Captive- Veiled Desires (21 page)

Amy pulled onto her coat tightly as she walked briskly over to the coffee shop. Jake wanted to meet her there… but why? Did he find something?

She gripped the door handle of the café and pulled it open. Her eyes immediately caught her boyfriend seated at the back. A man with thinning hair and a beige trench coat sat across him. His back was turned towards her so she couldn’t tell who he was.

Jake lifted his eyes up at her and signaled her to come over.

“Amy,” he said. “I want you to meet Travis Mulholland.”

“The guy from the Overseas Citizen’s Service office?” she asked, dumbfounded to finally see the person who had wrecked her waking hours in the last few weeks.

The man gave a cursory glance about him. “I’m not Travis Mulholland.”

“Excuse me?” Jake asked, raising his brow.

“I mean, for you I am.” He licked his lips. “You don’t expect me to give you my real name, do you?”

Amy sat heavily beside Jake. “What is going on?”

“Where is Nora? Do you know anything about her at all?” Jake added.

“No…” He picked up a serviette and began dabbing at his sweaty brow. “I don’t know everything.” He hesitated. “You do know I could get into big trouble if they found out I am here with you. I’m never supposed to make contact with you.”

Jake smiled cunningly. “Well, you’re here now. And if you don’t start talking, we’re just gonna have to shout it out to the world. And guess what… I sneaked in a pic of you as well on my camera.”

The man’s face grew dark. “Like I said I can’t tell you everything. I don’t go too deep with the plans. I only handle the epidermis of the operation.”

“What operation?” Amy asked, her heart beating wildly, unsure now of what to make of the man.
He must be a nut job. He’s got to be insane if he expects us to believe that Nora was involved in some undercover operation.

He shook his head. “I can’t tell you that either.”

“Then what can you tell us?” Jake growled at him quietly.  He leaned closer to him. “Listen, we don’t care about the fucking operation your department’s doing. All we want is our friend, Nora.”

Travis grew quiet for a while. “Your friend isn’t in Kashmir. She’s in Afghanistan.”

“What?” Amy gasped, growing pale at once. “How… no… That isn’t possible.”

“She was smuggled through Pakistan and into Afghanistan by sex slave traders,” Travis continued.

“Then get her out of there!” Jake demanded, his eyes now dark with rage.

“It’s not possible!” Travis almost shouted back. “Don’t you understand? I told you, I barely know what goes deeper into the operations.”

“What… what operations?” Amy stammered with frustration. “What are you talking about? If this is not an operation about getting her out of there, then what sort of operation is it?”

“I… I don’t know,” Travis mumbled to himself. “All I know is that they’re investigating the matter. If they have made any decisions to rescue your friend, then I have no knowledge about it.”

Amy trembled, her lips shivering from the fear she was feeling for Nora.
She’s a sex slave? It’s not possible. Not Nora… not my Nora…

Jake put a palm over her tightly clasped hands. He then turned to Travis, a determined look on his face. “Help us find her then.”

The man looked at them for a long time as his fingers twiddled anxiously. “I can get you into Kashmir.”

“Afghanistan,” Jake said.

“Kashmir,” Travis said firmly. “And you follow Nora’s trail to Afghanistan.”

“Afghanistan,” Jake repeated stubbornly.

“I cannot do that.”

“Jake, no.” Amy shook her head profusely. “I can’t lose you too. You can’t go.”

“I can’t leave her there, Amy. Not when I know now where she is.”

“Then I’m coming with you,” Amy rasped.

“No, you won’t.”

“She’s my friend!” she almost shouted out aloud with anger.

“Ok, that’s enough!” Travis ordered. “No one is going anywhere, because it is almost impossible to get anyone into Afghanistan without raising suspicions.”

Jake grew quiet with thought, his lips now grim and tight. “Unless you’re a nurse or a journalist,” he said at last.

They arrived a little after midnight. The hum of their vehicle were the only sounds resonating through the stillness of the night.

The men disembarked from the car, giving their farewells as they returned to their rooms to wash and go to bed.

Adam watched after them for a while as they staggered back tiredly but happily away. It was just another day as a Pashtun warrior. He hung his head down, exhaustion suddenly seeping into his bones. When had he got just as comfortable with this life?

He glanced up at his room wondering if he should disturb her at this time of the night. There was no use stressing about it for so long, he sighed. His clothes were there and he was itching to have a bath.

