At the same time, the one all the way to the left lunged at Riley, pointing the knife at his heart as if he were trying to thrust at him with a rapier. But certainly because of the elevated level of alcohol in his blood, the legionnaire moved too slowly for Riley’s sober reflexes, which gave Riley time to step aside and slash the soldier’s forearm hard. If that scimitar had been sharpened, it would have split the arm like a dry twig, but all it did was make the soldier drop the knife with a curse and give Riley a chance to kick his side sharply and wind him.
The kiddos, excited by the show, erupted in cheers at seeing the two underdogs were going to put up more resistance than expected. The legionnaire sergeant too, with hatred radiating from his eyes, realized the thing wouldn’t be so easy. He waited an instant for the one Riley had kicked to recover—the one who’d gotten the stool didn’t get up and didn’t seem like he would—and whispered some orders to his subordinate.
Their strategy was clear immediately. They divided up into pairs and went two against one, so Riley and Jack wouldn’t be able to dodge them regardless of their reflexes.
The legionnaires flexed their legs, ready to pounce.
The sailors tensed their muscles, ready to take whatever came at them.
And just when they launched their attack, a pair of chairs appeared out of nowhere and crashed down on the heads of two of the legionnaires, who fell in a heap under a shower of splinters.
Surprised to see they were left without dancing partners, the sergeant and a mustached soldier, who were now the only ones standing, turned to discover a puny mulatto dressed in blue overalls and a petite woman with a ponytail and a big smile, who greeted them with a polite, “Bonjour, monsieurs.”
The sergeant glanced at the two fallen soldiers, then back at the couple, his eyes bloodshot. “I’m gonna kill you!” he screamed, waving the knife. “I’m gonna kill all of you!”
Marco ran up and put a gun to his head. “I don’t think that’s a good idea, buddy.”
Captain and crew quickly walked down the alleys of the medina toward the port. They’d left the legionnaires in the tearoom, some unconscious on the ground and some convinced by Marovic’s persuasive argument. But it was only a matter of time before they came out of their shock and, aided by other comrades from their squad, started to look for them all over the city, which wasn’t that large, after all.
“Why the hell didn’t you come in earlier?” Riley said.
Julie smiled innocently. “It seemed like you had the situation under control.”
“Under control?” Jack huffed, struggling to keep up. “Are you kidding?”
“You insisted that we were to stay hidden and not intervene unless there was actual danger,” César said.
“Five legionnaires trying to stab us didn’t seem like danger to you?” Riley said.
“We were sure you could handle them,” Julie said, “and also . . .”
“Also what?”
“Oh, nothing.”
“Julie . . .”
“We had a bet,” César confessed. “Julie and I bet ten dollars you could take them yourselves.”
Riley stopped and turned to his crew. “You bet while Jack and I were fighting? You risked our lives for ten goddamn dollars?”
“Come on, Captain, don’t be dramatic. We were right there.”
“You bastards,” Jack gasped. “A knife went an inch from my stomach.” He noticed Marco’s grin. “What’s so funny?” he snapped, doubled over his knees.
Marco winked. “I won the bet.”
“Just know, you’re the worst crew in the world.” Riley shook his head.
“Maybe,” Julie said, giving him a kiss on his cheek, “but you’re not the best captain either, and we still love you.”
“You have to admit the girl’s right there,” Jack said with a smile.
“Anyway, what more can I ask for at this price?” Riley sighed. “We sail at dawn, so you have the night free to do what you want. But before that we have work to do. César and Marco, you’re in charge of checking the diving equipment. I don’t want to have to come back to port because a gasket pops. And Julie,” he added, giving March’s envelope to Jack, “check the weather and buy groceries for a week and the spare parts we need, got it?”
“Of course. And what are you going to do?”
Riley blushed. “I have to . . . visit someone.”
Everyone went quiet, knowing who he was referring to.
“Fuck, Alex,” Jack said, rubbing his temples. “I thought that was over.”
