“Your story,” Rania whispered.
“My story.” Moj heard how wistful he sounded.
Lastly, dessert. Chewy called the first dish givré laitier au gout de levure. It was a swirl of what looked like a combination of whipped cream and ice cream dancing into a crust of sweetness.
“You know what that means in English?” Moj asked.
Rania shook her head, eyes wide in anticipation.
Chewy made a tragic face. “In French it sounds as good as it tastes. In English, it loses something. Alton swore I shouldn’t tell you, but I can’t help myself. It’s iced milk with yeast.”
Moj felt a silly grin on his face.
“Yum, yeast, it’s what’s for dinner.”
Rania already had her spoon. “I don’t care what it’s called. I have a sweet tooth that cannot be denied.”
She eased the spoon of creamy goodness into her mouth. Moj watched the spoon enter those soft, full lips, and he felt himself lose his breath for a minute.
Rania stared into his eyes. “It’s delicious. You have to try it.”
But Moj wasn’t hungry for food. He was hungry for this divine woman who had entered his life like a vengeful goddess.
“Try it,” Rania insisted.
Moj had to blink himself back to his senses.
“Okay, okay.” Moj couldn’t taste the yeast, only the iced milk, as it melted in his mouth. He was taken back to being a young boy, visiting his grandparents in Florida, and eating ice cream in the humidity of a hot tropical day. His parents were still together, and it had been a perfect day. The taste brought him back in an instant.
Moj needed only one bite.
“What’s wrong?” Rania asked.
Moj shook his head. “Nothing. Just remembered what my life was like before I started telling myself stories.”
Chewy came back, arms folded, as he gave them a knowing smile. “Yes to the yeast?”
“Yeah,” Moj said in a low voice. “You bet.”
“One more?” Chewy asked.
Moj looked over at Rania. “Whatcha think?”
“Little,” she said, hand on her stomach. “Just one little bit more.”
“Oui, Madame,” Chewy said. For being a Dutch guy, his French was pretty good.
“And last but not least, cocoa beignets in a chocolate rum sauce.” Chewy served donuts, one little donut hole each, covered in a thick chocolate sauce and dusted in cocoa powder.
“Thanks, Chewy,” Moj said. “Thanks for everything.”
The steward bowed low and left.
In silence, Moj and Rania ate their final piece of dessert, which tasted like the heaven where all good chocolates go to die and where the most devilish donuts go for redemption.
Moj stood and extended a hand to Raina.
“I’d like to take a little trip with you, if you don’t mind. It’s safe. Manning gave me a panic button.”
For one terrifying moment, Rania looked like she was about to say no. Then she nodded.
Moj exhaled in relief.
He hoped this next part worked as well as the dinner.
* * *
Rania allowed Moj to guide her down through the ship to the rear where the launch was waiting.
Luckily, her dress hid the Sig Sauer P320 9mm Subcompact pistol in the thigh holster. She’d come to dinner armed, which said something about her state of mind. But she wasn’t going to take any chances.
And yet, going off alone with Moj was incredibly risky. She wasn’t worried about the pirates. She was worried she would follow him back into his world. Best-case scenario, Fayed would see her and come for her. Worst case, she’d get her heart broken.
In spite of her fears, she couldn’t say no.
Moj helped her into the launch and then he piloted it away from the Bonnie Blue.
“Where are we going?” Rania asked, yelling over the engines.
“Not far,” Moj said.
Rania wondered how he was navigating, since there was no land in sight. Five minutes later, a blinking buoy flashed a red light across the water.
Moj pulled the boat near and cut the engines before throwing a kite-type mooring overboard. Far in the distance, the lights of the Bonnie Blue were just a twinkle almost like stars tied to the earth.
“What are we doing here?” Rania asked.
“You’ll see.” Moj took off his suit coat and laid it on the driver’s seat. He gently lowered the swim ladder at the back and then started down, still in his pants and purple shirt, into the water. “I love that the water is warm here.”