He tread up the steps carefully and then opened the door as quietly as he could.

“You don’t need to creep in,” she said. “I’m awake.”

And in the dim light of a candle lamp, he saw her sitting by the window as she usually did.

“I didn’t want to bother you,” he muttered.

“You’ve got blood all over you,” she said. “What did you do? Murder the innocent?” She lifted her eyes and he immediately saw her rage in them.

“You think I’m so callous, do you?” He began unbuttoning his shirt, trying not to be affected by her opinion. “They were drug smugglers, if that pleases you a bit.” Truth was, what she thought of him did matter. And he didn’t know until now how much it would hurt to see her hatred for him in her eyes.

She rose out of her chair and walked over to him. He looked at her over his brows, wondering if she was going to argue with him. That lives were lives and such. That it wasn’t right to kill at all, regardless of the man’s sins.

She struck his cheek hard, taking him by utter surprise. What was she doing?! She beat against his chest repeatedly, pushing him and sobbing.

“Nora?”

“You said you weren’t coming back! How could you do that to me?! How could you say that?!”

Adam caught her flailing arms and tugged her roughly to him.

“Let me go! You’re a brute. You don’t care for no one but yourself!” she minced between her teeth as she writhed in his arms.

“Nora…”

“You just left me here… I didn’t know what to do…. Where you had gone… I hate you!”

She hates me
. Her words incensed him and he grabbed a fistful of her hair, forcing her to look up at him. Her face was stained with her tears and he could see now that she had been crying for a long time. Why? She was worried about him?

“I hate you,” she repeated harshly.

“No, you don’t,” he whispered, completely mesmerized by her eyes.

She froze, caught by his gaze. “I hate you,” she said again, as if she were trying to convince herself of her words.

“You don’t,” he muttered as he lowered his lips slowly over hers.

She caught her breath. “I do.”

He brushed his lips against hers, feeling the softness of it, caressing and shaping the outline of hers with his.

“You don’t,” he rasped almost inaudibly.

He caught her lips before she could continue to argue with him, moving his tongue into her mouth and teasing hers.

She wound her arms around his neck to pull herself up to him and he cupped her buttocks to inch her even tighter to him. His cock was hard and rigid, jutting against her belly. He groaned. He ached for her and he wanted more than just her belly.

He lifted her up and onto his hips. And she was more than willing to be carried, moaning delightfully at the pleasure his cock gave her as it throbbed more precisely against her pussy.

He carried her to their bed, losing his shirt on the way. He laid her on the bed, and pulled back as he looked at her, his eyes darkened with his passion and his breath heaving from his pent-up desire for her.

“Nora… are you sure?” He didn’t know if he had the power to stop himself if she said no. But she was pregnant and he wanted to be certain she would be okay.

She cupped her face and brought it close to hers, kissing his fully on the lips. He groaned. That was an adequate answer for all he cared.

He lifted her dress off her, admiring her body momentarily.
This is mine. She is mine.

He removed his pants and was now as bare as she was. Her gaze shifted down to his erection and she blushed. Did she like what she saw?

He lowered down and kissed her, his shaft slipping comfortably between her thighs. Her fingers caressed his torso and then scrolled down to his pelvis. How could she bring such ecstatic pleasure at the mere touch of her hand?

She bit her lips, shivering from the delirium he was causing her as he raked down her body to nuzzle her breasts, his stubbles pricking delightfully into her skin. His teeth nipped at the fleshly domes of her breasts and then sucked hungrily onto her nipples.

She bucked off the bed, her fingers threading through his hair.

“Adam...,” she moaned.

He moved further down her until he reached her hot, wet folds. A soft moan escaped her lips as he got his first taste of her. He found the throbbing pulse of her womanhood and he teased and taunted it with his tongue. Her pelvis jerked forward and she grabbed a cluster of his hair to press his face into her.

He gladly ran his tongue up and down her slit. Finally, when he tasted her orgasm on his tongue, his rose onto his knees and then pushed her legs wider apart.

“Nora, can you…?” he asked, his thumb pressing onto her clitoris. His mind was growing insane from his desire to have her, but he needed her to want him too.

