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with something that wriggled and glistened blue-green in his fist. As though he sensed that he was being watched, the boy whirled around, scanning the wall of the forest. He spotted the man and the woman far above him and waved the trout in triumph. Jak shouted something to them, but the words were whisked away on the soft wes-terly wind.
“Supper should be good, lover,” Krysty whispered. “Come on, let’s walk some more.” She waved to Jak, and then she and Ryan stepped back out of sight of their companion on the beach.
As they made love on a bank of light green moss, shaded from the sun, Ryan kept the G-12 at his side. This place was as near to an Eden as anything he’d come across in the Deathlands. But that didn’t mean that it was free from serpents.
The foaming stream that fed the waterfall was only a few yards from them, chattering over the rounded stones. A miniature wading bird, wings darted with vivid tur-quoise and crimson, hopped and picked its way through the water. A gold-throated woodpecker hammered away at a live oak behind them, the thin sound of its rapping beak echoing around the forest. A mutie raccoon, no more than four inches long, skittered over the fawn car-pet of leaf mold, ignoring the lovemaking couple who watched it.
“Makes a change to see a mutie animal that’s gotten smaller,” Krysty said.
“I saw some bear tracks and what I guess is a bobcat,” Ryan said. “They looked a coupla weeks old. Mebbe more.”
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“Gaia, but I hope you’re right!” Krysty exclaimed, pretending to push Ryan off her, looking around. “A bobcat on top of me as well as you would be too much.”
Ryan moaned in pleasure as the girl laughed. When he was deeply buried in her, she was able to do amazing things with her stomach muscles, lying quite still, yet somehow sucking and caressing him with rippling waves of pressure. He lowered his face to hers, kissing her gently on the lips, tasting sun and salt on her skin.
“I love you, Ryan Cawdor,” Krysty whispered. The tip of her tongue danced over his lips, probing between his parted teeth. She sighed as he thrust harder against her, feeling his swelling climax racing closer. She began to pant, raggedly and urgently showing the nearness of her own release.
“Not yet, not yet, not yet,” she chanted, head rolling back. The long coils of her burning hair seemed to rise, brushing Ryan’s cheeks and shoulders with an odd, sen-tient life of their own.
“I can’t… can’t…”
“Soon, lover, soon…yes! Now, you fierce bastard, now!”
They fought to a mutual orgasm, Ryan collapsing on top of her, feeling as though the core of his soul had been sucked out from his loins. He could feel her powerful muscles, fluttering uncontrollably with the power of her own ecstasy.
“Fireblast,” he exclaimed. “How d’you like them ap-ples, lover?”
“I guess you don’t get many of them to the bushel, huh?”
Ryan rolled off her, wincing at the stickiness. “Where d’you get that expression from? Not many of them to the bushel!”
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Krysty grinned at him with the sleepy, contented face of a cat that’s gotten the best of the cream. “Back in Har-mony. Mother Sonja had a host of old sayings like that. Guess she never figured it’d be used for a real mind-blower like that.”
“Guess not.”
“Didn’t you have sayings like that, lover? Back in your own family.”
“Not that I recall.”
The smile slipped away, and she saw the tension come snapping back into his face, hardening the lines around his eye and mouth.
“Ryan?”
He stood up, turning away from her. She had a mo-ment to admire the muscular slimness of his naked body, his back, arms and legs seamed with a multitude of old scars.
“Ryan? I’m sorry I touched a nerve.”
“Don’t signify, lover.” He moved to the edge of the water and dipped a toe in it, whistling at the cold. “Feels like meltwater.”
“Going to bathe?”
“Hell, why not? Come join me.”
She gasped at the shock of the icy stream as she crouched to wash herself. She leaped out suddenly, run-ning on the cropped turf to try to get warm again. A ra-ven, wings carrying the polished sheen of sunlight, floated over the treetops, catching her eye.