Tony Park - Silent Predator

He’d never made love in the water before, but the moment she slid to the base of his shaft he remembered that instant on the hotel bed, when time had stood still, as he had rested, briefly, as deep inside another being as it was possible to be.

‘Mmm, I could stay here all night,’ he said.

‘Forever,’ she whispered in his ear.

With their bodies held by water, however, there was scope for long strokes, deep and satisfying. Using her thighs as a pivot she rode him high, taking him right out to the thick end of him and holding him tight there until his grip on her waist forced her back down to the base. He snaked an arm between them and rubbed her clitoris with his thumb. Her pace quickened and she worked him harder with her muscles. Her grip as she rode up sealed them tightly together, then she relaxed to be merely firm on the way down.

With his thumb rolling over her clit, she peaked hard — an orgasm that detonated through her body and sent a blast of heat over his cock and into the water around them. She wrapped her arms around his neck, and he freed his hand to smooth the wet blonde strands of hair from her face so he could look into her liquid blue eyes.

She moaned as he started to move inside her again, and it almost felt like she was flying. As he drove up into her with renewed urgency he lifted her breasts clear of the water, taking first one, then the other of her nipples in his mouth, trapping them between his teeth and tongue, sucking greedily.

When he felt the now familiar sensations of her mounting second orgasm, he looked up at her. ‘Leave your pretty blue eyes open this time. I want to see them when you come.’ As he felt her again, he joined her, filling her completely.

Afterwards, they showered together in the flat at the rear of the garage and she slept with him, pressed close in the single bed. They left the sheet off, and let the ceiling fan cool them and blow the mosquitos away. Sannie slept, her head pillowed on his chest hair, but Tom lay awake for most of the night, one hand crooked under his head.

She woke in the pre-dawn and stretched like a contented cat. He smiled at and kissed her. Her hand moved, seemingly by its own accord, to his rising erection.

‘Do you really have to go off on this trip by yourself?’

‘Yes, baby.’

Elise’s attitude towards him softened slowly over the following three days. Perhaps, Tom thought as he stacked the camping fridge-freezer in the back of the Land Rover with frozen steak, boerewors and a six-pack of Castle, it was because Sannie’s mother knew he would soon be out of their lives.

Still, she’d been helpful, taking him to the local supermarket and butcher, and pointing out an auto spares shop where he’d bought extra oil, filters, a fan belt and radiator hoses. He got the gas bottles filled, and made the bed in the rooftop tent with clean linen and a blanket. He sorted his clothes, leaving some behind at Sannie’s, and bought an extra pair of shorts and a khaki bush shirt for the road. It was Friday afternoon and he was ready to go. When Elise returned home after picking up Christo and Ilana from school, Tom started packing her ageing Toyota Condor people-mover for the weekend trip to Kruger.

‘I can help,’ Christo said, standing beside him in his school shirt and shorts, minus shoes.

‘Good man.’ Tom could have packed the wagon more quickly by himself, but he sorted small boxes and cooler bags for the boy to carry and let him pack things where he wanted to in the boot. He would have to learn some day, Tom thought. They chatted about soccer and television shows as they worked, and Tom, to his surprise, found himself laughing at a couple of jokes the boy made and generally enjoying his company.

‘Are you coming back here after your holiday, Tom?’ Christo asked as he hefted his own small backpack full of clothes into the Condor.

‘Yes, I have to bring your dad’s truck back.’

‘No, are you coming to stay with us?’ At that moment Elise appeared from the back door, a picnic basket in one hand. She stopped to listen.

Tom sighed. What to say? He pushed the cold box to the back of the cargo area and wiped his hands on his shorts. He looked down at the boy. ‘Would you like me to come and stay?’

It was Christo’s turn to ponder his answer for a moment. He nodded his head.

‘I forgot something,’ Elise said, and turned back to the kitchen.

Before Tom could speak to Elise, Sannie arrived, honking the horn of her Mercedes as the electric gate rolled open. ‘Hey, man! I thought you guys would be packed already,’ she chided. She kissed Christo and smiled at Tom, then ran inside, pausing only to kick off her high heels. ‘I’ll be changed in ten minutes, and you’d better be ready!’

Sannie had finished work early, at one o’clock, but even so they had to drive hard to get to the park before the entrance gates closed at six. The Land Rover blew blue smoke for the first half-hour, but eventually the long-dormant engine warmed up and Tom found he could coax it up to a hundred and ten. Sannie had suggested that Elise could drive the children in the Condor and that she would ride with Tom, in case he needed directions. ‘The kids have hardly seen you for a week, Sannie,’ Elise reminded her.

Tom thought her mother had made a good call. Besides, he needed to get used to navigating himself around Africa. Sannie soon outstripped him on the motorway, easily sitting on a hundred and twenty. Via her cell phone, she told him that they would go on ahead and start setting up at Pretoriuskop camp. Tom assured her that he could read a map well enough to find her.

It was the same road he and Sannie had driven together from Johannesburg to Tinga Legends, on the recce trip before Greeves’s abduction. It seemed like a lifetime ago and, in a sense, it was. Tom’s old life was over. No job, no future — at least not in England. He considered this. No, he told himself, it wasn’t quite over yet.

When he passed the hijacking hotspot warning signs near Witbank he felt a pang of concern for Sannie and her family. However, Sannie had her Z88 service pistol with her, and she had given Tom her private firearm, a nine-millimetre South African-made RAP 401, a compact semiautomatic. Its short barrel made it easy to conceal, but the eight-round magazine was less than half the capacity of the Glock he would have been carrying if he was still on the job. Tom had hoped that she would offer him a firearm. One of the reasons he wanted to drive to Malawi, rather than fly, was so he could carry a weapon. He hadn’t told Sannie of his ulterior motive.

He broke his first law of the trip when he arrived at the Numbi Gate entrance. He should have declared the pistol, but did not. He had it stashed in the tool-box under a mountain of gear in the back of the Land Rover. Over the next two days he would find a better hiding spot for it for when he had to start crossing borders. Sannie had gone through the motions of asking him why he thought he needed to take a gun with him out of South Africa, but had given up in the face of his silence. She’d given him two spare magazines and a box of bullets as well.

On the short drive to Pretoriuskop camp from the gate he slowed and stopped to watch a white rhino grazing by the side of the road. It ignored him, contentedly munching away on the short green grass that had sprung up in a burnt patch of bush with the first rains of the season. On its back was a tiny bird with a red bill. An oxpecker. The animal’s askari, as Sannie had called it. Tom had no one to guard any more, and the feeling was liberating in a way. He was here for himself and no one else. Ironically, his very next thought was of Sannie and her kids. He checked the time on his watch and made it in through the wooden gates of the rest camp with only minutes to spare before the curfew kicked in.