She moved silently across the thick blue rug, because she'd taken off her shoes and stockings. From subtle changes in the way her body moved, Blade suspected she'd taken off her bra. He let his mind dwell on the idea for a moment, and found his throat dry and his breath quickening.
He started to rise as Elva came toward him, but she held out a hand to keep him in place. She came up to him and with a dancer's grace flowed down onto his lap. Then she placed one hand on each side of his face and brought her lips against his in a long kiss. She sucked in her breath as she kissed, as if she wanted to draw the life out of Blade and take it into herself. Then she let her breath out again, and it was like a perfumed breeze that blew past Blade, seeming to reach every part of his body and even reaching inside him. Sensual, exciting, erotic-these were only words, and no words could quite capture what Blade felt now.
Elva went on kissing him as if she didn't know what else to do with a man, or else that was all she needed to do. Blade didn't mind. Being kissed by Elva Thompson was a memorable, almost overpowering experience in itself. He wanted it to go on forever. At the same time he also wanted her to stop, to move on to other things. She was pressing herself hard against him as she kissed, and he now knew for certain that she'd taken off her bra. His hands roamed up and down the smooth, even line of her spine, and he could feel, even through his shirt, warmth that was firm and yielding at the same time.
Elva twisted herself around on his lap. He couldn't tell if she was seeking a more comfortable position or writhing uncontrollably as desire began to flare in her also. As she twisted, her skirt rode up higher on the long bare legs that gleamed in the firelight. Blade's fingers danced lightly along those legs, from ankle up to knee and then higher. Elva twisted herself again, and this time it was certainly deliberate. Blade's hands slid up the fine thighs and passed over more warm bare flesh, for she'd taken off all her underclothing. He let his fingers continue their travels, brushing them lightly across an already-damp triangle of curly hair, then sliding them back down.
Blade reached around behind Elva. His hands fell on warm skin where her blouse had worked free of her skirt. He let his hands linger at the small of her back and felt her shiver. Then he found the catch of her skirt, undid it, moved on to the zipper, and began pulling it slowly down with one hand. The other hand caressed and cupped and stroked, its fingers moving lightly along the cleft between her buttocks and back and forth across the superbly curved warm firmness. Blade could not remember when a woman had felt so good under his hands.
How long they might have gone on kissing and stroking was impossible to guess or even imagine. Blade only knew that a moment came when Elva's skirt slipped off entirely and fell soundlessly to the rug. She was bare from the waist down. He realized that, and he also realized that at some moment she'd stripped off his shirt so that he was bare from the waist up. She laid her head against his broad chest and ran one hand over the muscles and the scars, then murmured so softly that he had to strain to hear her. «This will never do.»
She slipped off his lap and stood up. Blade felt like crying out in surprise and even pain at the loss of the warmth and the perfume and the excitement she'd taken away from him. Before he could draw in a single breath, her fingers flew up the front of her blouse and it joined her skirt on the floor. She stood before him naked, her head thrown back slightly so that the curves of her breasts were still firmer and the hardened pink nipples stood out still farther. Blade could hardly see the details of the beautiful woman who stood before him, ready and waiting. He could only sense a breathtaking beauty and did not care about precisely what made it breathtaking.
Blade stood up and somehow managed to finish stripping himself without fumbling or delay. Somehow he reached Elva and lifted her in his arms. Somehow he carried her to the bed and placed her on it. The room was so warm that they did not need to crawl under even the top blanket. Probably neither of them would have done so even if the room had been as chilly as the night outside. It would have held them apart for a few more seconds, and that would have been too much time for either of them.
Elva lay down on top of the blanket, and Blade lay down on top of her. It was as simple as that. Blade moved deep inside Elva, and Elva twined herself around Blade and matched his movements with her own. At first they moved to separate rhythms, then the rhythms matched. They soared steadily toward the same goal, and they reached it in so nearly the same moment that neither could ever tell afterward who was first. Both could tell that the climax seemed to whirl them along with the terrible and beautiful force of an autumn wind whirling leaves through the air. Neither of them could tell anything for quite a long time after that.
Eventually they both realized that the room seemed cooler, even cold. It chilled the sweat that ran down Blade's neck and trickled down between Elva's breasts, and sent new and unpleasant shivers up and down both their spines. They crept under the blankets, and the warmth they felt then slowly built until another kind of warmth was once again flowing through them. When that warmth was at last exhausted, they slept.
Blade and Elva began their relationship with an intensity that could not have lasted even if they'd both had unlimited free time. Since both had jobs to do, there was only so much time they could spare for each other. Still, they made love again in the morning before returning to headquarters in time for a late breakfast. They were also able to snatch a night in town every ten days or so.
There turned out to be more time for them than Blade had expected. Summer was passing and autumn not far off before he was called in for the first full briefing on his next assignment.
«Your mission will involve assisting an extremely valuable defector to get out of one of the satellites. You will have the assistance of as much of the underground in the area as may still be functioning at the time.»
«General Golovin's been at work again?»
R grimaced, as if the cigar in his mouth tasted sour. «General Golovin, and also some of his handpicked younger colleagues. He's a good picker, so they're not to be despised any more than he is.»
R gave up on the cigar and threw it angrily into the wastebasket without bothering to stub it out. Fortunately the wastebasket was nearly empty. One piece of paper flared up in a puff of blue smoke, then died out. «We also have a Probability Two estimate that there's a major leak within the Special Operations Division itself.»
The Probability Scale ran from One, a nearly mathematical certainty, to Seven, almost impossible. A Probability Two for a major internal security leak was bad news. Blade mentally braced himself. He knew what the next question would be, and it also would be bad news.
«What is your best personal estimate of Elva Thompson?»
Blade let his breath out in a long hiss, while his mind swiftly assembled the most accurate words it could find. «I would say Probability Three that she is unreliable. I can't honestly give a Probability Estimate on whether she is unreliable for personal reasons or-political ones.»
«After six weeks of your relationship with her?» R showed no signs of being concerned about the relationship itself, only about what Blade might have learned in it.
«Yes.» Blade matched R's cool stare with one of his own. «I don't think this is the first time it's been hard to tell the difference between a gossip and a subversive.»