His eyes demon-black with unexpressed, febrile emotion and endless desire. All of which she returned, measure for measure.
“I missed you and I am sorry.”
Incredibly, her eyes filled and one tear spilled out before she could stop it.
He traced the tear back, up and over her cheek, right inside the dark circles that surrounded her mysterious, gorgeous eyes, over the rim of her eye. So that it was contained, it was inside.
“No crying,” he whispered, before he kissed her eyes closed.
Ziya took a broken breath. She moved fully over him, and faced him with damaged, wanting eyes.
His heart, already hooked on whatever it was that she did to him, couldn’t stand it anymore.
He cupped her sweet face in his hard palms and leaned in and kissed her.
She worked her fingers between them, and shoved at his belt, and his jeans fly. He grew harder, more potent when she touched him, whispered soft, feminine fingers over him, and he ran needy hands down her spine, between her breasts. Sliding one hard nipple in his lips, and drawing her in, Ziya slumped against him offering everything she was to him.
They collapsed on the bed, still tangled in each other, so when he kicked his jeans and boxers off, she was already holding him inside her. And when he was inside her, twin groans of satisfaction and torture rent the cold, still motel room air.
Krivi raised his head and looked deep into Ziya’s hazy, lake-grey eyes. Cloudy with passion, heavy-lidded and so beautiful he wanted to fall and never surface.
“Ziya…”
Her name was a prayer, a whisper.
Ziya twined her arms around his neck and moved against him, a sharp delicious movement that broke the tether he had on his desire.
And he took her exactly with no romance and finesse, his groan of completion a roar in his head as he found the thing he had been looking for the longest time.
~~~~~~
And Ziya…each stroke of his hard, firm body, brought her closer and closer to the edge of an abyss.
There was salvation and scariness at the end and she didn’t want to jump, didn’t want to fall, but then he came inside her and she had no choice but to follow him, her breath tearing out of her chest, as the orgasm hit like her grief had.
Sudden, awesome, never-ending.
And the only thing holding her one was him.
Krivi.
Twenty-Nine
Krivi stroked the satin, unmarred skin of Ziya’s back, as she lay sprawled face down next to him, and she moved, sinuously, unconsciously in her sleep. He travelled those same, searching fingers against her arm, drew her closer and held her as she slept.
He had never slept with a woman before.
His years as a spy had instilled in him a deep, ingrained sense of distrust when it came to sleep.
Always Sleep Alone.
Always Sleep Prepared.
More spy lessons.
And later, when he had hired himself out to the nastiest jobs, the ones no one ever took, the habit had become a way of life.
Always sleep alone.
Never trust anyone to close your eyes in their presence. Anything could happen, anyone could be the enemy. So don’t, just don’t do it.
It was easier, certainly safer.
But tonight, there was nothing easy, nothing safe about leaving her sleeping here.
He wanted to be next to her, wanted to hold her close, relearn her curves and shapes, love her because he wanted to, with a clearer mind. It was the most terrible twist of fate because he knew what was going to happen, the minute she woke up.
Hatred.
Self-loathing.
How could they have done what they had done?
She would hate him anew, afresh, with more vitriol than she had ever before.
And he would deserve it all.
Except, he couldn’t stand it anymore. The coldness of her hatred and the coldness in his soul.
She made it go away, the coldness and the gnawing, aching emptiness inside of him. She made the black hole disappear and he didn’t want to give that up.
If only for this moment, these few, precious hours.
So he eased his chest to merge with hers, brought his legs to covers hers under the scratchy sheets and placing his nose against her scented skin, went to sleep. His heart at rest, if only for a while.
~~~~~
Ziya woke up to blackness and warmth.
And a weight around her, as if she was trapped underneath something, except the weight felt comforting and exciting and…
Needed.
She opened one bleary eye and found Krivi’s blade-sharp nose against hers. The nostrils flared in a deep rhythm that indicated heavy, unblemished sleep. She felt a wave of tenderness at the way this man, this warrior knight held her banded against him even in his deepest sleep.
It should have upset her, because he was responsible for so much of the loss she was suffering, but for now she was just grateful.
Grateful that someone wanted to hold her.
Make her feel alive, and wanted and heated.
She moved her fingers a little and touched one corded bicep.
He instantly opened his eyes and speared her with an alert, aware look. Something moved on his beautiful face, now softened by unguarded sleep.
She wasn’t sure because her brain had not fully awakened, but she thought it was wariness and sorrow.
And fear.
What did Krivi Iyer fear? She wondered.
“Hey,” Ziya said softly.
“Hey,” he said, as cautiously.
“Morning.” She smiled, a little self-consciously. “Or maybe, afternoon, evening. I am not sure what time it is.”
“A little past two.”
“Oh.”
He removed his hand from around her arm and waist and she instantly missed the contact and connect with his heat. It was crazy…but he brought out a strong reaction in her. An unlikely, strong reaction.
“Are you hungry? We should get some food into you.”
