“My sister.” She lifted her head so that she could look at him. “Did you like to listen to the rain, Richard?”
“Yes.”
“Did you have someone to listen with?”
“No.”
“You have no sister, or brother?”
“I have a sister.”
“What is her name?”
“Edith.”
“You are not close?”
Field stared at the ceiling. “I think we were close.”
Natasha hugged him again. She ran her hand through his hair, ruffled it. “Now you are always smiling!” She laughed.
“So are you.”
She held his hand and they lay still. Natasha examined his fingers, running her own along each and then placing her hand over his. “How only think so?” she asked.
“Think so what?”
“How do you only think you were close to your sister?”
Field stared at the ceiling. He tried to pick out mosquitoes in the gloom but could not see any. Her nets worked. “It was a different life. It’s confused. Everything back home is confused.” Field tried to recall home clearly, but it was hard to think about anything while looking at her. She nodded, to encourage him. “It’s almost as though I have only been alive since I’ve been here and everything that went before is . . .” He stopped. “Did your family come?”
She put a finger to his lips and rolled off the bed, her long hair hanging down her back as she moved toward the bathroom.
Natasha returned, unashamedly naked, and knelt on the end of the bed.
She slipped from her knees onto her hip, arching her back so that her hair hung back over his toes.
Field leaned forward and touched the flesh above her knee.
Natasha pushed him gently back onto the pillow, her lips warm, the smell of her still more intense, her nipples against his chest, the skin of her neck soft, her legs across his.
The urgency had gone, her touch now more deeply satisfying. She ran her fingers across his chin and through his hair, brushing it back from his forehead. Her tongue ran around his lips and then slipped between them, finding his own and withdrawing.
She smiled and leaned back onto her left leg, moving the other up beside his face. As he touched her ankle and ran his hand up her knee and then along her thigh, he watched her put the fingers of her right hand in her mouth.
She reached down between Field’s legs, making a ring of her thumb and finger. She bent down to kiss him.
Field’s muscles were tense, his arms straining.
She released him, straddling his waist, taking his hand and guiding it. Her breathing quickened as she pressed down onto him, and he groaned as he slid into her once more.
Natasha threw herself back, her breasts high in the half-light, her legs pressing against his thighs, her hands resting on his stomach. She pushed down harder, raising herself so that she was teasing the end of him, before forcing herself back down.
She closed her eyes and, just for a moment, unease at the contrast between her expertise and his inexperience crept into the corner of Field’s mind, before she leaned forward once more, her hair tumbling into his face, her mouth warm, and he lost himself in the curve of her thighs.
Afterward, they lay in almost exactly the same position, Natasha’s heart hammering against his chest.
Field listened to it, and his own, slowing.
“Have you always been a fighter, Richard?” she said, looking at him, resting on her elbow. “I think somebody once hurt you very badly.”
He frowned.
“So determined and yet so vulnerable.” Natasha stood and shook her head. “I can imagine you as a little boy.” Without waiting for him to answer, she walked to the bathroom, her hands on her slim hips.
He listened as she ran the tap and brushed her teeth and then turned on the shower.
Field stood and walked into the bathroom. She was half-visible through a glass screen.
He opened the door of the shower. She put her arms around his middle and drew him in, her body slippery and cool.
Natasha looked younger with wet, straggled hair across her face, her nipples hardened by the water. She was smiling at him, as if she were enjoying a private joke.
She pushed him gently away and stepped out of the stream of water. She lathered the soap in her hands and
