Rocks (8 page)

She tried to gobble him up greedily, but he was too big to take more than the head and a little of his shaft into her mouth, so instead she licked all along his length, making him wet and preparing her jaws. Returning to her delightful task once more, this time she was able to force more of him into her, pushing herself down so that the tip of him hit the back of her throat. Now it was his turn to groan as he placed a heavy hand on her head, holding her in position as she bobbed up and down on him, wet, choking sounds coming from her as she sucked and enjoyed him.

“Oh, fuck, I’ve got to feel that inside me,” she gasped at last, pulling up her head. A thin, diamond necklace of her spittle dangled between her lips and the glorious, purple-headed tip of him, only breaking as he pulled away and began to move on top of her.

“My bag,” she said in a slight panic, suddenl
y remembering something. “There are condoms in it.”

He raised an eyebrow briefly at this, smirking as he did so. “Prepared for anything, I see.”

“Any eventuality,” she said, watching him as he pulled a packet from her bag, tearing open the box and releasing one of the condoms. “Jesus,” she said, staring at his huge erection. “I hope they bloody fit!”

As he slid the rubber onto him, she reached out greedily with one hand, grappling his flesh and squeezing it, feeling the heat of his iron-hard cock while he began to play with her with his fingers. As he kissed and suckled each of her breasts in turn, taking the impossibly sensitive nipples in his mouth, she felt another orgasm beginning to build up inside her. Fuck! What was she going to be like when this guy penetrated her?

She didn’t have to wait long to find out. He held his torso above her as he slid between her legs, resting on his arms so that she had a good, clear vision of his broad chest, his handsome face. She still had one hand on his cock, guiding it to where she was open and eager for him, rubbing the tip of it around her sex. Slowly, he began to push, an unbelievable stretching sensation as he started to enter her.

“Oh god! Oh fucking god! Mercy!” she sighed.

“You’ll get no fucking mercy from me,” he growled, bending his head to her neck, biting her softly as he relentlessly pushed himself into her. With a groan, she rotated her hips, lifting her legs up to slide her feet along his thighs, her arms clutching him and dragging his body down onto hers.

He was moving carefully at first, tenderly, and she dug her fingernails into his back as his buttocks began to rise and fall with a steady motion. For a while Karla clenched her eyes shut, not daring to look as she hovered on the edge of a climax. Then, with a sudden thrust he was deeper inside her than she believed possible, and her eyes shot open, staring up at the ceiling as her mouth opened in a silent, strangled scream.

“Oh, shit!” was all she managed to gasp at last, then immediately her voice became an inarticulate series of grunts and sounds as he began to move more quickly, his hips slamming into hers, his balls slapping against her wet sex as he filled her up to the very hilt of him.

They kissed and rolled against each other, their bodies beginning to sweat as they fucked like animals. Her hands were all over him, digging into his skin, gripping his hair, pulling his mouth to hers. She forgot everything
—where they were, Maarten, even the Wallenstein. All that mattered now was that she was burning up, her body rippling with pleasure and the insides of her bursting with a thousand ecstasies.

When he held her down, pushing her head back into the pillows and lifting himself up so that he could use the full force of his body to ram into her, her thighs slick with perspiration raised up to his hips, Karla thought for a moment she would pass out. Her clitoris was an iron bud, hard with her own blood, and her sex was stretched around his gigantic erection, every millimetre of her tender and fit to burst. She screamed as she had yet another orgasm, and Simon’s face was caught in a beautiful rictus of passion and fury as his shaft swelled even further, pulsing as he joined her in climax.

As his head fell down beside hers, his hair a mess and his eyes dull with pleasure, she pressed her lips again and again onto his, letting her tongue slide into him when he responded in kind. For a long time they kissed, he holding her and she gripping onto him while slowly, very slowly, he shrunk down inside her.

“Wow!” was all he said at last.

“Yeah,” she repeated softly, tracing his nose with the tip of her finger. “Wow. Definitely a ten.”

He frowned slightly at this, seeking explanation, but she shook her head. It was time for her to retake
control, for all that she’d forgotten everything for the past hour. For all that she wished to remain lying there, she had things to do. It was perhaps better for them both if she reclassified this bout of mad lust. Nine star. A ten meant she would have to take him—and be taken by him—again. Hardening her heart, she remembered her Danish accent. “I need to shower. Do you mind?”

