Enemy of My Enemy (Executive Office #2)

by Tal Bauer

Faisal stroked his arm. “Habibi—” “We can’t.” Adam intercepted Faisal’s hand and plucked it from his skin. He forced himself not to thread their fingers together. “You know we can’t.” Faisal closed his eyes. “I thought, after Ethiopia—” “Ethiopia didn’t change anything.” Looking down, Adam gripped the balcony railing hard enough to turn his knuckles white. “It was a mistake. What happened then—it was a mistake.” Silence. The taste of peaches lingered on the air, and he remembered kissing Faisal, tasting peach nectar, and hearing his warm voice whisper Arabic against his shoulder. “Loving you will never be a mistake to me,” Faisal finally said. “If you believe our love is a mistake, then that is your burden to bear.” His voice, as always, was soft and gently accented thanks to his private English tutors in Riyadh and his Oxford education. It tore at Adam’s heart, always. The tenderness containing a core of ferocity, a hidden fire that rivaled the sun.