“Look at us, Caroline,” he commanded softly. “Watch what we are together.”
Startled, Caroline looked down at their bodies. The hair rose along the nape of her neck and along her forearms. She’d never seen anything as erotic as their bodies joined together by their sexes. Her hands were clutching his biceps, her skin very pale against his darker skin. She watched the hard muscles of his stomach clench with his long, slow thrusts. Their pubic hairs intermingled at the deepest point of his glide into her, when she felt every inch of him inside her, black hairs intermingling with her pale ones. When he pulled his penis out, it glistened from the semen he’d jetted into her and her own juices.
With each glide into her, Caroline’s arousal increased. She watched them making love, the room silent and hushed, his thrusts slow and regular. Any thought of cold was completely banished from her system. Heat rose from her groin as if she’d stepped in front of a furnace. The heat was intense, inside and out, prickles of heat and arousal running through her system. Her very veins felt incandescent.
Caroline was beginning that long, luscious slide into climax when a drop of sweat fell from his temple onto her chest.
It electrified her.
This slow, controlled lovemaking was exacting a price. His stomach muscles were so tight she could see each ridge of muscle. Caroline slid a hand from his biceps—held so tautly the sinews were visible—to his back and felt his control even there, in the hard, tightly clenched muscles. He looked as if he were a statue carved of dark marble rather than a man of flesh and bone.
The knowledge of how tightly he was hanging on to his self-control pushed her right over the edge. With a sharp cry, Caroline erupted into contractions, clenching tightly around him, shaking with the force of her climax.
“God,” he muttered, as a shudder went through him. He lowered himself to her with a groan, dropping his hands to her thighs. He lifted them high and pushed them wide apart, so she was completely open to him and began thrusting hard and fast. His movements kept her on that knife’s edge of climax way longer than was normal for her as pulses of red-hot pleasure coursed through her system. She was holding on to him as tightly as a person lost in a storm holds on to a tree trunk. Just as her climax was winding down, and she could breathe again, he turned his head on the pillow, moving his lips to her ear.
“More,” he whispered. “I want more, Caroline.” Goose bumps rose along her flesh as he inserted his hand into the small of her back and lifted her even more into his thrusts. He changed the angle of his movements, and somehow the base of his penis was rubbing directly against her clitoris. Electric shocks ran through her system as waves of intense pleasure almost too great to be borne coursed through her.
For the first time in her life, Caroline became a purely physical being, all her senses turned inward to the pleasurable tumult happening inside her body.
It seemed as if she came with her entire body, not just her sex. All her limbs shook as she held on to him, feeling with her thighs and arms the dense play of muscles as he moved inside her. Eyes closed, head tilted back, she rode out the waves of pleasure until there was no more left. There was nothing left in her, not even the strength to hold on to Jack.
Her arms and legs fell open, and her breathing slowed.
Jack stopped. “Caroline?”
Oh God, he was still iron-hard inside her, but there was no way she could participate. Every single muscle had gone limp. It was even hard to keep her eyes open.
Dimly, she realized he’d pulled out of her. He turned with her in his arms, and using his hard shoulder as a pillow, she dropped into a dreamless sleep.
Air France Flight 1240
Mid-Atlantic en route to Kennedy
Axel’s VISA was good for a first-class flight across the Atlantic with Air France. L’Espace Premiere. The name alone was classy.
Deaver relaxed in the comfortable extralarge seat that tipped back into a bed and sipped a flute of excellent chilled dry champagne. The real thing, not the warm carbonated piss served back in cattle class.
Good old Axel. His credit card and name would fly to Atlanta, where he would disappear from the face of the earth. Deaver lifted his glass in a salute. Here’s to you, old boy.
Deaver looked around the first-class cabin, with its plush carpeting and jewel-like colors. It was the first time he’d ever flown first class, but by God it wouldn’t be the last.
