by Michelle Fox
Blake wrapped an arm around my shoulders. I didn’t resist the contact. Even with baking in the Sahara for the last twenty four hours, I found his scent intoxicating and I needed the distraction if I was going to avoid a full blown, froth at the mouth, panic attack. Maybe we had no future, but in the here and now I needed Blake almost as much as I needed air to breathe.
Chapter Eighteen
After an interminable amount of time, the plane touched down on the outskirts of Casablanca. Another small airfield made of dirt and some cheap outdoor lights. From the airport, we took a taxi into the city where we snagged some clean clothes at a nearby souk and booked a room in a hotel. Blake had me cover my head and face with my scarf to avoid identification and the first thing he bought at the souk was a hat, which he pulled down low on his head.
Our hotel was one that catered to locals, to the point where the woman who checked us in kept giving us suspicious looks. Blake smoothed things over with his language skills and quickly had her laughing.
“What are you telling her?” I whispered to him when she gave us each pointed looks, said something and then laughed.
“That we came here for our honeymoon, but forgot to make a hotel reservation,” he whispered back calmly. “She thinks that’s hilarious.”
The woman ushered us into our room and left with a little bow, still laughing whenever she looked at us. I wondered what she would think of the truth of our situation.
The rooms were clean enough but the bedding was faded, the walls in need of paint and the bathroom fixtures looked to be from the 1950s. But the plumbing worked, at least. I took a long shower and then sank into the bed, staring at the ceiling while Blake took his. We weren’t out of the woods, but for the moment we were safe. My body seemed to understand this and released all tension until I felt boneless and in danger of melting into the bed.
I was on the cusp of sleep when Blake came out of the bathroom, a towel slung low on his lean hips. He towel dried his hair, oblivious to the way I drank him in. His muscles rippled in sinuous curves. I wanted to touch him, to follow the map of his body.
Having to share a bed made it all worse. I knew I would be pressed up against him all night. So near, yet so far.
He’s not good for you. It’s like pining for trouble. Stop it. But I need him, I told myself. Not right now you don’t. He’s the kind of prince charming that gets the girl killed. You’d better break free while you still can.
I made myself roll over, which removed Blake from my line of sight.
“Hey, Ruby.” Blake sat on the edge of the bed.
I rolled back around to face him. “What?”
“You’re doing good. I just want you to know that. It was scary out there, but you handled yourself well.”
“Thanks.”
“You have good instincts.” He swung his feet up on the bed and turned on his side to face me, propping himself up on one elbow.
“I do?” I looked at him surprised. Then I flushed as I became acutely aware of how thin the towel was around his waist.
“When the cars came and you made me hide, that was a good move. You can trust your gut.”
“Okay.” I wasn’t sure how to respond.
“A lot of guys have kamikaze instincts. They make bad decision after bad decision, but you don’t do that.” He patted me on the shoulder and leaned in close. “We’re going to get through this. You’ll be in California with Lilli before you know it.”
I went still. If I turned my head, our lips would meet. It irritated me how badly I wanted to do that.
His face hovered over mine, his breath hot on my cheek. When he moved closer, I moved away and held up a hand.
“We can’t do this.”
“Ruby,” He whispered. His fingers trailed over my shoulder and to my collar bone.
I shrugged him off. “We can’t happen, remember?”
“We can tonight.” The low rumble of his voice pulled at me, making me want him even more.
“And tomorrow? What then? You keep breaking my heart like this, magician and I’m going to run out of glue to rebuild.” Tears gathered at the corners of my eyes. I pressed my hands over my face, hiding.
“I wish it could be different.” He pulled back and went to lay on his side of the bed. “If I had my way, we would date like any other couple.”
“No kidnapping, drugs, bullets or assassination attempts,” I said with wry humor.
“Yeah.” He waved a hand. “Get rid of that bullshit. I would shower you with roses and romance.”
