"Van Lustbader, Eric - Black Blade(eng)" - читать интересную книгу автора (Van Lustbader Eric)

He pulled her off her feet, turning her slowly as she let go of him so that her back arched like a cat's and her buttocks curved into his groin. Wolf curled one arm around her waist, the other across the swell of her breasts. Her thighs opened and she locked her ankles behind his knees. She reached down, rubbing him against the hot, liquid core of herself, using both hands to stroke him until she felt a shudder ripple through his heavy muscles. Then she fitted him to her, felt him arch his hips up and the wet connection sliding all the way up her so that she felt a rush of blood radiating up through her chest into her brain.
She convulsed on him and, groaning, closed her eyes, letting her head fall back onto the rock of his shoulder while he jolted her over and over with a pleasure she could feel all the way to her fingertips.
'Oh, my God!'
She heard her voice escaping from her like helium from a balloon, an odd sound, erotic in its own right so that she heard herself whispering, 'More, more, don't stop, ohhh!'
Then she felt it, rising like a wind before the onset of a storm because in her mind she was standing in a Midwest plain, watching a black funnel descending from heaven, heading her way. She could feel it moving like an animal or at least something animate, this mysterious, ecstatic force emanating from her lover, and it transformed her world. She was dimly aware of the curtains billowing like clouds on a summer's day, the sweep and curl of her bedspread like surf on a brilliant beach, the door to her closet half-open, the interior bathed in the soft twilight of a long, languorous September's day. All images from her past stamped with the sweaty heat of the moment's eroticism, all extensions of the ecstasy welling in waves through her, so that her immediate environment was transmogrified, her pleasure increasing exponentially until she reached down, dizzy with lust, and cupped him, drew him up inside her even more, that last inch bringing a sharp cry from her half-open lips, a deep, heart-felt moan from him that took her over the top.
On the bed, he stayed inside her a long time, as he always did, because she liked to feel his strength, his pulsing - the ebbing of that thrilling force, the whirling funnel on the horizon sweeping her up in its dark arms that came only from him, she imagined unconsciously because he had never mentioned it to her - and, gradually, the softening that, often, she could do something about.
This time, however, she turned him over on his back, knelt astride him, friendly as a sister now, and gently stroked his forehead. The warm colours of the apartment enclosed them, the curtains and blinds obscuring the grille-like extension of the fire escape just beyond.
'Panda,' he said softly. It was an old family nickname, given her by accident by her younger sister, Stevie, who, early on, had had difficulty pronouncing the 'Am' sound in her name.
'What's the matter?' She kissed his cheek.
He looked up at her with his heavy-lidded cinnamon eyes. 'How do you know there's anything the matter?'
She smiled. 'For one thing, you came onto campus while I was working. You haven't done that since we first met.'
'What do you mean? I ran into you by accident.'
'Oh, come on, Wolf. Don't you think I have friends in the Registrar's office?'
He was genuinely surprised. 'You mean you knew all along - '
'That our first meeting was a set-up?' She nodded.
'And you never said anything?'
'I thought it was sweet.' She kissed him lightly again. 'And terribly romantic. Besides, I didn't want to spoil your triumph.'
'And I thought I'd been so clever.'
Seeing his expression, she laughed again. 'You shouldn't have used your badge. People tend to remember that kind of thing, especially on campus.'
He grunted and she knew he was filing the information away in that very clever brain of his.
She smiled, not unkindly. 'Men are so vain. They think the world revolves around them, that the secret of life is to control everything.'
'That's not what I want.'
Amanda put her palms against his chest, lowered herself so that her face was very close to his. 'What do you want to control?'
'Why should I want to control anything?'
'Because, darling, that's what men find most exhilarating - and most fearsome.'
'And what are women most afraid of?'
'That's simple,' she said. 'Age.'
'You're kidding.'
'That's one thing women never kid about.'
'I never considered it a subject to think about.'
'You wouldn't. It's easier for you men, isn't it? You grow old and all you need do is look for a young woman to hang on your arm.' She tossed her head. 'And what happens to us?'
Wolf, thinking of his father, touched her firm body, skin as smooth as satin, breasts as firm as a twenty-year-old's. 'Well, you have nothing to worry about; you're certainly not growing older.'
'We all are.' She twisted her fingers through the spaces between his. 'I'm no longer young. I look at myself in the mirror sometimes and wonder - I don't know, maybe what I feel is the years rushing away from me like a river and what I really want to do is reach out and hold back the flow.' She gave a little laugh but, just the same, she buried her face in the hollow of his shoulder.
Wolf stroked her hair. 'You can't do that, Panda,' he said, kissing her gently. 'No one can.'
'Of course, I know that. But still ... I want, oh, I wish I was younger.'
'Maybe what you need is a good hot affair with a younger man.'
'That's just what I have.'
'I'm three years older than you are.'
She passed a finger over the line of his jaw. 'Wolf,' she whispered hoarsely, 'you look so beautifully young - no older than thirty.'
'That's ridiculous. Panda, listen to me, time passes for everyone. Be happy you're here. Three hundred years ago, you might have been dead already.'
'Now there's a comforting thought.' She sighed, closing her eyes so that he felt the butterfly brush of her lashes against his skin. Then, in a furred voice, 'Still, what a dream it would be to be eternally young.' In a moment, she rolled off him, snuggled into his side. 'Now tell me why you came up here to see me when you should be sleeping.'
'I don't want to sleep.'
'No,' she said softly. 'You want to talk.'
He was silent for some time. White pillars striped the cream-coloured ceiling, their edges as diffuse as gauze, light reflected through the blinds. Because the windows were closed, the traffic sounds were as muted as a domestic quarrel in the next apartment.
'Panda, what am I doing with my life?'
She put a hand over his heart. 'What answer do you want, practical or philosophical?'
'Maybe neither,' he said. 'I think right now I need a metaphysical answer.'
'Mmm, I think you're on your own then. Metaphysics is more your field than mine.'
He knew what she meant. He had told her enough about his grandfather so that she knew that much of Wolf's early schooling had been in a kind of metaphysics, though it would no doubt be unrecognizable as such to the Columbia academicians in that field. But she didn't know it all, not even Wolf's parents did.
'There is a way things should happen in the world,' he said slowly as if trying to translate thoughts in another language into English. 'The way a tree grows, a river flows, a leaf dies in winter. But if, for example, you see a leaf shrivelling in summer, you know instinctively that something is amiss.'