Beyond Desire

44- Being a silent survivor is much more my brand.

I froze in place, my fingers still twitching near that stupid bottle of olive oil and my brain stuck on a loop of oh-my-god-I'm-about-to-be-kidnapped and oh-my-god-it's-Khalid.

He was right there, staring at me like he was already mentally clearing the room, and I was the only piece of the board he intended to keep. Then he shifted his gaze to the strangers, watching them with calculating interest before he began to close the gap. His stride was slow and possessed the kind of merciless composure that made the gravel beneath his boots sound like a countdown. He looked devastatingly out of place against the grime of the supermarket's rear exit, wearing a charcoal-grey tailored shirt with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows.

The three men veered, moving closer to their car. The leader, the one with the stone-grinding face, squared his shoulders trying to reclaim his space, but the bravado was leaking out of him. I watched his fingers, the same ones that had been inches from my arm, start to twitch against his thigh as he tracked Khalid's approach.

Khalid's focus remained entirely fixed on me, ignoring the men as if they were nothing more than background noise he hadn't yet decided to silence. As he moved into the cramped alleyway, the suffocating gravity of his presence forced the three men to shuffle backward, their tough-guy act falling apart as they gave up the ground to him. He didn't break his stride until he had crowded into my personal space, standing so close that the scent of his expensive cologne began to mask the sour stench of the supermarket's storage area.

I remained rooted to the spot, caught in a new kind of vertigo as the loading bay suddenly felt too small for the both of us. The cold air was replaced by the sudden, radiating heat of his body. He was so close I could see the faint pulse in his jaw, a single twitch of restrained violence that made my own breath hitch and die in my chest. I wanted to recoil but some traitorous part of me wanted to lean in, to disappear into the charcoal-grey shirt on his chest and let him handle the world.

He spoke without bothering to turn toward the men. It was just a flat, quiet statement that left them no other choice.

"Get out."

"She's been trailing...." The lead man started, trying to regain his footing.

Khalid pivoted his head just a fraction. The look in his eyes was so murderous that the leader's words died in his throat.

"I don't remember asking," his voice dropped to a low-edged rumble.

A heavy, suffocating silence followed. The three men exchanged looks, realized the hierarchy had been rewritten, and silently backed away toward the silver sedan like pushovers.

I watched them quietly, my brain was already doing the maths. One man shouldn't have been able to clear a deck like that, not against three. But they weren't looking at his size, they were looking at the cold, clinical way he tracked their movements. They probably knew him. Or worse, they knew what he was capable of doing to people like them.

I had a sudden, heroic urge to yell "Cowards!" at the retreating sedan, maybe even throw a shoe for dramatic effect. But then I looked at Khalid. The expression on his face was enough to make the words die a quiet, pathetic death in my throat. I swallowed hard, deciding that being a silent survivor was much more my brand than being a loud martyr.

His eyes stayed glued to the car until it disappeared around the far bend of the loading bay. Then he unhurriedly turned toward me. The fury was still there, etched into the hard line of his face and the way his nostrils flared, but when his eyes hit mine, his focus changed course. He wasn't staring at me with the same rigid gaze he gave them, but he wasn't exactly relaxed, either.

"Lily?" Even his voice has lost its edge, turning quiet and unexpectedly gentle. It was as though he were speaking to a child.

"I.....I was looking for a clinic!" The words burst out of me, high-pitched and agitated. I couldn't stop them. "There's a clinic, right? I mean, obviously not here, because this is a supermarket, but I thought......."