by Delta James
“Avery’s going to be pissed she didn’t get him,” someone said.
In a not so quiet whisper, another said, “I think that’s his sister, so…”
That was the last mention anyone made of Fariq, at least within her hearing. If anything, that made her feel even worse.
“Wait,” she protested as she was being carried up a set of rickety wooden stairs out of the cold cellar. Christian was only just now being helped through the door by the two men, half-supporting him and half-carrying him. He was limping, heavily favoring the leg Fariq had burned from just above the inside of his knee, up the slope of his muscular thigh, almost to his cock.
“Fuck, that hurts,” he gasped, arching his back when the electric burns on his ribs scraped the other men’s flak gear.
“Suck it up, come on. Right foot, left foot. We’ll get you a sheet when we get upstairs. Come on, buddy.”
“Bet he didn’t complain half this much while it was happening.”
“Leave him alone,” she said and would have shoved right out of the arms of the man carrying her up the stairs if only he hadn’t stopped and dropped her feet to the floor.
“Settle down, Aliya,” the man told her, the unexpected authority in his tone raising every hackle she had.
Done with pain, guilt, and men who demanded she obey them, she slapped the side of his flak helmet as hard as she could. If he hadn’t had it strapped on, she’d have knocked it off. As it was, it hurt her palm far more than it did him, but he still jerked back to save his ear. She shoved him backward into the stairway wall and nearly fell down the stairs when her knees buckled. Her rescuer recovered from the ineffective—utterly, pathetically ineffective; her eyes burned with unshed tears—blow and caught her arm. He didn’t pick her up this time, yanking her back in close to his side.
“Do not,” he warned, “do that again, little girl.”
“Be nice, Princess,” Christian wearily told her, taking each step as far as the bottom of the stairs with a heavy limp. “They’re just trying to help.”
“We also hit back,” the one holding her warned.
“Only if you want to have a problem,” Christian shot back. “No one disciplines my woman except me.” Tired took a backseat to possessiveness. He couldn’t walk any better than she could, but he still stared the other man down, daring him to put that assessment to the test.
“I don’t even like you,” the guy holding her arm muttered.
“You don’t have to,” one of his own men said. “I also think she’s been hit enough, so cut her some slack, okay?”
The guy holding her arm looked from her to her shoulder. The belt bruise that wrapped there was just another reminder of how powerless she was. Adjusting her sheet, she swaddled herself, so no one could see her marks.
“Don’t help me,” she said when he reached for her arm. Avoiding his hand, she grabbed the rickety rail with both hands and made herself go up the stairs by herself.
“Princess,” Christian called after her, the censuring disapproval in his tone following in her wake. He only said it once, but she felt the weight of it with every shaky step she took until, at last, she reached the top.
There were three men in the kitchen on their hands and knees and two standing over them with rifles when she pushed open the cellar door and shuffled out of the darkness into the well-lit room. She recognized the two who had held her down for the doctor. The third had a red face and bruised throat and gave her little more than a surly side-eyed glare as she shuffled past him on her way to the door.
Their ride had arrived. She could hear the rhythmic whoop-whoop-whoop of helicopter blades whirling just outside.
“Take a seat until we’re ready to load up,” one tried to tell her, but she kept going, shuffling on her shaky legs outside.
“I got her,” the guy behind her said. Combat rifle slung over his shoulder, he sauntered after her, slowing his speed to keep pace with her as she crossed the cobblestone courtyard, following the sound of the idling helicopter.
The pilot gave her a double-take when she staggered up to the rescue vehicle. No doubt she allowed it only because of the guy trailing along behind her, but Aliya didn’t care. All she wanted was a place to collapse, where she could make herself as small as possible and not have to move again until they were as far from here as the pilot planned to go.
“Don’t help me,” she said when the guy behind her tried to offer her a hand up into the open back.
