Didn't You Promise (A Bad for You Novel) (4 page)

Haithem turned my hand, raised it and clamped his teeth over the fleshy mound on my palm below my thumb. I gasped, the sting just enough to remind me he had bite. How easily he could chew right through me just like the apple I held, if he ever decided to use his teeth on me.

“Now, when
I’m
good and ready—” He turned his face towards me, let me catch the wicked promise in his eyes. “—I’m going to fuck you like you’re not.”

Oh
,
sweet Jesus.

He’d been taking it easy on me all this time? He released my hand and pried the apple from my fingers.

Then ate the apple whole.

I’d never seen someone eat an apple that way—from top to bottom, core and all.

He ate the freaking stem.

He actually ate the stem.

Who eats the stem?

Apparently, Haithem eats stems. I reached between my knees and pulled a cola from the cooler, cracked the lid and took a gulp. Served me right. I got what I wanted...and now I’d get what I
wanted...

If I could survive it.

“I’ll have the beef,” he said.

I put the cola down and unwrapped a beef sandwich, then handed it to him. The bastard cleaned out the cooler. Oh, he made sure I was fed, but he cleaned it out.

Good and proper.

Just to make sure I had no further doubts about his stamina.

As if I had, but men and their pride and all that. Not that I really needed a share of the food, I still struggled to chew through the too much I’d bitten off by challenging Haithem. I couldn’t sit still, only squirm—
for hours.
My lower half in high-level anticipation. Refusing to wait, refusing to calm down and stop the aching. Thankfully, I had my lovely GPS friend to remind me just how long it’d be before we reached the hotel.

Chapter Four

I snapped straighter as we glided down the street of hotels and up-market shops. Streetlights highlighted their varying faces. Some more worn than others, but a world apart from other places we’d driven through. Here wealth and poverty bled in and out of each other.

We pulled into the front of the hotel exactly on Haithem’s schedule. 3:00 a.m. and without a wink of sleep. I mean just who would be able to fall asleep with Haithem’s promises lingering in the air like a kiss?

Not me. Not this girl.

The valet opened the door, and I slid out. Haithem handed over the keys then took my hand. I glanced up before we walked in, a little overwhelmed by the scale, and how suddenly and startlingly modern it was. We passed through the sliding doors into a foyer of whites and golds and an abundance of glass.

The blisters that had puffed on the back of my heels from the morning’s walk sent stinging jolts into every step.

“I’ll check us in.” Haithem squeezed my palm before letting my hand go.

I took a few agonized steps towards the fountain in the center of the lobby. Then lowered myself onto the edge. Shoes clicked on tiles, and luggage trolleys rolled, every sound circling around and around the dome in the center of the foyer.

My head radiated with noise.

“You just fly in?”

An elderly couple took a seat beside me at the fountain.

I blinked. “Yes.”

Short and sweet. That’s how you lie. At least that’s how I did. Not too many details to trip up on.

“Holiday?”

I glanced at the check-in counter.

“Honeymoon,” I said and ended with a yawn.

Yep
,
just a sleepy honeymooner here...

“Ah, you’re Australian,” she said, her own British accent clinging to her words like a geographical stamp.

Dammit
,
really?

I’d only said two words. This is why it was better to avoid small talk altogether.

“Barry, this young woman is from Australia.” She tapped the man beside her on the arm. “We’re touring Australia next.”

Her husband shut his newspaper and placed it on his lap. “Are you now?”

“Yep.”

Haithem turned from the check-in counter.

“Australia will be our sixth continent, that’s it for me. Barry wants to make it seven.”

Haithem caught my eye, and I smiled pleadingly.

“Barry says it’s not all that far from Australia to Antarctica—but I told him he’d be doing that trip on his own.”

Haithem walked towards us. Careful long strides, shoulders low and relaxed, but he took in every detail of the couple beside me. For a moment, I wondered if the old woman would peel off her face to reveal Tom Cruise inside.

“I have enough problems in my life, I told him, without having to squeeze my fat backside into thermal underwear—”

The image of this sassy old woman squeezing into thermals flashed in my mind.

A short burst of laughter left my lips and echoed through the dome.

I glanced at the elderly couple. My gaze caught on the newspaper on Barry’s lap. A word flashed like a homing beacon. Almost vibrating to my eye. It should, that word was the first I’d ever learned.

I’d been trained to look for that word my entire life.

My name.

The smile died on my lips with a stiffening atrophy that froze it in place.

A cadaver smile.

Half the picture below the headline disappeared over the fold, but I knew that photo. Of Emma and I. She’d been cropped out.

My blood chilled cooler than my smile.

