Jack is taking his second shower of the day.
The first one, the one with Katya standing nearby, was enjoyable in ways both complex and simple; now, he scrubs so harshly that his skin is becoming raw. The aftermath of passion is still on him, and he both revels in it and despises himself for it.
He didn't force her. He would never force her, or anyone. Irina wanted him, wanted him so badly that even the memory of the look in her eyes makes him shake, and the whole damn setup was her idea. But for a few minutes, Jack knew a pleasure he'd never known before - darker and more brutal than he'd known he possessed. And he is not unacquainted with his own brutality.
That, too, would've been Irina's idea. Jack closes his eyes and would lean his head against the shower wall if it weren't revoltingly mildewed. He still cannot predict Irina's quicksilver mind, but he has become exceedingly good at interpreting the tracks she leaves behind. So he doesn't know why she wanted to show him this within himself, only that she did.
Holding his wet hands to his face, Jack breathes in deeply. Maybe he should just accept that he liked it, that she liked it, and that it's over. Easy to say, difficult to do.
And he would at least have thought that having sex with Irina again - having sex with anyone again after a year and a half of total deprivation - would have sated some of the desire that's been boiling inside him. But he remembers the taste of Irina's breast in his mouth, the feel of her fingertips on his cock, and knows that he needs her even worse than before.
Dammit. Jack puts his face beneath the shower nozzle and lets the water pound on his cheeks and eyelids. It's getting colder and it helps him focus.
After all, he only has about an hour to plant explosives.
**
Eduardo's men laugh and grin and smile in his direction as he makes his way around the compound. Even the ones who hated him - many of them - seem to like him now. He's finally behaved in a way they understand. Their oily glee makes it that much easier for Jack to slip the last C4 charge into a crevice on a far wall and set the remote detonator.
He runs into Eduardo shortly after that. Eduardo's heavy-lidded eyes are still jealous. "Bet you wish you hadn't taken it so easy on her yesterday, huh, Ingo? Knowing you had all that waiting for you."
"She's a woman." Jack shrugs, the slightest motion he's sure Eduardo will perceive. "Better than the whores you brought here, but still - just a woman."
"I could do something with that." Eduardo isn't asking permission; his pride wouldn't allow it. But he is making his intentions clear.
"Tonight, perhaps," Jack says. "After dark. We'll question her together, you and I."
Eduardo's smile is slow and fluid. He has no idea that by nightfall, he'll be dead - or Jack will. Right now, he's enjoying the thought of raping Jack's wife, and Jack imagines the far wall collapsing on top of Eduardo, burying his worthless corpse in rubble.
Or slicing his throat open with whatever sharp object might come to mind.
Or, if Jack gets even more pissed off and Eduardo gets even more unlucky, just leaving him for Irina to deal with.
Jack returns the smile and heads to the side of the compound farthest from the explosives, and closer to Irina.
**
A tropical bird perches not far from the window where Jack is waiting. Its brilliant plumage matches the sunset - purple and red and gold. Almost without recognizing what he's doing, Jack shoos it, and it flutters off in a burst of color like confetti.
Any moment now. Any moment. If Katya's coming, she should be here any moment. Really, she should've been here by now, but Jack's not going to worry about that, not until it gets dark - until it gets darker -
Just as the horizon glimpsed through the branches becomes really dark, just as he starts to give up, Jack hears it: a rat-tat-tat that's not as loud as he was expecting. But then, it never is.
A shout. Another shot. The first skirmish.
Jack takes the detonator from his pocket, braces himself against an internal wall and presses down.
The explosion is vibration first - so hard it makes him stumble - then a roar of sound - then a rush of hot air and dust that sprays around him and makes him choke. As he pulls his shirt over his mouth, the floor tilts violently beneath his feet.
He realizes that the compound was more shoddily built than he'd thought - and he hadn't given it that much credit to start with. That means he has to get to Irina immediately, or Eduardo's men won't have a chance to kill her before she's buried alive.
As fast as he can, with the walls trembling around him, Jack gets down the stairs. Windowpanes are shattering, men cursing, guns firing - the cacophony would drown out Irina's voice, if she were calling to him. But Jack suspects that, even now, she's not calling for him.
When he bursts into the basement, Irina's already out. They must have pulled her from her makeshift cell to try and get away with her as a captive, but she's already made it clear that she won't be cooperating. One of the guards is laid out on the floor in a sprawl. The other, a man in a mustard-yellow shirt, is fighting with her now. Jack winces as the man's fist swings toward Irina's head, but she ducks it handily, then slams her cuffed fists into his gut.
Jack wants to call her name, but he knows better than to distract her during a fight. Instead he just goes for his gun.
