Climbing into the bed beside Jensen, he pulled her into his arms and held her, savoring her closeness. “God help us,” he whispered against her lips.
There was a knock on the door.
Michael raised his head. “Yes?”
“May I come in?” asked Ali.
“Not now,” said Michael.
“We need to discuss what we’re going to do tomorrow.”
“I know,” said Michael. “We’ll talk in the morning.”
“Yes, Your Highness.”
When he’d gone, Michael rolled with a groan onto his back, his hand over his forehead.
Jensen turned onto her stomach and kissed his shoulder. “Don’t turn away from me.”
“We can’t do this.”
“I have to tell you,” said Jensen, “that I’m usually the most guilt-ridden person on the planet, but I feel absolutely no guilt about the two of us making love.”
“But I do.”
“My heroines would never let you off this easily.”
“Oh? What would they do?”
Jensen rested her cheek on his shoulder.
“Do you really want to know?”
“I wouldn’t have asked if I didn’t.”
Jensen snuggled against him more deeply. “Well, first she’d kiss you,” said Jensen, “long and deep. And while she was kissing you, she’d slowly move her hand over your chest and abdomen, trailing her fingertips over your increasingly sensitive skin. Perhaps she’d toy with your nipples, kissing them, teasing them.
“She’d move her hand along the outside of your thigh, then up between your legs and lightly caress you. You’d moan softly, wanting to move away, but unable to resist the pleasure.”
“Jensen,” said Michael.
But she wasn’t about to stop. “Then her fingertips would move over your erect staff, finding the most sensitive spot and lightly—almost like the touch of a butterfly’s wings—touch you, and then stop. Touch you and then stop. Then she would grasp you completely and slowly begin to move her hand up and down, still gently, making sure her fingertips are flitting over the most sensitive part.”
Michael groaned out loud.
“When she felt you were ready, she would climb on top of you. Ever so slowly, she would let you enter her an inch at a time until you filled her completely.
“You would try to move, but she would force you to lie still so she could feel you growing even more inside her, larger and larger until she could barely stand it herself.
“She would slowly raise herself over you and then lower herself until you were out of control. You would flip her onto her back and begin thrusting inside her, bringing her with you, harder and faster until the two of you explode together in complete release.”
Michael was absolutely silent.
“Still with me?” she asked, pleased with herself, knowing exactly what she’d done to him.
“Oh, yes.” He turned his head to look at her. “This is what you write?”
“Pretty much.”
He let out a long breath.
“It got to you, didn’t it?”
“No comment.”
“I’m right here,” she whispered against his ear.
“And I’m not a book. I’m flesh and blood. All you have to do is reach out and touch me, Michael.”
She moved her body against his.
His arm gripped her more tightly. “Don’t move,” he said sharply. “Just stay statue still.”
Jensen did.
“I’m going to have to start reading your books.”
“More men should. They’d learn a lot about women.”
“The thing is, I don’t want any other men reading your books.”
She kissed him behind the ear.
Michael suddenly rose from the bed. “You sleep in here tonight. I’ll go in the other room.”
Jensen rolled onto her back and sighed. “My first seduction and it’s a complete bust.”
Michael walked back to the bed as naked as the day he was born, completely unselfconscious about either his state of nakedness or arousal. He leaned over Jensen and kissed her long and hard. “Believe me, you were more successful than you’ll ever know.”
“But you’re leaving the room.”
“Because if I don’t, I won’t be responsible for my actions. I want you so badly I hurt.”
“Then take me. I want you to.”
“If we make love, I’ll never be able to let you go. Can you understand that? And I must let you go.”
Jensen reached up and cupped his face in her hand. “You are the most honorable of men, and it makes me love you all the more.”
“I don’t want to be the cause of any pain for you.”
“I know,” she said softly. “I know.”
He kissed her again. “Good night.”
“Night.”
“Michael?”
He turned back.
“If I promise to be good, will you just stay with me and hold me?”
“It’s too difficult.”
“I won’t do anything or say anything to tempt you. Honest. I just want to be with you any way I can. This is our last chance. Once Henry is safe tomorrow, we’ll be going our separate ways.”
Still Michael hesitated.
“Please.”
Against his better judgment, Michael climbed back into the bed and lay on his back. Jensen put her head on his shoulder, but was careful to keep her hand on his chest.
And she lay very still.
Michael rubbed his hand up and down the soft skin of her bare arm and held her close.
Once again, while he lay wide-awake, Jensen was able to sleep. He could feel her deep, even breaths.
He had never known it was possible to want a woman as much as he wanted her.
To love the way he loved her.
She touched something inside him that no one else ever had. Other women in his life faded into insignificance.
Only Jensen was real.
He was still awake when the sun came up.
Jensen, her head still on his shoulder, her legs entwined with his, her hand on his taut stomach, stirred.
Michael touched his lips to her hair. He didn’t want to give her up. Not now. Not ever.