“That would be nice, but it’s a dream.” I peeked at him from between my fingers, studying his chiseled good looks.
Blake looked at me, his eyes serious. “Yeah, but what if it could come true?”
I dropped my hands, opening myself to his words. “What are you saying?”
Blake’s eyes met mine, dark pools that brimmed with barely suppressed emotion. “Would you want me if I could ditch the James Bond baggage?”
I hesitated and then said, “Yes.”
He gave a sad smile. “I’m sorry, Ruby.”
“Me too.”
Blake turned off the light, cloaking the room in darkness. I was just about to fall into a deep sleep, when Blake’s phone rang. His reflexes more developed than mine, he had the light on and the phone in hand within seconds. I blinked blearily as he held it up so I could see the screen.
Frankie.
Awesome.
“What should I tell him?” I asked, reaching for the phone.
“Let him think we’re still in the Sahara,” Blake said. “Do you remember the coordinates you gave him?”
Thanks to long practice remembering sewing measurements, I did. All I had to do was close my eyes and I could see the numbers staring at me. I nodded and he clicked the green answer button on the screen and handed the phone to me.
“Frankie?” I quickly set the phone to speaker so Blake could listen in.
“Where the fuck are you?” Blared Frankie’s voice. “I’ve got a whole team out there.”
“We’re in the desert, right where I told you we were. Have your guys check their equipment.”
“You’d better not be playing me, girl.”
“The only game I’m playing is survival, Frankie. I just want out of this alive. I’m out of water. Another day, I’ll be out of time, and you won’t be able to save me.”
Blake gave me an approving nod, pleased with my acting job.
Frankie didn’t seem to register my response. “If I find out you’ve got an angle, your friend Lilli here is going to pay big.”
There was a whimper in the background, a high-pitched noise that made my heart freeze. I looked at Blake, eyes wide. His expression grim, he gave me a nod of encouragement.
“Don’t touch her,” I snarled into the phone.
“I’ll do whatever I want with her,” he snarled back. “You don’t show with Blake and I’ll do more than make her cry.” He made shushing sounds. “She’s bleeding, Ruby. Red as your name. Maybe I’ll start lobbing off little pieces of her next.”
“Lilli,” I called out, talking over Frankie.
I heard a faint, “Ruby,” and then nothing but Frankie’s heavy breathing.
“Damn it,” I swore softly.
“Keep your promises, girl. Get me Blake like I asked and the nightmare ends for you and Lilli.” Frankie’s voice was falsely sweet.
“I’m doing my best, Frankie, but I can’t help it if you sent a bunch of fuck-ups out to pick us up.” With that I hung up. Maybe that was a mistake, but my gut said the longer I talked to Frankie, the worse things would get. I handed the phone back to Blake. “So that happened.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s beating Lilli,” I said, feeling sick.
Blake dialed a number and put the phone to his ear. “I’m on it.”
Someone answered on the other end and a fast conversation in French ensued. I paced the room while Blake talked, wondering what trick he had up his sleeve this ti
me.
When he hung up, I said, “So?”
“I know where Lilli is.”
“And Frankie,” I said sourly.
“And Frankie,” he agreed.
I heaved a sigh. While it was good to know where Lilli was, it also meant the start of the next hard lump of this journey. “What do we do?”
“Well, ideally we’d get some sleep and regroup tomorrow, but those guys aren’t going to find us in the desert.”
“Yeah, I didn’t think it would be a problem so fast.” Now I felt dumb for telling Frankie to come get us. I’d complicated things.
He ran a hand through his hair, thinking. “So we’re going to bust Lilli out tonight and I’m going to deal with Frankie once and for all.”
I was too experienced now to be anything but scared at the idea of running some kind of guerilla operation against a mobster. In the movies, it’s exciting. In real life, you felt the aches and bruises, you knew your life was on the line. There’s no stunt double, no happy ending, just risk and bullets.
God, I didn’t even know how to shoot a gun.
