Turkish Delights Series (32 page)

This story is one of things once beautiful, thought ruined, then revived thanks to the love of many.

Glossary
:

Mas Allah
(Mosh Ah-lah): My God

Erkek Arkadas
(Air-kek Ark-a-dosh): Boyfriend

Anne
(Ah-nay): Mother

Baba
: Father

Buyuk Anne
(Boo-yook Ah-nay): Grandmother

Evet
: yes

Seni Seviyorum
: I love you

Prologue

The light. It never, ever, went out. Tarkan lived with its yellow, sickly fluorescence, night and day, day and night. As if he even knew if it were night or day, if he were on Earth or Mars, gone to heaven or drowning in the yawning depths of hell, or somewhere in between. Hell seemed the most likely.

He rolled over on the thin blanket that he’d called home for however long he’d inhabited this particular corner of Hades and blinked, ran a hand over his face. Coped with the familiar combination of simultaneously needing to piss and wanting a drink of water for the millionth time. Of wanting a toothbrush, a real cup of coffee, and the feel of the sun on his skin so badly he could cry, if he had anything left in him to shed tears with. But instead of seeming old, the sick familiarity galvanized him in some perverse way. He wanted to live. So he took a breath and prepared to face yet another day of achieving exactly that.

“Beloved?”

The soft voice made him smile. His body reacted, in a wholly Pavlovian fashion, hardening, skin pebbling, brain fuzzing, as he went into fight or fuck mode. He had fought for his life for a long, long time. And in doing so, had found an ally in this sick hole he’d inhabited for Allah knew how long.

“Beloved. I am here. I…have what you asked for.”

Her softly accented Turkish was followed by a loud yell in the rough Kurdish cadence Tarkan had associated with his captors for so long. He’d been utterly alone for what he calculated had been nearly eighteen months, until the moment she had revealed herself as a “she” and had shyly handed him a bucket of lukewarm, rancid water and a thin cloth to finally cleanse himself with. His training taught him not to trust her. He knew damn well she’d been planted to seduce and then turn him. But at that point he’d been so broken, so lost and alone and desperate, he didn’t care anymore.

Her kindness became caring. Her caring became warmth. Then her warmth had become a physical connection Tarkan had clung to for the last months, desperate for something resembling normalcy. It anchored him. Got him through the daily torture sessions he had come to anticipate like they were on some sort of fucked up to-do list. As water was poured into his stomach with a rough tube, or his dental nerve endings prodded with sharp rusty objects, or loud rock music pounded his ears for hours at a time, he held on. Held on knowing at the end, she would be there. She would cradle his broken body, caress his now emaciated frame, and press her lush lips to his forehead, cheeks, and mouth. And for a few moments, he had someone on his side.

The hours all that time ago, perhaps even another lifetime, came at him in bits and pieces, broken by memories of his life before. He’d resumed his station at the national parliament building after bidding farewell to…to…ah, dear God, Caleb. Lately, memories of his tall, strong, beautiful American lover made him ache with longing. He’d fall asleep in tears and awaken to find himself still huddled in a ball on the thin blanket in the corner of the horrible room that had served as his home for the last nightmarish months. Caleb’s sparkling blue eyes, deep voice, contagious laughter, his strong back, large hands, and soft lips were more real than they’d ever been. Tarkan would hold out his arms and pretend Caleb was there, holding him. It kept him alive.

His captors had grabbed him about five minutes before the building he’d been guarding became reduced to ruins. He had fought them off long enough to race towards the main office, sustaining third-degree burns on his hand from grabbing the doorknob as the first of four bombs detonated. The terrorists had snatched him away from the carnage, dragged him from the wreckage before the second and third bombs had gone off. They stabbed him in the neck with something, immobilizing him. Now all he knew was this room. Thirst. Pain. Terror. And her.

***

“Beloved?” He croaked. The last forty-eight hours had been difficult. His captors had decided to blackmail his father for his release, realizing the futility of turning him, but had gotten a less-than-acceptable response. No big surprise, Tarkan surmised. His father would be hard pressed to believe his once-dead son was alive, and much less worth the equivalent of ten million U.S. dollars. After almost a month of being ignored and barely fed, their returned attention to him was an unwelcome resumption of the status quo of the last…what? Weeks? Months? His throat felt like it was lined with thorns, his body pummeled by fists, lead pipes, and what might as well have been a couch, or maybe a car, given the way he hurt right now. He tried not to groan. His plan neared completion. Only one element remained. “You have it? What I asked for?”

