I try a hum. He sucks in a sharp breath, and his entire body stiffens.
“Gonna come, Lisette. Stop…now…if…”
Another low sound in the back of my throat sends him over the edge. I thought I was prepared, but I almost choke on him. Until he strokes my cheeks and calms me with a single touch.
Laying me down on the bed, he brushes his thumb across my lips, and comes away with a drop of his release.
“I thought I needed you, Nomar,” I whisper when he stretches out next to me and covers us both with the duvet. “For three years, I hoped you would come back because I thought I needed you. But I was wrong. I do not need you. Iwantyou. I think…I could love you. Maybe I already do.”
* * *
Nomar
My heart shoots straight for my throat. I know the exact moment I fell in love with Lisette. But I never expected her to love me back.
She swallows a sob and wipes a tear from her cheek. “I lost so much of myself in Afghanistan. Faruk would force me…like that. It is how his men broke the women he trafficked. At the beginning, he made me watch. I never thought I would want to touch a man in that way again. But with you—”
I sit up, reality slamming into me so hard and fast, I can’t breathe. Faruk raped her. For ten years. Forced her to watch other women being violated. And she trusts me enough sheaskedto go down on me.
“You hadn’t given head since…”
“I had boyfriends when I was young. But only two serious. I had not done…that…with anyone in thirteen years.” She skims her hand down my chest, but I stop her before she reaches my dick.
“Wait. Please.” I can’t let this go any further without telling her everything. By tomorrow, I’ll be so far gone over her, I’ll never be able to walk away. “Yesterday, you said you thought I’d been searching for happiness for a long time.”
She nods. “I remember.”
“You were wrong. I haven’t been searching for it. I gave up on it a long time ago.”
“No one should give up on happiness,” she says, her green eyes shimmering with emotion. “Please. Tell me why.”
I almost lose my nerve. I could beg her to leave me to my secrets.Maybeshe’d still talk to me once in a while. But I can’t. She deserves better than a broken man whose guilt eats him alive every second of every day.
“When I left your apartment in Boston three years ago, I ended up in a meeting with the President of the United States, the head of the Joint Special Operations Command, and the Deputy Director of the CIA.” I stare up at the ceiling, unable to watch as I destroy any possibility for a future together.
“Faruk controlled the lion’s share of weapons, drugs, and people trafficked through Afghanistan. His death left a big fucking hole. There were three other players in the region, and the CIA had their eye on one of them. Shapur Khan. They thought he’d be open to funneling them information. Maybe help prevent the next 9-11.
“Years ago, the guy had gotten on Faruk’s bad side, and I saved his life. He owed me. The President ordered me to find him and get him to hire me.”
“What did you have to do?” Her voice breaks, and fuck. I don’t know how to do this. “Nomar? You can tell me. Whatever it is…I have seen worse.”
Sitting up, I swing my legs over the side of the bed and rest my elbows on my knees. “I trained his men. Advised him. But I also moved shipments. Drugs. Weapons. And…women.”
Lisette sucks in a sharp breath. “Women? You… No. I refuse to believe—”
“I did it, Lisette. More than two hundred of them over eleven months. I didn’t take them. And Inevertouched them. But the men who guarded them worked forme. I fed the CIA the location of every single auction, but they only managed to free a handful of the girls. If they’d gone after too many of them, the whole operation would have been fucked. I didn’t have a choice. Those women…were sold because of me.”
She scrambles out of bed, her movements frantic and jerky as she pulls on her skirt and sweater. “I cannot hear this. Everything you said. You would have stopped him if you’d known about me. You should have killed him for hurting me. Yet, you condemned others to an even worse fate?”
“Lisette…”
“No. I cannot… I…I need you to go.” Tears spill down her cheeks. “Leave. Now.”
I push up, but she backs away from me. “I can’t. I won’t. Not until we know you’re safe. I promised to protect you.”
“How can I think—how can I possibly find a way to accept this when you arein my bed? When everything I see, everything I touch reminds me of you?” Lisette shakes her head. “If you will not leave, I will. I will go to a hotel tonight. In the morning, maybe…we can talk. But not tonight.”
She’s out of the bedroom before I can snatch my jeans from the floor.