She clasped his cock, giving it a short pump, not that he needed it, and urged him forward. He pressed the head of his shaft into her and he heard her pull in a sharp breath.  He filled her to the hilt and then began moving in and out of her. She worked in perfect unison, a deep and passionate rhythm he had never experienced with another woman before.

At last their bodies constricted as his orgasm exploded inside her. He fell with a shudder onto her breasts, still unwilling to pull out of her. She wrapped her arms around his head, caressing his hair.

She likes me here. I am safe here
. He closed his eyes, falling into a blissful sleep in the valley of her breasts.

HAPTER 17

She awoke with him gone. She swiped her hand to the side of the bed, feeling the coldness strike against the warmth of her palm. He had been gone a while, it seemed. Her heart sank, wishing he would have stayed in a little longer and cuddled her, like normal couples did.

She sighed and covered her face.
But we aren’t normal. I’m still in fucking Afghanistan. And I’m still his prisoner.

And he? Who was he? She began to pull off the covers when she realized she was still naked from their love making last night.

I’ve officially lost my mind
. She shook her head with disbelief. She cared for him, but did she love him?

The door swung open and she quickly pulled up the sheets to cover her breasts. Her heart thumped hard inside her. What if it was Adam? What would she do?

“
Khor?
”

Husna, she realized with disappointment.  A little part of her after all had hoped that it would have been Adam.

“Don’t come in, Husna,” she said aloud. “I need to dress.”

But the woman continued to barge in with her basket of clean laundry. “I bring clean clothes.”

“Husna, I told you I wasn’t decent,” she said, rolling her eyes.

Husna looked at her with a frown. “You make love last night?”

Nora blushed. “That is none of your business, Husna.”

The woman shrugged. “I not understand, that is all.”

Nora pulled her dress over her head hurriedly. “Is it uncommon for couples here to make love?” she remarked with slight irritation.

“No… common. But usually making love make man happy.”

Nora raised her brow. Was the woman implying she did a poor job at satisfying her husband?

“He looked very happy last night,” she grumbled under her breath.

Husna shook her head. “He growl at men in hall and then go into garage.”

“Yeah?” Nora muttered. She had learned long ago that he did tend to reserve himself to his garage whenever he was upset.

“I bring you breakfast and then help pack your clothes,” Husna said as she walked back towards the door.

Nora perked her ears. What did she say? “Why are you going to pack my clothes?”

“Adam
lala
say you going.”

“Going where?”

“Husna!” they heard a woman shout out for the young maid.

“I come back and tell you,” Husna said hurriedly, rushing out the door.

“Husna,” Nora urged.

“I come back. No worry,
khor
.”

Adam sat in his car in his garage. He had bought it at first as a back-up plan. He never could trust those who promised him an escape if he got caught.

He put his hands on the wheel and caressed it. He remembered the touch of her skin, her taste in his mouth… He sucked in a deep breath, growing hard at the mere memory of her rocking beneath him.

He swiped a hand over his face tiredly. And then she said his name again in her dreams.
Gary.
Was he the father of her baby? Is that why she couldn’t let go of him? Until she did, he would never be able to claim her heart. She was only growing attached to him like the way any man would grow fond of his dog.

He reached out to his glove box and pulled out the economics magazine. She could have taken her chance and escaped. He had practically handed it over to her. And a small part of him had hoped she would have. He hated seeing her depressed and shriveling by that stupid window.

But a large part of him… that large fucking selfish part of him… never wanted her to leave his side. There must be a way he could return some life into her.

“Is something wrong?” Basel said, interrupting his thoughts.

Adam jerked up his glance. “How long have you been standing there?”

“Not long.”

Adam threw the magazine back into the dash as casually as he could. He didn’t want to invoke his friend’s acutely suspicious mind.

“What’s bugging you?” Basel asked.

“What makes you think something’s bugging me?”

“You’re tinkering with that stupid car again.”

Adam stepped out of the car and slammed the door shut. He picked up a can of car wax and dipped a dollop onto a cloth.

“I don’t know why you bother,” Basel said, watching him. “It’s only gonna get cloaked with dust the moment you drive it out of here. If you haven’t noticed, we’re in the middle of a fucking desert.”

Adam smirked. “I need a hobby, Basel. It keeps my mind off the problems.”

“It doesn’t mean they will go away.”

He began to rub the wax on the car in strong circular motions. “No,” he huffed. “Have you heard anything from the Zawahiris?”