There was a shuffling, some loud shouts and then silence. Tarkan thought he might have passed out before he heard her again. He winced and pulled himself to a sitting position, trying not to spend much time cataloging the various alarming aches in his internal organs.

“Yes, my love. I do. Just as you asked.”

The door’s bolt lock shot open, and the ancient creak made its usual loud, ear-busting slide to the left. A small shadow crept in and slowly slid the door closed. Tarkan shut his eyes, marshaling every last ounce of strength left to him. He’d spent the hours he wasn’t staring at the dank, moldy walls and ceilings of his universe coming up with his escape plan. And the few moments of mild pleasure with her had cleared the fog from his mind, giving him clarity and purpose. Although the thought of leaving her made him physically ill. In the bizarre daily routine of his life for the last…how many months? Years? He’d become accustomed to its cadence in a twisted way. He opened his eyes, took a breath, as her scent hardened his cock in sickening anticipation.

“I had to do some terrible things. But I want us to be together forever…as you said. So here, and the man outside is gone, for a while. Let us go into the night as you said.” She held out an ancient looking pistol.

Tarkan bit his lip, tasted the blood of his own vile lie to her.

“Yes. My…my darling. Let me, let me kiss you once before…before we go.”

His shaking hand closed around the gun’s barrel as her lips covered his, familiar, and terrifying at the same time. He let his body lead, forced his brain to disengage. God help him. Her hand gripped his shaft, guided it into her warm, waiting body, and he moaned, calling out the name of his beloved, as his battered body experienced blessed relief and release.

“Shh…” she whispered as his hips bucked and he came inside her, shouting out for Caleb to help, to find him and rescue him. But he knew it was not to be. He had to rescue himself. Now. He fisted his hands in her hair. Pressed his lips to hers, and imagined the hard, beautiful body of his one true love above his. It was the only thing that had sustained him for this long, never-ending nightmare.

She caught her breath, and something metal pressed into his other hand. A key. “Go,” she whispered into his ear. “I release you.”

He leaned back. The terrible, awful, soul-sucking light turned her face a jaundiced yellow. But the dark pools of her huge eyes were shining. A tear ran from one, then the other. Tarkan’s heart sped up. “But, we must go. Together. As I said.”

She smiled and cradled his bearded face in her rough hands. “No. I was not going with you, ever, beloved.” She ran her tongue across his dry, cracked lips. Held him close. Panic took over, pierced him like a bolt of lightning. He had to go. Now. This was his one chance. But he froze, as his cock shrank and exited her body. She was letting him go? Like this, after months? Years? Of taking his essence, everything he had while the rest of him was beaten, starved, subjected to every manner of torture, sensory overload and deprivation and then ignored. As he’d been for at least a month until his captors decided to ask his father for money in exchange for his empty shell. He sighed and held her close. But she stood, releasing him, body and mind and soul.

“No!” He heard himself, saw his hand reach for her, sensed his heart contract, and his brain seize in terror. How could he function without her? How could he leave her here?

“Beloved.” Her voice was firm. “This is your moment. Go. And live again.”

She pulled him to his feet, helped him reassemble what passed for clothing, brushed his long length hair out of his eyes, and shoved him to the door. “Now! This is the time! Hurry! Before they return. Beloved, I will always be with you.”

Tarkan nodded on some kind of pain-addled, post-orgasmic autopilot. Faces he’d forced out of his mind for the last eons of time he’d been held flashed bright and real before his eyes—his parents, his twin, his little sister. Tarkan put a hand over his dry lips to hold back the sob that threatened.
Caleb
.

He jammed the key in the door, palmed the small gun, slipped out through an alarmingly narrow space, and moved down the quiet hall. The first real sunlight he’d encountered in God knows how long shot a spear of pain straight between his eyes. He stumbled into a strange courtyard, falling twice before locating a hand pump. He poured fresh water over his hands and filled his shrunken belly until he threw up, then filled it again, unaware of the tears that rolled down his face until he tasted the salt in the water he gulped.

