down on us, the steam, the glass walls wrapping me in.
I moved back and leaned against the tiled wall.
“Where are you sticky?”
He rubbed soap between his hands.
“Everywhere,” I said.
He washed me. Washed me with soapy hands—
everywhere
. Lifted my leg and washed my foot, pinched my toes. He touched every corner of my body, as though he couldn’t touch me enough. Nothing had ever felt as good as this part, this sweet, tender part I hadn’t prepared for.
I’m not sure why his touch made my organs squeeze as though massive organ failure were imminent.
I fell against him and wrapped my arms around his waist, buried my face in his shoulder. Water poured over my head and face. He paused in his ministrations and moved us out of the stream. He tilted up my chin to him. He looked as if he was going to say something but stopped and rested his forehead on mine.
His chest expanded against my chest. I breathed with him, as though his breaths were my breaths. I imagined the surface between our skins shivered. His heart beating against me became my heartbeat.
Something of my old life flowed down the drain.
Haithem
S
HE
’
D
DRAGGED
ONE
of the sun loungers halfway inside the cabin doors, catching the breeze but not the sun. I’d been stuck there, at the top of the stairs, immobilized. Watching the hair pulled over one of her shoulders flutter.
Watching her expression change as she scrawled in that notebook she’d refused to open.
What was she writing about?
Me?
She sat with one leg bent, notebook against her knee. My lungs stung as though I’d breathed too much when I certainly had not. What would she say about me if brutal honesty was required?
She ran the tip of her middle finger down the center of her tongue, then flicked the page. A hungry shudder ran through me.
That tongue of hers flashed a hundred times in my head. Running the length of my cock with her eyes unflinchingly on mine. Moistening her lips as her breaths grew frantic—desperate. Her mouth opening wide as her throat arched, straining, exposing the blue veins on her neck.
My fist closed against the railing.
It was almost too easy to forget what we were doing with each other. Almost too easy to forget that a smaller yacht had been following us for the past three days, not getting closer, not getting farther away.
That in two weeks she’d expect to go home.
She glanced up, then slid her sunglasses into her hair and gazed back at me. I moved across the deck, fluidly as though a moment before I hadn’t been soldered in place. She snapped the notepad closed and placed it on the floor. My gaze flicked to it and then to her. What, she didn’t want me to see?
Does she still think she can hide from me?
When I’d looked into her eyes while buried inside her and seen her soul? There were secrets there. More that she hadn’t told.
Her dress rippled on her thighs, even the breeze luring me to her pale skin. There was so much more to her story.
I sat on the end of the sun lounger.
“Hi.” She shuffled back. Her cheeks went rosier. Funny that. When she could look me in the eye and suck my cock, yet now she blushed when I approached her. Awkward now we had this intimacy.
“What were you writing?” I placed my hand on her knee, voice soft but grip firm, and pressed her thigh to the side.
Her muscles contracted for a moment, an instant of resistance before giving in. “Nothing important.”
Nothing for me you mean.
It didn’t matter, whatever was in there wouldn’t be what I needed. I’d only wanted to see if she’d tell me. If she’d trust me. My gaze flowed between her legs, and I smiled, then touched a red prickly rash on her upper thigh still raised from where my face had been. Her thigh twitched under my fingers.
I ran my touch to her cunt. To the pretty white lace between her legs, then ran my knuckles over her sweet spot. “I’d prefer you didn’t wear panties while on my yacht.”
Her eyes widened but a scrap of lace wasn’t enough to stop her heat seeping against me.
“I’ll take that under advisement.” She crossed her bent leg over the straight one, trapping my hand between her thighs. Trapping, so far as I allowed her to.
She lowered her chin and leaned half a foot closer to me. “Haithem, when you come up here to me, I require you to be without a shirt.” Her voice lowered and her gaze flicked to my collar. “It interferes with my ability to see muscles. I prefer to see muscles.”
A laugh ripped through my chest and came out as a chuckle.
Look at her
. Like she made the rules. How would we be if she did?
Wonderful.
I clutched her knee with my free hand and yanked open her thighs again.
Life does not get to be wonderful. And the rules were mine to make or break.
I shoved her panties aside and pushed two fingers up inside her. Her reaction was instant. My hand went slick. She clenched her jaw and leaned back. Allowed her legs to be opened.
