by Olivia Gates
Emilio half turned, shrugged. “Why don’t you ask her?”
“I’m asking you. After all, you volunteered the information.”
“Listen, Guerriero, I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have done that. It just—After what happened all through the night I was raw, and I had one of my infrequent spiteful episodes. Just let it go. Tomorrow you’ll be gone and there’s no reason for us to be at odds.”
“We aren’t.”
“We will be if I answer your question. When I walked up to you a few minutes ago, I wanted to hurt you.”
“I noticed. But what makes you think whatever you have to say will hurt? I’m leaving tomorrow, if you haven’t noticed.” What was he doing? Why did he want to know this? Why was he pretending it wouldn’t hurt?
Emilio gave him an assessing look. Then he shrugged again. “OK, maybe I’m wrong about you, maybe you’re just one of those men who go through life with a scoring list. If you insist, she chose you because you share one of the things she chose Lorenzo for—she feels nothing for you, anything personal, that is. But your specific advantage is that you’re leaving tomorrow, never to be seen again. You did notice how she pounced on you the moment you said you were leaving. It instantly made you safe.”
It also made him feel sick. With rage and regret.
He shouldn’t have asked. He should have left well enough alone. And he’d been worried she’d offered herself in desperation because he was leaving, then would later try to talk him into staying. He wouldn’t stay, he couldn’t, but he’d still wanted her to want him to, to feel something for him. As much as he felt for her.
He didn’t want her to want him because he was a guaranteed one-night stand!
But he was going to be.
And knowing she wanted him to be should make leaving her in the morning easier. Should…
Emilio passed Gulnar on his way back and her face became that tense, apologetic mask. Dante almost resented Emilio again. The guy should disappear from her world, never to return. He had no right to be burdening her with his emotions.
As soon as Emilio had passed Gulnar, she ran to him and his heart expanded so hard his chest almost burst with it. She threw herself in his arms and consumed his will and reason.
No. He would walk away. There was no changing that. And she didn’t want him to stay. That would keep him on target—on time. No lingering, no regrets.
He almost laughed at this, harsh and shearing. No lingering maybe. No regrets, no way. Nothing but regrets would remain.
He swayed into her, huddled around her as she burrowed into his side and whispered into his chest, “C’mon—let’s get out of here. I need you all to myself for the rest of the night.”
The rest of the night. He had to cram a lifetime into it.
“Welcome to my humble abode.”
Gulnar’s bright invitation thumped in Dante’s chest. His eyes roved around the dank, dark room. It was just one room, couldn’t be more than ten by ten feet, with just one splintered door opening into what had to be the bathroom. An oppressive shade of green, rendered even more so by the accumulated dirt of probably decades without a paintbrush, enveloped them. Occupying the wall with the prison-cell-like grid window was a battered loveseat. He’d seen far better-looking couches in junkyards. Three outfits, all trousers and shirts of unmatching colors, like the stuff he’d seen her in all through the last two weeks, hung from nails on the cracked wall. A narrow, unmade bed leaned against the other wall, rickety, another piece of junk. The wooden floor was decayed and caved in.
Was this what GAO gave their volunteers? The people who risked their lives for others every day? Below nominal pay and subhuman accommodation? Was this what she called home?
She turned at his silence, followed his stare. “Sorry about the mess. I don’t really have time to clean.”
Clean what, for heaven’s sake? This place’s only hope for any semblance of restoration was to be torn down brick by brick and rebuilt from scratch. “Is this where you live?” He was angry. Enraged.
“Oh, no. It’s just temporary.” That was better. If not by much. Just the thought that GAO was letting her stay in a place like this, no matter for how short a time—his blood boiled again. “I came to Srajna on a very short assignment, mostly to give a course in mass casualty triage in Srajna’s General Hospital. I made use of being here and searched out an old acquaintance of mine, a woman who used to work with GAO, providing food supplies to us. She asked me to meet her where she worked—and the rest, as they say, is history.”
