The Atlantis Code

CHAPTER 14

Lourds found a drawing of the cymbal on Wednesday afternoon. Despite the seemingly endless days of sorting through the wealth of material the institute had on the Yoruba people, he’d maintained hope that something would be there.

What he regretted most, though, was the search for a specific something. Although he was somewhat aware of the Yoruba people and the impact they’d had on West Africa and beyond, he hadn’t truly known the extent of that influence.

He hadn’t known how well developed the city-states had been. In his opinion, the Yorubans had rivaled their European counterparts. Even though they’d been ruled by monarchies, the rulers ruled by the will of the people and could be ordered by the senators to abdicate the throne.

Not exactly the savages they were reputed to be, Lourds thought grimly. The Yoruba had been governing at that level for hundreds of years before the Europeans started raiding the African nations for slaves.

Unfortunately, the Yoruba — generally known as the Oyo Empire at that time — gave in to the easy wealth that could be made from the slave trade. They’d waged wars against other kingdoms and city-states to capture slaves.

Several extensive documents from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries tempted him. Lourds would have loved to read them. But there was no time. So, with Fleinhardt’s permission, he uploaded several of the files to the off-site server he used at Harvard.

Of course, that server was already overflowing with material he intended to get around to. Some days it got frustrating simply acknowledging how much he wasn’t going to get to know no matter how hard he strived. Life just wasn’t long enough to satisfy Lourds’s curiosity.

But he read about the cymbal and he grew even more certain they’d touched only the tip of the iceberg.

By eight o’clock, Lourds was settled in to dinner with his companions. Leslie had insisted on him getting at least one proper meal and bringing them up to date with his research.

They ate in the hotel’s restaurant. Generally it was empty enough, they could get a table in the back and quiet enough, they could talk in relative privacy.

“You found the cymbal?” Leslie’s eyes gleamed with excitement.

“I believe so.” Lourds took his notebook computer from his backpack and placed it on the table well away from the wineglasses.

They’d all become accustomed to eating and talking about their work — illustrations by computer when needed — at the same time, but they continued to draw curious glances from the restaurant’s other patrons and the waitstaff.

“This is a drawing of the cymbal. Not a picture. But I think it’s close enough.” Lourds tapped the keys and brought up the digital image of the cymbal he’d downloaded from the institute’s archives.

In the drawing, the cymbal looked like a flat disk with an inscription on it. The man holding the cymbal wore a long cape and a crown.

“I’d guess he’s the king,” Gary said blithely.

“More than a king, actually,” Lourds said. “That’s a representation of Oduduwa.”

“Easy for you to say, mate,” Gary cracked.

“He was the leader of an invading army who came to West Africa from Egypt or Nubia, according to the Yorubans. Muslim sources document that Oduduwa came from Mecca. He was supposed to have been fleeing the country over a religious argument.”

“What argument?” Natasha asked.

Lourds shook his head. “The records I looked at don’t say. He could also have been outrunning an invading army. The point is that he fled with the cymbal.” He smiled. “Interestingly enough, Oduduwa is thought to be descended from the gods.”

“The bell was found in Alexandria,” Leslie said. “Do you think that’s where the cymbal came from?”

“Do you mean, was it there?” Lourds asked. “Given the legends I’ve uncovered, I’d say it was there once. But I’m not satisfied that we’ve yet found the land of its origins.”

“Because the languages don’t match anything from those areas,” Natasha said.

Lourds nodded and smiled. “Exactly.”

“What if the instruments were planted there? Intentionally put there.”

That thought hadn’t struck Lourds, and he found it highly interesting. He took a moment to mull it over.

“Wait,” Leslie said, “what makes you think anyone planted the bell and the cymbal there?”

“Because they don’t fit,” Lourds said, carrying on with Natasha’s insight. Her idea made everything fall into place so much better. “They don’t spring from that culture. The materials used. The work that went into them. The languages. All of them jar with what we know of that area.”

“If they wanted the cymbal to disappear, why attribute it to a god? Or a near-god? Or whatever O-dude is supposed to be?”

