by Amy Faye
Roman let out a breath. She wasn’t wrong. But that didn’t mean that he felt good about it. It stung a little more than it should have, frankly. But he had to accept it.
“And now?”
“The lie was already there. What was the good time going to be, precisely?”
“You shouldn’t have lied to me in the first place.”
“Then you shouldn’t have asked!” She scowled. “What choice did I have?”
It was a fair question. He thought about it. Thought hard. “Alright, fine. What choice do you have now?”
“I was going to tell you. But just… the thing with Cara came up, and it just… there wasn’t a good time.”
“Okay. And what now?”
“Now… I don’t know. Can we just go home?”
Roman smiled. “We can go home. Just as long as you promise not to run off.”
“I’ll do my best.”
“Mary?”
“What?”
“I missed you.”
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Amy Faye
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His fingers found the waistband of her panties next. He pulled them away from her and his hand slipped inside. His fingers were thick and powerful, but the skin was smooth. A contradiction, in some senses. He looked like the kind of man whose fingers ought to be rough and calloused.
Those soft fingers worked their way through her pubic hair—hair she would have shaved, if she’d expected anything like this, but the truth was that she hadn’t. Then he found the peak of her womanhood, and probed it gently with the tip of a finger. Tested it. And she found that she wanted him to keep testing. Keep searching. Because if this was what it started off as, then she wasn’t sure where it was going to end up except that it was precisely what she’d been missing out on.
He didn’t stop. His hands kept creeping lower, deeper, until he managed to find her wet, waiting entrance, and he eased one of those thick fingers inside. Lara gasped. Something about the need to be quiet built the whole thing up inside her. The knowledge that there was someone right there only a few feet away, in every direction.
His finger pushed into her deeper. Deeper still. Until it felt like it was all the way inside, filling her up entirely. If this was what a finger was like, what was his cock going to feel like?
He pulled back a little, then pushed in again. His movements were slow and measured. Never fast, never anything but smooth and easy. And yet, Lara could feel an orgasm already starting to build up to a head. He pulled her other nipple into his mouth. This time he didn’t satisfy himself with a soft kiss and a circle of his tongue. His teeth bit in, hard enough to hurt. Hard enough to feel impossibly, wonderfully pleasant, too.
Lara let out a gasp and bit her thumb. It made it easier to stop herself letting out a noise as she felt herself tighten around his finger. As she rode out the waves of an orgasm his finger inside her curled and bent and pressed, still pumping in and out. Searching for the spot inside her that would drive her even more wild. And then he found it.
The orgasm deepened, her pussy squeezing down even harder. Like she was trying to squeeze the life out of the man between her thighs through his fingers. When he withdrew his hand from her panties, it was like losing a friend.
“Turn around,” he whispered into her ear. She did, without really thinking about it. She knew what was coming, but she was in a daze. She didn’t think about the consequences, not any more. She stuck her fist into her mouth to keep quiet, and when he lined himself up with her entrance and then pushed inside, she stifled a moan as best she could…
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One
“You made it,” Lara said; she made no effort to hide the teasing surprise in her voice as the Greg stepped in, wearing his uniform. He gave a sunny smile that she knew was just as sarcastic.
“I thought of seeing you, Lara, and I just… it was so tempting to miss the flight.”
“How would we ever live without our best pilot?”
“I don’t know. It’s a big company, I’m sure that they could find someone.”
“Your vote of confidence is very reassuring, I must say.”
“It’s just my sunny personality,” he said. “Ten minutes to get settled and we’ll get started with the pre-flight stuff. So go make sure the passengers are settled, alright?”
“Of course,” Lara answered. It was a struggle not to punch him in the face. Then again, their history was as ancient enough to be in a textbook somewhere in rural middle-America. She was over it, and she wasn’t mad. After all, why would she be? There was nothing to be mad about. Right?
So she stood up and walked to the front of the passenger cabin, and ignored him and his lazy attitude.
A quick scan of first class told her everything she really needed to know: they were annoyed at the delays. Some of them probably thought that the staff were enjoying it, somehow. And maybe Greg was, in his own perverse way. But she wasn’t, and neither were any of the others. The longer they waited in the spot, the longer that other planes had to wait to get into the terminal.
And of course, she didn’t know about the other girls, but she had a transfer to make to get back out of that dusty hell as soon as possible. A transfer that it was looking more and more like she was going to miss. That was an understood risk of flying. But it still burned her ass that she was going to have to spend even more time in Damascus than was absolutely necessary.
Lara pulled the scarf around her head. It was uncomfortable and it was insulting. The stewardess didn’t judge women who preferred to wear it. But to be told that she had to wear it… well, that was a different question altogether. Still, it wasn’t like it was a government thing. The airline thought it would be real respectful to the Syrian people. Was it respectful to her?