The remaining guard lunges at her, and Irina dodges that too - but she stumbles back, losing her balance for just a moment. Jack aims at the yellow shirt and fires. His target explodes in blood and falls backward.
Irina stares at the body, then whirls around, furious. "That one was MINE."
"You're welcome."
Another guard appears - one of the younger ones, eyes crazed with both fear and a kind of bloodthirsty exhilaration. This one has hated Ingo Krauss from the beginning, and when he sees his enemy and the prisoner standing together over two of his dead comrades, he goes for his gun. Jack wheels toward him, but Irina is even faster; in a flash, she elbows the man in the throat. As he gags for breath, she gets her cuffed hands around his neck and snaps it with an audible crack. The corpse tumbles to the ground, and Irina grins at her handiwork.
Honestly, Jack says to himself, I used to think about this woman when they played "Annie's Song" on the radio.
"Where's Katya?" she says.
"We'd better find out. I wouldn't count on the compound being intact in five minutes." Eduardo Reyes hasn't shown his face during the attack, and that concerns Jack; he owes it to the CIA to either bring Reyes in or make sure he's dead. But right now, he owes it to Irina and Katya to put their safety first. Reyes can wait.
They don't bother trying to unfasten Irina's cuffs. Instead, they just run up the steps and into the dirt lot outside. The vehicles that belonged to this compound are all on fire, and he hopes like hell they don't have full tanks. Irina runs straight toward a van near the far end of the lot, and Jack follows her.
Just as they reach it, the side door slides open, and Katya smiles at them. "There you two are," she says, as if they were late for brunch.
Irina pulls herself in, and Jack follows, slamming the door behind him. He doesn't look back, but as the driver pulls away, he can see the orange flames of the compound lighting up the night.
**
The trip back to the Lastochka is mostly taken up with picking the lock on Irina's cuffs and various radio calls to the men still finishing up the compound's destruction. They don't spot Reyes, but everything else goes well, and by the time the lights of Rivas trace the shape of the shoreline, Irina's hands are free. Her wrists are slightly raw, but she grins as she rubs the sore places, as though she relishes the prospect of scars.
Jack is shown to a stateroom - not Katya's. A quick check of drawers and shelves reveals that it's not Irina's either, just his own. The message is that he is to wait for Irina's cue, and Jack wonders when, precisely, he's ever been at liberty to do anything else. But the rancor that would once have accompanied that sentiment is gone.
Some, but not all. He can deal with the rest later. For now, he takes his third shower of the day.
When Jack emerges, fresh clothing is waiting for him - a couple of loose linen shirts and khaki slacks that appear to be in the right sizes, as well as a pair of sandals he'd wear right around the time hell froze over. After consideration, he elects to remain barefoot.
He strolls out onto the deck to find Irina and Katya sitting on low chairs, sipping red wine. They're each wearing loose cotton dresses in brilliant local prints - going native. Irina smiles at him and holds up her glass, as if in a toast. "Chateau Rothschild '79?"
Jack holds out his hand, and Irina pours from the decanter. To Katya he says, "Thanks for the clothes."
"You certainly needed them," she says briskly.
For the first time, it hits him that that the conflict between his love for Irina and his desire for Katya should be a problem now. Instead, being here - with both sisters easy and relaxed, smiles on both their faces as they look at him and each other - makes his inner confusion seem stupid and juvenile.
Irina knows everything. She always does. If it were going to be a problem, it would be by now. Maybe just being with them both sets everything right. Maybe making love with Irina tonight (and he cannot imagine that she won't come to him, or bring himself to call what happened earlier today "making love") will finally break the fever that's possessed his mind for months.
(And then he won't have to think about this morning, about what happened there, what it means for him, for them --)
At any rate, the company he's keeping has changed for the better.
"We picked up our chef in New Orleans," Irina informs him as she hands him his glass. "How does some file gumbo sound?"
"Perfect." He lifts the wine to his face, breathes in a scent so rich and thick that it seems to curl at the back of his tongue.
"Some people," Katya says with a teasing, sidelong glance at her sister, "think carrying a wine cellar aboard a freighter is an unnecessary indulgence."
Irina rolls her eyes. "Imagine that."
"If you think I'm going to take sides with file gumbo and excellent wine at stake, you're quite mistaken," Jack says. He sips the Chateau Rothschild and discovers the flavor is the scent, only more powerful.
"That's my wise Jack," Irina says, patting his forearm, the touch hot as fire. "Choosing between goddesses never goes well."
"Not for the mortals, no." Jack steps between the chairs and offers each of them an arm. "Let's eat."