“Maybe they didn’t do that. Maybe that story followed the O-guy out of Egypt,” Gary said.

“It’s possible,” Lourds said. “According to the legend, Oduduwa was sent by his father, Olodumare—”

“That name’s on a Paul Simon album,” Gary said, interrupting. “It was released in the early 1990s. It was called Rhythm of the Saints or something like that.”

“No way,” Lourds responded.

“Way, mate,” Gary replied. “You get Wi-Fi in here, right?”

Lourds nodded.

“Lemme borrow your computer.”

After pushing the computer across, Lourds turned his attention back to his meal. As chief speaker during the debrief, he was usually the one who ended up eating a cold meal.

In minutes, Gary smiled in triumph. “And Bob’s your uncle, mate.” He spun the computer back around and displayed the singer’s song lyrics.

The reference to Olodumare was in the eighth line down.

“ ‘Olodumare is smiling in heaven,’ ” Gary said.

“You’re turning out to be a fount of information,” Lourds said. “Why didn’t you ever go to university?”

“I tried. It was too boring. A lot of the time I knew more than the professors did. One of the first things you learn at university is that the professors aren’t a whole lot smarter than you are, and sometimes they don’t even know as much.” Realizing what he’d just said, Gary held his hands up defensively. “Wasn’t referring to you, mate. You’ve been right impressive, you have.”

“I’m glad to know that. Let me see if I can impress you a little more.” Lourds sipped his wine. “The Yorubans refer to themselves as ‘Eniyan’ or ‘Eniti Aayan.’ The literal translation of this reference is, ‘The Chosen Ones to bring blessing to the world.’ ”

“Do you think the cymbal was supposed to be a blessing?” Leslie asked.

“The question did enter my mind,” Lourds admitted. “After all, it did arrive there in the hands of a near-god.”

The best time to burgle a home wasn’t at night. It was during the day. At night nobody was supposed to be around, and anyone who was stuck out.

But during the day, people came and went and were around all the time.

Bess Thomsen was a professional thief. She’d been breaking into other people’s homes since she was eleven. Now, at thirty-three, she was an old hand at the game.

She was five feet five inches tall, with brown hair, brown eyes, and a face that was mostly forgettable. In other words, she was totally nondescript in her appearance. But she had a figure. Part of that was from working out so she could do her job. Part of it was that it kept people’s eyes off her face. But today she kept that figure disguised beneath loose orange coveralls.

Her partner for the burglary was a twenty-something named Sparrow. She’d brought him along in case they had to do any lifting. Sparrow was six-two and over two hundred pounds. Bess was convinced ninety percent of it was attitude. She’d never met a more arrogant person.

He slouched in the van’s passenger seat and flicked cigarette ashes out the window. Beard stubble turned his cheeks and jawline into sandpaper. His surfer-blond hair was cropped even with his shoulder line. Cool blue sunglasses covered the upper part of his face. Earbuds filled those orifices, though Bess had thought about shoving them in other orifices.

Even with his earbuds blocking some of the sound, Sparrow played his music — hard-driving rock — loud enough for Bess to want to scream.

She checked the phony work order for the address one last time and pulled into the driveway of the house. She leaned under the window shade and studied the structure.

The house was a generous two-story. Not overly large, but more than was necessary for the single occupant she’d been told who lived there. Cambridgeport was mostly residential, with single-family homes as well as rental properties, since Harvard University and access to the Charles River were nearby. It was a good walking neighborhood for those so inclined. That was another reason to do the job in the daytime as opposed to night.

The notes Bess had on the job were spare. The homeowner was supposed to be a university professor currently out of the country. Bess had taken down the notes, but she didn’t count on that. People got back at the oddest times.

It would have been better if the prof had been at work in the city. Steady hours on the job were a lot better than counting on an occasional vacation.

She got out of the van, took her hard hat up from the seat, and put it on. Clipboard in hand, she walked to the door. Sparrow fell in beside her.

The lock was a good one, but it took her less than thirty seconds to pick her way through. As soon as she entered the front door, she heard the peep of the burglar alarm fire up.

