He leaned back against the wall. "I want you with everything that is in me, Laila. Everything. I don't know who you really are. I don't know what you're doing here in Sinjar. I think you're a liar and who knows what all else. But every part of me aches for you, and I'm not talking only about my cock. Though God knows that alone is painful enough that I can barely restrain it." His eyes pierced her as if they would say things his mouth refused to say. "But I'm not going to do this. Allow me to hang onto my scruples. Stop teasing me."
Inside, deep inside where no one would ever see, she cried. Why did he have to be so strong, so honorable? How many men would have refused to bed her or any other willing and reasonably attractive woman under these circumstances? He'd be going out at dawn to face some kind of battle in a foreign land in which he would clearly be outnumbered. He could well die. Couldn't he grab a few moments of pleasure?
Why did he have to make this so hard on both of them?
She could not let him be. If she did, he wouldn't relax his guard on her and she wouldn't escape. Maybe she was being foolish, but she had to get to her sister as soon as possible. She could not bear to sit in this house while Alyssa might be suffering nearby.
"Why not?" she asked. "If we both want to have a night of pleasure before parting tomorrow—" She left the thought unfinished as she swallowed the knot of pain in her throat. It was too horribly clear that she didn't want to leave him the morning. He, apparently, didn't feel the same way.
He closed his eyes for a long moment. When he spoke again, his voice was harsh. "Why not?" he repeated. "For too many reasons to list, Laila. If nothing else, I could get you pregnant. Surely you're not too unsophisticated to understand that."
She pushed herself slowly to a sitting position, her mind racing. He began pacing, with all his strength and passion expanding in the too-small space of the room, as if it, and he, would explode any minute. But, sexually, he had much more self-control than she'd expected. He wasn't going to have unprotected sex with a woman he viewed as inexperienced and a member of a culture which didn't view sex the same way his culture did.
But she wanted him, and she needed him to lower his guard. Tonight was the last night they would have together. If she wanted her plan to work, she had to throw out her last grenade, her last weapon.
The answer percolated within her, bubbling up to the surface, as if it would explode out of her, with, or without, her permission. She would have to reveal more of her identity—convince him she was the red camisole woman, rather than the burka-covered one. If she succeeded, she could both lull him into a sense of safety, and also, have the sex they both wanted.
She waited until his pacing had brought him close to her. Then she leaned forward, resting her elbows on her knees, knowing the view of her hanging breasts would instill lust in any heterosexual man. "Dec," she said. "Let me tell you a bit more about myself."
He managed to drag his gaze off her breasts. "The truth, perhaps?"
She dropped her gaze to the floor. Yeah, she should have expected that he'd see through her lies. He was a smart man.
But he hadn't caught them all. "First of all," she said, "I'm not Muslim."
Declan stopped dead in the center of the room. His hands curled into fists and he shoved them into his pockets, as if afraid of what he might do with them.
"Who the fuck are you?" He spoke in a deadly voice that was stripped of all emotion.
Laila cringed inside. Her grenade had definitely blown up any hope of a relationship between them. She couldn't blame him for his anger. She'd told him one lie after another.
But she refused to let her emotions show on her face. It had been stupid to even dream of a future with him. Because he was an on-duty Navy SEAL with a dedication she had to admire. And she was a woman with a sister who desperately needed rescuing.
They had separate roads to travel.
Aside from all that, he would hate her forevermore. Because, despite all the honesty she appeared to be giving him tonight, she was still planning to betray him at first light tomorrow.
"Before I start," she said, "I want you to know that I'm sorry about all the—the other stories and identities I had to adopt."
"I don't give a fuck about your justifications." His voice lashed her. "I want to know who you are and what the fuck you're doing fucking up my mission."
She sighed. "Do you think you could come and sit down. This is not a story I want to shout across the room."
He didn't move. "Too bad. Start talking before I throw you out on your lying ass."
He wouldn't do that. If anything, he'd be more determined to keep her tightly under his control once he knew why she was really in Sinjar. As tough as he might be, he had a basic sense of decency that she was counting on.
"I'm an American," she admitted.
"With a British passport, and a British accent," he said sarcastically. "Hmmm, which story should I believe?"
"I tried to get over here using my American passport. But ISIS wasn't interested in dealing with an American."
"Now that I can believe."
"I suppose you need to be bitter."
"This is my life you're fucking with, my life and my career. Not to mention my sense of honor—here I am protecting a woman who's done nothing but lie to me since the moment I met her. Damn right I'm entitled to be bitter."
"Dec," she said softly. She knew she'd be hitting below the belt with her next statement, but she had to break through his cold anger if she were going to make her plan work. "What would you have done to save your sister?"
His eyes widened, and he bared his teeth when he spoke. "You dare to ask me that? You would use my personal loss against me?" Abruptly, he snapped out of his frozen stance, strode to the far wall and thumped his fist against it.
Once. Twice. Three times.
Each time, his anger was as painful to her as if he were striking her heart.
When he turned back to her, his eyes were colder than the moon. "Unless you have a sister dead or dying, I will never forgive you for that question. You know I can't save my sister."
