Richard swept her up off her feet and carried her across the room, her face still pressed against his; her lips still burning against his own, slightly swollen and silky with desire. He fumbled with the door handle, impatient to be out. Her hand slipped down his neck to massage his tense shoulder beneath the crisp cotton of his djellabah. She had been eating fresh pomegranates and with every gasp she filled the air with their perfume. When he found the handle, he paused and risked another kiss, pressing his lips down onto her waiting mouth. The tips of their tongues touched with a sensation like an electric shock. The door opened outward and he stepped through it, pressing her to him closer still to keep her shoulders clear of the frame.
That action crushed her breast against his chest and even through the layers of cotton and silk, it was as though their hot skin touched.
He strode across the hall and paused at the foot of the stairs, glancing up to make sure they were clear. Whereupon she twisted lithely, fluidly against him and pressed her mouth to his neck below the lobe of his ear. The tip of her tongue traced languorous lines in the fine hair there working upward — as he mounted the first steps — to the lobe itself where her gentle teeth took over.
By the time he reached the landing above, he was gasping with breath every bit as short as hers — winded, like her, with desire. Her tongue lazily followed the folds of the outer ear, pausing in its erotic exploration only to whisper the secret endearments that had become a most potent part of their lovemaking during the last ten years. Her golden curls filled his face as she moved her lips against him, full of the warm incense of her perfume. Glancing quickly at the spare room where Angus’s voice monotonously repeated Katapult’s call sign, he crossed to their bedroom door. It was open.
Pressing her against him again, reveling in the feeling of her firmness, he carried her into the bedroom and released his hold on her legs. Her grip on his neck did not slacken — it intensified and he took her gently but firmly under the arms with broad, strong hands, holding her head level with his as that fragrant cloud of hair was replaced again by the burning beauty of her face. Her eyes were closed, her mind at once far withdrawn and utterly immediate. Her lips were hot and silken, her tongue wantonly probing. The heels of his hands pressed round her ribs into the resilient firmness of her breasts and, with every lithe muscle in her long, strong body at full stretch, she slid down the front of him, out of that fetal position he had held her in, to a full trembling pressure down his entire length. He felt — as she made him feel — every curve of side and hip and thigh as though they had been naked, oiled. And when she was there, her feet still inches from the warm Bokhara carpet, her arms still tight around his neck, her honey-slick lips sucking at his, she moved against him again, with every liquid fullness and hollow of breast and stomach and belly. And as she did so, deep in her throat, she began to purr, like a great golden kitten.
One gold-strapped evening sandal fell to the floor.
And,
“Richard,” called Angus, his voice tense with alarm. “Richard, it’s Martyr, speaking from Katapult. There’s something terribly wrong…”
They spread the chart on the bedroom floor and crouched over it, planning with desperate speed while Angus relayed ideas and suggestions feverishly back and forth, stunned by the massiveness of the blow.
“They’re here.” Robin’s finger marked the spot deftly as Angus rattled off the figures. Richard was already calculating. “Four hundred and ten miles as the crow flies. Over five hundred by sea. Fifty hours flat out in Alouette. Out of the question. We need a plane.”
“Or a chopper,” said Robin.
“Or both.”
“Not tonight,” said Angus. “I can scare you up whatever you need in the morning, but not tonight.”
“Right, ask them if they can hang on until the morning.” Angus spoke into the radio.
“Martyr says he can do more than that. Once Doc’s quiet, he and Chris can sail Katapult out of there.”
“Right. That’s good. We’d have had to board her at sea in any case. Can they get round Hormuz and into the Gulf?”
Angus spoke into the radio.
“He says they got her out. Back should be easier.”
“Right. Then it’s just a case of time and rendezvous point.”
“I can get you in the air by nine. In whatever you want going wherever you want.”
“Okay. But if we fly east in a small jet for speed we want to be able to pick up a helicopter somewhere along the line to get us aboard Katapult.”
“Like that Navy chopper from the Mississippi,” said Robin.
“Can you do that, Angus?”
“Get the air-sea rescue boys? Yes, in an emergency.”
“So we’re definitely up at nine. Down and in the helicopter by twelve. Looking for them somewhere by one. That’s near as damn it twelve hours’ time. Where can they be in twelve hours?”
“Shall I ask?”
“No. Martyr hasn’t got the chart, has he? Not by the radio. And from the sound of things, Chris’s got her hands full. Jesus, what a mess.”
“They could get here in eighteen hours. Maybe less,” observed Robin, pulling him back onto line. Her long finger, with its short-cut, boyish fingernail, rested squarely on Fate. As it did so, a single, huge teardrop splashed down onto the sea beside it. “It’s a good rendezvous anyway,” she persisted. “Bloody great oil rig in the middle of the sea lanes. Hard to miss even in the afternoon, from Katapult or from the air. That’s where I’d meet them. Unless,” she offered, “you want them to go into harbor somewhere.”
“And give the whole thing up?” He tested the suggestion. Examining her true meaning. Had they gone too far? Should they call a halt now? Hand everything over to the authorities after all? All they had to do was tell Katapult to head for the nearest port and it was all over.
“No…you can’t.” Oddly, it was Angus who spoke. “You can’t do that. We’re too close. You can’t chuck it in now. Robin’s right. Get on to Salah. Tell him what’s happened. Then you can all go at dawn and meet them at Fate sometime tomorrow.”
“Right.” Richard slapped his hand down onto the Gulf chart. “That’s it, then. We contact Salah, then get a jet first thing in the morning to take us down to Sharja. Air-sea rescue helicopter out to Fate. We’ll meet them there in eighteen hours’ time. Just before sunset tomorrow.”
“Martyr,” said Angus at once into the microphone, completely unaware of any double meaning, “it’s Fate…”
Chapter Fifteen
Chris ground the whole length of her body down against Weary’s tossing form, arms and legs spraddled, trying to control him. “It’s all right,” she said soothingly. She felt like screaming at him but she knew that would do more harm than good. She imagined strength into her spread limbs, therefore. Believed weight and substance into her long frame, and pinned him to the bunk by the simple force of her will. And as she did so, she feverishly searched her memory for the magic litany of phrases Sam Hood had used to bring him out of this.
Sam Hood. The thought of him brought tears to her eyes and she blinked them fiercely away. She had only known the man for a day and had spent much of that time hating him for what he knew about her. So why was she crying for him? Above and behind her, she heard her father speaking urgently into the radio but had neither the leisure nor the inclination to listen to what he was saying.