“Be my guest,” he said. That made her frown slightly. He was taking this awfully well
—bastard! He was meant to be gutted by this sudden, impossible meeting with the most beautiful woman he would ever encounter. Definitely a nine, then.

Her limbs failed her briefly as she stood up from the bed, and he laughed pleasantly as she grimaced then made her way to the en suite bathroom. She was shaking her head as the steam began to rise about her. Shit! She couldn’t focus, and now that she was standing up her legs were trembling. She had to get herself back in shape before she went looking for Maarten.

Soaping up her arms and shoulders, she jumped when the door opened behind her and Simon climbed into the shower alongside her.

“Here, let me help you with that,” he said softly, bending his head to kiss her on the back of her neck.

“I should get clean,” she told him, half-reluctantly.

“And I’ll help you get clean,” he replied. “Just after I’ve made you dirty all over again.”

She turned to remonstrate with him, her nipples standing to attention, her sex moistening again at the thought of him. She was going to give him a piece of her mind, when she saw
it
, hard and alert, rising up almost to his navel. The bastard! He was already hard, another rubber on his cock. The arrogant shit hadn’t even considered that she might refuse him.

Feebly, she placed her hands on his shoulders as he came closer, but he ignored their token resistance, pushing her back so that the cold tiles of the shower were a shock on her back, and then he was bending his legs, lowering himself so that he could rise up into her. As he did so, strong arms came up beneath her buttocks, grasping the tops of her thighs, lifting her up off the shower floor. She didn’t resist anymore. Instead she wrapped her body around him as he filled her again, kissing him and clutching him.

They fucked in the shower and then, as she tried to dry herself, he pushed her onto the bed, an easy motion that made her body, already weak from her orgasms, collapse forward. Half-dragging her up by her hair so that she rested on her knees, her shoulders pressed down on the sheets, he took her again. Christ! Her own sex was beginning to hurt now, so god alone knew how his cock felt. This was impossible… it shouldn’t be happening. Somewhere in her head, a voice told her to stop this, to be sensible, but all her body and the rest of her mind told the voice to fucking well shut it.

He held her buttocks apart, sliding in out, tenderly at first out of respect to the punishment she had already received. For her part, Karla was simply folded out on the bed, drooling slightly as she tried to mumble and curse, her fingers clutching the sheet. As he began to move faster, harder, she wept a little at first, groaning with the sweetest pain she had ever felt. Too much, she wanted to say. It’s too much. Instead, the devil inside her welled up in her throat.

“Yes! Oh fuck! Yes, harder. You bastard—fuck me! Fuck me—oh God!”

He was indeed dominating her now, and Karla found it impossible to resist. She fell forward onto the bed, and he lay on top of her, the glorious weight of that muscled body pinning her down. She felt on fire between her legs, a glorious pain that turned into the most powerful orgasm yet. Her face screwed up, Karla began to scream and howl while Simon kissed and bit her neck and shoulders, rutting her from behind like some terrible animal. She couldn’t hold on any more, couldn’t do anything. This time, as the firework of lights exploded in her eyes, it was indeed followed by a soothing, wonderful darkness.

When she came to, her lust having been followed by a more peaceful slumber, the room was empty.

“Simon?” she called out softly. Perhaps he was in the shower. She smiled at this thought
—if her legs were up to it, she could go and join him. “Simon?” she repeated, more loudly this time.

The room was almost silent. She could hear the very faint, muffled noise of a television but that was coming from somewhere else. There was no sound of running water and, as she wearily pulled herself to the edge of her bed she could see that his clothes were gone. Her own jeans and sweater were neatly folded on a chair next to a table on which rested her bag.

This made her frown. Perhaps he had gone to get some food, though why not call room service. Never mind. Although she regretted his not being beside her when she had woken, not to say being a little pissed off at him not being there to take her again (she had upgraded him back to a nine star rating, though on principle she refused to reinstate his ten), maybe this was for the best. She had things to do.

Her heart leaped a little inside her at that thought. This was it. In a few more minutes she would be gone as well.

Though she really wanted a shower, she resisted the impulse. She’d go back to her room and refresh herself before hunting down that little swine, Maarten. For now, she wanted to get out of her as quickly as possible before she weakened and waited for Simon to return.