“No. They’re pretty quiet. Too quiet for my comfort.”

“Yeah… I’d rather they come out busting in as well for my sanity’s sake. Except we have women and kids in the compound. So I suppose it’s all for the better if they retaliate later.”

“But it isn’t just the Zawahiris that’s playing on your mind, is it?” Basel watched him with interest.

Adam scrunched the cloth in his hand. “I’m thinking of sending Nora to Wardak.”

“Your house in Maidan Wardak?”

He nodded. “She would be better there. She is with child after all and things are more convenient and available there.”

“Well, that is true,” Basel let out with a small whistle. “Your house is a castle compared to this place.”

“She would appreciate the greenery instead of the dust and the desert. I think she’s had enough of that.”

Basel looked at him with interest. “You really care for her.”

He grew quiet for a while. “She’s my wife,” he muttered as he poured another dollop of wax onto his cloth.

She nipped at her nails in impatience as she waited for Adam to return. She was almost tempted to go out and search for him, but then decided against it. She realized Adam didn’t like being confronted by a woman in public. But in the confines of their room, Adam had pretty much let her scream at him all she wanted. She understood now that it was because he had to maintain a degree of pride and respect amongst his people. And when she let out her hysterical self, it not only embarrassed her but shamed him as well.

He finally stepped into their room and she jumped out of her chair and towards him.

“Is it true?” she blurted excitedly. “Are we leaving here?”

He glanced at her and moved to the side. “Yes,” he said as he pulled off his shirt.

“Are we going back to America?” she asked earnestly, trying not to pay too much attention to his naked, muscular torso beneath that shirt. She still had yet to get used to being comfortable around him whenever he started stripping, aware of the moistness developing at the juncture of her thighs.

“No.”

“No?” she repeated confusedly. “I don’t understand. Where are we going then?”

He threw his shirt into the laundry basket and turned towards her. “You… you are going.”

Her eyes stung with her tears. He can’t be sending her away. She was definitely misunderstanding something here.  “Where then am I going?” she let out, trying to show more confidence.

“To my house in Wardak,” he replied, turning away from her so he could get himself another shirt. “It would make a nice change to here. It’s got better facilities and mostly, you wouldn’t have to drag water all the way to the bedroom like you do here.”

She grew quiet. “Why can’t I just go home?”

“That’s not possible. I can’t do that, Nora.”

She walked up closer to him. For some reason, it didn’t matter anymore that she wasn’t going home. It was he she wanted now, and to be always close to him. “What about you?”

“I’m needed here,” he said, his head bent low as he braced his arms against the door of his wardrobe.

“Adam,” she whispered, touching his back. She loved the feel of him and how his warmth emanated through his body and into hers. “Then let me stay too. I want to be here with you.”

His body tensed and he turned around to catch her fingers before they could travel any further around to the front of his torso.

He had thought he could pull this off without involving his emotions. But the moment he saw her bounce towards him, his heart had almost leaped out of him. Who was he kidding? The woman affected him like no other.

“Nora, it would be better for you there,” he rasped, trying to ignore the burning he felt in his chest. He ached to hold her, to kiss her and to meld with her as he did last night.

She pulled her hand away from him, stepping back with tears in her eyes. He felt her loss immediately, and he almost reached out to tug her back to him. He balled his hands into a fist by his side instead.

“I see,” she whispered. “When are you taking me there?”

“I’m not. Basel will take you to Wardak.”

She nodded her head. “Alright then. So when is
he
taking me there?”

He frowned. She had uttered the words so uncaringly that he hadn’t bet on the fact that it would hurt. He realized now he wanted her to want him to go with her. Goddamnit, he never wanted her to leave his side.

He cleared his throat in the hopes of releasing some of that annoyance in his voice. “In a couple of hours. So I suggest packing now.”

She moved towards her chair by the window. “There is nothing to pack. There is nothing here that belongs to me.”

He felt another stab in his heart. Nothing? Not even him? He didn’t blame her. After having an amazing night of love with the most beautiful woman he’d ever had… his woman, he had walked into their room to callously announce they couldn’t be together any more.

“I’ll tell Husna to pack for you,” he muttered.

She didn’t speak, pulling her legs up to her chin and staring out through the window. He threw a clean shirt over him with frustration. And they were back to square one. She hated him and he would ache to have her in his arms.