by Trisha Telep
Part of him accepted that because she was an operative doing her job. Part of him was furious because she’d chosen to play his opponent instead of his sidekick. Every move she’d made so far was a delay tactic. He was, after all, a negotiator in this business, and she was nowhere near capable of hiding anything from him for long.
His eyes narrowed as he watched her walk to the tent’s back entrance. She bent forwards to pick up a large tray that he hadn’t noticed before, giving him a tempting view of those bikini briefs that barely covered her ass.
Yeah, some negotiator, Dallas. So far, his wonted steel-trap mind and cool logic had failed to function at all. Things that he’d been trained not to allow had dominated all the present negotiating – a low-cut wisp of a tank top, a pair of long legs that he knew were ballerina-flexible. Her lips asking to be kissed. He frowned. How many others had kissed them since him?
He angrily jerked up into a sitting position. Let her eat. Let her relax. It would give him a chance to settle down so he could concentrate on things, like getting information about this operation. What she had told him so far had only led him to more questions.
Kel was a courier, not a negotiator, so she had information to pass on, obviously retrieved from that dead pilot. But to whom was she passing it on? And what could be so important that the Temple had sent her ahead of him? They apparently had thought that the pilot might not survive. That didn’t surprise him. The Temple seldom executed any plan without a dozen moves thought out ahead; he was, after all, part of that system, and understood very well the strategic lessons of preparation.
However, things had gone through too many unexpected twists lately, and the pattern pointed not to coincidence but to planning. He studied the woman laying out the small plates of food on the eating mat. How much did she know? Or was she just on a routine courier mission?
At that instant, Kel turned around, her head cocked. “Well, are you going to eat with me, or not?” Dressed as she was, she looked slightly ridiculous sitting on the ground, in the traditionally demure female position, feet tucked sideways. And her smile was anything but demure. “Aren’t you hungry?”
John felt his body responding to her unspoken invitation. There was no way he could hide how she affected him, not when he was down to his underwear. He joined her on the mat with a grimace. Cross-legged wasn’t one of his favourite positions.
He looked into her amused eyes, and the conflicting emotions rose in him again. He wasn’t pleased to see her; he was ecstatic to see her. He didn’t want her around; he wanted her to stay. He needed to question her about the operation; he was dying to talk about the two of them.
He glanced quickly at his watch. Daybreak was his deadline. Accepting a bowl of roasted meat from her, he smiled. “Sure.” Wanting to test her, he continued, “After we eat, I’d like to be entertained with some stories, Scheherazade.”
Kel paused with the food halfway between her bowl and mouth, and then he was rewarded with a rich, husky laugh. And, like the newly married queen from A Thousand and One Nights, the woman in front of him settled back, looking absolutely confident that she could keep her husband interested all night long.
John Dallas couldn’t take his eyes off her. He was hungry all right. But not for food.
Enveloping Attack – An attack from behind the enemy forces.
Counter-play – The opposite side takes aggressive action. A player who has counter-played well puts himself on equal footing with his opponent.
Two
John closed his eyes, relinquishing all control. Her hands touched him. Her lips. Her mouth. Her tongue took over his world, which had rapidly diminished into one burning powerful need as he had somehow ended up on his back after dinner. She explored his body, first with her small hands, gliding all over each part of him so slowly that he had to grit his teeth to stop from begging. Her hair was the softest silk – he couldn’t remember undoing that braid – as she bent her head. His muscles contracted when he felt her lips following the path of her hands, a sensuous, wet path that stopped to investigate all the right spots. She sucked his nipples, nibbled her way down his stomach . . . damn if the woman wasn’t hungry still . . . and he groaned as her mouth hovered over his painfully erect cock.
Take it. Take me. Was he even speaking in English? He couldn’t hear himself amid the roar in his ears. He was so hot for her, he was going to . . . and then her lips closed around him and he groaned. He was in heaven. And she was the angel of his dreams returned to him. She rolled her tongue and he almost shot off the floor in response. The welcome wetness of her mouth took . . . everything.
