Darkest Love (17 page)

He kept grinding, surprising himself when he turned his attention from her to his own cock and felt joy surge through it, like a reward for his selflessness. He started to pump harder, letting the satisfaction of the pounding dissolve his brain. He forgot himself. There were only breasts, a face and the sweet space between Annie's legs.

* * * *

“Mmmm.”

Rain's face was above Annie's. His eyes were full of ecstasy and lust. His hands squeezed Annie's breasts, grabbing them in a few handfuls until he had covered the whole of both of them with his fingerprints.

“Oh, Rain.” Both of them were moaning as he slid in and out to the rhythm of the waves behind them. Above Rain's head the first stars of the evening were appearing, winking at her over his shoulder like cheeky voyeurs.

“Oh!” Annie gasped as the first orgasm of the night rushed through her. It was sound-tracked by the crash of a wave and accompanied by the slide of those ecstatic hands down her stomach. Rain moaned in empathy.

“Go for it. Yeah, baby.” His hands arrived on her hips. They squeezed again, harder this time, and a hiss—or was it a soft swear issued from his lips? Rain was squeezing every part of her body, territorially; as if by grabbing each mound of supple flesh in his hands he could mark it as his.

His eyes played along her length. It was definitely a turn-on to feel so wanted. Every time her breasts jumped, his eyes swung back to them like the eyes of a child who sees his mother's dough-drenched baking spoon. Every time Annie moaned Rain's lips parted too, in empathy. There was a glazed look in his eyes. He was doing it all unconsciously.

He was animal to his core. Annie loved it.

She came again. Rain encouraged her with his voice and with a thumb on her clitoris, pressing firmly in the way she liked. Those firm, flat, presses! A tingle moved from her clit all the way up her body. Annie pressed her tongue between her teeth and hissed. It was
too
good. It felt like a sweet, shimmering current of electricity moving under her skin, spreading from her thighs and sending pleasure to all her nerves. Every time Rain's hand pressed her bead it rejoiced, filing with a sensation that was…lush. Brilliant red. That was the best way Annie could have described it: A RED feeling. Lush and red as the blood that flowed to the clit, eager to reach the spoiled area, like a flock of admirers making a beeline for a rich girl.

My lucky clit. She is a spoiled girl indeed.

Rain watched with satisfaction as the orgasm exploded, jiggling her breasts and rocking her face from side-to-side against that backdrop of sand and shell.

When Annie's eyes opened Rain took his thumb from her bead and lost it himself, pumping without mercy. She could tell he relished her squeaks; the dominating corners in his brain came alive when they heard those high pitches. It was the squeak of a mouse, and he was the tiger come to devour it.

When he came his whole body shook. Annie cried out as his last pump slid across her g-spot. Corners of passion and tension unlocked deep inside her and a shockwave moved out, carrying those lush feelings like cargo to the outer reaches of her body.

Soon they were both on their backs, panting. Annie blinked up at the sky, trying to catch her breath and avoid the light-assault from the setting sun. Shell sediment poked behind her head but her body was satisfied and the man beside her on the sand was all she'd ever wanted.

Annie surprised Rain with an announcement when he was mixing gin and tonic back in the hut. “I think I'll go back to Sydney for a visit, Rain. I want to call New York. I've been in Sivu for six months. My friends could be dead for all I know.”

Rain chuckled wearily at her morbidity, leaning across to pinch her nipple.

She grasped his hand. “And I'm going to find out about these photographers,” she continued. “What their storyis. With any luck their travel to Sivu is raising eyebrows, and the Australian government will step in, limiting travels from the area.”

“How do you know they're from Australia?” Rain yawned, taking his hand back from its lock over her breast and stretching his arms over her head.

“I'm assuming,” Annie admitted. “If they're paps from New Caledonia, or Papua, getting some pennies from the Daily Mail, it will be harder to put a stop to it. The government will see their work as a much-needed economic import from the West.”

Rain laughed. “New money flowing from the British tabloid press to the New Caledonian amateur photograph industry?”

