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“When? How?” she whispered. “I don’t have anything to give to NA?—”
He shook his head as he dressed.
“Doesn’t matter. Your time as a spy is done. You’re out, and I won’t be far behind you. Behave yourself.”
He started to climb the makeshift rope, gathering and pulling up the end behind him as he went. His feet had just disappeared when a sharp knock on her door punched through the middle of her, seizing her stomach and her heart in its panicky hold. Grabbing her nightgown, she whipped it over her head and yanked up the bedclothes. The loss of his presence was appallingly acute. She wished that was her, being yanked to safety over the stone rail of his balcony two floors up. She’d known he wasn’t the same kind of monster as her brother. She’d seen it in the way the muscle in his jaw had ticked.
Her door opened, without an answering hail from her, and in walked her brother, casually dressed in dark pants and white business shirt, unbuttoned at the collar, with the sleeves rolled up as far as his elbows.
“I’m sorry,” he apologized, his dark eyes sweeping her empty bedroom. “I was about to knock when I thought I heard you talking to someone.”
“Just to myself,” she lied breathlessly, coming in from the balcony in the hopes he wouldn’t feel inclined to step outside, and she wouldn’t inadvertently give Christian away by stupidly looking up. “I was just… thinking out loud.”
“About?” Stalking her across the room, he stopped just shy of both her and the balcony threshold but did not step outside.
“Everything that’s happened.” As far as reasons went that both felt like the limpest and useless answer she could give, but the most plausible. They’d just been attacked at sea. Their ship had sunk, he’d murdered people in cold blood, and they’d been rescued by helicopter. If anything gave someone the right to talk to themselves, wasn’t that enough? Frankly, he ought to be glad she wasn’t also replying and/or arguing with herself.
“Mmm, all of it necessary, I assure you.” His gaze slipped past her, sweeping what he could see of the very small balcony behind her before drifting out to sea. “Beautiful,” he murmured,touching her shoulder to turn her back to face the sunset. She tried not to shiver as his hands settled on her shoulders and the brush of his breath prickled through the fine hairs on the back of her neck. “Everything, it seems, is more lovely in Marshan. Would you like to go out with me?”
Turning, she stared up at him, sick to her stomach and hoping like hell she didn’t show it.
“I’m sorry?”
“Out,” he repeated. “You and me. Would you like to step out of this room? They have lovely gardens here, fountains, though I see you’ve already met the water lilies.”
Stunned, only now because of where her mind had automatically jumped when he’d said it, she was even slower to comprehend what he meant by that.
“Water… wh-what?”
Tipping his head, he deliberately looked to something on the floor behind her, and her stomach sank again. The flower Christian had dropped on her. She turned and stared at it while her brother turned his all too perceptive stare back on her.
“Oh,” she said faintly. “That.”
“Mmm,” he said again. Nudging her aside, he checked the balcony corners to either side of the door before he stepped out any further. He bent and picked up the flower, turning it on its short stem between his fingers. “Beware of Spanish men. They’re only out to steal your innocence.” Easing out of the open balcony doorway, he turned back to her, the lily still in his hand. “You are still innocent, aren’t you?”
Her heart in her throat, Aliya stood rooted where she was as he came back to her.
“Wh-What do you think me guilty of?”
His face didn’t soften, but after a moment, his smile did broaden.
“Not quite the question I was asking, my dear, but it’ll do.”
Tucking the flower into her hair behind her ear, he cupped her cheek.
Don’t kiss me. Don’t kiss me. Don’t?—
His thumb caressing the curve of her cheek, he leaned in and pressed his lips to the soft skin of her forehead.
Her breath caught as her knees wobbled. Every nerve inside her cried out to break away, but she couldn’t make herself move. Not even when he pulled back, but only far enough for his gaze to wander her features before he leaned in again. Only this time, his mouth aimed lower than her forehead. Her skin crawled as he pressed another kiss to the cheek opposite the one his thumb was stroking. Shivers wracked her as he moved lower skill, stroking along the line of her jaw with his lips.
“Stop.”
Her knee almost buckled, and when he snaked his arm around her waist, trying to draw her closer, all she felt was the electrified prickling dread that accompanied her fast-rising panic over where this abomination might be going. “Fariq...” She tried to pull away until his fingers combed up the back of her head to fist in her hair, holding her tight and steady. “Fariq!”
He kissed her mouth.
Her body stiffened at the unpleasant assault. Grabbing onto his shoulders, she shoved to break out of his grip as hard as she could but barely budged him. The pull on her hair was incidental, painful, but hardly worth noting once she felt the unmistakable bulge of her brother’s cock, prodding against her hip.
