Charades

by Ann Logan

  It was amazing that in spite of her naiveté and her fear of men, she was able to move forward. He couldn’t deny her now, tonight was hers. When she hated him later for his part in deceiving her, maybe she’d remember the way he had loved her.

  “Wait here a minute,” Wulf said. He went to his room and returned with a small packet. If it were up to him, he’d get her pregnant as quickly as possible. The idea of her swelled to bursting with his child made his chest expand. God! It was all he could do not to grab her and take her right then and there. Instead, he gently pushed her back down on the bed and pulled the covers down to the bottom of her feet.

  “Let me help you with this,” he said, emotion making him hoarse as he lifted the hem of her nightgown. She started, drawing her feet back. She had the most beautiful slender ankles he’d ever seen, fragile as a thoroughbred’s. He took one small foot in his hand, kissing the instep and ankle. On a whimsy, he took her big toe into his mouth and sucked on it.

  “What are you doing?” Mercy whispered raggedly, trying to draw her foot back.

  He smiled. “Just think of me as the big bad wolf.”

  “That’s not funny,” she said with a laugh.

  The long silk nightgown whispered roughly against his callused hands as he slowly rolled it up her leg to her waist, her moans and whimpers spurring him to go even slower. With each square inch of her body revealed, he lovingly and tenderly nuzzled, nipped, and kissed her, grazing her stomach and abdomen with small butterfly touches of his lips and his tongue.

  He lifted her gown up over her breasts and stopped. “You’re beautiful,” he said, “perfect.” Her breasts were full and soft as silk to the touch. Women’s breasts had always been a marvel to him, but hers were incredible, the dark aureoles wrinkling delightfully at his touch. The tips felt like hardened pebbles when he licked them and sucked them into his mouth, playing his tongue over them. Her small movements and noises confirmed the pleasure he gave her, making his chest swell with pride.

  Wulf made a quick decision not to remove his own clothes yet, for fear of frightening her. Besides, at this point, only staying clothed would contain the fever pounding in his blood.

  “Is everything okay?” Mercy asked.

  “Yes, oh, yes,” he whispered, his voice rough and raspy with need. He lifted her nightgown with slow and renewed determination, wanting to surround her with every aspect of his love. He delighted in the feel of her heated flesh, gently pulling the nightgown off first one arm and then the other. Skimming up the soft undersides of her arms with tiny, nipping kisses, he inhaled her unique bouquet, the fragrant, subtle scent of a woman. His woman.

  In spite of the coolness of the room, Mercy felt feverish, her skin burning like fire. She’d never known this kind of intimacy existed. It was wondrous, incredible! She tried to respond with touches and kisses of her own, but she was in such a hazy swirl of passion she could barely move. Tiny cries of pleasure and delight passed her lips. The fine sandpaper touch of his beard on her breasts and the subtle, tangy scent of his aftershave made her feel dizzy and shivery.

  When he cupped her breasts, Mercy gasped, thrusting into the rough calluses of his large hands. When he kissed her nipples and sucked them into his hot mouth, she thought she’d shatter into a million pieces. Beyond coherent speech or thought, she arched toward him, offering herself. Oh, more, more, she silently entreated. Mercy groaned in frustration, the need for something intangible thundering through her body, keeping pace with her racing heart.

  She wanted him. Wanted him to fill her being, to become one in deed as well as thought. Only he could fill the ache in her heart, the deep, hollow throb of wanting in her veins, the void in her soul that knew only him, wanted only him.

  “Wulf, I, I…”

  “Shhhhhh, I know. I’m here.”

  His hands moved down her stomach, delving under her panties. With a start of sensation, she felt him twine his fingers in the curly hairs there, teasing her soft, swollen, protective petals with unspoken promise. An aching spot of tension wound ever more tightly within her core. In spite of her need, his first faint touch was a shock to her system. With added pressure of his fingers, however, she lifted herself to him. The insistence of her body was so mystifying and overpowering she was afraid it might kill her.

  “You’re so beautiful, Mercy,” he gasped out, “especially here,” he said, slipping first one finger and then another into her moist haven.

