by Amber Bardan
I smiled, big and wide.
The bartender blinked. Then blinked again and set down the glass. Oh dear, he had no idea what that was. A laugh rose in my throat. Maybe he knew about Slippery Nipples, or a Pink Pussy?
“I’ll just have a vodka and cranberry.”
“Sure you wouldn’t prefer a screaming orgasm?”
The voice behind me didn’t whisper, but wasn’t loud, it spoke as intimately as if his lips pressed against my ear.
Heat swept up my middle more intensely than if I’d downed a row of shots.
“That’d be my preference.” I turned.
He came to me all at once. His touch on my waist, the sight of him—suited again as I’d always known him to be—cologne seeping from his skin directly into mine. Everything in me gave like leather when it’s relaxed just right. I’d worn myself around the shape of him.
“As you wish,” he said as his pressed his lips to my cheek.
I shivered. And he could quote Princess Bride. Now my feelings for this man were complete on every last level. I’d bet he’d read the actual book too. None of this watching the movie instead business.
He nodded at the bartender. “Hold the vodka and cranberry. We’ll have four shots of tequila. Lemon, and salt.”
I narrowed my gaze at him. I’d seen these done at a party. People got messed up.
“That’s not a Screaming Orgasm.”
Haithem would never, ever, let himself get messed up. Let alone right then.
“We’ll get to that, don’t worry.” He tugged open his shirt collar. His stubble, usually a sexy shadow, pushed the limits of beard-hood. I touched his cheek. The spikes got softer as they grew longer. Actual beards fell in to a no-never-ever category for me. I scratched my nails on his cheek. Now I couldn’t help imagining how hot it’d be to be able to grab onto this.
The bartender lined up the shots, then set a plate with lemon wedges and a salt shaker next to them.
Haithem took my hand, brought it to his lips, and licked the flesh between my thumb and forefinger. My skin tingled. He picked up the shaker and poured salt on the place he’d licked. Then brought my hand back to his mouth—sucked the salt off my hand.
I breathed in.
He picked up a shot, downed it, then tore the flesh off a lemon wedge with his teeth and chewed.
My head spun. I didn’t need shots—I was already intoxicated. He licked his own hand and poured salt, then extended it to me.
I sucked the salt with my mouth and lips, then ran my tongue over where it’d been. He handed me a shot. I downed it in a gulp. It burned its way down. I caught my breath, then sucked on a lemon.
Lemon never tasted sweeter.
We did it all again.
Haithem paid the bartender and led me back to the cabin. My blood hummed. I wasn’t unaffected by the shots, they’d been enough to loosen my limbs, not enough to lose my head.
He locked the cabin door behind us.
Now I’d get that orgasm.
I wondered if I’d scream. If the people around us would hear. If I’d wake up that baby. I licked the lingering lemon from the corner of my mouth.
My pussy ached with need. It wouldn’t take much to have me screaming.
Haithem turned.
His eyes were darker than usual, his polished edges all a little worn. I didn’t want to ask right now exactly what’d happened. There’d be time for that later. I just wanted to smooth the creases in his brow with my thumbs.
Watch him let go.
For once, I wasn’t going to be the one to scream. I placed my hands on his chest and pushed.
He didn’t budge.
I raised my eyebrows and pushed him again. Haithem’s mouth pulled up to the side, and he stepped back against the door. I fell to my knees, running my hands down his thighs.
I looked at him when I reached for his belt. He watched me back. Watched me undo the buckle. Watched me open his fly. Watched me pull his cock free.
Then he buried his fingers in my hair, and stroked my jaw with his thumb. I touched the soft curls above his cock, then wrapped my hands around his base.
My thighs squeezed together.
I slid my hands up his cock to its beautiful head. So irresistibly hard and smooth. I ran my fingers back to his base and touched my tongue to his silky crown. Let that perfect ridge push past my lips into my mouth. His taste invaded my senses.
Musk. Man. Sex.
My lips tingled, blood pooling in all my extremities. I opened my mouth wide and took him in all the way. He filled me, challenged my jaw and throat. His fingers tightened in my hair. He didn’t stop where I stopped, he pushed himself deeper—always showing me there was more.
My throat contracted. He pulled himself out. I didn’t let him go, didn’t let him leave my lips, sucked him back in. Relaxed my muscles and showed him I could take as much as he could give. I tugged his pants open wider, edging them down. Ran my palms over his thighs, let the crisp hairs tickle my fingers as he overwhelmed my mouth.
The touch on my head became a stroke. He made a growling sound. I trailed my fingertips to his sac. Then stroked and cradled him there. The hardness against my tongue grew harder, stiffer.
He held my hair and dragged his cock out of my mouth.
“No.” I grabbed his hips and looked up at him. “I want it all.”
He made another raw sound, his jaw ticking.
I opened my mouth wide, tilted my chin up to take him. He pushed deep into my mouth, taking over. This time navigating my movements with a grip at the back of my head. I held on to his thighs, not taking my eyes off him.
