“But you don’t understand, do you?” The tears wouldn’t stop, the words spilling loose, offered to an empty ocean, a lost life. “I love you. I’ve loved you for years, wrongly, pathetically…blaming you for everything, yes, of course. But it was love all the same. After my mother died, I could not read your letters, I couldn’t…But this is so much more unfair. You cannot leave me like this. I am not as strong as you suppose. You cannot leave me…”
“Gilda?”
She turned to see him lying on his side along the top of a nearby cargo container, his teeth clenched, one arm held tightly over his ribs. His eyes shimmered hot in the firelight, angered disbelief giving way to fear, as if he thought he might have lost his mind.
“You can’t be here,” he said.
You’re alive. You’re—She nearly laughed, so light with relief she thought she might fly. “Nate!”
She paddled the destroyed glider closer, forcing the craft to bump against the compartment and slide along its metal corner. Balancing on the seat, she secured the skiff with a loose cable, then untied the cargo bag of supplies and climbed to the top of the floating container.
Nathan didn’t rise, merely watched her approach, one arm held tight over his chest. She dropped to her knees and grabbed onto his hand, hearing him make a harsh sound through his teeth, disbelief turned to gratitude.
“You’re hurt,” she said quickly.
He shook his head.
“Nathan—”
“My ribs, but I can breathe, move when I have to.”
“Is there anyone else?”
“The gondola sunk with the airframe.”
“But you—”
“I wasn’t in it. How did you get here?”
She smiled tenderly. “I came on the wind, a bird under the moon.”
He looked alarmed, too dazed with pain and fatigue to make sense of the abstract. His lips parted, but no words came.
“Your prototype,” she whispered.
“My…”
“The glider.”
Recognition dawned. “You took it?”
“Yes.”
“And you crashed it.”
“Of course. But, until that moment, it was positively beautiful.”
He hissed through his teeth and looked skyward, his eyes red-rimmed under dark lashes. “Only the real Gilda would say something like that.”
“The real Gilda?”
“I’ve had dreams, lying here.”
“You think I’m a dream?”
“You are the only thing I see. The only regret I have.”
She pressed her lips together.
“I never even kissed you.”
“You…”
“I wanted to,” he said, his voice carrying a soft hint of torment. “I was furious, but I wanted to. When I was falling toward the water, I couldn’t understand why I hadn’t…why I didn’t kiss you in the one moment…the moment you were mine.”
The words brought tears to her eyes. Lowering her head, she parted her lips against his and felt him respond in kind, welcoming her caress with one of his own. His hand brushed over her cheek, his fingertips smoothing over the cool skin, his body trembling underneath her.
She broke the kiss, her breathing ragged in the space between them. “Forgive me.”
He shook his head. “I’ve only ever wanted to love you.”
“Then love me. And I will love you. In this moment, and all that come after. No more deceptions. No more lies.”
He looked at her, his eyes so pale they seemed to burn with a light of their own. “I want to be gentle.”
“I do not break.”
“But you do,” he said, his exhaustion slurring the words. “In your own way. Just one more moment, so that I know…we did not end it like that.”
“Nate, I am here. You are not dreaming. You are merely in some terrible state of shock. And you are injured.”
“I did not want it to end that way.”
“I am here. It did not end.”
“Didn’t it?” he asked, tracing the path of a curl down her cheek.
She half-closed her eyes, her heart aching with the touch.
He was right, of course. The world burned around them, consuming what they had built, the people they had known, and ending the lives they had lived. The Nate who had left the island would never return. The Gilda who had remained in the mansion would never leave it. They were gone, murdered just as surely as the Sultans had intended, and yet, through some surreal turn, still here, set together under the stars and gifted with choice of who they would become, what they would now mean to each other.
She slid her fingers over his. “Perhaps, under the circumstances, it is I who must be gentle with you.”
“So beautiful…” he murmured, his breathing tight and uneven.
Leaning close, she kissed him again, urging him to lie on his back as their lips touched. He shuddered, holding his arm in place over his ribs as she stroked her hand down his shirt, undoing the small buttons as she went. The fabric was wet and stained, parting to richly tanned skin, a shadow of dark purple bruising visible under his arm. His muscles were clenched, with pain, anticipation, or both.