Tears stung her eyes. 'Never' couldn't matter to her. Their time together could be counted in hours now, if not minutes.
"I do." She dredged up every ounce of courage she had and met his gaze squarely. "I have a sister lying in a brothel here in Sinjar, most likely being violated by a terrorist even as we speak. And here's the terrible truth. I can only hope that's what is happening to her. Otherwise, she is dead."
Dec stared at her for what seemed like an eternity. The candle flickered high in the wall, causing dark shadows to gyrate like whirling dervishes. If only the shadows had the power to suck the evil out of their lives.
But life was never so simple.
Ultimately, she had to choose between Declan and her sister. And that was no choice. Declan was a grown man who could survive whatever she did to him. But her sister only had a chance at life if Laila saved her.
If Declan thought her choice and subsequent actions a terrible betrayal of him, then she would have to live with that.
"Talk to me then," he said harshly. "Tell me your latest story. Make sure it's dramatic enough that I'll believe you were willing to seduce me tonight to achieve whatever goal you say you have."
She flinched at that.
How had he guessed that she was manipulating him, even when she couldn't be sure of her own motivations? Yes, she planned to seduce him tonight to further her own goals. But she forgot her goals, was lost to everything but him whenever their lips met, whenever he touched her with his callused hands, whenever she saw his eyes gazing at her with that mixture of lust and tenderness and basic decency. She was only able to get her thoughts back on track when they weren't touching.
Declan scrubbed a hand over his face, as if he wanted to eliminate her many tales, and arrow down to the truth. "How would you help your sister's cause by seducing me?"
She drew in a deep breath. Back to the lies. She stared at the bed between them so she
wouldn't have to meet his eyes. "I thought maybe you'd postpone your mission long enough to help me rescue her."
"Why didn't you ask for my help from the beginning? Your brothel story was a lot more disgusting than your current, uh, tale where you say you're rescuing your sister."
"The brothel story," she said, "was based in fact. I did hear that ISIS was looking for pure Muslim women to help them manage their brothels. It seemed like the only way I could ever reach my sister, so I responded to the appeal."
"If you're not a Muslim, how did you think you could pull it off?
"It's complicated."
He towered over her, still on his feet. "I'm listening."
"My father was Yazidi. My mother was Christian. The Yazidi religion prevented him from marrying outside his faith. So"—she licked her lips—"they never married. I was their only child."
Dec dropped onto the bed beside her.
"Laila," he said softly. "This is starting to sound like the truth. Please don't lie to me again."
She pressed her lips together. This was so hard. But she had to remember that her sister had to be her only goal.
"I was born in America, but my mother moved to England when I was young. She wanted me to spend my summers with my father, and it was easier."
"What did your father want?"
"He was a good father. Maybe not the best. Of course, he married a Yazidi woman and so I had half-siblings. One brother and one sister."
Dec picked up her hand and twined his fingers through hers.
"I think that's why I always wanted to work in the non-profit world, on international missions," she confessed. "Being in Iraq so often, I could see the strife and sorrow all around me. Of course, when I was young, Iraq was relatively peaceful. But there were always factions. The Yazidi lived here in the Sinjar Mountains with their Muslim neighbors. That's how I learned so much about the Muslim way of life. People got along."
"Until ISIS came along."
She nodded. "I wasn't in Iraq when ISIS invaded. I tried frantically to get word about my family, but of course everything was chaotic. Communication was impossible." She shuddered. "It was a bad time."
Dec put his arm around her shoulder and pulled her close. "I'm sorry, Laila."
She pressed her lips together again, determined not to cry. All she really wanted to do was curl up into his chest and let him hold her. But she couldn't lose sight of her goal.
"I finally heard that my father and my brother had been victims of a massacre." Unexpectedly, her voice choked on a sob.
Dec brushed his hand over her head, over and over. "I'm sorry," he said again.
"He was only fourteen." Tears ran down her face now. She couldn't stop them. "My brother."
"Such barbarism," Dec muttered. "It's no wonder you don't like anything related to the military."
He got up, walked to his backpack and came back with some tissues. He handed them to her.
"I never really did," Laila answered. "My mother was kind of an alternative lifestyle person—a greenie, organic, peasant dress and Birkenstocks type. So kind and gentle."
"Was?"
"She died when I was twenty."
Dec sat down, wrapped his arm around her again, and squeezed. "So you decided to camouflage yourself as a Muslim woman."
"Because I knew I would have to deal with ISIS to find my sister." She shivered.
"Tell me about the red camisole. How did you come to be wearing that?"
"It was my rebellion," she said softly. "My rebellion against the niqab. They could force me to cover myself outwardly. But they couldn't force me to hide who I was inside. The camisole reminded me of that."
"Did you need a reminder?"
"It's very easy when you are forced to behave as a victim to start to feel like a victim."
He stared at her thoughtfully for a long minute. "As part of our training they teach us a lot of that psychological stuff about being a captive. But how did you learn it?"
She was silent for a long time, until he wondered if she'd speak at all.
