AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Eden
I’d thought before I knew what it was for time to pass slowly. I’d had no idea until that night. Huddled on the floor, crippled with fear, the minutes had turned into hours, and I lost all sense of time passing. I didn’t have my phone. It was in my bag, forgotten on a table with Khan and I’s names on it. Now, I sat and stared at the door, until my eyes adjusted to the dark enough for me to make out other things in the room. I pried myself off the floor, and wondered around, slipping my heels off, so I could walk quietly. On an old desk, I found a landline phone. Filled with excitement, I picked it up, ready to call 911, when I heard a disconnected tone in my ear. They had cut the phones.
I kept walking, checking out anything else that would be useful in the room, but finding little. I did find a sharp pair of scissors that I squirreled away in my dress pocket. God bless designers who made elegant evening gowns with pockets. Women’s best friends.
As I tucked them away, I heard the sound of the door quietly opening. There had been no lock, so there was no way to stop anyone from coming in. Now, I could only hope it was Khan.
A man entered, and I could tell from his silhouette that he wasn’t Khan. He was too short and square. Fear shuddered through me as I gripped my scissors tightly and stopped breathing. The man moved further into the room, as I silently backed away on my bare feet. Once the door was closed, I could barely see where he was, but I could hear him breathing.
“Is there someone in here? There are two guests missing from our little party,” the man called, his voice oddly singsong and playful. This man didn’t sound like just a thief. He sounded like he was having the time of his life tonight. I took another silent step back, and my long skirts brushed something. A stack of papers, perhaps, something soft and quiet, and yet, when they fell in the tomblike silence, it was like a thunderclap. A hand reached out, groping for me, as I ducked away. I almost managed to dash past to the door when a fist closed on my hair and yanked me back. “Not so fast,” the man breathed in my ear as he pulled me closer to him. I tried to stab backwards with my scissors, knowing the angle was wrong. My grip was weak, but also knowing it was my only chance. The scissors glanced off his face, and he swore, and his grip faltered an inch. I used that to rip forward, away from him and ran for the door. “You bitch! You’ll pay for that!”
I pulled the door open and took a step out, and collided with a hard body.
“Eden, it’s ok, I’m here. I’m here,” Khan’s voice reached me, and I realised the hands weren’t hurting, but holding, and I sank into his chest. I only had a moment though, as Khan quickly spun me, so my back was no longer facing the attacking thug, but his was. He grunted softly, as the man rushing up impacted against his back. I felt the reverberation through his arms. He pushed me to the side and whirled. The light in the hall lit the scene, and my eyes tried to adjust to the sudden brightness, after so long in the dark. Khan was down to his white shirt, rolled at the sleeve, and decorated liberally with red. Blood. His, or someone else’s, I had no idea. I watched as he took on my attacker. The smaller guy was young, covered in tattoos, and had a mean look. His face dripped with blood. Somehow, my lucky strike with the scissors had left a long slash up his cheek, close to his eyes. He was rushing Khan, trying to hit him around the middle and knock him down, but he was met each time with a knee to the face, or a swift right hook that left him staggering. Khan watched him, agile on the balls of his feet as he calculated how next the intruder would attack. I’d never been to a boxing match, or even seen real fighting, and yet, I had the impression at that moment that this was exactly how those dangerous men would move. Khan had the lethal grace and precision of someone who had honed a deadly skill. Someone who had learned to survive, at all costs. With a final blow, the thug fell to the ground, out cold, and Khan turned to me. Now, I could see his face. A wreath of bruises decorated one cheek, and his lip was split. His shirt was dotted with yet more blood across the front, and to one side was a dark red patch on the lower side of his abdomen. I rushed toward him.
“Eden, are you alright? I shouldn’t have left you. I’m sorry,” he said, his deep voice full of regret.
“Don’t be silly. You saved me. Anyway, you left for a reason. Did you find whoever was screaming?”
He nodded, gripping me tightly against him. I pressed myself closer, feeling like I wanted to climb inside this man and check he was ok. My heart was pounding, and I felt half crazed with fear and relief, and yet, holding him felt important somehow. Being in his arms, his heart pressed against mine, felt more right than anything had ever felt before. I looked up at him, craning my neck to see. I brought my hand up to cup his bruised cheek.
“You’re hurt,” I muttered. His dark eyes were fixed on me and filled with an emotion that made me dizzy. I didn’t know exactly what was in that intense look, but it was something that no other person in the world had ever looked at me with.
“It’s nothing,” he said quietly, his eyes tracing over my face. “Are you?” he pressed. I shook my head, my finger dropping to his cut lip. “I’ve never felt so worried about someone else, than when you ran out that room. I think I’ve aged ten years.”
“And you’re already pretty old. Doesn’t this hurt?” I asked, half teasing, half in awe of this big, burly man. Khan’s face seemed to get closer, as he gave a brief smile and shook his head. “Are you sure?” My voice was breathless, and I was trembling. He was going to kiss me. My sexy, bossy, confounding boss was going to kiss me, and I was going to let him. I wanted him to. I needed him to.
“Nothing hurts, as long as you’re alright,” he murmured, his eyes searching mine for something. Permission, perhaps. Whether he saw it, he closed the gap between us, and his lips touched mine. He kissed me hard, uncaring of his cut, or the blood that smeared across both our lips. His tongue touched mine and made me groan. He kissed me like he was staking a claim, laying down ownership, and I welcomed it. At that moment, with the adrenaline of the night flowing through my veins and the relief of his return, I wanted nothing more than to be consumed by his man. If we weren’t standing in the hallway, able to be spotted by men with guns at any moment, I’d let him do a lot more. I might be a virgin, but I had read plenty of bone-meltingly steamy stories to give my imagination all the prowess it needed to run wild. But thoughts of the hallway and men with guns sent reality shooting through my dreamlike state.
“We have to hide! They’ll find us,” I panted, as I pulled away from him, shoving at his chest to manage it. Khan pulled back, though his hands stayed on my hips, hungrily pulling me against him.
“The police are here… it’s over, buttercup,” he said thickly. Buttercup. His lips were tinted red from the blood of his cut, and I supposed mine were too. I looked at the man lying on the floor near us.
“They are? What do we do now?” I wondered lamely. Not only had this evening been the most traumatic and terrifying thing to happen to me, but I had rounded it off by kissing my boss like I was drowning and he was the oxygen I needed to survive.
“Now. We go home, where no one can save you,” Khan said.
“Save me from who?”
“Me,” Khan practically growled. He was the only thing holding me up. The devastating pleasure of his kiss was like a slow-moving fire rippling gently outward through my limbs, turning me to jelly.
“You’re not thinking clearly. You’re in shock,” I muttered. Khan smirked and shook his head.
“No, I don’t think I am. I think I’m finally clear, for the first time in years,” he muttered quietly. “It’s thanks to you, Eden,” he said, and stepped back, and lifted his arm to run a hand through his inky black hair. As he did, he winced, and then swore softly. My relief and awkwardness quickly turned to alarm.
“What’s wrong?” I demanded, pulling at his shirt where the darkest area of blood was. He tried to turn away, but I was persistent, doggedly going after him until it was free. I pulled it up, revealing a toned, thickly muscled abdomen. Right there, just above his belt, was a dark, oozing wound. “Is that a stab wound?” my voice was only a squeak at this point. Khan followed my eyes to his belly and frowned.
“Huh, I guess so.”