Pulling on her clothes, she lifted her bag, reaching in for her phone to check the time. Damn, it was late! As she held the bag open, she paused and a sudden coldness began to spread over her limbs and body, replacing the long, sensuous warmth of her previous orgasms.

The key had been in her bag. It had been there. With a slowly rising sense of panic she pulled open pockets inside the bag. Money was there, as well as her passport. Nothing had been taken but the key was gone.

Karla stared around her blindly before, with a huge effort of her will, she forced herself into calmness once more. She checked again. Still the key was missing. She checked once more. Nothing.

In a moment of madness, she began to open drawers and cupboards in the room. She found nothing but for an old bible in the top drawer next to the bed, a fact that made her curse. Then she stopped in her tracks.

There was
nothing
in this room that wasn’t left for every guest. No clothes, no wallet, no keys or loose change. If it wasn’t for the scrumpled sheets and the traces of water in the bathroom, there would be no evidence that anyone had been in that room recently. With a terrible clarity, Karla suddenly realised what had happened to her.

She slowly crumbled to the
floor, her useless bag clutched to her chest, and began to cry.

Looking left and right along the corridor, Lars made sure that he was alone before he knocked on the door.

“Mister Kropp,” he said, loudly enough to be heard on the other side of the door. “Room service.” There was no answer.

Waiting patiently for a few moments while listening carefully for any sounds from within the hotel room, he thought he heard something but could not be entirely sure. He unbuttoned the holster beneath his arm, leaving in place the gun which he had acquired only a couple of hours before. That had cost him enough at such short notice, but then the Boeckman’s could afford it.

The room was locked, unsurprisingly, though Lars didn’t let that cause him a moment’s anxiety. With time and the right equipment, he could probably have opened the lock without breaking it, but he’d carefully tested the door and knew that it wouldn’t detain him for long. Slipping a jemmy bar from his sleeve which he had brought precisely for this occasion, he looked left and right once more. Still there was no-one in the corridor.

With two swift motions he managed to prise the lock open and slid into the room quickly, closing the door behind him. It was late and there was no light
on, just a faint glow from the motorway that lay beyond the window. Standing perfectly still for a few minutes, Lars let his eyes become accustomed to the gloom as he heard more clearly now the sound of someone snoring. Although he’d been as quiet as possible, even he was surprised a little that the noise of him entering had not woken the sleeping figure he could just make out on the bed.

On the phone beside the bed he could see a light flashing. Lars slid his gun from its holster and moved silently so that he now stood next to it, he looked down at the figure
—more clearly a man now, lying fully clothed on top of the sheets and duvet, snoring loudly. Lars could smell the acrid aroma of spirits. If this was Maarten Kropp, he had been drinking heavily.

As a test, Lars held the gun pointed towards the man on the bed and leaned forward to switch on a lamp. The man didn’t move, but now Lars could see quite clearly that the pale, pudgy features were indeed those of Maarten Kropp. Maarten’s breath spluttered and a bubble of spit formed on his thick lips, but he didn’t stir.

Pressing a button on the phone, Lars was slightly surprised to hear a woman’s voice on the speaker. “Maarten, I’m in the bar. Come and find me when you can.” Her tones were clipped and apparently Scandinavian, but something didn’t quite sound right to Lars’s ear. He shrugged. There would be plenty of time for questions.

Bending over now, he moved one gloved hand to Maarten’s face, covering his mouth, while the other holding the gun pressed into the sleeping man’s ear.

“Wake up, Maarten, you drunken sot! Time for you to talk.”

He was mildly amused that this had no effect, so now he leaned even closer and almost shouted: “Maarten!”

This did indeed woke up Maarten, his limbs flailing as bloodshot eyes opened and stared up in panic at Lars leaning over him. The gloved hand pressing on his mouth prevented him from crying out, while those staring eyes filled with fear as Lars showed him the gun. Slowly, very slowly, Lars removed the hand from Maarten’s mouth and raised a single finger to his lips in a gesture of silence.

Maarten nodded, indicating he understood, but almost immediately asked in a hoarse whisper: “Who are you?”

Lars moved away from the bed, taking a seat on the chair that was nearby. He placed his gun on his lap, letting it remain visible. “Who I am isn’t important, but you know why I’m here, don’t you, Maarten.”

