Cleopatra�s Perfume Read online

  Then, before she could lick the juices off her lips, he’d be inside her, satisfying her every desire with each thrust, pleasuring her until she burned for him, begged for him, her jaws locked, her sweat coating her nakedness with an icy crawl. When she cried out for him to stop, he wouldn’t. He’d make her pay for what she did to him. A tightness formed in his chest. Why did that bother him? Tear at his insides and drag from him a fragile part of his manhood he showed to no woman, swore he never would, yet she had exposed him for what he was?

  A desperate man.

  She’d ripped the peace and security from his life with one word, not knowing he was ready to sacrifice his personal needs and wants to go to war, to die if he had to, and it was that unsettling way she had of understanding him without knowing him, how since he was a kid his courage came from risking death, not living life, that made him want to grab her and fuck her so hard she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t take from any other man what she’d taken from him.

  One word, that’s all she said, but it sent him into a spiraling hell. He’d escaped once. He’d do it again. For now, he ignored the ranting of his poet’s soul, concentrating instead on the brilliant ruby nestled between two large iridescent pearls. He couldn’t stop thinking about how it resembled a woman’s wet pinkness hugged by throbbing pussy lips.

  She must have sensed his prurient thoughts because she pushed her lower body into his groin, making him uncomfortable. His erection strained against his pants, eliciting a moan from his lips. He didn’t protest when she stood on her tiptoes, making her breasts jut out and brush against him. He removed his jacket then unbuttoned his shirt, though he spent so much time staring at her naked body, he missed the last two buttons. Coming to his rescue, she pushed her breasts against his chest, then reached over and pulled down his zipper.

  “Returning the favor,” she murmured, then she unsnapped his boxers and slid a hand along each hip, making him harder, if that was possible. He couldn’t believe this female had his pants down, then his shorts, her hands exploring him like he was a prime bull. Isn’t that what the Nazi had ordered? Play the game of seduction or they’d find themselves answering questions down at Gestapo headquarters?

  Before he could stop her, she bent down and ran her slender fingers along his legs and untied his shoes. Her lips brushed his erection, and was that her tongue stinging his cock with a fleeting kiss of fire?

  Pulverized into action, he shed his shirt and tie, though his eyes didn’t leave her magnificent body. Not young, over thirty, but well cared for and pampered, befitting her noble station in life, though she professed to be American. Yet he had no doubt their lives depended on his sexual performance. Not more than fifteen feet from where they stripped off each other’s clothes, the SS officer awaited his turn.

  He couldn’t wait, his pants pushed down around his ankles with the beautiful woman trying to take his shoes off.

  “Our audience is getting restless,” he said, nodding toward the Nazi sitting atop a large boulder and cracking his whip against the granite. Massive chest, striking blond hair cut military short, bulging arms, massive thighs, the sometime personal bodyguard to Hitler observed their sexual antics with a loud, sadistic growl. Striding around in his high boots, the black-and-silver honor ring on his left hand sparking off the naked sun behind him, swinging his whip, he made it clear what he wanted them to do. Fuck. Hard and loud, while he watched. He loosened the collar on his black uniform, but the whip crackled at his side as he struck the ground with the well-used black leather.

  Chuck reached down, took her by the shoulders and pulled her up off her knees. She wiggled her hips then put her foot between his legs and stepped on his pants. Without missing a beat, she pushed her knee between his legs and wrapped her arms around him.

  “Let’s give him what he wants,” she whispered, her breath hot in his ear.

  “I don’t take orders from a woman,” he began, holding her tighter, his fingers pushing apart her thighs then dipping his fingers into her and circling the throbbing hard bud slick with her moisture. He knew she’d be wet. “Even one as beautiful as you.”

  “I don’t have time to massage your male ego,” she dared to tell him, making him squirm, then: “I have a job to do and whether you like me or my tactics doesn’t concern me.”

  Her urgent voice was anything but that of a woman in search of an orgasm. Job? This society dame? What was her game? He thought about giving her a piece of his mind, then decided he’d rather continue stroking her clit.