“I never said that.”
“But last time you almost—”
Riley lifted a hand. “What I do is up to me. You do what I told you, and later you can enjoy the Tangerine night. Oh, and one more thing: you’ve seen how things are here, so be careful.”
He put a hand on Jack’s shoulder and turned and walked down the street, taking the first right turn and disappearing down a narrow blue alley.
The sun had already begun to set, and the first shadows began to shroud the whitewashed walls. People were leaving their houses now that the afternoon heat—persistent even though it was the end of November—was passing. A man wearing a long djellaba with its hood up ascended the streets of the medina to the Little Bazaar. Locals with glasses of steaming tea played backgammon on the terraces in the small squares.
In an alley behind the plaza, a two-story house stood like any other. The hooded man rapped his knuckles against the sky-blue door. Footsteps came from the other side, eyes peered through the lattice gate, and after a gesture of recognition, the bolts were drawn back, and the door opened with a groan.
As in many Arab houses, the anteroom was a large, bright patio full of flowering geraniums and lush bougainvillea. A refined fountain in the shape of an octagon sat in the center, spouting water that gurgled and bubbled.
The woman who had opened the door, a housekeeper advanced in age with a wrinkled face and a scarf covering her head, greeted the visitor with a slight bow that was also an indication to follow her. Without speaking, she headed up the stairs to the second floor. She stopped in front of an exquisitely tiled Mozarab door, directed a final look at the recent arrival, and left to go back to where she’d come from.
The man turned the doorknob, took a deep breath, and entered the room. Though he’d been there before, he couldn’t stop admiring the ethereal beauty of the room, which seemed like something out of a story in One Thousand and One Nights. Everything was golden silk and lace: the soft sofa with large cushions, the Persian carpets, the flowing curtains dancing in the breeze, and the wispy gauze surrounding the wide bed, which was covered in Indian sheets. In front of a carved sandalwood mirror, a woman sat brushing her hair.
The man closed the door behind him, but she didn’t move until she was satisfied with the image reflected back at her. Then she stood up, letting the light robe that covered her shoulders slip to the floor, revealing the smooth dark skin of her slender body. Slowly, the woman turned around to face the man, who, incapable even of blinking, looked her up and down. She was playing a shameless symphony of eroticism like none he’d ever heard. He stared at the delicate feet decorated with henna arabesques. He raised his eyes to the thin ankles, the firm legs, the perfect hips that surrounded the clearly outlined groin, the flat stomach that led up to proud breasts, the dark nipples caressed by the ends of a cascade of shiny raven hair. He moved his eyes to the straight shoulders, to the arms carelessly hanging by her hips, and finally, to the graceful neck that, after a sensual curve, ended in a face of mature and serene beauty. Standing out like lighthouses, two eyes, slanted and black like the darkest night, offered a powerful gaze, empty of resistance from her mind or the little that was left of her soul.
She took a few steps forward, almost floating across the floor until she was face to face with the man. She threw back his hood, brought her lips to his ear, and whispered, “Hello, Alex.”
“Hello, Carmen.”
12
Bac
k from the market, Julie and Jack put the food away. Elsa was with them, grumbling about Riley’s orders not to leave the ship.
“It’s impossible for anyone to recognize us,” she argued once again. “Even Himmler himself wouldn’t know who I was.”
“We can’t take the risk,” Jack said. “You attract too much attention, and if a Spanish military patrol asks for your papers, even just to chat with you, it could be very bad. That’s the problem with being too pretty.”
“But I’m so sick of being stuck here.” She slammed a head of lettuce on the counter. “I need to get some air. Just thinking I have to be here another week makes me—”
Jack put a hand on her arm. “Believe me, I’d like nothing more than to ask you out to the classiest restaurant in Tangier and dance till dawn, but I can’t. It’s too dangerous.”
She didn’t answer, but looking in his eyes, she ended up giving him a timid smile, making his heart rate double.