She turned into sex the way dry ice turns to smoke in hot water—instantly and with majestic beauty.
I twisted my fingers sideways to get her clit with my thumb. She made a choking sound and gripped the sides of the sun lounger. This wasn’t going to be sweet today. I went for her G-spot ruthlessly. Until she screamed loud enough everyone on board would know what I did to her.
Until she chanted my name in broken shouts.
Until she came in a way that drenched my hand.
Let them all know she’s mine.
She fell back panting and shaking. Fuck, I’d never seen a person come the way she did. The way her whole body spasmed as though there was no thread of control she clung to.
She was abandon.
“Oh, wow.” She smoothed hair back from her face, her chest still moving fast. Her gaze fell down on me, then went to the cock pushing hard on the zipper of my pants. I knew what she wanted.
I let her put her little hand on my cock.
“Why hadn’t you fucked before me?”
Her fingers froze midcaress. “I told you.”
“No you didn’t.”
She rubbed her chest against my shoulder, then slid her hand farther, tormenting my balls. Lust pounded through my veins but so did the thirst for something more.
“I said I knew you’d be good.” She cupped me hard through fabric. “Plus, you’re very sexy.”
“I didn’t ask why you fucked me.” I clamped my hand over hers. “I knew you were hot for me the moment you set eyes on me.”
She went still.
“I asked why you hadn’t before me.” I tucked in my chin, trying to see the face she’d turned away, looking down at our hands on my crotch.
“You know my parents have expectations.” She tugged her hand free. “And with my brother and everything. Now was just the right time.”
Why?
I watched her. Still lying. Still making excuses around the truth.
“I know you’re a good girl, Angel.” I slid my hand against the back of her scalp and tugged her hair, tilted her face to me. Gripped her with just an edge of roughness the way she liked. “But you’re a very dirty good girl.”
She couldn’t hide under my direct scrutiny. Her tongue darted between her lips. “The time was right.”
“Why was the time right?” I angled her harder, looked closer until our noses almost brushed.
Tell me it wasn’t your job.
“Why wasn’t it right until you met a man you believed would leave the country the next day?”
Her eyes darted in their sockets, away from mine, looking somewhere vaguely down. “Maybe it’s better to break the rules when there’s no risk of someone getting hurt.”
“You ever thought I couldn’t hurt you?” I didn’t mean to laugh but I did, and her eyes sparked with inner fire when they landed back on me.
She brushed aside my hand and sat back. “Maybe
I
didn’t want to hurt
you
.”
My blood froze.
No
. “What do you mean?”
She scooted off the sun lounger. “Nothing.”
“I think you’re not being honest with me.” I drew myself up to standing.
She picked up her notebook and started inside. “Frankly, you’re free to think what you like.”
I went after her.
Tell me.
My heart boomed.
Tell me.
My head throbbed.
Tell me.
I followed her around while she put things away, slamming drawers. She managed not to tread on me but I did not make that easy to avoid.
She spun to me. “Why can’t you just fucking let a thing go?”
“I don’t let go.” I growled, and then I had her again, by the waist.
Tell me.
Her chest rose high, then flopped down.
My fingers gripped her waist. My guts clenched.
Don’t tell me.
“
Honestly, Haithem. My actual twin, womb sibling, was terminally ill most of my freaking life.” Her teeth pressed together. “Do you really think there’s not a really good chance that I have fucked-up genes. That one day I won’t be the sick one?”
What?
My grip dropped from her waist. What about the espionage agency who recruited her? What about them? “That’s ridiculous. You’re healthy.”
How could she not know her genes were perfect?
“Really?” Her eyelids flared. “Because the way I see it we have the same exact parents, and if you haven’t heard of it there’s this thing called DNA.”
A rock-firm absolute certainty settled in my bones. “That will not happen.”
I would not allow it.
“What if it did?” Her eyes glistened but a snarl moved into her lip. “Do you have any fucking clue how awful that is? Watching, no,
experiencing
someone you love—it’s not even dying, it’s decaying.”
The living breath ceased in my body. “Angelina...”
I reached for her.
“You think I’d do that to someone?” She knocked my touch away. “If I was bald, and bloated, and sick, and dying, what would you do?” She shoved me between the ribs with her palm. Her dimples pinched along with her lips. “Would you want to fuck me then?”
