For a moment she felt fat, hated her skin, dreaded him feeling the wrinkles. To her, his body had a firmness she had never felt before. It was a smooth body, not bumpy and muscular like Gary's, or soft like Peter's, just rounded with muscle and firm. Later in the night she would discover the scars, the knife wound across his shoulder blades where he'd been slashed in a Belfast bar, and the bullet wound above his right knee that had never healed properly, a legacy from when he was on border patrol and one of his own men had panicked and opened fire on him. All she felt now was his firmness as he pressed against her, probed gently into the dandelion fluff of her mound.
It was a desperate moment, full of emotion, urgent.
They were side by side, and she rolled onto her back, arched herself to receive him as she stretched her legs outwards and clasped them round him.
He kept still, wanting them both to crave each other beyond emotion. It was a full two minutes before he pushed firmly into her and felt her warmth envelope him, felt her bury her face in his shoulder, heard her gasp, a little pain, unused to him being there, then the gush of warmth and love and pleasure.
He felt her tears on his shoulder and looked at her, but she was showing pleasure. They groaned, their love expressed in their sounds. Suddenly she'd forgotten the darkness, suddenly she was only twenty one. They held each other tight, so tight that it took their breath away. Somehow they didn't notice and kept breathing anyway, zipped together into one being.
'I see stars,' she whispered into his ear, clutching him tightly, her eyes still half open and half shut, all seeing in the darkness, understanding earth and time and life and what it is in the moment's joy. 'I see flashes of light. God, I love you.'
It surprised him. No-one had ever said that before. He'd never allowed anyone the opportunity. 'I love you.' Strange words, but suddenly they seemed natural. He had never felt this power of emotion before.
And he pushed harder, moved himself in small circular motions to taste her wetness inside, to feel every part of her that she offered him and shared with him in her vulnerability.
They were like that for a long time. Sometimes moving, sometimes still, the hardness of him and the warmth and softness of her blended into one. It had to go on forever. Then, when he could take it no more, when he was on the edge of the precipice, but knew he was ready before her, he left her warmth sharply, not wanting to, desperate to continue, but knowing their love must be shared, must be, as it always was, one of union and togetherness.
He saw the sudden disappointment in her face, the flash of a scowl across her eyes. He smiled. 'It's okay,' he said. And then he kissed the rose petals, wiped the dew from her lips. He felt her soften.
He bent between her legs now. He wanted to taste her, to taste the heat that was her love, to taste the wetness. He watched her face before he entered her. He was surprised by her, there was little expectancy, just blankness. She'd turned her head away. He moved his tongue slowly inside her, felt her arch her back again, as if in some form of eager surprise. He had never done that before to anyone, had always found it beyond him. But with her it was natural. With her the body was a vessel of love and tenderness and belonging.
Her taste was new to him, and as he ran his tongue along her, curled it deep into her, it excited him. He washed his face in the perfume that was her love for him. Then he searched out the little hard protruding button that was the energy of her sex, he stabbed at it with his tongue, felt her respond quickly, then urgently.
There was no awkwardness now, no face turned away. Just the joy and exhilaration of love and flying where she hadn't been before.
He wondered if she'd still seen the stars.
'Did you come?', he asked, moving up to her once again, facing her, desperate to see her beauty and share the joy that she had just been through.
'I think so,' she said. 'I'm never sure.'
He smiled. She smiled. They both knew that she had. Different, a rare feeling as no other, but deep down they both knew something good had happened.
He kissed her once again, their tongues combining behind the dew of her lips.
He felt her lift up to him as they started the final phase of their journey. No violence, no rapid motion, just feeling and tenderness and a pressure that was beyond sex, somewhere on another plane.
When he was once again close to his own explosion, holding back for her to join him, she said 'Stay.'
He stopped moving, just pushed harder into her, held her with his love and waited for her.
'Stay,' she said again, this time more urgently.
Their bodies were joined, in the burning heat there was no heat, only the warmth of the love that wrapped them together.
She pulled harder at him, squeezed the very breath from his body.
'Stay.' Once again. The word thrilled him.
'I love you, Billie,' he said, regretted it, didn't want to break her own private intensity, but wanted to say her name.
'I love you,' she replied.
Then he heard that fluttering little gasp, the breath caught in them both, and the gasp was overtaken by a louder excitement in her voice, in her sounds of love. It was joined by another voice; he realised it was his own. The intensity was more than he had ever felt before. All that he had to give her with his mind and body was sucked out of him into her. He lay still, not wanting to break the spell, attempting to work out what was different. Before this, sex had been a temporary relief in a world of melancholy and crisis. It had been forgotten as quickly as it had begun. But this was a homecoming. Only Billie had ever done this for him.
He wrapped his arms round her, in the security of their warmth and smell and taste and foreverness, and they started to fall asleep.
'Goodnight, Princess.'
'Night, tough guy,' she replied, softly in her half sleep.
'I love you.'
'I love you, too.'
The homecoming was complete.
'Did you hear that?' he asked her.
'What?' she answered in her half sleep.
'I'll be back,' he said and climbed out of the bed. He slipped on his trousers, sweatshirt and shoes. There were no more sounds of men running, but his warning bells were ringing.
What, Marcus, what's going on?
'Where're you going?' she asked, suddenly awake and watching him take the Browning from his holdall.
'Just checking everything's okay. Be back in a minute,'
He slipped out of the door and checked the corridor. It was empty.
He climbed the emergency stairs to the next floor and crossed to Goodenache's door. It was all quiet. He could see the light under the door. They'd switched it off earlier, when they'd left Goodenache. He put his hand on the door handle and tested it. The door was unlocked and he opened it carefully, the Browning cocked and ready in his right hand.
It was a carbon copy deed, just as terrible as the first time.
A naked Goodenache was sprawled across the bed. The slash of blood across his throat and down his cheek revealed the knife wound he had died of. The blanket was thrown back and the sheet was swamped in blood, thick and red like liver. It was thickest at each side of the chest, where his arms had been.
Adam closed the door. He already knew what had happened to the arms. They were on the other side of the bed, crossed over, shaped like a swastika.
He searched the room, went through Goodenache's suit pockets, his suitcase and briefcase. There was nothing of interest or value, nothing that gave any clue as to why the scientist had been killed.
Five minutes later he returned to his own room. He shook Billie awake.