His cock left my lips for an instant. I sucked in air before it slid back in.
My eyes watered but I saw him through the sheen. Saw that look overcome him as the cock between my lips and his muscles under my hands, contracted. But his face—his face dissolved in bliss. I watched that moment of heaven. Saltiness spilled over my tongue. Part of me lifted too.
His eyes closed and his lips opened in surrender to a gentle kind of death.
He lay on the center of the bed, fully dressed except for shoes and socks. The naked soles of his feet protruded off the mattress. I dropped the curtain I’d been holding open and climbed on to the narrow strip of space left next to him.
“You know this cabin got eighty-percent smaller when you came in.”
He glanced up from the book in his hands, licked his finger then flicked the page. I shook my head. How could he read? I’d given up trying to write or do anything at all productive after the first hour. I’d been on the train nearly twenty-four hours and there was still another twenty-four to burn.
I leaned on to my elbow next to his feet, then pushed up the hem of one leg of his pants. “You’d think a train service such as this would have screening questions for passengers before they let them on.” I dropped the fabric of his pants. “Just to, you know, ensure there is sufficient space left for other passengers.” I ran my nail down the side of his foot.
His long toes twitched.
“For instance—are you a great, big, giant, massive—” I took a breath “—enormous, behem—”
He lunged forward, rolled on top of me, tossing the book to the side.
He lay heavily on my belly, compressing my ribcage. “You think I’m too big for the train?”
“You’re a giant and take up all my breathing room.” I took his face between my palms.
His expression evened, playfulness draining away as he stared down at me. “Want me to give you some space?”
I took a shallow breath into my squished lungs. “No.”
My hands dropped from him, and I looked past him to the roof. He rolled off me and scooped up his book. This was it, the reason I couldn’t sit still. The reason part of me wanted
to poke him with a toothpick and pull his hair when he wasn’t looking.
We’d reached an impasse.
In a normal relationship we’d agree to disagree, in this case, we’d simply stopped arguing for a while...
When we got off this train Haithem would leave me for a week. He’d go do his thing. Go deliver the prototype and get things set up.
And I’d have to sit pretty in some safe little hideaway.
I linked my fingers over my abdomen, and watched the shadow flickering on the roof with the movement outside the window.
Paper rustled.
“How can you concentrate at a time like this?” I asked.
“What’s the alternative?”
I sighed. The alternative was me. I’d gotten better since Haithem, much better, but my mind still screamed in the silence. It’d be better when this was all over. Soon, I’d be able to exist in a moment of quiet and be all right.
I turned my head, watching him read his heavy volume. “How did you even start reading philosophy?” I dragged myself up then lay across his chest. “Aren’t you meant to be a science, techy genius, not a lit nerd?”
“I’m a scholar of all things.” He raised one brow and shot me a look. “It’s in my blood.”
“Your dad?”
He returned to his book and turned a page. “No, my mother.”
My chest fluttered. In all the time I’d known him, he’d spoken about his parents maybe twice. “What did she do?”
“She taught philosophy, but never, ever stopped trying to master the universe.” He still gazed at his book, but if the man could actually read and hold a conversation at the same time he was even more impressive than I gave him credit for.
“Your mother sounds driven.”
He glanced up, a smile on one side of his mouth. “Nope, she was a head case.”
“Really?”
“A complete nightmare.” He closed the book with a snap.
I laughed. “No way?”
“The woman managed to squeeze forty hours into a day.” He set the book down next to him. “She’d work for ten then torment me for thirty.”
“How?”
“For one, on Mondays I was only allowed to speak French.” He rested one arm behind his head and the other around my waist. “Tuesdays and Thursdays Spanish. Greek on Fridays.”
“You poor tortured kid.” I curled into his side.
“You have no idea.” He huffed, his chest billowing under my arm.
I poked the top button on his shirt. “Tell me then.”
He smiled, mischief breaking across his lips in a way that cleaved my heart in two. “Haithem,” he said, in a pitched voice. “Want some Basboosa?” He wiggled his black brows enticingly.
“What’s Basboosa?”
He broke character for a brief moment. “A kind of honey cake.” Then moved the hand from behind his head and held it out to me in a pleading gesture. “Yes, Mama, I want Basboosa.”
“Then ask for it in French,” he said sharply.
I placed my fingers over my mouth.
Too funny.
“But, Mama, there’s no Basboosa in French.”
He snatched his hand away. “Then no cake for you.”
I broke into laughter. His chest rumbled with me. I laughed harder. They probably heard me in the other carriage. The laughter settled into giggles. “You’re such a liar, she did not do that to you.”
“Maybe she wasn’t that bad,” he said, his smile easing. “How would you know?”
“Because it’d be impossible for any woman to resist this face.” I squeezed his cheeks with one hand, pushing his lips into a pout. “If we ever have a son, I’ll be ruined.”
His fingers closed around my wrist, drawing my hand away from his face. The look in his eyes silenced the humor in my chest. A deep vee pushed between his brows and he glanced at my hand, the left one I’d squeezed him with. He turned it over and brushed the two rings on my finger with his thumb. The bittersweet part of the disguise.
