On the Line Read online

  “As you wish. But when he who has you arrives he will call you as he pleases and you would do best to answer him when he does.”

  “Who is this man, and what does he want with me? What does he want with the man in that room? Are you just abducting Americans for the sake of abducting them?”

  He laughed heartedly. It wasn’t a joke. She really wanted to know why he had taken her, although she did have some ideas as to why he might have done it. This man who liked her dancing might want to add her as an addition to his home. She had been warned of such things happening when she was younger and competing; it is why they traveled in groups and never alone—safety in numbers they had always said. While she had a theory about her abduction she did still want answers about Preston’s abduction too.

  Panhsj stood and walked toward her. “Do not concern yourself with the American you share a room with,” he grinned, “because he will die. He killed Ammon’s brother many years ago and he will die for that. He may no longer wear the uniform or do his government’s bidding in their special assignments, but he is still one who murdered one Ammon loved, and Ammon will make him pay. You, my beautiful flower, Ammon wants for his harem and you will be his, in his bed whenever he so chooses. He has waited many years to claim you. As you can see he is a patient man.” He took a step toward her and she took a step back. He laughed hard. “No man here will touch you, for Ammon will kill the one who does. Change into those clothes. It is what you will wear when you present yourself to your new master.”

  “Never,” she said definitely. “I will never belong to him.”

  “Then he will break you, and you will suffer.” He shrugged. “Change now or I shall have someone change you.”

  “You said…”

  “We have a woman here with us. I can gladly have her do it. She is not of the forceful type, but one of my men with a gun can ensure your compliance. Now, will you change of your own volition or should I send for assistance for you?”

  She could play this out and make it hard for him, but then that would mean it would be just as hard for her. What she needed was to escape and she would need to be unharmed when she did it. The last thing Preston would need is somebody beside him that he had to help carry the load. “I’ll change,” she said and he smiled.

  “Good. You have fifteen minutes and I will return.”

  She waited for the door to close and the room to be completely hers. She heard the door lock from the outside. “What choice do you have, Ariana?” She asked herself. She had no choice at all. The faster she changed, the faster she could get back to Preston—at least she hoped they would take her back to Preston. For all she knew this could be her new room. She looked around the less than stellar conditions and noticed it for what it was—a torture room. They tortured people here, and probably killed them too. She had heard stories about such things happening, but she had never seen a room like this. She hoped they would never bring Preston to this room. She had to help him get free, to help him get out of there because if she didn’t he would die and she didn’t want that. Despite how things ended between them she still loved him. She would always love him. If he died in this building then they would have to kill her too. Death would be a far better outcome than becoming some man’s concubine.

  She moved forward, toward the garment bag draped over one of the chairs and when she reached it she pulled the zipper of the bag down. What greeted her was another costume, one very much like the one she had worn for one of the competitions in Morocco. As she pulled the costume from the bag and saw the layers of white fabric with gold beading she realized it was an exact replica of the costume she wore for her first Belly Dance Universe contest. “My goodness,” she mumbled. “The man is obsessed.” As if she hadn’t already had knowledge of that. No non-obsessed sane person would ever abduct a woman, let alone abduct one and cart her to Egypt. How did he even get her out the country? She shook her head. Money could buy anything and almost anyone. And apparently this Ammon had a lot of money. Well it couldn’t buy her. She was going to get out of there and she was taking Preston with her.

  Chapter Seven

  Alex had cooked her dinner last evening and they had eaten outside underneath the stars. She had been quiet and distracted because the only thing she could think about was whether or not Ariana was okay. Alex had tried to calm her nerves. He had tried to get her to look at the stars through his telescope and she had, but the beauty didn’t hold her attention. Her friend was in trouble and the longer it took them to find her the more likely it was that they wouldn’t find her alive.

  Zahara had gone to stand near the railing of the balcony and not even a minute later she felt Alex’s hands on her arms, sliding slowly up to her shoulders where he worked his magic with a massage. It had felt so good having him touch her, and the massage helped ease some of the tension in her body. She was really getting into it, letting her mind make something more of it than it was. How would it feel if this massage went from touching her shoulders to touching her everywhere else? She thought about his hands on her body in all the ways she dreamed about at night, had fantasized during her waking hours about, and had wanted so desperately all those years. She was ready to ask him to touch her, to really touch her body like a man who wanted to feel every curve, when Micah and Natalia showed up along with Jet. Their arrival stopped her from making a fool of herself because their evening alone had come to an end and they were back on plotting and planning duty.

  Alex didn’t want her the way she wanted him and making a move for something more with him would be disastrous, not just to their friendship, but to her heart. She went back to work on making arrangements. It was after midnight their time so she didn’t have to wake her friend in Egypt because it was already morning his time. She told him she needed his help, to which he gladly offered to give it to her. Micah arranged air transportation. Everything went so fast, but was so well orchestrated that she could tell these men had done this several times before and they knew what they were doing. There was hope, she told herself.

