by Amber Bardan
I kicked my legs and burst through the surface, gasping. Salty water streamed over my face. He hauled me to his chest. I panted.
He laughed, his chest vibrating against my skin. I pressed myself to him, absorbing the sound. He walked us farther into the water then grabbed my waist. This time, I held my breath. He lifted me high over his head and threw me. I dived down, turning underwater and swimming along the sand.
I reached his ankles and tugged his feet. He didn’t wobble. He was unmovable, as though his legs had roots. I climbed up him from behind, wrapped my arms around his neck. He jostled me on his back, then pulled my legs around his hips and dipped us both underwater. I clung to him, letting him drag me along.
We came up in a burst of sputters and laughter. He dragged me from his back to face him.
I couldn’t stand looking at him with the sun shining in his face—making him look like a golden hero. I closed my eyes and lay back, squeezing his hips with my legs. My back touched the water, and I floated. He stroked my belly. My muscles twitched. He traced my belly button then flattened his hand on my middle.
I had no delusions of tininess, but his hand on me was like the hand of a giant. I squinted at him. He is a giant. And I was a waif in his arms. I arched my chest, my forehead dipping below the water.
He didn’t grope my breasts—even though my body bowed with invitation. My hands drifted from my sides. He held my waist and turned, spinning us around. I raised my arms over my head. The sea churned in my fingertips.
The world rotated, and I didn’t close my eyes—I watched the earth move around us. Let the sun punch a brand in my vision.
He played with me.
Played with me for hours. Until then, I don’t think I’d ever truly played before. Not like that. Not without caution or restraint.
Not with my arms stretched out to the sky.
* * *
WE COLLAPSED ON beach towels. My legs were like weights, but my stomach ached the most. Muscles deep in my core were activated from laughter.
Haithem pulled sandwiches and cans of soft drink from the basket. “Chicken and avocado, or turkey cranberry?”
I liked both. “Whichever.”
Haithem narrowed his eyes and unwrapped both—swapping half of each sandwich for the other.
He handed me two halves. I ate the turkey, dulling the pang of my empty belly. Haithem ate leisurely, as though he hadn’t just burned double the calories I had.
He still finished before me, only by virtue of his bite size being four to my one. I gave him my chicken sandwich and watched him eat it.
I could’ve eaten the other sandwich easily, but I must’ve been feeling generous. I sipped on a lemon-flavored soda. My lips tasted like sunscreen.
Haithem finished and put the rubbish into the basket. I stretched on the towel and closed my eyes. Fingers brushed my left side.
I flinched.
The scars had faded better than I ever could have hoped. Even with creams, lotions, massage, laser and microdermabrasion. Must be that good teenage skin the surgeon had assured me he’d do his best to preserve.
Still, direct natural light and all.
“What’s this?”
I put an arm over my eyes. Maybe I could pretend to be sleeping? His finger traced the curve of the biggest scar, slightly silkier than the skin around it.
Was this the first time he’d noticed, or simply the first time he’d thought to ask?
“Angelina?” He stretched beside me, rustling the towel we lay on.
I took a breath and dropped my arm. “It’s from a kidney donation.”
“You donated a kidney?”
“Yep.” I cleared my throat and brushed sand off my forearm.
Haithem rubbed his thumb over the thickest part of the scar. “Ah, Josh?”
“Yes.” My heart somersaulted as it did every time I heard his name.
I examined my elbow. Not surprisingly, the joint looked the same as always.
Haithem took a loud breath. “But he didn’t make it?”
I dropped my arms flat. My ribs could have been soldered together the way they hardened around me.
“He made it...” Words jammed. I didn’t do this—didn’t talk about it.
Haithem touched my cheek.
I blinked at him. His face hovered over mine. Warmer than the sun behind him.
“The transplant went fine. He’d been in remission from leukemia for four years when we did it. But eighteen months after this—” I touched the scar with my index finger—”he wasn’t anymore.”
I sniffed. “He always did have the worst luck, especially when it came to being born at the same time as me.” Wetness hit my lips, salt from my tears, salt from the ocean, chemical bitterness from sunscreen. “Everything that happened to him was my fault—”
Haithem grabbed my chin, made me look at him. “Who the fuck told you that?”
“Everyone. Not with words. But every time something happened to him, they froze me out.” My nose trickled. “He was born little and weak because of me, because I was bigger and stronger. That’s why he got sick, and I didn’t.” I swiped my face. “That’s why he got kidney damage from the chemo, that’s why no one ever asked me—” My breath hitched and choked my words. “That’s why no one ever asked what I wanted. That’s why no one who mattered ever asked how I felt about all the things I had to do, or all the things I had to give up. They all knew it was my responsibility because it was my fault.”
I covered my eyes with the backs of my hands. My head throbbed. Haithem dragged my hands from my face and held them both in one of his.
“Well, I’m asking. How the fuck did you feel?”
It was impossible to look away with his gaze boring into mine.
My temples pounded. Pressure built behind my nose and eyes.
