Chapter Forty-Six

Safiya

H e lowered his tall frame to the seat next to me with the fluidity of a professional athlete and the lethal grace of a predator. Absent of any physical strain from the pain I knew he must be feeling, he dropped a new pair of shoes into my stolen tote bag. Then met my gaze with an unreadable expression, but he did not speak.

His silence slid over me, and for single moment, I breathed him in.

Musk, cool rain, vetiver, soap, and an extra layer of something metallic. I fought the urge to reach for him. "How are you?"

Deep and uncharacteristically coarse, his tone distressed my already shredded and frayed nerves. "That never should've happened earlier, Safiya." His throat moved, and his voice came out even quieter and more rough. "I'm sorry."

"You could not help it, and you did not kidnap me."

"I wasn't referring to passing out on the tarmac and dropping you. As far as the latter, didn't I?"

We stared at each other until all I could hear was the pounding of my heart.

I looked away. "I do not blame you." Was it the truth? I did not know. I had been sitting here trying to answer that very question since I had woken up on a luxury jet with an IV in my arm, three new lethally muscular men, Grayson's brothers, and an unconscious ghost. With all of them, including Grayson once he was awake, behaving as if this were normal.

After eight years of a special kind of inexperience and seventeen more before that, even I knew there was nothing normal about this.

About him.

The man I had placed all my faith in the moment I had laid eyes on him.

But what did I really know about him?

Nothing.

I knew nothing.

I looked back at a silent ghost who held his life and his secrets so close that I would never be able to touch them. "I did not know you had brothers."

"Stepbrothers," he corrected, as if it made a difference to him.

I did not know what to say to that, so I repeated what I had already said. "I do not blame you." I did not know which one of us I was saying it to.

He did not reply, and he did not move.

He sat there.

I did not know if I was relieved or angry or something else entirely.

I still did not know when he pulled a vibrating cell phone from his pocket.

Swiping to answer, he held the device to his ear, but same as he had done with me when he had sat down, he did not immediately speak. Presumably listening to someone on the other end of the line, he stared straight ahead.

Then he spoke a single word. "Understood." Ending the call, he slipped the phone into his pocket and glanced at me as he stood. "Be right back."

I watched his tall frame as he moved down the aisle that barely had enough height to contain him. His two brothers, who now looked more alike to me than I had realized, watched him. The other blond man watched him. But Grayson did not look at any of them.

As if he were a ghost of himself, he moved past the kitchen area and stopped at the open door of the cockpit. The dark-haired pilot seated on the left glanced at him and said something. Without seeming to acknowledge him, Grayson turned around and went to the kitchen area. Opening doors and drawers like he knew where everything was, he pulled out drinks and food, then strode toward me the same way he had left—without making eye contact with any of the men.

A moment later, he was lowering himself back into the seat next to me and pushing a button. A tray unfurled from the armrest. "When was the last time you ate?"

My stomach twisted. "I do not know."

"With me on the drive up to the cabin?" His tone was reserved, almost sedate as he set food, bottled water, and one of those hydrating drinks down.

Two words from his question echoed in my mind as I watched the sinuous flex and movement of his hardened muscles.

With me, with me, with me.

But the words were wrong.

He was wrong.

I had not eaten with him. He had given me protein bars and fruit and told me to eat while all he did was drive, and that was not the same as eating with him. He had not consumed anything, then he had left me. Now treacherous emotions I had been desperately trying to contain crashed on top of me, and all at once it was as if the plane was in an uncontrolled downward spiral.

With efficient dexterity, he opened the electrolyte drink and held it toward me with a quiet but forceful command. "Drink, Safiya."

I looked at his hand. Broad, capable, strong. Large, long fingers. Veins, scars, cuts. He was injured.

He was injured badly.

Because of me.

"Take the drink, Safiya."

Is this what he did? "Is this what you do? Rescue women and tell them to drink?"

Colorless blue eyes stared at me without emotion. "You're dehydrated, and your blood sugar's low. You're going to drink, then eat."

I stared at him.

"Talerco," he called out, keeping his gaze on me.

With a serious expression, the blond doctor-medic man appeared behind him. "What up?" He glanced from the sports drink in Grayson's hand to me, then he smiled. "Hey, darlin'. You not feelin' it?" He tapped Grayson's shoulder twice. "Or maybe you're not feelin' Mr. Apparition's bedside manner."

Grayson stood and handed the drink to the blond man as the medic-doctor backfilled his position and sat next to me in a maneuver so smooth, it seemed coordinated. One blond man replaced by another. Except this one smelled like suntan lotion and the ocean, smiled easily, and spoke with an accent that I had learned since coming to the US was from the Southern part of the country.

