A Falcon Flies by Wilbur Smith Page A

his head and thrust it away from her, her fingers merely curled into the springing crisp curls the way a cat claws a velvet cushion, and instead of thrusting him away, she drew his head down and arched her back slightly so that her breasts rose to meet him.
    Yet she was unprepared for the feel of his mouth. It seemed as though he were about to suck her very soul out through the swollen, aching tips. It was too strong, she tried not to cry out, remembering that the last time she had done so, it had broken the spell – but it was too strong.
    It was a sobbing choked-up little cry, and now her legs gave way under her. Still holding his head she sagged backwards on to the low bunk, and he knelt beside the bunk without lifting his mouth from her body. She arched her back and raised her buttocks off the bunk at his touch and allowed him to draw out her billowing skirts from under her and drop them to the deck.
    Suddenly, he pulled abruptly away and she almost screamed to him not to go away again – but he had crossed to the door and locked it. Then, as he came back to where she lay, his own clothing seemed to fall away from his body like morning mist from mountain peak, and she came up on one elbow to stare at him openly. She had never seen anything so beautiful, she thought.
    â€˜The devil is beautiful also.’ A tiny inner voice tried to warn her, but it was far away and so small that she could ignore it. Besides it was too late, far too late to listen to warnings now – for already he was coming over her.
    She expected pain, but not the deep splitting incursion that racked her. Her head was flung back and her eyes flooded with the tears of it. Yet even in the stinging agony of it there was never a thought to reject this stretching, tearing invasion and she clung to him with both her arms about his neck. It seemed that he suffered with her, for except for that single swift deep stroke, he had not moved, trying to alleviate her agony by his utter stillness, his body was rigid as hers, she could feel the muscles taut to the point of tearing, and he cradled her in his arms.
    Then suddenly she could breathe again, and she took in air with a great rushing sob, and immediately the pain began to change its shape, becoming something she could not describe to herself. It started as a spark of heat, deep within her, and flared slowly so she was forced to meet it with a slow voluptuous movement of her hips. She seemed to break free of earth and rise up through flames, that flickered redly through her clenched eyelids. There was only one reality – and that was the hard body that rocked and plunged above her. The heat seemed to fill her until she could not bear it any longer. Then at the last moment when she thought she might die of it, it burst within her and she felt herself falling, like a tumbling leaf, down, down, at last, to the hard narrow bunk in a half-dark cabin in a tall ship on a winddriven sea.

W hen next she could open her eyes his face was very close to hers. He was staring at her with a thoughtful, solemn expression. She tried to smile, it was a shaky unconvincing effort.
    â€˜Please don’t look at me like that.’ Her voice was even deeper, more husky than it usually was.
    â€˜I don’t think I ever saw you before,’ he whispered and traced the line of her lips with his fingertip. ‘You are so different.’
    â€˜Different from what?’
    â€˜Different from other women.’ His reply gave her a pang.
    He made the first movement of withdrawing from her, but she tightened her grip on him panic-stricken at the thought of losing him yet.
    â€˜We will only have this one night,’ she told him, and he did not reply. He lifted one eyebrow, and waited for her to speak again.
    â€˜You don’t dispute it,’ she challenged. There was that mocking little smile beginning to curl his lip again, and it annoyed her.
    â€˜No, I was wrong, you are like all other women,’