by Sophia Lynn
No matter how wrong it was, however, he wanted her. He wasn't sure if he had ever wanted a woman more. He had assumed last night, in the dimness of the room, that her eyes were blue, given her coloring. Now that he had seen them in good light, he could see that they were a pure gray, a color that made him think of rivers and rain.
Even in the short time he had known her, he had become incredibly impressed with her resourcefulness and her will. He wasn't sure he had ever met a woman like her before, one that was so passionate even while she was being as brave as she could be.
He knew that he couldn't take advantage of her. Not like this, not now. Perhaps in a few days, when it was all over…
He shook his head. He needed to stay focused. He needed to make sure that he kept her safe. Then, and only then, they could find out what was possible between them.
Chapter Six
Emily ran through her options. For a little while, she entertained a fantasy of overpowering the guards, running out, setting a fire and screaming for help. The more she thought about it, however, the more she realized that it was nothing more than a pleasant fantasy. She could try to escape, but she knew that not only would she never make it out, she would likely be punished for her efforts.
For a brief moment, she thought of Oma, and she wondered if life was like this for her as well. Would it only be a matter of time until her attention shifted from escape to sheer survival? Oma had told her to simply look down at her feet, to count every step taken as one more survived. She took a deep breath, and she told herself that for now, that was what she had to do.
The room was bereft of ways to contact the outside world. The ridiculously out-of-date computer couldn't connect to the Internet, and the flat screen television showed nothing but shows in Arabic. A large bookcase held books in various languages.
The hours wore on, and Adnan still didn't return. When her thoughts turned to him, they became strange and fractured things. She didn't understand herself when it came to him, but there was more than that. Sometimes, when she was quiet, the thought came to her that she had known him before. Something about him was so familiar that she grew increasingly frustrated when the memory darted away again and again.
Emily told herself that it was nothing more than a firing of synapses, a strange and erroneous connection of memory, but some part of her refused to believe it. No matter how hard she looked or what she considered, however, there was no way to fit a man like that into her previous life, and she had to let it go.
She wandered the room, wondering if noble prisoners in times gone by felt the same way. Every need was met. One of the guards at the door had told her that he could order food if she wished. She wasn't going to be starved. She wasn't going to be hurt, as far as she could see. The only thing that she was going to be denied was her freedom.
She tentatively asked for a grilled cheese sandwich and was slightly amused to get a sandwich filled with some kind of cheese she had never had before, along with a dish of bitter greens in lemon juice. The cheese was strong but not unpleasant, and she ate it all, trying not to be grateful for such a small pleasure but unable to help herself.
She wondered for a moment if Adnan meant to leave her here, but surely the guards would be freed, wouldn’t they? He couldn't just leave her in the hotel room like a princess in her tower, but then she realized that he could do precisely that if he wished to. From the discussion he’d had with the skinny man, she knew that he had more money than she could imagine. The fact that buying her was a negligent matter for him meant that he was powerful as well.
No, he very well could leave her where she was, and she would not be able to do anything about it.
A few days ago, she might have panicked at that idea. She might have screamed or cried or tried to destroy the room that she sat in. Instead, she went very still. She made herself take several deep breaths as Oma had taught her, and she tried to make herself blank.
It worked, sort of. At least she didn't feel the animal fear that clawed at the back of her mind anymore. Finally, for want of anything better to do, she went to the bookshelf. After a bit of a search through books that she suspected had simply been bought by the lot from someplace going out of business, she came up with a battered copy of Pride and Prejudice.
She had loved that book since she was a little girl, and right now, it seemed like the best way to lose herself from the world for a little while. She sprawled out on the bed and started to read. As she dove into the words that had been her refuge for years, something tugged at her memory again, but she shrugged it off.
Emily read for hours. As the light died, she switched on the lamp and kept reading, even when she was stiff from lying on her belly, even when the words blurred in front of her eyes.
She kept on reading even when she could feel how heavy her eyelids were, and she only gave it up when sleep finally took her.
She was having the dream again. She was in the maze, and now she could see more of it. The walls were concrete like the cell where she had woken up, and all around her was the laughter of cruel men, the sobbing of hurt girls.
Though a part of Emily wanted nothing more than to crouch down and hide forever, she knew that she needed to keep moving. She needed to make sure that she wasn't found, and to do that, she had to stay on her feet.
She was so tired, though. It felt as if the world was pressing down on her, making her steps heavy, dragging her towards the ground. Still, she had walked through worse. She had continued when she was so exhausted she thought she might fall, and she had endured. She kept walking.
At some point, she heard footsteps behind her. The moment she noticed them, she heard a laugh as well. Someone was following her. Someone was going to jump out at her, and they were going to hurt her.
Unable to stop herself, she broke into a run. It didn't matter if she ran headlong into something terrible, she simply needed to get away from whoever was following her. She ran until she thought her lungs would burst, and then she ran some more. The thing was right behind her. She wasn't sure that it was even a man anymore. She became more and more convinced that it was a monster.
