And so he closed his eyes and bowed his head, his nose touching the cool glass of the porthole as he began to pray.
“Allah,” he said. “I may have laughed at my mother’s advice at the time, but I am now prepared to heed your signs. I am ready to take your instruction. I am willing to follow your angels as they guide me to my destiny. And if you see that my faith is true, my motives pure, my destiny great, then, oh, Allah, give me direction. Show me another sign that will lead me to my next move, my next step. Show me how I can get to this woman, Cristy Cartright, this woman who I believe is connected to me in a way I cannot understand. Show me, Great Allah. Show me.”
He muttered three verses from the Quran, his eyes still closed, and when he blinked his eyelids open, he saw movement outside his porthole. Yes, he saw movement.
He saw her.
9
Cristy’s heart almost stopped when she heard the hollow, distant knocking come through from her left. She had been walking slowly and carefully around the back of the accommodations tower, wondering if she dared enter and try to find a computer room or radio room or whatever. She was barefoot and cold, in her brilliant escape having left her shoes and her blanket in the container. Well, at least Malone would be snug and warm. That was nice.
She stopped because something on the metal deck pricked her pinky toe, forcing her to bend. Then when she stood back up, she heard the knocking come through the thick glass of one of those tiny portholes.
At first she ducked down and held her breath. Someone had seen her! That wasn’t good. It couldn’t be good. But the knocking had continued, rising in urgency as she tried to cover her white face with her dark hair so the starlight wouldn’t reflect off her and light her up like a beacon in the night. Of course, it took less than a second for Cristy to realize that she was still in that skirt, and the smooth white skin on her legs and thighs shone like tubelights under the star-shine. If someone had seen her, then there was no way she was getting “unseen” the way she was dressed.
So she finally went close to the porthole and peered in, even as it occurred to her that if it were one of her captors, they probably wouldn’t keep knocking on the damn window.
And then she saw him.
“Oh, God,” she said, her hand rising to her face as she saw those green eyes, that handsome dark face that already looked familiar, already felt like home in a way. “How is it possible?”
She almost cried in relief as she waved stupidly at Rizaak, touching the thick glass and then looking at the way the porthole was bolted shut from the outside. She wasn’t getting it open without some serious tools. Of course, the porthole was too small for anyone—let alone her—to crawl through, but Cristy suddenly longed to be able to reach in and touch Rizaak, this man whom she didn’t know but felt so close to somehow.
She turned around in despair, making a full circle outside the window as she thought. Even if she dared to enter the accommodations block and get to Rizaak’s cabin, she had no clue how to pick a lock. And she certainly wasn’t hurling herself at a goddamn door to bust it open!
Then her thoughts were taken back to Malone. He was the Captain, wasn’t he? So he’d have a master key, wouldn’t he? Of course he would! Yes!
So she signed to Rizaak that he should hold on, and then, as quickly as she dared move in that tight skirt and no shoes, Cristy walked back to the container, to her prison.
A horrible sickness rose up in her as she placed her hands on the deadbolt and slowly eased it open. Would Malone be conscious? Oh, God, what was she doing? She couldn’t fight the man face-to-face if he was awake!
She listened at the door now, debating whether she was doing the right thing, the sensible thing. It sounded quiet and still inside, but Malone had said no one would even hear a scream from inside, so the quiet didn’t mean squat. It took her a few more seconds, but finally she plucked up the courage to slide the deadbolt aside and pull open one of the doors just enough to peek inside,
Things were indeed quiet and still inside the container. Too quiet. Too still. It took Cristy a moment to realize why it seemed so chillingly still, so frighteningly calm, and when it hit her, she almost buckled at the knees.
Because Malone wasn’t breathing. The calm was a dead calm. Dead calm.
With shaking hands Cristy knelt down beside the man and took his pulse, but she couldn’t pick up even the faintest sign of life. Oh, God, she thought as she felt her breath catch in her throat, her heart almost beating out of her chest. The cool night air felt sick against her skin, and somehow she was sweating now, beads of perspiration rolling down her neck, along her back.