For the first time since Obuja, Deaver relaxed and started planning the next few days. His head was clear, and he could see what had to be done with unusual clarity.
He was spectacularly comfortable, well fed, a soft pure new wool blanket spread over his knees. The first-class cabin was like a little sanctuary of soft colors, soft voices, pretty women. Even the air smelled of luxury. No stench of diesel and unwashed carpet that he’d always associated with flying. In the air was the expensive colognes of the other passengers, the heady smell of the boeuf en croute they’d had for dinner, the Burgundy and lemon tart, topped off by the Napoleon brandy served in crystal snifters.
No wonder the rich made all the smart moves. Who couldn’t think smart with pretty stewardesses vying to serve you fabulous food and wine, slipping perfumed pillows under your head, wrapping you in the softest of blankets? Even the noise of the engines was muted up here in first class.
Deaver had flown the world, mainly in cargo planes, which was as far from first class as it gets. He remembered being airlifted from Ramstein to Jakarta. Fifteen bone-breaking, freezing hours strapped into metal benches against the bulkhead, pissing into jars.
Never again. Fuck no.
Deaver drained the flute.
“Encore du champagne, monsieur?” A stewardess appeared immediately and topped his flute again with a wink and a smile. She was tall, blonde, with uptilted brown eyes. He was on a mission, but when he got his diamonds back, he’d follow up the next time he got a smile like that.
There were only five other passengers in first class, all businessmen, and they were finally settling in for the night. The sky outside the portholes had long ago turned dark, then black. They’d been wined and dined, and now they put away their laptops, folded their newspapers, took their shoes off and, one by one, converted the seats into beds.
Deaver waited until the lights dimmed, the stewardesses retired behind the curtains and his fellow passengers were asleep.
Only then did he take out of his pocket three sheets of paper—photocopies of a smudged photograph, a wrinkled press clipping and a digital photograph. The first two had been folded and unfolded thousands of times, and the images weren’t clear, but still they gave Deaver all the information he needed.
He looked first at the digital photograph, taken by one of his men, Sam Dupont, in Freetown. Sam had stayed behind in the capital to stock up on ammo, and was just ready to get back to their base camp when he saw Jack Prescott, making the rounds, asking about them. He took Prescott’s photo and headed out to Obuja, where Deaver and the rest of the team were waiting for him. Prescott in Sierra Leone was bad news, and Deaver had pushed the raid on the village forward. He hadn’t been expecting Prescott to make it inland as fast as he had.
His fists clenched around the crystal glass of Glenfiddich. Damn! If Prescott hadn’t found a way to get upriver so fast, he’d have come across smoking ruins in Obuja, and Deaver’s men would still be alive and rich.
Deaver touched the smooth sheet, circling Prescott’s head with the tip of his forefinger, letting the hatred and rage run through his system. Prescott had taken what was Deaver’s, and he was going to pay. But first, Deaver had to find him.
He opened the other two sheets of paper and smoothed them out. The photocopy on the right was a press clipping, the paper yellowed with age. It had been cut so that only the photograph and a portion of the caption showed. The only indication of the newspaper’s name was…ville Gazette. The date was October 12, 1995.
The photo showed a young girl at the piano in a concert hall. The caption rea
d: CAROLINE LAKE GAVE A PIANO RECITAL AT WILLIAMS HALL THURSDAY EVENING.
The other was a standard high-school portrait. There were millions of photos like this floating around the U.S. The girl was the same as the girl in the news photo.
She was a looker, that was for sure. The clipping showed a profile almost hidden by long pale hair. It could have been anyone. But the high-school picture was full-face, and you had to blink to make sure she was real.
Red-gold hair, gorgeous. A younger, softer Nicole Kidman.
That was in 1995. Twelve years ago. Of course in twelve years the girl could have gained fifty pounds, lost her hair, lost her teeth. Died of cancer. Had a kid a year. Started turning tricks. A lot of stuff could happen in twelve years.
