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  She arched up in response, a single long gasp of pleasure his reward. “Or is your turn over?”

  She shook her head, hands balling up on the sheets as he teased her. Then, in case he could misinterpret the gesture as a denial, she managed to gasp out an order to continue.

  Na’im smiled. He lost himself to the feeling of control that came with being completely central to another person’s pleasure. With Jalila, their lovemaking had been almost scheduled, first one step, then the next, in the same order every time. Despite being implanted with feelings to the contrary, he ended up emotionally removed from the act itself. With Elise, however, he became something more. Not just a vehicle for her pleasure, but fully a participant in it. A partner instead of simply a tool.

  With his thumb, he circled the nub hidden within her folds and she clenched around him, shuddering as the wave of her orgasm rolled through her. Crossing her ankles, she clamped her thighs down on his hand, trapping it against her. After a moment, she opened her eyes to narrow slits. “Enough appetizer. I want the main course.”

  She tugged at the front of his pants, popping open the old-fashioned copper buttons with a speed born from hunger. He gasped as she freed him to the open air and shoved his pants off. She paused a moment, then wrapped one hand around his cock.

  He let his breath out slowly, fighting to keep control as she teased him. The struggle to keep a clear head was nearly insurmountable. The need plainly writ in her eyes was, alone, enough to push him past his limits.

  “Do you have—” He let the empty space hang there. He had borrowed pants, borrowed everything, or he’d never have to ask the question aloud.

  She nodded and turned away from him long enough to dig into a bedside table. He let his hand trace the curve of her ass and she wriggled it for him, displaying herself like a wanton. He fought the urge to throw caution to the winds. She rolled back to him, tearing open a bio-stabilized packet as she circled her fingers around him once again. She slid the super-thin, vat-grown condom over the tip of his shaft and rolled it along his length, smiling as she watched him struggle to maintain composure.

  When she had finished, Elise admired her handiwork, then stretched out along the bed. She tucked the single threadbare pillow behind her head and reached up to drag him on top of her. Na’im held off as long as he could, admiring her fully displayed glory until she half covered herself with an arm. “What? What’s wrong?” He heard the sudden self-conscious nervousness in her voice and realized he’d worried her.

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. You’re just...absolutely gorgeous.”

  She looked skeptical, and he pulled her arm aside before claiming her mouth with his. She rose to the kiss, her arms twined around his shoulders as she pressed herself against him.

  Slipping her hand between them, she found and guided him into her. Her name slipped past his lips on a soft sigh, mirroring the slow way he entered her. Her calves locked around his, her hands pulling his hips until he filled her completely. This was his favorite moment, two people locked together in perfect unity, fused until insatiable desire took over. He watched her, hungry to see the look in her eyes, and was surprised to find her smiling at him. She nodded and matched her hips to his in a slow rhythm. He could already see the telltale signs of another climax building within her, and knew he wouldn’t be able to hold himself back when she came. Whatever control he typically exhibited evaporated the moment she laid a hand on him. To be so completely enveloped in her shattered him completely.

  She cried out, a slow whine of release as another orgasm swelled out of the remains of the first. The feel of her clamping around him spelled the end of his fragile self-control and he chased after her into an abyss where sensation and pleasure were the sole definitions of existence.

  Chapter Six

  S

  hit. Elise took a deep breath and tried without success to reduce the contented, goofy smile that had plastered itself onto her face. She stretched with a satisfying pop in her shoulders. Her muscles thrummed with the low ache of a good workout. Her smile grew broader at the memory. They had definitely worked each other out, napping in short bursts before making love again. And again. She rolled onto her side. “I don’t know how many more nights like that I could take, but I know how many more I want.”

  When there was no response she opened one eye. The bed was empty, apart from her.