So that was what she’d been doing with the Azernian hostages. He’d never even asked. He’d forgotten to ask. Forgotten everything else, too. Whenever he laid eyes on her, everything ceased to matter, to exist. But not now. This was about her, something she was suffering. And it was intolerable. “Short assignment or not, they shouldn’t have made you stay in a place like this, in a neighborhood like this.”
She snapped the elastic band out of her hair, shook out the fiery waterfall. He heard a roaring like an on-coming train in a tunnel. What were they standing around here talking for? Her answer reminded him. “Oh, it’s very safe. As far as anything can be safe in a world of booby-trapped cars and rigged municipal buildings, that is! And this isn’t far below our usual accommodation level really. GAO has been falling on harder and harder times financially. Every available cent goes for all the stuff that keeps our operations running, and accommodation ends up getting the short end of the stick. But I’m used to it. I think I’d feel lost in anything more luxurious.”
Would his head blow up with frustration? “A refugee camp is more luxurious!”
She chuckled at his words. “Believe me, it isn’t, and I should know. I lived in one for five years. Here I at least have four walls and a door. And a bathroom!”
Something searing and viscous burst in his chest. Had his heart ruptured with impotence and oppression? It might have. Gulnar, his unique, indomitable beauty. Terrorized, degraded, destitute. Used to it and taking it in her stride—no, almost as her due, what life owed her. Expecting nothing better, as if it was no worse than she deserved. Oh, God.
“If you’d rather go to a hotel…” Her gaze anxiously scanned his face. She must have misunderstood his chaos for she stopped, squeezed her eyes and swung away to make a silent yet eloquently furious self-berating gesture. “Of course you would. I don’t know what I was thinking, bringing you here. I guess I didn’t want to lose time searching for a hotel, checking into one…”
Wet heat detonated behind his eyes, corroded twin paths down his cheeks. He lunged after her, caught her around the waist from the back, his arms crushing her into him. Trembling, gasping, he carried her to the bed, pushed her down and covered her. He wanted to shield her, contain her, squash her into him, hide her inside his body.
She squirmed beneath him, panted, “Dante, if you don’t want to leave, then let me loose—let me, please…”
He opened his mouth on her pulse, seeking every confirmation of her existence and life and something bitter mingled with her sweat in his mouth. His tears. Or hers? “Next time, tesoro. Next time.”
He wanted to tear her clothes off, but couldn’t. She didn’t have much to replace them with. He could give her all she needed. Oh, how he wanted to lavish everything he was and had on her…
His dexterous fingers were useless with emotion, snarling over undoing her shirt buttons. She was trapped beneath him yet going a better job than him. He pulled back, freed her from that memorized khaki shirt. She’d aroused him with it during the hostage situation, beyond his comprehension. He remembered his confusion about her keeping it on in the deadly heat. And now he’d seen her without it, he knew why she’d kept it on. Her semi-naked body would have driven the militants to extremes, would have driven them beyond caution, beyond survival even to get their hands on her body, to spend their sick lust…
A sob tore out of him, came out a roar of rage and sorrow. His blood was congealing. He had to protect her, to honor her,
to give her anything she needed. But how could he ever do that when he wouldn’t be there for her? If not tomorrow then soon anyway? He just had to find a way. He would…
She half turned in his arms and they snatched feverish kisses and caresses, gasped and groaned and writhed together in a tangle and somehow ended up naked. He turned her again, lay over her back, clamped himself around her, arms and legs. Protecting, warding off the world. She squashed herself against him, demanding him, giving him herself. “Dante—darling, just take me…Don’t hold anything back!”
He took her. Gave her himself. Held nothing back. His roar harmonized with her moan as he invaded her, as she consumed him. He had to plunge deeper into her being, surrender further. Had to give her what she was desperate for, all he had to give, his passion, full release and succor.
His rhythm built, her cries rose—and then it all detonated. The annihilating ecstasy that would silence agony, assuage need, wipe out existence.
