by Anna del Mar
I liked the way he pumped his cock in my mouth. I liked what he was doing to me too. His hand kneaded my pussy and his fingers had found its mark. The race was on, but this time around, I knew I was going to win.
“Babe?” The tone in his voice was as close as I’d ever heard Matthias to begging. “You might want to stop now.”
I did stop, but only to shoot him a reproving look. “I’ll stop when I’m good and done.” I suckled him some more.
“I’ve got to…” He hissed and came up on his elbows. “Jade? Are you sure?”
Small pause. “I’m sure.” Back to work.
“But…”
“In my mouth,” I ordered. “Now.”
Who knew that Matthias could obey so fast? He curled his body over his abs, fingers clawed on the blanket, eyes shut as he gritted his teeth and came with a quiet roar. The sound smothered at the back of his throat had to be pleasure’s most primal expression. He tasted dense, sweet but pure, like spring water. He held his body’s curl for a few long moments and then collapsed on his back.
I waited until he gave out his every drop. I polished him off and kissed the part of his body that gave me so much pleasure. Then I kissed my way up until I got to his mouth. I only knew he was alive because his chest fell and rose with his breaths. I lay on top of him and held him like he always held me after he loved me, raining little kisses on his face.
“You okay?” I purred against his ear.
“I’m much better than okay.” He smiled, opened his eyes, and caressed my bangs away from my face. “This all goes to show that when you put your mind to something, you go from your learner’s permit to big rig master in seconds.”
“Big rig master.” I burst out laughing. “I like that title.” My stare softened on his face. “Thanks for going along with this. I know it went against your grain at first.”
“I’m learning that all I’ve got to do is follow you.”
“You’re sweet.” I kissed him. “You know that?”
“Am I sweet enough you’re going to let me ride that pussy to where she needs to go?”
“Don’t you want to dive some more?”
“Yeah, I want to dive. In you.” In a surprise maneuver, he flipped us around, so that he was on top and I trapped beneath him. “No girl of mine is going to swim around with an orgasm caught between her legs.”
There was a flurry of activity where Matthias fought a brief but fierce battle with my wetsuit. It ended with Matthias’s winning, of course, and my suit abandoned like a used-up skin on the sand. He stripped off my bikini and knelt between my thighs, cock rearing and ready to go. He plunged into me like the deep-sea diver he was. With a few thorough strokes, he brought me to the extraordinary pleasure only he could unleash in my body.
A little while later, as I lay beneath him, drifting in and out of myself, I felt him stir. His head came up, eyes wide and alert.
“You hear that?” he said, coming up on his elbows.
“I hear nothing but my heart pounding in my ears.”
“There’s a boat coming.” He planted a quick kiss on my lips, carefully pulled out of me, and got to his feet.
From my perch on the ground, I watched him scan the horizon as he zipped up his wetsuit and clasped it at the shoulders. He looked at his watch then narrowed his eyes on the ocean. The worry lines I hadn’t seen all day showed up between his eyes.
“Babe, I need you to get dressed,” he said. “That’s Rem coming in.”
“He said he’d be back at six.” I sat up. “Isn’t it too early?”
“Affirmative,” he said, cleaning up the remains of our meals with a sense of urgency that hadn’t been there before. “He’s early. Rem wouldn’t interrupt us without good reason.”
I fished out my dive suit and my bikini from a sand pile. I ran into the surf and rinsed off everything, including myself, before I was able to get decent. By the time Rem reached us, our little awning had been dismantled, our stuff was back on our boat, and the sandbank looked deserted all over again.
“What gives?” Matthias asked as he caught the rope Rem hurled his way.
“It’s Lamba,” Rem said. “Word is he’s on the move. He’s negotiated some sort of an alliance between Boko Haram, Al-Qaida, and ISIS. Word is his Nigerian rebels are moving toward Tanzania. If those forces join, we’re done here.”
Matthias’s jaw set at a clench.
“I’m afraid we’ve run out of time,” Rem said. “We must spring the trap now. Jade?”