  She smiled, but not before taking in her breath along with a whiff of her desire. Her breasts lifted, making him groan. “I’m glad we understand each other.”

  “I don’t like the setup, why you strip yourself naked and allow your body to be a gift for any male who’s got a stiff dick.” He slowed down his stroking. “Are you so hungry for a man, any man to light a dark glow in the pit of your belly, make you scream for him to fuck you? Do you care so little about yourself, your body, your soul?”

  Why he went off like that, he didn’t know.

  “My personal needs are no concern of yours.” He thought he saw her eyes soften, the veil of illusion she was determined to keep up, which made her game bearable, torn from her pale face, then it was gone. “If you hadn’t recognized me, I would have been on my way and out of Germany. Now we may not get out of here alive.”

  So she also guessed the Nazi’s game.

  “If I don’t make it—” she began, then paused as if debating whether or not to continue “—retrieve my diary hidden in the false bottom of my steamer trunk at the Adlon and deliver it personally to my secretary, Mrs. Wills, in London.” She whispered her hotel-suite number in his ear, her words hot and breathy. “Tell her she must give the diary to a certain gentleman in the Foreign Office, she’ll know who I mean, before the Nazis discover the purpose of my trip to Berlin. And take the perfume with you. You may need it.”

  “Perfume?”

  “Cleopatra’s perfume. Please, don’t ask me any more questions.”

  He stared at her, not understanding but intrigued nonetheless. Probing, he asked, “What are you involved in? The truth or I’ll—”

  “Your country is not yet at war, but people you don’t know, I don’t know, are innocents in this madman’s game that threatens us all with his Final Solution.” As if on cue, she pinched her nipples, sighing as she did so. Though she took full advantage of his stroking, he sensed she attempted trying to put off climaxing until she had her say. “This is my chance to prove my life was not in vain, lived without a trace or shred of anything decent to say I was here. Please, do as I ask.”

  “What won’t you tell me?” He rubbed her clit harder, making her groan.

  “Oh, don’t stop…” she sighed, closing her eyes, the hard lines on her face disappearing, as if the mask she wore melted like a virgin’s resistance, this disguise she took on to fight back against the blows she suffered from an indignant world.

  He applied his fingers in a circular manner to her throbbing bud faster and faster until she couldn’t hold back. She cried out, a starkness to her beauty that shook him, a fierceness in her eyes that pulsated with fear then anger then pain. Then it was gone.

  She took a moment to catch her breath then became once again the quintessential blond vixen wrapped in her hunger for a man. Sweating, she threw her head back and cupped her breasts, twisting her nipples, then moaning, her eyes closed, her lips whispering, “Fuck me, now."

  Using the excuse this was no pulp-fiction plot but his life and he had no intention of losing it, he picked her up in his arms and laid her down on the soft white blanket in the sand. His heartbeat quickened when he felt her shudder underneath him. Then, teasing her, he inserted his impatient finger again and, feeling her wet, he plunged deeper, drawing his digit back and forth across the hard ridge of her clit, increasing his rhythm. He sensed she was exaggerating her emotions to impress the SS officer, gritting her teeth to avoid allowing herself to enjoy it. He moved
across her pleasure bud faster, stroking it, then bending down and drawing it between his lips and sucking at it, nibbling and torturing her with the tip of his tongue. He pressed her body to his lips and she shivered uncontrollably.

  He had her where he wanted her.

  He inserted two fingers and she trembled, her body arching upward, riding his hand, a rapturous expression on her face giving her away. He knew that expression well, whether it was the farm girls he’d fucked in the hay when he was barnstorming cross-country in his open-cockpit biplane or the sophisticated girls behind the perfume counter with their dark red lipstick and sheer black stockings. She was different. She was a member of the British aristocracy yet she possessed the same hunger for a man inside her, cock or tongue, she didn’t care. She wanted more, craved that glow in her belly that made wetness seep between her legs so she’d be slick and easy when he entered her.

