Sentimental Journey (40 page)

She tossed her shoes in the closet and put her satin evening dress on a padded hanger, then hung it up. “We almost die together . . . minefields and airplane crashes and flash floods, and now, here we are, a perfect evening, and he doesn’t take the bait.” She put her hands on her hips. “And snakes! I forgot all about the snake.”

She grabbed her silk robe off a hook and shrugged into it. “We walk through the desert together. We almost died together like . . . like Shakespearean lovers.”

She yanked hard on the belt and pulled the pins and the hair pick from her hair. She turned and set them on the dressing table, then sat down and began to vigorously brush her hair. She stopped brushing and shook the brush in the air. “What is wrong with him?”

“Nothing’s wrong with me.”

“Cassidy?”

“You forgot your key.”

She could just imagine him standing right there in the doorway, leaning against the jamb, probably holding up her key like some kind of prize.

Oh, God . . . How much had he heard?
She spun around and threw her brush at him.

“Ouch! Damn.”

She stood up and crossed the small room, her hand out until she found him standing there.

“You hit me in the head. How did you do that?”

“Blind luck.”

“You know, Kincaid. That mouth of yours is going to get you in trouble.”

“You think so?”

“I know so.”

“Oh . . . I sure do hope so.”

A heartbeat passed. One of those split-second strokes of time where you wonder where your nerve came from. She would have given anything to be able to see his face.

His hand touched her cheek, then, slowly slid to her jaw.

She tilted her head back. Just for a second she thought he wasn’t going to kiss her. “Kiss me, Cassidy. Before I fall down.”

“Oh, baby . . . ” His mouth was on hers.

She grabbed his shirtfront in her fists and pulled him against her.

His hands slid down her to her bottom, and he lifted her up, deepening his kiss as he walked with her to the bed. He set her on her feet but kept his hands on her butt and slowly began to wad up the robe higher and higher and higher, until he could slide his hands over the bare skin of her bottom, squeezing it as he ate at her mouth.

The last time she’d kissed him he’d had a beard. She lifted her hand and drew it along his square jaw. She could smell the soap on his skin. It smelled clean and male and just wonderful. She easily opened every button on his shirt, pushed it off his shoulders, and ran her hands over the muscles and bone and contours of his arms, drew a finger over the indentations, amazed at how they were sculpted.

So different from her. So hard. In the strength of those arms was the soldier, the man. She wanted to give him the gift of her body.

His fingers moved to the cleft of her buttocks, then inside, stroking her in places dark and forbidden. She moaned and rubbed against him, felt the robe split wide open, and her nipples rubbed against the thin cotton of his undershirt. He was kissing her jaw. She reached down and cupped him through his slacks.

His lips were on her ear, his tongue inside. “You’re wearing too many clothes.”

“Hmmm. Am I?”

“Yeah, baby.”

She laughed and pulled at his belt. “Less than you.”

His hands left her butt and tore at the robe; it fell off her shoulders. He jerked away the tie belt. “On the bed.” He shoved her backward, out into the bedroom and then onto the bed. “Now.”

She heard the sound of his belt, then his zipper, the thud of his shoes. She lay there naked, exposed to him.

He wasn’t moving.

She could hear his breathing. “What are you doing?”

“Looking at you.”

“Not fair. I have to use my hands to see you.”

“Yeah, and you were doing such a good job of it, you were about to see more than you planned.”

“Like what?”

“Me losing my pride and shooting off like I was fifteen.”

“I wouldn’t care.”

“I would.”

She lay there, wondering how long before he touched her again. “I want your hands on me, Cassidy. Please

He stood between her legs, which were bent and hanging down from the bed; he pushed them apart. His hands stroked her inner thighs, and she sucked in a deep breath.

“God, but you’re beautiful . . . ” His finger separated her; the air was cold on her.

She was so wet it was embarrassing. She made a noise when he rubbed her. “Wait.”

“Shhhh.” He knelt down and put her legs over his shoulders. He grabbed her bottom and pulled her toward him, open, exposed, his head between her thighs. Just the barest tip of his tongue flicked her.

She moaned and quivered. “No, don’t. Please.”

His only answer was to lick her again. Then he blew on her.

“Please . . . ”

“Please what?”

“Please don’t.”

“Please don’t what?”

“Please don’t. . . stop.”

His fingers went back to her crack and stroked her. He licked her, blew on her, stroked her, again and again.

“It feels so good.”

Her legs began to shake, small shivers, and she raised her hips higher and closer.

“Come, baby, come against my mouth.”

And she came apart for him.

“I’M IN THE MOOD FOR LOVE”

He’d never had a virgin. Always thought of virginity as a nuisance. He was wrong. She was all over him, with an innocence he found refreshingly fun.