She shrieked when her bare toe caught on something. She went tumbling forward. This was it. She was falling, and the thing would be on her, tearing her, hurting her.
Instead of hitting the ground, Emily found herself plucked up as lightly as if she were a feather. Strong arms wrapped around her, and suddenly she felt safe. She knew that everything would be all right, and when she opened her eyes, she had no idea where the dream ended and reality began.
She was in the enormous bed at the hotel, and Adnan had returned at some point. He held her tightly in his arms, and she heard him whispering that same stream of comforting words that he had whispered to her in her dream the first night. This time, she didn't fight him. Instead, she simply shivered, clinging to him with everything she had. This time, there was nothing between them, and she knew how very much she needed him.
“You keep having bad dreams,” he said. “It is natural after what you have done through.”
She uttered a laugh that was at least a little more humor than sob.
“I'm sorry if I woke you up,” she said when she had gotten her breath back. “I'm…I'm so sorry, I don't know when they are going to stop…”
“They will stop when they stop,” he said with a shrug. “I know men who have gone through combat who never get the dreams at all, and I know men who have them every night. Either way, there is no shame in it. When you have undergone fear and pain, the horror of being helpless, you deserve to feel everything that comes after.”
She didn't let herself wonder what kind of man could say a thing like that and still buy a woman. Adnan didn't make sense, and the last time she had tried to make him make sense, he had left her alone in the hotel all day.
Right now, all she knew was that she needed him, and she did what came naturally. She twined her arms around his neck, and when she kissed him, there was a gentleness to it that ha
d never been there before.
“I don't want to be alone,” she said nakedly, and in the darkness, she could feel him nod.
“You won't be, I promise,” he responded. He started to say something else, but she kissed him again. She could feel his doubt melt away and turn into certainty as he wrapped his arms around her, holding her tight.
“Please,” she whispered, not even sure what she was asking for. “Please…”
No matter what decisions he might have come to earlier, they were shattering now. Something in the way he held her, in the tension that stretched between them like wire, told her that he couldn't resist her.
“All right,” he said finally, planting a gentle kiss on the corner of her mouth. “But we're going to do this my way.”
She wondered if she should be nervous about that, but then he was kissing her again. There was a hunger to it, but also a restraint. He kissed her slowly, working his way from her mouth to her jaw to the sensitive skin of her throat. When she felt him graze her earlobe with his teeth, she shivered, clinging to him harder, and she could feel him smile in the darkness.
“Beautiful thing,” he murmured. “So lovely and perfect.”
His arms tightened around her, but it was only to hold her steady while he nibbled at her ear. As a musician, she had always thought that her ears were the most sensitive part of her. Now he was proving it true as he sent shivers of pure hot pleasure through her body simply by lapping gently at the curve of her ear.
“Oh, oh, I can't take that anymore,” she whimpered, squirming against him. Even as the shudders of pleasure shot through her, a part of her hoped he wouldn't stop, hoped that he would push her forward to the next level, whatever came next.
Instead, he only laughed, the soft dark sound making her press against him with a kind of need she barely understood.
“Here, let me show you something good…”
She sat still as he pulled her dress over her head. She hesitated a moment when she felt him reach for her underwear, but when he planted a kiss at the nape of her neck, she lost all of her resistance.
Belatedly, she realized that he had gone to bed naked again. With nothing between them but the sheet, she could tell that he was just as aroused as she was. She reached for his erection, shrouded by the sheet, and he shuddered as she stroked it. Fascinated, she wrapped her hand around him, but Adnan pulled her away.
“That's not exactly what I had in mind,” he said, and before she could ask him what he did have in mind, he had pulled her onto his lap. She squeaked in surprise, but now she found herself settled back against his body, her legs spilled to either side of his and her back to his broad chest. It reminded her briefly of what they had done together early that morning, and she felt a surge of pleasure push through her.
“I do not think you have any idea how beautiful you are,” he said, his words tickling her ear. “But perhaps right now, you will allow me to show you…”
He ran his large hands from her shoulders down over her breasts, to the curve of her hips and back again. When he stopped to cup her breasts in his hands, she moaned softly, closing her eyes at the pleasure of it. She had never thought of her breasts as sensitive before, but now as he dragged his calloused fingertips over the sensitive sides and pinched her nipples gently until they formed taut peaks, she realized how wrong she’d been.
“Such a beautiful woman, and right now, you are all mine, aren't you?”
“Yes, yes,” she murmured, and as a reward, his hands slid down her flat stomach. He traced sweet patterns over her thighs, and when she felt him move upwards toward her most secret flesh, she opened her legs instinctively. She could the hardness of his arousal pressed against her rear, and without thinking of what she was doing, she shifted, making him groan.