Dinner goes well. The gumbo is good, the wine better, and there's fresh bread to dunk in the spicy sauce. They get on the subject of favorite meals of childhood (Jack hasn't thought of his mother's French toast in at least 20 years), which makes Irina and Katya start reminiscing. They tell him about Leningrad, about the cramped little apartment they shared with their parents and grandparents and Elena. Each insists that the other was the more incorrigible child, and backs it up with evidence: Irina rolling her skirts up from her knees to mid-thigh at age 13, Katya brazenly stealing a lipstick from the handbag of a visiting diplomat's wife. Half of the fun is comparing these trivial crimes with what they get away with now.
"You must have some adventures of your own to share," Katya insists. "Girls you sneaked upstairs late at night. Or cigarettes in the backyard, perhaps?"
Jack's father died when he was 5, his mother when he was 7. The rest of his childhood was spent on the farm of a distant relative with teenage sons, all of them as silent and weathered as old railroad ties. His primary memory of being young is of doing chores. "When I was 15, I stole a bottle of Jack Daniels and nursed it for about a month before I was caught. I drank maybe a shot a week. Thought I was a rebel."
Katya laughs; Irina doesn't. Of course, Irina remembers the story from the days when he told his girlfriend Laura why he had no family. At the time he thought that was something they shared. His wife strokes his shoulder, and her smile is unusually soft.
Jack realizes that they've never had a night like this - without the grief or pain of Sydney's supposed death outweighing everything else, without the lie of Laura Bristow shielding Irina's true self. This is the first time they've ever been able to just sit and talk and laugh, like normal lovers do. Of course, "normal" is a relative term.
It's never been like this before. Tonight - when they're together - it will be unlike any other night. His love for Irina fills him with a kind of quiet jubilation, and when their eyes meet, he wills her to see that he understands this. She must understand it already. She would.
The incident this afternoon could have been a thousand years ago. Jack wants it to remain that way. Maybe, tonight, when Irina comes to him, he'll forget about it entirely.
He still lets his gaze linger on Katya from time to time; he finds her as beautiful as he ever did, and what man wouldn't? But, as he'd hoped, being with the two of them together is beginning to set things in order in his mind. What he feels for Katya is infatuation - a pleasant glow that warms their conversation and lights their eyes. But placed next to his love for Irina, freed from the viselike grip of need that had caged him, that attraction takes on its proper perspective. Jack senses that Katya sees this, understands and doesn't resent them for it.
In other words, everything is going perfectly. Jack distrusts this feeling, as a rule. Yet tonight - Pacific breeze blowing through the portholes, the wine soft on his tongue, Irina's hair burnished copper in the light of the hurricane lamp - he's willing to let himself believe that maybe, just maybe, all is as it seems.
It takes only another 15 minutes for this belief to bite him in the ass.
When dinner's been cleared away and they're each finishing off a second glass of wine, they stroll out to the deck. Jack sits in a low bench that offers a view of the Pacific, hoping Irina will sit by him. "How long will you remained docked here?" he says.
Irina shrugs, then gestures Katya to the bench. Katya's expression is odd for a moment, but she takes her place by his side. "Depends," Irina says. "How long will you stay?"
He's already calculated this; it's not nearly as long as he'd like, but it's more time than he'd ever thought they'd have just a couple days ago. "I should make contact with the CIA late tomorrow afternoon. I'll report on an attack at the Reyes compound, say that I escaped and hid out until now. It would help if you'd leave their weapons caches alone."
It's Katya who replies. "We don't need them." She is studying Irina, her eyes intent. The wind has shifted now, and blows toward the sea.
"You won't report me," Irina says. It's not an order; he needs the secrecy as much as she does. "Will you mention Katya?"
"I didn't before, even to people who would have thanked her," Jack says, with a nod in Katya's direction. She smiles in reply, but it doesn't reach her eyes. Something has begun to weave between them now - tension, though not necessarily of a bad kind. Jack's not sure yet. "Seems like a bad time to begin."
Irina says. "That depends on the beginning." She turns around, and the fire of challenge is in her eyes. "I heard you two hit it off."
"We did." Jack has been prepared for this; he doesn't expect Irina to overreact, but he expected her to react. But why is she doing this now? Why is she drawing in Katya just at the moment when the two of them should be leaving together?
"I always thought you were a good kisser, but it's nice to have independent confirmation." Irina is studying Katya's face now.
Katya smiles, and there's none of the defensiveness Jack would've expected. "Think of the oafs you could've been given to, Irina. How lucky you were." She turns to gaze at Jack then, allowing no doubt as to the sincerity of her appreciation.
Irina steps just a little closer. She's pushing him now - daring him - though to what, he doesn't yet know. "What about Katya?" she says. "What did you think of her?"
