Hard-core Murder Page 2

  They picked their way down the raw face of the cliff, sending down showers of loose stone. Terence was surprisingly agile, despite the encumbrance of the basket. Penelope watched his lanky form with approval as he descended. She liked her men to be in good condition. She herself danced lightly down the steep slope, hardly using her hands, nimble as a mountain goat.

  They tumbled together into the fine pinkish sand at the base of the cliff. Penelope opened the basket and spread the light blanket that Inga had packed on top.

  "God, I'm famished!" Terence said. "Too bad I'm too horny to eat!"

  She laughed. "I wouldn't let you eat. I don't want you sluggish. But let's have a drink."

  She produced a chilled thermos of martinis and poured two into the gold-flecked Venetian wineglasses that Inga had cradled in styrofoam.

  "What, no paper cups?" Terence roared. "You Yanks always save the best stuff for yourselves!"

  "Only because you bloody Irishmen will swill a martini out of anything."

  He laughed heartily. "Up the Queen," he said, taking a long draught.

  "Down the gin!"

  "Slainte!"

  "Let's swim!"

  She drained her glass and sprang to her feet. Terence followed suit. She unlaced the canvas shoes and peeled off the white jump suit. She was racing toward the white surf while Terence was still struggling to unbutton the bulging crotch of his hip-huggers.

  The cold shock of the water brought all her senses alive. She splashed out to thigh depth, then dove headfirst into the waves. She swam with long, powerful strokes out into the incredible blue of the cove.

  Terence caught up with her a few minutes later. "Sorry I'm late," he said. "I was swimming with all my might when I discovered I was stuck in the mud."

  She leaped like a dolphin into the air to encourage him with a glimpse of her breasts, then dove. She surfaced thirty feet away, heading for shore.

  "Stick in the mud!" she taunted.

  He was after her in a flash, churning up the water. She put her head down and beat him to shore. She sprinted for the blanket. By the time he caught up, puffing and shaking water from his head, she had poured two more martinis.

  "Don't get any sand on you," she said, tossing him a towel.

  He shuddered. "God, what a thought!"

  He knelt beside her on the blanket and accepted a martini. She noted with amusement that he'd draped the towel around his waist. It poked out in front as if there were a broomstick under it.

  "Your strict upbringing?" she said, arching an eyebrow.

  "I admit it," he said cheerfully. "It's what makes me so bloody complex and interesting."

  She propped the wineglass in the sand and reached out to pull the towel from his waist. His long, gracefully tapering penis pointed quivering at her. She closed her hand around it and drew him toward her.

  He drew in his breath sharply, dropping the martini. Penelope felt the icy liquid splash down her breasts and thighs.

  "Never waste a drop," he said, bending to lick the gin off her breasts. She felt his tongue, working methodically, lapping at the hard button that stood out like a grape.

  Her senses shimmered. A warmth ran through her body. She felt a wetness growing between her thighs.

  His lips were fastened on the nipple. He sucked on it like a drowning man after air. Penelope felt the warmth radiating in rippling circles. She grasped his penis convulsively and pulled him closer. He groaned. He had one hand splayed against the small of her back for support, and the other closed around the opposite breast, manipulating it skillfully.

  "Don't waste the gin, darling," she whispered hoarsely.

  Obediently he moved his face down her body, following the rivulet of martini. Penelope closed her eyes, luxuriating in the sensation of the warm tongue exploring her belly, her hip, her thigh; the hot Corsican sun baking her stomach.

  His tongue was busy now at the inside of her thigh. She stroked his throbbing mast passionately. Holding it like a gearshift, she moved her thumb around the swollen knob at the end. He grunted in appreciation and moved his tongue to the stiffened knurl of her clitoris.

  She moaned with the sudden rush of pleasure. He licked the tumid bud until the tension was almost too great to bear, then, with sure instinct, paused.

  "What's sauce for the goose…" he murmured.

  She wriggled to all fours, her breasts swaying just above the blanket. He settled back on his heels. Penelope fastened her lips around the fat plum at the end of his cock. A few preliminary drops of serum were oozing out. She worked the glans expertly with lips and tongue, moving the first few inches of the shaft in and out.