My heartbeat overwhelmed the whoosh and bump of the train.
“One day, I’ll give you new rings and they’ll be real.”
I took my bottom lip between my teeth, clamping down on it to keep my emotions on the inside of my head. I didn’t need him to make me a promise of proposal. We were already so far beyond that. The idea though, the image that flashed through my mind of what it’d be like to have something normal with him, a proper life together...I never knew it were possible to long so deeply for a dream.
I stared at the rings. “There’s two carats on this one, I’d say it’s fairly real.”
He brought my fingers to his lips and kissed them, then drew me into his arms. “You’re right, Angel. This is real.”
I turned my face into his neck and closed my eyes.
One day though...
Chapter Seven
We pulled in to the “safe house.” An old plantation home in the middle of rolling hills with wide sweeping verandas. A kind of paradise I’d only seen in movies. It could’ve been a hole in the ground for all the difference it made to me.
He parked the car right up close to the house, and lifted the hand brake.
I can’t do this.
How could I wait safely in this little haven while Haithem strode into danger alone?
He unbuckled his seatbelt.
I turned to him, clamping a hand over his wrist. “I’m going with you.”
“You can’t.” He slipped free of my grasp.
My heart clunked and rattled like a faulty clockwork. It didn’t seem to matter what I knew he had to do. Didn’t matter about his gift of energy to humanity or what he might achieve, because right then everything felt pretty damn uncomplicated. I loved Haithem. He was my future. I’d given up my life and my family for him. So if he had to take this risk, then I had earned the right to share the risk with him.
I watched Haithem in the expanding silence of the car.
He ran a hand down his face, but did not look at me back. He couldn’t. This man, who I’d once thought dauntless, couldn’t even look me in the eye.
“Why didn’t you just dump me on that island if you weren’t prepared to have me to do this with you?”
He tugged the keys from the ignition, but simply held them in his lap, glaring out the windshield. “You are doing this with me.”
“No, I’m not.” He might not have the guts to look at me but I’d stare at him until he caught fire. “You’re chickening out and leaving me behind.”
“Do you think this has been easy?” He turned to me, finally, his nostrils flaring, jaw bristling the way it did. “Haven’t I trusted you? Didn’t I tell you everything?”
My teeth snapped together. My mind flashed with all the “facts” I knew. The way the prototype worked. How it was being made in parts. How there was almost no one working in his various secure factories who understood what was actually being created. How fucking fanatically Haithem and Avner had planned this entire freaking thing out.
“I’ve put my life—other people’s lives, in your hands.” His voice was grating, yet his eyes weren’t burning as they were supposed to with the hard set of his jaw line—no his eyes were shining. “What more do you want from me, Angelina?”
I breathed deeply—everything. More. It all.
“I want your respect. Partnership isn’t coddling the other person, it’s trusting them to bear the burden, and face the risk with you.”
His chin lowered and he turned away, gaze falling to the keys he jostled in his lap. “I respected my parents, when what I should have done was protect them.” His features went tight, locking me out, but not before his pain struck me a winding blow.
My lungs burned. Deep down I’d known he blamed hi
mself for what happened to them. But hearing—seeing him say so...
I rubbed my aching throat. Nothing more could emerge. We sat in the car. The silence grated, excruciating.
He touched my leg softly.
I looked at him—Haithem, back to himself. What he’d shared with me flung back wherever he suppressed it.
He smiled. My chest panged. For once I wished his smile could be less devastating. That there was some defense against his ability to turn me to butter.
“Come see the views from the bedroom.” He rubbed my knee. “They’ll change you.”
I hit the button on my seatbelt. “I think it’s safe to say, I’ve already had as much personal renovation as I can take.”
Haithem stiffened, then opened his door and stepped outside. The door slammed shut behind him. He went to the boot and took out our bags, then stalked to the house.
I stayed in my seat.
So, I’d pissed him off—well this pissed me off too.
I couldn’t pretend everything we’d been through hadn’t left its mark on me. That as much as I’d been healed by him, I’d also been damaged. Damaged by choices that plagued us both.
Yes, we loved each other.
But our love might be the most destructive force in our lives. So much love entangled with so much wrong. My hurts—his hurts. The hurts our relationship inflicted on others. There was a strain on us. Until we were done, until we came into the open having achieved a greater good, I’m not sure we’d ever be free of it.
That knowledge added another layer to my concoction of hurts. It sucked that the same fate that brought us together should be the one putting this strain on us. I opened the car door and followed him into the house. I found him in the bedroom, setting out clean clothes to change into.
“There’s a full complement of staff in the quarters out back if you need anything.” He tugged off his shirt. “I told them to give you privacy but they’ll check in on you occasionally.” He undid his belt. It followed his shirt to the floor. “You’ll be safe here.”
“I know,” I said and crawled onto the bed. Ran my gaze over his abs as his pants came down. Warmth curled in my abdomen.
