breath. His body was wonderful, silken, sleek, and as hard with muscle as Furious. Pulling him down on the jaunty Jack Russells, she undid more buttons, kissing his chest, running her tongue through the dark down of hair, feeling him shudder. Tentatively his tongue slid into her mouth, feather-light.
He was clearly not going to make the running so she undid the buttons of her nightdress, pressing her breasts against him, hearing him gasp in wonder and she gasped too a second later, as he began to stroke them. The magic touch of his fingers was soothing away the hurt of the day. Dropping his head, he licked one hardening nipple then the other. His tongue was unhurried, roving.
‘Oh God, Rafiq, was the Kama Sutra your set book?’
‘Wrong country,’ murmured Rafiq. ‘To us, sex comes naturally. Feel this.’ Pushing her back on the Jack Russells, his hand crept up her thigh, millimetre by millimetre, smiling as she gasped and moaned. ‘My little infidel.’
‘That is so lovely.’
As he pushed two fingers in and out, deeper and deeper, she was reduced to begging until the fingers strayed upwards, as delicate as the fluttering of a butterfly’s wings, caressing on and on. It was only when she was shaken by earthquake tremors that she realized she’d come.
‘Wow, that was something else.’ Then, seeing how moved and delighted Rafiq was: ‘Now it’s your turn.
‘Wow, quadrupled,’ she gasped as she pulled down his pyjamas and his cock sprang out. ‘That is truly awesome, Childe Roland to the dark tower came, or came because of the dark tower.’
‘What are you talking about?’
‘Nonsense, wanting you so badly makes me silly. You were so brave to stick up for me earlier, and now you’re sticking up for me again.’
‘Stop taking piss,’ Rafiq cuffed her gently, ‘and welcome me home.’
But when Amber crouched down, seizing his cock, tongue happy to pleasure him with an art in which she knew she was expert, he wriggled away. Instead he laid her on the bed, gliding into her with the joy of a speedboat plunging into a warm ocean. Controlled at first, in and out, in and out, changing positions they thrust and arched together. Rafiq could smell Tommy’s familiar lily of the valley on Amber’s golden breasts and Tommy’s shampoo on her hair, which cascaded over the pillow. He could smell Tommy’s Polos on her breath.
The jaunty Jack Russells got squashed, as Amber and Rafiq rode finish after finish. They were both so fit, sleep escaped them for at least fifty minutes until Rafiq suddenly shouted a few words in Punjabi and erupted inside her.
He rested his head for an age on her shoulder and she realized he was sobbing. Rolling off her, he turned her face to his, saying with sudden terrifying intensity, ‘I love you, Amber, thank you, thank you, you welcome me home.’
He was so vulnerable, she mustn’t hurt him. She’d never been good at commitment. Tommy said he was often racked by night-mares and sure enough, he woke sobbing again half an hour later.
As she snuggled against him he confessed he had nothing to offer her. Because of his prison record, Marius had employed him for a pathetic wage and had never bothered to raise it.
‘I can give you nothing.’
‘You’ve just given me the most marvellous fuck.’
Rafiq put his hand over her mouth.
‘You must stop this horrible language.’
‘I don’t know anything about you. Why are you so angry?’
‘I worry about what will happen to Furious and I am worried about my country. It is more unstable and dangerous than ever as the Americans pour troops into Afghanistan, murder thousands of innocent people and make me hate the West even more.’
‘How did you get involved in terrorism?’ Amber asked carefully.
‘Why you ask these questions?’ Suddenly Rafiq was suspicious.
‘I want you to be happier. Trust me,’ said Amber.
But as he drifted off to sleep again, panic swept her. What if her mother, Janey the journalist, who’d sell any of her family down the river, found out? Imagine the headlines. Oh God, she must protect him. But as she tugged the only pillow under her head, a photograph fluttered out. It was a lovely smiling picture of Tommy and Rafiq together in the garden. Oh God, she mustn’t hurt Tommy either.
68
On the day the syndicate went to Wetherby, Woody lost his beloved horse chestnut. The powers of Health and Safety, heavily bunged by Lester Bolton, declared that the tree should be felled. Traces of horse chestnut disease were alleged to have