“Jack,” Julie called, breaking the spell, “where’d you put the oranges?”
He turned and pointed to a cabinet. “They’re in there, Juju.”
“Merci.”
Unfortunately, when he turned back to Elsa, she was already doing something else, and the conversation took a different turn.
“Who is that Carmen you were talking about?” she said.
Jack stopped what he was doing, looking for the right words, but decided he’d better not.
Julie took over, always ready for some gossip. “Her name’s Carmen Debagh. And she’s a kind of—friend of the captain.”
“A friend?”
“Well, not exactly. She’s more like a lover, but not that either.”
Elsa put a tin of sardines on the shelf, then turned to Julie. “A friend that isn’t a friend. A lover that isn’t a lover. Seems complicated.”
“She’s a prostitute,” Jack said, “and lots of trouble.”
“She’s not a prostitute! She’s an escort,” Julie protested.
“And what’s the difference?”
“The difference is she decides who she sleeps with, and I’m sure the list is very short. She’s rejected rich men who’ve offered her tons of money.”
“A deluxe prostitute,” Jack said.
“You know it’s not like that. She’s much more, and I don’t understand why you’re so obsessed.”
Jack shook his head. “I’m not obsessed. I’ll admit she’s an impressive woman. One who makes men forget which way’s north . . . and that’s exactly the problem. One of those men is our captain.”
“You know that won’t happen.”
“We’ll see.”
There was an awkward silence until Elsa broke in again. “So, she’s really pretty, this Carmen?”
Julie waved her hands. “Oh, you have no idea! They say her dad is a Tuareg from the desert, and her mom’s an Indian princess he rescued from a harem. I’ve only seen her a couple of times, but many men and women travel halfway across the world just to spend a few hours with her.”
“Women?”
“Oh yes,” Julie whispered. “I’ve heard she’s as skilled in love with one as the other. They say there are even famous Hollywood actresses who’ve gone to Tangier to . . . you know.”
Elsa blushed. “She’s something like the lover of Captain Riley? But it must be very difficult, or expensive, to be with her, right?”
“It is, but our captain,” she said proudly, “doesn’t pay for her company. He may be the only man in the world with that privilege.”
“Are you sure? Why?”
Julie turned to Jack, who was on the other side of the room fiddling with some boxes. “That’s something he could explain better, though I doubt he will. But what I can say”—she lowered her voice—“is that it has something to do with the scar on his cheek.”
Exhausted, intoxicated with the taste of sex on his tongue, Riley stared at the patterns on the bed’s canopy. They had made love for hours, slowly and methodically, appreciating each other without rushing, knowing the journey was more important than the destination—the path from the first kiss to orgasm is most memorable when it’s long and winding. The purple silk sheets were balled up at his feet, and though a cool, salty breeze came in through the window, he had no intention of covering himself.
He was naked, with his elbow on the pillow and his head supported by the palm of his hand. Slowly, he lowered his gaze to look over her sublime body. Carmen lay limp by his side, her left leg bent to form a perfect, erotic equilateral triangle. She breathed slowly and rhythmically through her enticing, parted lips. Her messy hair covered part of her tilted face and hinted at the hairline at the nape of her neck. The neck he had kissed and caressed until exhaustion, sliding down afterward to her shoulders and going back up over her chin, lingering over every inch of skin until again meeting her greedy mouth, which received him like a pleasant cove to anchor in during a storm.
With a slight smile, he raised his right hand and placed his finger on her pubic bone, which he’d made tremble earlier by nibbling it softly. From that point, he set course for the two bold breasts that were like rosy peaks begging to be climbed. He mentally charted a course across her belly that would take him by the little belly button, where a mounted ruby reflected the flickering light of the candles in the room. Then calculating his bearing and direction with the tip of his index finger leading the way, he traveled the short distance over the nautical chart of the Sargasso Sea that was this incomparable and unpredictable woman. A woman who, once inside, one couldn’t and didn’t want to leave.