Everything. When she’d left him, he felt she’d taken everything with her, but he could never name what those things were. It was just the emptiness inside that told him she took something valuable.
A growl escaped his lips in protest when she stopped. Don’t. Stop. She only laughed and came back up to kiss him. God, she tasted so good. He pushed his tongue into her mouth with the ravenousness of a wild man. How many others had there been? The surge of jealousy caused him to kiss her more roughly than he intended, but he didn’t care any more. She was his wife, wasn’t she? She was his.
His. He lifted her off him and was on her immediately. Flesh on flesh. He was going to take back what was his. How dare she leave him?
Her throaty encouragement urged him on as she moved sinuously under him. He didn’t need her to tell him what she wanted – he could feel her wet and ready.
“John.”
How could the mere whisper of his name in his ear make him almost lose his control? It was the way she said it. She never called him John, except during heated moments of intimacy. John – in that husky murmur. John – almost French sounding, the way she sighed it out. She gripped his arms as he guided himself inside her.
Hot. She clenched around him in fierce possession, all sleek feminine eagerness. He pushed and almost lost it again when she arched into him with wild abandon. Stroke for stroke, she drove him higher and higher.
He tried to focus. Her eyes were half-closed, looking back at him. Little pants escaped her parted lips. He couldn’t really see. Or think.
She gasped. “John . . . John . . . Johhhnn!”
Forget focus. His world exploded into pure heat. And still he kept driving into her, needing her all over again. Her writhing response only rekindled the pleasure that washed his senses in waves.
John closed his eyes.
When he reopened them, everything still looked out of focus. He frowned. His body was stiff, as if he had been sleeping in the same position too long. As the ceiling of the tent became clearer, so did his thoughts.
What time was it? His wrist appeared in front of his eyes and the watch read 06.00 hours. Six in the morning? He squinted. He couldn’t remember going to bed. Couldn’t remember a damn thing after he sat down to eat dinner with Kel.
He jerked up as if hit by an electrical current. Images swam in his mind – images way too sexy to be just a dream. He looked down. Oh yeah, he was naked under the sheet. The pillow next to him had an indentation. Her scent lingered tantalizingly on him still.
Something was very wrong. He usually didn’t have sensational sex and not remember doing it. Well, actually he recalled some pretty incredible details, but the memory felt . . . distant. A cough interrupted his disarrayed thoughts, and John looked in its direction, ready to demand an explanation.
Except that the woman sitting quietly near the entrance to the tent wasn’t Kel. It was one of the women who had sat beside her in the donkey cart yesterday.
What the hell was going on? John’s eyes caught sight of the previous night’s leftovers sitting innocently on the tray not too far away. A nasty suspicion surfaced. Fury awoke the rest of his half-asleep mind.
“She told me to tell you not to yell,” the stranger in his bridal tent said softly, her accented voice trembling slightly from fear. “She said shouting would only make trouble.”
John glared at the woman, even t
hough it wasn’t her fault that he was wearing only his birthday suit in a stuffy tent in the mountains of goat-herding country. And, oh yeah, he was the top-notch liaison that was supposed to be in charge of a hostage arms exchange. At current status, he had no hostage and had given away a whole cache of arms.
He scowled fiercely, although cussing would have felt better. A strange woman was less than ten feet away from his naked ass, and she was already looking at him as if he were an ogre.
“Where is she?” he asked, his morning voice huskier than usual.
He cleared his throat and looked around the tent to make sure Kel wasn’t hiding under any of the camel-hair sheets. The other woman’s gasp halted his scan, and looking down he noticed that the not-too-big sheet protecting what was left of his modesty had moved and now he was really in danger of scaring the poor lady. She was, after all, bundled up like a proper Muslim woman, but he had no idea whether she was for real or not. Her horrified eyes seemed to say she was definitely for real, though.
