“No,” she denied. “You weren’t.”
“Hmmm,” he temporized. “This is better though. I can look at you, enjoy you.”
She blushed, but made no attempt to cover herself, and evidenced no regret for what they’d done.
She was beautiful. There was no other word for it, he decided, as he let his hand slip down her side, shaping her hip, and ghosting along her outer thigh. Gloriously beautiful.
“What?” she said, a touch of worry in her gaze.
“You.” He smiled. “Your skin is like silk.”
“Thank you.” She returned his caress, flattening her hand against his stomach. “You’re strong. So much muscle. Here.” Her fingers danced over his chest to his shoulders, giving him a shiver of delight. “And here,” she said, drawing his leg over her body to caress the length of his thigh. “So very strong.”
“Grace,” he said, leaning down to kiss her again, and to touch her face, her neck, her beautiful taut breast.
Her hand slid back to his hip, pulled him to her. “You want me again,” she murmured, and her tone was full of wonder and delight. “Already.”
“Yes.” He wasn’t ashamed to admit it. His body, spent and exhausted only moments before, was rousing at the memory of the pleasure they’d shared. “But we need sleep.”
“Touch me again, like you did before,” she whispered, ignoring his comment about sleep, and pulling his hand from her breast, down her body to the juncture of her thighs. “I want you to touch me,” she said, meeting his gaze. “Please.”
It was the please that did it. He could no more resist her than a drug anyway, but her wanting him, wanting what they could do together, was more than he could stand against.
“With pleasure,” he whispered back, gliding back into her wetness, her center. “Are you sore at all?”
She shook her head, and pressed into his hand.
“Inside me, slip your fingers inside me,” she demanded. And when he complied, she moaned out a long, heartfelt, “ohhhhhh.”
“You like that.”
“I do,” she agreed, her gaze blurry with passion.
He slid down their bed of hay, pressing kisses to her belly and hip as he continued to slip his fingers in and out in a slow steady rhythm.
“Do you like this?” he asked, bending to put his mouth on her, stroking the shaft of her womanhood with his tongue.
Lightly, side to side, he let his tongue caress her. He could feel the tension building in her, closing her body around his fingers until she arched up once again, crying out in the intensity of her release.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” her cry was long and loud in the deep silence of the barn and it made him feel like he had conquered the world. Her pleasure, her utter release, was like the strongest of spirits, like a pure jolt of wicked, powerful electricity.
He let her settle, hardly daring to move as the aftershocks quaked through her. His erection was so stiff, so painfully full, he wanted to plunge in, allow the release that hammered like thunder in his brain, but although she wasn’t a virgin--and thank the Good Lord for that--he didn’t want to hurt her. Lovemaking like they’d done it, twice, might be too much for an inexperienced woman. He could hold back, even if it killed him.
He slowly let his hand slide away, pressing kisses to her thigh, and the curve of her hip as he moved to lie beside her once more. He leaned on his hand, elbow on the ground and stroked his other hand down her body, as her breathing returned to normal.
When she opened her eyes, he smiled. “Better?”
“Oh, my God.” It was all she said, and he had to laugh.
“Is that good?”
“Better than good.”
“Then you can get some sleep, finally.” He cursed inwardly, but he would be a gentleman, he would restrain himself. “We’ve still a long way to go.”
“Do we need to leave before dark?” she asked, rolling to her hip, matching his posture of leaning on one arm, letting the other hand rest on his side.
It was killing him.
He wanted her to touch him so badly.
“No, not before dark, which should give you at least two more hours of sleep.”
“Are you tired?”
“Me?” he said, startled. He was so focused on her, and on mastering his body, that the question surprised him. “No.”
“Good. We’ll sleep when we’re dead,” she said, and pushed his hip so that he rolled onto his back.
To his delight, she straddled him, and his cock grew more rigid with need. Brushing her breasts over him, she rose up, pressing her lips to his, teasing him with her body.
“I don’t know much about all this,” she said, echoing his earlier thought, “but I love to learn.”
She let her hips drop so that her body grazed his rampant erection, calling to it, dampening it and making him nearly drool with need.
“Teach me,” she whispered. “This time, tell me what pleases you.”
“You please me,” he said, hands at her hips to pull her in.
She resisted.
“Too easy. Be more specific. I live for information.”
“My beautiful spy,” he managed, but his brain shut down entirely when she pressed the heat of her body onto him, sliding her wetness up and down the length of his steel-hard shaft.
“This seems like a thing to do,” she murmured, sliding down again, “And that you like it, since your eyes crossed.” He heard amusement and a joy in her feminine power infusing her voice, and smiled.
“Oh, I do like it, very much,” he rasped.
“Tell me,” she said, her voice husky and low. It sent shivers of primal need through him.
“What I want,” he said, his own voice harsh, “is to bury my cock inside you, to hold you close, to kiss you until you can’t breathe, and can’t think. Until you can only feel.”
“Ummmmm,” she murmured, still gliding slowly up and down, her body now swaying slightly from side to side, heightening the sensation. “What else?”