  Mercy had no way of knowing how her small moans, gasps, and whimpers delighted and enchanted Wulf.

  “Do you like that?” he whispered in a provocative voice as he grazed the tiny bud of her awareness.

  When she didn’t answer him right away, he withdrew his fingers. “You don’t like that?”

  “Yes! No!” Her breath hitched, her hands grabbed at his arms. “I mean, don’t stop!”

  In an instant, they were both naked, their bodies touching from torso to toe. She arched toward him, rubbing her nipples and breasts against his hair-roughened chest.

  With a strangle hold on his control, Wulf began another erotic foray, concentrating on drowning her in an unthinking vortex of need and desire. Slowly he stoked the fever in her blood. The center of her universe must go no further than his body and hers, everything inevitably spiraling down to their passionate joining.

  His fingers stretched and molded her, enslaving her as he mimicked those motions with his tongue in her mouth. Thrust and swirl, then thrust and swirl again, delving deeper and harder until he could feel not just her moans but her whole body swimming in unison with his. Her mind and thoughts became his, as though he were a pied piper of mysterious magic. Only he would wring from her body such notes of exquisite sweetness and ecstasy. Her body was an instrument of rapture and joy.

  Gauging the state of her arousal from the slickness of her passage, he swiftly pulled her panties down and off her legs, kissing her at the base of her femininity. She gasped and tried to close her legs, but he held her fast as he tasted her, delving his tongue into her wet cleft. Oh, dear God! She is so incredibly sweet!

  Mercy opened her legs with a soft sigh of surrender. Wulf settled his body between them, taking his weight on his elbows. Rubbing his throbbing, hardened shaft against her swollen, wet portal, he heard her unspoken invitation as with a small cry her legs opened wider. When she lifted and rubbed herself against his manhood, he needed no further persuasion. Never had he donned a condom so fast!

  Mercy gasped when she felt herself open to him just there, the spot where all her awareness centered, where the need to have, to take, to give replaced the need to be. She didn’t fear him now. Like a sorcerer, he held her spellbound and mesmerized, totally in his thrall, willing to do anything to lessen the ache for him in her body and soul.

  “Please,” she implored, wanting him, yearning for him. “Please.”

  “Say you want me inside you.”

  “I–I want you inside me,” she gasped, panting.

  Slowly, Wulf slid his hardened length inside her wet, slick channel. He tried to contain the raw emotions as they sprang forth full-blown in his heart, glorying in the soaring sensations shooting to his brain and his rock-hard staff. My God, I’ve died and gone to heaven. She felt so hot, so tight, and so wet, he feared he’d burst.

  Her anguished cry when he seated himself to the hilt nearly froze him for a moment until he realized it was one of triumph, not pain. Slowly pulling himself almost all the way out, he deliberately teased the heightened awareness of her femininity. Only he could make her feel like this, only he could give her this kind of worshipful loving.

  When Mercy grasped his buttocks and pulled him back into her, Wulf smiled, feeling her walls spasm and adjust to him before closing tight and taut around his staff. It was such a snug, hot, wet fit he let out a shaky breath, struggling to conquer his hammering need. Just as he congratulated himself on his firmly held control, she lifted her body, impaling herself deeper on him, squirming against him with wanton need. He sucked in
a shaky breath and swallowed, teetering on the edge of a deep precipice. Suddenly he was free-falling, thrusting mindlessly, grinding fiercely into her wet, hot cavern, unable to stem the headlong dash to fulfillment.

  She bucked and thrashed under him, calling out his name, screaming for him. He couldn’t stop now. His body shook from the force of energy contained within him, from the undeniable drive to fill her with everything he had.

  He needed to be there, at the center of her core. He felt her climbing with him and the walls of her muscles contracted, gripping him even tighter.

  Mercy’s head thrust back as her wildly thrashing body rode the shock waves of their joining. “Oh, God! Wulf, I’m… It’s… Oh God!”