Four times. Hell, maybe he was a hero.

They lay sideways in the bed, the sheets somewhere on the floor, her legs tangled in his and her head resting on his chest as she combed her fingers through his chest hair and he played with her hard nipple. The window was open, but the air was warm and the room still steamy and smelling like sex. It made him want her again.

A car horn honked in the distance. A taxi boy blew his whistle at the taxi queue downstairs. He could hear people walking and talking outside, milling around in front of the hotel. Laughter drifted up into the room. Every so often, there was a lull in the street noise and he could hear the faint sound of music from a distant nightclub.

From just across the hall came the soft whish of the hydraulic brakes on the elevator. The cage gate creaked open. The elevator operator clicked his castanet, and the door closed.

Footsteps. A man laughing. A woman’s sigh. A door closed down the hall.

She shifted a little. “What time is it?”

“Late.” He reached for his watch on the nightstand, flicked on the table lamp. “Three.”

“Ummm.” She took a deep breath and put her leg over his hip. Her pussy was wet. She moved her mouth to his chest and began to kiss him.

He reached toward the night table. “This is the last condom.”

“Oh.” She sounded so disappointed he almost laughed.

“Don’t worry about it.” He lifted her onto his prick, then rubbed his hands up her bent thighs. “There are other things we can do, sweetheart.”

She slid down him and he wanted like crazy to jerk off the condom and really feel her inside. Yeah, next time. He could always pull out.

“Other things?” She shifted her hips. “Like what, Cassidy?”

He lay back and closed his eyes. So hot . . . She was so hot inside. “Later. Ride me, baby. Just ride me.”

She was doing it slow and easy. He waited and waited, then gripped her hips, wanting it harder and faster. She moved like silk around him, warm and wet and soft.

He looked at her.

Her head was back, her lips swollen and pink, her mouth open and moist. It drove him crazy. Her breasts jiggled as she moved. The nipples were hard and pink. He rose up and sucked one into his mouth, rolled his tongue over it as she slid down him. He felt her little clit against the base of his dick. He thrust up three times fast. She throbbed, and he came like crazy.

She fell asleep first, while he lay there watching her in the curve of his arm. He edged out from under her, slipped out of the bed, and pulled on his pants, buttoning the fly as he left the bedroom.

In the sitting room, he picked up the black telephone, dialed out, and moved toward the terrace doors with the phone in his hand, stepping around the cord. He had to wait a good half hour for the call to go through all the various operators.

“Hey there, Pistonbrain. Yeah, I know it’s
two A.M.
there, but this is an emergency. I need your help.”

Jake Wells, the head mechanic at the Army airbase in
Gibraltar
, had been stationed on a base with him not long after he graduated from
West Point
.

“Look, buddy. You know that C-33 transport that is supposed to fly out here tomorrow? Yeah, that’s it. There’s five hundred bucks in it for you if you can delay it for a couple of days.”

J.R. held the phone away from his ear for a moment. “I know it’s a top priority flight. No. I don’t care how. That’s your job, old buddy. Just make sure that plane can’t take off until Thursday. Is it a deal?”

He waited patiently while Jake called him a few good names before he agreed. “Good. Thanks. What? No.” J.R. laughed. “A brunette. A long-legged, smart-mouthed, brunette. Yeah, I know I’m lucky. Even luckier than you think, buddy. Sheer blind luck.” He smiled. “Sure thing, and Jake? Thanks. I owe you one.” He hung up.

Smiling, he dropped the phone back on the table and went into the bedroom. Light from the moon shone through the latticework and spilled lacelike shadows over the bed and her bare skin. Odd, but he found he could stand there and watch her, not wanting to leave. He didn’t think of another woman, at another time, in another place. Instead he felt something like heart-pounding pleasure coursing through him.

He took off his pants, walked around the bed, and picked up the linen sheet, then lay back down and covered them both. He eased his arm under her head and closed his eyes.

Two hours later he woke up from a helluva great dream, to find reality even sweeter still. Her mouth was on him, sucking lightly. Her hair spread over his thighs, her breasts pressed between his legs.

Hell, he might have to marry this girl.

“I MARRIED AN ANGEL”

The little green Sunbeam taxi careened around a corner and fish-tailed. Kitty tightened her grip on the strap near the rear window.

“Christ,” Cassidy muttered.

“What?”

“He almost ran over a donkey cart filled with chickens and ducks.”

She’d heard the quacking and squawking.

He took another sharp turn that slammed her into Cassidy’s ribs. She was struck by the absurdly real thought that the gods of irony could easily strike and kill her in a
Cairo
cab after she had survived all those ordeals in the desert. “Does he have to drive so fast?”