Hands up in surrender, he stepped away again. Reaching up, she grabbed the hand bar, making her wounded back stretch and bunch. It hurt but nowhere near as much as the uselessness of her struggles. No matter how she heaved, she couldn’t lift herself into the chopper.
“Don’t,” she said when her silent, knowing companion again tried to help her, but it had taken so much time for her to walk here from the house, whatever had been the holdup at the house was finished. The rest of the party was out of the house and crossing the courtyard toward them, a line of three prisoners in their midst, Fariq’s body in a sheet over one of their shoulders, and Christian, with a sheet wrapped around his waist and bandages on his ribs, limping along with his arm around another guy’s shoulders.
She couldn’t lift herself up, and in less than a minute, they’d reach the chopper, at which point, she’d be holding everyone up.
“Take my hand.”
Looking up into the sympathetic face of the female pilot, Aliya stared next at the woman’s outstretched hand. A failure all the way to her soul, she gave up and let herself be lifted into the chopper. Given a seat, Aliya had nothing left with which to complain as she was buckled in.
“I’ll get you back to the base as fast as I can.” Tearing open a packet of wet wipes, the pilot handed it to her. “For your face,” she said hesitantly.
Aliya held the wet wipes, but she didn’t use them. She looked out the window instead, waiting as the man who’d escorted her sat down on the seat beside her, feeling every jostle of the vehicle as another person climbed onboard.
The prisoners were cuffed in the back. So was Christian, although cuffing him seemed more of a token effort on their part than out of any real desire to restrain him.
“Sorry,” the rescue leader even apologized. “You’ve got a date with the General, and we promised him, this time, you won’t get away.”
“Everyone pays a price for what they do.” Settling back in his seat with a sigh, Christian closed his eyes as if he didn’t even care that he faced the full ramifications of her brother’s crimes.
And there was nothing she could do to help him. She wasn’t her brother. She didn’t have his contacts.
She blinked as the doors were closed, and as the helicopter began to lift off the ground, her unfocused stare suddenly sharpening.
No, she didn’t have her brother’s contacts, but over the years, she had met a few of them, some in person, some through their attachés. Some had sent her gifts at Christmas, especially the year she turned eighteen. She even remembered who some of them were. After all, her brother had been a powerful businessman. It only made sense he’d know—and do business with—other powerful people. Glancing at the man beside her, she watched him texting on his cellphone, and hesitantly, she got his attention.
“Is there a phone I can use?”
He glanced at her. “In the back. Wait.” He stopped her from getting up, and glancing into the back of the chopper, where two of his men were keeping a close eye on the three prisoners, he ended his text. Closing the program, he opened the phone app and handed it to her. “Here. I don’t mind.”
She took it. There was no such thing as privacy in a helicopter, but there was—God bless the makers of Sikorsky—a lavatory.
“Where are you going?” he asked when she started to unbuckle herself.
“To the bathroom, so I can make my phone call without you stopping me,” she said bluntly, casting off the seatbelt and standing.
A strong woman would have swallowed the pain and s
talked past him, nose high with righteous confidence. Aliya could barely get her feet to obey her. Her balance felt off, and when she stood, her head spun. Grabbing for the back of her seat, she missed, catching his shoulder instead. He caught her, his hand igniting dull throbs of heat on her hip that wrapped all the way around her.
“I’m fine,” she said, pulling away.
He all but rolled his eyes and promptly threw off his seatbelt as well.
“What is it about women that they have to say that when they are so clearly not fine?”
She turned on him. “I don’t need help walking,” she snapped. “I don’t need help to make a phone call or going to the bathroom, either! I don’t need anyone’s help to take care of myself.” Her voice cracked. “So just let me do it!” She could feel the burning weight of everyone looking at her, even Christian, who lifted his head off the back of his seat to watch her.
“Princess…”
God, that tone. That was his ‘what are you doing, don’t make me come over there’ tone, which both saddened and infuriated her.
