When her hand finished slowly pulling at the double-bow on the sash, it disappeared like a magic trick as the ends fell away into loosely hanging left and right sides that trailed on the floor, and the robe opened up down the front. Just enough.
Just enough to know that this time I wasn’t going to stop what was happening. I had reached the limit of my self-denial. The robe made her look like a child because it was so large on her, but when it fell open in front, there was no doubt in my mind that this was no child. She was as naked as the day she was born underneath that robe, and though it caught at the tips of her breasts on the left and right as it opened, it hid nothing about her womanhood from me. I took in the fact that she shaved more than just under her arms, and I remember thinking to myself that it was probably because she was a ballerina, and then I stopped thinking.
I had finished my task where Therese was concerned, and George could handle the arrangements for the rest of her trip home. I’d done my job. She was alive and well, and we’d gotten our second material witness because of her. It had worked out fine, but it was over now for her, and everybody was free to do whatever they wanted to do. I knew what she wanted to do, and I wasn’t going to fight it any more.
Her face had been washed and she wore no makeup of any kind, and the beauty that was showing was all hers, from the top of her head to the tips of her toes.
I hadn’t noticed the shift at first, and then when I did, I couldn’t say when or how it had occurred. Our faces were just barely touching, and now our eyes were looking at each other from a ‘macro’ distance, almost touching the skin where they glanced, moving on to the next inch of face, of neck, of breast. I had my head bent down to hers so that she could reach me, and then she was on tip-toe, and she could reach me just fine.
I moved my hand to her hair, softly stroking her head, barely touching her as I slipped my hand down her neck and onto her shoulder, sweeping the robe aside to expose her left breast completely, seeing the nipple standing erect, calling to me, ‘kiss me now, kiss me now, kiss me now…’ like the hypnotic mantra of rolling steel train wheels whispering their way along the darkened night track into mystery, and I was kissing her face, her lips, her eyes, her neck, and then the soft swelling of her breast where it rose to meet the nipple, and then I was just gone.
My pulse was pounding so hard I couldn’t hear anything except a roaring in my ears, like the sound you get from standing next to a waterfall. Neither one of us said a word. There was nothing left to say. Just to do, and so we did.
I remember my towel falling away, and feeling her hands reaching around my back to lock together, as we slowly stepped and stumbled through the swirling clouds of steam towards the shower and such a sweet release.
We were finally broken out of our little world a long, long time later when ‘someone’ started pounding on the door. At first, I don’t think we noticed it very much, but the pounding continued, and eventually the voice broke through into my consciousness. Evie! That’s when the words started to register.
“Jeffry! What in the hell are you doing in there? Did you fall down the drain? Everyone’s waiting in the living room for you. We have a meeting, remember?
Jeffry, open this bloody door before I kick it in!”
Man, she sounded pissed off. I wondered idly if she’d come looking for me after she’d gone looking for Therese. That might explain the forcefulness with which she was attacking her task.
By this time both Therese and I were leaning against the side of the tiled shower stall, exhausted and laughing, making ‘shushing’ noises to each other, which just made us laugh harder, so we had to try harder to be quiet, which made us laugh harder… until we were both sitting in a tangle on the floor of the shower. Somehow, I managed to end up on the bottom, which brought up another issue… and the pounding on the door faded away as we fell into each other again, and there was nothing else. The whole world was right here, right now, and it was sooo good.
A while later we managed to untangle ourselves long enough to separate, and emerge from the stall. The silence that fell on us when I turned off the water was almost absolute. The only sound we could hear was the residual dripping of the showerhead as the water pressure reduced itself to zero.
I found myself standing next to a very young and beautiful woman, one that I knew considerably better than I had an hour ago, in front of the bathroom mirror.
Which was all fogged up, except for a heart that had been drawn on by someone’s finger before I’d turned the water on. Inside the heart was my name, Jeff. The whole thing had been planned by her before I’d gone in to have my shower! There was a touch of devious domesticity about it that shook me. It was a comfortable shake though. I turned and reached out to enfold her in my arms, and she let herself be swept up easily. Now she was smiling.
“Yes, I like it, it’s very cute. But you, lady, are a dangerous woman. Far more dangerous than I ever realized.”
She broke out into a sporadic spate of the giggles before getting herself under control.
“You think that I am dangerous? You are a big pussy cat, that is what you are. Afraid of a dancer? I don’t think so mon chéri. I think you’re afraid of yourself, not me. Don’t worry so much. I do not try to hold you down, yes? I have a burning in my heart for you, as well as other places, but I do not try to pretend that you are all mine. I know better than that. I think it is what I would want, but that must come from you, this decision.”
For a second I wasn’t sure what to say, so I didn’t say anything, I just held on tighter.
“There is no rushing for this, Jeffry. I will be here when you finish your job. Wait until then, and we can talk again about the future. Now there is only this moment, and I can be happy with that until you change it. I ask no questions and I make no… comment on dit ça, demandes?”
“Demands.”
“Oui, No demands.”
“Thank you for understanding. I think that we had better get back to the others now. Ronnie is probably fuming if Evie’s reaction is anything to go by.”