I wouldn’t have answered, couldn’t have answered—if it weren’t for the way he looked at me. Not with compassion, not with empathy. I’d had a shitload of that from everyone—friends, teachers, counselors—after Josh passed. Haithem locked gazes with me, watched me with every single part of his attention fixed on any word I might utter.
No obligatory patting on my back.
No temporary sympathy.
What I said mattered.
I swallowed the lump in my throat. “Pretty damn worthless. I’d have done anything for Josh—anything. Even when it terrified me. Because I wanted to, not because it was expected.”
Haithem’s fingers shifted on mine.
“We were the only ones who understood each other. We always knew with just a look what the other was thinking.”
Haithem’s features flickered softly, his eyes searching as though he had a direct view into my head. Not like having a twin, but I couldn’t deny the connection—the way Haithem read me, knew me without me saying a word.
But I didn’t know him.
I had no idea who this man was. Yet my heart screamed its secrets to him.
“Then he was gone, and no one had any clue the way it killed me.” The words left a bitter sharpness on my tongue, but it didn’t stop them pouring out. “How much I hated myself for being the one still standing.”
My cheeks burned, and I lost control of my tears and they streamed. I pulled my hands free and wiped my face. “I probably sound so petty and self-obsessed. It’s hard for people to understand what it’s like to lose half of who you think you are in a day.”
“No.” He sounded as if he’d swallowed sand. His jaw muscles stuck out. “I know exactly what that’s like. I lost my entire family in a day.”
My tears froze half-formed.
Everything inside me stilled, turned around and centered on him.
His chest rose and fell evenly.
“What happened?”
His jaw ticked, but he didn’t drop my gaze. “They were killed.”
Killed.
Even covered in sweat beneath the sun’s hot caress, my skin chilled.
Killed, not died.
“What killed them?” My heart galloped like horses in my ears.
He finally looked away. “Underestimating the power of greed.”
His words rolled over me—low and chilling. I wouldn’t ask more about it. He sat up and rested his elbows on his knees.
I dragged myself up beside him. “Where are you from, Haithem?”
He stared at the ocean. “Nowhere, not anymore.”
“You live on the yacht?”
He gave a half laugh. “Fuck, no. I have a few places, an apartment in New York, another in Paris, a villa in Spain, but nowhere is home.”
“Where was home?”
He glanced at me, studying me for a moment before answering. “Egypt, but my father’s work took us around the globe.”
“What was his work?”
Haithem’s eyes narrowed. I didn’t think he’d answer. “He was a scientist, among other things...”
He stared out at the water. Three times I tried to speak, but as soon as words got to my mouth, they seemed to get lost. I reached out and touched his cheek, absorbing the feel of him through my palm.
He went still.
Didn’t move. Didn’t react. Didn’t recoil.
I’d always wanted to touch him this way. To trace the bones of his face. I ran my finger from his chin to his lips and back again.
Rough, soft, rough.
I rubbed my knuckles under his jaw then up to his ear and buried my fingers in his hair. Heat from his scalp radiated into me.
My heart fluttered like a jar of trapped moths. I trailed the touch to the back of his neck and tugged him in.
I didn’t get to kiss him—he leaned down and kissed me. Kissed me as though I was something to eat. Tasted me. Tugged my bottom lip, then opened me and sucked my tongue. He took my head between his hands.
Heat flowed from his palms to my skin.
He poured into me—the clean taste of his tongue—the musky scent of him—the spice of his breath filled my lungs.
All Haithem. Everything Haithem.
Deep, slow plunges of his tongue and soft, consuming drags of his lips. Every movement pulled at my chest. Every stroke seeped a sharp, bitter joy all the way to my bones.
He kissed me forever, overrode every system in my body so my senses only recognized him. Only the wet sounds of our kiss. Only the sight of him when I opened my eyes.
He released me.
I fell back. The sky spun. Haithem touched his mouth with his fingertips. A line creased between his eyebrows. I watched every movement of his features.
I could spend days staring at him.
He dropped his hand and met my gaze.
A weight settled in my throat.
I want you.
I tried to swallow that lump. Pretend I only wanted him between my legs.
“You shouldn’t look at me that way.”
“What way?” I whispered.
But I could feel it—the glossy veil covering my eyes, the droop of my lids.
“Like you’re falling for me.” He cupped my cheek and leaned in. “That would be very bad for you.”
A chill brushed over me.
I wasn’t falling for him. No way. He just gave me clit-tingles.
And maybe some other tingles.
A hopeless ball of insecurity ricocheted through me. Why would it be bad? Wasn’t I enough? Is that why he said that?
“Pfft, you’re the one who needs to be careful,” I said, and grabbed a handful of his T-shirt. “You’re the one falling for me.”
His eyes darkened. “You want that even less,” he said, his voice thick and rough. “It’d be so much worse.”
I let go. “Why?”
He stood, brushing off my question as easily as he brushed the sand of his shorts, then held out his hand to me. “Come on, there’s one more thing I want to do.”
