“Do you mind?” he said, gesturing to the camera.
She sat up sharply “What—why?”
He held the camera to his eye again, adjusted the lens. “The image is perfect.”
“Brandt, no!”
He lowered the camera.
“I... Please, don’t.”
He said nothing.
“I can’t have that kind of photo of myself out there, Brandt.” Her voice was crisp, her eyes hard.
Coolness settled in his gut. “You think I’m actually going to sell these to some cheap tabloid?”
Something crossed her face, and the cold in his stomach hardened. He snorted harshly when she didn’t reply, and he put the camera down. “Even out here, you’re managing your image.” Brandt couldn’t keep something out of his voice. Bitterness—jealousy. He didn’t even know himself what was suddenly biting, eating at him right this instant. Maybe it was the fact she’d chastised him.
“Brandt—”
He jabbed a stick into the flames. The fire exploded a flurry of hot orange sparks that shot up into the night.
“Brandt! Look at me.”
He turned his head. Those eyes—God, those smoky, sensual eyes, lambent in the firelight—were boring into him. And those lips.
He knew what those lips tasted like.
The memory of her naked rose in his mind, luminous skin shimmering with water. The dark wet delta between her thighs. His groin went hot at the thought. Good thing she didn’t know what photos he’d already stolen like a thief in the night.
“What?” he said when she didn’t speak.
“Tell me why you wanted to take photos. Tell me what you were planning to do with them.”
“Keep them,” he said simply. “It’s what I do, Dalilah. These days I shoot with a camera, not a gun, if I can help it. I shoot rare and beautiful things, things with meaning to me. Images I return to so that I can be reminded of what I value in life. Or what stands to be lost.”
Her eyes shimmered, nose pinking slightly.
“And for God’s sake,” he snapped, “give me some credit. The last thing I’d want is His Royal Highness of Sa’ud, or his lackeys, finding these and hurting you because he thinks you’ve tainted your image by being out here with me or something. What in hell do you think I am? I don’t want anything to goddamn do with the world and all its tabloid crap out there!” He flung his arm out wide gesturing toward the window, the night, anger rising irrationally in him as he lost the battle to tamp it down.
Like that bloody bull elephant, he needed to go take it all out on a tree or something.
He sucked in air, deep, and attempting to moderate his tone, he spoke more quietly. “And you know what, that’s why Omair trusts me with you. He knows I’m not going to blab my mouth about saving your ass from Amal.”
Brandt realized the irony as soon as the words came out of his mouth. Yeah, maybe Omair trusted him to save Dalilah and keep quiet about it, but no doubt Sheik Al Arif also trusted his old merc buddy Brandt Stryker to keep his big grubby hands off his engaged little sister.
“Because, believe me, Dalilah, Omair is going to want to keep this whole damn mission quiet. When he comes to pick you up, he’s going to ship you somewhere safe while he goes after Amal himself, now that he has a lead on him, and he doesn’t want international authorities stopping him while he metes out his own kind of desert justice. That’s my bet. You’re the bait that has finally lured Amal Ghaffar out of the African woodpile.” Brandt reached over, took her empty mug, and tossed the dregs onto the fire with a sizzle.
A strange look crossed Dalilah’s face, as if he’d hit something raw and close to the bone.
“Is that what you think—that, my brothers are using me as a lure? And that’s why they never told me about Amal? Because that’s bull.”
He shrugged. “Maybe they didn’t plan it that way, but it works now that Amal has been flushed out. Omair can end this war once and for all.”
She stared at him, eyes big, shining, then she swallowed, looking vulnerable, overwhelmed.
And suddenly Brandt felt bad. He wanted to hold her, protect her. But an image of Carla curled into his mind. It was a night like this. Just Carla and him. Her big dark eyes searching his—that same look of smoky allure and vulnerability. So feminine. So sexy. It pressed all his male buttons. Heat prickled over Brandt’s skin.
He winced suddenly as the memory of Carla’s screams sliced through his brain. The memory of her naked body, being tortured as he was forced to watch. He swallowed, his pulse beginning to race, claustrophobia biting at him.
And for a nanosecond, Dalilah’s face was Carla’s. Past and present began to collide—walls seemed to be closing in. Amal and his men coming, just like those men had come for Carla. Sweat began to pearl on his brow.