“Yeah.” I avoided Matthias’s eyes and climbed on Rem’s boat. “I’m ready.”
24
Jade
Matthias and I returned to the reserve the next day. He flew the aircraft, mouth set in a scowl, silent as the dead. We’d fought again last night. And this morning. And this afternoon as well, as we loaded the plane with supplies for the orphanage. In more than one way, we were back to square one, frenemies plus the complication of being lust-stricken lovers.
“It’s too dangerous,” Matthias said for the millionth time as we flew by Mount Kilimanjaro. “You, involved in baiting those motherfuckers? Not right.”
“I’m not backing down,” I said, shooting video of Africa’s most famous mountain. “I’m going through with this.”
“I don’t even know if the tracking devices will work,” he grumbled.
“They’ll work,” I said. “They’ll have to work.”
“It’s a terrible idea.” He raked his teeth over his lower lip.
“You already agreed to it,” I snapped. “I don’t want to hear it anymore.”
“You make me nuts; you know that?” he muttered. “I swear, no woman—or man for that matter—has ever tested my temper like you do.”
“And you are so easy to take?”
He groaned. “Just…stop. Right now. We’re lighters to each other’s wicks. You look at me the wrong way and, bam, off I go like a stick of dynamite. And I don’t mean just sexually. Or always in a good way.”
“Sorry I’m an IED to your day,” I mumbled sullenly.
“See what I mean?” His hands tightened around the control wheel. “You’ve got to at least make an effort…”
“Me?” I scoffed. “What about you?”
“Okay, fine, we both have to make an effort. We’ve got to play down the competition for control between us and make space for each other.”
“That’d be really easy if you’d stop being all macho and stuff.”
“I’m not…” He clamped down, unable to finish his sentence, ears flaming. “I’m trying over here. But it isn’t easy when you insist on putting yourself in danger. You’ve got to give me some credit for wanting you safe. And you’ve got to give me some space to be myself in this relationship. You complain about me being an alpha, but you’re the ultimate female alpha.”
“That’s not true!”
“It is and you know it.” He shook his head again, as if making a huge effort to keep his temper in check. “Just…please…consider what I’m saying. Don’t dismiss me right off the cuff. And stop being so goddamn pissed off about everything. We’re together. Ultimately, that’s what matters.”
I swallowed a snarky remark, mostly because in the middle of all the bitterness, that last part was really sweet. I hated to admit it, but he was right. We were explosive to each other and we had no chance at a real future unless we learned to control our triggers. I took some more pictures, the best way I knew to cool off.
It’d been a long, quiet flight by the time Matthias tapped me on the arm and tipped his head toward the two fingers of glassy waters sparkling under the late afternoon sun. “Pacha Ziwa.”
His eyes were aglow with the orange light. His mouth relaxed into the upward tilt I’d missed all day. He engaged the plane into a gradual descent, until we flew only a few hundred feet above the ground, gliding over the reserve’s grassy plains. “This is my favorite part of the flight.”
The view from the air was stunning. The plains were alive with
creatures, small and large, some camouflaged by the grass, their shadows slipping every which way. Invisible to the eyes on the ground, hundreds—no—thousands of small antelopes roamed the reserve and dotted the ground for as far as the eye could see.
“There’s tommies everywhere,” I said. “The Serengeti’s national crop.”
Matthias actually smiled. “I like it.”
“How can there be so many?”
“It’s a survival strategy,” Matthias said. “Overwhelming numbers. Predators can eat ten, a hundred, a thousand, but they can’t eat them all. Communal immortality at the expense of the individual. But the genes go on. These little guys stack the odds with sheer numbers.”
“If you ask me, it’s more like an all you can eat buffet down there.”
Matthias busted out a hearty cackle. The sound of his laughter put a smile on my face.
As the sun descended toward the horizon and Matthias banked the plane in the direction of the airfield, I noticed that the animals began to flow below us. Rivers of beasts streamed toward some unknown, unseen point. The sight reminded me of a biblical scene, of the Garden of Eden maybe or Noah, leading the animals to the Ark, only there was no Noah and no Ark, only the steady exodus.
