Skrote was struck dumb. He gaped at her in the mellow golden light, stricken by an unbearable and overpowering yearning. Minutes later they were in each other's arms and Natassya was smothering his thin face in kisses and whispering endearments in husky Russian. Ten minutes after that they were making love on a bed of ferns beneath the dry, rustling fronds of a palm tree, the gentle lisp of the waves synchronized to their movements, a tempo they soon left behind. . . .
They had made love every night since that first night two weeks ago. It was dangerous and they had to be careful. As scientific liaison officer for Zone 4, Skrote had been expressly warned against becoming involved with any member of the Russian team, male or female. At a conservative reckoning, about a quarter of the so-called Russian scientists would be working for the KGB. For the American personnel attached to Zone 4, the cover story was that they were engaged on research into the long-term effects of TCDD using human guinea pigs and that this was too hazardous to allow the Russians free access. In the early days some of the Russian military brass
And Skrote wasn't without his own suspicions. For wasn't it, being brutally realistic, such fantastic good fortune that it just
So he faced it by devising a ploy of his own. He pretended to get drunk.
As Natassya knew by now that he wasn't a heavy drinker, and therefore accustomed to it, this would have been the perfect opportunity for her, had she wished, to pump him for information. Skrote made it even easier by raising the subject himself. Hoping his slurred speech was convincing, he hinted that Zone 4 wasn't all that it pretended to be, that some aspects of the research being carried out there were of a highly classified nature. To his delight, which he disguised by a fit of supposedly drunken giggles, Natassya told him pretty quickly that he was acting like a boring scientist and would he please shut up and make love to her at once? Scientific lectures she could do without; what she really wanted was to feel him hard inside her.
He obliged the lady, ever more deeply, hopelessly, in love. He was as certain as he'd ever been about anything in. his life that her feelings for him were genuine and not part of a devious conspiracy. Natassya Pavlovitch had passed the test with flying colors.
In a curious and perverse way, this made Skrote want to unburden himself to her. Disgust was too feeble a word for what he felt about his work in Zone 4. It made him sick to the stomach. He despised himself for his involvement over the past five years. Five years! How on earth had he stood it? And, more to the point, why? It was a catalog of horror that ranked with the medical experiments in the Nazi concentration camps, and he, God help him, had played a part, been a leading character in this barbarity. He jerked and trembled and felt himself go as Natassya worked him fluidly with her soft mouth, her cool firm hands aiding the spasm of release. He moaned and went slack, his body quivering as the urgent ecstasy died out of it.
She snuggled close, smearing his chest with a burning kiss, her warm breasts and hard dark nipples flattening against his stomach. Her hair clung to her neck like seaweed. "Was that good, Cy?" Natassya pressed her damp face to him. "Do you like it in my mouth?"
"It was beautiful, fantastic. God, I can't tell you. I'm not very experienced with women."
"Now, Cy, you've told me that before and I don't believe it. You know how to give a woman pleasure. You must have pleasured hundreds of women."
"Hundreds . . ." He laughed weakly. "If that was true, which it isn't, none of them could have compared with you, Natassya."
He stroked her hair, feeling relaxed and at peace, yet his mind was singing with exhilaration. He hadn't the words to express his gratitude. To be loved was incredible enough in itself, but that it should be this woman who loved him, the most perfect dream-image he could possibly have imagined! His happiness filled up, overflowing.
As if sharing his thoughts, Natassya said, "You've made me so very happy, Cy. I want us always to be together. I never want to leave you."
He thought he detected a strained note of pleading in her voice. There were other emotions buried there, and she was holding on to him fiercely. Skrote felt a convulsive shudder pass through her body.
"You don't have to leave me," he comforted her. "There's no reason why--"