Deaver didn’t care one way or another. But that fucker Prescott cared. Oh yeah, he cared. It was the first thing he brought out to look at in the morning and the last thing he looked at before turning in. You don’t do that for anything less than an obsession.
Deaver had watched women trip in and out of Prescott’s bed and leave nothing behind. Prescott sure didn’t keep their photographs as a keepsake. Didn’t keep anything, as far as Deaver could see.
He was careful not to get caught staring at the photographs, but Deaver knew how to wire a webcam as well as anyone else. He’d even caught Prescott jerking off twice, one hand holding a photograph, the other beating his dick.
Photocopying the two photographs had been insurance. Deaver had had a sixth sense that one day he’d need something to hold over Prescott, and as usual, his hunch was right.
Prescott had his diamonds, and Deaver wanted them back. They were his. He’d fought for them, he’d bled for them, they were fucking his.
He was perfectly willing to put the knife to Prescott to find out where he’d stashed them. But Prescott, like all Special Forces soldiers, had been inoculated against torture. Not only that—he was a tough son of a bitch. It was entirely possible his heart would give out first.
But everyone has a weak spot, and Deaver was holding Jack’s. A man who jerked off to a woman’s photograph for twelve years probably had feelings for that woman. And might be willing to exchange $20 million in diamonds for her.
Seven
Summerville
Every Christmas morning for six years, Caroline had woken up with tears drying on her face. She didn’t remember crying during the night, but she would wake up with wet cheeks, swollen eyes and a feeling of oppression so great it was as if a giant boulder were sitting on her chest.
Not this Christmas morning. She’d slept deeply and well, completely warm in her bed, though she kept the temperature in the house low at night.
Most mornings she woke up slightly chilled, but not now.
Right now, even though she was naked, she was warm down to her bones.
She came awake in low, swooping stages, a degree of consciousness at a time. By the time she realized that she had had fabulous sex last night with an amazing lover, that he was the source of the glow of heat under the covers and that her pillow was an undeniably hard but somehow comfortable shoulder, she was smiling.
She never thought it would be possible to smile on a Christmas morning, but she definitely was.
Her situation hadn’t changed at all. She’d lost the last of her family two months ago. She had a mountain of debt so crushing it would take her twenty years just to start to get out from under it. Her house was falling down around her ears.
It was all still there, but she didn’t care. Somehow, she was able to let those thoughts recede, far far away, like a long, dark cloud low on the horizon on a sunny day.
Right now, she was happy.
“I heard that,” a voice rumbled under her ear. One big hand moved in her hair, long fingers delicately massaging her scalp. The other lay in the small of her back, heavy, an intense source of heat.
“You heard me smile?” she asked, charmed at the thought.
“Uh-huh.” That big hand moved from the small of her back to smooth over her bottom. Nerve endings sparkled to life as he lazily moved his palm over her buttock.
There was utter silence. Caroline didn’t know what time it was and didn’t care, but judging from the quality of the stone gray light outside the window, it was probably early morning on a blustery, snowy day. It must have snowed again during the night. Snow lay heavy on the branches of the big oak outside her window and was inches thick on the windowsill. It absorbed all sounds. There was utter silence outside, not even a car passing.
They could have been the last humans in the world.
Caroline didn’t care about that, either.
“Merry Christmas,” Jack said, his voice so low she didn’t know whether she’d heard him talking above her head or whether she’d heard the words rumbled deep in his chest.
“Merry Christmas,” she answered, the words muffled against his chest.
Yes, indeed, it was the best Christmas morning in many many years, and it was getting merrier by the second.
His hand was covering both buttocks now, smoothing slowly, warmly over her skin. Such a simple thing—a strong male hand caressing her gently, and yet the effect was incredible. Caroline could actually feel blood rushing to her sex. She could feel herself growing moist and slightly swollen.
