Didn't I Warn You (20 page)

We rolled to the side, but he didn’t leave me. Didn’t pull out or withdraw.

“I’ll come for you,” he said against my cheek.

I breathed in, tasting us. The scent of our sex. Maybe even the glow of our love tingled on my tongue. “What?”

“In five months.” He moved his face, dragging the blunt tip of his nose over my cheekbone to rest against the button of my nose. “I’ll come for you in five months.”

I clamped my teeth together. Shut down the tears that threatened to choke words.

He’s going to come back for me.

He wasn’t going to leave me. Wasn’t going to send me away.

He was mine—my man—my lover—my soul mate.

I nodded but couldn’t hold the tears back.

“Can you do that—wait, have faith for five months?”

I laid my palm on his jaw. “I’d wait five years.”

He kissed me, and I tasted my tears on his tongue.

TWENTY-FOUR

I
T
MUST
BE
a sin, surely, for anything to taste so good.

Haithem pushed the spoon between my lips. A spoon dripping with molten chocolate and cream. I chewed, gooey cake sticking to the top of my mouth.

Cream—lord, how I’d missed cream.

There was just never a good enough reason to eat cream. Bad enough that I ate the pastries, pies and cakes. I didn’t need the cream, as well. So I’d scrape off the delicious dairy.

You can’t have your cake and eat it, too.

He took another scoop from the bowl. Chocolate dribbled from the spoon and spattered on my neck. My mouth closed over the spoon. Haithem ducked and sucked the sauce off my skin.

I laughed and gripped his hair as his hot, wet tongue stroked me.

Almost as good as chocolate lava cake in bed.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think he loved my ass so much he’d decided to try to expand it. Not that such tactics were working. God love him, no matter how much sugar he lay on my tongue, he sweated it off me in bed.

But even with the most decadent things available, sometimes I still craved something clean and simple.

He held out another scoop.

I shook my head. The cake sat heavy in my belly. “My teeth are going to fall out if we keep this up. Tomorrow I want fruit for breakfast.”

He ate the scoop of lava cake, then dipped the spoon back into the bowl. “Fruit?”

“Yeah, those things that grow on trees and bushes,” I said, watching him finish the cake. “Berries and mangos go good with yogurt.”

“Yogurt.” He glanced at me with a look as though he’d sniffed something bad. His gaze trailed down to where my robe opened on my thigh, and he smiled. “I’ll concede berries and whipped cream.”

“Deal.” I laughed, then reached for the coffee on the bedside table. The rich foam stuck to my top lip.

I licked it off.

This cappuccino wasn’t skim.

I still drank the coffee. I’d spent too much of my life worrying about getting fat, knowing I was a little predisposed to roundness. Yet with Haithem—who, when I’d first met him, had seemed all things shallow and vain—I’d found something that extended beyond the physical.

As much as I adored his face, there was so much more to enthrall me now. I set down the cappuccino. I didn’t need him to be beautiful. I didn’t need yachts, helicopter home delivery or dessert disguised as breakfasts.

I’d take him and me alone in a room, any room, any hovel, if it meant us being together.

Haithem sucked chocolate off the side of his thumb. My gaze followed his lips.

The blast of a horn sounded outside the cabin. I slid my legs off the bed, went to the window and drew back the curtain.

My hand paused midway.

Buildings and skyscrapers filled the horizon. The sea swarmed with boats, ships and yachts like bees returning to the hive.

I dropped the curtain and turned to Haithem.

He lay on his back. The sheet pooled around his waist.

“I thought we still had five days?”

“We do.” He put an arm behind his head. “We’re stopping for supplies.”

The knots twisting up my insides loosened. I walked to the bed and sat next to him. “Are we getting off for a while?”

“No.” He said it fast, then took my hand. “In fact, until we’re done, it’s best we both remain indoors.”

I frowned. “Seriously?”

“Seriously.” He had his old Haithem face on. The one that reminded me there were parts of him I didn’t understand but still trusted.

I exhaled. “Where are we, anyway?”

“Malaysia.” He let go of my hand.

I stared at him. Perhaps I’d misheard?
Malaysia?
He reclined so casually, biceps bulging next to his head.
Nothing strange going on here.
Except now I knew him. Knew the way his mouth flatlined when he held things in. I drifted off the bed and returned to the window, this time sweeping the curtain wide.