  "Oh, the bloody delight of it!" he cried, his teeth showing in a rictus of ecstasy.

  She continued to work, her hands gripping his hips, feeling his long fingers manipulating her breasts. Her lips felt a warning vibration in his shaft. She reached between his legs with her right hand and applied pressure at the right spot. His held breath exploded and she felt him relax. She took his tool out of her mouth and stretched full length on the blanket. He lay beside her, belly to belly, his hard prong fitting comfortably between her thighs.

  "Penny, angel, what a marvelous piece of ass you are," he whispered.

  "Let's see if I can say the same about you," she said.

  He had his hands cradling her buttocks while he wiggled his prong in a complicated motion along her vaginal cleft. She could feel his wiry pubic hair scraping against the parted labia, scrubbing her projecting clitoris. She cried out at the excitement of it.

  She reached behind him and dipped a hand between his legs to take the hot, heavy sac of his scrotum in her grasp. She squeezed it gently and felt it crawl like a live thing in her palm.

  His own hand moved from her behind to the lubricous channel between her thighs. He ran his fingertips along the outer labia, getting them slippery. His thumb found her clitoris, then, without preamble, he slipped a long finger deep into her vagina. He moved it around in a circle. Her legs twitched in pleasurable torment.

  "Steady on, love," Terence said in a hoarse voice, and slid a second finger inside. He rubbed the web of his thumb back and forth across the lintel of her vagina. The sensation was indescribable. She squirmed with rapture.

  Her trembling fingers found his plumlike glans, projecting like a bunny tail at her rear. She twisted it back and forth like a radio dial. He gave a long ragged sob and pushed against her.

  "Steady on, yourself," she gasped.

  The busy motions of their hands translated themselves into body movements. Their bodies writhed against each other under the beating pulse of the noonday sun. Penelope had the sensation of being warmed in a great vat of melted butter. Her body was bathed in sweat, Terence's and her own, and she could feel her thighs, her hand and the penis in it, drenched with her body juices. His cock slipped, almost of its own volition, from her hand and pressed against her lubricated trough. With no more than a nudge it glided into the slippery channel and rammed all the way home. They both jumped at the delicious shock, then clutched one another to hold back a further tremor.

  When they'd both mastered themselves again, Penelope pushed at Terence insistently, easing him over on his back. She rolled over on top of him, his billy still inside her. Carefully she slid her knees forward, then sat up so that she was astride him. He squinted up at her, his face harsh in the bright sunlight. She grinned down at him, her strong white teeth showing in savage exuberance.

  "Saints in heaven!" he gasped. "I'm a dying man!"

  "You're not dead yet, darling," she breathed.

  She began, slowly, to move her bottom in a smooth oval motion. She could feel his long stick inside her, sliding in and out only an inch or two while its thick root moved around her swollen vestibule. He picked up her pattern and rhythm after a moment and began straining up against her.

  The strokes grew longer, the rhythm faster. Terence panted with effort, heaving against her with great solid bumps. A harsh, strangling sound came from h
is throat. His hands reached up convulsively and grasped her breasts. She was barely aware of the fingers sinking into the soft flesh; there was a hot, welling flood bubbling upward from between her legs, a rising fountain of glowing lava. She arched her spine, forcing his pole against the forward edge of her scabbard. They moved faster and faster, in a violent jerking frenzy.

  It began from a long way off, an orange-red headlight rushing at her through an infinite tunnel. The image of the Corsican sun burning through her closed eyelids mingled with the orange sphere growing in the dark caverns of her body. The fireball grew, blotting out the edges of her perception. There was a huge flaring burst of light, an enveloping bliss. She cried out at the explosion of pleasure, her entire body convulsing.

  The fireball broke up into a million fragments, and she was lying full length across Terence's hard, spare body. His arms were wrapped around her, keeping her down, his hard stem frantically astir, and then he gave a long, satisfied sigh and fell back in a loose heap.

