Chapter 6 #2
This slow, controlled love-making was exacting a price.
His stomach muscles were so tight she could see each ridge of muscle.
Caroline slid a hand from his biceps—held so tautly the sinews were visible—to his back, and felt his control even there, in the hard, tightly-clenched muscles.
He looked as if he were a statue carved of dark marble rather than a man of flesh and bone.
The knowledge of how tightly he was hanging onto his self-control pushed her right over the edge. With a sharp cry, Caroline erupted into contractions, clenching tightly around him, shaking with the force of her climax.
“God,” he muttered as a shudder went through him.
He lowered himself to her with a groan, dropping his hands to her thighs.
He lifted them high and pushed them wide apart, so she was completely open to him and began thrusting hard and fast. His movements kept her on that knife’s edge of climax way longer than was normal for her as pulses of red-hot pleasure coursed through her system.
She was holding on to him as tightly as a person lost in a storm holds on to a tree trunk.
Just as her climax was winding down and she could breathe again, he turned his head on the pillow, moving his lips to her ear.
“More,” he whispered. “I want more, Caroline.” Goosebumps rose along her flesh as he inserted his hand into the small of her back and lifted her even more into his thrusts.
He changed the angle of his movements and somehow the base of his penis was rubbing directly against her clitoris.
Electric shocks ran through her system as waves of intense pleasure almost too great to be borne coursed through her.
For the first time in her life, Caroline became a purely physical being, all her senses turned inward to the pleasurable tumult happening inside her body.
It seemed as if she came with her entire body, not just her sex.
All her limbs shook as she held on to him, feeling with her thighs and arms the dense play of muscles as he moved inside her.
Eyes closed, head tilted back, she rode out the waves of pleasure until there was no more left.
There was nothing left in her, not even the strength to hold onto Jack.
Her arms and legs fell open and her breathing slowed.
Jack stopped. “Caroline?”
Oh God, he was still iron-hard inside her, but there was no way she could participate. Every single muscle had gone limp. It was even hard to keep her eyes open.
Dimly, she realized he’d pulled out of her. He turned with her in his arms and using his hard shoulder as a pillow, she dropped into a dreamless sleep.
Air France Flight 1240
Mid-Atlantic en route to Kennedy
Axel’s VISA was good for a first class flight across the Atlantic with Air France. L’Espace Premiere. The name alone was classy.
Deaver relaxed in the comfortable extra large seat that tipped back into a bed and sipped a flute of excellent chilled dry Champagne. The real thing, not the warm carbonated piss served back in cattle class.
Good old Axel. His credit card and name would fly to Atlanta, where he would disappear from the face of the earth. Deaver lifted his glass in a salute. Here’s to you, old boy.
Deaver looked around the first class cabin, with its plush carpeting and the jewel-like colors of the Air France cabin. It was the first time he’d ever flown first class, but by God it wouldn’t be the last.
For the first time since Obuja, Deaver relaxed and started planning the next few days. His head was clear and he could see what had to be done with unusual clarity.
He was spectacularly comfortable, well-fed, a soft pure new wool blanket spread over his knees.
The first class cabin was like a little sanctuary of soft colors, soft voices, pretty women.
Even the air smelled of luxury. No stench of diesel and unwashed carpet that he’d always associated with flying.
In the air was the expensive colognes of the other passengers, the heady smell of the boeuf en croute they’d had for dinner, the Burgundy and lemon tart, topped off by the Napoleon brandy served in crystal snifters.
No wonder the rich made all the smart moves. Who couldn’t think smart with pretty stewardesses vying to serve you fabulous food and wine, slipping perfumed pillows under your head, wrapping you in the softest of blankets? Even the noise of the engines was muted up here in first class.
Deaver had flown the world, mainly in cargo planes, which was as far from first class as it gets. He remembered being air-lifted from Ramstein to Jakarta. Fifteen bone-breaking, freezing hours strapped into metal benches against the bulk-head, pissing into jars.
Never again. Fuck no.
Deaver drained the flute.
“Encore du Champagne, monsieur?” A stewardess appeared immediately and topped his flute again with a wink and a smile. She was tall, blonde, with uptilted brown eyes. He was on a mission, but when he got his diamonds back, he’d follow up the next time he got a smile like that.
There were only five other passengers in first class, all businessmen, and they were finally settling in for the night.
The sky outside the portholes had long ago turned dark, then black.
They’d been wined and dined, and now they put away their laptops, folded their newspapers, took their shoes off and one by one, converted the seats into a bed.
Deaver waited until the lights dimmed, the stewardesses retired behind the curtains and his fellow passengers were asleep.
Only then did he take out of his pocket three sheets of paper. A smudged photograph, a wrinkled press clipping and a digital photograph. The first two had been folded and unfolded thousands of times and the images weren’t clear, but still they gave Deaver all the information he needed.
He looked first at the digital photograph, taken by one of his men, Sam Dupont, in Falana.
Sam had stayed behind to stock up on ammo, and was just ready to get back to their base camp when he saw Jack Prescott, making the rounds, asking about them.
He took Prescott’s photo, but they arrived in Obuja together.
Deaver had taken the photo off Sam’s dead body.
He touched the smooth sheet, circling Prescott’s head with the tip of his forefinger, letting the hatred and rage run through his system. Prescott had taken what was his, and he was going to pay. But first, Deaver had to find him.
He opened the other two sheets of paper and smoothed them out.
The one on the right was a press clipping, the paper yellowed with age.
It had been cut so that only the photograph and a portion of the caption showed.
The only indication of the newspaper’s name was …
ville Gazette. The date was October 12th, 2011.
The photo showed a young girl at the piano in a concert hall. The caption read: Caroline Lake gave a piano recital at Williams Hall Thursday evening.
The other was a standard high school portrait. There were millions of photos like this floating around the US. The girl was the same as the girl in the news photo.
She was a looker, that was for sure. The clipping showed a profile almost hidden by long pale hair. It could have been anyone. But the high school picture was full face and you had to blink to make sure she was real.
Red-gold hair, gorgeous. A younger, softer Nicole Kidman.
That was in 2012. Twelve years ago. Of course, in twelve years the girl could have gained fifty pounds, lost her hair, lost her teeth. Died of cancer. Had a kid a year. Started turning tricks. A lot of stuff could happen in twelve years.
Deaver didn’t care one way or another. But that fucker Prescott cared. Oh yeah, he cared. It was the first thing he brought out to look at in the morning and the last thing he looked at before turning in. You don’t do that for anything less than an obsession.
Deaver had watched women trip in and out of Prescott’s bed and leave nothing behind. Prescott sure didn’t keep their photographs as a keepsake. Didn’t keep anything, as far as Deaver could see.
He was careful not to get caught staring at the photographs but Deaver knew how to wire a webcam as well as anyone else. He’d even caught Prescott jerking off twice, one hand holding a photograph, the other beating his dick.
Stealing the two photographs had been insurance. Deaver had had a sixth sense that one day he’d need something to hold over Prescott and as usual, his hunch was right.
Prescott had his diamonds and Deaver wanted them back. They were his. He’d fought for them, he’d bled for them, they were fucking his.
He was perfectly willing to put the knife to Prescott to find out where he’d stashed them. But Prescott, like all Special Forces soldiers, had been inoculated against torture. Not only that—he was a tough son of a bitch. It was entirely possible his heart would give out first.
But everyone has a weak spot and Deaver was holding Jack’s. A man who jerked off to a woman’s photograph for twelve years probably had feelings for that woman. And might be willing to exchange $20 million dollars in diamonds for her.