According to the alarm-company reports she’d hacked out of the system, they had forty-five seconds to get to the keypad in the foyer to shut the alarm down. She made it with time to spare, then entered the code she’d also rifled from the files.

She turned to Sparrow. “Did you lock the door?”

He frowned at her and folded his arms across his chest. His tool belt, all the tools untouched in case he had to run for it, dangled at his hip.

“Screw you.” Sparrow took out the earbuds. “I got the top floor,” he said. “See you when I see you.” He headed in the direction of the stairs.

Bess cursed out him and his arrogance. Both were big enough to merit their own time, and both were deserving of the epithets.

She locked the front door and did a walk-through of the lower house to make sure she was alone. Once she was satisfied, she returned to the office area on the first floor and powered up the computer.

“You’ve heard about the dig in Cádiz, haven’t you?” Lourds asked.

“The one where they’re looking for Atlantis?” Gary asked.

Leslie sipped her wine and watched Lourds. She found she’d missed him during the days he spent at the Max Planck Institute.

Don’t go there, she told herself. This isn’t the time or the place.

“I don’t know if they’ll find Atlantis there,” Lourds said. “A half-dozen places have potentially been Atlantis. Greece claims a submerged Atlantis just off the coast. So does Bimini. There have even been claims for an Atlantis site off the coast of South America.”

“I hadn’t seen anything about that one.”

“The South American claim comes in because a man named J. M. Allen postulates that Atlantis was actually on the Altiplano, a Bolivian plain. According to research Allen has done, it’s not unusual for that area to become flooded. In fact, they did surveys and found out that the plain was flooded in 9000 B.C.”

“Why are you talking about Atlantis?” Natasha asked. “Has there been anything in your research that’s indicated anything should be of Atlantis?”

Witch, Leslie thought. Things hadn’t been so much fun since Natasha joined them. When it had been her and Lourds going to Moscow — with Gary in tow, even — things were potentially interesting. Now it was hard to get five minutes of conversation with the handsome professor without the Russian cop butting in.

Leslie felt sorry about the loss of Natasha’s sister, of course. But she still didn’t see why the woman had to invite herself along.

“Interestingly enough,” Lourds said as he leaned back and stretched out, “the topic of Atlantis did indeed come up during the research. Some theories say that Yoruba might have been Atlantis.”

“No way, mate,” Gary said.

“Way,” Lourds said.

Leslie smiled at that. The stoner banter probably would have been condemned at Harvard. Lourds didn’t seem to care. That was what she most liked about the professor. He seemed real.

“Ile-Ife is a Yoruba city located in Nigeria. The documents I looked at claimed the city has existed at least as far back as 10,000 B.C.”

“That fits with the time frame that’s been established for Atlantis,” Gary admitted.

“Some historians believe that Yoruba was once a mighty sea power,” Lourds went on. “I’ve seen documents that suggest the existence of a great fleet of ships that were destroyed during an oceanic cataclysm that came far inland.”

“Like the sinking of an island?”

“And the resulting tsunami.” Lourds nodded. “The society was known for its traders who dealt in goods and services. The Aromires were admirals and Olokos were merchants who usually traveled for a year at a time. Scholars think they traveled to Asia, Australia, and North and South America.”

“What does any of this have to do with the cymbal that my sister was killed for?” Natasha demanded.

That sobered up the two men. Leslie resented the ease with which Natasha had taken control of the conversation. She always had to be so calm and cool and in control.

“There was an interesting fact I turned up during my studies,” Lourds said. “I digressed. But here it is: During those early years of Ile-Ife, only a few people could read and write their language. The Yoruba scribes kept such knowledge out of the hands of everyone except a select few.”

“Do you think the inscriptions on the cymbal and bell are Yoruban?”

“It’s possible.” Lourds yawned. “I’ve got more research to do now that I’ve ferreted out this much. According to Yoruba legend, Oduduwa and his brother Obatala — who was also the son of Olorun, the sky god — created the world. Obatala created humans out of clay, and Olorun breathed life into them.”

“Creation myth,” Gary said. “Every culture has them.”

“And it gets fascinating to see what all those myths have in common,” Lourds said.