It was a statement rather than a question, and the fact that the man on the bed didn’t make any reaction to the name confirmed that this was, indeed, Maarten Kropp. He looked utterly miserable, unable to raise his eyes in Lars’s direction.

“You’re here to kill me, aren’t you?”

This made Lars laugh, a low, slightly ominous sound. “That is extremely melodramatic, Mister Kropp. I understand how a man coming into your room with a gun may lead you to believe such a thing, but we’re not in some sort of James Bond movie. No. I’m not here to kill you. Not yet, in any case.”

That made Maarten look no less miserable, but he pushed himself up slightly onto the bed so that now he was facing Lars. His shirt was a mess—it looked as though he had spilt half the booze he must have drunk earlier that day down himself, and the reek of alcohol was even stronger now.

“It looks as though you’ve been enjoying yourself, Mister Kropp. Celebrating, perhaps.”

It was Maarten’s turn to laugh now, bitterly. “Yes, celebrating,” he repeated, hollowly. His eyes came up and there was a strange pleading in them. “I don’t have it, you know. I don’t know where it is.”

Lars sighed. The expression on Maarten’s face was not one of defiance, nor even shifty in any way. It was going to be easy with this one to uncover the truth.

“Perhaps you don’t,” Lars told him, noncommittally, “but you
are
going to help me, first of all by telling me all that you know about Frank Robeson.”

“Frank Robeson?” Maarten’s eyes were dull for a second, then panicking as he clearly searched his memory for any recollection of that name.

“Obviously that name was a false one, and perhaps your partner didn’t wish you to know all the details of his plan. But you would have been aware of his work to compromise Boeckman’s security systems.”

Maarten was now staring at Lars in blank fear. Clearly he understood Lars’s individual words, but the sentences were meaningless to him. That made Lars slightly irritated and he lifted his gun, pointing it towards the trembling man. “Tell me!” he hissed. “Who are you working with?”

“I don’t know any man!” Maarten almost shouted. Lars lifted a finger to his mouth again, indicating that Maarten should lower his voice. “It was her idea, she made me do it!”

This made Lars frown. “‘She’?” he repeated. “Who?”

“Karla! Karla Pietersen. She’s got the Wallenstein. I was meant to meet her today but… but I was scared. I started drinking early and…”

He was beginning to babble, which was less useful to Lars than it would first appear. The Norwegian was nothing if not methodical and structured in his approach to interrogations, and if Maarten became hysterical he would waste time.

“It’s okay, Maarten,” he said calmly, trying a different tack. “I’m here to help you. Boeckman’s have hired me to recover the Wallenstein, and it’s quite clear that you have been duped into this by some nefarious gang.”

“Gang?” Maarten asked, his eyes widening. “No, there wasn’t a gang…” His voice trailed away and the look of misery deepened on his face. “We were going to be together. She was going to meet me here today and we’d fly to South America, start a fresh life together. We were going to get married…”

As Lars leaned across towards the table, Maarten flinched, thinking the other man was going to hurt him. Instead, Lars pressed the answer phone button.

“Is this Ms Pietersen’s voice?”

Maarten nodded and looked pained as he heard the terse message. “I should have met her,” he said quietly. “For a moment I doubted her, but she was true to her word.”

“Where is she from?”

“Denmark—Copenhagen,” Maarten replied eagerly, like a puppy. “But she lives in Amsterdam, or did.”

“If that woman is Danish then I’m from
Gothenberg,” Lars muttered. Maarten stared at him blankly. “Don’t worry, it’s a Norwegian joke. Not so funny perhaps if you’re not Scandinavian. How long have you known this Ms ‘Pietersen’?”

“Two months, perhaps a little longer.”

“And what does Ms Pietersen look like?”

“Karla… Karla is beautiful.” His expression was slightly misty-eyed. “She is small, but… fierce, determined. There’s a fire to her
—”

“Thank you, Mister Kropp. Your poetic eloquence is very touching, but I’d prefer something a little more concrete. Do you have a picture of her?”

Maarten nodded. “On my phone,” he replied. He looked on the bedside table and then began to pat down his clothes. “Could you check my jacket?” he asked Lars pathetically.

Seeing the jacket crumpled in a heap on the floor, Lars picked it up and frisked the pockets. There was a wallet, containing cards and a few notes, as well as a passport
—but no phone.

“It’s not here,” he said.