She let out a long breath and tugged at it again.
“You look uncomfortable,” a man said. She looked down at him. He was handsome, from what she could see. Broad jaw and an easy smile. But he had a hat on, covering the top of his head. The sides were cut severe and short. A pair of sunglasses covered his eyes.
“I’m fine,” Lara answered.
“If you’ve got any trouble, let me know, okay?”
“Are you some kind of federal marshal or something?”
“Something,” he said, and laid his head back. His hand dropped from where it had risen as she passed, and she turned back. There was still a long checklist to go down before they could take off, and parts of it did involve her. Even if she could have done her part twenty times over.
He wasn’t the best-looking man she’d ever seen, she told herself. It was silly to think that he was. There was a thought in the back of her head, though, one that told her that there weren’t that many men better-looking, and she hadn’t even seen his eyes.
Even just asking after her was unusual, but the way that he did it was the most unusual part of it. Absolute confidence. Like she was obviously going to come to him for help if she h
ad some. Like he was used to taking care of her.
But there weren’t supposed to be any marshals on the flight. They were supposed to announce themselves before the plane took off, so that nobody freaked out when they pulled out a gun. The notion that he might have had a pistol on his hip, and nobody would know… how? With all the security?
She shook the thought off silently.
How am I supposed to run a flight if the damn pilot won’t talk to me? If he’s only interested in getting drunk? Lara closed her eyes and leaned on the counter in the stewardess area between the first and second class. Then she straightened, stepped through the curtain, and made the same sweep of the coach passengers.
They were packed in tight, and if the first class was annoyed at the delays, coach was beginning to get angry. An elderly man with a peculiar grizzled expression and a look like a retired soldier glared at her. His eyes dug into her in a way that she couldn’t begin to reconcile.
“We’ll be just another moment, we’re finally ready to begin pre-flight procedures, and we’ll be in the air shortly. We’re very sorry for the delays.”
The older man, his white hair standing out against his dark skin, rose an inch out of his seat and leaned forward. “You should give us a refund, for a wait like this!”
He had a thick accent, and he looked so angry. Lara forced herself to calmness. A voice behind her made Lara jump. He said something in Arabic that I didn’t understand. I’ve taken a few lessons, but not enough to really know anything about the language.
The Arabic man’s burning eyes shifted from Lara to the mystery man behind her. She turned and found her face inches away from the man who had just stopped her. He smiled again, an easy expression.
“You’re about to get yourself into a riot, if you’re not careful. People are pissed.”
It took Lara a lot of effort to keep her voice low enough that only he could hear. “I can’t help it if the pilot is a piece of shit.”
“You sound like you know from experience.”
“Far, far too much.”
“You should spend your time with men who can appreciate a woman like you.”
“Like you, you mean?”
“Well,” he said, smiling. “Now that you mention it…” His eyes fell to my breasts. I should have gotten angry. I blushed instead. “Lara.”
Oh. Her name-tag. Lara blushed harder. “Not even a chance.”
“Of course. You’re a professional. You have any trouble, though, and like I said. You just come get me, and I’ll talk to them.” His face turned slightly, and Lara realized that as far as he was concerned, the conversation with her had ended. He said something else in Arabic, his voice soft and apologetic.
Lara turned. The guy still looked surly. But he’d sat himself back down, apparently calmed down enough to content himself with silence.
“Thank you, then, but I’ve got it all under control.”
“Of course you do,” the stranger said. He smiled at her again. “If you’ve got everything under control, then you’ll be fine. If not, then come get me. That’s all I’m saying.”
“Sir, please go back to your seat. We’re about to begin our pre-flight checklist.”
“Of course,” he said. And then he turned and disappeared through the curtain, and Lara was alone in the cabin, with a hundred and fifty eyes on her.
She turned and smiled, and turned on her job persona and did her best not to think too hard about the man in first-class and how wide his shoulders were, or how much it had comforted her that someone dealt with a problem passenger for her.
Problem passengers were an unpleasant part of the job, but they were part of the job. Part of her job. The idea that someone was going to do her job for her shouldn’t have given her any kind of comfort. But it had, and she hated it. So the next best thing was to move on and pretend that it hadn’t meant anything, and that it hadn’t happened at all.
Everything else was just making her own life more complicated. And with Greg in the cockpit, this flight was already as complicated as it needed to be.
Two
Blake Prince sat in a board room. He hated these places. Hated these meetings. But there was planning to be done. Why it couldn’t have been done in the break room or something, he couldn’t say. But the Temple Mount wasn’t his territory, not really.
