by Linda Conrad
She lost track of time and place. Nothing mattered but the sweet sugar of his mouth and the pure heaven of the hot, wet way he made her feel.
Then a noise came from somewhere outside her fog. She heard someone cough behind her, and the foreign sound broke the mood and pulled her out of Darin’s arms fast.
Words came tumbling out of her mouth in a rush. “What do you think you’re doing?” As far as smart retorts went, that one left a lot to be desired. But it was far better than either the cuss words or the words of desire backing up on her tongue.
A dazed look came and went in his eyes. Finally he said, “I might ask you the same thing. Why are you following me? And what happened with the Geneva police?”
Gulping in air and willing her racing heart to slow, Rylie fought with her own anger and embarrassment and promised not to smack him upside the head for being stupid. “I didn’t wait for the cops to show up. Why did you leave me back there and run away?” And where were the words she needed to hear about that spectacular kiss?
His pleased expression, the one similar to the fox who’d just made off with the eggs, disappeared and was replaced by flaring nostrils. “I didn’t run away. I told you I needed to check something out. And I was concerned that explanations to the police would be too long and complicated.”
“Exactly. That’s why I followed you. I didn’t want to stay, either. And do what? Try explaining a dead body with a gunshot wound, no shooter—and also no gun.” Dang Darin’s ornery hide anyway.
“You…followed me? All day?” Darin’s face flushed red and his eyes narrowed as they shot darts of fury in her direction. “But I stopped a couple of times. Why didn’t you say something? Why did the cab driver have to tell me your cab was following us before I knew you were anywhere around?”
“I tried. Or at least I thought about trying a couple of times. But you…”
An announcement of train schedules came across a loudspeaker at that moment. First in French and then again in English and Italian.
“I have a train to catch,” Darin told her when the announcement was finished. “Go home, Rylie. All the way home to Texas. My family will help you reach there safely. I’ll contact you first chance I get and we’ll talk. Explanations can wait till then.”
He was shooing her away? Like a fly? And after just kissing her breathless?
“Not a chance, pal. Where you go, I go. Get used to it.”
Chapter 7
“Turn back. This is no game.” Darin folded his arms across his chest and tried his best glare. He couldn’t let her set foot on the train. It was far too dangerous.
Rylie flicked her wrist at him. “Don’t be such a jerk. If you’re taking the train, so am I.” She punctuated each word with a wave of her hand. “I want to know what’s really going on.”
His brother’s warning had been repeating in his head for the last two hours: “…if she’s as innocent as you say, she might be better off—safer—if she stayed away from the Kadirs altogether.”
As obsessed with her as he was, he still couldn’t allow her to follow him into a potential trap. And he was obsessed. No doubt about it. He’d been positive that kissing her would break the spell. But no. The kiss had only made things worse. He hadn’t wanted to stop. He would have given anything, including his life, for a chance to continue on with that kiss.
Now he would give anything to run away with her to some far corner of the earth. The two of them could explore each other at their leisure. Time. They needed more time.
But they had no time. And at this moment, nothing on earth mattered as much as keeping her safe. Not a covert war. Not his extended family—or even his brothers. Nothing.
She stood there, hands on hips and blue eyes flaring. Magnificent. Her whole body radiated unleashed energy. He’d foolishly indulged himself with that one kiss as a spur-of-the-moment thing. But he hadn’t been able to help himself. Her face had been flushed from running, her chest heaving, and his mind had gone blank. The draw of her lips had been a magnet pulling on his libido.
His mind was perfectly clear now. She was in danger, and yet all he wanted to do was kiss her again. To lose himself and all his family’s troubles in the depths of her rosy mouth and soft body.
He dug his fingers through his hair. “Rylie, listen to me, please.” His own voice was thick with need and shook with fear—for her. “I’m trying to save your life. I could be walking into a trap. The Taj Zabbar…” What could he say to make her understand that all he wanted was her safety?
Those beautiful blue eyes went dark, then shot dangerous daggers of fire in his direction. “Just one minute, bub. After everything we’ve been through in the last couple of days, do I strike you as the timid type? As some kind of fragile flower?”
She fisted her hands; opened and closed them. It was as if he could read her frustration. He could see that she was strung tight with it and her tenuous control matched his own. The idea of them being so much in tune was sensual. Almost erotic. The sight of her bouncing on her toes, ready to fight, made him weak in the knees.
She punched him square in the chest. “Well, not this Texas Rose. If you’re danged determined to take a train, you’d better get aboard. I’ll be right behind you. We can talk there.”
He opened his mouth to try again. Or to demand that she pay attention to his warnings. Or to…
Right then something in a far corner of the station caught his eye. A man. Standing half-hidden behind a pillar and watching them. The thing that had first caught Darin’s attention from across the room—the one thing he most feared—was a purple-checked head scarf of the Taj Zabbar.
Hell.
That changed everything. Darin couldn’t possibly leave her here now. At their mercy? And all alone?
“Fine,” he said gruffly as he grabbed her by the wrist and twisted them both in the direction of the distant train platform. “Let’s go.”