“Where are they going?”
“To the water hole,” Matthias said. “Last drink of the day, before nightfall.”
“It’s like they all have purpose.” I spotted a family of warthogs trotting swiftly beneath the shadow of the plane, little ones following in their mom’s footsteps in formation, like tiny soldiers going to war. “It’s as if they know something we don’t.”
“That’s nature for you,” Matthias said. “Those animals down there have simple purposes. To survive the first few minutes after their birth. To stand on shaky hoofs. To nurse. To thrive. To stay alive another day and pass on their genes. That’s life in the Serengeti. There’s no higher purpose than to survive for the sheer drive to exist. What you see? Life on steroids.”
I was suddenly envious of the beasts below me. I’d spent so much of my time on this earth angry, bitter and resentful, containing the feral creature in me, licking my wounds, asserting my will to exist, fighting my existential angst. Was there a different way to live?
Matthias eased the plane onto the airfield. Zeke was waiting for us and drove us to the station. He and Matthias went off to plan tomorrow’s expedition. I went to my bungalow, readied my equipment and worked on my script. My work was interrupted a couple of hours later, when I had to face the inquisition. Sarah, Lara, and Cara pounded on my door as soon as they got a whiff I was back.
“Why didn’t you answer my other texts?” Sarah demanded as soon as I opened the door.
“Or mine?” Lara filed in right behind Sarah and took the only chair in the room.
“We were worried,” Cara went straight for the couch and plopped down on the cushions.
“Over 2,300 Americans, adults and children, are reported missing every day,” Lara said.
For God’s sake. “I wasn’t missing,” I said. “I went to Zanzibar. I told you that.”
Sarah braced on her feet and crossed her arms. “One moment, you’re at the party, having a great time and then the next moment you’re in Zanzibar, doing God knows what.”
“And you never said a word to us.” Lara’s accusatory glare made me feel guilty.
“There were all kinds of rumors going around,” Cara put in, “that you’d been asked to leave the station; that you’d moved on to cover some other story.”
“Surprise!” I sat down at the opposite end of the couch. “I’m still here.”
“And that’s a very good thing.” Sarah perched herself on the coffee table, legs crossed Indian style. “We’d never forgive you if you just up and left without at the very least saying good-bye.”
“I aim to correct the flaw in our communication capabilities,” Lara said. “I’ve researched the active radio codes for the station and selected channel twenty-six exclusively for our use.”
“Great idea!” Sarah clapped her hands together. “That way, we can always talk to each other, even when we’re in the field.”
“As long as we’re within range,” Cara pointed out, shrewdly reminding everyone that I’d been well out of range lately.
Evasive maneuvers. “How did the party end up?” I asked.
“We made some big bucks for the kids,” Sarah reported. “And I got a huge donation from one of the lodges for the orphanage.”
“Sure.” I winked at her. “I bet you did.”
“The big news is that Lara has a boyfriend,” Cara announced, biting down on a wicked grin.
Lara blushed. “I do not!”
“That’s a guilty blush if I’ve ever seen one.” Cara laughed. “What’s wrong with getting laid for a change?”
“Jamie?” I asked. “He seems like a nice guy.”
“He’s nice.” Lara flashed Cara a sullen look. “I calculate that over thirty-three percent of his body is covered in tattoos.”
“And as thorough as you are,” Sarah said with a twinkle in her eye, “we know you checked him everywhere.”
“Did anybody else notice how Jade changed the topic on us?” Cara said. “Dish it out, Jade. We want to know where you’ve been and what you’ve been up to. And by the way, why is there a ranger posted at your door?”
I’d anticipated that my friends would be worried and curious. I owed them some sort of an explanation, if only because they cared. I couldn’t tell them everything that was going on, but I had to tell them something.
“The thing is…” I hesitated, moistening my lips. “There was an incident at the party.”