At this, Maarten’s face showed signs of panic. “It must be!” he moaned. “I need it. I had it on me. I knew she was at Schiphol, waiting for the plane and then—” Suddenly he clammed shut, looking at Lars guiltily.

“What is it, Maarten?” asked Lars softly. “What did you do?”

“I… I loaded something on her phone, so… I could track her.” Maarten hung his head guiltily.

This made Lars chuckle. “So, you didn’t trust Ms Pietersen after all,” he remarked. “Perhaps you’re a wiser man than you look.”

“No, it wasn’t like that,” Maarten began to protest defensively. “She didn’t lie to me! She wouldn’t!” It was clear to Lars now that the man facing him would be immune to reason, at least for the time being, so he decided to pursue a different route. It suddenly occurred to him that he hadn’t threatened to torture Maarten even once. Oh well, he told himself, I can save that for later.

“What does Karla look like?” he asked, forcing his voice to resemble what he assumed was kindness. “I can help you find her
—for her sake, as well as yours.”

“S-she has red, red hair, the most beautiful you can imagine.” Maarten’s lips looked as though he would begin blubbering. “Green eyes, like emeralds. She’s short, much shorter than you, and very beautiful. You would recognise her immediately if you saw her.”

Lars sighed. That was only mildly helpful. But this phone, if he could locate that then his task would be so much easier.

“Where’s your phone, Maarten? Try to remember.”

“I was downstairs, in the bar. I was… I was nervous, and drinking heavily. I… I remember talking to someone, a man. He was… he was listening and I was telling him all my problems. I was very drunk. We… we came back to my room, I think.” Sweating, Maarten passed a hand across his face. “I don’t really remember.”

Something occurred to the Norwegian. Reaching into his pocket, Lars retrieved a photograph. “Did he look anything like this?” The photograph was a blown up, slightly grainy picture of an engineer wearing a cap.

Maarten stared at it, trying to focus his eyes. “I don’t know. The hat gets in the way, so I can’t really…” He stopped speaking and then looked up at Lars sharply. “Who is this?” he asked.

“This is Frank Robeson. Your employers believe he was responsible for breaking into Boeckman’s and stealing the Wallenstein.”

“The engineer,” Maarten breathed, his face suddenly flushed and angry.

“You know this man?”

Maarten nodded. “I bumped into him yesterday morning. He was working at Boeckman’s.” He gave a hollow, bitter laugh.

“What’s so funny?”

“I was too drunk and he had his hair different—his clothes.” Maarten shrugged. “This was the man I met in the bar. Find him, and you’ll find my phone and Karla.”

“Well, I’m sure that is true.” Lars was slightly confused for a moment, frowning as he attempted to piece together what had happened. “Now, about yesterday
—”

“No!” Maarten’s voice made Lars lift his head and stare at the other man. The weak, frightened face was transfixed now, the eyes betraying a surprising steeliness. “No more questions,” he said. “We need to find Karla. Now.”

“We can do that in a while,” Lars said, attempting to hide his irritability and also making a show of waving his gun as he motioned in a calming gesture.

“No, now.” Maarten stared at the gun but he seemed suddenly implacable. Perhaps Lars was going to have to torture him after all. Then the next statement astonished him even more.

“If this man has found her, Karla’s in danger. I won’t say anything until we find her. When we do, you can have the Wallenstein, anything. I just want to know that she’s safe.”

Lars lowered his gun, letting it rest on his knee while he stroked his chin with the other hand. This Maarten Kropp was a mass of contradictions, but it was also becoming clear that he believed himself to be genuinely in love with this Karla Pietersen, whoever she was. Attempting to piece things together, Lars was confused but one thing was clear: the man pretending to be Frank Robeson had been here recently. Lars suspected that he and this Pietersen woman were probably involved in an elaborate scam, but there were too many loose ends. However, Maarten was right about one thing: Robeson almost certainly had Maarten’s phone and the trail would grow cold if he left it too long. He needed to find Robeson, and quickly.

Standing, he pointed his gun at Maarten in an almost perfunctory manner. A glimmer of fear crossed the gem cutter’s face.

“Get up,” Lars told him.

“W-where are we going?”

“Somewhere safe. I’ll need to talk to you again, and I want to be sure I can find you. After I’ve dealt with you, then I’ll find your precious Ms Pietersen and this Frank Robeson.”