  Adrenaline flooded her system, her blood suddenly loud in her ears. The cluttered mess of the room came into sharp focus as she sprang awake. She switched her vision over to infrared and confirmed that though the bed had cooled considerably, she could still see where a second body had lain next to hers. And under. And on top of. And... She shut off the stream of thought like a faucet. She could reminisce later. The idea of what Corporate Services would do to Na’im if he fell into their possession was enough to cool her ardor. Whoever had contracted with CorpServ to get that data wasn’t likely to be deterred by its location. She had several ideas for how they might try to get the information out of his skull. None of them were painless. Only a few were survivable.

  Her hand went under the pillow and closed on empty air. No gun. Not even a knife. What the hell had she been thinking? Her legs trembled, sore in a delightful way. Oh yeah. I wasn’t thinking. She scanned the floor for her belt, and found the pistol on top of a box not far away. Her hearing, already ramped up with the surge of adrenaline, picked out the slight metallic slide of a key in her door’s lock. She grabbed the pistol and dove under the bed, switching her vision to tactical mode as she brought the weapon up to cover the door.

  The green targeting dot blurred for a moment, then steadied into a small triangle as her hand stopped. The door swung open and her finger tightened on the trigger. Her hand released as the nutty smell of good rice drifted into her nostrils.

  A moment later, Na’im’s recognizable silhouette filled the door, a delicious-smelling bag clutched in one hand.

  She released the butt of her gun and the green marker in the center of his chest faded from her sight.

  “Elise?” He looked around the room, clearly confused when he didn’t see her in the bed. “Are you here?”

  She crawled out from under the bed and slipped the gun under the mattress surreptitiously. “Yeah, sorry. I didn’t know where you went and I got worried.”

  His face relaxed immediately and a warm smile lit up his mouth. Elise crossed the small distance with a bound and pressed her lips against his smile. One of his powerful arms snaked around her waist to support her, the casual touch setting off a flood of sense-memories from the night before. She shivered all the way to her toes and he chuckled.

  “Aftershocks, hmm?”

  She felt her cheeks burn as a blush spread across them. “Just call me San Andreas.” My god, I can’t believe I’m even blushing. What’s he doing to me? Or more importantly, what can he still do to me? Elise rolled her hips against his.

  He groaned quietly, the sound resonating deep within his broad chest. “I’ll be another of San Andreas’ victims, if you don’t allow us to rest long enough to get some sustenance.” He held up the bag. “I didn’t see a hot-spot among the stuff in here, so I went out to grab some breakfast. Didn’t mean to scare you. I hope congee is okay.”

  Her stomach grumbled in appreciation “I love congee. I did a long stint in Beijing, and never lost my taste for the stuff.”

  He chuckled as he sat on the edge of the bed and pulled three compostable containers out of the bag. “Good thing I grabbed all the trimmings, then.”

  She took one container and snapped the convertible lid into a spoon. She could see a soft-boiled egg resting on top of the thick rice porridge, and a sprinkling of black sesame seeds and bean sprouts. Delicious as it looked, something was missing. She looked at Na’im hopefully. “Any chilies?”

  He turned the third container toward her, revealing a full complement of more exotic toppings. “You mean like these?”

  The vinegar and heat of chili paste wormed it
s way into her nostrils and ripped open her sinuses. Elise sniffled as her smile threatened to bruise her cheeks. “Oh, you really know how to treat a girl.” She scooped out a big spoonful of the volatile red paste and followed it up with a dusting of dried fish shavings. Her spoon split the yolk and she stirred the golden liquid into the rice before shoveling a large bite into her mouth.

  “Oh, good. I was afraid I was the only one who was starving.” He took a more modest portion of the chili paste with his rice before topping it with slivers of dried seaweed. “It took me a bit to figure out where your flat was, but once I did it was easy to find a Mandarin place that served breakfast.”

  A sudden chill passed through her that no amount of blazing chili paste could banish. “How did you pay for it?”