  Wulf barely heard her surprised, disjointed cries as he wondered for a wild, crazy moment if he had spilled his brains as well as his seed. Never before had he felt such a shock and surprise. It only increased in power and scope the longer it lasted. Yes, yes, Oh, God, yes!

  For long moments he could only lie there unable to move, trying to regain his breath, his power of speech, his reason. When he finally did move, it was with an uneasy feeling. How could he have been so selfish? At the end, he’d taken and taken and taken, not paying attention to her needs.

  He closed his eyes in defeat, dimly aware of her slowly and lightly stroking his back and buttocks in lazy swirls as her breathing also subsided.

  He threw his weight to one side, pulling her close to him and draping her unresisting body across his chest. Still gasping for breath, he caressed her back and hair as together their breathing took on a more normal rate. He’d been so lost in his own fulfillment at the end he’d forgotten her entirely.

  The dim new light of the coming day seeped into the room on the flickers of dust motes. He glanced at Mercy surprised to see the contentment in her eyes as if her whole face had somehow changed and softened. Maybe he’d done all right after all.

  “Mercy,” he asked, “are you okay? Did I hurt you?”

  “Hmmm? No, you didn’t hurt me,” she said dreamily. She laughed a little, then blurted, “Honestly, if I’d known making love was this great, I’d have tried it sooner. In fact,” she said, shaking her head, “I don’t see how people keep from doing it all the time.”

  Wulf choked.

  “What’s the matter?”

  He hugged her closer and settled her more comfortably against him. “I’m glad you aren’t more experienced. If you were, you might’ve killed me.” What was worse, she had ruined him for any other woman.

  “Wulf?” she said, smothering a yawn, “Did you use a condom? I can’t remember. Can you even get condoms in Germany?”

  “Yes, I used one tonight, and yes, you can get them in Germany, too.” He tightened his arm around her. Already, he visualized her pregnant with their child. Getting her pregnant was one way to keep her bound to him.

  Sleep clouded any other thoughts for a couple of hours until Mercy’s travel alarm rang. Wulf reached over and pushed the ringer down, the skin of his underarm purposely grazing her nipples. He loved the way they peaked at his touch. He looked down at her as she stretched and covered her yawn with her hand. She had no idea how her movements set him on fire, making him harden again.

  Wulf left through the connecting door to his room, his gaze traveling to the rumpled bed linens and the clean bullet hole in the pillow, right where her head would’ve been. He grimaced, his stomach tightening at the memory of the sound of the silencer.

  * * *

  After talking to Anton, he’d called the Organization who had sent over a man named Muller to search the premises. He wasn’t surprised when Muller found nothing.

  The phone rang, startling him out of his grim thoughts. “Go to Sachsenhausen first thing in the morning,” Muller said. “Get her sympathy worked up at the old concentration camp. Don’t worry about recognizing your contact there. He’ll find you. In the evening, you’ll meet Stratton in Potsdam. You have the address. Any questions?”

  “No, but after last night I have a bad feeling about this.”

  “Don’t worry. You’re under good protection now.”

  “I didn’t think we were going to need protection,” Wulf exploded. “This was supposed to be a cut and dried operation.” He should have listened to Anton in the first place.

  “I said, don’t worry. We’ve already done damage control. Just do what you’re told.”

  “If anything happens to her…” he warned.

  “Everything’s under control,” Muller reassured him again, his patronizing tone setting Wulf’s teeth on edge.

  “Fine,” Wulf spat and hung up.

  Chapter 6

  * * *

  What a perfect day to visit a concentration camp, Mercy thought, glancing up at the overcast sky. She clasped her raincoat about her as she got out of the car. The dreary, foreboding look of Sachsenhausen gave her a chill that had nothing to do with the weather. She preferred to avoid sights like this, but Wulf insisted it was a significant tourist site.

  “This was the first concentration camp erected by the Nazis.”

  Mercy nodded. Even with that meritorious commendation, Sachsenhausen ranked nowhere on her short list of attractions in Germany.

  “Just as effective at mass murder, though,” Wulf continued, “no matter how much older it was than the others.”