“But your clothes,” Rania whispered.
“Don’t care,” Moj said. “I didn’t want to strip down, and I wanted you to see.”
Instead of going in over his head, Moj stepped out and walked only ankle deep in the Indian Ocean. He stopped at the buoy, turned off the blinking light, and turned to face her.
“Manning and Captain Lindsay rigged a swim platform out here at the buoy, just for us. Can you believe there’s a company that can set these things up? I couldn’t, but there is. Lindsay said the currents aren’t strong here, and if we got lucky, there wouldn’t be any waves. And we are definitely lucky. We found each other, and if we want to stay lucky, we won’t let go.”
He swished back to the boat and offered her his hand.
She accepted, stood, and followed him down the ladder until she was standing on the thick, textured plastic platform. The hem of her gown might get wet, but she didn’t care.
Moj reached over to the launch’s boom box and turned on a song. Adele’s “When We Were Young” drifted out over the gentle sloshing of the ocean waves hitting the side of the launch.
“May I have this dance?” he asked.
She touched his arm and felt the swell of his bicep. She caressed his shoulders with her hands while he circled his arms around her waist. They swayed to the music.
The moon glowed white heaven down, and it was like they were dancing alone on a planet made of water. There was nothing except ocean around them, and Rania finally sighed and put her head on his chest. Their bodies were close now, so close, and she could feel his stiffness pressing on her belly.
She felt her own desire between her legs, across her skin, everywhere. She wanted him, but she knew however magical dancing in the middle of the Indian Ocean was, she and Moj couldn’t be together.
While her head knew that, her heart had ideas of its own.
She was torn, so torn.
What if things could change? What if she could maneuver in the shadows of his life, while he promised to change his schedule to accommodate her need for privacy?
Was she going to let her fears of a broken heart stop her from exploring a relationship with this magical man?
She swayed with Moj to the song, a sad song about what time did to people and how quickly life and love’s magic could fade.
She felt his breathing, listened to his heart, and looked out across the still ocean to the horizon edged with the stars shining across an infinite universe.
The song ended, and Rania glanced up.
Moj kissed her. His lips, so soft, brushed hers, and she put her hands to his head, and drank him. She poured every bit of her passion into the kiss, and she was soon swept away. His tongue, his lips, the heavy night air, the water swishing around their legs.
She remembered how she had first given him pleasure in the gentle surf on the beach of their deserted island paradise. She reached back to unzip her dress.
Her head screeched at her. No, what are you doing? This will only make parting that much harder!
And while her heart was far quieter, she knew this was the right thing to do. For her. For him. To create a memory so special, it would sustain them in the weeks to come.
She placed her dress on the launch.
She was naked, except for her thigh holster and pistol.
Moj saw it. “Damn, a girl with a gun. You are something out of a dream, Rania. I can’t believe I found a woman like you.”
Rania unstrapped the holster from her leg and placed the Sig on her dress.
Moj had begun to unbutton his shirt, but she stopped him. “I’ll do that, Mr. Johnston.” Her voice dripped with lust and promise.
Rania walked back to him, in the water, under the blanket of stars gleaming down above them.
She took her time unbuttoning his shirt, giving the hard muscles of his stomach a lick, followed by his pecs. She pushed the shirt aside and captured one of his nipples in her mouth.
Moj hissed. His hands fondled her shoulders and back. One found a breast, cupping it gently.
She pushed the shirt off. His skin pressed against hers, his mouth was on hers. Their lips and tongues met in a dance of passion and need.
She caught his hand when he went to unzip his pants. “No, Albi, I’ll take care of your pants, too.”
“Are you sure about us doing this?” Moj asked. “I don’t want to rush back into anything.”
Rania kissed a finger and then put it to Moj’s lips.
“Tonight, we will make love in the middle of the Indian Ocean. Like on the island, tonight is not for thinking. Tonight is for our hearts. Tomorrow will be for our minds.”