She kissed his stomach, tasting salt.
He drew a ragged breath, his gaze lost in the stars above. “A bird under the moon…I knew you would understand.”
Gilda threaded his belt back through the buckle, murmuring for him to be still as she slid the fabric down. He was half-hard as she put her fingers on him, the velvet head of his cock hardening as she took him into her mouth and rolled her tongue over him.
He made a sound somewhere between agony and pleasure, his hips thrusting up to meet the wet embrace of her lips. She grabbed hold of his shaft and squeezed gently, teasing the thick head, slicking the skin before pistoning the length of him in her hand.
Nathan sucked in a breath, his body held taut at her mercy.
She worked him in her mouth, allowing him to plunge deep, feeling his free hand slide into her hair and hold her. He was rock hard and tortured by it, thrusting weakly and groaning.
Releasing him, she rose up to unbutton the oversized mechanic’s suit the technicians had provided, pulling it down her shoulders to bare her breasts in the firelight. She let the garment drop over her hips and stood naked above him, save her boots.
He looked at her in wonder, as if it were the first time he’d ever seen her, his pale eyes glowing with admiration.
“I am yours,” she said, lowering herself to sit astride him, her fingers stroking his cock to her quim. He groaned as she slid him deep inside herself, her body clenching around him as he filled her, the velvet rub of his head thick and welcome inside her. She drew a pleasured breath, thrusting her hips, fueling her own excitement with every long and graceful push.
His large hand closed on her breast in hunger, flicking the nipple as she rocked against him, his lips bared to shining ivory teeth. She cried, feeling the flood coming over her, her quim tightening with expectation, his shaft caressing its bright sensation to the end.
She arched her back, her eyes heavy-lidded and her cheeks burning. Her hips pushed against him, sliding him deeper, again and again until the rush of climax slipped through her like fire, her senses tingling and alive.
He issued a hoarse cry, his body rigid, sharing the moment of hot release with her.
They remained locked together in its warmth, kissing with tender whispers and salt-flavored tears, reborn into a new world, held breathless under the same, ancient sky.
Lift
Gilda felt the tremor in the yoke as the glider banked against the burning sky, its wings bathed in the orange glare of sunset. The island appeared as a rocky hill the distance and she leveled the craft, descending gracefully between giant sugared plumes of clouds and misty vapor streams. The ocean spread out beneath her, two airships floating like bloated cows on approach to the station, and another much farther out, heading to places unknown.
It was yet more evidence
that things were running smoothly at Sinclair and she was not missed on the flight schedule, though she still made an effort to appear at shareholders meetings, with all their inherent tediousness, hideous graphs and number trickery. At least, as a Royal Navy pilot, no one expected her to understand any of it.
Reaching for the flap lever, she lowered the fabric sleeves, feeling the glider drop swiftly through the air.
“Too soon!” Nathan yelled from the narrow seat behind her, breaking his promise to be as silent as a piece of luggage. “We will fall short.”
“We will not, because we are fast.”
There was a moment of wind-whipping silence.
“Don’t,” he warned.
“There is no trust in this marriage. That is the problem here.”
“No. The problem is that this is a prototype for a new glider. It was never designed to be a wave skimmer.”
“And, yet, it will be strikingly superior in the role.” She raised the flap sleeves and placed her hand on the secondary propellant release.
The ocean came into close focus beneath them, its shining crests painted gold, the glow of sea air thickening around them.
“Gilda!”
Laughing, she pulled the propellant release, throwing them both back in the seat as the small craft shot forward, sweeping over the waves on its way home.
About the Author
Morgan Karpiel
Morgan Karpiel is a RWA Golden Heart Finalist (2005, 2009 & 2010) and the recipient of the prestigious Maggie Award of Excellence in Fiction. She is currently working on the next novella in her erotically-charged Fantasies of New Europa series. She welcomes you to visit her website at MorganKarpiel.com
Table of Contents
Cover Image
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
27 Hours Prior to the Attack
12 Hours Prior to the Attack
3 Hours Prior to the Attack
Wrath
Lift
About the Author
The Aviator Page 7
