Death Echo

of her closing around him at once.
    â€œGood thing we’re using your condoms,” she said huskily.
    â€œWhat?” he managed.
    â€œI was always told the bigger the man, the smaller the package. I was told wrong. If I’d stuffed you into the kind of condom I bought, you’d have been singing falsetto.”
    Laughing, groaning, Mac made a blind grab for his condoms in the bedside drawer. She straddled him and leaned down, giving hima full-body kiss, dragging her nipples through his chest hair. Then she replaced her hand with the wet ache between her legs. Slowly, she slid up, then down him, enjoying every bit of what she could reach.
    â€œYou’re not—helping,” he said, breathing hard, working the condom box open one-handed.
    â€œAm I doing—something wrong?” she said, her voice as breathless as his.
    â€œNo. That what’s wrong. Unless you want me going commando inside you in about three seconds, help me with this damn thing.”
    After one long, slow, reluctant glide, she shifted to take the condom package from him, opened it, and rolled it down him. Then her fingertip traced him from tip to root.
    â€œGlad this thing fits one of us,” she said.
    His eyelids went to half mast. “We’ll fit.”
    â€œSure?”
    â€œYeah.” He flipped both of them over and pushed slowly into her. “See?”
    Her breathing unraveled. “I love a man of his word.”
    He smiled, kissed her, tasted her, felt her tasting him. Their hands learned the feel of muscle and softness, cool hair and hot skin. He looked at her eyes, stormy green, and she laughed, biting his shoulder, sucking on him.
    Then it was too late for words or for anything but the steamy slide of flesh over flesh, the rushing climb and dizzying fall into satisfaction.
    When they recovered, they began all over again, slower, learning about themselves and one another and the kind of pleasure that created a whole world from two interlocked bodies.

51
    DAY FOUR
ROSARIO
9:15 P.M .
    S tan Amanar hung up the phone and concentrated on breathing past the rage and fear in his throat. When he no longer felt like he was at the dark end of a long downward spiral, he punched in his favorite cousin’s phone number.
    â€œWhat’s cooking?” Bob Lovich asked when he picked up the phone.
    â€œOur asses.”
    Lovich yawned into the phone. “Look, we’ve been pulling too many back-to-back shifts for games.”
    â€œThis isn’t a game. Is Janet home?” Amanar asked. “And the kids?”
    â€œYeah. What’s up with you?”
    Amanar let out a long breath. “Good. Good. Throw some clothes in an overnight bag and meet me at the public dock. A seaplane will pick us up in half an hour.”
    â€œAre you drunk?”
    â€œNo, and you better not be.”
    â€œStan? What’s wrong? Is Susie okay? The kids?”
    â€œThey’re fine. And they’ll stay that way as long as we meet that plane in thirty minutes.”
    â€œYou’re not making sense,” Lovich said.
    â€œShurik Temuri, you remember him?”
    â€œHell, yes. I was never so glad to see the back of a dude as when he left for—”
    â€œShut up and listen,” Amanar shouted. “Listen good. The lives of our families depend on it!”
    â€œWhat the—”
    â€œShut the fuck up.”
    Lovich took a harsh breath.
    And shut up.
    â€œI got a call,” Amanar said. “Don’t know who. He had an accent like Temuri’s. Told me the names of my wife, kids, your wife, your kids, our addresses, our individual schedules, where the kids get on the school bus, our license plates, every damn thing but what kind of toilet paper we use.”
    Lovich made a rough sound.
    â€œThen,” Amanar said, “he said that you and me had to be on that seaplane or he’d kill the kids in front of us, after he raped everyone.”
    â€œDid…” Lovich’s voice dried up. He swallowed several times and tried again. “You believe him?”
    â€œWhat choice is there? You think either of us can stand against weight like Temuri?”
    â€œShit,” Lovich said. Then he repeated it like a litany.
    â€œI’ll pick you up in five.”
    â€œShit,” Lovich said.
    Amanar punched out and started packing.

52
    DAY FIVE
DISCOVERY HARBOR
8:58 A.M .
    M ac and Emma rolled separate carts down the marina ramp and over sprawling