Would I even have time to learn?
Blake began to pull on his clothes. “Get dressed. We’re going to meet up with the team and try to get Lilli out before dawn.”
“Team?” I echoed. “There’s a team? I thought you didn’t want to call anyone?”
“I’m not. I’m pretending to be someone else.”
“You couldn’t do that in the desert?” My hand itched to smack him.
He gave me an impatient look. “I wanted to walk out of the desert, remember? That was the lowest risk scenario and we didn’t need rescuing.”
I fumed, but held my tongue. The truth was, I’d cost us valuable time with the way I handled Frankie. In hindsight, I had to admit Blake had been right about involving other people. So much for my good instincts. “I made everything worse, didn’t I?”
Blake gave a non-committal shrug. “My definition of making things worse means they can’t be fixed. This is still manageable. We aren’t out of options.” He slipped on his shoes. “I made some calls while you were taking a bath. I’ve got a crew ready to run. I told them this would go down tomorrow, but we can’t wait that long.”
“No thanks to me,” I muttered darkly. Now my hand itched to hit me. I would never forgive myself if I got us all killed.
***
We took a taxi to an industrial area on the outskirts of the city. Blake knocked three times on the door of a small warehouse. The door opened silently and we stepped inside. A short, stocky man with ebony skin, motioned for us to follow him, leading us to the warehouse office.
The team Blake assembled consisted of a half dozen sinewy but short Moroccoans. Compared to the muscle-bound men that had accompanied us to the Sahara, these guys were toothpicks. They had guns, but I doubted they could fire them without being knocked over. I was taller and bigger than these guys.
They jumped to their feet at our appearance, muttering excitedly amongst themselves and flashing bright smiles. One of them waved toward a row of weapons lying on a long table.
I gave Blake a questioning look. “They seem happy to see you. How well do you know these guys?”
He shrugged. “I know them, they know me. Well,” he corrected, “they know the me I say I am. We go way back. I can trust them.”
“To do what?” I murmured.
“To have our backs,” he said. Then he addressed the men in French or Arabic, or a mix of the two--it was hard to tell as he spoke faster than ever. He surveyed the weapons they’d assembled; a grenade launcher, some automatic weapons and a bunch of chemicals and wires.
“What’s this for?” I lifted a jug containing a clear liquid.
He took it from me and set it back down on the table. “Materials for IEDs.”
At my confused expression, he clarified, “Improvised explosive devices.”
“Bombs,” I whispered.
Blake nodded. “Bombs.”
Oh my God. I crossed my arms to keep my hands from shaking. “How are we going to get Lilli out? We can’t bomb her to freedom, we’ll kill her.”
He held up his hands. “Calm down.”
“Then tell me the plan.”
“We’re going to distract them with some weak explosives. Make it look like a breach from the front wall.” He pointed to a piece of paper laying next to a rifle.
I leaned in to look at it closer and found a crude sketch of a house surrounded by a fence. “This is where Frankie and Lilli are?”
Blake nodded. “He’s got a strong concrete fence covered with stucco around his house and a steel gate. And cameras as well as guards.”
“So no sneaking in.”
He shook his head. “Nope, so we’re going to flush them out, make them think all the danger is over here.” He pointed to the wall at the front of the house. “Meanwhile, back here,” he pointed to a smaller gate behind the house, “is where we’ll come in, grab Lilli and get out before he even knows what happened.”
“Misdirection,” I said, using the magic term. It had been trick after trick ever since I met Blake, it was nice to see one that worked in my favor for once.
“Exactly.” He smiled. “We’ll have everyone looking where we want them to so they don’t even see what’s really happening.”
“After we get Lilli out, then what?”
He picked up a set of car keys and set them jangling with a quick movement of his wrist. “You two take off and head straight to the embassy.”
I looked at the keys and then at Blake. “You want me to drive? In Morocco?” A picture of the crowded streets and the overloaded buses lumbering everywhere, half looking like they were about to tip over, came to mind. I’d avoided driving in New York City due to similar conditions and now I was going to make a run for it in Casablanca’s urban crush?
