Ever since Maliyah Aziz stepped foot on the Cairo soil, the temperature seemed to have increased dramatically. The minute he saw the limousine pull up in front of the house, he felt it. Hot and bothered was an understatement. Besides the discomfort of Ramses’ sweat-soaked body, hunger gnawed a hole in his gut. An unquenchable thirst for blood came over him. But not just anyone’s blood. Maliyah Aziz’s savory essence was the only elixir that would whet his voracious appetite.
He dropped the binoculars on a nearby table, and turned to the left, watching his shadow dance along the walls of the room. A mirror was set in one corner and contrary to traditional vampire lore, he could see his reflection quite clearly. He watched his pupils dilate, as they often did when need threatened to vanquish his control. He could see and feel his body’s instantaneous reaction to Maliyah Aziz. His obsidian eyes rolled back in his head then returned a split-second later, transformed into a deep, penetrating crimson. Razor-sharp fangs distended over his frightful scowl. Rigid and rock hard, Ramses’ cock stood at full attention, eager to welcome the daughter of his former business associate with an enthusiastic salute.
His body’s wanton demands felt like a betrayal. After all, Anwar al Aziz had been much more than a colleague; he’d been a good friend. Having lived nearly a thousand years, Ramses could attest to the fact that individuals worthy of one’s trust were hard to come by. Yet Anwar had been exactly that. The two men had met thirty years prior and before long, their friendship blossomed into an almost symbiotic relationship. The owner of a successful international shipping fleet, Ramses’ company was the perfect enterprise to propel Anwar’s import/export firm into success, thereby creating a mutually lucrative business arrangement. While Shakir Shipping had already made millions delivering high quality goods and services to ports across the globe, Aziz Import/Export Ltd. soon took off, skyrocketing the cotton and Egyptian textile industry into a multi-billion dollar venture for both men.
Away on business when his partner fell ill and died, Ramses automatically became suspicious. At fifty-nine years old, Anwar had been the picture of health. An avid long-distance swimmer and scuba diver, the man ate well and took excellent care of himself. There was no way in hell Ramses believed his friend simply dropped dead – the result of an apparent heart attack.
Ramses owed it to the Aziz family to find out what really happened. For the last few days, that had been his focus, and all he could think about, until Anwar’s exquisite daughter ripped the proverbial carpet out from under him. Ever since he spotted her flowing brown tresses and green-gold eyes, her shapely curves clinging to the yellow sundress she wore, Ramses knew he was in trouble.
He watched her share a meal with her family, then walk up the stairs to the second floor of the abode. Soon, a dim light illuminated one of the bedroom windows. A sheer curtain covered it, shrouding the room in a veil of transparent shadows. Ramses became transfixed, mesmerized by Maliyah’s sensual movements in the moonlight. Her hips swayed provocatively as two fingers delved below the waistband of her panties, rolling the scant material over her pelvic bone and down her thighs. Then she reached behind her to unlatch her bra. Her nipples puckered into tiny rosebuds as a gust of desert heat whipped through the room, blowing the curtain aside to reveal a glimpse of her curvaceous backside. It was like peeking through the window of a sex shop situated smack dab in the middle of a Red Light District. Ramses groaned as he grabbed hold of his erection and readjusted the tight jeans he wore.
Maliyah pulled on what looked like a pair of snug-fitting yoga pants and a tank top, and then plopped down on the bed. Soon the house grew quiet as all the other members of the Aziz family hunkered down to sleep for the night. Ramses kept an eye on Maliyah, watching her toss and turn on the mattress for close to an hour; but sleep evaded her.
Jet lag, most likely.
Soon, Maliyah turned on the lamp by her bedside. In the shadows, he could see her prop herself up on a pile of pillows and flip through the pages of what appeared to be a paperback book. Before long, Ramses saw her move again. She chucked the book to the other side of the mattress and leapt to her feet. She crept down the stairs and tiptoed to the sliding glass door on the left side of the house. Slowly, the door slid open and Maliyah, dressed in iridescent black, flitted across the sand headed toward the river.
Shit! Leave it to Anwar’s daughter to run off on her own. Doesn’t she know how dangerous the streets of Cairo can be for a woman?