“Well, if that's what you want to do, I suppose I should show you what I can do as well…”
When he slid an exploratory finger down her slit, she blushed to feel herself already so wet and wanting. Adnan seemed to enjoy her response, however, repeating the motion until she was whimpering with need.
“I need more than that,” she whispered, blushing at her own words, and he kissed the side of her neck.
“I promise, you will get everything you need,” he whispered.
One gentle finger probed at her entrance as the other circled higher. When she felt a calloused fingertip graze her clit, she might have jumped away at the shock of it if he hadn't been nuzzling her, telling her softly how beautiful she was, how much he wanted her.
One arm looped around her waist, holding her still and keeping her calm, as his other hand slid gently down her slit. She could feel him gathering the liquid of her arousal at her entrance, and then bringing it up to her clit, smoothing the way for a rougher touch.
“Tell me if this is something you don't want,” he whispered in her ear. “There are so many ways to do this, and oh, Emily, I want to do them all with you…”
She couldn't imagine not wanting this touch, this slick, tight need as he started to work her sensitive flesh. She could feel every muscle in her body straining against the desire that was binding it up tighter and tighter. She started to squirm, but there was only so far she could go with his arm wrapped around her bare waist. Instead, she dug her fingernails into his muscular forearm because she needed something, anything that she could hang on to while the pleasure was pulsing through her.
“Come for me, little beauty,” he whispered. “I want you to have this…”
His fingers were relentless, but it was more than that. It was being seated on him, surrounded by him, held by him. He was the man she had been looking for her entire life, and right now, all she wanted was to explode in his embrace.
“Reach for it,” Adnan murmured. “I'll give it to you.”
She could feel her body rising up on a pleasure that she had never felt before. This was higher and harder and faster than anything she had ever experienced. At the last moment, it occurred to her to be afraid, but then it was too late. The pleasure was pushing her through everything else, and as her muscles all tightened hard, it exploded through her. She shrieked with the sensations pushing through her; she felt as if she were being thrown into the sun itself.
Her pleasure was so intense, she wondered if she had passed out for a moment. The next thing she knew, she was lying limply over Adnan's strong body, his powerful arms still holding her in place.
“Adnan,” she tried, but her voice was so hoarse she had to try again. “Adnan…that was…I have never felt anything like that before.”
His chuckle was warm and sensuous in her ear.
“Good. I am glad I was your first.”
“But…” she hesitated for a moment. Her mind felt like a whirling galaxy of planets, stars, and comets. “But it wasn't really my first time, was it? You paid for…”
“It was a first time. It was our first time,” he said firmly, kissing her on the forehead. “That is what I wish, and after all, I am the one who rules here.”
A part of her wanted to fight him on that, but for some reason, his bald declaration only sent a deep pulse of satisfaction and warmth through her. She settled against him, and she might have dozed off if she hadn't noticed the red marks on his arms.
“Oh god, I think I made you bleed!”
Lazily, he lifted his arm to inspect it as Emily bit her lip.
“It was a near thing,” he said with a slight smile on his face. “If you had pressed a little harder, if I had pleased you perhaps just a little bit better, you might have.”
She wasn't sure what to make of that, but then he kissed her ear.
“I wouldn't mind pleasing you a little better next time,” he whispered, sending those shivers of pleasure through her body again, and at the shocked look on her face, he only laughed.
“I have a great deal to teach you, little beauty.”
Emily was so tired that, instead of her showering, Adnan brought a cloth and a basin of warm water from the bathroom. As she drowsed
, he swiped the fabric along her limbs, cleaning her gently and with care. When he came to the area between her thighs, he had to stop himself from groaning at how willingly she parted them for him.
He wondered again if he had done the right thing, but when he returned to bed and she snuggled closer to him, he wasn't sure if he cared. Now she fell into a deeper sleep, one that seemed, at least to him, more peaceful than when he’d come to bed.
When Adnan thought of her thrashing and her anguished cries, something deep and cold woke up in him. It told him that he could kill the men who had done this to her without a second thought.
Something about this girl drew him like no other. In the short time that they had known each other, he had become viciously protective of her. He wanted her pleasure more than he wanted his own.
Adnan wondered if he should worry about it, whether he was losing his edge. He shook the thought off, because the operation the next day had no room for such doubts.
He knew in his heart that Emily belonged to no one but herself, but in the dimness of the room they shared, he could pretend. He could pretend that she belonged to him and only to him, and that in this place, he could heal her, take away all that pain and replace it with pleasure.
“I will protect you,” he murmured softly to her, and he wondered if somewhere, in her dreams, she heard him and was comforted.
Chapter Seven
The next morning, Emily awoke to find the bed empty and Adnan getting dressed. Sleepy and content, she simply watched him, but then a flash of something dark caught her eye.
“Are you wearing a bulletproof vest?” she blurted out, the shock clear in her voice.
To her, it seemed as if Adnan flinched before he turned back to her.
“I had hoped to be gone before you awakened,” he said, and she frowned at him.