  Na’im held up his wrist. “Apparently, Zaahir hadn’t canceled my accounts yet. I’ve saved up a pretty good amount over the last few months. If nothing else, Jalila was very generous to her playmates.” She must have been making a horrified face because his spoon stopped halfway to his mouth. His brow creased. His eyes closed and he exhaled slowly. “Dammit. I didn’t even think.”

  “Eat fast.” Elise jammed two more heavy spoonfuls into her mouth and set the container on the bed. She reached into the box nearest the bed and pulled out her bolt bag, stunned by the lack of anger she felt. Had Ty made such a basic mistake they would have fought for days. Around the world, eleven billion people used their credit chips every day and never thought about the thousands of computer transactions being watched, collected and collated. Even now, she knew, someone had already pulled the security footage from the restaurant where he’d bought breakfast and realized he was on foot. Someone else, no doubt, had already calculated a reasonable walking distance and figured out a likely radius for him to be in.

  She checked the bag. Extra ammunition, cash and a black market credit chip. Passports for three different nationalities. Everything she needed to disappear, but nothing to help hide Na’im. She’d have to cash in some favors to set him up, but that could come later. First they had to get out before—

  Three heavy knocks sounded on the alley door.

  She closed the bag and looked at Na’im. “Back door. Follow me. Now.”

  He nodded and stood as she grabbed a final spoonful of the congee. She closed her eyes as the knocks fell again, more insistent, then she shoved open her emergency exit. Gunfire exploded against the brick to her right and she brought her pistol around. Two Zaahir security stood in the alleyway, guns drawn. The fact that Zaahir was keeping the local police out of the fight didn’t give any comfort. No cops meant corporate law only, no rules at all when it came to what they could do to her. Or Na’im.

  Elise shoved Na’im ahead of her, while firing at the guards in the other direction. She hit one in the shin and he dropped with a scream. His partner paused long enough to check on him, and she took him out with a careful shot through the knee. Na’im was staring at the carnage and she shoved him with the bolt bag. “Go! They won’t be alone!”

  That snapped him out of his paralysis and he charged down the alley with her close behind. They emerged from the warren of alleys onto a crowded street and she led the way to the nearest metro line station. She checked the chronometer in the corner of her vision. They still had thirty minutes before the next prayer call brought the city to a near standstill. That gave them an opening.

  She checked the crowd in their wake, couldn’t miss the four Zahir guards shoving through the crowd in their direction. Na’im charged up the stairs to the platform alongside her just ahead of the ahead of the crowd that spilled out of an arriving train. She picked one of the two trains at random and led him to the center of the crowd in one of the middle cars. He gripped her arm, nervous as they waited for the doors to slide shut. For a moment, her pulse thundered and she worried the security team had called ahead to disable the train, but then the chime sounded. The doors closed and the light rail whisked them away from the terminal before the guards could determine whether they’d headed east or west.

  “In here. We need to talk.” Na’im pulled Elise into a small tea parlor. The owner immediately came out, announcing in Arabic that women were not allowed in his establishment, warning them that the morality police frowned on such indiscretions. Elise fished a handful of cash from her bag and tossed it onto the table. Na’im felt a smile warm his cheeks as both the owner and the cash disappeared, the former pausing only to open the door to a private room on one side of the parlor.

  Once she had entered the room, he closed the door. “They’re going to keep looking for me. The longer you stay with me, the more in danger you are.”

  Elise chuckled. “I was about to tell you the same thing. Not that I expect you to have sense enough to strike out on your own.”

  Na’im felt a sudden fear that she would abandon him. In the last twenty-four hours she’d been the only constant as his world turned completely upside down. Worse, he knew with certainty that without him as leverage, Elise’s lifespan could be measured in hours. “They won’t leave you be, just because you don’t have me.”

  She nodded. “True. There’s really only one way to stop that happening.” Her pose showed her nervousness, at an angle to him, subconsciously making herself a smaller target. The realization did nothing to alleviate his growing unease.