We got back into the speedboat and took off. Haithem stopped not far out from the island.
“What are we doing?” I adjusted my life jacket.
“Catching our dinner.” He looked at me.
I suddenly wanted to offer myself up as main course.
He produced a fishing rod, box and bucket from under a seat. “You fished before?”
“Yeah, sometimes Dad used to let me tag along when he took Josh.”
He attached a lure to the line. “And now?”
“Now he goes with his mates.” I sat down and gazed at the horizon. “It’s boy time or something.” I waved my hand.
“Do you enjoy fishing?”
I glanced back at Haithem. He stood with the fishing rod beside him, looking like a hunter.
“Actually, touching slimy things isn’t my favorite. But I still put in the effort when I went out with them.”
“Want a turn?” He held out the rod. “I won’t make you touch anything slimy.”
He winked. My heart jumped.
“I’m happy to watch.”
Haithem cast the line. His biceps contracted.
Yep, the view was fine.
“What job were you applying for the day I met you?”
For an instant every part of my being went still. “You mean there’s something you don’t know?”
“Let’s just keep that between us,” he said, and the line went tight. Trust Haithem to catch something the moment his hook entered the water.
He reeled the line in. The fish never stood a chance.
He’d been so nice. This felt so nice. But then I bet the lure that fish took looked nice, too. My tongue tasted salty, like maybe I’d swallowed more seawater than I thought before. I’d learned one thing about him today but it was not enough. There was more to Haithem I’d yet to see.
I wouldn’t push to see it now. “Copyediting.”
He dragged a two-foot squid into the boat and dumped it in the bucket, and then he removed the lure.
“Hmm.”
I sat forward. My ribs constricted over my organs. Did he know? “Hmm, what?”
“I would’ve taken you for something more creative.” He cast the line back into the water. “Literature, art, theater studies, something like that.”
My stomach dipped.
Theater studies.
Again, so spot-on. I’d dreamed of playwriting. “My parents encouraged me to do something that would result in gainful employment.”
He wiggled the fishing rod but looked at me over his shoulder. “What did you want?”
I looked out at the water.
So many things.
Haithem
CONTROL. I NEEDED it back.
I sat at my desk and poured a whiskey. Drink muddles the mind, and I preferred mine clear. Yet, short of a sledgehammer, it was the closest I could come to numbing the pain.
I wasn’t sure what she’d tell me. But that wasn’t it. How could someone so selfless work for an organization as evil as the one after me?
I downed a gulp of whiskey, and let it singe the lining off my stomach.
But then they usually let recruits think they were something else—black ops intelligence, or some noble shit like that.
She’d have been so vulnerable. So ripe for picking. The vile assholes would have known exactly how to get to her.
I rotated the glass on the desk.
It didn’t matter. I had to shut it down. Couldn’t let her get to me. Had to stop thinking about her face. Her voice. Her body. The way my heart had squeezed when she’d told me her tale. The way my own story started to rush out. What
ever they’d used to get to her, I’d use better—more.
Worse.
I took a mouthful of whiskey and held it in on my tongue.
I could have everything. Take her heart and her loyalty. Give her what she longed for most. The whiskey numbed my mouth, and I swallowed, then walked to the window and looked out at the deck.
And I’d enjoy every moment of it.
She slept, curled like a kitten in the last of the sunlight.
My abdomen tightened.
The taste of her pussy hadn’t left my mouth since the moment she’d let me between her thighs. Let my tongue in her cunt. I already knew the way she liked her clit stroked. I knew the way her breath sounded just before she was about to come and I knew the noises she made when she did. It wouldn’t be difficult to slip under her defenses, get her where she was soft and weak—where she hurt the most. I wouldn’t even have to lie—just steal from her. Steal that little heart she’d begun to open.
Then I’d be the one getting what I wanted.
That was only fair. She’d come to destroy me—but I was the one about to destroy her.
Her secrets were bubbling to the surface, waiting to be plucked. I’d pluck them. I’d give with one hand, even if I had to take with the other. Trust is overrated when you can have devotion.
The phone on the desk beeped. I snatched it up. “Yes?”
“It seems we have a tail,” Karim said.
I dropped a palm flat on the wood desk. My head hammered. A swarm of blood and death clouded my vision. Memories so pure their copper tang blazed on my tongue.
Again.
It’d all happen again.
This time it’d be my corpse left to rot—and Angelina’s. “You are certain?”
The secrets hidden on board this yacht trumped our lives. No one would take them from me. I’d protect them or die trying.
But I had no fucking intention of dying.
“We changed direction twice to be sure.”
“How the fuck did this happen?” I hunched over the desk. “We were so careful.”
“I have an idea, but you won’t appreciate it.”
My guts went hard. Like I’d swallowed a brick. Or a ton of bricks. Or eaten all the sand on the beach.
No, don’t say it.
I forced myself to stand. To glance behind me at the girl on the deck. The sand concoction filled me like an hourglass, the feeling filtering all the way to my lungs.