Ramses slammed the binoculars on top of the small table where he sat, running down three flights of stairs to follow after her. When he got to the corner of the narrow street, he stopped short, not wanting to get too close. He wasn’t worried about scaring her off. On the contrary. If Maliyah was anything like her headstrong father, Ramses would be the one quaking in his boots.
She walked several blocks before climbing atop a large rock nestled in the sand along the river’s edge. Ramses crouched behind a dilapidated storefront some 50 meters away. At first, Maliyah sat in silence, staring up at the yellow-gold moon as its rays danced across the shimmering water. Then suddenly, she opened her mouth, letting the first notes of a song slip past her lips. Its sweet melody was the most beautiful sound Ramses had ever heard.
Hush now, be still
Let the rushing river
Lull you back to sleep
Let its flowing cadence
Rock you in its arms
Embrace you, oh child,
Like the Gentle Nile
May you dream in peace.
Ramses’ gaze remained locked on Maliyah as her captivating voice thrummed in his ear. Its seductive purr reverberated through him. The sensation whirled over his nerve-endings like a cloud of sand on a hot, windy Sahara afternoon. He moaned, feeling the dust devil of emotion spiral out of control and lodge itself firmly in his groin.
A moment later, Maliyah’s soulful lullaby turned sad replaced by a muted whimper. Tears streamed down her face, visible in the moonlight’s bright reflection. Without hesitation, Ramses stood, his nimble feet dragging him involuntarily toward the weeping woman. He had no choice; he was a sucker for a damsel in distress.
“Excuse me, Miss. Are you okay?” Maliyah jumped, her body jostled from the surface of the stone upon hearing Ramses’ voice. She turned her head to look at him, her furrowed brow distorting the features of her face.
“I saw you earlier. You were sitting outside on the balcony of the apartment across the street from my father’s house. What the hell? Are you stalking me?”
Chapter Three
The Realization
The half-naked stranger raised his palms in a defensive stance. “I know. I’m sorry. But I promise, I’m not a serial killer. My name is Ramses. Ramses Shakir. I’m a friend of your father’s.”
Maliyah placed her hands on her hips. Then she squinted her eyes and cocked her head to the side. “Shakir? As in Shakir Shipping?”
“Yes, we’ve met before. But you were but a child. You may not remember.”
“I remember. Vaguely,” she said with a nonchalant shrug of her shoulders.
Boy did she remember.
Even back then Mr. Shakir, as she called him, was an Egyptian god. With a broad, muscular build and dark, brooding good looks, how could she forget? Surprisingly, he’d only gotten better with age.
Like the Egyptian god Anubis, Ramses’ sharp features and mysterious midnight-hued hair and eyes stood out, stopping many an unsuspecting woman in her tracks. An arousing anomaly to say the least. Any girl with the gift of sight instantly recognized his virile masculinity and dreamt of claiming him as her mate. As a child, Maliyah had seen him work his magic on the ladies, inviting a different lover to dinner at her father’s house each time he’d graced them with his presence.
“Why are you following me?”
Ramses scrubbed his hand over his unshaven face; his eyes pierced her with a somber glare. “What the hell are you doing out here alone? Don’t you watch the news? Surely, you must have heard about the female photographer
that was brutally raped and terrorized by a group of overzealous Egyptian youths?”
Maliyah turned away from him, peering out into the calm waters of the Nile. She drew upon its peaceful serenity to try and settle her rattled nerves. She was annoyed at Ramses for stalking her. She didn’t even know if she could trust him from what Husani had told her. After all, he was one of her father’s business associates. But Ramses was right about one thing. The dark, seedy streets of Cairo were no place for a woman, especially a foreigner in Maliyah’s questionable emotional state.
Still, the urge to goad Ramses into a fight overruled common sense. She licked her lips and smiled up at him through her half-mast gaze. “How do I know you aren’t one of those overzealous brutes? What do you want with me, Mr. Shakir?”