Growing up, I never once considered that the United States had different regional dialects.

Now I had a degree in literature from an American university.

And I had been kidnapped—again—and survived a plane crash, only to be forcibly taken on to another plane.

Suddenly dizzy, I closed my eyes, dropped my head, and inhaled.

"You feelin' faint, darlin'?" Two fingers pressed to the inside of my wrist.

Quickly drawing my arm in, I glanced up to two men staring at me. "I am fine."

"No denyin' that, darlin'." The blond man smiled while Grayson's locked expression held. "But we still need to get a little food in ya. Probably sounds counterintuitive right now to down some chow while ya got all that cortisol coursin' through your system, but trust me, you're hungry." He winked. "Besides, Ghost said it's been a minute since you ate, and that's about the only thing I'm certain he wouldn't fix the truth on."

I looked up at Grayson. He lied to his friend?

"So whaddya say, darlin'? Hungry?"

I stared at a ghost. "My body is not hungry." But my soul was starving.

The ghost did not speak, but the medic did.

"Lemme guess. Hunger pains, 'cept your stomach's revoltin' on ya, rollin' like a tumbleweed."

I looked back at the blond man as he picked up a wrapped item and began peeling open the plastic.

He took a bite of a sandwich and nodded as he chewed for a moment. "I gotcha. Been there, done that. Nausea ain't never fun." He held the sandwich out toward me without actually offering it to me. "I feel ya too." He nodded again before taking another bite and repeating the gesture of holding it out. "But here's the thing 'bout food and hunger." Focusing on the sandwich, he broke off a bite and held it out to me without meeting my gaze. "Like a car needs gas, like this plane needs fuel, bodies need food, and they know it." He held the bite up closer to my mouth. "Human nature." His eyes met mine. "Gotta eat. Gotta drink."

My mouth opened.

He tucked the bite in as he took another himself, and then we both chewed for a moment.

He swallowed first. "Ain't gonna lie, though. If given a choice in the matter, I'm choosin' steak on the grill over sandwiches eight days a week."

I swallowed the dry sandwich bite.

He broke off another. "Somethin' 'bout that taste." He held it up to my mouth. "It just hits right. Meat and fire. Nothin' like it." Half his mouth tipped up with a mischievous glint. "Unless you got the right company with ya." He smiled wide. "Then it ain't about the food at all. Am I right or am I right?"

I took the next bite and chewed as my gaze sought out the open sports drink.

The blond man pushed the plastic bottle toward me as he ripped off another bite. "And if we're talkin' choice of drinks? Then I'm definitely choosin' an ice-cold one." He smiled again as he tipped his chin toward the sports drink. "Go ahead, darlin'. Wash those bites down. I'll wait."

I picked up the drink and smelled the chemical citrus scent that was nothing like the lemons that grew on the tree in the yard of the beach house. Tentatively, I held the bottle to my lips.

Then I was drinking.

Not drinking, gulping down the cool liquid that was coating my parched throat.

"Good, darlin'. That's it. Nice and easy, though." A large, calloused hand wrapped around the bottle and pulled it back as more sandwich appeared in front of me. "Have another bite."

I opened my mouth. I took the bite. I chewed the food. The calloused hand tilted the bottle up. I drank. The bottle tilted down. Another bite appeared.

Then the whole process repeated.

And repeated.

I did not realize Grayson had walked away until he was staring at me with his penetrating gaze as he set down another sports drink just as I finished the last sip of the bottle that was being held to my lips by another man.

The shame and indignity were instant.

My face burned, my stomach twisted, and I shifted to look out the dark window, only to have it mock me with not only my reflection but the mirrored image of the two men catering to me as if I were an infant.

Unable to bring myself to look at the blond man with green eyes, I kept myself turned toward the window. "Thank you. I am finished." Lightning flashed in the distance.

"Nothin' doin', darlin', nothin' doin'." The air shifted, and the faint scent of coconuts and a sea breeze drifted past. "Keep hydratin' and let me or Ghost know if you start feelin' worse."

I nodded as the scent of the beach was replaced with cool rain and musk.

A deeply calm voice that used to be my balm grated over my raw nerves as a large hand I knew by sight but not touch pushed the fresh sports drink toward me. "Drink."

A flash of lightning lit the night sky again, and I grasped the bottle.

He leaned forward to look out the window.

Three more strikes punctured the dark, and we shared the moment.

But it was not until after a blond medic had walked down the aisle while a ghost had taken his vacated seat that I realized something.

I had never shared bites of food with a man before.