The Angry Hills - Leon Uris [41]
Mike opened his eyes and sighed with relief.
The forest was still and dark.
It was freezing cold; the fire was a mass of smoldering embers. He sat up and rubbed his legs and crawled away groping for more wood.
“Jay?” Eleftheria’s frightened voice called out.
“I’m here. Go back to sleep.”
He knelt beside her and put some fresh twigs on the fire. In a moment they were crackling.
“I am cold,” she said.
“It will warm up in a couple of minutes.”
He crawled back beneath his blanket of pine needles and stretched out on his back.
“Jay?”
“What do you want?”
“I am frightened.”
He hesitated for a long while. “Well—all right, come on over here.”
His heart pounded as he heard her stir and felt her slip beside him timidly. “Poor kid, you’re just like ice.” He rubbed her arms and shoulders and she purred like a kitten as the warmth returned to them. She pressed close to him and his hand reached into her blouse and against the soft satin flesh of her back. Her head nestled on his chest and her arms folded tight around him.
“S’agapo,” she whispered.
“Sleep, honey...”
“S’agapo,” she said and closed her eyes.
A warming ray of sunlight found its way through the trees into the clearing. Mike opened his eyes. The fire was dead. He slipped his arms from Eleftheria, arose, stretched and patted his empty belly. The sun felt good and his mood was a bit more on the optimistic side.
The girl rolled over on her back and squirmed. Mike caught himself staring at the rip in her blouse. He turned away to find more kindling as Eleftheria opened her eyes and looked about and propped up on an elbow.
She tossed her long black hair onto her shoulders with a little flip of the head and made a sweet picture as she encircled her knees and rested a cheek on them. She stared at Mike and smiled as he reset the fire. She looked young and fresh and lovely—and eager.
Suddenly, Mike crushed his lips on hers and her body arched against his and they fell to the earth clutching each other. His hand groped for her breast—and ripped the blouse from her. He felt the sweet pain of her teeth tearing into his shoulder and her fingers clawing his back.
Eleftheria was a little savage. Mike’s fingers became entwined in her hair and he drew her face back. Her black eyes flamed with passion and her body pulsated with the fury of a tigress. They were on the ground again, rolling and thrashing about wildly and their lips sought each other out in mounting violence.
Mike strained every fiber in his body as he shoved her away and staggered to his feet. Eleftheria clung to his waist. He grabbed her hair and flung her away. She lay there, her fingers clawing at the earth, panting in her access of passion.
Mike gasped for air as he looked down in puzzled anger at the half-naked girl. He peeled his shirt off and threw it to her.
“Put this on!”
“Please—darling...”
“We’ve got enough goddamned trouble! Put this on!”
The sharpness of his command startled her into submission. In an instant she sank back to her natural shyness, and obeyed.
An hour passed before either of them spoke. But in the silence everything was said that needed to be said.
“You’d better get started for your village,” he spoke at last.
“And where will you go?”
“Athens. I’ll get there somehow,” he answered—not even convincing himself.
“You can never get to Athens alone—you know that. You must come to Dernica with me.”
“And see another village get burned.”
“You cannot take the blame—you cannot ...”
“What’s the difference...?”
“I will not leave you,” she said softly.
Mike knew he could not rove the hills indefinitely. He knew he could not go to Dernica. He knew he could not get to Athens, nor could he afford to cut off from the girl. He further knew that no place in Greece would be safe for long from the relentless Konrad Heilser.
“I have a distant cousin, Despo, who lives in Kaloghriani,