Turkish Delights Series (22 page)

Adem leaned in and kissed Caleb’s full lips, his heart singing. “I’m here,” he murmured around his lover’s mouth. “Always.”

Epilogue

Caleb squinted as he exited the baggage claim area, looking for the company sedan in the sea of cars and Elle’s face, hoping she had made good on her promise to meet him at the airport. He finally spotted the driver and waved. The man’s face was somber, and Caleb’s heart stuttered in his chest. Goddamn if every time he came back from that country there wasn’t some disaster. He raced over and yelled above the noise of bus exhaust, horns, and happy reunions.

“What’s wrong? Where’s Elle?”

The driver grabbed his bag and threw it into the trunk. “Hospital. Emre told me to bring you straight there.”

Caleb swallowed hard. What fresh hell was this? “Why? She’s not due for another month.”

“There is a problem.” The man’s face was grim.

Caleb grabbed his arm. “What the fuck is the problem? Be specific.” He felt his jaw clench.

“I can’t. Emre wanted to explain it himself. Call him. I’ll get you there.”

“Wait.” He turned to grab a second suitcase. “I have…um…a friend. He had to stop at the bathroom.”

The sight of Adem’s exotic face and bright green eyes in the crowd made Caleb’s chest loosen. He sighed and put an arm around him, pressing a kiss to his temple. Adem smiled and reached out to shake the driver’s hand.

“Hello, I’m Adem Broussard. I’m visiting….” He stopped and glanced up at Caleb.

“For a while,” Caleb insisted. “Now you get sucked straight into the drama, dear. We have to go the hospital.”

Adem yanked the door open and jumped in the car. “What are we waiting for then?”

Caleb shrugged at the driver and clamored in, letting his lover wrap him in a tight embrace as they raced toward his friend. Adem pressed a kiss to his lips.

“
Seni seviyorum
,” he whispered. “
Je t’taime, mon cheri
.”

Caleb nodded, held the phone to his ear, trying not to think about what lay ahead, but grateful to all the gods that he’d had his 1Night Stand Blue Cruise. “Thank you.” He kissed him once more before settling back for the ride to the hospital. “I...I love you, too.” he said simply, cradling Adem’s face in one hand.

Tulip Princess

Turkish names, Terms and Pronunciation

(Turkish is fairly phonetic)

The Deniz Family (Deniz: Ocean)

Emre (Em-Ray)
: “eldest brother” “passionate”

Tarkan
: “strong, “bold”

Lale (Lah-Lay)
: “beautiful tulip” Tulips are indigenous to Turkey.

They were imported to Europe via the Silk Road trading routes.

Ayla
(Eye-La): Light of the moon

Aslan
: Lion

Other words:

Evet
: yes

Seni seviyorum
(Se-nee Se-vee-yo-rum): I love you

Buyuk anne
(Buh-yook ah-nay): Grandmother

Anne
(ah-nay): Mother

Kiz kardes
(Kiz kar-desh): sister

Mas Allah
(Mahsh ah-lah): Praise God

o adelfós mou
: Greek for “my brother.”

The story of Troy, a city located in ancient Anatolia (now modern Turkey) and the Trojan War is a well-known legend. According to tradition, the conflict began after Paris, the son of King Priam of Troy, was given Helen, the most beautiful woman in the world, by Aphrodite. Helen, the half-mortal daughter of Zeus, had already married Menelaus, the brother of Agamemnon and the King of Sparta.

After Helen left Sparta with Paris, Menelaus summoned an expedition to go to Troy to win her back

Troy was besieged by the Greeks for ten years, and several well-known events took place during the long and arduous conflict, including the death of Achilles after Paris fired an arrow into his heel and of Paris himself. The siege only ended after Odysseus, the King of Ithaca, had the idea of the wooden horse. The horse appeared as a gift to the Trojans, but Greek soldiers were hidden inside. When the horse entered Troy, the soldiers crept out, opened the gates of the city, and let the Greek army into the walled city. As a result, the city burned and the Trojans were massacred.

