Now that the reality of the situation was apparent-they were going to make love-Whit became a bit hesitant. Barbara found this interesting. She supposed he had been acting assertively in the beginning just to prove something to her or to act out what he thought his male role was. But now that it was obvious what was to follow-since Barbara was beginning to take off her clothes-Whit seemed nervous.
"There, honey," Barbara said soothingly. "There's nothing to be afraid of. Here, come sit by me on the bed. That's right. Nice and close. Whit, do you think I have nice breasts? You do? Then help me unhook this bra, okay?"
Barbara was perfectly capable of removing the bra on her own, but she wanted to get Whit involved. When the frilly white cups dropped into her lap, her breasts spilled out into Whit's hands.
"Go ahead, darling," Barbara said. "Kiss them for me. All over, Whit. Especially my nipples. I like that the best."
While holding on to Whit's head, Barbara leaned back against the mattress. All the way down, Whit didn't miss a beat, keeping his mouth securely attached to her fleshy tits. Like a hungry man, he lapped his tongue against her smooth breasts, taking care to linger at her nipples. In no time, the brown tips of her breasts were hard, her areolas covered with goose bumps.
"Please," Barbara gasped. "Please, Whit. Take off your clothes. I want to see your… your… cock."
Barbara was surprised to see Whit appear startled by her request. Hadn't he ever heard a woman talk this way before? she wondered. Surely he didn't think there was anything wrong with being upfront about sex. If so, then he had a lot to learn. Not to mention the fact that he had a willing teacher.
They had finished undressing together. When they were naked, they embraced and kissed again. Barbara thrilled to the feel of Whit's hairy chest sliding across her aroused nipples. And she loved the way his penis jabbed against her belly.
Whit wasn't as well-endowed as Lance, Barbara realized. But he seemed more responsive. Lance was hung up on some bizarre macho ideal. Whit seemed to her more tender and sensitive. Those qualities appealed to her in a big way. She found them more sexy than brute force.
As she wrapped her fingers around Whit's cock, Barbara said softly, "Do you want me to kiss it, Whit?"
"Ah, well, I never… "
"You mean, no one has ever kissed you there before?"
Whit closed his eyes and shook his head from side to side.
"There, there," Barbara said. "It's nothing to be ashamed of. Oh, Whit. You're quite a guy. You know, I really like you."
To prove to him just how much she did like him, Barbara slid down the length of his body until her face was in his crotch. She stuck out her tongue and flicked it along his hard shaft. At the same time, she clutched his testicles gently.
Barbara lovingly sucked on his penis for a long while, swallowing as much of it as she could. When she sensed he was on the verge of coming, she stopped. She wanted to give him the full treatment tonight. Holding his cock tightly at the base, she scooted back up until she was straddling his hips. While Whit lay down beneath her, she sat down on his penis, guiding it inside her moist vagina.
Once they were locked together, Whit became animated. And Barbara loved it. She felt that she had succeeded in helping Whit work through some of the problems he had with women and sex. That in itself was almost as pleasurable as the feeling she got from his penis pumping deep into her pussy.
When Whit eventually climaxed, he groaned so loudly that Barbara had to slap a hand over his mouth in order to keep others in the house from hearing. Whit looked up at her, and then he grinned broadly.
"Gee, I guess I got a little carried away," he said sheepishly.
Then they started laughing, tumbling about on the bed joyously. Barbara felt as if something very important had occurred that evening, and she was determined to share as many of these evenings in the future, with Whit, of course, as she could.
CHAPTER EIGHT
Barbara sat up instantly at the first raucous jangle of her alarm clock the next morning. For a few seconds she felt as if she were struggling out of the depths of a nightmare. All too soon, however, the events of the night before came flooding back. The nightmare, every horrible minute of it, had been real.
Mr. Quinn, catapulted into action by Whit's revelation, had called in a squad of city policemen to help search the underbrush and shoreline for some trace of the missing Greg. Throughout the long night, after Whit had left her, Barbara sat with Regina at her bedroom window, watching flashlight beams methodically crisscross every foot of the thicket. But although she had remained at the window until the night's blackness was diluted by gray streaks of dawn, she had heard no cry of discovery, had seen no converging of lights and men at any point.
They hadn't found Greg.
"He'll show up," Barbara told herself fiercely. "It's just morbid to believe that he was kidnapped."
But try as she might, she could think of no other explanation for Greg's mysterious disappearance. She realized now that his theory regarding the theft of the blueprints had been correct-in all but one vital detail. The blueprints were smuggled out of Port Dixon aboard the Albatross, but rather than reclaim them immediately, the spy, for some unknown reason, had left them in their original hiding place.
"Until last night," she murmured.
The fact that Greg had not discovered the documents until the very evening the spy had chosen to retrieve them seemed like a cruel twist of fate. Greg had searched the houseboat again and again, and undoubtedly had noticed the splintered frame beneath the porthole. But even his agile mind did not make the connection until he dropped a letter in a mailbox slot. Then he put two and two together-and blundered into mortal danger.
Descending the stairs, Barbara found Whit and Mr. Prescott drooping over their coffee cups at the kitchen table. Lines of fatigue were etched across their faces and their tired eyes confirmed her guess that neither of them had slept.
"Any news?" she asked, forcing the words around the lump in her throat.
"Not a clue," Whit said disconsolately. "The police found some trampled footprints in the sand, but there's no way of telling who made them. Too blurred."
"Greg is a smart boy," Mr. Prescott said, trying to boost their morale. "He'll find a way to let us know where he is."
"Hope he lets me know personally. I'd like to get my hands on those thugs," Whit growled.
Barbara filled a coffee cup for herself and stirred it pensively. "What about enlisting the Courier's aid?" she proposed. "They could run a photo of Greg and ask that anyone who knows of his whereabouts call Mr. Quinn or Chief Daley."
Whit's answer was an instantaneous "No!"
"That is one thing Mr. Quinn was most emphatic about," Mr. Prescott explained. "Any chance that Greg has of coming out of this predicament alive could be forfeited if there was the slightest whisper of publicity."
"The FBI is pretty sure that Greg wouldn't have admitted calling them," Whit added. "They're banking on the hope that the kidnappers will be lulled into a false sense of security when no further mention of the blueprints is made. If any sharp reporter were to connect Greg's disappearance with those sub plans, though-" He broke off and substituted a throat-cutting gesture for the rest of the sentence.
"Aren't they going to do anything?" Barbara asked angrily.
"They are already doing a great many things," Mr. Prescott assured her. "Every airport and seaport on the West Coast is under surveillance. Every out-of-the-way spot in this vicinity which might serve as a hideout is being visited by Federal men in the guise of door-to-door salesmen. They're working day and night on this case, but under no circumstances must the country's security be jeopardized."
Barbara realized that there was much more at stake than the life of one man. Nevertheless, she feared that this policy of ultra-discretion might cause a delay which could prove fatal to Greg.