She carefully wrapped the towel around my waist for me and led me by the hand to the door, opened it and gave me a small push.
“Go to work, then.”
As she shut the door she was laughing to herself, and it made her more beautiful than I had ever noticed before. Maybe my perspective was changing. Yeah, maybe, eh?
I walked the few feet down the hall to my room and opened the door. Evie was sitting on my bed reading a French newspaper. She didn’t look too happy. Actually, she looked a bit scary to tell the truth.
As I entered I became somewhat self-conscious about walking around with only a towel on. Odd. That wasn’t like me at all.
Evie looked up from her newspaper then, and if looks could kill I’d have dropped on the spot.
“All done playing patty-cakes with Therese, are we?”
“Sarcasm doesn’t become you Evie. I thought that we were starting to get on pretty well. What’s got you all twisted in knots?”
She gave me a look of incredulity.
“You don’t get it, do you? Christ. Sometimes I swear that all men are made of the same thing. Shallow water. Where’s your head at? No, don’t answer that. I can’t believe that you fell for her line. ‘I am just a poor little ballerina, please help me, I cannot help myself.’ What crap.”
“Don’t start in on her Evie. Just don’t, Okay? If you want to start in on someone, pick on me. I’m the one who’s supposed to know what they’re doing.”
“You don’t want me to start in on you, believe me Jeffry. You’re so thick I can’t believe it. Are you blind? I’m nuts about you, and you play ‘soap the dope’ with a girl that should still be in college for God’s sake! Forget about me for a minute. Don’t you have any pride? What would your sister say…?”
“Out! Now.”
“Wait a minute Jeffry, we’re…”
“We—are nothing. Get out.”
“No.”
“What?�
�
“I said no. Like the saying goes, ‘What part of no don’t you understand?”
“You can’t refuse to leave my bedroom when I’m not even dressed.”
As soon as I said it, I knew it was a mistake. I was justifying and entering into the argument with her, which was something that I didn’t want to do. I won’t stand for anyone talking about Sarah, especially anyone in ‘the game’, and she’d tried.
It didn’t slip past her that I’d opened the door on the subject again after just slamming it in her face. She jumped right in again.
“Yes, I can. I just did. I don’t know what that little bitch wants with you when she should be mourning her late fiancé, but it isn’t fair that you fall under some kind of spell like a schoolboy after showing the whole team what it means to be the real thing.
You put our entire organization to shame single handedly, and then you swoon at the touch of ‘the little ballerina’, well I don’t buy it.
I know you’re ethical. I know you wouldn’t do something like this lightly, so it must have been building since you two first laid eyes on each other, whether you knew it or not. You jerk.
But, fair is fair. You think you have feelings for her? Fine. I’ll stay out of the way. I had to let you know how I feel or you’d never catch on. I’m just the backup gun, right? Well, we’ll see how you feel tomorrow. Or the day after. Or the day after that. That’ll be as long as it takes for you to come to your senses. I’m not saying that you have to have feelings for me just because I feel that way about you, but take a look at what you’re doing for God’s sake!
You just started a sexual relationship with a… well, a recently widowed material witness that you’re sworn to protect. Can you think of any other way to describe it? Is that the way you normally work? I think not. I don’t think that anything like this has ever happened to you before. Why is that? Why did it happen this time? Why now? If you can answer those questions to yourself, then you’re a better thinker than I am, because I can’t come up with one good reason except for… LOVE! Oh, it must be love then. Is it ‘love’, Jeffry? Is it?”
She threw down the paper and gracefully crossed the room to the door. I noticed for the first time that she’d already showered and changed her outfit. Her hair was in a small braid, still wet, and she had put on a simple white cotton top over khaki shorts. Her legs were still as good as the first time I had seen them, and she moved with a fluid grace that she hadn’t bothered to display before now. My mind was reeling a bit after her vehement attack on my judgement. She had me wondering if I’d lost it.
Just before she opened the door to leave, she turned back to face me.
“Ronnie wants you in the living room a half hour ago, by the way.”
When she shut the door, it rattled. And it didn’t look like the kind of door that rattled easily. She was mad.
It seems that it never rains but it pours. A week ago, I’d had the social life of a hermit-monk, and now here I was with a young ballerina after me with a vengeance, and getting her way, a special operations agent telling me in no uncertain terms that she wanted me, even if I was an idiot, and then the one I had tried not to think about. Cynthia Louwellyn.
An extraordinary woman if ever there was one, and I’d taken to her like a duck to water. I’d been anticipating a reunion when I returned, in more ways than one, but I seemed to have botched that now. I wondered what my feelings for Therese were based on as I got dressed. I was still trying to work it out when I left the room for the meeting. I was in a working outfit for the next leg of the mission. Two-piece suit and tie. Dress shoes and all. I was ready to go, and I was going to move quickly.
First, I’d have to go over the deal with Ronnie. Talk about rain. There was a woman that could be the dream-girl for just about any man with half a brain in his head, but I had chosen the dancer. Or she had chosen me, if I was honest about it.
The walk to the meeting took about three minutes because I walked very slowly for someone in a hurry.