He held her more tightly.
And as he held her more tightly, Jensen slowly awoke to the awareness that she was safely wrapped in Michael’s arms. It was no dream this time. A sleepy smile curved her mouth as she kissed his shoulder and looked up at him. “Good morning.”
He ran his strong hand down her arm. His eyes were warm and loving—and sad—as he pulled her body level with his so that her head lay on the pillow facing him. “I should have known you’d be beautiful first thing in the morning.”
There was a knock. It was Ali. He spoke through the door in Arabic and Michael answered him. Then, with his body raised slightly over Jensen, he gazed down at her, knowing he would remember the way she looked at that moment, with her golden hair spilling over the pillow and her eyes full of love, for the rest of his life. “It’s time to go.”
Jensen raised her hand to his face one more time then, with a sigh, rose from the bed, picked up her clothes from the floor and went to her own bedroom through their connecting bathroom.
She heard Michael take a quick shower with the limited water. When he’d finished, Jensen did the same, washing her hair with just a little shampoo and rinsing it.
The first thing she was going to do when she got back to Wisconsin was take a long, long shower.
When she got back to her bedroom, Michael knocked on her door.
Still wrapped in her towel, she opened it. Ali was hovering in the background.
“I want you to dress differently today,” said Michael. “We need you as a distraction for the guard.”
“By differently, you mean like a woman?”
“A sexy woman.”
“But all I brought other than the skirt from last night are khaki shorts and a long-sleeved shirt.�
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“Do the best you can. And then put the robe on over it. And the headdress.”
“All right.”
Jensen pulled out the clothes and stared at them. What on earth could she do with such basically drab clothes?
She put on the shorts first. They reached midthigh and were cuffed. Jensen looked at herself in the mirror and wrinkled her nose. Even a man who’d been alone in the desert for two months wouldn’t give her a second look.
She began rolling up the legs a cuff length at a time until they were as short as she could possibly get them.
Much better. She had good legs. Long and still somewhat tanned looking from the stain.
Next she put on the blouse.
Blah.
She rolled up the sleeves so that they came to the middle of her upper arms.
It didn’t work.
Opening the door, she poked her head around it. “Michael, can you find me a pair of scissors?”
“Sure. Just a minute.”
She heard him rattling around the kitchen. A moment later he returned with a nice big pair.
“Thank you.”
“What are you doing?”
“You’ll see.”
Closing the door, she took off the blouse and carefully cut off both sleeves about half an inch below the shoulder seam so that she could tuck the excess material back into the blouse without the frayed ends being visible.
This time when she tried it on, it worked.
Yesterday she hadn’t worn a bra. It was just too hot. But today, she pulled a black lace, front fastening one out of her backpack—just one of those necessities one didn’t travel without—and put it on. It wasn’t a push-up bra, however, and while it looked nice, and even somewhat sexy, it wasn’t eye-popping.
Walking into the bathroom, she unrolled several feet of toilet tissue from the roll and stuffed it under one of her breasts as she looked in the mirror.
“Perfect,” she said aloud, with a smile at the sudden amount of cleavage that made an appearance.
Then she did the same with the other side.
Picture-perfect.
Back in her room, she put on the blouse and left the entire thing unbuttoned so that her cleavage was prominently displayed and tied the two front ends of the blouse in a square knot just below her breasts, leaving her midriff bare.
And it was a good-looking midriff.
“Thank you, Jesse,” she said, with a whispered appreciative nod to the personal trainer who worked her so hard three days a week in the gym back home.
Michael knocked on her door. “Are you ready to go?”
“One more minute.” Grabbing the robe, she slipped it over her head and let it hang loosely, then wound her hair around her head, fastening it with a single clip, and put the headdress on.
Now, she was ready.
The question was, was that guard ready for her.
Chapter Ten
After a final critical look in the mirror, Jensen grabbed her backpack and left her room. Michael and Ali were both impatiently waiting for her in the living room.
“You still haven’t told me what we’re going to do,” she said as Michael took the backpack and tossed it onto the couch. “I mean, it would be helpful if I knew the plan.”
“You don’t need to take this. We’ll be back to pick it up along with our other things,” he said as he walked ahead of her, out the front door to the car.
Ali climbed into the second car:
“The auction is happening even as we speak and will continue throughout the day. Ali double-checked this morning and found that there is only one guard in the jail. The main door into the building faces a narrow alley. We’re going to park one car at one end of the alley and disable it. You’ll go into the jail, get the jailer and have him help you try to start the car. I’ll be parked at the other end of the alley. While you keep the guard turned away from the jail, I’ll go in and get Henry and take him back to the house. After we leave, Ali will happen by, fix the car and then you’ll drive a block away where you’ll pick up Ali and the two of you will meet us at the house. When night falls, we’ll leave the city.”
“Sounds simple enough.”
“Almost too simple.”