Chapter One

It was a night like so many others. Lights flashed, alcohol flowed, bodies groped and ground together in time to ear pounding house music. Lale sighed, bored as usual. She looked up at the ancient stone ceiling of yet another Constantinople Roman dungeon turned into exclusive nightclub. Hands reached out for her, touched her. She barely registered them. The X she’d popped had not helped. Her mouth tasted sour from too many nights of drinking. Her feet hurt in the morbidly expensive shoes she’d bought that day. The strange sensation of tears prickled behind her eyes.

“Hey!” her friend, Ayshe, hollered in her ear. The shit-faced drunk girl hung onto some Euro-trash German who had grabbed Lale’s ass before turning around to bite on her friend’s neck. She sighed and flicked her new tongue piercing against her lower teeth. It took some getting used to, that sensation of something stuck in her mouth all the time. Her friend started speaking in rapid-fire Turkish. Lale rolled her eyes.

“English, you slut,” she yelled into Ayshe’s ear. “Or French.” The disgusting Kraut leered down Lale’s cleavage. She shoved his large blond head away. The Istanbul club scene had entirely too many Germans. But she glanced over to the knot of men who’d been eyeballing her for an hour and smiled.
Might as well get something out of this boring week night
. She sauntered over to them and slipped between two of the taller bodies.

“So,” a voice called over the din, “You’re from here, right?”

Ah, Americans. So deliciously naïve. She targeted the handsomest of the group and batted her lashes, thickening her Turkish accent. “Yes, I am. I am an Istanbulu—born and raised in this city. Oh, thank you very much.” She accepted the drink put in front of her on the tall table. She never had to buy her own drinks in places like this. She sighed and picked out the one she wanted and zeroed in on him. Shouldn’t take long. He would have no idea what hit him other than five-foot-seven inches of sexy local, a quick fuck and a kiss good bye. It was…how did Caleb always say it? “Like shooting fish in a barrel.” Too damn easy.

She looked up at the ceiling once more and tried not to think about Caleb. That led too quickly to thoughts of her beloved brother. The only one in her family who ever really loved her. Well, maybe besides her other brother’s wife, Elle, the glamorous American businesswoman who had stolen Emre’s heart and taken him away to America.

Maybe she’d get her hood pierced, she mused, as the sexy American lowered his forgettable lips to hers. She curved into him, her body making promises she intended to deliver. Anything to ease the ache in her body and the emptiness in her soul.

“Come with me.” She took his large hand and led him to the back of the club. She knew from direct experience that there were hidden alcoves for exactly the sort of activity she wanted to engage in. Her body was ready. He’d do.

“Condom?” she asked after a bit of tongue acrobatics, reaching into her purse for her stash. The man took it, rolled it down over his pretty impressive rod and, shoved her back against the wall. She tasted tobacco, beer, and her own sex where he’d licked her to a juicy climax. Humming in her throat, she took his thrusts and gripped his neck. “Harder, damn you.”

The man grunted and yanked her leg up. She should have taken his height into account. He bent his legs and pressed her up higher. She wrapped her arms around his neck, tilted her hips, and ground her needy clit into the man’s pubic bone. He groaned; his hips moved faster. The heady, familiar sensation of orgasm loomed on the horizon. But as she started to enjoy it, he thrust hard one last time and came, the dopey look on his all-American face a dead giveaway.

He leaned in to kiss her, but she turned her head. “Wow.” He gasped as she lifted herself off of his cock and pushed him away. “Um, sorry. I, well, I don’t usually….” His face reddened. She appraised him as she readjusted her skirt. He might do for another go. But boredom overtook her again. And thirst. She grabbed his hand after he zipped himself back up.

“Let’s go, lover boy. I want to dance some more.”