They convulsed together until their cries were of desperation for the pleasure to subside, the keening edge to blunt. He poured himself into her in burst after draining burst, wished he’d disintegrate inside her.
With the last pulse of pleasure he collapsed on top of her, drove her into the lumpy mattress. A relieved sound poured out of her when his full weight bore down on her. He understood it. The same sound was welling out of him at feeling her precious body cushioning him, completing the intimacy, anchoring the magic of what they’d just shared.
They didn’t speak. There was nothing to say. They just rested, regained their breath then loved again. And again.
Then it was dawn and they hadn’t slept. The first bleak ray of light came through the grid window, portending the end. Gulnar was draped over him, her lips working patterns around his wound. She suddenly spoke, her satin voice cracked and thick with her abandon in his arms. “Sorry I brought you here. This place…really stinks…”
He dragged her up, swallowed her faltering words. “I’ve had all-luxuries suites, Gulnar. Color coordinated, silk sheets, incense burning, lights of a hundred artfully arranged candles, mirrors, water beds, music—and none of it matters. Only you, experiencing you, your mind-blowing beauty—your desire, feeling you, just the luxury, the magic of your pleasure and fire and life, Gulnar. I’ve never known such hunger, never had such satisfaction then such desperation all over again. Never, Gulnar…”
She turned in the curve of his still trembling body and murmured in his chest, “I’ll just sleep till…”
She didn’t complete the sentence.
Till what? Till he left?
He could tell she didn’t really fall asleep. But she was giving him a way out without a confrontation. Without a goodbye.
He took it. At eight a.m., when he finally mustered enough will and co-ordination to move, he slipped from around her. It felt as though he’d snatched off his skin. He stood there dressing, his eyes hot and wet as he looked at her, twisted in the bed sheets, voluptuous, innocent and the one and only thing that mattered. Nothing else would matter again.
He paused at the creaking door, wished she’d call him back. That she’d at least sob in her pretense of sleep, give him a sign she wished he’d stay…
What was he thinking? That she’d want him to stay so he could tell her he couldn’t? Soothe his torment and add to her suffering? But she wasn’t suffering—was she…?
Just get out of here!
He did, stumbled out of the derelict building and into the ugly light of a new barren Azernian morning, truly lost for the first time in his life.
Where did he go from here? And why?
He’d just left all reason—and all his reasons—up there in that squalid room.
Gulnar held back the storm of misery until his footsteps faded. Then it pummeled its way out of her, slamming her around the bed, shaking her bones apart. She’d thought she’d wept, known desperation and loss before.
She’d known nothing.
Dante. Dante. Gone. Over. It was all over.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“IT’S all over, Gulnar. All the pain and loss.”
“You’re back!”
“Yes, I am, Gulnar. I couldn’t stay away.”
“Oh, God, Dante. Say that again…”
“Did you hear what I said?”
Gulnar blinked. Her eyes were open and she did see the woman in front of her. The woman who’d just yelled at her.
Oh, hell! She was daydreaming again. Lost in her impossible fantasy. For thirty-four days now, ever since Dante had left, it had been the only thing that had kept her functioning, the escape she’d needed to salvage her sanity. Or so she’d told herself. If she was sinking into it now, involuntarily, unable to resurface from it, this could be serious. Would she soon fail to differentiate between fantasy and reality, take refuge in her delusions on a permanent basis?
She was still hearing his voice over the woman’s tirade, soothing her, promising her he’d stay, at least somewhere in her life, that he wouldn’t disappear completely.
Face facts! Dante had disappeared. He’d walked out of her arms that morning and had vanished off the face of the earth. No one knew where he’d gone. No one had even reported seeing him anywhere on his way out of the region. There were no records of his movements anywhere. And there should have been, with him such a well-known figure at the moment.
Had he really existed or had she been having an impossibly detailed and vivid psychotic episode all the time? Had her mind finally caved in, taken enough horrors and losses and desperation and decided to find itself a way out? Created her a man beyond her dreams, a passion beyond her imagination?