“You’re going to continue to search the institute for any inscriptions that may match that on the cymbal and bell?” Natasha asked.

“That’s the plan.”

“How long will that take?”

Lourds shrugged. “I don’t know. The problem is that I’m getting close to exhausting the material these people have.”

“What happens if you do?”

“Then we need to think about taking a look at the source material.” That caught Leslie’s attention. “You mean travel down to West Africa?” Lourds looked at her and nodded. “If it becomes necessary, yes.”

Bess was working in the office when the operation turned ugly. She’d booted up the victim’s computer and was downloading everything on the hard drive to the external drive she’d brought with her. She was also going through the paper files in the filing cabinet, but most of the folders there concerned presentations and class course lectures.

That was when the front door opened and someone entered.

Bess went into motion at once. She stepped toward the office doorway and flattened herself against the wall. Her heart rate barely elevated. Over the years, she’d had people walk in on her before. Today she looked like a natural gas employee.

Sparrow wasn’t so cool. He came down the stairway with the earbuds in and didn’t see the man until it was too late. Sparrow was also carrying a pack over his shoulder, looking like an evil Santa. Evidently he’d swiped one of the pillowcases from the target’s bedroom and filled it with whatever had caught his eye.

That hadn’t been part of the plan.

Unprofessional, and worse, inexcusable since they were doing this on the q-t. Bess promised herself that she’d never work with the man again.

The man who’d just entered the house was in his forties and a little overweight. He wore khaki shorts, a golf shirt, and sandals.

Judging from the casual shoes, Bess figured him for a neighbor. Nobody’d be stupid enough to walk very far in those things. He was probably just watching the house for a friend.

“Who are you?” the man demanded.

Bess stepped around the corner. “We’re with the gas company. Someone reported a gas leak in the area.”

The man looked at the pillowcase stuffed with stolen loot on Sparrow’s back. “I don’t believe you.” The man took a cell phone from his hip.

That was one technological advance that had been put into the hands of almost everyone, and which made a professional burglar’s job even harder. Every idiot on the street could report a crime almost immediately these days.

Sparrow reached to the back of his waistband and took out a revolver.

Bess didn’t know what kind it was. She never worked with guns, and she never stole guns. There was no telling where some mark had gotten a gun, or how he’d used it, and the last thing she wanted to do was get picked up for breaking and entering then get charged for someone else’s murder. But before she could stop Sparrow, he fired.

The pistol’s detonation filled the house and sounded incredibly loud in the enclosed space.

The neighbor staggered, put a hand to his chest that came away bright with blood, and went down.

Bess didn’t waste time checking to see if the man was alive. She didn’t waste time cursing Sparrow. She looked at him.

“Get out of here now,” she instructed.

Sparrow stood frozen for a moment.

“Get out!” Bess ordered more loudly.

Sparrow went, but he couldn’t take his eyes off the fallen man. “He was going to call the police. I had to—”

Bess ignored him and returned to the office. She unhooked the external drive she’d brought to download the computer’s files onto. At least the program had finished running. whatever the target had had on the hard drive inside the computer was now mirrored on the hard drive she had.

The job was accomplished.

She skirted the man on the floor, left the house, and pulled the door closed behind her. Sparrow sat in the van’s passenger seat.

Bess slid into the driver’s seat, started the engine, and pulled out onto the street. She pulled a disposable TracFone from her coverall. Before every job, she bought one in the hopes of never having to use it.

She dialed 911, reported the shooting, and hung up.

“Why did you do that?” Sparrow asked.

“That man might still be alive. He shouldn’t have to die just because you got greedy.” Bess drove methodically as she wound through the streets.

“Hey, what I got wasn’t all that much. This job didn’t pay—”

“It paid fine,” Bess said. “The man who hired us didn’t want any complications. That, just so you know for future reference, was a complication. Big complication.”

Sparrow slumped against the seat and folded his arms over his chest like a petulant child.

“Give me the gun.” Bess held out one gloved hand.

“Why?”

“The gun,” Bess said.

“It’s my gun.”

“Now.”

Sullen, Sparrow gave it up.

