Page 123 of Enemy of My Enemy

"Habibi, I will be all right. It won’t happen again."

“You can’t know that.”

“I will be fine. You will be back soon. Yes?”

“I never want to leave you." He cupped Faisal’s face in both hands and leaned in, pressing a long kiss to his lips. “Ana bahibak.”

Faisal hummed and tried to chase Adam when he pulled back. His hands curved down Adam’s neck. “I will be waiting,qalby. But,habibi,you need to be safe, too.” He kissed Adam, gently. “And you should take the Lear. It’s faster.”

* * *

“You know,I’m starting to understand the appeal.”

Reclining on a leather lounger in Faisal’s Learjet, Doc looked ridiculous. He’d found the closet filled with luxury silk pajamas, down feather slippers, a cooling satin sleep mask, and one of the most expensive—and ridiculous—ergonomic pillows on the planet. He’d stripped immediately, leaving his boots and clothes in a pile, and donned the pajamas, slippers, and sleep mask, and then stretched out on the couch, poised like somefemme fatalein a fifties film. In the jet’s overhead compartment, he’d found a cashmere Burberry throw, and that now lay stretched across his lap, his hand stroking over the ultrasoft material.

Adam stared at him, one eyebrow raised. Far more sensible, he was sitting at the window, tablet in hand, waiting for any updates from Faisal to ping through. So far, Noah seemed to be holding steady drinking coffee.

Adam was also trying not to go out of his mind, fighting the urge to turn around and go right back to Faisal’s side. Leaving him, walking away, felt too much like the biggest mistake he’d ever made, when he’d tried to walk away for good.

“This kind of luxury is sweet.” Doc grinned. He had the mask over his eyes, even though he wasn’t trying to sleep, and only a satiny slip of white stared back at Adam.

Adam shook his head.

“So, I guess I can see why you’d go for this kind of thing.”

He snorted. “This stuff just gets in the way. It wasn’t like this at all when we met.”

Lifting a corner of the sleep mask, Doc stared.

“Early on, we had this… rat hole of an apartment in Kuwait. I worked intel, so I could get away a lot. We had a mattress on the floor, dark, heavy wood everywhere, shutters nailed closed. You know.” He glanced at Doc.

Doc clearly had no idea. He stared back blankly.

“We drank coffee at dusty Internet cafes and wandered the slums. No bodyguards, no royalty, no Marine Corps...” He trailed off. “He’d recite poetry by candlelight. We didn’t have any electricity. He drew sketches of us on the walls with charcoal from our fires.”

“The fuck did you do for him? Teach him how to badly use a compass?” Doc sat up on one elbow and pushed the white satin sleep mask up to his forehead, ruffling his hair.

Adam glared. “We practiced Arabic together. All the dialects we could.”

“I’ll bet you practiced Arabic together.” Doc’s eyebrows waggled. “Habibi.”

“Don’t say that. And I don’t know why I bothered saying anything.”

Doc lay back, rearranging his sleep mask and unfolding the Burberry blanket over himself. He sighed, blissful.

A moment later, Doc piped up again. “You’re happy around him. It’s easy to see. He makes you happy. And,” he shifted on the couch, “you’re basically a miserable, dickish asshole most of the time, so anything that makes you happy is a damn good thing.”

The flight took just over two hours, and the pilot called back to Adam in Arabic when they were on approach. The Jordanian military airfield was barely anything at all, two dusty runways and a squat tower surrounded by a rusted chain-link fence. Someone had scared up an ancient gold Mercedes sedan and parked it next to their runway. Bored Jordanian military guards watched them through binoculars.

Doc groaned and changed out of his silk and satin and back into his borrowed jeans and long-sleeve shirt. They were going in plainclothes, trying to blend in as much as they could until they reached Noah. There was nothing they could do about Noah being able to recognize Adam on sight, but that was part of the plan. Turn it around and use it to their advantage.

Faisal texted Adam’s phone, saying that Noah was still at the café, across the street from the central mosque in Ma’an.

Adam drove, despite joking with Doc about driving the getaway car, and Doc slid into the passenger seat, navigating them from the airfield and across the desert to the village. They wound through the sandy streets, past stalls selling oranges and dates and almonds, and past cafés where men and women drank coffee and smoked shisha. Ahead, towering minarets pierced the hazy orange sky: Ma’an’s central mosque.

“Take this alley, and then make a right. The café will be ahead on the left.” Doc alternated between watching the road and the tablet in his lap. “Lover boy says he’s still there.”

At Faisal’s nickname, Adam glared before he turned onto the street. He slid in behind a Land Rover, parked just down the block from the café but with a clear line of sight to the people sitting outside.