John sighed, and pulled the sheet higher. Oops. Too high, judging from her ever-widening eyes. He tugged at the other end of the sheet. Obviously, his wife thought this up as some final joke. His wife. He glared at the woman again, and repeated his question. “Where’s Leiha?”
To his relief, the woman took her eyes off his body, and answered, “I am Leiha.”
Oh, that was all he needed. Morning-after surprises. “I mean Leiha, my wife.” He tried to sound reasonably patient. He could have been crude by explaining about the Leiha who had been naked beside him the night before, but he had a feeling that would only earn him more female problems.
“For now, I am Leiha, your wife.” She stepped closer, in the manner of a person approaching an angry bear.
That was it. John’s patience was definitely wearing thinner by the second. He moved forwards and she shrieked, falling back a few steps. “Leiha, or whoever you are,” he told her, wondering whether he had somehow woken up in the twilight zone, “I just want my clothes. OK? Look, they’re all over the place. If you can just throw me . . . ummm—” skip the underwear, he decided “—the pants over there, I’d really appreciate it.”
She vigorously nodded her head in agreement, and ran to fetch the garment. Staying a few feet away, she tossed the trousers into his arms.
John waited. And waited. Finally, he sighed. “If you don’t turn around, I can’t put them on without embarrassing you.”
It mustn’t have occurred to her, for her face went fiery red. But she still didn’t turn away. “I have never seen a naked man before,” she told him.
Oh, now he was the zoo animal for display. “Lady, I’m sorry to hear that, but until we’ve been properly introduced, I’d rather not give lessons in anatomy, if you don’t mind.” He watched in amusement as she finally turned her back with a show of reluctance.
A few minutes later, he was dressed enough to conduct a normal conversation, although there was nothing normal about the whole damned state of affairs. It was barely six thirty in the morning, and he felt as if time had escaped him somehow.
Leiha, the other Leiha, his Leiha, was still missing. This new one was moving around the tent as if she were really his wife, picking up discarded clothes and putting things away in the small trunks by the entrance. He scratched the back of his neck in frustrated disbelief.
“What else did she say, besides not to shout?”
The woman dug into her robes, and pulled out a piece of paper. “She wrote you this letter.”
John tore the envelope quickly.
Dallas,
I know you will remember everything I told you last night. This is Zaleiha, your wife. Take her with you and hand her over at your next stop. She can’t return to the village now because she is, of course, me, and you and your wife’s journey will be watched over. I’m sorry I can’t stay with you. I know how much your freedom means. If you like, I’ll mutter “I divorce you” three times as soon as I cross the border. Be careful. You have completed your part of the deal but the game isn’t over. Oh, eat this note, darling.
Love, Kel
P.S. Last night was more than fair. Let’s do this info barter again some time.
John wanted to pull his hair out. He’d barely been with Kel for twenty-four hours and already she was driving him crazy. The trouble with her was he never knew what was going on in her head. She was one complicated package, always with her fingers in ten different projects. She was the only woman who made him want to strangle and kiss her all at once.
I know how much your freedom means. He squashed the note, startling Zaleiha, who was watching him with fear in her eyes again. Just to appease his current bad mood, he scowled at her fiercely and, just like that, the woman dropped the folded garments in her arms and scuttled off, heading for the tent exit.
Ah, shit. John sighed, attempting to control his temper. “Don’t be frightened,” he said. “You’re Zaleiha, right?”
She nodded. “She said you were going to be like a drunk donkey when you woke up,” she said, her voice accusing, “and that I have to get you a cup of coffee with lots of milk.”
“Donkeys don’t get drunk,” John pointed out politely. He spied the sash for his robe and went to retrieve it. “But yes, coffee with milk. That sounds like the best thing right now.”
As if she had been waiting for his permission, Zaleiha immediately went over to a tray and poured coffee out of a flask. The aromatic brew must be strong as hell because the whole tent smelled of roasted coffee immediately. John took a deep breath, wondering if that might just kick-start his brain cells again.