Working one-handed, Bess wiped the gun down. She even opened the cylinder and wiped the cartridges. Thankfully the gun had been a revolver. Nothing had been left behind but the bullet.

She chose her route deliberately and drove over the Longfellow Bridge. A Red Line train was crossing the tracks in the center as she drove across.

Midway, Bess had Sparrow roll down the window and she threw the pistol into the Charles River as they headed into Boston. She hoped that would be the end of it.

Leslie’s cell phone rang while she was staring out over Leipzig. The caller ID showed that it was her producer. It was 11:18 P.M. This couldn’t be a good call.

She debated answering between the second and third rings, then muted the television and pressed the TALK button.

“Hello,” she said.

“Tell me you’ve got something.” Philip Wynn-Jones didn’t sound like a happy man.

“What would you like to me to tell you?”

“Don’t be flip.”

“I’m not. We’re in Leipzig—”

“I knew that the moment the credit card bills started coming in on the hotel. Tell me something I don’t know.”

Leslie stared out at the cityscape and tried to think calm thoughts. “We’re still on the trail of those missing instruments.”

“But are you getting anywhere?”

“Lourds is beginning to think we may need to go to West Africa.”

There was silence on the phone for a moment. “West bloody Africa? The four of you?”

Leslie decided not to pull any punches. Gary was a given, and — even though she didn’t care for Natasha Safarov — the Russian policewoman had skills and access to information that she herself couldn’t get. Yet.

“Yes. The four of us.”

Wynn-Jones let out a long breath and followed it almost immediately with an equally long string of curses.

“You’re breaking my bloody balls here, Leslie. You know that, don’t you?”

“You’ve got to give us a little more time.”

“Time is money in this business, love. You know that.”

“I also know that exposure means money.” Leslie turned back from the window because the traffic in the streets below was too distracting. She looked at the television.

She’d turned to Discovery Channel out of habit. The programs there could offer ideas and markets for what she wanted to do, as well as give her an idea of the competition she faced.

Bizarrely, given the dinner conversation, tonight featured one of the retread documentaries on Atlantis. With the excavation going on in Cádiz, the whole world was thinking about Atlantis.

But the program gave Leslie’s mind — fueled by desperation because she felt certain Lourds would proceed on without her at this point — an idea.

“The remnants of a prehistoric band isn’t going to be worth much,” Wynn-Jones protested.

“Not prehistoric,” Leslie said automatically. She knew she was mentally channeling one of Lourds’s lectures over the last few days. What was that phrase he’d used?

“What?”

“Prehistoric refers to a time before there were any written records. The bell and the cymbal are definitely from…” She fumbled for the term. “… the historic period.”

“Great. You’re getting an education. Not exactly what I had in mind when you and the professor went haring about the world.”

Leslie’s eyes focused on the television screen. Stock footage of great crystal towers from some cheesy science fiction movie rolled. After a moment, tides swept over the city and shattered it into a million pieces.

“What if,” Leslie said, “I can give you Atlantis?”

Wynn-Jones snorted. “In case you haven’t noticed, they’ve found Atlantis. It’s in Cádiz, Spain.”

“What if they’re wrong?” Leslie said.

“The Roman Catholic Church is backing that dig.” Even though Wynn-Jones remained a naysayer, interest sounded in his voice. “They’re seldom wrong about things like that.”

“They’re wrong all the time. Think of the sexual attitudes of their priests.” Before Wynn-Jones could say anything, Leslie hurried on. “The bell and the cymbal have writing on them that Lourds has never seen before. He’s tracked the cymbal to the Yoruba people — who live in West Africa, hence the need to go there — and found indications that the artifacts are remnants of the civilization of Atlantis.”

“They came from Spain?”

“No. It’s beginning to look like Atlantis was off the coast of West Africa. Or part of the coast of West Africa.” Leslie thought that was how Lourds had explained the situation.

“They’re pretty certain about Cádiz,” Wynn-Jones said.

But Leslie knew she had the man thinking. Both of them were driven to grab attention to themselves if they could.

“What if they’ve got it wrong?” Leslie asked. “What if, given time, we can deliver the true location of Atlantis?”