“Tesoro,” he murmured, “Cara Mia, mi fai fermare il cuore.”
She loved how his tongue spun the silken Italian out of his mouth. Too bad he felt ashamed to speak it. She didn’t ask what the words meant because she understood the spirit behind them.
She unsnapped his pants and freed his cock. She pulled them down and off his feet and then went up his leg, kissing his shin, his knee, his thigh, and even his wonderful penis got a kiss, but only a kiss. Then she was kissing his lips, smelling his aftershave, tasting his mouth.
His pants, shirt, underwear were dropped wet back into the launch. Neither cared.
Rania turned around and felt his cock press against her ass.
She bent over.
And he was inside her.
His hands came around to cup her breasts, and he slowly eased himself deeper inside her, only to withdraw. They were having sex, in the middle of an ocean, no one around for miles.
It was like their time on the island together. So alone, so connected, so on fire with new love for each other.
Moj’s motions became more intense, his hands moving to grip her hips. She was making noises she never made, small little groans of satisfaction.
Until he couldn’t contain his passion. He pressed himself inside her, and he came. She let him enjoy his orgasm before she turned around and held him tightly, her face on his chest, listening to the storm of his heartbeat until it began to slow.
“Do you want to come?” Moj asked.
Truth was, she didn’t. She wanted to hold him, swaying in the water, while the moon journeyed across the sky.
She felt full of life and love, and her heart felt invincible, telling her their night need never end. She could spend the rest of eternity in the ocean with Moj. Yet, the relentless truth circled inside her head.
“We should get back,” she murmured.
Back to reality, where they could never be together.
She understood the reality. Too bad this magical man didn’t.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
4°19′48″S; 55°44′48″E
April 26, Aboard the Bonnie Blue
At Anchor Off Praslin Island’s Anse Georgette Beach
Four days later, the Bonnie Blue reached the Seychelles, off the coast of Africa directly east of Kenya and northeast of Madagascar.
Captain Lindsay Fisher barely had time to power back on the Bonnie Blue’s anchor to dig in off Praslin when she spotted four different launches speeding toward them from the dock, throwing huge plumes of white foam in their wake.
“What the hell?” she said.
Moj, who stood behind her at the helm, pulled his sunglasses from their perch on top of his ball cap and slapped them onto the bridge of his nose. He squinted into the searing sunlight and watched the shore boats draw nearer.
He pulled off his hat and threw the weathered Tampa Bay Buccaneers cap down on the deck. “Damn. Doesn’t this media bullshit ever end?”
Rania poked her head out of the companionway and frowned. The noise of the approaching boats had probably pulled her from the bowels of the ship where he guessed she practiced the dark arts of keeping all the systems humming on the huge yacht. She’d been distant since their time on the swimming platform — not cold, but certainly not like she’d been on that magical night.
He had a little surprise planned for her, and he hoped it would pave the way to a better life for both of them.
The paparazzi onslaught was only going to make his job harder.
When he caught her glance, she shook her head slowly, shrugged her shoulders, and walked toward him.
He felt suddenly guilty and then annoyed. He desperately wanted the beautiful, brainy Egyptian woman in his life, but he resented constantly having to apologize for his lifestyle.
Yes, he was an international celebrity who was mobbed wherever he went, but without that celebrity, his career would tank. And then what would he be? An interesting question. One he might have to answer soon if he wanted to keep his relationship with Rania alive.
Just as she reached his side, the first launch slewed next to them with a great heaving of swells. Chewy and Tommy rushed to the rail with huge, covered fenders to keep the incoming craft from clacking against the Bonnie Blue’s hull. They secured them with deft knots flipped over the lifelines. Both of them reached down and pulled aboard the single passenger, Bronwyn. She stomped onto the deck in skinny stiletto heels. Her water taxi swept away and headed back to shore.
