Chapter Six
Viviana awoke in the middle of the night feeling dazed and confused. Muhammad was still asleep so she quietly lifted her body from his and got off the bed. Walking toward the bathing basin, her emotions tormented, she couldn’t help but feel as though she’d capitulated with little resistance. Actually, zero resistance. She hadbegged himto fuck her.
He had called herhabibtiin the heat of sex, she recalled, walking into the water. It was like calling a woman “baby” or “darling” in English, but she suspected the word carried more sentiment for Muhammad because he didn’t seem the type to toss it around lightly. In that way,habibtiwas probably closer in meaning to “beloved” for him.
Her teeth sank into her lower lip as she used a clean cloth to wash herself. Viviana felt engulfed in a chaotic haze, troubled by what she was supposed to think or feel.
Muhammad had saved her life. He had done it for sex, or at least that was his initial motivation according to his own narrative, but hehadspared her. She stilled, recalling something odd he’d said earlier.
“Everyone in that ‘safe’ house was marked for death the moment you first entered its doors. I was able to negotiate for one of your lives and only one. I chose you.”
Why would Muhammad al-Jihad al-Raqqah, second only to the self-proclaimed caliph of the Daesh, need to negotiate with anyone? The only logical explanation was al-Baghdadi, terrorist number one, had plotted the deaths of her colleagues himself.
So how did Muhammad factor into all of this? And how on earth had he escaped? Viviana threw the cloth to the tiled floor beside the basin as another memory struck.
“You managed to get a qadi to act as the wali of an American hostage?” Viviana released the blanket and threw her hands in the air. Fuck being naked. She no longer cared. “Wait until my government finds out about this bullshit!”
Muhammad was silent for a long moment. His gaze lingered at her naked breasts before returning to her face. “Do you honestly believe they don’t already know?” he murmured.
Muhammad hadn’t escaped. He’d been freed by the highest echelons of her own nation.
But why?
“What are you thinking?”
Viviana’s head shot up. She hadn’t heard him get out of bed. It was still the middle of the night. For whatever reason she’d assumed he would sleep until dawn.
Wrapped in a large bathing towel and seated at one of the two chairs at the table near the bed, she cleared her throat. “Lots of things.”
His eyebrows rose. “I see you are bathed. I will do the same and join you for the meal we should have eaten earlier.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Get hungry. You need food.”
Viviana sighed, but didn’t argue. She was wise enough to choose her battles. Arguing over an issue she knew he was right about didn’t exactly qualify as prudent.
Ten minutes later, still lost in thought, she was jilted into the here and now when Muhammad took his seat at the table across from her. A bathing towel shielded his lower half, but his chiseled arms and chest were still bared. She blew out a breath. It would have been easier to resist his desire to consummate if he didn’t look likethat. Then again, how handsome and masculine he was or wasn’t wouldn’t have factored into the equation for her at all had he not treated her with such warmth and worry.
He was driving her insane. That had to be it.
“Tell me your thoughts,” Muhammad said as he opened the drawers to the serving cart.
She saw no reason not to be blunt. The man had a way of knowing when she wasn’t being candid with him anyway. “I am confused,” Viviana began. She wet her lips as he pulled Chicken Sharwarma, hummus, and Fattoush salad out of the cart and placed them on the table. Her eyes widened even as her belly started to rumble. “How did…?” She rubbed her temples. “You really paid attention to everything, didn’t you?”
He didn’t smile, but she could see a sparkle in his brown eyes. “Everything concerning you, yes.”
There he went again, saying stuff that made her feel like he cared. It was a feeling she hadn’t known since her mom and dad were killed. Maybe he knew that too and was using it to get under her skin.
Plates of plump dates, figs, and traditional Syrian sweets were placed on top of the serving cart, which Muhammad then pulled closer to the table. Viviana’s mouth watered. If she hadn’t been hungry before, she was famished now.
“The Fattoush salad I made myself. Your colleague did not prepare it for you properly so I hope you enjoy the way it’s supposed to taste.” He reached across the table and placed a bowl of it in front of her. “Your fork is beside you.”
Viviana immediately went for the utensil and dug in. She didn’t want to cater to his vanity, but she couldn’t stop her eyes from rolling back into her head. “Oh my God,” she said after swallowing the first bite, “this is incredible.”
He grinned. It was the first time she’d noticed that the hardened warlord had dimples. They made him seem…human. Uncomfortable, she lowered her gaze and kept eating.
“So tell me your thoughts,” Muhammad again instructed her. He picked up his fork and started eating a bowl of Fattoush salad as well. “Come now.”