“The embassy is just a mile up the street. I think you can handle that.”
A mile didn’t sound bad so I nodded. “Yeah, I guess that’s doable. Where will you be?”
“This is where we part ways.” His expression grew somber and a heaviness filled his gaze, one of regret or sorrow. Blake took my elbow and pulled me into a small, private office, leaving the men to mill about and check their weapons one last time.
Shutting the office door to give us some privacy, he pulled me close. “This is our goodbye.”
“Already?” I blinked trying to process the farewell. I’d wanted to go home the second I woke up in Frankie’s private jet. Hell, I’d even planned to run away from Blake at one point, but now that the moment was here, goodbye didn’t sound so good.
“Yeah, this is it.” Blake gave me a crooked smile and hugged me tight. “I’m sorry I got you into this mess, but I’m not sorry we met.”
I hugged him back and inhaled his musky scent one last time. “I feel the same way, assuming we all get out of this alive.”
“You’ll be fine.”
“Will you?” I raised my head and searched his face.
He shrugged. “I’ve been fine so far. I doubt Frankie is going to give me any trouble.”
“Right. He’s the piranha and you’re the great white shark,” I said, echoing the comparison he’d made when he first found out about Frankie. “You’re going to swallow him whole.”
“That’s the plan.”
He kissed me then. The kind of kiss you feel in your toes, that makes your spine tingle and your core tighten. I ran my hands through his hair one last time and moaned when he nibbled my bottom lip. Blake was dangerous, we had no future, but the way he could turn me inside out with just a kiss was almost worth the risk. Almost, but not quite.
He pulled away after a minute and tucked my hair behind my ear. “Take care, Ruby.”
“Will I see you again?” I hated how tremulous my voice sounded, hated that I even asked.
His eyes grew dark with what I took as regret. “Maybe. I never know where the job will take me.”
“Well, don’t be a stranger.
” I traced his lips with a finger.
He wrapped his hand around mine. “So you wouldn’t be sorry to see me again?”
“No, but,” I gave a small laugh, “just make sure you’re not on a bunch of criminals’ shit lists next time. It’s been fun, but not a trip I would take twice, you know?”
“Duly noted.” He kissed my knuckles.
“Thanks, Blake,” I said somberly.
“For what?” He snorted. “All I’ve been is trouble.” He looked upset, not with me, but himself.
“You kept me alive. You kept me sane and...” I hesitated, nervous. “And you loved me.”
Blake cupped my cheek in his hand. “You did the same for me.”
Someone shouted for Blake and he stiffened at the sound. With one last caress of my cheek, he went to answer them, which gave me a moment to wipe the tears from my eyes. Damned if I still didn’t carry a torch for the guy. My feelings angered me. I didn’t want regrets. I didn’t want to miss him, but it didn’t look like I would have a choice. We’d gone too far, been through too much for him to mean nothing. If I was honest with myself, he was everything, but I had to let him go. For his sake and mine.
“Ruby,” Blake called. “It’s go time.”
I squared my shoulders, sucked up my tears and went out to make this international action adventure thing my bitch and find my way home once and for all.
Chapter Nineteen
We took two vehicles to Frankie’s house. Blake and I in a dilapidated Jeep, which I would later use to drive Lilli and I to safety. The other, a dented, rusty Range Rover, which held everyone else on the team.
Blake turned off the headlights as we neared our destination and the Range Rover behind us followed suit. “We’re going to drive round back and wait for Lilli.”
“Wait?” I narrowed my eyes. “Don’t you have to go in and get her?”
He concentrated on his driving for a moment, navigating around a particularly large pothole. The houses were big out this way. Through palm tree fronds, I caught glimpses of ostentatious mansions. Thick, concrete walls guarded the huge houses and steel gates blocked driveways.