~
Chapter Thirty-Six
W
hen I got there Ronnie was reading some faxes that had come in. Evie was nowhere in sight, and Littlefox was in the kitchen, just through the archway at the back of the living room, apparently cooking. Collette was with her. George was sitting next to Ronnie, and it looked as if they’d been engaged in a deep discussion of some sort. Wilson was seated across the room from Ronnie with a notepad and pen in his hands. Ronnie looked up briefly as I entered the room.
“Jeffry. Nice of you to come by. George and I were just discussing some of our options for the next stage. It’s pretty limited so far. At least as far as I can tell, but then I don’t know everything, do I?”
“Not yet, but you will in a minute or two. I gathered some very pertinent information on the trip up here, and it lays out our next moves pretty clearly.”
I raised my hand in Wilson’s direction, and got his attention right away.
“Yes, sir?”
“Lose the pen and paper Wilson, sorry, but that just doesn’t cut it. Why not broadcast the meeting on wideband radio? It doesn’t matter if you tell it on the six o’clock news, or someone gets it out of the garbage, once the information is out, the result is the same. So, what you do is take precautions. Do not write down anything. Especially what I say. Got it?”
Wilson looked like a cool breeze had just blown up his kilt, but said nothing. I repeated myself. Very softly.
“Got it?”
Wilson looked at Ronnie for direction but I pointed my finger right at him and blasted away.
“Do not look to anyone else for guidance when I speak to you. You will answer me directly, and if I should step over the line, your boss will let me know. Not you.
Now, once again. Got it?”
This time he looked directly at me as he answered.
“Yes, sir.”
He slipped the pen into his jacket pocket and laid the notepad on the coffee table behind him. I got down to business, and took a few minutes to bring both Ronnie and George up to date. To a point. I didn’t give her the full lowdown on what all I’d be up to after hitting the Gulf. That was going to be between myself and the ‘Old Man’. Permanently. That was one of the rules you didn’t break. Giving out vows of secrecy doesn’t work if you break them, because if you break them, people know. Then no one talks to you. Simple, right?
She was getting pretty excited about the Brazilian info concerning Enrico and the MOI ADM. It was obvious that it was time to send a team to South America. And one to the Bahamas. And I was heading for the Persian Gulf, or, as it was known on the western shores, the Arabian Gulf. That meant three teams. I would be better off going solo to the Kingdom, but I’d need one of Ronnie’s team with me for verisimilitude. I wasn’t actually an investigating officer from Interpol. Ronnie’s people had what was needed for safe passage if things got too heavy. Real badges. Of course, inside the Kingdom, that could be a double-edged sword.
The Middle East was a place where you needed to plan ahead in order to accomplish things. You just didn’t breeze into town on the next available flight and go to work.
I outlined my ideas to Ronnie and George as best as I could, then waited to hear what they had to say about it. As usual in this type of situation, Ronnie had plenty of opinions to voice. George knew me better than that, and the position that we were in, and he went along with it all.
“I’m thinking that I agree that we need to go for Heidi Meir, which means ‘next stop, Nassau’ for one team. I’ll send Wilson and Littlefox. The other aspect of our latest intelligence report does indeed require the insertion of a team into Brazil. I’ll go myself, with Casey, and George. You can meet up with us when you’ve finished your work out in the Gulf.
I’ll have a plane sent for Ted and Therese, with a few good people to run escort duty.”
When she said Therese, there was a trace of emphasis, but I don’t think she even noticed it.
“Although I have to say for
the record that I realize there’s something there you’re not telling me. I’m willing to accept that at face value if you believe that results are forthcoming. The only catch is that you take one of my people with you. Does that sound reasonable to you? Or at least acceptable?”
I came back quickly on that.
“Not totally. Someone has to take Therese home. And that someone should be one of your people, and you as well, George. As for the Brazil team, Casey and Littlefox are the obvious choice for staging up. They haven’t had any exposure yet to any of the principles involved, and should be relatively free from scrutiny. They have to go under false identification papers, because we don’t want to tip anyone off before we know the players. I’d suggest American. I can have them done in a couple of hours. I love Paris.
But Royal Canadian Mounted Police and Interpol agents from Canada landing at any entry point in the country will set up a red flag. The Ministry of the Interior is involved, directly or indirectly, and any information gathered inside the country is at their disposal twenty-four hours a day. That’s what they do. Monitor everything. Interfere with everybody. That’s their job.
We send the team as honeymooners, and they enter through Rio de Janeiro. No red flags.”
George had stuck up his hand sort of half-heartedly as soon as I’d uttered the words ‘and you as well, George’, with his chin supported by his fist with his elbow resting on his knee. I knew what he was going to say already, but I gave him the opportunity to say it anyway. Ronnie was about to jump in but I cut her off before she could.
“George?”
“I’m not going back with anyone, period, without carrying on to meet up with you in Venezuela, before you ‘go in’. I’m seeing this through all the way. I’ll go with the team you think best for me, Jeff, but I am going with you to the end of the road.”
This was exactly what I’d said to them, and it was obvious that George was placing his vote in my direction. For the record, I gave him his one out.
The Diamond Dust on Dragonfly Wings: A Jeffry Claxton Mystery Novel Page 85