  With little left to do other than board the plane, clear customs and get the weapons Micah had managed to arrange, Zahara was feeling nervous and fearful all at the same time. This could end badly, but she wasn’t turning back, not now and not ever.

  “Are you sure you want to do this?” Alex had asked her before they boarded the commercial flight.

  “She’s my best friend, Alex.” She had told him that much although she had never told Ariana that she saw her as her best friend. She wished she had. “I’m going.”

  “Then you stay by me. You don’t run off; you don’t disobey a direct order; you stay by me because I can’t protect you if you’re not in my sight.”

  Did he think she was some kick-butt adventure junkie want-to-be? Seriously, she had no desire to leave Egypt in a body bag. She planned to stay very close to the men with guns. Her role was to facilitate their arrival, not to be a gun toting she-Rambo.

  “I mean it, Zahara. I trust these guys with my life, but when it comes down to it I only trust me with yours. They might get distracted; they might lose sight of you and not be able to save you from a bullet, but I won’t. I need you to help make sure that happens.”

  Apparently her pause in agreement with him had him thinking she had other plans. “I’m not trying to be a hero,” she told him. “I just want my friend home, alive and safe…and myself as well,” she added before he could misconstrue her words. “I know what my role in this is, Alex. I know what your role and their role is. I’m here to help you get in without question. You’re here to save my friend’s life.” Thanks to Zahara’s friend she was cleared to venture out to his dig site which was much farther away from the tourist destinations, but very much near where Preston’s last contact was. She would look like just another researcher, Alex was set to be her assistant and Jet and Micah were just part of her team of documenters. It wouldn’t be hard to fudge her knowledge of ancient Egypt because it had been one of her obsessions along wi
th the stars growing up. Modern day Egypt—now what was a completely different story. Her knowledge was sparse on that level, but she knew enough to get past any inspection point—she hoped.

  “We’re meeting with Preston’s contact to secure weapons. I’m not sure how much I trust the guy right now. Preston trusted him and now he’s missing.” Alex kept his voice low because they weren’t alone on the flight and they weren’t flying first class either so the seats were much closer together. Their entire row was Micah, then her, then Alex and then Jet, but the rows in front of them and to the side of them were full with other travelers. Alex leaned in close to her to keep his voice heard only to the two of them. The close contact was sending constant shivers down her spine. The way his fingers nonchalantly caressed her forearm, or her shoulder, or even her thigh when he leaned a little closer and used her thigh for balance by bracing his hand atop it…he had no idea what he was doing to her. Perhaps what bothered her more was that the close contact was doing absolutely nothing to him. He didn’t have a clue because for him it was innocent, un-arousing and devoid of sexual connection, while for her his touch was setting her on fire and making her want to join the mile high club. She nearly laughed to herself. Losing her virginity in a bathroom stall not big enough for one let alone two…although the handicap bathroom she passed in the middle of the plane looked big enough for two. Could Alex fit in there with her? The mental image had gone through her mind until his voice brought her back to the present. There was no way she should be thinking about having sex, let alone having sex on an airplane in a dirty, germ laden bathroom. Besides, public sex would get her arrested and then where would Ariana’s chance of help be? She told herself to focus on their reason for going to Egypt and not on the man sitting next to her.

  She turned her head to look at him and he stopped talking. She couldn’t even remember what he was talking about because she missed half his conversation while in her mind she played the image of Alex making love to her. She looked in those green eyes that had always beckoned her deeper into his lair whenever she looked into them. Why did she have to be in love with this guy? She had driven over four thousand two hundred eighty-two miles for her move from Austin to Anchorage the entire time thinking the distance would make her heart forget the man she wanted; the man she loved. With every mile she just kept thinking of how nice it would be if Alex were sitting beside her. And when she stopped at a rest stop to sleep at night she kept thinking of how great the stars looked and how much better they would be with Alex lying beside her.

  By her second night on the road, when her parents realized she was sleeping at rest stops instead of in a hotel, she got the typical parent speech about safety and getting her behind inside a secure hotel room, preferably not one of the ones where the rooms were accessible from outside the main hotel office. She didn’t want to stay in a hotel, but for her parents’ sanity she gave an inch. She ended up giving another inch when they begged her to stop before it got dark outside. She had bemoaned their overprotective nature, but she loved them and she understood. She was actually surprised they hadn’t given her that part of the speech before she left Austin, but then she realized, through all of their, “don’t pick up hitchhikers,” and “don’t talk to strangers,” admonishments, they had really assumed she knew to stay in a hotel at night.

