Colin Harrison - Afterburn

"You crashed?" she whispered.

"Shot down."

"Were you captured?"

He nodded.

"How long were you a prisoner?"

He shook his head.

"Where'd they put you?"

He looked at her.

She touched her finger to his mouth. "Just tell me."

He closed his eyes.

" Please tell me."

His eyes stayed closed. No answer came from him.

She pressed her lips against his chest. He was ruined. He was so beautiful. She felt the warmth of his skin. I love this man, she told herself, it's crazy but I do. She pressed him down to the bed.

"I'm not sure I-"

"What?" she asked gently.

"I'm not a young man," he apologized. "It's partly the back, you see."

She helped him with her mouth and she did not mind, especially because he did not expect her to do this. He twisted in the bed and became full in her.

She slipped out of her clothes.

"Do we have any birth control?" he asked anxiously.

"It's okay. It's fine." She'd worry about that later. The odds were low. She was plenty wet, she realized as she straddled him. She used to have orgasms so easily during sex, but she wouldn't expect too much, she would just be close to him.

"Not your full weight," he whispered. "Please."

She squatted on her haunches instead of resting on her knees and sitting back. "Yes," she answered, moving up and down the length of him. The rhythm was good. She felt him up far inside of her, and this made her warm and start to shake. His big hands held her hipbones gently, and she took them and moved them up to her breasts, pressing his fingers against her nipples.

"I want to roll over," she said after a few minutes.

"I'm not sure how well I can," he said.

"Let's try."

She lifted herself off him and lay down on the sheet. He knelt between her thighs, and she kept a hand on him, keeping him hard-hard enough, at least. She guided him, and he lowered himself into her.

"Oh," he said.

"Hurt?" she whispered.

"No, no. It's good."

She wrapped her arms around him. The scars rolled under her fingers. She knew he wouldn't last long. "Come on," she whispered to him, "come on now." He started to move, and the motion wasn't smooth, had a hitch in it, went sideways a bit. She slipped one of her hands down so that her fingers pressed against him as he went in and out. "Please," he breathed in surprise, "keep doing that." She could feel the sweat come to his skin, his breathing quicken. "Come on now," she told him. "I want you to."

He pressed into her more rapidly, and she could feel the broken motion of him, it must have been hurting terribly, because of the sweat, he was laboring against some kind of pain, but she had faith in him, and she let her hands travel up his knotty back until they were around his neck, and she lifted her head up to his and looked into his wide-open eyes, knowable as blue even in the dark, and thrust her tongue into his mouth as deeply as she could, because she did love him, she loved him right now, she would never know him, but she understood now what kind of man he was and she loved him for it, for you can tell so much about a person quickly if you let yourself, and she just pressed her tongue into him to tell him she loved him and that she understood a part of his being a prisoner, for of course that was what she had been, and they felt this sadness in each other, she was sure, and she wanted to give herself to him and help him to go past the pain, the wetness flowing out of her now everywhere, urging him to press, to push as hard as he wished, and now he seemed to understand that she would take whatever was necessary for him to get it done, and so she pulled at him and begged him to go as hard as he could and promised him and kissed him and then he went fast and hard, and suddenly she felt the crazy feeling come into her head, the tension rise inside her, rise on up and shake her as he pounded her in his pain. She clenched breathlessly and fell backward, flooded with release, at the same time feeling the quickening in him, the sweat coming off his ribs and knotted back, his body shaking with razor agony, and then he cried out in wretched urgency and thrust deeply into her and shook, his head back, eyes shut, teeth bared, absolutely still-frozen, rigid, hard. And then in the dark he tipped his head back down toward her, exhaled, and opened his eyes. She saw exactly what he had so carefully hidden from her and from everyone else for so long-she saw that this man had once been a killer.

They lay under the sheets for almost an hour. He said very little, and she worried that he was silent out of disappointment or remorse. She took his hand and kissed it, and he cupped one of his hands behind her neck and pulled her close to him. She licked at his nipple, bit it softly. Then he said, "I think you brought me back to life here."

She was quite pleased by this but said, "You were plenty alive, believe me."

He glanced at the clock. "I could lie here for three days, Melissa."

"Do you have to leave?"

"I have a long day and then a trip on Thursday."

"China?"

"Yes. I'm going to try to fix that factory problem."

"Don't you have earnest young vice-presidents to do that for you?"

He let out a gravelly sigh, as if this was not the first time he'd been asked the question. "Sure. But then they know about the problem, which means the whole world also knows."

"Can I see you when you get back?"

"Yes." He sat up and dropped his feet to the floor. "I think that's definitive."

She pressed herself against his warm back. The sex had been pretty okay for the first time, but this wasn't just going to be about sex, she could see. More complicated than that. He made her feel safe, that was the thing. She'd have to tell him her real name, but later, after he cared for her enough. When she was ready. And maybe he can help me, Christina thought.

While he showered, she looked through his coat pockets, not to steal but to find something, anything, that told her more about him. I can't help it, she thought. A pen, a paper clip, a piece of Hong Kong currency. Then her fingers found the folded paper he'd been reading in the hotel bar. She listened to the shower run and clicked on a light next to the bed. Industry group: Telecommunications

Sub-industry category: Telecom component manufacturing

Company: Teknetrix

THE FOLLOWING STATEMENT IS A CONFIDENTIAL ANALYSIS PREPARED EXCLUSIVELY FOR MARVIN NOFF'S WEB SITE SUBSCRIBERS. PLEASE CALL OUR HOTLINE FOR DAILY UPDATES.

A hostile takeover bid by MT of Teknetrix seems inevitable. The companies make virtually the same components, except that Teknetrix's quality is much higher: Signal clarity, component speed, and burn-through are significantly superior in their product line. But the telecom supplier industry has been forced toward cheaper components as manufacturers struggle to squeeze costs wherever they can. In this sense MT would be buying Teknetrix's brand loyalty and distribution networks as much as its manufacturing capacity. Teknetrix is rumored to have a new microprocessor, the Q4, in very rapid development, but the company is also said to be behind in the construction of its new factory in China. Management is perceived to be lean but too entrenched. The guesswork here is that the Teknetrix board, which doesn't own much stock, can be forced by shareholder pressure into a sale and that MT can digest Teknetrix within the next eighteen months, increasing both its market share and stock price considerably. Recommendation: Sell Teknetrix, accumulate MT.

She didn't know what it meant exactly, just that it was not good. Maybe this accounted for his gloominess earlier. She heard him turn off the shower, and she slipped the paper back.

When he came out of the bathroom, she helped dress him. Usually men acted triumphant after having sex with you for the first time. But he seemed moody again, and asked her if she minded if they left the hotel separately, just out of deference to the chance that he might run into someone he knew.