“An incident?” Sarah’s frown wrinkled her nose. “What kind of an incident?”
“Somebody slipped something into one of my drinks.”
The women exchanged puzzled looks.
“Oh, my God.” Lara suddenly gasped. “You mean like a date rape drug?”
“Holy Mother.” Sarah’s face broke into a grimace of horror.
Cara leaned forward on the couch, her hand groping for mine, her fingers strangling mine. “Jade, you can tell us. We’re here for you. Were you… raped?”
“No, no, I’m fine,” I said, sliding my hand from under hers and tucking it on my lap. “Fortunately, Matthias happened to be passing by.” Well, not exactly passing by, but this version was close enough to the truth.
“Thank God!” Sarah exhaled a sigh of relief. “Are you sure you’re okay?”
“Absolutely,” I said. “Nothing to worry about over here.”
“Wait.” Cara’s mouth thinned. “This happened here at the station, right? Last time I saw you, you were dancing with Peter. Did he slip the drug into your drink?”
“It’s possible,” I said. “There’s an investigation in progress.”
“An investigation?” Cara gaped. “Is that why Zeke came asking all kinds of weird question about who volunteered at the bar and why?”
“I guess.”
“Jade, honey, why didn’t you call us?” Sarah said. “We could’ve helped.”
“Really, I was fine and I had to go to Zanzibar…”
Cara cocked her head. “Why?”
“And how?” Lara said.
“And most importantly…” Sarah’s stare narrowed on my face. “With who?”
I opened my mouth but I couldn’t get the words out. What exactly could I tell my friends? That I was having a torrid lust-affair with Matthias? That he was more than the reserve game warden and that he was pissed off at me because his handler had just recruited me for a dangerous secret mission? That aliens thrived on the moon?
My mouth worked the air but made no sound. Not only did I not know how to explain my situation, but I was uncomfortable confiding in anybody, because with the exception of Hannah, I’d never really had any friends before. Comrades at arms? Yes. Social acquaintances? Sure. But, friends? A group of girlfriends to back me up like these women were doing right now? Yeah, no.
>
I was fumbling big time when the door opened. In marched Matthias, scrumptious in his after-work wear, a Grateful Dead T-shirt, the perennial quick-dry khaki cargos and—holy fashion statement—Tevas strapped over dark socks. He wore a duffel slung across his shoulder and carried a box clanking with stuff under his arm. My heart tripped before it took off at a fast trot. It was as if I hadn’t seen him for a whole century instead of two hours. He took in the scene, the women populating my little bungalow, and my face, which must’ve been set into an expression of panic.
“Good evening, ladies. Don’t mind me.” He dropped his duffel on the bed and continued on to the bathroom where he busied himself lining up his toiletries on the shelf. “Hey, babe?” He called out. “Did you have time to get some chow before the dining room shut down?”
“Um…no,” I mumbled, mind suddenly wiped by the mere sound of his voice echoing in my little bungalow.
Three sets of stares fell on me, bright as high beams.
“Babe?” Sarah mouthed, blue eyes sparkling.
Lara broke out into a grin. “He’s moving in?”
Eyes wide, Cara pointed at me and then at the bathroom. “You and him?”
I shrugged. My face must’ve been on fire.
“It’s not a completely random mating,” Lara offered to the other two in her best professorial style. “Jade and Matthias both belong to the genus Panthera. They’re apex predators, carnivores, and they both roar. They’re genetically compatible.”
Oh, brother. That’s what I got for hanging out with top-notch scientists.
Matthias stalked out of the bathroom, grabbed a protein drink from his duffel, and ambled over to the couch. Casually, easily, as if we’d been together forever and we hadn’t been arguing almost non-stop for the last few hours, he lowered his hefty frame between me and the couch’s arm and draped his arm over my shoulders. It was uncanny. Without saying a word, Matthias told the girls everything there was to say about—well—us.
“Here you go.” He uncapped the bottle and handed me the protein drink. “Drink up. Sorry, ladies. Did I interrupt something?”