Oh, God! His hand was gently probing between her thighs from behind, his fingers touching her moist nether parts. Soft pressure and her legs just naturally opened. He inserted a hairy thigh between hers and opened her right leg so far he had unimpeded access to her with his hand.
He used it, too. A long finger touched her opening softly, spreading moisture around, moving so slowly she had ample time to object if she wanted to. The thought crossed her mind briefly, and she dismissed it as insane.
Jack was causing sensual whiplash. His hand between her thighs was exciting her, arousing her fully. His hand against the back of her head lowered slightly and began lazily massaging her from her shoulders to the sensitive skin of her nape. He must have had some wizardlike knowledge of human—or at least female—anatomy because she could feel herself relaxing by the second under his ministering hand.
Though the touch was light and soothing, he seemed to be able to reach deep into her muscles, unkink the knots, finding exactly where the stress points were and kneading them into oblivion. All the while igniting a fire between her legs.
She nearly whimpered when he entered her with one finger and started thrusting slowly, gently.
He somehow kept his cool, too. How did he do it?
She was melting by the second, her heart tripping a fast beat, breath speeding up and he was relaxed and calm. She could hear his heartbeat beneath her ear—slow, steady, reassuring.
His hand between her thighs somehow followed the beat of his heart. The total excitement generated by the hand between her thighs was starting to edge out the deeply relaxing movements of the other hand when he gripped her neck lightly and raised her up farther on his chest. His mouth covered hers in a slow, deep kiss that turned the blood in her veins to warm honey.
A shift of his legs, and she was somehow straddling him, fully open to the broad head of his penis, which she could feel against her sex, hot and hard.
He pulled his mouth away slightly, though she could still feel the heat of his breath as he spoke. “Stop me if you don’t want this.”
He had nudged his penis into her opening. He hadn’t entered fully yet, the huge bulbous head was stretching the tissues of her opening. Even penetrating her that small amount was exciting.
Not want this?
He circled his penis, stretching her even more. “Don’t…stop,” Caroline gasped.
“Good,” he murmured, covering her mouth again with his.
The kiss was as long and languid as his entry of her. As if he had all the time in the world, his tongue stroked hers while he entered her slowly, slowly. God, it seemed to last forever. She’d almost forgotten how incredibly big he was. It should have hurt—there’d been very little forepl
ay—but, incredibly, her body was ready for him.
She’d slept half-on, half-off Jack, enclosed in his arms. While she slept, her body had been readying itself for his.
Finally, he slid into her fully, down to the thick base of his penis, stretching her completely. He didn’t move, he simply kept kissing her, exploring her mouth leisurely.
Caroline sighed into his mouth, shifting so that he was somehow closer, one hand in the warmth of his long hair, the other flat against his broad chest. His hand tightened on her neck as he explored her mouth in rough, deep strokes of his tongue. Inside a minute, his penis was echoing the strokes of his tongue, long and deep and slow.
Being on top usually gave a woman control over the lovemaking, but Caroline wasn’t controlling anything. She didn’t have to do anything, think anything at all. All she had to do was lie in his arms and let herself be ravished, let the slow strokes of his tongue and his penis in her spread honeyed warmth throughout her system.
One large hand pressed down on her backside as he lifted himself up into her, driving slowly, deeply, as steady as a metronome, like a warm, steel machine. Time spun out in the quiet room, the only sounds their breathing and the slight creak of the bedsprings.
After a time that could have been ten minutes or an hour, the angle of his strokes changed, deepened, speeded up. The hot pleasure that had spread throughout her body pooled in her groin and turned in a flash into blinding heat. His grip on her backside tightened as the strokes became sharper, faster, nudging upward at an angle that hit all her pleasure spots.
The creaking increased, the rhythm became faster. He wasn’t withdrawing almost all the way out to slide back in, as he had in the beginning. Now they were short, hard strokes that created a heat so intense it prickled in her veins. A moan made it past Caroline’s throat and came out into his mouth as she gently bit his tongue.