“I want to come up behind you,” he said. “Next time,” he said, his hands cupping her backside. “I want to come up behind you and hold you to me. I want to tease your breasts, and kiss your neck until you nearly come just from that. Then I want to slide into you, fill you.”
“Ahhhh,” she rose slightly, teasing the tip of his cock with her core. “Like this?”
She dropped down, sheathing him fully so that he gasped at the onslaught of pleasure.
She started to rise, but he held her in place, grasping at the tatters of his control. Her questions, her body, her glorious, magnificent body, were driving him mad.
“Like that,” he finally managed. “But from behind, so that I can touch you, caress you as I slide in and out of you.”
“Ohhhh,” she said, arching up from where she’d rested on her hands to lean back, her body bowed as she struggled to ride him. “Ohhhh, that sounds so delicious. Ohhhh, I need to--”
He could take no more.
With as much care as he could muster, he reversed their positions, letting the momentum drive him deep into her body so that they both groaned.
He wanted to plunge and buck and spend himself instantly within her, but he held on, barely, wanting to draw out the pleasure for her.
“Oh, now, now, now,” she demanded, her hips frantically shifting upward as she sought to draw him in more deeply.
“Now,” he agreed, thrusting forward as she rose, and they both exploded into orgasm once more.
This time, it was a long time before he could think coherently enough to move, and still, as he did, she wrapped her arms around him.
“I’ll crush you.”
“S’all right,” she slurred, exhaustion finally sneaking up to claim her. He suspected she hadn’t had much rest the whole time she’d been in captivity.
He slid next to her, pulling the blankets over them both. “Rest,” he said.
“Yes. You too,” she murmured, eyes closed. She snugged herself next to him, and within
seconds her steady breathing told him she slept.
“Yes,” he agreed, his own heavy eyes closing.
Chapter X
The slanting beams of the setting sun woke them both.
“Bon nuit,” she said, opening her eyes.
“Et tu, aussi,” he murmured, kissing her.
They stared at one another for a few moments.
“Regrets?” she asked.
“I thought I got to ask that question?” he teased, kissing her again. “None. You?”
She closed her eyes and smiled, her body moving in a curving, sensuous fashion that had him stirring with need for her again.
“None. Ever. No matter what happens, I have this.”
He lowered his head to rest his brow on hers, her silky hair teasing his cheek. A feeling rose in him, deep and powerful. What he had felt, back in her room at the lodge, with danger all around them, was a pale shadow to this fresh wave of emotion.
“Yes. We both have this precious time.”
“Dix?” He heard her anxiety, and answered it.
“It’s nothing to worry about,” he reassured her, glad that the fading light hid his eyes. “Though I’m concerned about time, and distance. We need to get you home. The further away from Germany you are, the better.”
“Yes.” She was looking at him quizzically, but when he smiled again, she let it go.
“I want to make love with you again,” he murmured, “but it’s later than I thought. We have to make Konz tonight to meet my contact.”
“Then, as much as I want you too, we should pack and go,” she agreed. With an economy of motion, but the grace of a goddess, she rose from the nest of rough blankets and rustling hay.
He wanted her with a desire that was fierce and hot, but he banked it down, hard, and hurried to gather the blankets and gear as she dressed. He dressed as well and together, hand in hand, they slipped from the barn, making sure the door was tightly closed behind them.
The sun had disappeared by the time they bumped back through the field and onto the road. The sky was still streaked with gold, red and grey, but the colors faded quickly into the dark of a December night. They made good time skirting the border, taking country roads as the moon rose. They held hands as they drove.
The silence between them was comfortable. Restful.
She’d never felt restful with a man. Usually, the men she’d met, or dated, or interacted with in business reacted to her in one of three ways. They were intimidated, they tried to intimidate her, or they were nervous as cats.
This easy camaraderie was novel, and welcome.
“We’re approaching a little town,” Dix said, slowing. “There’s a checkpoint.”
“I can fit behind the seat,” she said. She’d been looking behind it searching for the source of the constant draft. There was a piece of the floorboard missing behind the seat, and that was what let in the frigid December air.
“Do it,” he ordered, pulling a beret and a cigarette case from his coat pocket. He jammed the hat onto his head, lit a Gauloises cigarette and puffed it a few times. “I will be French, yes,” he said.
“Mais oui,” she joked as she managed to slip between the back of the seat and the hard, cold metal of the truck’s frame. “It’s quite disgusting back here,” she commented, eyeing the trash, as well as the encrusted dirt that layered over the back of the seat and clogged the springs.
The truck slowed and she heard voices outside the car. She managed to roll most of the way under the seat, despite the dirt, pulling her coat up to cover her hair.
“Quiet as a mouse now,” Dix whispered.
“Heh, another roadblock? What is this?” he said in a kind of guttural French she had heard in the streets of Paris. The man was talented, it was amazing. She also recognized his strategy, going on the offensive the moment he rolled down the truck’s cracked window. “Why are you protecting Luxembourg?” he called to the guards, adding a braying laugh to the comment as he worked the character he was portraying.
“Papers,” the road guard demanded as he walked up to the door. There was a rustle and she smelled the strong French tobacco wafting into the night.
“Cold out there,” Dix commented, puffing on the cigarette. “This is ridiculous. No one is invading Germany.” He laughed at his own joke and she heard the guard chuckle as well.