“That’s a tall order.”

“Think about it, Philip. International media has been making love to this story since it began. Atlantis Found! Remember all those headlines we laughed about?”

They had laughed about those, but they’d also grudgingly admitted they wished they had gotten to work the story.

“The public’s appetite has been whetted for this story,” Leslie pointed out. “If Lourds can get us into part of that story, we’d be a smash. But if we could steal it away from them—”

She left the rest unsaid. She knew Wynn-Jones. His mind would cycle through the possibilities.

“All right,” Wynn-Jones said. “I’ll give you West Africa. But you’d better hope there’s a bloody story there.”

Leslie did. She didn’t know if it was Atlantis, but she was certain there was enough there to mollify the corporation when the time came. If there wasn’t, she might be out of a job. But that was the risk. Playing it safe wasn’t going to get her anywhere. And she planned on going places, big-time.

After thanking Wynn-Jones, she rang off and started to punch in Lourds’s room number to let him know they’d been cleared for Africa. But she was still slightly flush with the wine. There was also that itch she had to contend with.

She decided to deliver the message in person. She opened her handbag and took out the spare key for Lourds’s room. He hadn’t thought anything of the fact he’d gotten only one key.

Smiling, feeling hopeful, she headed out the door.

Natasha stepped out of the elevator in time to see Leslie walk past. Suspicious, still bothered by how easily Patrizio Gallardo and his men seemed to find them in Odessa, Natasha followed.

After dinner had broken up, she’d taken a cab to a club a few blocks away and checked in with Ivan Chernovsky. She didn’t want him to know what hotel they were staying at. He hadn’t been home. His wife had told Natasha that Chernovsky was working a murder.

That news had made Natasha feel guilty. Chernovsky was out there on the streets, possibly facing danger, and she wasn’t there to cover his back. His wife, Anna, had let Natasha know she was concerned about her. Evidently Chernovsky had been talking to her about everything. Natasha had assured Anna that she was fine and asked her to tell Chernovsky that she would call again soon.

Natasha stayed back, but if Leslie had turned to check, she would have been caught. Thankfully, her room was also this way. She had an excuse.

But Leslie didn’t turn once from her destination. She headed straight for Lourds’s door. She halted there and raised her hand to knock. Then she reached into her handbag and took out a card.

She swiped the card and watched as the light flashed green. Then she went inside.

Natasha never broke stride, but she felt deeply disturbed. The thing that bothered her most was she didn’t know why she felt that way. It had been apparent from the beginning that Leslie was crushing on the professor. Natasha wondered, though, if Lourds would be vain enough to think it was anything more than that.

That could be a problem. Natasha needed Lourds up and thinking correctly if she was going to have a real chance at finding Yuliya’s killers.

But Natasha was also aware that on some level she didn’t like the idea of Lourds being with another woman. Another. She caught that quirk in her thoughts and was unhappy with herself.

She thought about going to Lourds’s door and crashing the party, then decided that was too juvenile. Instead, she went to her room and ordered a bottle of Finlandia Vodka. It gave her a small sense of satisfaction to put it on the room’s tab and know that Leslie was going to have to account for it.

Excitement burned through Leslie when she heard the running water and the steam coming out of the bathroom. Lourds was in the shower. It wasn’t exactly what she had in mind, but it would be fun. She felt a smile spread across her face.

The television was on and was tuned to CNN. The computer was open on the desk and she could see that he’d been working.

Leslie hesitated, though. Okay, you’re in or you’re out, she told herself. She took a quick breath, dropped her handbag, kicked off her shoes, and peeled her clothes off.

Totally starkers, she stepped into the bathroom.

Lourds lay in the deep bathtub with his head back and his eyes closed. At first Leslie thought he was asleep. But when she moved toward him and her shadow tracked across his face, he snapped his eyes open.

When he saw her, he didn’t try to cover up or act modest. He just lay there and looked at her. Then he smiled.

“I don’t suppose you accidentally ended up in the wrong room,” he said.

Leslie giggled. That she hadn’t expected. But one of the things she’d come to appreciate about Lourds over the last nineteen days she’d known him was his sense of humor.