Our gazes collided in a tangle of agony.
In that quaking instant I knew her. Knew her the way I never knew my dead father—dead mother—relative or friend. Never had I known myself so well.
“I’d still fuck you.” I grabbed her by the back of the neck. “But it’s never going to fucking happen.”
I kissed her.
Drove every inch of my will into her with my lips and tongue and spirit.
I reached between us and broke open my fly. Then I was on her, tearing her panties to shove into her before her ass hit the bed. Let her try to argue there’d ever be a time I wouldn’t take this. Her rejoinder—scraping nails, biting teeth and arching hips—was stark desperation and utter longing. And yet still secrets persisted. In that soul-tight bond, I felt it there. The more she didn’t tell.
TWENTY-ONE
T
HE
INTERCOM
BEEPED
. I was coming to hate that stupid beep. I might just take the screws out with a knife and disconnect the wires next time he went downstairs. Haithem pried himself from my arms and crossed the room to answer the handset.
I rolled onto my back.
“Cut the engine,” Haithem spat.
I sat up.
His gaze fixed on me, naked on the bed with the sheet up to my hip. “Invite our guests on board.”
He hung up the phone, lingered with his hand on the receiver for a moment, and then went to the wardrobe. I leaped up and followed him. Someone was here? No one was ever here.
“Who’s visiting?”
With Haithem’s trust issues, this could only mean friends—family. Other people who knew him.
“Put on clothes.” He pulled on a clean shirt and pants. “And wait for me in this room.”
Huh?
So he still wasn’t trusting me? I still hadn’t earned the right to know about his life or his business?
After everything we’d just talked about and how I’d shared. Things I hadn’t even acknowledged until he made me say them.
I’d given him more than I’d ever given another person. Not just the sex—but yes that, too. I hadn’t saved myself up like a present or wrapped a bow on my hymen. But, with or without my problems it’d taken this long to let myself get here. And now I’d done this thing, there was a gnawing ache in my stomach. A kind of hopeful grief—could he be the wrong person? Because I’d wanted fun.
Liar
. I’d wanted pleasure.
Haithem gave me that and then some. He hadn’t taken anything from me, but he gave me intimacy. I hadn’t expected this connection but now we had it I needed more.
“I’ll get dressed and come down with you.”
He looked up from zipping his pants. “You’ll stay here.”
He tried to use that this-shit-is-final tone on me, but he didn’t quite have it anymore. Too much had changed. Just look, I’d followed him around shamelessly, butt-assed naked. Wasn’t even flinching over my own nudity.
This isn’t enough
. I wanted the entire caboodle. His heart, trust and devotion.
“And what if I don’t?” I tore a dress off the hanger.
I wanted to know what happened in two weeks when he let me go. Would this be over?
How could something like
this
be over?
“You stay.” He pistoled his finger at me.
I put on the dress and stomped after him to the doors out to the deck. “Or what?”
He spun around, then backed me up a step. “Don’t push me, Angel.”
My chest tightened.
Or what?
My heart said he bluffed but my mind screamed you-don’t-know-him-enough. There was a gaping void in the middle of us. A chasm of knowledge of things neither of us would part with.
I wanted his honesty. Yet I hadn’t given my own. He didn’t know me the way he thought he did. There was that other thing. The bigger deception. Worse than anything I’d been forced to say. The one thing I could never ever tell him.
Not the article. Not the magazine.
I’d have to tell him about
Poise
eventually. This I never could.
A burning shame filled me from core to surface.
I hadn’t let my mind dwell or stray to that place since I came here. He saw me so well. What if he saw
that
?
What if he sensed
that
?
Nothing would ever be the same. He’d never look at me the same way.
Never look at me like I was beautiful.
Never call me perfect.
I wanted to be perfect if only to him. If only for him.
We can’t keep doing this.
“
I’ll wait.” I sat myself down in a deck chair and crossed my legs. “But don’t bother coming back up here if you don’t bring cake.”
He smiled, but for once I saw everything underneath it, and today it was all sadness. “I wouldn’t dare.”
Haithem
I took the stairs two at a time. Karim, in typical form, knew what was to be done without instruction.
Spirits. Ice. Cigars. Caviar. Subtle instrumental music.
Everything prepared and ready for the arrival.
