Total pages in book: 138
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 126823 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 634(@200wpm)___ 507(@250wpm)___ 423(@300wpm)
When she had panic attacks and horrendous nightmares, and in the beginning, when she first returned home that was all the time, despite the heavy security in her parents’ home, he would suddenly appear in her bedroom and hold her, just as he was doing now.
Shabina tried to concentrate on his voice in the hopes she would find her control. She felt him brush kisses in her hair and then down along her temple. No one ever saw Rainier’s sweet side. They didn’t know he had one. Most of the time, he didn’t even show it to her. He was abrupt and bossy and bordered on rude. But when he was like this, he stole her heart. She ached for him. Needed him desperately.
“I’m being selfish.” She didn’t know how she managed to get her voice to be heard above the coughing, sobbing hysteria.
“No, you’re not,” he denied. “You’d be selfish if I jumped out of a plane in the dead of night and you refused to let me comfort you.”
There was just the slightest trace of emotion in his voice, but she couldn’t tell what he was feeling. She wrapped her arms around his neck, pressing her wet face into his neck, taking in deep gulps of air, drawing his familiar scent into her lungs. “How did you get here so fast?”
“I have private planes and pilots ready to go at a moment’s notice. I just parachuted in with my three Belgian Malinois and my equipment.” He kept rocking her. “I’m always ready to get to you from wherever I am. I just happened to be closer this time than usual.”
“All three dogs?” Three? She knew his dogs were trained for military, security and protection purposes. They had far more training than her Dobermans. “How could you get them to the ground safely and still have the gear you do?”
“Practice. And friends.”
She didn’t know if that meant others had parachuted in with him and were somewhere out in the night guarding the house, but she wasn’t going to ask.
“Private planes and pilots?” She echoed his first statement, trying to figure out what he meant by always ready to get to her. “As in more than one?”
“Some time ago, I started my own security company. I hire men I know are good at their jobs yet have a difficult time fitting back into society. I have money and resources, sometimes more than I know what to do with. I still work with Blom but spend the majority of my time taking security jobs and training recruits.”
His chin settled on the top of her head and rubbed. She remembered him doing that each time he held her close. She found it comforting. She closed her eyes, breathing him in. His strength, his scent, everything Rainier.
“When was the last time you slept?”
She shook her head or tried to. Her head wanted to explode if she moved it. Her eyes burned from crying so much. “Days,” she managed to mumble.
“Qadri.” He whispered the endearment like a reprimand. “Why didn’t you call me?”
“Nothing can happen to you.” Her lips were against his throat, the only time she dared to show him how she felt. Just the thought of putting him in danger brought a fresh flood of tears. “I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you, Rainier.”
As confessions went, it was rather silly. She wasn’t certain he could understand between the sobs still escaping, the hiccups and gasping for breath. Her voice sounded strangled.
His fingers fisted in her hair. “Has it occurred to you, Shabina, I can’t bear the thought of anything happening to you? We agreed you’d talk to me when things start to go bad. What happened to that agreement?”
What was she going to say? That she’d ruined his life already? “I should have tried to escape from Salman Ahmad’s tribe,” she confessed in a low tone. Ashamed. That was where it had all started. “Even if they caught me, I doubt if he would have punished me severely, if at all.”
“This is the reason you didn’t call me?”
She nodded, wiping more tears on his neck. “My father’s security people told us not to resist if we were kidnapped, but looking back, I was very comfortable with Ahmad’s people. I grew to love them.”
A fresh flood of tears cascaded, and Rainier shifted her in his arms, careful to keep her close to his chest but where he could tip up her face to his. She tried to avoid his piercing gray eyes by burrowing tight against his chest.
“Keep going, baby. This sounds important.”
Rainier, willing to listen when it was too late. He would try to make sense of her garbled ramblings. Of her guilt. Of the reason she couldn’t call him.
“It didn’t occur to me to try to escape because I really grew to think of many of the women and children as family. I saw others leave when the ransom was paid and waited my turn. I honestly didn’t want to go. I was learning so many things. Not just that, I felt like I actually had a home.”