The landscape hit me like a strange spice.

The sheer scale of the buildings in the distance. How foreign. The subtle differences in the lines and curves of the cityscape, like an architectural accent.

“How do we get home from Malaysia?” My heart padded in my chest like two sets of little feet. “I don’t even have a passport.”

Haithem sat up and patted the mattress next to him. The sheet dipped, revealing dark pubic hair. Tension flowed into my pelvis. As always, I couldn’t resist his summons. Questions screaming in my head lost their volume.

I went to the bed and sat next to him.

He took my face in both hands. “Angelina, I said I’d get you home. I’ll get you home.”

His hands radiated heat into my skull and closed my peripheral vision.

“How?”

“Private plane. Then a domestic flight.” His thumbs brushed my cheeks. “It’ll be fine. It’s done, organized.”

He kissed me.

I leaned into the touch of his lips. He pushed his tongue into my mouth, covered my ears, and his face filled my vision until nothing remained outside of this.

He let me go, and I rested beside him.

“I’ve never been outside of Melbourne before...”

Now I lay in a yacht in the Malaysian sea, not even knowing where we’d headed—ready to sneak back into my own homeland.

There had to be a crime in there somewhere.

I’d gone from breaking curfew to breaking federal law.

“One day, Angel, you’re going to see the world the way you deserve to.” He pushed hair behind my ear. “And I’m going to be the one to show you.”

I tipped back my head and looked at him. Searched his serious gaze.

Cake filled my stomach like stones, the cream now surely curdled.

He’d show me when he came for me. After leaving for five months to do whatever he was doing. The thought somehow disturbed me so much more than the idea of breaking the law.

I missed him already.

Felt that gnawing emptiness of impending loss all the way down to my toenails. I balled my hand against his chest. Wished I had invisible claws to sink into him, to keep us together.

Five months without him—how would I survive that?

Haithem

Angelina slept against my side. Her breath caught on a snort. A smile made its way up one side of my face.

Perhaps I should tell her she snores?

Then I could watch the fire light behind her eyes, woo her all over again. So fun to tease her—maybe because she bit back.

She rubbed her cheek against my chest. I ran my hands down her back, then over the full, round peach of her ass. Her skin was soft as a fruit.

I could eat her.

Perhaps, in the end, I would.

A knock tapped outside. I extracted myself from the bed, shoving feet into pants from the floor and scooping up a shirt. I opened the door then slipped outside. Emilio’s face greeted me, mouth a pinch. He didn’t need to speak. I followed him downstairs, halting halfway, looking out at the bobbing sea.

We’ve stopped.

I did the final button on my shirt and took the remaining stairs in a few strides. Karim waited in the bridge, papers spread across a table.

He glanced up. “I warned you she’d be no good for us.”

My limbs went stiff. I approached the table. The sight sent a heart-slam of vision-blurring blood to my head. Everything went bright. I stared at the pictures.

It couldn’t be.

“
You swore when you made this decision against my advice that you’d do what had to be done.”

No.

When shit hit the fan in my life, it tended to go atomically explosive. I’d always been able to pick myself up, even from the worst.

There’d be no way back from this.

A burn gnawed in my guts. “I can’t.”

Our gazes locked like horns. The deference that had always been there from him to me wavered.

“How many people had to die for our purpose?” Karim drove his palms onto the table. “Would you risk it all for a girl?”

Adrenaline burst into my hands. With a shout, I grabbed the edge of the table and flung. Karim leaped back. The table flipped, hitting the ground with a floor-rattling bang. Pictures scattered the floor.

I stepped through the debris. “I can’t.”

“You won’t,” he spat, then left the bridge.

Emilio stepped aside to let him pass.

My fingers pumped. My mind fought with my body. Fought the urge to tear the yacht apart.

“Sir,” Emilio said. “Which way do we go?”

Broken promises.

Lies.

I’d pay for them all and more. Because with one piece of news, my well-laid plans amounted to nothing. Good intentions dissolved into sea foam.

“I don’t know.”

Falling in love came with a dreadful price.

* * *

I
RUBBED
SUNSCREEN
up my leg, swiped it across my thigh and glanced over my shoulder. Haithem sat on a large cushioned deck chair, staring out into the water as though he were reading code from the waves. I swapped legs, pumped cream into my palm, put my other foot up on the railing and leaned down to my foot.

