Walking in Darkness by Charlotte Lamb Page A

Then she said, ‘Goodnight, Dad, see you soon. We can’t wait to welcome you to our home again.’
    ‘I can’t wait to be there. It seems years, not months, since I last saw you,’ he said, choked with sudden feeling, and heard her blow him a kiss before hanging up.
    He didn’t even have time to get back to the dressing-table to finish tying his tie when the phone rang again.
    This time it was the voice he had been waiting to hear. ‘I just heard on the local news that there was an accident on the subway this evening. A girl fell under a train.’
    Gowrie hadn’t expected that. He said blankly, ‘Fell under a train? What girl?’
    The voice was wary, no doubt remembering that there could be other ears listening to the calls he got on this line. ‘The Czech reporter – Sophie Narodni.’
    Cold pearls of sweat sprang out on Gowrie’s pale forehead. He sat down abruptly on his bed, no longer able to stay on his feet, and gripped the phone so tightly his knuckles showed white.
    ‘Is she dead?’
    As Catherine Gowrie put down the phone, an arm came up out of the bed and pulled her back into the warmth, the crumpled sheets, where they had made love an hour ago. A mouth nuzzled her neck, a hand cupped one of her naked breasts, her rounded flesh overflowing the hot crucible of fingers.
    ‘You and your father could talk the hind leg off a donkey. I thought you would never ring off. Chatter, chatter, chatter,’ Paul said. ‘There are better things to do in bed than talk. Mmm . . .’ His body pressed into her back, touching her from shoulder to ankle, and she felt the stirring rise of his flesh, heard his breathing quicken.
    ‘You’re insatiable,’ she said, laughing, half-incredulous, but feeling her insides melt as he began moving against her with that sweet, familiar insistence.
    ‘I can’t have enough of you, sweet Cat,’ he said, his lips parting on her nape, pushing aside her long silken hair, then beginning to trail down the deep indentation of her spine. He knew exactly how and where to touch her to arouse her. Shutting her eyes, she felt the rough brush of the hair on his thighs, the intimacy of his lips in the crease between her buttocks, seeking, sliding down, down, underneath and inward, until they found the heat and moistness hidden there, and she gave a groan of fierce pleasure.
    ‘Aaah,’ she moaned. ‘Oh . . . yes . . .’ Although they had made passionate love for half an hour so short a time ago, she was ready for him again. Her whole body was trembling, yielding, her bones waxen in her overheated flesh, as he turned her on to her back again and moved on top of her, entering her and slowly, slowly, tormentingly, began, refusing to let her hurry, rush on to the climax she was crying out to achieve.
    With no other man had she ever felt anything like this wild clamouring for release to which Paul could bring her. His body had a power over hers that had become an addiction from that first night together.
    They had met in Washington nearly a year ago, at a Christmas party given by a famous political hostess. Cathy had known almost everyone else in the huge, glittering room and had been a centre of attention as soon as she arrived. It had been a lively, noisy occasion, everyone dressed up like Christmas trees, jewellery blinding you on every side.
    She remembered the instant she first saw Paul. Their eyes had met, quite literally, across a crowded room. She had seen a tall, distinguished man with a striking, powerful face, dark eyes that seemed to pierce her to her very soul, hair still jet-black and thick. Older than her, in his late forties, she suspected, but then she liked older men. Young men were either obsessed with sex or with themselves, and bored her. She had been talking to a crowd of politicians and she had gone on talking, smiling, pretending to listen, while all the time she was only aware of this stranger on the other side of the room.
    She had had no idea who he was, except that he