Moj stifled an “I can’t believe she did that” shiver when his PR agent’s heels scraped across the wood deck. Tommy gave her a warning look after which she reached down and slipped off the offending footwear. Chewy handed her a pair of white, rhinestone-encrusted flip-flops.
Without any preliminary greetings, she turned to Moj and Rania and demanded, “When in the hell is she going to get with the program?” She pointed a bright red manicured nail Rania’s way.
“You’re referring to my friend, Rania, I presume,” he answered. Moj was afraid to glance at Rania, but he didn’t have to see her face. He could almost feel the heat of anger flowing from her body.
“Your endless dramas manufactured for Moj’s benefit have nothing to do with me,” Rania bit out. “I am not a performer in your show.”
“You can stop the ‘I’m too good to help out the man I supposedly love’ crap any time now,” Bronwyn said, and socked her fists to her hips. “Your tall, dark, silent act has to end. Every media outlet in the known world is clamoring for answers.”
She turned and inclined her head toward the remaining launches speeding toward them. “Here come the paparazzi as well as reporters, and if they don’t get some answers, they’ll start making up stuff.”
Two boats circled the Bonnie Blue with photographers crouched in each one, clicking away with cameras attached to telephoto lenses.
“Just a minute,” Moj said. “Stop right there. Rania is not a celebrity. She’s entitled to her privacy.”
“Oh, really? Did she tell you she’s actually married to some big-time Egyptian asshole back in the Casbah? Who’s threatening to rake both of you over the coals if she doesn’t return to Egypt and start acting like an ‘obedient’ wife?”
Moj’s shoulders slumped. He felt like he’d wandered into a brick building just before it collapsed on his head without warning. Suddenly, all of Rania’s reservations about being in the public eye made sense. She was on the run, in hiding. Of course she’d mentioned she’d escaped an arranged marriage, but this scenario was a lot more sinister.
Rania gave Bronwyn a look that might have destroyed a mere mortal. Unfortunately, Bronwyn was not mortal. She came from a whole different planet — Planet Hollywood, where appearances are everything, the truth is optional, and the golden rule is “Never give a sucker a break
.”
* * *
Rania knew more than twenty holds with her bare hands that could render the human body helpless, sometimes forever. Her hands itched to use one of them on the obnoxious Bronwyn so that she and Moj could have a fighting chance to get to know each other better before the world’s ugliness closed in.
That was fantasy. This was reality. She’d known all along this moment would come. It was inevitable.
Moj came close and held both of her hands as if he could sense her thoughts. “Is it true?” he asked. “You’re really his wife, and he can have you imprisoned for being ‘disobedient’?”
“No,” Rania said calmly, as if she were explaining a complex issue to a small child. “He has a marriage contract signed by my grandparents. My signature appears nowhere in the document. My father did not sign, either, because he was out of the country. And as for having me thrown in prison, that’s not what he wants. In our country, theoretically, if a woman disobeys her husband, he can kill her, or have her killed, without any consequences.”
She turned her wrists gently and disengaged from his grasp. “That is why I can never return to my home, and why basking in the reflected light of your celebrity could end my life.”
* * *
Moj’s head pounded while impossible choices swirled without end. Bronwyn’s voice droned on and on about Val Kendrick’s flight in, the other models, and the photographers doing the magazine spread for The Traveler on Anse Georgette Beach, quite possibly the most beautiful stretch of sand in the world.
A few sunset shots would be taken that evening after the meet-and-greet, which would be open to the media as well. The majority of the shoot would continue over the next few days, but he’d made it clear to Bronwyn, the barracuda, that his participation would be limited. He was desperate to spend some more quiet time with Rania and somehow convince her he could fix everything, including her murderous, Egyptian pseudo-husband.
* * *
Rania broke away from Moj and Bronwyn to escape back to the only thing that was safe — taking care of a beautiful yacht in international waters.
Out Too Farr Page 16
