The secret stone doorway slid away from the wall, and the black chasm it revealed actually exhaled, like the last breath of a dying man—or the first breath of a dead man revived. Nash and Ryan jumped back with a fright, inches before their lips had a chance to lock. The light and sounds of the city had faded away as they followed Saabir through the labyrinth that made up the long forgotten corners of the City of the Dead, a maze of high walls built from ancient stones, where shadows gobbled up the light cast by the moon. And the cats—still so many of them—shot by silently out of the corners of Nash’s eyes. Eventually they had stopped, and Saabir leaned his back against a rough stone wall. “This is the place,” he whispered. It was more than apparent to Nash that Ryan took those words to mean this was the place where their passions could finally be unleashed, unseen and uninterrupted. Within moments, Ryan had one arm around Saabir’s waist and one wrapped around the back of Nash’s neck, pulling him closer and closer, lips parted, mouth watering. Nash himself let one trembling hand caress the ball of Saabir’s shoulder, while the other dared to venture down the front of Ryan’s shirt, feeling the heaving, hardened muscle and flesh beneath, twisting the buttons undone one at a time with his quivering, sweating fingertips. Meanwhile, the quiet, seductive Saabir—the beautiful Egyptian who had silently won their attention across the noisy, crowded bar with his steadfast stare, the man whose backward glances had lured them through the streets of Cairo to the City of the Dead, his glimmering green eyes like beacons in the night—smiled as he watched the two handsome Americans touch and paw at his and each other’s bodies.