What have I done, she thought. Oh, God, what have I DONE!
Stop it, she told herself as she tried to control her breathing. Right now it’s more important to focus on what you’re GOING to do, not what’s been done. So first things first: Is he really dead?
She took his pulse again. Nothing. Then with a deep breath she got up to her knees, placed both hands on his chest, and pumped at regular intervals like she had been taught at a free CPR lesson at the Baltimore Community Center. Thankfully the medic running the session had made it clear that mouth-to-mouth was no longer considered necessary—if cell death had not already occurred, there would be enough oxygen in the blood that you could save the victim just fine if you got the heart pumping again.
But the heart stayed silent, and after three full minutes of pumping, Cristy sat back on her haunches and stared down at the man . . . the man she had just killed.
Stop it, she told herself again, forcing the panic to back down so she wouldn’t lose her shit. You were within your rights, and the time to be traumatized will come later, when you’re safe—when you have the damn luxury of sitting around and being traumatized!
Keys, she told herself now as she patted down Malone’s pockets until she felt the outline of his keyring. She snatched it out and then got up to go for Rizaak. She hesitated for a moment, thinking of her shoes. But then she shook her head and just went barefoot, as that feeling of being a cat in the night came back to her as she headed for the accommodations block, headed for Rizaak.
10
Rizaak stiffened as he heard the cabin door unlock, and he was on his feet when she walked in.
“Cristy,” he whispered when he saw her. “How?”
“Don’t ask,” Cristy said as she walked into the cabin, squinting in the bright yellow light of the overhead lamp. “Just . . . don’t ask.”
Rizaak's breath caught as he looked her up and down. There were streaks of grease on her smooth white legs, cuts and scratches along the sides of her bare feet. He could see a bruise on her upper arm. It was a new bruise. Very new. Just forming.
He glanced into her eyes, prepared to see fear. And he did see fear. But he also saw courage, strength, and will power—the will to power through her fear, the strength to understand that the only thing separating the courageous from the cowardly is that the courageous act in the face of fear where the cowards do not.
“Come here,” he said to her, stepping up and pulling her into him. “Come to me, Cristy. Yes, like this. Yes.”
He hugged her tight, pulling her so close he could feel her heart beat against his, feel her soft body shiver and tremble as she allowed herself to be held and comforted for just one fleeting moment.
“Rizaak,” she whispered against his neck. “Oh, God, I don’t even know where to begin.”
He shook his head, taking in her unique, intoxicating smell—her own feminine musk mixed with days of sweat and grime, grease and salt, fear and tension. It was like he could understand everything she’d been through over the past four days, and as he pressed her against him with all his strength, caressed her back, rubbed her neck, ran his fingers through her matted, unwashed hair, he felt himself getting . . . getting . . . getting . . . aroused?!
Ya, Allah, you animal, Rizaak! Is this the time? Is this the place? You need your senses about you now, Rizaak! You need your MIND in control right now
, not your goddamn BODY!
He broke off the contact now, slowly, reluctantly, but not before he sensed it in her too—that rising heat that was perhaps a product of the madness of the past few days, the desperation in the atmosphere, the urgency in the air. Everything seemed speeded up, like they were living so intensely that every minute contained the emotional energy of a year, a decade, perhaps a lifetime.
Rizaak got that sense of nostalgia again when he looked into Cristy’s bloodshot but clear eyes as they separated their bodies with a strange reluctance. Yes, that sense of familiarity, that the eternal souls within each of them had looked through different sets of eyes, in different times, different spaces, different worlds . . . everything different but one thing, the one thing that is eternal, the one thing that can outlast time, the one thing that gives time its very meaning . . .
11
Love.
The word came to her like it had been spoken aloud, the thought arriving so suddenly it almost made her cry out. She half-frowned as she held that strange gaze with Rizaak as the two of them broke away from that intense, suffocating, LIBERATING embrace that had made her heart beat like the pistons of the ship’s engines, made her breath come in spurts and gasps, made her body tingle with electricity, shiver with chills one moment, break into a heat the next.