“You’re just as hurt as I am,” she snapped back. “You’re also handcuffed to your chair. Clearly, I don’t need your help, either!”
He didn’t move, apart from the slow hardening of his expression.
“Right.”
That single word quivered in her stomach, killing her anger and leaving her awash in nothing but embarrassment. She regretted her outburst, but apologies at this point were every bit as worthless as she was.
“Thank you for letting me use your phone,” she told the Mustang man, dropping her gaze to the floor, so she wouldn’t have to look at either one of them. “I’ll be right back.”
The bathroom was less than ten feet away from her seat, but her legs were so shaky, it took forever to shuffle her way to it without losing her balance. The Wild Mustang men moved their feet for her—hell, even a prisoner shifted away to lessen her chances of tripping. By the time she got to the bathroom, all she felt was unbearable mortification eating at her and the sting of the tears she refused to cry where anyone could see her.
Slipping into the tiny closet of a bathroom, she took a moment to compose herself. She washed her face until the threat of tears had receded, and she thought she could speak without sounding watery and weak. She dialed.
There was no way she could call the man she needed directly, but the operator put her through to his attaché’s secretary, who put her through to his voicemail since he was on another call.
“You may not remember me,” she began by way of a greeting, “but you brought me the loveliest present for my twenty-first birthday last year when your boss and my brother were trying to hash out their… business arrangement, regarding the summer games and certain funds which were funneled away from said games and into alternate business accounts. Christian Reid will have a full pardon in the next twenty-four hours, or my next phone call won’t be anywhere near this private. Tell your boss good luck with his upcoming election.”
She hung up, dropping the phone next to the sink she leaned on, trying to still the sudden racing of her heart and the dizziness in her head. She felt dirty. She’d thought she would feel better, but maybe that would come when—if—the attaché reviewed her message and passed it along.
What if he didn’t? Hers was every bit an empty threat, completely without any evidence to back it up. Who was she to be giving anyone ultimatums, except Aliya Abdal—she stared at herself in the mirror—sister to the world’s worst and now deceased villain?
Washing her face again, she unlocked the pocket door and slid it open, freezing in her tracks when she saw Christian, his hands braced to either side of the opening as he blocked her from leaving with his mostly naked body. No one could have ever worn an old bedsheet and fresh bandages better.
“What happened to your handcuffs?” she asked, startled.
Tsking, Christian pushed her half a step backward, so he could wedge himself into the bathroom with her.
“I said I had something to take care of, and Noah agreed.”
Sliding the pocket door shut, he locked it again, sealing them in together. The bathroom wasn’t anywhere near big enough for two people. He wedged against the sink, digging the edge of the counter into the small of her back, then cupped her ass in his hands, lifting her off the floor and dropping her to sit almost in the sink.
She gasped and winced, grabbing his shoulders for balance before she fell the short distance back into the mirror.
Bracing his hands flat on the counter on either side of her hips, he looked her squarely in the eyes.
“Go on,” he dared her.
She hugged the phone and the edges of her sheet tight around her.
“G-Go on, what?”
“You wanted my attention.”
Her chest rose and fell faster than normal, her heart racing. Was he angry with her? He didn’t look angry. His mouth was firm, but there was a quirk to one corner far closer to a smile than a frown, and she thought there might be hints of amusement locked somewhere deep in the blue of his eyes.
“N-No.” She shook her head. “I didn’t—”
“Bite my head off again,” he rephrased, the amusement drawing a little closer to the surface but that challenge still strong in his voice.
“Oh.”
His handsome mouth rounded in a silent echo of her reluctant comprehension.
“What’s going on with you, Princess?”
She hated this bathroom. Small as it was, there was no place for her to look away, and when she tried, he knuckled a finger under her chin and brought her back to his knowing eyes.
“Are you trying to be a double agent now?”
“Why would I?” She smacked his hand out from under her chin. “Obviously, I can’t do that any better than I can do anything else.”