“Here,” the man said, and she guessed that Dix’s papers were being handed back. “What’s your business?”
“Business,” Dix replied, braying another laugh. “Picking up supplies in Triers. Wine. Contraband whiskey from America. More cigarettes.” The strong, distinct Gauloises smoke streamed out the window and she heard the guard’s appreciative noise.
“Do you come back through here?” the guard had stepped closer to the car.
“I do,” Dix answered. “You have something you need, my friend?”
“You really get whiskey?”
“I do. And unless you’re asking in an official capacity, about the whiskey, then yes, I can. If you’re asking as a German soldier, then I’ll answer differently than I would for a friend.” Dix paused, and she could imagine him flashing that wicked white smile. “What’s your name, friend?”
“Oscar Kirshelm. How much? For the whiskey, friend?”
“For you, it’s cheap. Twenty Reichsmarks.”
“Twenty?” the guard spluttered.
“Twenty,” Dix reiterated. “Its forbidden fruit, friend Oscar. What do you say? Do I bring you a bottle or not?
There was a pause, and one of the other guards called to Oscar and he shouted back, but she couldn’t understand the words.
“Get me two bottles,” the guard said, quietly. “I’ll pay you when you deliver.”
“I totally understand, friend. Here, have a Gauloises on me.” There was a flurry of activity at the window, and she heard more calling, but this time, the guard said they were clear.
“I’ll be back through before morning, friend,” Dix lied. He let out the clutch and eased the old truck forward until the gears caught, then they were moving through town. He rolled up the window, but murmured to her, “Stay out of sight a few moments yet.”
She heard the calls of the guards, and the call of a newspaper boy, selling late papers, telling of German forces sinking a British ship in the North Atlantic.
“What day is it?” she asked, when he told her she could come out from under the seat.
“It’s the twenty-third of December.”
“More than a month then, since I left Paris.” She shrugged out of her coat, now gummed with dirt from under the seat. She folded it and set it on top of her bag, which rested on the floor.
“I’m going to pull off the road,” he said, suddenly.
“Why?”
“I see trucks behind us, big ones. They may be troops. And they may be hunting us.”
“Or?”
“They may be moving to fortify another part of the border.”
He scanned the road ahead, looking for a turn off. There had been a road on the map, it led north on a parallel route to Triers before cutting east.
“There,” he said, slowing only enough to make the turn. He gunned the engine and sent them up the tree-lined road. As the road curved, making it invisible from the main road on which they’d been, he swung wide, turning them around to face the direction from which they’d come. He rolled the car to the graveled edge of the pavement and cut the engine and the lights.
“Let’s see what we’re dealing with.”
They waited in tense silence for the trucks to catch up, and pass their hiding spot. Dix rolled the window down to listen. Before long they heard the grinding of the truck’s gears as the transports climbed the rise in the road.
“They’re loaded heavy,” Dix said, listening.
“Troops,” she said. “Let’s hope they’re going to Saarland or to the fortifications the Germans are building along the border, and not to Konz.”
“Exactly,” he said, taking her hand once
more. He wanted the contact, the warmth of her touch.
The trucks rolled into view. Three of them. And behind them rolled a sleek Mercedes sedan with flags flying from the front quarter panels in pennant fashion.
“SS,” Grace hissed, noting the swastikas, the insignia on the doors. “See, there on the bonnet, there’s a badge. This is someone important.”
“Not Hitler. Not enough cars.”
“No. This car wasn’t at the lodge. I would have recognized those. I watched them come in, made note of the bonnet signatures, and the flags.”
“Encoded in the diary?” he asked, his tone light.
“No,” she said with a smile. “That’s reserved for the very important. For the cars, I wrote it down on a piece of paper.”
Dix laughed and they let the quiet of the winter night soothe them as they gave the trucks and mysterious car time to get well ahead of them.
“Dix, when we get to town, I have to try and make contact.”
He didn’t answer her, merely turned in the seat to face her, raising her hand to his lips.
“I know. I think we’ll have to split up, however briefly.” He considered it for a moment. “There is an inn in Konz, small and catering to farmers and locals visiting family. We’ll go there. We’ll rest there for a bit, then make our separate contacts.”
“We’ll need safe words,” she said, remembering her training. “Passwords.”
“Yes,” he agreed, thinking for a moment. “When I return, I’ll say something like Avilii, open the door, and I’ll use that word, specifically. If you hear that, it’s safe.”
“What does it mean? Is it Latin?”
“No, Cherokee,” he said, glancing at her. “It means wife.”
That stopped her for a moment. Did he mean...no. They were masquerading as man and wife. The thin gold bands on both their hands proved it, didn’t it? A sham, nothing more.
“And if it’s unsafe?”
“I’ll say something about Char, as in, I think that is my friend Char, and you do the same. Avilii if it’s safe, Char if it isn’t. I’ll have to wait for daylight to get to my contact. That means we’ll be exposed.”
“Yes. And if I’m caught, or someone recognizes me and comes for me, I need you to do something.”
A Jewel In Time; A Sultry Sisters Anthology Page 22