I was in a newspaper—here in India.

On the paper in this couple’s hand.

I tried to breathe past the fist in my throat, but the truth hit me as though I’d run full speed into one of the hotel’s glass walls. I sat there, in India, a false passport in my handbag—in disguise.

A girl on the run.

A girl missing.

A girl whose family searched for her on the other side of the world. Desperate and mourning. The terrible thing I’d done. Leaving them behind because knowing more would hurt them.

I took a shuddering breath. But, no one would recognize me. Not the staff in this hotel. Not the guests. Not the couple next to me. They wouldn’t put my face to the one in the paper.

They really wouldn’t, the picture was terrible. Not sure why they’d used that one. It wasn’t the clearest or the best. But then, I hadn’t exactly been one for cameras and posing since Joshua. There just hadn’t been much of the present I’d wanted to lock in and keep.

My head rushed faster. For some reason amongst it all, my mind stuck on that photo. Not the one in the paper, the actual photo.

How I’d been that day.

How I’d given in to Emma and let her take the picture of us.

How I’d been waiting.

Always waiting.

Just for time to pass. For things to get better. For the day that everything wouldn’t hurt so badly. For something, anything to change.

Until now.

I wasn’t waiting anymore. I might hurt but I wasn’t waiting.
I’m living.
My lips softened. For one sweet moment, that was more important than my disappearance featured on a newspaper not three feet away from me.

Just for one moment that fact mattered more.

Then I saw Haithem’s face.

He wasn’t looking at the paper. He looked at me. But he’d seen it.

He’d seen it alright.

His lips pulled across his teeth. The same lips that smiled so beautifully they sucked me into heaven now sent my heart plunging to my belly.

“Our room is ready,
Lina
,” he said.

I stood, and gave a half wave at the older couple, not sure I could form an actual farewell.

Haithem picked up the bag from beside me. I followed him to the elevators. The porter selected our floor.

Words I couldn’t say finally bubbled to my tongue. I held them in. The elevator opened and we crossed a short hall.

Haithem swiped the card to our suite.

“Please don’t freak out,” the plea burst out, as we entered the room.

Haithem placed our things, which of course he hadn’t entrusted to anyone else to carry, by the door. “I. Do. Not.” He turned to me. “Freak out.”

“Yeah you do, you’re starting to freak out right now.”

He tugged off his shoes, and set them next to the bags.

“You can tell can you?” He stepped towards me. His nostrils flared with breath. “You know me that well do you?”

I didn’t back away. Not like any other rational person would. A person who didn’t know his limits, who only saw his mammoth presence, the strength that oozed from him.

“I know you that well, Haithem.”

He paused midstep.

“It was a British newspaper, not an Indian one.” I closed the space between us. “The hotel probably sells a bunch of foreign papers for guests.”

“What does that matter? It’s here. You’re not safe.” He looked past me to the door. “Your picture is here for anyone to see...”

“It won’t matter. We’ve been careful. We’re
being
careful.” I lay my hand on his arm.

His gaze returned to me. “There’s no careful enough when it comes to your life.”

The look on his face brought everything, all the tiny little things it’s so easy to become preoccupied with, down to two singular things—
he and I
.

My chest tightened.

I’d never been loved like this. Not by my twin who was half of me. Not by my parents who’d gone from barely noticing my existence to obsessed over my every choice, fixated on me, not even they loved me like this.

Where
I
was the priority. Where
I
came first.

But I loved him back. I loved him just as wholly.

I ran my hand up to his shoulder.

We’d never been on the same level, Haithem and I. He tried to bring me up with him. Because I gave him what he needed just like he gave me what I did, but he had the real destiny.

I couldn’t let this become about me.

This had always been, needed to be, about Haithem and what he
must
do.

“I know you’re worried.” I brought my palm to his cheek. His rough, perfect cheek on his breathtaking face. “Just promise me you won’t do anything crazy.”

“I’ve done nothing but crazy, stupid things since I met you, Angelina.” His words fluttered over my skin like butterflies. “And the worst part is, I’m not sure if that’s terrible or wonderful.”

His face scrunched and I couldn’t answer. His expression, like his words, were both terrible and wonderful.

I kissed him. Pulled him down to me and showed him with my lips, and mouth, and touch, how terribly wonderful we were. He shivered under my hands, as though a current ran under his skin, emotions rushing with superhuman intensity.

You’d never know by looking at him, this man with all his control, that he felt so deeply.

Maybe he never had before.

Maybe he’d never allowed himself to feel so much.

Maybe I was the special thing that made him feel.

Maybe I brought
him
to life.