I yanked up the knot on my tie, flipped down the shirt collar, then folded myself into the center armchair.
“They’re boarding.” Karim stood behind my chair, a white towel draped over his arm, though a butler he was not.
“How many?” I braced my fingers on the rolled chesterfield arms—opening my chest.
“Seven.”
“Fine.” It wouldn’t matter. They could outnumber security, but they’d find some things and some people aren’t so easily overpowered.
They walked in armed, except for one, a white-haired man I knew at once. Rude, when I’d been so polite already.
I didn’t stand, instead held out a hand to the couch opposite. “Sergei Ivankov, welcome.”
His step faltered, just a small shortening of his stride. Of course he’d be surprised I’d recognize him on sight. The leader of the world’s most cunning criminal espionage agency ought to walk around secure in his anonymity. Or he wouldn’t be leader for long.
But I didn’t keep friends like Avner Malfancini for nothing.
“Mr. Soltan.” He took the seat.
His men lined the couch behind him, weapons held across their chests. My gaze didn’t shift from Sergei, but I had them locked in my peripheral. Along with Emilio in the corner and my other two men. The third stood at the door.
“Mr. Soltan was my father.” I let that statement linger.
Sergei didn’t blink. For too long.
Of course he wasn’t the one who’d killed my father—that man was dead. In the end all these people were implicit because their goal was the same.
“Call me Haithem.” I gestured to the drinks tray, and Karim stepped forward. “Ice?”
Sergei nodded and accepted the whiskey.
“Caviar?”
“I didn’t come for caviar,” he said, and swirled the glass, letting ice clink against the sides before downing the whiskey in one swallow, then slamming the cup on the coffee table. “And I much prefer vodka.”
I laughed, clipped, but guttural. If he wanted to break etiquette, so be it. This was still more civilized than painting the walls with blood. They wouldn’t do that today. Not in the beginning anyway. Not if they could secure my cooperation. The only reason why they’d wanted us to see them coming, and why we’d let them on board. Why this all didn’t simply end with a missile in my hull. “Of course.”
Karim took the white spirit from the bar freezer and refilled Sergei’s glass.
“My clients are willing to come to the party.” He sat back with the vodka.
I smiled. “I’m not taking partners.”
“They’re not seeking partnership as you well know.” He sipped from the glass, then glanced at the contents. “This is good shit.”
“Of course.”
His gaze flicked to me. “They want to buy you out.”
“I’m not for sale.”
“You haven’t heard the offer.”
I set elbows on my knees. “There is nothing that can be offered.”
His jaw moved left then right. Then he set the glass down and joined me in leaning forward. “Then things will become more unpleasant.”
“I think I’ve proved I’m up to the challenge.”
“This is a nice yacht you have.” He looked up. Around the room and at all the furniture. Then opened his jacket and set a handgun on his lap, his fingers resting casually on top. “That’s a pretty girl you have hidden up there.” He pointed up to the roof with a smirk, then bit his lip.
Adrenaline spurted through my veins.
“I keep good pussy, too.” I forced the smile to remain carved into my cheeks. “Would that be more to your taste than caviar, I could summon her?”
I tugged the sleeve of my shirt. Looked like there would be blood today after all.
He snorted. “It’s not pussy I came here for, either.”
Relief should have knocked my heart back into correct rhythm. It didn’t. Considering perhaps he knew she was here because he’d put her here, if not because he’d spied her on deck. Perhaps he was here because she’d led him to me.
No
.
Not her.
Not like friends who’d sold me out. Allies who’d been planted in my life. She wouldn’t betray me. She wasn’t a spy.
Suspicions would eat me alive and destroy us both. “How did you find me?”
“It doesn’t matter how, only that we did.” That smirk was back. “We will always find you. Just like I will find your cargo no matter how well you think you’ve concealed it.” He caressed the gun like a pet in his lap. “Then I will fuck your pretty piece of pussy before I put it down.”
I hadn’t twitched, or moved, or blinked, or stayed too still.
He knew.
Must have been my eyes. I’d warned her my affection was a terrible thing. And here it was—that danger realized.
I scooted forward, feet flat and ready to push off the ground. “Do you think I’d make myself dispensable?”
Sergei’s smile spread to one side, and he gripped the handgun, measuring it in his palm with gaze cocked at me.