The narrow briefs of my bikini shifted on my bent backside, narrowing dangerously toward a wedgie.

I looked back.

Haithem tapped his fingers on the wicker arm of the deck chair, gaze still drifting outside the yacht. I dropped my foot. He’d been quiet since yesterday.
Distracted
. Even from me. And if my wedgie bikini ass didn’t get a reaction, then frankly, that scared me.

I wiped my hands on the towel I’d hung over the railing and went over to him. He glanced up, rested his chin between his thumb and forefinger. I stood in front of him, then reached behind me, undid the clasp on my bikini and slid it off my shoulders. I tossed it on the ground beside him.

His smile crept up one cheek. I rested a knee in the gap between his waist and the chair, then pulled myself up and squeezed my other knee into the other side. I ran my palm around the back of his neck and pulled his face to my chest.

He pressed his face between my breasts. Took long, deep breaths from my skin. He cupped my breasts, one in each hand, and nuzzled. I stroked his hair and pushed my chest out, let him have them.

If you could bottle this, it’d outperform any prescription pharmaceutical, I’m sure. He pinched my nipple, rolled his tongue over the other. My head fell back. He sucked me, licked me, teased me, enjoyed me.

My need for oxygen increased, but each breath pushed my breasts deeper into his mouth. I’d done this for him, yet now the place between
my
thighs ached. Now I was the one who needed help.

I didn’t seek it, though, just gripped his hair and let him feast on my chest. Kept my hips still when they wanted to rock. Squeezed the muscles of my empty, aching pussy. He reached his hand between my legs, pushed aside my briefs and sank his first two fingers inside me and his thumb against my clit.

My back arched.

I looked down. Got an eyeful of Haithem suckling from my tit while gazing up at me. My abdomen contracted, muscles winding tighter and tenser.

I’d tamed a lion.

Trusted it enough to let it eat from my hand.

He pumped me. I clamped my teeth on my lower lip to keep sounds in. He pulled his fingers out and gripped the crotch of my bikini bottoms with both hands. Tore them at the seams. He really did enjoy breaking things—especially my underwear.

I reached down and opened his pants. His cock sprang out. I grasped his thick length, rubbed him against me. He slipped in my juices so perfectly.

I sank onto him.

One inch—another.

My walls strained.

I gripped his shoulder, then stopped. Breathed hard, unable to move.

“I’m stuck.”

Haithem laughed. His body vibrated, and his cock jerked in me, slid in another fraction.

I gasped, my spine stiffening.

“You are not stuck.”

I held his other shoulder and shook my head. “I am a human shish kebab.”

“You’ve just never been in control before,” he said, and leaned back against the chair, sliding his hips forward. He held my waist. “You’re not stuck. You can take more than you think.”

He rocked gently, changed the pressure inside me until I adjusted—until I felt myself give—and I slid down completely.

I breathed deep, my stomach filling as well as my chest. Tried to breathe around the invasion, then moved.

Just a little. A sway forward then back.

Then more.

Circular rotations.

Continuous sensation.

Pelvis forward, he pressed against that spot, rolling up—sweet, maddening friction, hips back and down, then breathtaking fullness. And again. And again.

Momentum
.

My skin warmed around me. Forward, up, back, down. Pressure, friction, fullness.

His open zipper scraped my ass, grazed my skin, and still I ground against him hard as I could. Took him all in. Tried to keep myself together when a frenzy bubbled through my system.

His head fell back, his chest rose and his abs tightened.

I watched him and moved. Pressed my hands against his stomach and rode him.

He groaned, breathing faster.

I’d never doubted how much he enjoyed fucking me, but I’d never seen him take pleasure like this. Never seen him give in—surrender himself to me.

An orgasm built, but I held it back, pushed it down. I wouldn’t let anything distract me from this moment.

The thighs under mine stiffened, and I slammed myself onto his cock. He lunged forward, wrapped his arms around me, buried his face in my neck and a fist in my hair. I held him, rocked my hips, pleasure rippling through my core.

He made gruff noises against my throat.

Vibrations shivered into my blood.

His grip on me relaxed, but he still held me, still rested his face in my neck.

I laughed, softly then louder, joy cascading over me.

He groaned and grasped my hips. “Are you trying to kill me?”

I laughed again. Knew my muscles contracted around him when I did. He looked at me with the face of a man who had just awoken from a deep sleep. I kissed him.