He wrapped his arms around me and I no longer kissed him—he kissed me. Absorbed me into him. His fingers squeezed the flesh on my hips.

His erection nudged my belly.

I shivered.

I knew the results of his arousal intimately, knew all the ways he’d taken me. All the ways I’d come, and come apart, under his hands and his cock. Where everything made sense without words and explanations. “Get naked,” he whispered. “I promised you something.”

Get naked.

It started already—his promise—he’d fuck me like I wasn’t the sweet girl he loved. He’d better mean it because I needed something more than sweet. I stripped like there’d never been a time, not once in my life, where I’d had an ounce of modesty.

My dress hit the floor. Bra and panties followed.

He jerked his T-shirt over his head. The sight of his chest made my own tingle. He pulled off his jeans. I moved right into his arms, and opened my mouth over his left nipple. Tasted the salty sweetness of his skin. Breathed him in with my mouth, tongue and lungs. We’d been driving all day in the heat. He’d never smelled manlier. And I’d never been wetter.

My slick naked thighs squeezed against the relentless ache between them. His scent, like the exact weight of his hand, the distinct depth of his voice, the definite thuds of his heart, so uniquely him I’d know him without light, or without sound, or without touch. He grabbed my backside, and hauled me off my feet. I wrapped my arms around his neck, and brought my mouth to his face. Scraped my teeth over his cheek as though biting him. The flicking bristles vibrated my gums. A little longer and I’d be able to catch those hairs between my teeth and pull them.

We didn’t make it to the bed.

He sunk to the floor, and held me on top of him. For a master of foreplay, he gave me none—opening my legs over his waist to push his erection right where it belonged. I rested my hands against his chest, trying to control his entry.

I couldn’t control it. Couldn’t slow him down.

He buried himself inside of me. My core tightened and shook, then gave in to the bulk of him. A tremor passed through me. Peace—even in the grip of lust—like arriving home. He didn’t need to direct me, I knew how to take him. I lifted my hips, let him drag fraction by fraction out of my heat, then slammed back down.

Pleasure stole my breath—I sucked in more air then did it again. My nipples hardened, scraping my arms as I rocked forward. He held my hips, didn’t let me go but didn’t take over either. The tension in my abdomen tightened. I leaned up and scooped my hair to the back of my neck, pushing my chest out. Haithem lunged forward and caught my nipple between his teeth.

I yelped, then dropped my hair and cradled his head against my chest. He sucked my breasts, first one, then the other. Squeezed my tits in his hands. Licked and grazed me. Murmured in Arabic. I rotated my pelvis. Small circles, just enough to keep it going. Keep it building.

Keep those sweet desperate sensations encroaching over all others.

I closed my eyes. Fell into the heat and rhythm of breath and us. He released my breasts and looked up at me. I hit the edge, everything drawing to a peak.

He grabbed my hips—halted movement—suspended me on a crest.

“Turn around.”

I wrapped my arms around his shoulders, and dragged my still damp nipples over his chest.
Just one more.
Tension tightened, suspending me ruthlessly on the edge. One more movement and I’d—His cock twitched in me. A gasp flew from my lips. He buried so deep.
So full
. I could come if I squeezed...

“I said turn around.” He lifted my hips off him, and slapped my ass. The crack of his palm shuddered into my aching flesh. I bit back a scream, slid off his lap and took position on hands and knees.

“Not like that,” he growled, and grabbed my thigh, pulling me onto his lap—backwards. Carpet dragged across my kneecaps.

I glanced at him over my shoulder.

He leaned back onto his hands. “I’m going to watch that pussy fuck me.”

I licked my lips, and straddled him. Took his solid length, still wet from my pussy, and eased it inside. I rode him. Not delicately. I was far too gone for that. With my back to him, I went wild. Twisted my hips, ground myself down and around. I couldn’t see him, but he watched me. Watched me take his cock, please myself and pleasure him. He saw it all, and I saw it in my mind. What my eyes couldn’t see. My vagina hugging his girth. Me stretched and open around him.

He sat up, and ran his palm over my spine. “Lean forward.”

I dropped onto my forearms. Harder to move, but I didn’t need to. He bucked up. Pushed down on my lower back, keeping me folded over. I moaned, everything getting blissfully sharper.

He squeezed my backside. Palmed my cheeks then held them open as he plunged inside me. Raw sounds growled from the back of his throat.

My nails scraped the carpet on either side of his thighs. He pulled me into his thrusts with the hand on my back. My calves clenched—I shook. Ecstasy exploded through me, womb to muscles, to skin, every cell trembled. A cry rumbled through my chest and burst out of my lips.