Ramses pounced on her like a feral desert jackal, his rough hands jerking her back against the cool stone she’d been perched on only minutes before. He leaned in, his heated breath rolling across her neck and down the slender column of her throat until goose bumps formed. So close, she could have sworn she felt a pair of sharp, serrated teeth graze her prickly skin.
“I’m here to keep you safe. Don’t ask me what I want from you, Maliyah. You may not like my answer.” Ramses’ fingers dug into her shoulder blades. His hulking frame pressed firmly into Maliyah’s demure curves. She felt his erection thrust against her pelvic bone, thick and hard like the rock that rested against her spine. Her nipples tightened, poking through the thin material of her tank top to rub against Ramses’ bare chest. He must have sensed her heightened arousal because a moment later, he re-positioned himself so that his erection came into direct contact with her throbbing clitoris. Maliyah moaned as a gush of liquid trickled down her thigh.
Before Ramses could distract her any further, Maliyah jerked out of his grasp. She stared into his swirling, obsidian orbs. All of a sudden, she felt dizzy. Light-headed, as if she could no longer stand on her own two feet. She propped herself up against the rock and stared back at her captor. Provocative and defiant. “Sounds like an interesting proposition. But there are more important things I’d like to discuss with you first.”
“Like what?”
“Like what happened to my father.” Maliyah said as she skidded away from the edge of the rock and paced backwards across the sand, her eyes never leaving his gaze. Still, she felt anxious. She wrung her hands together nervously, dreading his response.
Ramses’ eyes shot open, one eyebrow rose higher than the other. “You have doubts about his presumed cause of death?”
“I do. At first, I had no choice but to believe the initial explanation. But the more I think about it, the more preposterous it seems. A heart attack? Really?” It was true. Once her cousins, Salma and Husani, brought up the possibility of foul play, Maliyah just couldn’t imagine her health-conscious father suffering a sudden heart ailment. It didn’t make any sense. No wonder she couldn’t get any rest. It was near dawn, and she hadn’t slept a wink.
“The sun’s almost up. Come on. Let’s get you home. I’ll hail a cab and we can talk on the way.”
Once Ramses flagged down a taxi driver, they hopped in and drove off. As the car rolled down the deserted streets, an awkward silence fell over them. The thick, unspoken attraction between the two of them was undeniable. Maliyah cleared her throat, but before she could speak, Ramses broke the monotony.
“That song you were singing on the rock. It was hauntingly beautiful. What was it?”
“Just a children’s lullaby,” Maliyah said, shrugging her shoulders. “Something my father used to sing to me.”
Ramses shot her a sympathetic grin. “You know, he loved you very much. You’re all he could ever talk about,” he said. But then his expression changed. It looked almost playful. Mimicking Anwar’s deep baritone voice, he proceeded to provoke her. “Maliyah graduated from MIT. She’s got this great new job in Italy. She’s a fantastic cook. Blah. Blah. Blah.”
So he’s got a sense of humor, eh?
Maliyah always enjoyed a man with the ability to make her laugh. “Funny, he never mentioned you,” she replied, ribbing him with the same sardonic banter.
“I’m not surprised. I’ve got a bit of a reputation with the ladies and knowing Anwar, he’d want to keep his daughter far away from the likes of me.”
“Enough about you,” Maliyah said, rolling her eyes. “Why is it that you question the nature of my father’s death? If you have any pertinent information, you owe it to my family to fess up.”
“Maliyah, I worked with your father day and night for many years. I knew him as well as, if not better than I know myself. That man was as healthy as a horse. That fact alone makes me suspicious. I don’t have anything else to go on at the moment, but if I come across any leads, I’ll be sure to pass them along to Husani.”
The cab came to halt in front of her father’s house. Ramses stepped out and came around to open Maliyah’s side of the door. “Husani? Why not me?”
“Because Cairo is a man’s world. You have no business sticking your nose into matters that don’t pertain to you.” Ramses gruff voice resounded in her ears as the meaning of the words he spoke finally sunk in. Not only was Ramses a philandering womanizer. He was a sexist pig too.
Typical Egyptian macho bullshit!
***
Ramses watched Maliyah disappear inside the house. He ducked under the overhang of the apartment building at the same time he felt the radiant heat of the sun scald the skin on his bare shoulder. While being a vampire had certain advantages, it also had some major drawbacks. Sensitivity to the sun was one of them.