  After a moment he gave a little wiggle, and she felt a pleasurable flutter of sensation. They grinned at one another and teased another comfortable spurt of gratification out of their bodies, then another. Terence slapped her on the rump to signal her that he was through, and another delightful jolt caught her by surprise. He was still hard, fortunately. She pinned him down with two strong hands on his shoulders and wrung the last palpitating dregs of rapture out of her finely tuned body. She rested astride him for a moment or two, basking in the warm afterglow.

  "Finished, love?" he said, patting her on the hip.

  "For the moment. Let's have a swim, then eat."

  She dismounted, and the sticky stuff of his passion dribbled down her thigh. She gave him a hand up, and they walked, arm in arm, down to the water's edge. His penis, swinging slackly back and forth, reminded her of a bell rope. She gave it a playful tug.

  "No danger of your getting stuck in the mud now, is there darling?"

  "Give me a few minutes to recover," he smiled.

  They dived together into the water, chill under its sun-warmed surface. They swam and dove, splashing one another and playing like children. At one point, in the shallows, Terence stood on his hands, his naked legs and pelvis sticking straight up like a lewd window dummy. When he came up, Penelope turned a cartwheel and landed in front of him, breasts swaying.

  By the time they got back to the blanket, the sun was already a degree or two past zenith. Terence lay on his back, his cock standing stiffly erect again.

  "Shall we have another go at it, love?" he said.

  She looked critically at the shadow on his belly. "If you're trying to pretend you're a sun dial, darling, you're telling me that it's past time for lunch."

  "Blast lunch!"

  "Let's do be civilized, darling. When you cast a shadow that's an inch or two longer, we'll see about continuing."

  She unpacked the picnic basket. There was chilled wine, two kinds of pâté, cold sausage, cheese, crusty bread, fruit. Terence, for all his complaining, fell to with a hearty appetite. Penelope ate ravenously, her hunger awakened by sex. She was just unscrewing the thermos of iced espresso when he grasped her wrist.

  "Dessert first, love. Then coffee."

  She put down the thermos. "How long is the shadow, darling?"

  "About an inch long. But I'm bloody seven inches long."

  She tilted her face toward him and fastened her lips on his. He kissed her thirstily. She felt an answering tingle in her breasts and groin.

  And an electric shock in her wrist.

  Every nerve in her body told her to ignore it. But she couldn't.

  She broke away from Terence. He looked puzzled and tried to draw her close to him again.

  Her wristwatch shocked her again.

  Somewhere, 300 miles out in space, a MESTAR satellite — Message Storage and Relay — was feeling an electronic itch. It scratched the itch by triggering an electric shock in a pea-sized transceiver hidden in a certain Tiffany watch.

  It wouldn't stop scratching until the Baroness answered it.

  Penelope felt another jolt in her wrist. This one was nastier.

  MESTAR had something to tell her. The message had been given to it by one of its electronic relatives — the IBM 7090 computer at NSA's Fort Meade headquarters. MESTAR's brain stored the message, along with thousands of others, until its polar orbit put it over southern Europe. Then it sent out a high-speed burst of electronic noise that could be decoded only by the one computer in the world that was programmed for that purpose. The computer was the size of a fingernail, and it was hidden in the Baroness' watch.

  There was another shock. Terence was looking at her oddly.

  Penelope stood up. She looked at the blank face of her watch.

  Terence raised himself lazily on one elbow. "What goes, love? Isn't the sun dial good enough for you?"

  She pressed the stem of the watch. The liquid crystal display flashed on the face of her watch. It said only:

  LON

  URG

  Then it winked out.

  Penelope snatched up her jump suit and sprinted toward the cliffs. Halfway there she turned and called to Terence.

  "Sorry, darling! I'm going to borrow your car. Finish lunch without me! I'm sure you can hitch a ride!"

  He got to his feet and ran toward her. "What the bloody hell do you think you're about?"

  "I'll explain later, darling!"

  She scrambled barefooted up the cliff, agile as a monkey. Terence tried to catch up, but, practiced as he was, couldn't come anywhere near her. When she reached the top she looked down. Terence was halfway up, puffing furiously.

