Сюзанна Бэк - Desert Storm

After a long moment, his own darkness rose to the fore again, dismissing the look he had been given from those strange eyes as a mere trick of the light. With a nod of his dark head, the guards forced the woman down into the chair. He stopped them from binding her arms behind her back however, as he chanced a look at her hands. Suddenly, he knew without a doubt who had ended the soldier’s life in the cell. Those hands were large and strong and Al-Hassein thought that if he just looked at them for long enough, he would see inches of dried blood coating them. A tendril of fear snaked through his body as his gaze trailed up the lean, yet voluptuous, form of the now seated prisoner, stopping to take in the proud jaw and high arched cheekbones of what even he would admit was a beautiful American woman.

Pushing the senseless fear down yet again, the commander affixed a welcoming smile to his face as he rose from behind the desk and crossed to stand before this new prisoner. “Welcome, young woman,” he said in his most charming voice. “A pity that my friends didn’t remark on your ravishing beauty. I would have offered you only the finest hospitality had I known.”

“Then I’m glad they didn’t,” Kael responded in Al-Hassein’s own tongue, spoken without a trace of an accent. Again, the commander was left wondering, uncertain. Could these truly be Americans? Nodding again to his guards, Al-Hassein watched as they laid the woman’s arms on the arms of the chair, reaching down to secure her to the seat with thick leather straps. Her lean, tapered fingers curled around the edge of the chair arms, relaxed.

The commander allowed his countenance to darken as he looked up from his study of the woman’s hands to again peer into her glittering eyes. “Your friend was just about to bare his soul to me,” he said, finding comfort in the speaking of his own tongue. “You prevented that from happening. Why?”

Kael’s lips curved into a sneer as she refused to look away from his direct gaze.

The two engaged in a silent battle of wills for long moments before Al-Hassein found himself unbelievably having to look away from the deadly glare of his prisoner. Clearing his throat against his discomfort, the commander gestured to his men, who raised their weapons. “Unfortunately, you did a very bad thing and must receive the proper punishment. It’s not something I want to do, believe me. But even I have my orders.” He tried to make his voice sound sad, but failed miserably, so off balance was he by this strange woman sitting in his office as if she, not he, were the interrogator. He nodded again, a savage shake of his head, and watched interestedly as the rifle butts came down upon her unprotected hands, crushing the bones beneath the smooth, silken flesh, his ears awaiting the wonderful sounds of her screams of agony.

There was only silence. He forced himself to look up, knowing the woman had passed out just as her compatriots had before her, and irrationally disappointed because of it. Looked up to find those eyes still staring at him, the sneer still curled about the full lips of his captive.

“Is that the best you can do?” the low, melodious voice asked without a hint of the agony she must surely be feeling.

Al-Hassein forced himself not to gasp. Surely this woman was not human. “Who are you?” he breathed, barely aware that he was speaking aloud.

Kael chose not to answer him Instead, she leaned back against the chair, actually crossing her legs as the smirk on her face became a half smile of amusement. She was holding all the cards and she knew it. Worse, she knew he knew it as well. Her deceptively casual posture was deliberately designed to prod him into making a mistake.

Closing the distance between them, Al-Hassein’s wonder was evident on his face as he pushed a large thumb down onto the warm flesh of her crushed left hand. He stared at her face, determined to see some sort of reaction to this. There was none. Not even the involuntary tensing of her jaw muscles or the contraction of her pupils betrayed her pain. The amused smile remained. Her eyes seemed to laugh at his discomfort.

The commander removed his thumb and moved slightly away, trying to regroup. He was totally non-plused and reeling off balance. Al-Hassein was a competent military commander with many skirmish victories under his belt. None of his experience, however, had prepared him for this. His mind whirled. His broad shoulders raised, then settled as he wiped his hands down his uniform, huffing out a soft sigh of air.

The look of false compassion returned again to his eyes. “It doesn’t have to be like this, you know,” he said finally, gesturing to her hands. “You understand my position. It was only business. You took something of mine so I had to take something of yours. Now that we are again on an even field, as it were, we can begin anew.” Reaching outward, he used a fingertip to gently caress Kael’s square jaw. “All you need do is answer my simple questions and I can promise you that this interview can proceed most …pleasantly.”

Kael’s smile of amusement turned to one of outright seduction. Her glittering silver-blue eyes darkened and narrowed wantonly, causing the Iraqi’s entire body to respond quite against his conscious will. “Perhaps,” she replied softly, her own eyes blazing a path down Al-Hassein’s uniformed body, coming to rest on the area between his legs. An ebony eyebrow curved. “If you’re sure you have the stamina for it, that is.”

His jaw opening in shock, Al-Hassein stepped back again. Reaching into the breast pocket of his uniform, he pulled out his ever-present handkerchief, wiping his fingers furiously as he stared at the prisoner still wantonly eyeing him. “You Americans are amazing,” he choked out, stuffing the rumpled, damp cloth back into his pristine uniform coat. Used to the covered deference of Muslim women, the commander was out of his element and he knew it. The line of seduction he had just laid on the American would have been an affront of the most horrid to one of his own, yet she accepted it as if it were her due and even had the utter gall to chastise his manhood.

Black blooms of rage flared up behind his eyes as he stared at his prisoner, grinding his perfect teeth in rhythm to the clenching of his fists. Well groomed nails dug divots into the warm flesh of his palms causing dots of blood to well up and surface.

Keal kept up the act, knowing she had the Iraqi on the ropes. One more blow and he’d go down in a heap. In a deep, throaty voice, she purred, “Are you sure you’re man enough to take me on?”

Bellowing in rage, Al-Hassein threw up his right arm, intending to strike the impudent woman’s face with all his strength, determined to mar the beauty she was so effortlessly using against him. The blow never landed. Instead, it was easily deflected off a rock hard forearm as Kael ripped from her bindings with ease, blocking the thundering blow and the one that followed it. Standing, she drew back her head and butted the frozen commander while at the same time urgine a sharp knee into the manhood she had just mocked. Al-Hassein went to his knees, wheezing and retching as his stunned guards looked on with wide eyes.

“Guess not,” she sneered, landing an elbow to the muscled mid-section of the guard to her left, causing the weapon to fly from his tight grip. In her zeal, Kael had forgotten about her injured hands and the weapon fell from her grasp to clatter onto the tiled floor of the office. Turning quickly, she threw a sweeping round kick at the second guard, connecting with his upper chest and sending him to the ground beside his commander.

The first guard regained his footing, clamping a huge hand on one broad shoulder, intending to spin the prisoner around to face a right cross he was readying. Instead, his nose met with a backfist and he released the woman, howling and clutching at his face as streams of blood sprayed through his clenched fingers.