Gypsies, Tramps, and Thieves(86)
He might be dazed by their lovemaking, yet he knew enough to tread carefully. He knew he was her first. But, most likely, he wouldn’t be her last. If she was lucky. And if he was lucky enough to get her out of this grisly fiasco.
“The first time with anything is always unforgettable . . . whether it’s your first bronco ride or first taste of ice cream or first taste of a woman.” He hiked the long pleats on either side of his mouth to form a wicked grin. “And that reminds me of what I have been overlooking . . . . ”
And with that he went back to pleasuring her, his mustache abrading a trail with his kisses. She, in turn, entertained him with her freshness and earnestness of love play.
At one point, sitting astraddle his lap, her fingers latched onto both ends of his mustache and jiggled them. “I have not made up me mind, Duke, exactly what spot I like yuir broom of a mustache tickling me most.”
“Let me help you,” he said with his own brand of amused earnestness.
Later that afternoon, after the storm had passed, she rose, his bite marks tattooing her neck and her lab coat’s sleeves tied modestly around her naked midsection. She slipped her feet into his boots that nearly topped her knobby knees and clunked across to the provisions counter.
Completely entranced, his head propped on one fist, he lay nude and flaccid, watching her as she knelt to open one cabinet door. The slipping lab coat did little to hide her sylphlike beauty.
“Well, look at this, will ye – a tin of smoked sardines and a bottle of Polish vodka.” Good humor overflowed to her eyes, and she held the bottle aloft like a trophy. “Wyborowa will disinfect the scabbiest of wounds.”
Her resiliency never failed to amaze him. And he found himself hardening, despite twice in rapid succession having spent himself within her.
“And this!” she hoisted a jar of vaseline jelly.
Used universally by boatmen as a lubricant against cold weather and water, the vaseline was something her wonderfully wet female parts most certainly did not need. “Come here. We have neglected preliminaries to attend to. And before we are through, we both may need the vaseline.
Saucily, coyly, and with complete impunity she sauntered back toward him in his huge clunky boots. Her smile was a simmering tease. She had to know she was enticing, and he chuckled. “Don’t try to ply your gypsy wiles on me, Sunshine.”
She settled her weight onto one knee beside him. “Would they work?” The ends of her lips danced, but her eyes were watching him carefully.
With a silent but visceral groan, he realized he was insanely mad in loving Romy Sonnenschein – unreasonably loving her -- not despite but precisely because of all he had found obnoxiously different in her.
Her annoying messiness, her bewildering off-the-wall logic, her seemingly lackadaisical approach to dire and demanding situations. Which made it all the more maddening, because how could she ever come to love the neurotic, stoved-up, lone wolf that he was, with not a single redeeming feature?
And even more difficult, how would he ever be able to say good-bye? How would he awake in the dawns to come and find her gone . . . absent from the kitchen, the barn, his bed?
“Hell, yeah,” he said, lassoing an arm around her, “your gypsy wiles had me from the git-go.”
And despite his determined resistance to them – or maybe because of the bottle of Wyborowa – she did just that the rest of the afternoon, enchanted him with her mythical gypsy wiles until a lassitude of sensual gratification cocooned their still coupled bodies.
§ § §
In disbelief, Duke stared at the barge’s gauge. Giorgio was to have topped off its tank with diesel. But the gauge needle wavered at less than a quarter of a tank.
Worse, from windows partially steamed with remnants of his and Romy’s recent ardent exertions, he spotted yellow search beams swishing through the outside fog to light up tree limbs overhead.
Shit!
The Gypsy dervish, once more dressed, was standing on one foot like a crane, slipping her raised foot into the other club heeled shoe. He grabbed her arm. “Time to hot foot it, Sunshine.”
She tottered, then caught her balance. “What? Why?”
“Because your esteemed Klauffen is hot on our trail. That’s why.”
In her upturned face, her freckles were diluted by fear. “Then so are his beastly pets,” she got out on a gasping breath.
“In that case . . .” Taking only long enough to pocket the vaseline tube, he jerked her toward the door. Outside on deck, the bone-chilling cold front had rolled in, frosting the bank’s reeds and sheltering trees. Her thin lab coat would not be enough. Quickly, he tugged her arms into his jacket sleeves. They draped nearly a foot beyond her hands.
The intermittent, sonorous blast that seemed to shudder the barge was no fog horn but a SS siren of alert. Their presence had been located!
From a nearby cleat, he grabbed a rope coil, slinging it across his shoulder. “Time is on our side,” he reassured her. “Klauffen’ll have to get a tracking team to shore, first. And it’ll have to move somewhat slower, if he hopes for their dogs to continue to stay on our scent.”
Military tracking dogs were trained to detect mines, booby traps, and nearby snipers. But a plain old hound could track a wild boar through remote wilderness better than those canine teams – and especially, track a human fleeing through it.
And that was what he would be doing. Running full throttle. But he wasn’t so sure about Romy. Pleasure had leached both their bodies. Not a good time for making an escape afoot.