“Yes.”

Rain gripped Annie's hand again. She was so smart, so dedicated, so insightful and sharp. Every time they journalled together, he felt like he was working with his perfect foil. They were two halves of a pair of scissors—sharper together than they were separately. She would raise points he hadn't thought of and come up with metaphors that made his brain spin. Having her around brought new color to his writing.

The best part was that he did the same for her. “Sometimes when I think I've nailed my writing,” she said, “when I've polished a passage or finished a section of an essay, you'll start me thinking again. You'll just say a few words and it sends new thoughts flying into my head. I go back to my writing with fresh eyes. It really helps me to hone the ideas. The words end up sharp as tacks. I go back later and read my work and think,
Wow. Did I write that
?”

She had paused, giving his shoulders a rub. “WE wrote it.”

Rain was warmed by the memory. Yes, he would miss Annie. However…he would also relish the time alone.
I can explore this thing with Sola.
Looking at Annie through the corner of his eye, a thought entered Rain's brain:

I can explore the risks–and the possibilities–in peace.

If Sola came on to him again, would he do it? Rain wasn't sure. He definitely hadn't ruled it out.

* * * *

“What do you mean, ethical scandal? People are upset?”

Annie had not even known the Association for Feminist Agitation had an Australian branch. And yet here they were: ladies just as vocal and passionate as the members of the New York branch, only with more air flowing through their noses when they pronounced certain vowels.

“Absolutely,” said the tunic-clad woman at the front, startling Annie. Sometimes that Australian ‘a' was so grating it made her jump. “Rain Mistern is seen as an inappropriate candidate for research on Sivu.”

Annie looked at the faces in the conference room. There was such a variety of women. She marveled at the variety in the dress, ages and faces of the attendees and how closely they had clustered, taking up the front-center seats. There were lots of them, too; only a few chairs at the back and sides of the large space were empty.

Annie's eyes darted around. There were student-aged women in Pink Floyd t-shirts, professionals still in work attire, and retirees wearing garb that looked like an import from the 1930s. There were women of various races. There was attire from many different subcultures. Hairstyles marked owners as members of different socioeconomic classes. There was even a woman so pregnant she looked like she was about to pop. Real solidarity!
So much for feminism being a splintered movement.
It would have made Annie's heart cheer if they weren't after Rain's blood.

Annie gulped, marveling at the odds. Gloria Steinem and Germaine Greer hadn't been able to unite women under one banner; their books caused disagreement as often as they pulled women in to a consensus.

But now! Here was something every woman could get behind:
Rain's dismissal.

It took Annie's man to enrage people so much they forgot their differences. What a world.

You'll be the death of all of us, Rain.
Annie sent that thought to him silently before meeting the eyes of the spokeswoman and responding: “You cannot
order
the academy to pull Doctor Mistern from his research trip.”

“We can, and we will!” yelled a woman from the back.

“If we yell loud enough,” added a dreadlocked female student.

Annie cleared her throat, disturbed by the way they were staring at her. The eyes pierced her, and Annie knew there was a question behind those eyes: “Annie Childs, why are you sticking up for that pig?”

She also knew that speculation was swirling in the minds of these women:
Is it because
you're sucking his dick?

They were probably just dying to say that. The conference would descend into a swearing insult-fest, and they'd have a good write-up for their magazine. And one for the university paper. Annie did a lot of collaborations with specialists at Sydney University. She could imagine them spitting their lattes out over such an article. Research would definitely suffer; no peer-reviewed article can compete with a saucy headline detailing what a slut's colleague is.

Snapping back to the conference room, Annie eyed the opponent down. “I don't see how a dismissal is going to happen. You cannot go to the Dean. Universities don't allow public opinion to skew decisions. It's strict policy. Rain Mistern is the leading specialist on South Pacific tribal iconography, so I don't see how you are going to make a case that he should be replaced.”

“He is a sexist.”