  Without missing a beat, he removed his fingers then pushed apart her thighs and entered her, moving in and out, slowly at first, making her moan and begging him to go faster. He picked up his speed as her body matched his rhythm, stroke for stroke. Yet never did he take his eyes off her face, her mouth as red as the ruby ring she wore, her lips glistening with the same sparkle.

  Her eyes widened when he thrust deeper into her, her body closing around him, exciting him to the point where he couldn’t stop. The deeper he thrust, the more he swore she opened up to him, yes, but not in her eyes. Cool green eyes that made him shiver in spite of the heat of passion making their bodies sweat, eyes with enough dark green in them to shade her thoughts, her soul, something he wanted to see, had to, for only then could he satisfy her and himself.

  Grunting, he locked his body tighter onto hers with each thrust, his tall frame threatening to overtake her with his power. He held her by the hips, not too hard so he wouldn’t mark her skin, knowing when she reached that point of madness when neither of them could hold back, all reason would be lost. Then came pleasure, with its price to pay, for then he would also lose control and be at his most vulnerable.

  The crack of the whip echoed in his ears, closer now. The SS officer also enjoyed their excitement, relished it, but would he take advantage of them? He couldn’t take the chance.

  He pulled out, damn his own agony, sliding from her in one quick movement. She gasped, shook her head in denial. She was so close to that moment of release, her body shivered, her lower lip quivering, as she yelled, “You bastard!”

  Yes, he was a bastard and he hated himself for it. He could smell her juices mixing with her perfume, the scent so intoxicating he felt compelled to enter her again and finish her off. What was all this nonsense about Cleopatra’s perfume? A strange request she’d made, asking him to retrieve that and her diary. Was she nothing but a selfish hedonist after all? He held back, knowing he’d taken away what had been their pleasure and turned it into their pain, but he had no choice if they were to survive.

  “What the hell are you doing?” she asked.

  “I made you hot…for him."

  With a sly glance at her beautiful face, sweating, glowing, her eyes alight with excitement, begging him for more, he peeled open her lower lips, her juices nestled in her pink folds, and exposed her without shame to the man walking toward him, cracking his whip. The impact of black leather hitting the brown sandy dirt blew a small dust wind around them like smoke. He held his breath, refusing to inhale, then:

  “The woman is very beautiful and worthy of fucking an officer of the Reich,” the SS officer said in accented English, winding the whip around his hand. “If I were so inclined.”

  The flier turned toward the elitist officer, his senses alert. What the hell did he mean by that?

  “She would be honored to receive the cock of a member of the SS,” Chuck said, keeping his emotions in check.

  “I prefer to watch you fuck her,” said the Nazi, “while I amuse myself with a different game.”

  A large smooth hand slipped over his thigh, rubbing it with caution. The strong smell of Aryan maleness tinged with the spice of perversity invaded his nostrils. The game had changed and he didn’t like the smell of it.

  Why he didn’t make his move during the naked silence that followed, he didn’t know. Surprise, shock, fear? Not for his own life, but hers. Something about the fervent way she looked into his eyes and begged him to understand something else was at play here made him realize this was no ordinary tryst. But what?

  He looked around and caught the SS officer staring at him as he removed his black tunic jacket with its single shoulder strap and thin aluminum collar piping. It took all his strength not to rip off the cotton hand-embroidered SS armband or kick him in the balls when he dropped his black breeches. Not a smart move when he had a service weapon trained on him. He recognized the sleek Walther P-38 pistol. An excellent design. Fit the hand as smoothly as a black glove. He knew he was in deep trouble when he saw the Nazi release the safety and cock the hammer in one motion as he pulled it from his side holster under his black jacket. Unlike most Prussians he’d seen since he arrived in the land of boot clickers, this one didn’t need time to unwind. His firm, muscular body reeked of desire, sweat glistening off the twin lightning bolts tattooed on his forearm like a glaring spotlight.

  He made his interest in him clear, striding around in nothing but his high boots and his hat bearing the Death’s Head badge, the Totenkopf, swinging a whip and crackling it at his side as he struck the ground with the well-used black leather.