Chapter One

The fact that Caleb had gone nearly nine months without the dream searing his sleeping nerve endings made its reappearance that much worse. The robed figure kept moving back, out of his reach. Screaming people raced around, getting in his way, keeping him from reaching the man who kept floating away. He followed the figure. He had to know. Familiar, dark-skinned hands stretched from the black recesses of the ugly brown cloth. Then they both burst into flames as Caleb reached out. The smell of human flesh frying was not something he’d ever smelled before, but he somehow knew it was this that made him want to gag and vomit.

He had to see Tarkan’s face for himself. Prove he was truly gone. He snatched the rough fabric away from the figure’s face, Tarkan’s name on his lips, tears clouding his vision. He saw him, his strong, handsome features, firm jaw, aquiline nose, and thick beautiful lips once, just long enough to scream his name before it turned—becoming a dark, evil face that laughed at him before disappearing in flames.

“No!” Caleb shot up in the pitch-black room, breathing heavy, his heart pounding. “Shit.” He ran a hand over his eyes, wiping away the wetness. Flopping back down on his damp pillow, he groaned. It was so vivid. The same exact dream he’d had, whenever he’d let himself go to sleep sober enough to remember dreams, for the past two years. His body clenched as if for a fight, his muscles tensed and ready to spring. He couldn’t get the sick taste of burning flesh out of his mouth. He sat back up and swung his feet to the floor, leaning on his knees to try and calm his racing pulse.

Water. That’s what he needed. His tongue seemed glued to the top of his mouth. He was familiar with this sensation. It had been a constant for him in the months after getting the news of Tarkan’s murder. His lover had been blown to smithereens along with his entire battalion of Turkish soldiers who’d been guarding the parliament building in Ankara. When you went to bed stone-cold drunk, you tended to wake with extreme cotton mouth. But he hadn’t done that since…. Caleb shook his head and stumbled into the bathroom. After gulping down what seemed like a gallon of water and pouring a couple of glasses of the stuff over his sweaty hair, he stared at himself in the mirror.

His skin was darker than usual, as he’d returned from three weeks in the south of Turkey. Days spent on the beach, reading, running, and sleeping had gone a long way towards restoring his equilibrium after the extreme emotional swings of the past few months. Nights in the arms of his lover, Adem, had done even more towards that goal. The two men had spent the entire eight weeks together after meeting on a 1Night Stand Blue Cruise in the Turkish Mediterranean back in Southern California. As Caleb coped with the traumatic aftermath of his friend Elle’s near brush with death during childbirth, Adem had stayed by his side. He’d spent a fair bit of their time in Turkey absent, the other parts edgy and pissed off, busy most days, re-establishing control over his successful restaurant on the Mediterranean coast so Caleb had a lot of time to make up for. But their nights had been spectacular, and his heart had continued its slow healing process. His return to the States had been hard, but he needed to get back to his life and his job as Elle’s personal assistant.

Ellery Kensington was his dearest friend and his boss. The CEO of the pharmaceutical company, where he’d worked for her for over ten years, was now back at work. Two healthy and beautiful children were at home with the nanny while her husband, Emre, worked as a new professor in the UCLA School of Business. Emre. Caleb shuddered as a sudden chill crawled down his spinal column at the thought of him. When he had discovered that his boss lady had the hots for Tarkan’s twin brother, it had been all fun and games—until those two had gone and fallen in love, married, and moved to California. He glared into his own bloodshot eyes. What was his problem? All was re-established as good in his world. While he’d never go a single day not missing his lover of nearly six years, he was happy, wasn’t he?

“Get a grip,” he growled at himself. After taking a leak and splashing yet more water on his face at the sink, he yanked on the boxer shorts he’d discarded on the floor in his haste to get at Adem’s body earlier. He smiled. Then frowned when he realized Adem was not in their bed. One glance at the glowing clock gave him the answer to the where-the-hell-did-he-go question. Four a.m. Which meant it was ten a.m. in France. Which meant Adem was on the phone yet again.