“He is the leading specialist. If you got him kicked out, the Board of Higher Education would get involved. It would probably go to the press. People would start asking why personal issues and tabloid gossip are interfering with academic staffing decisions and undermining the research process. They'd ask why a lesser researcher has replaced Mr. Mistern, wasting time and money and lowering the standard of work. All because people got upset about a few irrelevant junk-mag headlines. About his
personal life
, for Christ's sake.”

“Personal character must be taken into account,” huffed the spokeswoman, pressing her clipboard to her chest. She uncrossed and recrossed her legs defensively on her chair, bringing a spiky Marc Jacobs pump into Annie's field of vision. “Especially given that Rain Mistern is a
public
intellectual. The public is waiting for his views on this phenomenon, Miss Childs.” The woman peered at Annie through spectacles that squeezed her pointy nose. Annie curled her lip at the impression of nastiness and tightness. This woman was not budging. “Australia is waiting to hear about Princess Sola. America too.”

“Don't call Sola
a phenomenon
,” Annie shot competitively, feeling uppity about this. “She is a human being.”

“Rain Mistern's views will be read eagerly. Voraciously. They will be read by everyone from teenage girls to elderly gentlemen to laypeople to scholars… and everyone in between,” the woman powered on, ignoring Annie. “Daily Mail journalists are already writing swooning articles about the princess's beauty and making crass jokes about Rain Mistern's interest in ‘the iconography of the female body'. It's making a mockery of the discipline of anthropology.”

“It's just too much to bear!” yelled the student from the back. “That pig will get so much glory for what he writes. He'll probably make a million from his next book. And that book will be filled with rubbish about women's submissive nature and volatile emotions, and how those things are biologically based.”

“They're saying Mistern discovered Sola,” said another woman. “When he didn't. I know the linguistics expert, Paulo Doobie, who was the first to see her.

“
Discovered' Sola?
” Annie scoffed. She suddenly had an awful premonition about the extent of public interest and the sort of trashy players who were getting involved. The Association for Feminist Agitation meant well, but who else had entered this debate? Who had set this disrespectful, backwards tone? The ladies from AFA would never normally use such language.

There were clearly other players all around, eager to get a finger in the pie. To be part of the
phenomenon
. The Daily Mail?
Oh, Lord. Who else?

Annie realized she was sweating. But it wasn't from nerves. A weird sort of agitation and fury was rising up within her. Behind the feeling was a sense of injustice. Why, whenever she tried to explore her deep feelings, did she have to face the ire of others? She thought she had found a perfect symbiosis with Rain. He had suppressed violence that needed expression; she had feelings of persecution that needed to be unlocked, and cleared away.

She glanced around. Every pair of eyes was staring at her—needy, insistent, and unhappy.
Judging
. Why was she always being judged? And why did Rain have to behave like such a peacock? Everybody knew all the details of his life.

Journalists are probably talking to all the women he's fucked
, Annie reasoned to herself, though it didn't make her feel much better.

A hot streak of anger ripped up Annie's body. The AFA had ambushed her as soon as she arrived in Sydney, saying she must attend a meeting and hear their concerns. All she'd wanted was to find out about the photographers on Sivu and to protect the rights of the Kaamo by stopping the flow of interested Western incomers.

To do her fucking
job.

“You do not know Rain Mistern,” Annie hissed, locking her eyes on a timid-looking woman at the back to get her nerve up. The woman cringed visibly. “The people in the academy do. They know him as a smart man.”

“A fucking lothario. He treats women like garbage,” said another student.

“Where did you read that? The Daily Mail? Or was it Who magazine?”

“Check your tone, Miss Childs. These women are here because they are concerned,” boomed the spokeswoman.

“Was it next to an article about Kim Kardashian?” Annie persisted.

“Did you promise to help him after you sucked his cock?” That came from the back.

“I have!” Annie roared, suddenly furious. “I have had sex with Rain Mistern. And done all that other stuff. Yes.” She could feel her heart jackhammering. Her eyes darted across like birds of prey to find the last speaker. Several mouths were opening, ready to spit their own insults. A murmur of chatter rose up. “And you know what?”