She reentered the fray, caught Ayshe’s eye and waved, letting her friend know she’d returned. They had a pact to never let the other go anywhere alone. It worked, because usually one or the other of them was drunk, high or tripping so hard the other one had to watch out for her. The X finally hit her, and she laughed, kissed the man on the mouth in front of his gawking friends, and dragged him out on the dance floor.

They were all lame, really, but at that point in the night she no longer cared. Young, gorgeous, rich, with all eyes on her as she shook her hips around the dance floor, Lale laughed out loud.
Fuck them. Fuck all of them
. The music got louder. The heaving, sweaty room became bearable. By the time Ayshe had yanked on her hair so hard, she screamed in pain; she’d been tripping for at least twenty minutes. The blessed white noise of the drug, five straight vodkas, and the quivering in her thighs from earlier exertions with the foreigner made her gloriously oblivious. It had become the only way she didn’t get pissed off at everyone around her, or break down in tears.

“Ow! Shit!” She glared at her friend, but her brain wouldn’t make a connection. Then, Ayshe’s annoying German friend finally tugged her arm and led her off the dance floor. Her lovely fuck buddy American had taken a powder. Lale whirled on her friend. “What? What do you want? Leave me alone!” She clenched her fists and attempted to focus.

“Metin is here,” Ayshe mouthed in Turkish. She pointed toward the door. Startled, she looked over her shoulder. Sure enough. Her sixty-something driver, whom she’d given the night off, glowered around the room. An irreligious but very traditional Turk, the man oozed disapproval from across the room. Well-bred Turkish young ladies did not act like her.

Fuck. What now?

She muscled her way through the crowd, trying like hell to calm her heartbeat and get her eyes to focus. There could be only one reason for it. Yet another crisis at home. Some bullshit dilemma out in the boonies with her father’s family or…Lale stopped dead in her tracks as Metin’s angry eyes found her. He gestured with one finger. She resisted the urge to tell him to fuck himself and followed him out into the warm Istanbul night.

“Your father needs you home now.”

She lit a cigarette while he started the Mercedes. His disapproving frown deepened, but she’d be damned if she cared. “So, what is the problem?” she said through a haze of smoke.

“Emre. Mrs. Emre, she is….”

She gripped the armrest at the sound of her sister-in-law’s name. Elle’s second child wasn’t due for another two or three weeks.

“I don’t know for sure.” Metin sped through the nighttime traffic, and within fifteen minutes, they were in front of her family’s home overlooking a curve in the Bosporus. She sighed, chewed a breath mint and stomped up to the massive double doors. Her throat tightened as she put a hand on the wrought iron doorknob—the same reaction she got every time she came home, ever since Tarkan’s funeral, when her life went to shit.

Fixing her usual nonchalant-slash-bored look in place, she pushed it open. The sounds of her grandmother’s keening in the main room pierced her between the eyes. She walked in, sat down, and put an arm around the old woman. The same way she had as they watched the drama in Ankara, the day of the terrorist attack. The day her brother died. She stared at her father. His anger was palpable, but what else was new? All she ever got from him anymore seemed wrapped in a thick blanket of fury. She would never measure up. The old woman’s tears dripped onto Lale’s arm.

“It’s Elle,” he said, and took a deep breath.

“What? God, will you please spare me the dramatic pauses?” Her low voice barely registered in her own ears. Her heart clenched in utter terror at his next words.

“She is gravely ill. The baby came and there is a problem.” Lale sighed and looked around for her mother. The aggravation she always had around her drowned out by Lale’s need to hear exactly what had happened. As if conjured, her mother walked in from the balcony. She balanced a delicate tulip-shaped glass off tea on a small plate. Her eyes were red and puffy.

“
Anne?
” She used the familiar Turkish in place of her recently affected British “Mummy” for a change. Her mother held out a hand. She stood, not taking it. “What happened? Is the baby okay?” Nausea rose in her throat at the thought of yet another family tragedy to absorb.

“Emre and Elle have a beautiful, strong son,” her American-born mother said calmly in English. “Aslan. Our lion.”