“No,” she said. “I didn’t.”

But he didn’t invite her in, either.

“Do you mind?” she asked as she pointed to the bath.

“Not at all. Although seating could be a little difficult.”

Leslie stepped into the bath with her feet outside Lourds’s legs and sat across his thighs. For a moment she didn’t know how interested he was going to be in what she had in mind. If he wasn’t intrigued he would have sent you away. Then his interest manifested, hard and insistent, as it glided up between her thighs and pressed against her lower stomach.

“Well, now,” Lourds said, grinning. “To what do I owe this pleasure?”

“It’s not pleasure,” Leslie said. “Yet. But I think it will be.” She leaned into him and kissed him deeply. The heat of his body lit flames inside hers. Her mind swirled and her thoughts shattered into a kaleidoscope of sensory overload.

He smelled of soap and male musk. His lips tasted like wine. Leslie could only hear her heart beating inside her head as his rough hands roved freely over her body. He gripped her hips and pulled her in for a tighter fit, but he didn’t try to penetrate her. His proximity was maddening, though, because it was right there.

Leslie rolled her hips and tried to capture him so he would slide into place. He flexed his thighs and avoided her intimate embrace.

“Not yet,” he whispered against her throat.

“I thought you were ready,” she said.

“I am,” he told her. “But you’re not.”

She started to object and tell him that she was ready. If anyone would know she was ready, it was her. And she was more than ready.

His hand slipped in between them as they kissed. He bit her lips as he touched her gently. She doubted he’d find what he was looking for. That bloody spot — the one that felt so good — was never in the same place twice. At least, that was the way it seemed.

But he did find it. His fingertips rubbed just hard enough to rob the breath from her lungs. She bent her back and leaned away from him so she could press her clitoris against his fingers. She rocked with him and couldn’t believe he’d so easily found what she sometimes got frustrated searching for.

He bent toward her and kissed her face and neck. But she was so locked into the vibrant need coursing through her that she couldn’t respond.

In the next instant, warmth flooded her loins as her hips jerked toward him. She bucked and rocked as she rode his hand. The world came to a quiet and gentle stop. She took a shuddering breath.

“Wow,” she whispered. She leaned into him when he drew his hand back. His chest felt warm and solid against her breasts.

“ ‘Wow,’ indeed,” Lourds agreed.

“Am I ready now?”

“I think you are.” With surprising strength, Lourds stood in the tub and stepped out. Leslie kept her legs tight around him.

He deposited her on the floor, then briskly toweled her dry. Even that contact sent her senses reeling. It was made even worse when he leaned in to kiss her but somehow avoided her own efforts.

“You’re a tease,” she accused.

“I hardly think so.”

She toweled him off, too, but was more direct with her attentions. She dropped to her knees and took him into her mouth. That caught him by surprise, but he resisted her best attempts to bring him over the edge. That was more than a little frustrating, but she looked forward to breaking down his resistance.

“Okay,” he said in a thick voice. “That’ll be enough of that.”

“For the moment,” she agreed.

Lourds bent and picked her up in his arms, cradling her like a child. She luxuriated in feeling small and defenseless in his embrace, though she knew she was anything but. The hunger in her belly fired anew as he carried her to the bed.

He laid her on it gently, then climbed aboard with her. She looked up into his eyes as she felt his hand nudge between her thighs and start caressing her again. She had no doubt now that he could bring that to a successful conclusion again, but she wanted more.

She rolled him over onto his back, threw a leg across his hips, and pushed herself on top. She teased him for a moment, raking her slick loins against his erection, but figured out that he could handle any amount of teasing that she wanted to dish out.

Leslie laughed.

“What’s so funny?” he asked.

“You,” she said. “I hadn’t thought you would have this kind of control.”

“Not control,” Lourds said. “Consider it a compliment. I want you to enjoy yourself.”

“I am.” Leslie canted her hips a final time and eased him into her, claiming his flesh as her own. “But I like it best when I’m in control.” She settled onto him, found the rhythm of the bed, and proceeded to grind him into dust.