He was at home in the Cathedral. The Middle East was Ray’s territory. But every few months, like it or not, strategy meetings were an unhappy necessity. Which meant a trip out to Syria, and a couple of days doing things Ray’s way. On the rare occasion that Ray left the front lines, it was Blake’s rules.
Of course, it could have been Blake’s rules everywhere, if that was what he wanted. He owned the thing. And what he wanted was to run the whole show. To be out here on the front lines, holding a rifle. The way that he’d been doing it for the first half of his life, it felt like.
But they were an American company, and they were going to maintain a headquarters in America, by God. There were too many companies who were perfectly happy to move their HQ as soon as it became convenient. Whether it was to get cheap labor, or avoid taxes, or whatever.
The Knights Templar weren’t going to be the next in line for that kind of thing. Which meant that the guy running it had to sit at the head of the table and run things from American soil, like it or not. Maybe he could have left someone else in charge of the Cathedral, and just radioed in his orders. But putting himself at risk meant that someone else could take over any time.
None of his boys were anything but hard-shell patriots, but they didn’t all have business acumen. Ray was an exceptional officer, and a good soldier, but he wasn’t suited to business affairs. And neither was Thom, Jeff, or Scott. Which meant that he needed to do his best not to get himself killed while he was in Syria, so he could go back. So they could keep paying for boys to put their boots on the ground where they were needed.
“It was good seeing you, sir,” Ray said. His grip was firm. So was Blake’s. In many ways, they were like mirror-images of each other, down to the high-and-tight haircuts.
Yet, in others there were differences, and Blake felt them. He was the taller man, and slimmer in the body. It was easy to keep trim when you were at home, in air-conditioned gyms. Ray’s skin was darker and wore thicker lines, in spite of the fact that neither had been true they’d come up in training together.
It was all marks of spending time in the field, day in and day out. Blake ignored the feelings again, stepped back, and snapped a salute that was returned an instant later.
Then it was back to the airport. It was like Isaiah 57 said, the wicked are like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest. He put the sunglasses back on the minute that he hit the outside of the Temple Mount, not turning back to look at it. The name was ironic, in a sense. It fit the theme, and someone needed to bring something biblical down on this situation. Enough to get the killings to stop, if they fought hard enough, an irony that wasn’t lost on Blake or his employees.
He made Damascus International with two hours to spare, and spent the time sitting with his eyes closed in a seat. Jet-lag was killer. But then again, when you were flying out and back within six hours of each other, it was that much worse. No time to sleep at all. Set down, meet with Ray and field commanders, and then back up into the air, back to middle America where the rest of the country thought you were nothing but corn farmers.
He opened his eyes when his watch buzzed at him that there was only thirty minutes left before takeoff. There was a small crowd of women around the counter. Presumably the flight crew; it was particularly obvious when half of them were dragging rolling luggage behind them and walking through the door to the gate.
The last one stood out in his mind, though. He’d seen her before. She was stressed out on the last flight. So he’d maybe flirted with her, just a little. It brought a smile to his face. He liked it when women got flustered. There was something distinctly feminine about it. It was wrong of him to say so, of course.
But that didn’t change the facts.
They boarded first-class first. He could have taken coach, of course. But if Blake was going to be making twenty million a year just for himself, personally, then he could at least afford to fly first-class. There were other people who could use the money, he knew that. But just finding the right candidates took so much time that he’d more than made the money back in the time it took to take the flight.
He settled into his seat and watched the procession of passengers. They were the same folks that he expected. Given that the first leg of the flight home was Damascus to Tehran, there weren’t that many Americans boarding. Mostly, it was families. Wealthy families, if they were able to fly with all the trouble going on in Syria.
The sunglasses made it easy to watch people. Keep an eye on them, and assess threats. It came naturally, without thought. But the sight of the stewardess’s blond hair, a single lock falling out of her hijab, was distracting for a moment. Then he returned his eyes to the crowd.
They were seated slowly, as usual. That seemed to be the way with all airlines, but they weren’t exactly known for their incredible efficiency out here. The flights were somewhat less frequent, so they didn’t have the experience forcing themselves to hurry. Not like they did in American flights, where everyone was always busting their ass.
She checked over the plane and then nodded and walked by him. She looked tired. Stressed. Unhappy. But he wasn’t going to bother her right now. She was pretty, but he knew where the boundaries were. At least, he liked to think of himself as someone reasonable enough to know when to back off.
There was some chatter in the front of the plane, and then a couple, a man and a woman, wearing formal clothing, stepped up to the front and started giving pre-flight instructions in Arabic. He only half-listened. Blake had been on enough of these flights to know the deal.