Racing for the huffing train, he pulled a stunned Rylie in his wake like a water-skier. The Taj Zabbar had spotted her. Nowhere was safe from their threat anymore. Darin came to a quick decision. Real safety for her would come only if the two of them stayed together.
His original impulse had been the correct one. The two of them had to be attached at the hip from now on.
Regardless of the consequences to his body and soul.
Hunched down on the tufted and cushioned bench of their luxury first-class cabin, Rylie listened to the clack, clack, clack of the train’s wheels against the rails. She’d been staring at the quilted wallpaper and sulking since they’d pulled out of the station. Meanwhile, Darin was feigning sleep in the seat beside her.
The package he’d been carrying most of the morning, the envelope or whatever, was nowhere in sight. She’d tried to see if he had the thing on him still, but he never let her get close enough.
He hadn’t told her anything so far, either. He’d hustled them onto the train and into his reserved cabin. Next thing she knew, he’d closed his eyes and was snoring. She wasn’t even positive she knew where they were headed, let alone the reason for this unexpected trip—or for Darin’s sudden change of heart about letting her come.
But she’d taken notice of how he carefully locked the door to their cabin as the train pulled out of the station. Rylie didn’t think she could ever forget the look of pure fear that had crossed Darin’s face as he’d changed his mind and dragged her across the train station’s concrete floor at a sprint. Something—or someone—had scared him into bringing her along.
Squirming in her seat, she turned to look at his profile. His act of sleeping peacefully only incensed her. Just look at that stunning, stubbled jaw of his. At the perfection of his Roman nose and the long black lashes that lazily touched those sculpted cheekbones. Damn him for making the butterflies churn in her stomach.
Her gaze dropped to the mouth that had already shown he knew more than most about great sex. An urge to kiss those fantastic lips of his again curled tightly inside her belly. But in the ni
ck of time, she remembered that his mouth also knew how to tell great lies.
Darin knew more than he was saying about the explosion that had changed her life. Okay, so she was pretty sure he had not been involved directly. But he knew who was and he’d been keeping the information from her.
Rylie leaned over and poked him hard in the ribs with her elbow. “Stop pretending to sleep. Get up and talk to me.”
“Huh?”
“Don’t you huh me, Darin Kadir. You’re not sleeping for real, and I have a lot of questions. The first one is—where are we headed?”
Darin had the nerve to yawn. “Um…this train is the sightseeing train that travels over the Alps to Milan, Italy. We should be there by midmorning.”
“Overnight sightseeing? What can you see in the dark?”
He straightened up. “Wait until you see the beautiful sunsets and sunrises in the Alps this time of year. And the train makes stopovers in Bellinzona and Morithy. Both splendid places for sightseeing. Even in the early morning.”
Pursing her lips and narrowing one eye, she said, “Okay, then. But why? Why the heck are we taking a perfectly splendid train ride right now?”
“We had the tickets.”
Argh. Heaven save her from smart-assed men.
“Can we just talk for a while?” Maybe casual conversation would get to the truth. “My nerves are shot after that assault this morning and from chasing you around all day. I need to settle down.”
“Why don’t you try a nap?”
Frustrated, she poked him the ribs again. “I can’t sleep yet. And neither can you. Don’t lie.”
He mumbled something she was glad not to hear and then breathed a deep, mournful sigh. “Fine. What do you want to talk about?”
She wanted to ask about the object he’d found, or talk about that horrible, life-changing explosion. But she knew he would only feed her a bunch of bull about those things. So she tried a different tack.
“It was nice meeting your brother. I don’t have any siblings myself. Do you have other brothers and sisters?”
“Nice? Shakir would hate being called nice.” Darin chuckled and a loving gleam entered his eyes. “I have two brothers. Shakir, whom you met, and our baby brother, Tarik. Only, Tarik would have my head if he heard me referring to him as anything but a tough ex American Special Forces officer.”
“Ex? What does he do for a living now? Tell me about him. Tell me about both of them.”
Darin cleared his throat. “They’re family.” His sentence had ended abruptly, as if that was all that needed saying.
But as she was about to ask another question, Darin continued, “Our mother died when I was twelve. Shakir was ten then, and Tarik was five years old. Our father…our father is a very busy man. Besides being head of the board of directors for most of the Kadir family holdings, he is also the titular head of elders in our extended family.”
“You mean like a king?”
“Not exactly. I come from a long line of traders and nomads, remember. Because we have no country of our own, the modern Kadir family holds together like a corporation. We own property in various places throughout the world. We own businesses and homes, hospitals and schools. But we don’t claim any territory, and we communicate through family reunions and conferences instead of through edicts.”
Darin stood, checked the lock on the door, then he sat back down.
“Tell me more about your brothers.” She thought about Shakir. At least six-four, he had a quiet intensity about him and an underlying strength that seemed almost chilling.
“I had to step in to be a father figure for them. But I’m afraid I was not in good enough psychological shape at that point to even help myself. Our mother’s death hit us all hard.
“Shakir maybe worst of all.” Darin shook his head as painful emotions fluttered in his eyes. “Before six months had passed, Shakir began to stutter. He quit his athletic endeavors and buried himself in books.”