  "I'll leave your car at the airport, darling!" she called.

  She vaulted, naked, into the driver's seat of the green MG and flung the white jump suit on the seat beside her. Time enough to put it on before the airport. There wasn't time to tussle with Terence.

  The spare key was where he always left it, under the mat. The MG's motor roared. She whizzed away just as Terence's beet-red face popped above the cliff's edge.

  Two Corsican peasants, leading a donkey cart loaded with vegetables, stopped to gape at the incredible vision: a beautiful woman, stark naked, her black hair flying, roaring toward them in an open sports car.

  They turned to stare after her until an outraged shout made them look back again. A tall, fair-haired man, also stark naked, was running down the road after the car, shouting obscenities in a foreign language.

  The Baroness watched the tableau through the rearview mirror until she rounded the next curve in the road. Terence was talking to the peasants, gesticulating angrily. She could follow their answering gestures. They'd give him a ride in the cart. But he was going to have to put on some clothes first.

  She laughed. Poor Terence! But it was funny all the same.

  She drove another ten miles before pausing to put on the white jump suit. It wouldn't do to be detained at the airport. LON URG, the message had said.

  Key had a job for her. It was urgent. He'd meet her in London.

  The agent called Coin bent over the wheel and stepped on the gas. She was in the slot.

  Chapter 2

  She was waiting in his leather swivel chair, bare feet up on his desk, when he walked in.

  "What kept you, John?" she said.

  John Farnsworth's hand was halfway to the gun in his shoulder holster before he recognized her. His reflexes were always a tenth of a second ahead of his brain. That's what had kept him alive for fifty-odd years. He converted the gesture smoothly into a tug at the knot of his cravat.

  Farnsworth was a lean, commanding figure with an expensive tan, expensive clothes, and an impeccably groomed iron-gray mustache. His authoritative bearing suggested the board chairman of a large corporation, which he wasn't, or a military man, which he once had been. Now he was business manager for the Baroness' firm, International Models, Inc. He was also the anonymous liaison that the National Security Agency knew only as Key.

/>   "You're getting sand on my papers, Penny," he said mildly. "How did you get to London so fast? It's been less than two hours since you got the signal from MESTAR."

  "Is that all?" she yawned. "It seems ages."

  She swung her feet down, stood up and stretched. Her body, braless under the white silk jump suit, flowed in liquid profusion.

  Farnsworth harrumphed. "You're astonishing, Penny. I flew four thousand miles at Mach 3 from Washington. I commandeered the Air Force's experimental SR-71 to do it. That's the one they call the Blackbird because they had to paint it black to keep the titanium skin from melting. And you beat me here."

  "Only Mach 3?" she teased him. "You're slowing down."

  She came around the desk to embrace him. He put down his attaché case and gave her a perfunctory kiss on the lips. He patted her body down, scrupulously avoiding her breasts.

  "I thought so!" he said when he felt the little Bernardelli VB in her leg pocket. "Penny, what have I told you about carrying guns through Customs? If you need one, let me know and I'll have one waiting for you."

  "It's such a little gun," she said. "Besides, I feel naked without it."

  "You feel naked with it." He looked sternly at the outline of her breasts under the silk, then down at her bare feet. "How did you get past Immigration like that?"

  "All you need is a passport," she said. "John, you're an old fuddy-duddy. Why did you signal me to meet you in London?"

  He opened the attaché case. "To show you a pornographic movie."

  He removed a can of film from the attaché case and pressed the buzzer for his London secretary. She came in right away, a skinny, elfin-featured girl in an argyle miniskirt.

  "Yes, Mr. Farnsworth?" Her eyes widened when she saw Penelope's bare feet, but she covered nicely. John Farnsworth was her boss, but she was well aware that the Baroness Penelope St. John-Orsini was John Farnsworth's boss. "Oh, good afternoon, Baroness. I didn't see you come in. I had no idea you were in England."

  "I've just arrived," Penelope said. "When Mr. Farnsworth is through with you, Mavis, will you book me a suite at Claridge's. I don't think I'll be here long enough to bother opening up the flat."