“Question: Won’t they set up roadblocks to find Henry?”
A corner of Michael’s mouth lifted. “Contrary to what Henry thinks, he isn’t that important to them. If he were, they’d never leave him in that ancient jail with one guard. I still haven’t figured out why they arrested him in the first place. It’s not as though no one has ever done a story on the slave market before.”
“Perhaps he came up with some new and incriminating information that could put an end to the misery.”
Michael shook his head. “I don’t think so. Something else is going on here. I don’t know what yet, but before this business is finished, I’ll find out.”
“What makes you think all isn’t as it seems?”
“Gut instinct. That’s why I’m a little uneasy about getting Henry out of jail. It’s as though the whole thing were set up for us.”
“That’s what you meant when you said it was too easy.”
Michael nodded.
Jensen sighed. “Great. You couldn’t leave it alone. I was just fine and now I’m nervous.”
“Good. That means you’ll be careful.”
Jensen looked at Michael’s profile. “Anything else I should know going into this?”
“I can guarantee you that the guard will speak little if any English, but I want you to flirt up a storm with him anyway. Make him focus on you completely and keep his back to the jail. Just act like a normal woman in distress.”
“Piece of cake.”
“I know,” said Michael grimly as he backed the car out of the driveway and headed into town.
Jensen turned in her seat to make sure Ali was behind them.
He was. As always.
This time she found it comforting.
The streets didn’t seem as crowded as they had the day before. People were no doubt at the auction. No one paid any attention to them as they drove past.
They took a circuitous route through the grungy town and came back the other way so that they were parked pointing in the direction of the house.
“Henry’s in there,” said Michael, inclining his head toward the building they were in front of.
Jensen saw a small stone one-story building that couldn’t have held more than three cells. It looked like something out of the Wild West. Or at least a television show about the Wild West.
“You can’t be serious,” said Jensen. “That’s it? That’s all they have for all of the criminals in the whole city?”
“It takes a lot to get jailed in Adjani.”
“And somehow Henry managed to qualify. He should be given an award.”
“Henry somehow ticked off the wrong people,” said Michael as he looked at his watch. “He’s lucky he was jailed and not killed. Are you ready?”
She took off the headdress and unpinned her hair, then took off the robe.
Ali walked up to the car and spoke to Michael in Arabic as Jensen tossed her things into the back seat. Then he walked away from them, down the street.
“What did he say?”
“There’s still only one jailer, as before.”
Michael looked her up and down and shook his head. “You’re beautiful.”
“And cheap.”
“No. Just beautiful. The jailer is going to think he died and went to heaven.”
Jensen took a deep breath as Michael looked down the street to see if anyone was coming.
“Frightened?” he asked.
“Oh, yes.”
“I’m sorry you have to do this.”
“It’s all right. It’s for Henry. And he’s going to owe me big time for the rest of his life. That alone makes it worthwhile.”
Michael looked in the rearview mirror. “Ali has the hood up. He’s disconnected a small wire to disable the engine.
Chances are good that the guard is going to be more interested in you than the engine. Keep it that way.”
“No problem.”
“Good luck. And don’t take any chances with yourself. I want to get Henry, but I don’t want to lose you in the process.”
“I’ll be careful.”
“Give me just two minutes to get around to the other side of the alley.”
Jensen got out of Michael’s car and walked back to the other one, looking under the hood as she heard Michael drive off. When two minutes had passed, she walked through the alley to the door of the jail. She could see the front of Michael’s car at the other end.
It was time.
Taking a deep breath, she pulled back her shoulders, opened the door and walked inside.
It was quite a bit darker inside than out and it took a moment for her eyes to adjust to the dimness. When they did, she saw a small man in uniform sitting behind a desk, his legs propped up, not looking particularly busy.
He looked at Jensen in such complete disbelief at what she was wearing—and not wearing—that it would have been comical if it weren’t so deadly serious.
He nearly fell out of his chair as he tried to rise too quickly and lost his balance.
Jensen bit her lip in an effort not to smile. Any woman who said she didn’t feel a certain surge of power at being able to immobilize a man with her body wasn’t being completely honest. She could almost pinpoint the moment when the man stopped thinking with his brain.
He hurried around his desk, his face beaming, and asked her a question in Arabic.
“Do you speak English?” she asked.
He frowned.
“English? American?”
“American?” he repeated as he eyed her up and down.
“I guess not. Well,” she continued as though he did, “perhaps you can help me anyway.” She pointed in the direction of the street. “I need help. My car has broken down.”
He raised his hands as if in supplication and shrugged as he spoke in Arabic.
Jensen signaled him with her finger to follow her outside and started walking.
The guard followed, as she knew he would.
Once in the alley, she pointed in the direction of the street and kept walking.
When they got to the end of the alley, she pointed once again at the car. As soon as he saw the hood propped up, communication was complete. Leaning over the engine, he jabbered away at her as he poked here and there.
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