The biggest perk of the job had to be Ramses’ magnanimous skills of seduction. He could transfix female victims with a single glance and command their total submission. Not surprisingly, sex was his preferred form of manipulation. Women were like chess pieces simply waiting to be wielded by Ramses’ potent powers of persuasion. Even though it hadn’t gotten that far with Maliyah, it wasn’t for lack of effort. He’d tried, to no avail, to mesmerize her with his compelling gaze. Instead, she was the one who had him by the balls, enthralled by her every sultry move.
After entering the apartment, Ramses rushed to close the blinds and block out the sunlight. Then he collapsed on the bed, weak from too much exposure to ultraviolet rays. Half awake, he felt the familiar pang in his stomach and realized he’d been so preoccupied with Maliyah that he’d forgotten to feed. But finding sustenance was the least of Ramses’ worries.
I just hope that meddling woman doesn’t get into too much trouble while I’m asleep.
Chapter Four
The Entombment
Maliyah was jostled from slumber by the sound of someone knocking on the door of her suite. She pried open her eyes, lids and lashes still glued together at the edges. Perspiration gathered in the hollow of her arched spine as heat from the desert sun streamed in through the sheer window coverings. She peered at the nightstand on the side of the bed. Eleven o’clock.
Oh shit! She was supposed to be up hours ago in preparation for the trip to the sacred pool of Amun.
“Maliyah, are you awake?” she heard Salma’s voice call to her from the other side of the door. “Husani’s chomping at the bit. Hurry and get dressed. Anat has breakfast ready for you in the kitchen.”
“Be down in ten minutes,” Maliyah said as she jumped to her feet. She stumbled across the room, nearly falling into the shower stall. Its hot jets beat down on her muscles as she closed her eyes and let the warm steam seep into her bones. The sensual heat of the spray was so soothing, she could feel her body waver, on the verge of surrendering itself to sleep once again. But with little time for personal hygiene as it was, Maliyah grabbed a loofah and got to work lathering her body into a thin sheen of suds. The pliant fibers of the sponge made her skin tingle.
Maliyah reached between her legs and glided the loofah over her sex, reveling in the feel of her sudden arousal. Her nipples beaded into tight, achy peaks as images of the previous night bombarded her.
Thoughts of Ramses Shakir. His clean, earthy scent wafted past her nose, while she relived the memory of his cock massaging her through her form-fitting clothes. Leaning against the cool, vibrant tiles of the shower, Maliyah’s head began to swim. An unexpected bout of dizziness came over her as she dropped to her knees, rendered almost completely immobile at the notion of having had such a strong, virile man in close proximity.
She turned off the faucet and sat with her back against the colorful blue and gold mosaics; her breath came out in short, erratic huffs. Still wet from the shower, a trickle of moisture drizzled down the ridges of her sex; its thick consistency pooled at the junction of her hip and thigh. Maliyah groaned as she reached down to gather up its slickness, rolling it between her thumb and index finger.
What is it about Ramses that has me so bewitched?
Maliyah had never been one to fawn over men. Yet, this particular specimen had her panties in a pile. Too bad she couldn’t trust him.
After her heart rate slowed, Maliyah dried off and got dressed, sweeping her damp hair into a messy ponytail. She hurled open the door to her suite, and rushed down the stairs as the heavenly aroma of food assailed her. She was hungry. Utterly famished, in fact. Lucky for her, Anat had prepared a delicious assortment of roasted quail eggs and fresh-picked pomegranates and set them out on the breakfast nook.
“Sleeping beauty finally awakes,” Husani said, chuckling loudly in his cousin’s ear. “Eat up. We need to get a move on. Uncle Anwar’s attorney called this morning. He wants to meet for dinner tonight. If we plan on being back in time, we need to go.”
Maliyah gave him a sarcastic salute, then picked up her fork and got to work devouring the meal. Once she’d filled her belly, the three of them piled into a rugged, army-green jeep with industrial grade tires. It was the perfect vehicle for a trek across the desert.
Blood of the Nile Page 2