“You’ll find it won’t be easy to stop me.” My voice dropped low. Only Sergei would hear me. “But if you do, I can promise it won’t be by bullet.”
The safety clicked.
Energy exploded though my thighs. Muscles snapped along my arms, his head in my hands before his finger could twitch on the trigger.
His body bounced off the coffee table, then thumped to the floor. I hadn’t known how natural it had become to end a man until Sergei’s neck snapped in my hands.
I rose on braced knees to barren silence. My pulse boomed.
Emilio stood behind the sofa, lowering the last corpse to the ground. He caught my gaze. I held it and nodded. There was a reason Emilio had been the Spanish Central Intelligence’s best. They’d called him silent death. Now he worked for me. Taught me the precise art of breaking a neck.
I scanned the room. These dead men were killers, mercenaries, assassins. They had no duty, their highest purpose was the bidder. I swiped my mouth on the back of my wrist. They’d have taken the very thing my family died for. What I’d worked and bled for. They’d have killed us. They’d have killed her.
Yet no matter how many times death visited me it never grew less shocking.
Today was worse.
It’d come quietly. Not a drop of blood to wipe away. A woman waited upstairs for me. I’d killed for her and she’d never know it.
* * *
S
WEAT
COATED
MY
ARMS
. My thighs were damp. It wasn’t just the pacing back and forth, it was me. He couldn’t keep everything from me like this. Couldn’t keep me locked away like this forever. I was done waiting. Done expecting he’d grow reasonable. There’d be a way to contact home. They needed to hear things from me. I snatched the library card from the drawer and walked to the door of Haithem’s office. He was downstairs with guests. This might be the only chance I’d ever get.
This had to be done.
I shoved the card between the door and the door frame, level with the handle. It took some jostling but then the card slid right behind the latch.
I pushed on the door. It swung—creaking.
His office was just as I remembered. Neat, organized, luxurious and all him. I ran to his desk and started on the drawers. Rummaged through stationery and other useless things. No phone. Nothing useful. I tugged on the large bottom drawer. It stuck.
Locked.
I fell to my knees and tried my library card trick. The card banged against the bolt. This was an entire other kind of mechanism.
I set the card on the desk, eyes coming level with his closed laptop, so fancy and thin I almost missed it. I sat in the chair and opened the lid slowly.
My fingers shook on the keys.
Have to do this. Have to.
The laptop started up and to no surprise of mine required a password. I started with the obvious, although Haithem wasn’t stupid, and in a moment of pure narcissism even tried my own name.
I exceeded attempts
. Wait thirty seconds
. Tried again.
Wait two minutes.
I leaned back in the chair and ran my hands into my hair. My knee knocked against the locked drawer then I stood, ran to the bathroom and came back with hairpins.
I took a pin between my teeth and bent it open, then slipped the open end into the lock and wiggled.
“You know I almost fell for everything.” The voice was so sharp it severed my nerves in two.
My blood thickened, becoming oil like in my veins. How the hell could he be so silent?
“I knew better, but you were so believable.” He strode into the room. Tie he’d left with gone, shirt collar open.
“I can explain.” My stomached churned.
Could I?
His fingers opened and closed. Rage rolled off him. He rotated his shoulders. Something else flowered over him, a drop-dead-lethal current. “Who do you work for?”
There’d be no lying to him now. No diffusing this suspicion with something trivial.
“I’m sorry.” I swallowed and stood, leaning on the edge of the desk. “I planned to tell you on the first night.” I dropped the pin and splayed my hands. “I was planning an article on you for
Poise
magazine.”
“The media hasn’t begun to know about me.” He inched closer. “If they did, I can guarantee we wouldn’t be having this conversation.
I backed up, the desk still between us. “I pitched you as an idea after meeting you in the coffee shop.” We moved sideways. “But when you asked for a confidentiality agreement I dropped the idea.”
“Yet here you are.” He took a step. “Stuck on my yacht. Rifling through the office you broke into.”
I stopped still, then stomped the ground. “I need to speak to my family.”
“Who do you work for?” In a breath he was around the desk.
I leaped back. “No one.”
“I
know
...” The words slipped between his teeth. “I know all about the six weeks you were
gone
.”
The muscles in my calves contracted as though I’d been touched by a cattle prod. He did not know.