Her lips tightened, and I let it lay there. I got up and went outside, skirting the fire. Darkness was coming down fast and it was still a raging snowstorm. I was angry and frustrated, afraid of what Ghotak might be doing. The storm would probably hamper his movements too, but I knew that when it ended, we had to get back down to Katmandu, and fast. I went back inside and saw Hilary watching me, a mixture of defiance and uncertainty in her eyes. Her breasts rose up like small versions of the mountains outside as she leaned back on her elbows. I knelt down beside her, with her eyes fixed on mine and suddenly realized that the defiance I saw there was her kind of mask. She used it to cloak her own desires, to mask them from herself as well as from others. I leaned down and put my lips on hers. She remained motionless for a moment and then started to tear away. I grabbed her shoulder and yanked her around, crushing my mouth over hers. I opened her lips with my tongue and felt her writhe, her hands pushing upon my shoulders. I held her in a tight grip and let my tongue penetrate her mouth, sending it darting back and forth. I felt her lips suddenly soften and quiver, felt them relax and answer mine. Her tongue curled over mine and she was gasping, working her full lips over my mouth, devouring, burning, thirsting.
My hand found her breast and she cried out as I roamed across the soft, tender flesh. "Oh, my God, Nick… Oh, God," she breathed. I yanked the sweater up and off her and the bra came undone. Her beautifully large breasts lay against my chest and she was moving against me, her legs twitching and rubbing against each other. I found her breasts with my lips, drawing softly upon them, and her cries filled the little cave with the sounds of pure rapture. I stopped, raised my lips from them, and she feverishly rose to thrust them into my mouth. "Oh, don't stop, damn… don't stop," she said. I pulled away again and looked at her face, her eyes closed in pleasure, lips parted, quivering.
"Are you calling, Hilary?" I asked softly. She whimpered and pressed her breast into my hand. "Louse," she whimpered. "You louse. Yes, I'm calling… I'm calling, oh, God am I calling." I bent down to the sweetness of her breast again and felt the virginal nipples rise under the soft circle of my tongue. Hilary's slacks were suddenly off her legs and I was exploring the youthful, firm convexity of her belly, the warm moistness of her thighs, as she continued to make little whimpering sounds of ecstasy. I lowered my body over hers. Her arms clasped my neck like a vise, and her lips played an insistent tattoo across my face. As I came to her she began to cry out, a long, low, passion-filled cry that grew in intensity as I increased my movements. Suddenly, I pulled away and waited for a long moment. She lay in suspended animation, back arched, not drawing a breath, and then she cried out in ecstatic anguish, a scream of pleading hunger. "No-o-o-o…. you can't stop. Oh, my God, no. Please… oh, oh, please." I came to her again and moved with stronger, bolder rhythms, and now Hilary was beating her fists against my chest in a wild, uncontrolled passion. "Oh, I can't… I can't handle it," she cried out. "I can't handle it."
"You'll handle it," I said, and I knew she was experiencing that sweet anguish of uncontrollable ecstasy, a moment only some women ever knew when their passions are literally beyond themselves. That same aggressiveness, that same determination now channeled into the ecstasy of rapture, was carrying her to heights she never knew existed, the Himalayas of passion, and I had the fleeting, passing thought that our setting was appropriate for her. Suddenly, as I thrust deeply into her, she seized me and her youthful, firm body quivered convulsively and her breath came in long gasps. Finally, like a light bulb being snapped off, she fell back, utterly spent and exhausted. I lay beside her, drinking in the magnificent contours of her body. Hilary was a big girl but with the statuesque beauty given only to some big girls. It was a while before she opened her eyes and looked at me. She turned over and lay against me, her lips against my ear.
"You knew all the time, didn't you?" she asked. "You knew what I really wanted all the time."
"Not at first," I said. "At least not consciously. But I'm glad I found out."
I turned her over to peer into her eyes. "Are you?" I asked.
She nodded and squeezed me tight in her arms. "I'm glad," she said. "I hope it never stops snowing."
We lay quietly in the warm little world we had found, and before the night ended, I taught Hilary more about the heights of passion and ecstasy. She was vigorous and unsubtle but she made up for her lack of experience by the unalloyed pleasure of discovery. The snow stopped at dawn and we finally dressed and started from the cave. She stopped me on the way out and her lips pressed against mine.
"I'll never forget this night," she said. "And I'm even more sorry for Khaleen now. You'll leave a big hole in her world when you up and leave, as you will."
"Stop trying to make me feel like a heel," I said. "She'll get over it. She came to me all tied up in rituals and customs and ancient codes. I tried to turn her aside."
"I'll bet you tried for thirty or forty seconds," she sneered.
"The old Hilary is back," I said. "Miss sweetness and light."
"Maybe the old Hilary never left," she said. "Maybe last night was just a passing interlude." Her arm suddenly tightened on mine and her head came to rest against my chest. "Maybe the old Hilary is back because she's so bloody sorry the old world has to come back," she said in a small voice. "Maybe because she wishes last night could go on forever."
I held her tight another moment and then led the way from the cave. Outside, the dawn held another surprise for us. The snow had stopped and lay over everything, a heavy, white blanket, but now I could see where we were for the first time. From the ledge, we looked down onto a wide pass and in the pass were ten tents and a brigade of soldiers, just emerging from their shelters.
"They're Chinese!" Hilary breathed.
"They sure as hell are," I said. "Chinese regulars."
"But what are they doing here, Nick?" she asked.
"I don't know but I could make a pretty good guess," I answered. "I'll bet they're on their way to meet Ghotak. He probably called for a brigade of troops as insurance."
"Insurance against what?"
"Against something going wrong at the last minute. Against my presence on the scene. Against unexpected developments. If, for instance, the King decided to balk at honoring the petition at the last minute, he could move in with a coup and have himself installed as ruler."
We crouched on the ledge and watched the troops as they stretched and used the snow to wash. They weren't knocking down their tents which meant they were waiting for someone, no doubt a guide to take them in the rest of the way. Maybe they waited for someone with word from Ghotak as to what their next move should be. I saw an officer step from a tent and dispatch two sentries, one to either end of the pass. The one at our end took up a position almost directly beneath where we crouched.
"They've no doubt come in by way of Tibet," I said. "But I want to check this out for myself. I can get the answers I want from that sentry he sent out here all by himself."
I handed Hilary the Marlin. "You hang onto this and stay here until I get back," I told her. "Understand? No decisions on your own, or I'll break you in half when I catch up to you."
She nodded. "I promise," she said. "I'll stay right here."
I circled carefully back around the other end of the narrow ledge, found a place to drop and let myself fall into a drift of deep snow. I ducked as a small avalanche of snow fell from the ledge onto me, disturbed by my movements. As I watched the snow slide settle, a smile stole over my face. With a little luck, this could be a very rewarding day. I pulled myself from the drift and made my way downward, being careful to move along the rocks wherever possible, trying not to dislodge any of the loose snow. The Chinese soldier had positioned himself between two large rock formations and he stood at ease, figuring his post was more of a formality than anything else. Beyond the two rocks was a narrow crevasse in the glacier, deeper than the eye could see. I poised on the top of the rock and dropped, hitting him right on target. He went down with me on top of him. I crossed a right to his jaw and he went limp. Pulling him behind me, I moved into the towering walls abutting the crevasse. He was coming around and I held his head and shoulder out over the edge of the seemingly bottomless cut in the mountains. My Chinese was good enough, if he didn't speak one of the more obscure dialects. It turned out he understood me very well. After letting him look down into the crevasse, I yanked him over on his back, holding him half over the edge.