Ziya shook her head, her cheek moving against the pillow. She felt warm and cocooned; an alien feeling on a day such as the one that had just begun and she was in no mood to give it up.
“No. I had a big breakfast.”
He sat up, the covers falling down to his waist and warmth of a different sort stole into her limbs.
Krivi ran a hand over his jaw and looked at her with concerned eyes. “You haven’t eaten properly in days, Ziya. You need to eat.”
She shrugged. “I am fine.”
“Ziya, I’m…”
“Thank you,” she said, holding his fingers in a light, non-threatening touch.
He closed his mouth.
“What? What did you just say?”
“Thank you,” she answered, simply. “I know I was horrible to you and you didn’t have to…thank you.”
~~~~~
“For what, exactly?” he asked, cautiously.
She gave a small, sad smile. The smile she had given Harold Wozniacki when she had told him she didn’t have any life anymore. “Well, I fell apart in your arms, Krivi. I imagine it wasn’t much fun for you.”
He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. What the hell was she talking about? “What are you talking about?”
She closed her eyes on a wave of embarrassment and mortification.
“Nothing. Nothing.” She shook her head, and when she opened her eyes, all he could see was brisk cheerfulness.
“Ziya.” He laid a comforting, heavy hand on her shoulder. “Talk to me.”
“I cried all over you, Krivi. After I hit you and said awful things and we...I…” She bit her lip. Looking so soft and womanly and desirable that he thought he could happily stare at her forever.
“We what, Ziya?”
“We made love,” she whispered, looking at him with anguished eyes.
Love.
The word moved through him, even though he didn’t know if he was capable of feeling it. He m
oved his fingers, up and down her back, capturing more of her skin, her feel as he did so.
“Yes,” he agreed. “We did.”
“I am sorry, I—"
And he leaned over her, looking at her with all the hunger he still felt for her. Huge, so huge, he knew he was in danger of being swallowed whole by it.
“And if you were over whatever little trip this is, I was thinking we could do so again.” He was hovering near her lips by the time he’d finished talking.
She smiled, tremulously and touched his stubble. “I thought you wouldn’t want me anymore.”
He laughed softly, his breath blowing between their lips, a carefree grin spreading over his hard face. “I can’t stop wanting you, Ziya.”
“Me either.”
Then she leaned in that last little inch and kissed him and he made sure she forgot what she was sad about in the first place.
Thirty
Krivi discovered a very novel sensation in the following days.
When someone needed you abjectly, and they were unwilling to admit it, you had to be there for them. It didn’t matter that there was not much sense or logic to it, you still made the effort and you made the time…even if it was hard.
And Ziya needed him.
She never let him see how much she did, because she wasn’t capable of fully functioning right now, but she needed him all the same.
She needed him to transport them to the FRT offices in Hampstead, and back without being tailed by three different agencies, all of whom had a vested interest in her and Krivi Iyer. She needed him to wake her up in the early morning, because she was screaming silently in her sleep.
She needed him to prod some food into her as she sat around listlessly at local diners and eateries.
He didn’t use the same one twice, again, as a precautionary measure, and they had only ordered room service once in the seven days after the incident.
Most of all, she needed him to hold her. Shuddering and aching in his arms as they came together most nights, in silent, mutual communion.
There wasn’t much romance to it, but it wasn’t clinical because he wanted her with a crazy desire that showed no signs of abating. And every time he touched her, she responded with animal eagerness. It was enough to swell his ego to epic proportions and his want to unbearable.
He knew she needed the warmth and human closeness and he was willing to give it to her, to give her everything she needed because she asked for nothing.
~~~~~
Ziya sat in the FRT office, in front of a panel of grim gentlemen and women and patiently, clinically, repeatedly told the same story over and over again.
Yes, she was related to Major Qureshi and his fiancé, but not by blood. Yes, she had been part of the lunch at Xenia’s. Yes, they had ordered some shrimp dish and foie gras, while she had gone for the lobster bisque. Yes, she had had dessert while they had declined. Yes, she had walked out of the restaurant maybe five minutes before they had.
No, she didn’t know why they got into Krivi Iyer’s car, because she hadn’t been paying much attention to the three of them because she was upset with Krivi Iyer.
No, she had not seen the explosion because Krivi had shoved her down on the asphalt.
No, she didn’t know what happened after that either.
No. No. No.
She was brutally honest when she told the FRTs about the way she had met Krivi and the way he had saved her from Sanjay Yug, the bomb threat and Ladakh. She didn’t tell them just one key thing.
That Krivi had found her because she was a target.
~~~~~
She protected him, even though Harold Wozniacki had already fed them a cover story about Krivi’s presence in Ziya’s life at this key moment.
Something to do with being friends with one of her college mates’ ex-boyfriends and finding her on Facebook. This, was the key reason he had been recommended for the assistant manager position at Goonj, in the first place. A neat little bow to tie up this particular thread that was corroborated by the ‘friend’ too.