But why had it also given her grief beyond her endurance? If it had, then her mind must really be diseased. To introduce him to her in such a horrific scenario, to make him so perfect, yet so unattainable, so that losing him would be a far worse trauma than anything it had invented him to escape.
No. To her regret, her mind was still sound. And it would remain so, so she could suffer and know it. Dante and the two weeks of their relationship, the night in his arms were real. Only real life was that cruel. She knew…
“Don’t you ignore me!” The woman was screaming now, and that catapulted Gulnar back, plunged her into the dreary reality that was her world. All around her was the dismal Sredna refugee camp populated by over two hundred thousand Badovnans. A scene from a recurring nightmare.
She’d been here before, with Lorenzo and Sherazad. She’d watched their love blossom, had misunderstood it at first. But they were together now, strong and secure in each other, with a baby on the way. And she was alone—for ever…
Focus! Before that woman goes for your throat!
“Madam—I was just a little distracted. It was an eleven-hour drive getting here, and I’m exhausted. If you’ll please repeat what you said…”
“We all know you’re one of the doctors who saved the Azernian hostages.” Well, well. News traveled widely. “How dare you come here when you side with the people who put us here?”
Gulnar tried her best placating tone. “First, I’m not a doctor, just a nurse. And I’m with GAO, and you know we help people in need regardless of their nationalities or political beliefs. I was here a year ago. If you don’t remember me, maybe someone else who’s been here longer will.”
“You saved Azernians and killed Badovnans!” the woman frothed. “You could have killed one of our brothers or husbands and now you’re coming here pretending to help us…” Then she lashed out at Gulnar, her fist catching her on her ear with all her strength.
A thunderclap exploded in Gulnar’s brain and everything came back in an avalanche. The whole hostage situation, the last minutes, Dante standing there, drawing the rebels’ fire, protecting everyone, Dante turning around, seeking her eyes, the shocked knowledge that he’d been shot surfacing in his…
“You listen to me! You listen to me, all of you. I killed a monster and I don’t care what nationality she was or whose sister or moth
er she was. She killed unarmed people before my eyes. She was going to kill the man I love. I would have shot my own sister in the same situation. Do you hear me?”
“C’mon Gulnar—it’s not worth it…” Emilio had taken her gently in his arms.
“No! They have to hear this!” She struggled away from him, swung around to face her nemesis. The woman was glaring at her. “You think you have license to hate and kill because you’ve been wronged? You think you’re the only one who’s been wronged? You think your way is the only way? It isn’t! I spent years in a camp worse than this one, an outcast and an orphan, and I didn’t get out of it bent on punishing those who put me there, along with their allies, and their loved ones, and neighbors, and anyone who didn’t side with me. I came out to help those who got trampled like I was. And that includes you!”
“I’d rather die than take your help!” the woman yelled, and spat on the ground.
“Is this how you’re raising your children? To bring on you decades of war and displacement? Don’t you understand that by embracing vengeance and sanctioning terrorism, you are perpetuating your own suffering?”
“Enough, Gulnar.” Emilio placed his bulk before her, blocking her from sight. He turned to the crowd. “OK, people, now’s the time to make this clear. If you don’t want us here, just say so and we’ll leave.”
One of the men came forward, late fifties, balding. “We’re sorry for all of this, sir. We appreciate GAO and everyone who works for them. I remember you from the last time you were here. And the lady. Tatiana is just overwrought, since both her brother and husband died recently in the fighting.”
“Do we have your word nothing like this will happen again?” The man nodded. Gulnar remembered him now. He was one of the camp leaders. Emilio almost lifted her off the ground before she said anything more, dragging her with him in the direction of the tent they’d erected as soon as they’d arrived.
They didn’t reach it.
A supply truck came hurtling towards them, screeched to a skidding halt among a storm of dust right beside the tent. The passenger door swung back on its hinges before it stopped. Then he jumped out and everything vanished. Dante!