It took everything she had not to just keep standing there, transfixed by his gaze, immersed in the moment, surrounded by the silent sound of that word that couldn’t possibly make any sense. Didn’t make any sense.
Cristy looked down at her feet now, forcing herself to break the eye contact, and she was startled by the red scratches and dark blue bruises all over the sides of her feet. She looked in horror at the grease stains on the naked skin of her legs and thighs. Now she wrinkled her nose up at what she realized in disgust was the smell of her own body after four days of no showering or deodorant.
And now reality came roaring in, unwelcome as it was, and Cristy swallowed and kept her arms tight by her side so her armpits wouldn’t stink up the room and embarrass her.
“Where were they keeping you?” Rizaak asked now, and then he looked at the keyring in Cristy’s hand. “And how did you get those?”
“Malone,” she said, her voice deadpan as she swallowed and tried to stay calm, rational, clear-headed. She turned now, slowly walking to the cabin door. “He’s dead.”
Rizaak was silent as they both walked out into the empty hallway that was lit by flickering yellow lights. They made it back out into the quiet night, and as Cristy led him towards the container, she glanced back at him, up at his face, trying to read his expression, trying to gauge his reaction to the news that she had just . . . just . . . just KILLED a man.
But Rizaak was calm, focused, in the moment, it seemed, and when they arrived at the container, he pulled Cristy back and stepped into the dark space before she did. He glanced briefly at Malone’s still, silent body, not bothering to even take a pulse before scanning the inside of the container.
“These bastards put you in here?” he said, his teeth clenched, the words coming out like a hiss. “Four days in here, Cristy? Four days in this metal box? This goddamn CAGE!”
Now he looked over at Malone’s dead body and then up at Cristy. “It is sad. This man will never know how lucky he was that you got him before I did.” He looked past her now, his eyes clouding over as his voice dropped to a deeper pitch. “The rest of them will not be that lucky.”
Cristy blinked, not sure what she was feeling now. Relief, in some way? Relief that Rizaak didn’t seem fazed in the least. But it wasn’t just that, was it? What was that feeling rising up in her, turning her insides to mush, making her feel sick one moment, giddy the next? What was it?
“Here’s what we do,” Rizaak said now, his voice sharp, his eyes like green steel as he looked at her. “First, give me that master key.”
Cristy obeyed, handing him the key as now she felt a real sense of relief, that she was being given a break as Rizaak took over.
“Now sit down,” he said, pointing at the cot pushed up against the side wall of the long container.
She sat.
“And wait. I’ll be back,” Rizaak said.
Cristy nodded, suddenly feeling drained, exhausted, broken as the adrenaline began to leave her system. She leaned against the cold metal wall and just stared at Rizaak.
He smiled grimly at her, and then he walked over to Malone’s body and stood over it, looking it up and down. He braced his legs, clenched and unclenched his fists, and then, in one swift movement, Rizaak lifted the heavy man and slung him over his left shoulder like a side of dead beef.
With scarcely a grunt, Rizaak carried Malone’s massive body out of the container as Cristy sat there and rubbed her eyes, fighting her need to simply collapse. The ship was rocking and rolling gently as it sped through the dark water, and Cristy narrowed her eyes and listened.
Of course, she knew she wouldn’t hear Malone’s body hitting the water—they were too far above the surface, and by now his body would be swirling behind the ship, slowly getting pulled down in the churn left by the gigantic twin propellers.
Rizaak was back at the door now, standing there alone, breathing a little heavier than before. She could see his broad, muscular silhouette against the light coming in from behind, the light of that crescent moon, the twinkle of a thousand stars, starlight as old as the universe itself.
“Cristy,” he said, his voice cutting through the air between them. “I know this will be hard for you, but it must be done.”
“What?” she said.