Krivi couldn’t understand why she had done that, protected him…and he was afraid to ask her because she was in such a bad place emotionally. He didn’t want to bring up old wounds and scars if he could help it.
He just wanted to help her.
Help her to get back to the Ziya he’d once found irresistible. With her quicksilver eyes and shining smile and the golden hair that had driven him nuts every time he had seen it flashing in the Kashmir sun.
It drove him nuts now too, until, late at night, when she was sated and sleeping beside him and he would touch the ends hesitantly…reverently...watching the red glow in the cheap motel light.
A different motel, because he had moved them to another place a while ago, this one on the highway with a dilapidated Toyota that he had fixed one morning in a couple of hours flat.
He used the Toyota sometimes for food and essentials runs. But more often than not, he walked, thinking, thinking about the way all the pieces were coming together…
Harold had come through with all the necessary intel they had on The Woodpecker. And there was a lot of intel to sift through.
Krivi had so far hidden the files and printouts in the trunk of the car because he didn’t want Ziya exposed to the ugliness and horror of the world he walked so easily, with such familiarity. And he sat in the car and read in the late night, or the middle of the afternoon when she hit one of her sleepy pockets.
Because of the way she was driving herself, giving herself no time to grieve, the way she was so tightly wound all the time, with no outlet for all that she was feeling except those moments in his arms when she came apart with stunning regularity.
She didn’t let herself go at all, and he was constantly afraid, constantly watchful for the moment when she would reach breaking point and just…
Fall apart.
And so far, she had shown no signs of coming out of her Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder and start trying to function like a normal person. Like a woman who had lost something and could let go of the loss, like a child let’s go of a balloon.
Instead, every day she asked him for information about The Woodpecker and whether Harold had sent over the promised info and how quickly could they get started on their mission.
He was afraid, she was turning into him with the drive and the determination and the deadness inside of him that was like a living thing. The deadness that motivated him, waking and sleeping and didn’t have any let up.
The deadness called guilt.
And he didn’t want her, not Ziya, to become the same sort of half-human that he was.
But he didn’t want to push her into histrionics either, because he didn’t know how he was going to handle her when she went to pieces.
He constantly considered broaching the subject of her going back home to Kashmir, to Goonj, but knew that if he so much as whispered it she would be mad so fast it would make his head spin.
And he didn’t want her mad at him either or hating him.
Krivi shook his head at his uncharacteristic indecisiveness in handling what was termed an ‘asset’ in the business.
Because, Harold had as much as told him to use her if he could, because of the DNA test and more, because she had the wrath of vengeance coursing in her blood. Which made it personal and personal was very much necessary in their line of work, as much as distance was.
Krivi was distant.
Ziya was not.
The combination, Harold was marginally hopeful, should work.
Krivi was not that hopeful, because all he really wanted was to put Ziya back on the first available flight back to Srinagar, or wherever she wanted to go. Just as far away from here as one person could possibly get.
And it had nothing to do with the cold fear and worry that lined his stomach like his intestines, when he thought of what awaited her when she was fully immersed in the shadowy, grim world of counter-terrorism, where there were no rules, no boundaries.
Quite simply, because the targets didn’t play by any rules or boundaries.
No, it wasn’t any of them, although all of them were valid, justifiable reasons.
The main reason, the only reason, why he didn’t want her involved further was because he was already involved with her.
He cared about her.
And sometimes, when he closed his eyes he thought about what could have happened if she had been in that car with him. If he had asked Noor and Sam to take a walk, or a cab or something and insisted that Ziya come with him, drive with him.
Then, she would be no more.
And a world without Ziya…even a world in which he wasn’t there was not a world he could envision.
She had to be safe.
She had to be alive.
It was that simple. That primal.
It had nothing to do with the sex or the terrible need he had for her, or the frightening notion of someone as pure and untouched as Ziya, getting sucked into the terrible ugliness of keeping this our world save from monsters like The Woodpecker.
It was that for once, just this once, he was unwilling to pay the price that had to be paid in his line of work.
Even if she was willing and ready to pay it: the deluded woman.
He knew all this, and he also knew he couldn’t ignore Harold’s orders anymore. Tomorrow, after the funeral, they would have to go and join the world of the hard and the living.
Their hiatus had come to an end.
Thirty-One
The day of Sam’s and Noor’s funeral, Ziya got up, showered and pulled on a severe black dress that covered her arms and legs.
“Ready?” Krivi walked in to the bathroom, shooting the starched white cuffs of his just-bought white shirt over the sleeves of the dress jacket he already owned.
With his dark, good looks fully visible for the first time because he had tried to tame his somewhat unruly hair and shaved properly for the first time in ages, so there was not even a hint of stubble.
She drank in his granite-handsomeness, clad as he was in a formal suit with a white shirt and navy blue tie, the jacket sitting perfectly on his strong shoulders, the pants fitting his muscled thighs and the black, formal shoes shining with mirrored polish.
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