  Chuck tried not to show it but he couldn’t control his fast breathing, one hand behind his back to hide what he knew was his hand shaking. What bothered him was how he’d reacted to the warmth of the man’s hands on his skin. Damn, he was hot, ready to climax, and his touch, any touch, he told himself, would have made him explode. He wouldn’t accept any other explanation. He had no doubt if the Nazi tried to brush his skin again with that hand, he’d deck him. He’d heard rumors about the proclivity of certain members of the SS for sex with other men. They shunned the effeminate side of the equation, preferring raucous, beer-drinking sexual antics where a man’s cock found penetration of a different kind to his liking. Dark, secret places that made his skin fester as if purulent sores covered it.

  He scratched at his thigh, more from the crawling dread seeping over him than from the clouds of mosquitoes hiding in the thickets of dense shrubbery surrounding the lake.

  “I have a game,” said the Nazi, “one I’m certain you’ll both enjoy.”

  “And what if I don’t like your game?” Chuck dared to venture.

  “I’m sure we can accommodate the captain,” cried out the Englishwoman, her soft hair wisps clouding the nervous expression he’d seen in her eyes. “I’ll fuck you both!”

  “No,” said the SS guard. “I will fuck you both.” He grabbed the American’s buttocks with his large, smooth hand, making his stiffen. Chuck dug his fingers into his palm so hard he swore he pierced the skin.

  “I swear, if you touch me again—”

  The SS officer laughed. “You will fuck her, mein herr, and I will, as you Americans say, bring up the rear.” He laughed.

  “And if I refuse?”

  “There will be no exit visa.” He ran his hand along Chuck’s inner thigh then he snapped the whip against his flank when he tried to grab the gun away from the Nazi. The American grunted, pulling in his gut and swallowing the pain, rather than cry out.

  “I demand you take us back to Berlin,” Chuck said. “Your game has gone far enough.”

  “I’ll take you back—” the Nazi shoved the gun into his ribs “—straight to Gestapo headquarters to explain your presence in Berlin.”

  “I have no intention of explaining anything to you or your Nazi friends. America isn’t at war with Germany—”

  “Aren’t you forgetting our agreement?” the Englishwoman interrupted, her tone cold and formal, her coquettish mannerisms gone. She glared at Chuck, silently telling him to let her take over. Her look told him she wasn
’t playing games now that she knew the SS officer wasn’t interested in her.

  “It’s too late for that, Fräulein.” He pointed the gun at her. Chuck clenched his fists, ignoring the cascade of frenzy invading his brain. Whatever his personal feelings were in this game, he couldn’t allow the Nazi to strike her down in a stabbing flash of gunfire, bullets slicing along her belly, her breasts, jerking her straight up, spinning in a macabre dance of death.

  “No!” she cried out, the late-afternoon sun sparking off her ring and striking the Nazi in the eye, causing him to look away. Chuck gathered up a handful of gravel mixed among the sandy dirt and gripped it in his palm, waiting for the right moment to strike.

  “I regret having to destroy such a lovely female body,” the SS officer said, straining to perfect his aim in the harsh glare, “a perfect example of curve and line, but in the name of the Reich—”

  “Run!” Chuck cried out, then spun around and threw the handful of gravel into the Nazi’s face. The man jerked backward, his hat falling off and onto the sand. Chuck stomped on it, smashing the skull-and-crossbones SS insignia under his bare foot and ignoring the sharp pain digging into his flesh. Then, before the German could react, he kicked him in the groin so hard he screamed out, but not before his pistol fired and the bullet hit the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand.

  The Englishwoman didn’t wait. He watched in horror as she raced toward the lake, her white-blond hair shimmering around her shoulders like the crests of a wave. Then for an instant she pirouetted and stood on the large boulder, her arms folded across her breasts, her ruby-and-pearl ring catching the eye of the sun and making it flutter. Her last look was at him, her eyes begging him not to forget her. Then, another shot. The Nazi. Before he could get to her, she screamed then dived into the lake. Seconds, only seconds, yet he’d never forget that look.