The fruit looked best in the hands of delighted customers.

Smiling, Mikhail watched from behind as his young stall hand tucked the iridescent, rich Djannian fruit into plastic bags for the earliest morning customers clamoring over each other.

With his fair prices, Mikhail hadn’t witnessed a lull in business. Everyone wanted to get the cheapest and juiciest product. That was life in Zhebair. Hectic, frantic and desperate all rolled into one ball as each citizen fought for theirs and their family’s scraps.

Mikhail smiled sadly.

It hadn’t always been that way. There was a time that Zhebair had been even more prosperous than Djanna, or so historians gathered from their careful research.

This nation once had a thriving gold trade. Now that most of the gold was gone, greed had replaced it. Looking around, Mikhail couldn’t picture anything but the old, squat buildings and tight, congested pathways where cars and people traveled together.

Backing deeper into the shade, Mikhail dropped back onto his worn wooden stool. Wincing, he clutched his injured arm and mumbled, “Easy.” The last thing he needed now was the fresh stitching opening up on him.

He picked up the paperwork from the floor and continued sorting his business sheets. It was a far cry from his former life. Once the King of Djanna, he hadn’t ever thought he’d be sitting here, in Zhebair, as a lowly merchant.

It was exactly the life he wanted though–the life he’d fought to have. Now it was all his, and he was making the most of it. Like all the days before, the morning hours flew by, and before he knew it, Mikhail lifted his head to answer the tired face of his school-aged stall hand, Ali.

“Close for lunch,” Mikhail told him, gathering the remaining paperwork. He would leave it for after lunch.

As usual, Mikhail planned to take the boy to his restaurant of choice for their meal. Having cleared up the floor first, he moved to the front to help Ali close the stall for the hour of lunch. He realized why Ali was being held up today.

Mikhail stilled, wondering if he’d ever seen anything more…tempting.

The man on the other side of the stall talking to Ali in a low whisper was boyishly beautiful. His wavy wealth of glossy black hair glistened in the sun. It brushed his broad forehead and popped against his reddish-bronze skin tone. His nose was straight and proud, his lips plump and his teeth straight and enviably white.

He wore a gold-trimmed black thowb, a traditional ankle-length robe favored by men in both Zhebair and Djanna. It was nothing special, yet on this man’s willowy figure, Mikhail acknowledged the stirrings of desire in his loins.

A deep, bottomless thirst that could only be quenched if Mikhail moved around the stall, grasped his object of desire, and held him to his stirring, pulsing cock.

Delicate and frail came to mind as Mikhail neared his object of fascination. Still, he had to have some power. Mikhail was stunned when the man looked his way and stopped his intrigue-filled whispering with Ali.

Dark brown eyes assessed Mikhail shrewdly before a polite smile touched his lips. Noticing he held one of the fruits from the stall, Mikhail turned to address his stall hand.

“Are you helping this gentleman, Ali?”

Ali shook his head. “He had a question about the fruit, sir.”

“I did have a question,” the man said, his voice deeper than Mikhail would associate with him.

So not boyish at all, Mikhail thought with a smile.

“Ask away, I might be of help after all,” Mikhail said.

“This fruit is from Djanna, yes? Who delivers this to you?”

Mikhail’s easy friendliness wilted. Wary tension prickled up and down his spine, his hands closing into fists as they dropped to his sides.

“Are you the stall owner?” the beautiful man asked, continuing his line of invasive, unwanted questioning.

One thing most people in Zhebair did well was mind their own business. No one bothered to question how Mikhail smuggled in the fruit, or how he nearly died the last time he’d crossed the border to top off his stock. He could almost hear the blade slicing the air, see his blood spurt out, and feel the hot sting as the knife opened his flesh like butter.

Shaking off the horrid memory, Mikhail tacked on his business smile. His lips twitched at the corners from the strain and the fear. For all he knew, this handsome patron was a front for the dramatically belligerent law enforcement of Zhebair. Corrupt lowlifes protected by their shield and their even more corrupt higher-ups, all the way to Mustafa, the Prime Minister of Zhebair himself.

Mikhail tucked away his fast attraction for a pretty face and hoped killing this guy with kindness worked.

“I am, yes,” he said. Mikhail held out his hand. “Merchant Malik is my name, sir.”

With a little dip of his head, the elegantly robed young man introduced himself. “I’m Khalid, an inquisitive clerk with a thirst to start his own stall.”

Then accepting the handshake, the young man stared at their locked hands with a flicker of confusion. But the pleat between his shapely dark brows disappeared as quickly as it appeared.

They broke apart, Mikhail’s hand still tingling from their connection.

Since he couldn’t decipher what this absurd lust meant, he concentrated on what made sense.

Right now that’d be what was obvious: Khalid was more interested in Mikhail than delicious Djannian fruit.