Riley was aware of that—he always had been—as he left behind the navel and ran his hand down her right thigh toward her knee. The spell that Carmen cast over men was extraordinary, as if she’d been born knowing what to do and say at exactly the right moment, yet still appearing savagely natural and enigmatic at the same time. The perfumes, the clothes, the enticing words were used less to seduce than to convince the stupid and gullible that it was these mere accessories that were the cause of the men’s fascination. In reality, Carmen’s appeal came from the disturbing power that emanated directly from within her, from her presence alone and her capability to manipulate any man like a decapitated puppet.
But Riley didn’t care.
She was there, at his side, available, and heavenly as only a beautiful, naked, uninhibited woman can be.
That was enough. More than enough. She was the distillation of all the carnal desires, timelessly attractive to all men.
On his first night with her some years back, after she’d cleaned and disinfected the cut on his cheek, she gave him more than anyone else ever had. Like an opium addict taking a sad lump of sugar to combat his dependency, he’d never truly enjoyed another woman again. He’d discovered that what he once thought was the peak of pleasure had instead been the foothills of the Himalaya that only she could lead him to the top of.
He’d asked why only once, knowing the debt she owed him for defending her had been more than repaid.
“Why not?” she answered.
“You could be with richer or more handsome men.”
“Of course,” she said without a trace of smugness.
“So?”
She sighed and bit her lip. “You ask too many questions, Alex, and I don’t want to answer any of them.”
From that day on, he didn’t bring it up again. He understood that the game was played according to her rules, without questions. The same way you don’t ask the rules of poker when you’re sitting at the table with a handful of cards. If you want to play, shuffle, cut, and deal, and if not, get up and leave the seat open for someone else.
But that conversation had happened a long time ago, with a lot of kisses in between, and of course, he still hadn’t left the game.
“You’re leaving tomorrow,” she said.
Riley lifted his gaze, coming out of his reverie, and saw that Carmen had her eyes open and was staring at him. He didn’t know whether it was a question or a suggestion, bu
t either way the response was the same. “In the morning, high tide.”
Carmen nodded. “I heard,” she said, trying to sound casual, “you came to port with an empty hold.”
“You have good informants,” he said, a little more sharply than he intended.
Carmen nevertheless took the response as a compliment. “In this city, in these crazy times, a helpless woman has to use all the resources she has.”
A wrinkle appeared in the corner of his lips like he’d heard a good joke. “You’re the least helpless woman I know.”
“Because I have good informants,” she said, smiling.
“And since when are you interested in my business?”
“Your business doesn’t interest me, Alex, but . . . I’ve heard things.”
Riley frowned in surprise. “Things? What kind of things?”
“Nothing concrete,” she said with a vague hand gesture. “Rumors here and there . . . you know.”
“Well, no, I don’t.” Riley sat up.
“And maybe it’s better that way.” She was suddenly serious. “I just wanted to tell you to be careful.”
Riley looked at her. He knew perfectly well that powerful men and women passed through her bed, and that between a few glasses of wine and her overwhelming charms, many revealed secrets of the kind they wouldn’t have confessed even on their deathbeds. He also knew he wasn’t going to get another syllable more than what she’d told him, so he didn’t bother to ask her. “Thanks for the advice,” he said.
Carmen blinked. “I’d hate for something bad to happen to you.”
She said it in the tone she would’ve used to tell the housekeeper she’d hate for the curtains to be soiled. Still, at this stage of the journey, Riley already knew enough to be sure it was her way of protecting herself, her particular chain mail against misfortune. Her apparent indifference felt more sincere than if she’d thrown herself in his arms and cried. Then, he’d have known for sure she was faking.
This unexpected show of concern caused a current to run from his neck to his groin. He slid his hand to her inner thigh. “I still have a few hours before I set sail,” he whispered in her ear, gently putting his lips around her lobe.
Captain Riley (The Captain Riley Adventures Book 1) Page 9