"I spent my summers here in Sinjar," she finally said. "My mother wanted me to learn about my father's culture, and his family. It was a noble gesture, I guess, but she never lived in the Yazidi world herself. I don't think she realized how stressful it was for me to live with the dichotomy of the two cultures—Western versus Middle Eastern.
"The different way of dressing is an outward, easily visible divergence between two cultures. But it represents something far deeper than what you merely see. The practice of covering yourself, of making sure you don't tempt boys, that you, in a real sense, are responsible for their behaviors is confusing to a girl who experiences both cultures, particularly a girl in puberty."
Dec tightened his arm around her. "I'm glad you didn't lose the camisole wearing American girl."
"Women are not mistreated in the Yazidi culture, as they are in some other parts of the Middle East," Laila explained. "But they are viewed as different, in a lesser sense. Not second class citizens, just not equal to men. And after a summer of repressing my normal self, in order to fit in, I would find myself still behaving in that smaller way when I returned to England. I can't really explain it, but when you live it, you notice it."
Dec nodded. "How did you find your sister?"
"I worked the grapevine. Naturally, I had a lot of contacts here in the Middle East so I put out the word, begged people, whatever I could think of. I knew I had to travel here so I started making plans. I just needed some kind of direction. The Yazidis had fled all over the place."
She paused to blow her nose. "Finally, I heard that Alyssa might be a captive in Sinjar. Which was a reasonable possibility as they'd lived in the city. I knew I couldn't travel in this area as a Western woman so I borrowed the niqab and the passport from a friend. She looked enough like me, and the veil helped."
Dec nodded. "You know this was an insane plan."
She jerked her head up to meet his gaze. "I don't care. Wouldn't you have done the same?"
He dropped a light kiss onto her mouth. "Insane, but admirable."
"Everyone I've met has believed I was a Muslim woman. I can pull this plan off at the brothel. I know I can."
He raised his brows, waiting for the other shoe to drop.
"But not with a bunch of American military guys waving their machine guns all around me."
"You don't trust us," Dec said softly.
"I can't."
Chapter Twenty
Dec nodded at Laila, his brain whirring. Finally, he understood where she was going with this seduction. She didn't trust that the SEALs could rescue anyone without bloodshed and death. She intended to go after her sister by herself. Even after this confession.
She was lying to him right now, even while gazing into his eyes as if she trusted him with all her heart and soul. He was sure she still intended to escape at daybreak, if not before. Alone.
He had to repress a snort. Yeah, as if she'd entrust him with her heart. Her body, yes. Apparently that was on offer. But her heart was off the table. No, her heart was dedicated to her sister.
Well, that worked for him. He still needed to get to the brothel. He still needed to follow her in the morning.
Should he let her continue to play out her seduction scene? He still needed her to think, in the morning, that she'd escaped undetected, so that they could follow her.
He reached out and ran his forefinger down her cheek, feeling the dampness from her tears. His heart clenched in his chest. No, he couldn't use her for sex.
She touched his finger and angled it toward her mouth. "Let me taste you, Dec." She licked out and captured his finger and sucked it slowly into her warm and wet mouth. His dick roared to life.
"You don't need to worry about getting me pregnant, Dec," she murmured when she let his finger go. "I'm on the pill."
His stupid dick jerked again.
"It's not just that, Laila."
But he could not stop himself from running
his wet finger from her throat, slowly, down into her cleavage. "We go our separate ways in the morning. If we indulge in sex tonight, it's a one-off. Never think differently."
She sucked in a breath as he delved inside her tank top and closed a hand over her breast. Her nipple poked his palm, and he fondled her almost feverishly.
She was so soft, and he was so hard. In one more minute, this whole scene would be beyond his ability to control himself.
"Laila," he breathed. "Stop me." He moved to her other breast.
"No," she sighed, moaning softly.
"At least say you're being honest at last."
"I want you, Dec. That much is honest."
He heard what she didn't say. She was still lying to him. But the warning was faint, not something he could attend to when she was running her hand all over his chest, and now down over his abdomen.
He thrust his hips at her, an almost unconscious move. If she touched him, he might erupt on the spot. She smelled so good, when all he'd known for months was dust and gun oil and unwashed bodies. Her breasts, that he'd been fantasizing about non-stop, were finally soft and yielding under his hands, reminding him how much she was a woman and he a man.
He had to lay claim to where she was most different from him. He rolled to her side, grabbed the back of her head and kissed her, long and deep, tangling his tongue with hers, preparing her for what he intended to do.
When he pulled back for breath, he looked into her eyes. "One more thing, Laila."
She questioned him with her beautiful eyes.
"You're not a virgin, are you?"
She shook her head. "At twenty-eight?"
He smiled. "With that whole burka thing, that's how I've been thinking of you. It's hard to switch gears."
"Were you hoping?"
He shook his head vigorously. "Not at all. It was a deterrent to me, to be honest, thinking you were. That's a big reason why I stopped earlier."
She gave him a sly smile. "Maybe I should show you."
Dec laughed. "That might be best. We military guys like evidence, you know."
Field Stripped: 15 Steamy Military Romances Page 122