“This,” Rizaak said, and now he began to close those big metal doors, slowly squeezing out the outside world, blocking out the warm starlight, the cool ocean air.
“What? No!” she gasped as she stumbled to her feet, rushing to the door. “What are you doing!”
She ran right into him, and he caught her and pulled her close. “You must be logical, Cristy,” he whispered as he embraced her. “This is a ship, and we are in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. We have to be here twenty more days.”
“We can hide,” she said. “We’ll find a place.”
“They will find us, Cristy. We cannot hide for almost twenty days in the enclosed space of a ship. With no food. No water.”
“We can steal food and water, Rizaak. We’ll find the kitchen, and we’ll—”
“No, Cristy,” he said, his voice authoritative now, clear and confident. “This is the only way we survive this. Listen to me. LISTEN to me! Malone is on his way to the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean. When they cannot find him, of course they will suspect you or I had something to do with it. So our only chance is if they see that we are both still locked up! Don’t you see? If you are still in your cage and I am still in my room, they may not work out how we could have made Malone disappear! They may decide that he fell overboard on his own.”
Cristy inhaled sharply, the sinking feeling that Rizaak was right dawning on her as she slowly exhaled. She looked around the metal room. Another twenty days? Oh, God, she’d rather take her chances out there!
“I can’t stay here for twenty days, Rizaak,” she whispered. “Besides, only Jane knows I’m here. What’s to stop her from shooting me in the head—even if she does believe that Malone fell overboard when drunk or something?”
Rizaak shook his head. “Jane will not harm you—not yet, at least.”
Cristy snorted, her eyes wide. “You don’t know that!”
“I know her type,” he said again, releasing her from his embrace, holding her arms tightly as he looked her pointedly in the eyes. “Ruthless, cold, and manipulative. She does not have the emotional depth of a normal person, Cristy. Which means that even if she found out that you killed her brother, it would not drive her to act blindly in grief or anger. She knows that she needs you alive to get what she wants, and so—”
“She needs YOU alive, Rizaak! You’re their payout! I’m just dead weight at this point. Excess baggage! If anything, it
makes PERFECT sense for her to just—”
“No!” Rizaak said, raising his voice briefly before forcing himself to take a breath. Now he reached out and gently ran the back of his hand across her smooth, sweat stained cheek, pulling a strand of her brown hair away from her face as he looked at her with a warm, almost vulnerable gaze. “No, Cristy. She knows that none of them will get even a silver dollar from my accounts if you are hurt. She knows that if anyone touches even a single strand of your hair . . .” his voice trailed off as he twisted and turned the tassels of her hair, his hand shaking as he gently pulled her close, her grime-covered, sticky face now almost up against his. “If anyone dares to . . . to . . . to . . . oh, God, come here.”
And now he leaned in, leaned all the way in, and he was kissing her, kissing her hard, kissing her deep, kissing her as if he had kissed her before even though it was their first kiss.
And she kissed him back, kissed him back hard, kissed him back as if she had kissed him before even though it was their first kiss.
And, God, that first kiss carried with it an energy, an urgency, a desperation . . . perhaps even a feverish finality, that perhaps it could also be their last kiss and so there could be no holding back.
The first or last? The end or the beginning? The top or the bottom? The inside or the outside? Chance or destiny?
None of it made sense and all of it made sense, and as Cristy lay back down on the hard cot in her metal prison, Rizaak slowly descending upon her in the darkness, she looked past his broad shoulders and caught sight of that thin sliver of the purple night sky through the double-doors of her cage . . .
And as she felt his hard body press down on hers, his muscular hips pushing her thick thighs apart as that navy blue skirt rose up past her wide hips, she thought she saw every star in the night sky peek in through that inch of space, peek in as if to say the universe was watching the two of them, like perhaps it had watched them before, would watch them again . . . again and again, again and forever, forever and again . . .
Hostage for the Sheikh: A Royal Billionaire Romance Novel (Curves for Sheikhs Series Book 3) Page 6
