He shook his head.
“You know it has,” she whispered bitterly. “He couldn’t break Mother, and you refused to attempt to break me while we were in Saudi. You knew when we escaped, just as you knew years before he took me that it was coming. Azir wouldn’t have had it any other way.”
And perhaps she was right.
Moving to her, he could do nothing but wrap his arms around her and hold her tight as he closed his eyes and whispered a prayer that God would keep her safe. That he would protect her, and that somehow, some way, there would be a chance for the happiness he had always dreamed of.
A chance that included holding Paige in his arms forever.
Pressing his fingers beneath her chin he lifted her head, watching as her lashes fluttered and those incredible green eyes stared back at him. Emerald eyes. Cat’s eyes. And she was just as fierce, independent, and courageous as any cat he had ever seen.
There was so much he wanted to say. So much inside him. How would he find the courage to tell her how much of him belonged to her?
Feeling her hands, so light, so delicate as they moved to the nape of his neck, he had to grit his teeth against the arousal that suddenly flared to life once again.
He would never get enough of her. It simply wasn’t possible.
“I love you, Abram.” She said the words he could feel beating in his heart.
“You amaze me, hellcat,” he said, feeling an amazement growing inside him. “How can you know how you have always softened the hell I’ve been forced to navigate as I fought to come to this place in my life? I could never express to you how you have eased the wounds I thought my soul could never heal from.”
“And why do I amaze you?” That mysterious little smile played at her lips. “You’ve always known I love you, Abram, don’t pretend you haven’t.”
Had he? Had it been that knowledge that had eased the nights for him, at first because he had seen the innocence and childish acceptance she gave him just after Lessa’s death, and later, after the death of his second wife, there had been so much more.
“Do you know how I’ve loved you?” The words felt torn from his soul. “Do you know, Paige, how I have sought sight of you each time I’ve visited Khalid? How I have lived for the visits here?” His hand cupped her cheek. “How I have lived for you?”
He had lived for her for years, and he knew it. There wasn’t a part of his soul that wasn’t aware of the fact that for so long, she had followed him through each second of his day, each second of the long, dark nights that seemed filled with blood and death.
And now, there was hope. The hope that when the sun rose there could be her laughter, her gentle touch, her loving light that shined for him alone.
“We’re going to get through this, Abram,” she promised, and for the first time in his life he felt the knowledge that he had no other choice but to survive.
He only had one job to complete before that security would be assured.
The death of Azir Mustafa.
16
The weariness that had dragged at them found Paige sleeping in her lover’s arms, exhaustion dragging her deep into that well of slumber that obliterated the senses and dimmed even instinct.
That instinct was too closely honed to ever sleep within Abram though. At least, not at this moment, not this day. And God only knew if he would have another day to ease himself into such peaceful sleep.
His eyes came slowly open.
He didn’t blink. He didn’t pretend to sleep. He didn’t hide the knowledge that he was acutely aware of the company they had acquired.
Dammit, he knew he should have questioned the single terrorist they had captured last night. He should have beaten the truth out of the murderous bastard.
He had to forcibly restrain the urge to tighten his hold on Paige. To take that one last moment to attempt to pull her beneath his flesh, to protect her forever.
There was no chance, no possibility of doing such a thing though. She was vulnerable, and he had slept too deeply, his instincts not quite honed enough to have felt them slipping into the room. He hadn’t awakened until he had felt his cousin glaring down at him with irritable amusement.
Jafar waved the gun at him, an indication that he should arise from the bed.
Abram allowed himself to caress the thick, heavy strand of hair that flowed over his chest as her head lay on his shoulder. Forcing himself to ease from her, his gaze tracking the three men that stood next to the bed, he ensured that the sheet covered her as he pushed it from his own nudity.
Azir’s gaze narrowed on his son’s nakedness as a grimace of distaste twisted his features. The other man that stood with them was stony-faced, his brown eyes like muddy chips of ice, his scarred, cruel features never shifting in expression.