“Shut up,” she said. “It was only the right time.”
She was on him again, and this time he didn’t fight it. His body was taking over, tricking him, and his hands roamed over her curves, then lifted the gown up and over her head. It fell to the ground, and she lowered herself, kneeling on the fabric. The distant, gentle throb of the falls provided a primitive sound track to her action as she took him in her mouth. Unbidden, Farrengalli’s bellow entered his head: It’s only fuckin’ naturalllll…
“Dove, stop,” he said, though his hands betrayed him by reaching for her hair and urging her head forward.
After ten seconds of sweet torture, she backed off and said, “Stop now?”
“Damn you.”
In the dimness of approaching morning, he saw the gleam of her grin. Then her mouth was busy again, but Bowie had other ideas. He pressed her shoulders and eased down beside her until they were lying side-by-side on their discarded clothes. Leaves scratched at his bare skin, but he scarcely noticed. His senses were consumed by the heat at the center of her body, the seat of her soul, the moist, inviting tunnel that demanded exploration. He tongued and caressed her until she mewled; then she gouged her fingernails into his back and pulled him on top of her. She rubbed his aching hardness against her damp opening, then guided him inside. It fit like always, like new. She arched her back, throwing herself up to meet his slow penetration.
“I don’t love you,” he whispered, biting her ear.
She timed her words with his thrusts. “I… never… wanted… you… to.”
“Good.” Her neck was slightly salty and her hair smelled of wood smoke, with a hint of rosemary and mint. He tasted it again just to be sure.
“You’ve gotten better. Have you been practicing?”
“Does my hand count?”
“I want this to last.”
“Three days.”
“No, I mean you. This.”
He shut her up by putting his tongue in her mouth. She hadn’t brushed her teeth, but neither had he. Nature didn’t care. Nature didn’t even notice.
She rolled him over and sat astride his hips. The light was better now and he gazed into her half-lidded eyes. He wondered what she was thinking about, figured nothing, and decided he didn’t want to think, either. He moved with her, against her, around, and she leaned down so her nipples brushed against his as she rocked back and forth.
“The others can’t know about this,” Bowie said.
She stopped moving. “Stop now?”
He pushed up against her. His back was no longer sore. His back had never been better. His legs were fine, too. Other things were improving by the minute.
He reached for her hips so he could control her movements, but he didn’t need force. They were already in synch, grinding out a rhythm as old as the river. Their sweat sprang against the September air, enhancing the slickness between them.
From the camp came Farrengalli’s voice, calling out for Bowie. He wondered if anyone would come this way to heed the call of nature. He smiled. He didn’t give a fuck. Well, he only gave one fuck.
“Are you close?” she whispered, slowing until her motion was almost imperceptible, a blissful Sisyphus stone pushed to the mountain peak.
“You wanted this to last.”
“We’ve got a river to run.”
“The river will still be there.”
“Do you love me yet?”
“Never, bitch.”
“Finish me, asshole,” she whispered, and her words harmonized with the sibilant wash of the Unegama.
Her movements became more urgent, and Bowie was all too familiar with the quickened breath, the slitted, almost reptilian eyes, and the pinking of her cheeks. Her climax coincided with the splintered arrival of the sun, and she bit his shoulder to keep from crying out. The pain turned strange in Bowie’s brain, combining with the rush of primal joy that coursed up from his toes. She sensed his approach and writhed away in silent passion, whimpers squeezing between the teeth that sank deeper into his flesh. His entire body became a giant, throbbing organ and he exploded like the dawn.
Dove collapsed on top of him in a twin pounding of hearts. She relaxed her mouth and let her head drop against his shoulder. Wetness tickled the skin under his arm and her breath made a soft breeze against his neck. His hands slid from her hips to the small of her back. At the volcanic center where they were joined, Bowie couldn’t tell where he ended and she began. Like always.
“I lied,” he said when the treetops stopped spinning.
“I know,” she said. She lifted her face to look at him. Her mouth was smeared with his blood.
“Hungry?”
“Not anymore.”
The leaves scratched his back and his legs. One of his feet was planted against a stump. An ant crawled along his hip and he twitched, causing Dove’s breasts to wiggle against his chest.
“Again already?” she asked with a grin. She licked the blood from her lips.
“They’ll be wondering where we are.”
“Let them.”
He took her by the arms, rolled her to the side, and reached for his SealSkinz. “Let me go first. You come in two minutes.”
She giggled. “I may be easy but I’m not that fast.”
“Very funny. Sorry I called you a ‘bitch.’” He wrestled his legs into the tight, water-resistant SealSkinz.
“I’m used to it.” She had her own waterproof outfit, an older model that was scuffed and frayed, sky blue with a broad yellow stripe down the middle. “By the way, which lie did you tell this time?”
“Does it matter?” He adjusted his crotch inside the SealSkinz and rolled the single piece the rest of the way up his torso, stretching the rubberized fabric. He’d only been with one woman since the last time with Dove. During his marriage, he’d averaged ten times a week. Now, he realized with dismay, he was lucky to get lucky once a year. He apologized to his penis for the hibernation, though it was fairly content and dreaming at the moment.
“See you at launch,” he said, walking the perimeter of the clearing so he and Dove wouldn’t exit from the same point and arouse suspicion.
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
In many ways, losing a partner was worse than taking a bullet yourself.
In addition to the shame of letting Ace Goodall slip away, Jim Castle now had a permanent black mark on his record. Assuming The Rook was actually dead. Castle didn’t quite accept the image of the winged creature carrying a grown man into the sky as easily as a hawk might rip a mouse aloft. But The Rook’s yell of pain had been real, and against the small, still sounds of the night and the susurrant river, it seemed to echo off the trees and around the hard shell of Castle’s skull.
Agents accepted the possibility of dying in the line of duty. That was part of the excitement of the job. The rush of adrenaline came with the territory, and premature and eternal retirement was an occupational hazard. But just as airline pilots believed their next flights wouldn’t be that one-in-a-million with an unhappy ending, in the back of their minds, all agents believed it wouldn’t happen to them.
And if you lost a partner, you expected it to happen by the book: a car crash during a high-speed chase, a shoot-out in a hostage situation, or an explosion during a security detail. Maybe even through someone else’s goof, like the failure to see a trip wire. You didn’t expect some deformed bird of prey to pluck your partner from the sky and dangle it like a rag doll.
But was it a bird?
Of course it was a bird. A giant one, sure, a bizarre backwoods species so rare that it hadn’t been discovered. New animals popped up all the time, mostly just before they became extinct. The Amazon jungle was full of This isn’t the Amazon. This is the Southern Appalachian Mountains. The world’s oldest mountain range, like The Rook said, but these peaks had been prowled by the Red Man, the White Man, and maybe even the Little Green Men From Mars, and no one had ever reported such a man-eating fowl.