Rylie had seen something quite different in Shakir from the shy bookworm his brother was describing. A lethal intelligence gleamed in Shakir’s eyes, true. But the looks he gave her were more those of a deadly assassin. A man with no morals. A man who would sooner slit your throat than look at you twice.
“If it hadn’t been for our maternal grandfather taking him under his wing,” Darin went on, “I’m afraid Shakir might never have broken out of his self-imposed cocoon.”
“Oh? I’m glad the rest of the family stepped in to help.”
Darin shook his head sharply. “Don’t be so quick. Our grandfather was not a man you would’ve liked to meet in a dark alley. My mother came from a tribe of savage desert warriors, and her father was determined to turn at least one grandson out like his ancestors. Shakir was vulnerable to the mind-bending lessons he received in fierce warfare. He learned a great deal, but none of it is particularly helpful in civilized society.”
“He seemed civilized.” Just barely.
“Shakir attended a proper English university when he came of age. But then he joined an English paratrooper regiment and spent several years fighting in the isolated mountains of Afghanistan. If he seemed civilized to you, it’s only a veneer. Underneath…I’m not too sure what lurks underneath that thin veneer these days.
“But I love my brother,” Darin added with a cheerless smile. “Both of them. And the Kadir family is nothing if not loyal. We would all give our lives for each other.”
Darin stood again and paced the small cabin. Rylie folded her hands in her lap. This wasn’t getting her any closer to finding out what the object was that Darin had found or why they were on this train.
“What about your other brother? You said his name is Tarik?”
“Yes, the baby of the family.” This time it was a genuine smile that spread cheer across Darin’s face. “When Mother died, Tarik had to compete for attention. He quickly learned the lesson about catching more flies with sweetness than with bitter vinegar. He became the clown of the family. Or…perhaps a better description is the family’s chameleon.
“My youngest brother is a master at hiding his true feelings behind a grin.” Darin paused his pacing and stared out the window at the passing scenery for a moment before continuing. “You’d like him. Everyone does.”
“You said he’d been in the U.S. Army? Special Forces? What’s he doing now?”
Instead of answering her questions, Darin turned to look at her. Really look at her for the first time since they’d been on this train. She came to her feet, not knowing why exactly. But it felt important for her to be closer to him.
He took a step and picked up her hands, tenderly holding them both in his own. “Rylie, we only had our suspicions until the happenings of the last couple of days. But now it looks like the Kadir elders were right.”
He winced, as though what he had to say would hurt them both. “Apparently, now that the Taj Zabbar have endless pools of money, they’ve decided to take revenge on the Kadirs. For real. We’re fairly sure now they’re taking secretive steps to ruin us. And my father believes if they can’t ruin our businesses and reputations, they intend to kill us.”
Rylie was shocked, almost speechless. “All this over something that happened five hundred years ago or more. Not really?”
“No,” he answered softly. “Not really. It’s true that old fight probably didn’t make us terribly popular among the Taj Zabbar, but grudges can be hard to hold for centuries. In more modern times, about fifty years ago, the Taj Zabbar began mounting a revolt against their Kasht oppressors. They pleaded with world leaders for help, but…”
Darin’s hesitation said more than any words. He didn’t want to finish telling her his tale.
“Go ahead. This all happened long before either of us was born. I’m listening.”
He gently squeezed her hands. “The Kadir elders of that time were working to spread their influences throughout the world. They had made a deal with the country of Kasht for control of a profitable deep-water port�
�located in Zabbaran territory.”
Darin closed his eyes but he never let go of her hands. “It was greed. Pure and simple. Well, and maybe a little desperation. It’s not easy becoming a world shipping power without having your own territory.
“Nevertheless,” he went on after opening his glazed eyes, “the Kadir elders used bribery, blackmail and whatever other underhanded tricks they had at their disposal to make sure world leaders ignored the Taj Zabbar’s pleas for help.”
Dropping her hands, Darin turned his back and finished speaking over his shoulder. “The country of Kasht put down the minor Taj Zabbar revolt with iron fists. Many Taj Zabbar died or were thrown into horrific prison camps. It took them nearly fifty years to recover. So you see, the Taj Zabbar have good reason to hate Kadirs.”
He was embarrassed. Chagrined over the poor image he’d had to leave concerning his family. Her heart hurt for him in return.
She took a step and touched his arm. “Darin. Please look at me. None of this was your doing. It all took place a long time—”
“You shouldn’t have come.” He spun around in one fast move. “If anything happens to you, I’ll never forgive myself.”
Before Rylie could catch her breath, Darin took her in his arms and lasered a fierce kiss across her lips.
Hunger. Desperation. Sorrow. Humiliation.
Every combined response from both of them registered with her in that moment. And then he took the kiss deeper, and nothing but the two of them and the searing heat mattered at all.
Darin put everything he had into the kiss. All the obsession. All the anger and fear. He plundered her mouth. Punishing, pleading and devouring at the same time.
Go away, he thought in his mind. Stay forever, his heart begged. Kissing her long and hard, and with a demand for possession that scared the hell out of him, he felt her whole being returning the sentiment.
