Day of Confession - Allan Folsom [98]
“What fax?”
Setting down her glass, Adrianna fished a sheet of paper from a battered leather traveling bag on the bed and handed it to him. Then, putting a hand on her hip, she leaned back against the dressing table. With the movement, her robe came open. Not a lot, but enough for Harry to see part of one breast and a hint of the dark where her legs came together.
“Read it…”
Harry hesitated, then glanced at the paper.
!Read!
“GENESIS 4:9”
A new book by
Father Jonathan Roe
That was all. Neatly typed. Nothing else.
“You remember your Bible, Harry…. Genesis 4:9—“
“Am I my brother’s keeper?” Harry dropped the paper on the bed.
“He’s an educated man. He’ll understand.”
“Then what?”
“We wait…. I’ll be in Bellagio, Harry. Maybe even before you are.” Adrianna’s voice became soft, seductive. Her eyes found Harry’s and held there. “And I’ll know how to reach you…. The phone in your pocket, you know.” She paused. “The way we—did it in Rome…”
For a long moment Harry said nothing, just stood looking at her. Finally, he let his eyes fall the length of her body.
“Your robe is open…”
“I know…”
HE TOOK HER FROM BEHIND, the way she liked, the way he had in her apartment in Rome. The difference this time was that the lights were on and they were in the bathroom standing up. With Adrianna bent slightly at the waist, her hands on the edge of the marble sink, both of them facing the mirror, watching.
He could see her pleasure as he came into her. Saw it intensify all the more with each deliberate stroke. He could see himself behind her. His jaw set. Firm. Becoming more so as the force and rapidity of his thrusting increased. In a way it was indecent, seeing his own face. It was almost as if he were doing it to himself. Except he wasn’t.
“Yes,” she breathed. “Yes—“
With her sound, his own being faded and he saw only her as she threw back her head, her eyes closed, gripping him with her secret muscles, magnifying each stroke for both of them.
“More,” she whispered. “More. Harder. Yes. Break me, Harry. Break me…”
He felt his pulse go up and the heat of her body grow against his. Both of them glistening with sweat. It was like before. In her bed in Rome. Spots danced in front of his eyes. His heart pounded. The sound of her breathing was like a roar overlapping the slap of their flesh as it came together. Again and again. And again. Then suddenly she cried out and he saw her head dip between her shoulders. At the same time he ejaculated. It felt like a cannon. One that kept on firing, round after round, all on its own, with no control at all. And then his knees buckled and he had to catch himself on the edge of the sink to keep from falling. And he knew there was nothing left.
For either of them.
68
Hefei, China. City of Hefei, Anhui Province,
Water Filtration Plant “A.” Tuesday, July 14, 4:30 A.M.
LI WEN ENTERED AS HE ALWAYS DID, THROUGH the front door, heavy leather briefcase in one hand, identification badge clipped to the lapel of his jacket, nodding to the half-asleep Chinese Army security officer sitting at a table just beyond. Then, opening another door, he turned down a hallway and walked by the main control room, where a lone female engineer kept one eye loosely on a back wall of gauges and meters that measured, among other things, pressure, turbidity, flow rates, and chemical levels, and the other on a magazine she was reading.
“Good morning,” Li Wen said with authority. Instantly the magazine disappeared.
“Everything is in order?”
“Yes, sir.”
Li Wen stared at her a moment longer, letting her know he was not pleased with the magazine business. Then, with a definitive nod, he turned, pushed through a door and went down a long flight of steps to the filter area on the floor below, a long, concrete reinforced room where the final stages of filtration took place before the water was pumped into the clear well for outflow into the city’s water mains. The area was below ground level and felt immediately