  She had called her mother every time she stopped, exactly as her mother asked. When she stopped for gas, she called, when she stopped for a bathroom break at a rest stop, she called. She actually had to say she was surprised she had gotten away with the first night of them not even knowing she was sleeping in the car. She was doing the road trip her way which meant no getting off the path to her final destination, which meant grabbing something she could eat in the car instead of stopping for a full meal, and it also meant no hotels. She hated staying in hotels with a passion.

  By the second night her mother had remembered to ask what hotel she was staying in and when Zahara said the rest stop and at what exit, her mother seemed to go into a frenzy. The next thing Zahara knew she was on the phone with her father who was lecturing her to high heaven about how really stupid that decision was. She played up the fact that there was a state trooper stationed there for the night hours, but left out the part that the trooper would be leaving by four in the morning before the sun came up. She didn’t think that part was important because she planned to be on the road by two, maybe three at the latest.

  “Do you know how dangerous that is young lady?” Her father had asked in his boisterous tone that he used when he was angry. Normally her father was a soft spoken man, kind of like a big teddy bear without the fluff, but not that night.

  “Don’t worry, dad,” she had said. “There is an officer of the law staying here and he knows I’m alone and I’m within eyesight of his car. I’ll be fine.” She thought her words would bring her father some comfort, but instead of comfort her words worried him more. He didn’t trust officers of the law at all and the next thing his mind had conjured up was this “officer of the law” doing horrible things to his little girl and getting away with it simply because he had a badge and gun.

  The next night Zahara stopped at a Hampton Inn, not just for the sake of her parents’ sanity, but for hers as well. After listening to the horror stories of American Justice and Forty-Eight Hours Mystery shows he had seen on dirty cops she was starting to have nightmares about the red-haired green eyed Trooper too. She had road tripped before, and handled the road trip the exact same way, but the difference was she had always road tripped with somebody else, not alone, when she did it. This was a huge move, and times had definitely changed, not that they were ever all that safe, but her father was right, it was a really stupid move on her part. If she had it to do over today she would ask the man with the sexy green eyes sitting next to her to ride with her. The thought of riding with her turned to thoughts of riding Alex and that thought made her lips quirk upward.

  “What?” He said and she realized she was still sitting there staring at him after all this time.

  “Nothing,” she said and turned back to face front. The flight attendant was giving the usual pre-flight information. The flotation devices were under the seat. The oxygen masks would drop down if needed and one should secure their own first before helping the person next to them. There was way more information, but Zahara couldn’t focus. For everything the flight attendant said, Zahara had created her own alternative. Who needed a flotation device when she could use Alex’s body to float on—he definitely had a body she wouldn’t mind lying on top of…and oxygen, why would she need that when she could just use some of his. Oh yeah, she was gone because if those masks dropped down Alex’s sexy mouth on hers would not be her saving grace. She mentally slapped herself. Her feelings for him were as strong as they were the day she left Texas, maybe even stronger. She needed to exorcise them because the silent friend-only agreement they seemed to have did not leave room for sexual fantasies and sanity combined. She was setting her heart up for even bigger breakage than it already had simply because she couldn’t let go. She needed to let go. She looked at him one more time as they prepared for takeoff and she realized she didn’t want to let go of her feelings for him. She loved him. She always would love him. He just would never love her—not like she wanted him too.

  He must have mistaken the sorrow in her eyes because he leaned in and whispered in her ear, “we’ll find her and save her, Zahara.” Ariana was a huge factor of her concern and worry, but right now her sorrow was of her own doing—of her love for Alex in a way he would never be capable of returning love for her. She simply smiled and said, “I know,” before turning her attention back to the little lighted signs in front of her while she contemplated how she was going to get through being Alex’s friend only when she wanted so much more than that.

  “She’ll be okay,” he said once more as he took her hand in his. Zahara couldn’t help but notice the contrast of big to small, her delicate fingers laced with his highly masculine ones. S
he should have subtly removed her hand from his, but she didn’t. She couldn’t because she liked it too much. So as the plane ascended she closed her eyes and let the feeling of heaven on earth caress her senses, holding on to Alex’s hand and imagining it was so much more than a friend comforting a friend. Oh yes, she was in trouble, heart, mind and body because too many years ago she had given it all to a man who didn’t even know she had given it to him—and apparently taking it back was not an option. In that moment she realized just how much she was torturing herself by allowing him to keep holding her hand, but it was the sweetest kind of torture and she couldn’t bring herself to end it. She told herself to sit back and enjoy the flight because once they landed things were going to change and life or death was going to be more than just a thought, it was going to be a reality they were thrust into facing.

  Chapter Eight

  When the door closed she turned back to look at Preston. She could see the look of worry in his eyes. She hadn’t been gone that long—at least she didn’t think she had.

  “Ariana?” His questioning eyes beckoned her forward.

  “I’m okay,” she knelt before him and placed the palm of her hand against her thigh as she sat back on her heels. “They wanted me to change into this.”