It was the first time she had deliberately touched him, and the shock of
it spread through his body like ripples on a quiet lake. All the
emotions and passions which he had so strenuously denied came tumbling
back upon him, and it seemed that their strength had grown a
hundred-fold while under restraint. He ached for her, with a deep,
yearning wanting ache.
Come with me, Nicholas/ she whispered, and his own throat closed so he
could not answer. He stared at her, and already the ground hostesses at
the gate were peering around irritably for their missing passenger.
She had to convince him and she shook his arm urgently, startled at the
hardness of the muscle under her fingers.
Nicholas, I really want/ she began, intending to finish, you to/but her
tongue played a Freudian trick on her, and she said, I really want you.,
Oh God/ she thought, as she heard herself say it, I sound like a whore/
and in panic she corrected herself.
I really want you to/ and she flushed! the blood came up from her neck,
dark under the peach of her tan so the freckles glowed on her skin like
flakes of gold-dust.
Which one is it? he asked, and then smiled again.
There isn't time to argue. She stamped her foot, feigning impatience,
hiding her confusion, then added, Damn you! for no good reason.
Who is arguing? he asked quietly, and suddenly, like magic, she was in
his arms, trying to burrow herself deeper and deeper into his embrace,
trying to draw all the an smell of him into her lungs, amazed at the
softness and warmth of his mouth and the hard rasp of new beard on his
chin and cheek, making little soft mewing sounds of comfort deep in her
throat as she clung to him.
Passenger Berg. Will passenger Berg please report to the departure
gate/ chanted the public address.
They're calling me/Nicholas murmured.
They can go right to the back of the queue,, she mumbled into his lips.
Sunlight was made for Samantha. She wore it like a cloak that had been
woven especially for her. She wore it in her hair, sparkling like
jewellery, she used it to paint her face and body in lustrous shades of
burnt honey and polished amber, she wore it glowing in golden freckles
on her cheeks and nose.
She moved in sunlight with wondrous grace, barefooted in the white sand,
so that her hips and buttocks roistered brazenly under the thin green
stuff of her bikini, She sprawled in the sunlight like a sleeping cat,
offering her face and her naked belly to it, so he felt that if he laid
his hands against her throat he would feel her purr deep inside her
chest.
She ran in the sunlight, light as a gull in flight, along the hard wet
sand at the water's edge, and he ran beside her, tirelessly, mile after
mile, the two of them alone in a world of green sea and sun and tall
pale hot skies. The beach curved away in both directions to the limit
of the eye, smooth and white as the snows of Antarctica, devoid of human
life or the scars of man's petty endeavours, and she laughed beside him
in the sunlight, holding his hand as they ran together.