  “What’s that?”

  She pressed two fingers to his forehead, thumb cocked like the hammer on a gun. “We give them exactly what they want.”

  Na’im stepped away from her and felt the wall against his heel. The room was too small to put any significant distance between them. More importantly, he couldn’t see a way to get past her to the door. Not without fighting, anyway. He gave a cursory scan of the room for makeshift weapons, and cursed himself for thinking he could trust her.

  Her laughter brought him out of his panic. “Not like that, you silly man. I meant that we give them the data you’re storing. It’s what they really care about, which is good since I’m not about to part with the rest of you.”

  Her gaze wandered along the line of his hip, a delicious reminder of the places her hands had lingered earlier. His body leapt to life in response. Even Jalila, who he’d been programmed to desire, hadn’t turned him on the way Elise did. She seemed to know his needs as cleverly as he’d been able to detect the clues to hers. She stepped closer, ran a hand along his thigh. The heat in her palm served as fuel to the fire raging in his blood.

  Na’im started to slip an arm around her waist, but she ducked past his arm. “Not now. I think we’d give the shopkeeper a seizure.” He had a sudden image of her propped up on one of the tables, her suit just open enough to give him access to her heat. He shook his head and tried to focus on the present.

  Elise seemed to sense his desire, or struggled with her own. She stepped out of arm’s reach and continued. “First, we need to get you a change of clothes. The ones you have will be on surveillance footage from this morning, and I assume you’re still opposed to wandering around in the buff.”

  “I’m game if you are, but we really should be somewhere a little less conservative.”

  She smiled. “Later. Once we’re safe.” Her cheek twitched, and he recognized the statement had surprised her as much as him. “I hear Zurich is lovely this time of year.”

  “I think you’re forgetting a fairly important fact.” He paced toward the door, hands clasped behind him. “The data is secured permanently. With Jalila dead, there’s no way to unlock the files.” He realized that he didn’t feel any remorse for Zaahir’s death—the first time he’d said her name aloud and not felt the sting of his pre-programmed grief.

  Elise joined him at the door to the main room of the teahouse. “Every lock can be picked. It’s just a matter of time and resources.”

  “We seem to be short on both of those.”

  “On the contrary, I have plenty of resources. And we have a secret weapon your owner couldn’t have dreamed up.”

  Na’im started to
protest the word owner, felt a part of him that wanted to defend Zaahir’s actions. Then he smiled as he crushed the tiny voice. Elise was right. He had never been more than property to Jalila. A pretty bauble she’d draped around her shoulders like the latest fashion. “Are you going to let me in on the secret? What, pray tell, do we have?”

  She grinned as she opened the door, a look of pure predatory triumph. “A hacker who owes me a favor, who also happens to have an audio fetish.”

  The hacker pummeled him with questions almost from the moment they were introduced, his Georgian accent so thick Na’im had to concentrate to make sense of the man’s English. Not that he needed to understand the questions. Grigol gave him no chance to answer. Instead the hacker wandered through a shop cluttered with long tables full of half-assembled technology and charged ahead with a never-ending patter that bounced from conspiracy theories to self-congratulating egotism.

  During the verbal fray, Na’im managed to learn Grigol had come to Dubai as part of the tech sector boom in the 30s, then fallen on hard times during the aftermath of the Sino-American cyberwar. He’d said more, but Na’im had tuned him out and looked to Elise for some sort of salvation.

  His guardian and protector merely chuckled and shook her head. “Oh no. You deserve the full Grigol experience.”

  “Indeed she is right. You would be amazed at how primitive these voice passcoders are. No hypersonic tones, no biometric matching or anything like that. No good, the human ear. No good at all. You should be thinking about upgrading, like Grigol has done.” The Georgian tapped the side of his head, made smooth by the absence of earlobes. A thin titanium screen covered the hole in the side of his head, the skin puckered slightly around it, as though ready to disgorge the metal.