Before she was done, he had the phone out of her hand. Cramped as the bathroom was, he heaved her off the sink, turned her around, and once more, she found herself shoved against the sink. Only this time, she was facing it, helpless to do anything but stare at their reflections as he pinned her to the tiny counter with his own hard body.
He glared at her reflection, minor notes of irritation joining the amusement she could see openly dancing in his eyes as he looked at her, first in the mirror, then directly. Shivers trembled her as she watched his gaze moving from her head to follow the falls of her hair down her shoulders to her back.
“Bare yourself,” he ordered.
Her nipples became instant pebbles, thrusting against the front of the sheet toga. Her jaw locked on the refusal that sprang up inside her, but not only could she not make herself say ‘no,’ in the end, she couldn’t stop her hands from obeying. She felt stupid, beyond ridiculous, a tiny bit wanton, and utterly desired from the moment she reluctantly pulled her sheet open and saw his gaze heat in the mirror.
Sweeping her long hair off her back and over her shoulder, he bent to press the softest kiss to her newly bared skin.
“You don’t have to do that.” She didn’t know how he could stand to. She couldn’t see her back, but she could feel it. Worse, she’d smelled it when she’d been stripped for the doctor to attend her. He’d given her a shot of antibiotics, and Fariq had ordered one of his men to scrub her back with alcohol and antiseptic, but that didn’t make her better. She was cut, a combination of raw and scabbed, a mottle of plum, blue, and yellow bruising, judging by what she could see of the marks Fariq’s belt had left where it had wrapped around her front. Her hair was unbrushed, and she needed a bath. There was nothing erotic in the way she looked, naked or not.
He kissed her again.
“You don’t have to,” she protested louder, her shoulder wanting to rise into the press of his lips while the rest of her tried to flinch away.
Combing his fingers through her hair, he caught a fistful of tangled blackness, forcing her head to the side, so she couldn’t help but watch when, without a word, he bent and kissed her shoulder again.
&n
bsp; “Stop.” She sounded breathless. Embarrassed, she tried to take back control of her head, but the minute she tried to pull from him, he reached around her and shoved his other hand down between her legs.
Her body stiffened with a jolt when he caught her clit between his fingers. Clamping her lips, she choked on the inadvertent gasp that tried to escape. Arching onto her tiptoes did nothing to relieve the intensity of his hold, and her squirming attempt died the instant her backside came into grinding contact with the bulge standing out strong against the thin sheet still wrapped around his waist.
His grip on her clit shifted, and she grabbed his wrist, trying to still the stroking of his fingers as he sought out the wetness of her body, redistributing it all over and the throbbing nub hidden within her folds.
“Stop,” she gasped, suddenly painfully aware of how tiny this bathroom was, how thin pocket doors could be, and how many men just outside knew they were in here together. The helicopter was loud—she was terrified she might be louder.
Drawing his hand back, he nipped the nape of her neck, even as he gave her pussy a gentle slap.
“Do you tell me to stop?”
“N-No.” She panted. The wetness of her body flowed, flooding heat and slick arousal to saturate his fingers as he combed through her folds to sink twin fingers inside her. Her hips flinched, grinding her bottom back against him, desperate circling flinches that only kicked the heat up hotter—in her back, her womb, the tips of her aching nipples—as every other part of her ached and pulsed to gain some of the same attention he was laving on her pussy. Her clit was under his thumb, his fingers were inside her, stroking her in slow, deep caresses, while his fist in her hair prevented her from pulling away, and his teeth and lips nibbled a gentle path to the lobe of her exposed ear.
He was going to go to prison.
Aliya began to cry.
The phone on the counter by her hip buzzed to the ring of an incoming phone call, but she couldn’t have cared less. The minute Christian let go of her hair, she squeezed around in the tiny space, throwing her arms around his neck, desperate to meet the heat and hunger of his mouth as he kissed her.