  “So near Berlin,” she said, shaking her head and frowning. “How could anyone say they didn’t know about the concentration camps, particularly with one so close?”

  He snorted. “Do you believe that old fairy tale?”

  “No, of course not.” She wondered why he seemed so somber and grim. He’d been like this since breakfast. Not one smile. Did he already regret making love to her?

  “There are still a lot of people who would like to cover up that period of time or ignore it altogether.”

  “Auschwitz and Dachau are the ones I think of most often, but this one is enough for me. I don’t care to see any others.”

  “This one is enough,” Wulf agreed, his face harsh and set. The first structure they saw was the medical building, where the Nazi doctors conducted their horrendous experiments and torturous surgery. Everywhere glossy black and white photos covered the walls portraying hundreds of bodies stacked like cordwood on wooden carts, waiting for disposal. The pictures were so shocking and dreadful Mercy felt grateful for the lack of conversation. If she had to talk, she’d probably vomit.

  They toured the rest of the camp, viewing the barracks and the solitary confinement rooms, Wulf following grimly after her. As soon as they wandered over to the ovens, she gripped his arm and shook her head. The depressing gloom of the place felt like a lead weight bearing her down, turning her silent and almost fearful of the angry ghosts that must be lurking about.

  “I can’t imagine the courage and fortitude it must’ve taken to survive here,” Mercy whispered. Thousands had endured horrific offenses, not only to their bodies but to their spirits.

  Wulf nodded, his unsmiling visage an eloquent reaction to the horrors they both envisioned. It felt important to pay homage to the sacrifices of the people who had suffered. Walking away from the ovens, she could only shake her head, speechless with horror and sorrow.

  “Let’s go over to the Russian memorial,” Wulf said, motioning toward a large brick obelisk located at the back of the square prison yard. Concertina wire sat atop a fifteen-foot hurricane fence enclosing the yard. “The Russians erected the monument to all the prison inmates, many of whom were Russian soldiers.”

  The sun peeked through the clouds like a sneaky thief as they climbed up the stairs to the base of the monument. Wreaths and flowers of every design and size lay sprinkled around the base beneath the Russian and German inscriptions. Mercy sank to her knees to say a prayer for the dead.

  Just as her knees touched the concrete, she heard a funny “ping.” Something hard and heavy hit her back and Mercy sprawled onto her stomach. Startled, she lifted her head and twisted around. Wulf’s bod
y was covering her. “What…?”

  “Come on.” He yanked her to her feet, pulling her roughly over to the side of the steps.

  “What are you doing?” she sputtered. What was wrong with him?

  “Someone just shot at us.”

  A silencer. Again. Wulf scanned the yard, looking for something out of the ordinary. Nothing. In spite of it being summer, only a few small groups roamed the area. The assassin could be anyone. Three older women walked over to where they huddled at the base of the monument. Dressed in practical trousers and walking shoes, they all carried open umbrellas to ward off the soft mist that had just turned to light rain. They looked oblivious to any threat or danger.

  “Disgusting behavior! Probably Americans,” the oldest woman said to the other woman.

  “Have they no decency?” the other woman asked. “Rolling around on the ground in such a manner, and at such a sacred monument, too. No respect. I don’t know what this world is coming to with the young people of today.”

  Wulf couldn’t restrain a smile. “Excuse me,” he said in a flawless Berlin accent, gaining their surprised attention. “Could you help me? My wife slipped on the wet surface and fell down. She’s twisted her ankle.”

  The faces of the women changed immediately to embarrassment. “Of course. Here, let me help you,” one said, as she bent over Mercy, switching her umbrella to her other hand. Mercy looked at him as though he’d gone insane. He ignored her while the woman clicked her tongue in sympathy and pulled gently on Mercy’s arm.

  “Limp,” Wulf hissed at her in English, as he grabbed her other arm to help her up. “Oh, no,” he grimaced, as he clutched his back.

  “Don’t worry.” The woman’s manner became brisk now, like a mother hen in charge of her chicks. “We’ll help you to your car, won’t we?” she asked her companions. All of them nodded with enthusiasm.