He accepted the cup from her, looking at the coffee longingly. “You didn’t spike this too, did you?”
“Spike?” She frowned.
“Spiked . . . as in drugged.”
“Oh.” She nodded in comprehension, then, realizing that she might be misunderstood, quickly shook her head. “Of course not. She says you will kill her if your coffee doesn’t taste right.” She cocked her head. “You must be a very nasty-tempered man, killing so easily.”
Did she just make a joke? John sipped on his coffee, studying the woman. She had a very earnest demeanour, when she wasn’t cowering. “Well, bad coffee is a serious offence,” he commented, and took another big gulp. “But not to worry, this particular batch is absolutely fine.”
“She made it herself.”
John sighed. Might have known. “Is there anything else she said to you?”
It pissed him off, having been out-manoeuvred like that. He knew the Temple was behind it, but why did it have to be Kel? If it had been anyone else, he wouldn’t have been tricked so easily. He was pretty sure the sex was just Kel’s own way to poke a little fun at him. OK, so it had been fun for him too, but surely she knew that she didn’t need to drug him for that kind of cooperation? He’d have been more than willing.
“She said lots of things, but I don’t know what was meant for your ears.”
John looked at Zaleiha, who resumed putting away things. “Where did you learn your English anyway?” he asked. He rolled up the eating mat after she put the dinner trays into a basket.
“We girls all went to school, you know, until the revolution. Now they no longer allow us to be educated. I was going to go to college but my parents were killed.” Zaleiha shrugged. “But this is my way out. You are my way out.”
For the first time since waking up, John felt in control. Negotiations and exchanges. That was his domain. Zaleiha was part of the H-A-X. “Can you tell me about the pilot that died? The one Kel . . . Kaleiha talked to. How did your people find him?”
“The villagers saw the plane come down. Then they found him in a deep . . . how do you call it . . . valley? Deep valley?”
“Ravine,” John supplied.
“Ravine. Then they kept him for the Resistance. She showed up not long after. I think she talked to the pilot but I’m not sure.”
Kel had told him she did. “So the Resistance didn’t know that the man
was dying until they saw him, right?”
She nodded.
“Then Kaleiha showed up and talked to the Resistance and then, somehow, you became involved.”
“I was chosen because I can speak good English and I’m not married. It’s hard to get married when you are smarter than all the men in the village.”
John had to smile. He liked the woman’s directness. “Right. So you get to come with me, then. Did Kaleiha tell you what’s going to happen? Did she prepare you for the journey?”
She gave him an indignant look. “Of course. She was very nice to me and we brokered a deal.”
He cocked a brow. This he wanted to hear. “Oh?”
“If she chose me as the one to go to freedom, I have to treat you exactly the way she teaches me.”
John crossed his arms. He wished this wondrous teacher were around at the moment. There were several great ways to treat runaway wives in this culture. “And how are you supposed to treat me?”
Zaleiha backed away, her eyes wary. “Very carefully.”
Two hours later, John felt eminently better. He had freshened up by the river, taking in the banter of the other men in the camp.
Up so early already?
The mountain air wears one out, you know.
Can he make it down the mountain, you think?
He wondered what they would have done if they had woken up to find another woman in their tent.
They were all packed and ready to make their way down the mountain trail. Hashem was the only one in his group who knew that the woman on the donkey cart, completely veiled now from head to foot, was not the same woman he had married.
The leader of the visiting group, Ahmin, had a twinkle in his eye when he shook hands with his new “brother”. “I trust you are pleased with your woman.”
John lifted a brow sardonically. “I don’t have any complaints.”
“We are happy too. We needed the supplies you gave us.”
They climbed on to their horses, trotting side by side with him for part of the way to show respect. John studied Ahmin, who looked like a regular Pakistani until he spoke in that New York accent. He wondered at the circumstances that made an obviously Westernized, educated man decide to go to war. But it was none of his business. His job had always been only as the go-between, making sensitive, unsavoury exchanges that governments didn’t wish to be publicly known.