"She's a beautiful woman." Does she honestly think this interrogation's going to shake him? Irina's got more sense than that.
She shrugs, just a little. "Forgive me. I'm not jealous. I'm - curious. What was it like, when you kissed? I'd like to know."
Irina's not jealous. But she's not curious. She's trying to rattle him, God knows why. Usually she can do that without even trying.
Jack decides - not tonight. No, for once, he's going to beat Irina at her own game.
"It was a lot like this," Jack says, sliding one hand around Katya's waist as the other brushes her cheek. For a split second, she simply stares - then leans toward him. Their mouths meet, and the kiss is exactly like the one they shared before: just as intense, just as passionate, just as surprising. The knowledge that Irina is watching only amplifies his excitement.
Maybe she'll be furious. Jack would love to make her furious - to know he'd thrown her off her game, even for a moment. Maybe she'll be hurt, and he knows down deep that sometimes he thinks it would be worth it, just to know that he could affect her that much. And then Katya's mouth opens wider beneath his, and for a moment he can only think of her.
When they pull apart, Jack sits back and raises an eyebrow at Irina. She has watched them, lips parted slightly, body still. But as he studies her, he realizes she's not upset. She's not angry.
Irina's turned on.
(Sydney has a phrase that has always driven Jack mad: "We're in a weird area." It's imprecise, and it describes nothing, and so he doesn't like it when his daughter says that. But now he knows, at last, what that phrase means - this is the weird area, and he has just arrived in it.)
He says the first thing that comes into his very confused mind: "I didn't think you were into watching."
Irina shrugs. Her smile is slow and predatory, and the night's heat seems to have sunk into his very skin. "I never imagined that - watching you. But I liked it."
He looks at Katya then; the only thing he's sure of is that Katya's not nearly as surprised as he would've thought. Her eyes lock with his, but it's her sister she speaks to. "You remember our soldier, don't you, Irina?"
That low laugh of Irina's, the aroused light in her eyes - Jack remembers that so well. "You're one step ahead of me, Katya."
"Your soldier?" Jack can't decide if he doesn't want to know this story or if he wants to know it far too much.
Irina's broad hands settle on his shoulders, kneading the tired muscles there. Just her touch makes Jack shudder, but it's Katya's hands he's holding, Katya's fingers he grasps tighter. Irina whispers, "We were girls. I'd only just entered university. One night - he was handsome, and we'd all had a lot to drink --"
"We both liked him," Katya continues as Irina laughs again. "We nearly fought over him in the bathroom. And then we thought how silly it was to fight."
"He didn't mind our compromise." One of Irina's hands slips into the open collar of his shirt; the feel of her touch on his skin makes his head reel. But she isn't offering herself to him tonight. Irina is simultaneously offering him something far more generous and far more controlling. Jack wants to know what he thinks about this, as long as he can still think straight, which he suspects won't be for much longer. Nearby, a boat rings a bell, the sound of it echoing with the waves.
He lifts Irina's wrist to his mouth and kisses it. She murmurs something wordless as she presses her lips against the side of his neck. Katya's eyes are hungry as she watches them, but she's still smiling, still caressing his hand. Amazing, how sexy that is - just the brush of fingertip on fingertip.
Jack envisions their soldier, 30 years ago, and feels an irrational stab of jealousy. But it fuels the slow fire building inside him. "I'm sure he didn't mind," he says, surprised to hear how low and rough his voice has become.
"What about you, Jack?" Irina's breath is warm against his ear. "Would you mind?"
What is it Irina wants from this? How does this work to her advantage? All Jack knows is that she's calling his bluff -- and that means he's going to call hers.
Jack turns and captures her mouth with his, kissing her deeply. As soon as their lips part, he turns to Katya and kisses her with equal hunger. Irina groans as she runs her fingernails down his back, just hard enough for him to know what she could really do if she tried. "Now," he whispers against Katya's cheek.
It's Katya who pulls away from their entanglement; her pale cheeks are flushed, and she looks almost girlish for a moment. "My stateroom," she says, holding out a hand to each of them.
"Why your room?" Irina's pique is comically childish - she's grinning, and Jack halfway expects her to stamp her foot. But the question is serious, as Katya probably knows.
Katya just laughs. "This is my ship, remember? That means I have the biggest bed."
**
None of it seems real - Jack feels as though he's drunk, or high, or delirious from the unending heat. But it is real, all of it. The curve of Irina's arms as she unties the black ribbon from her hair. Katya's breasts pressing against his back as she reaches around him to unfasten his shirt. The way their hands briefly intertwine as they brush against his cock.
The cotton dresses they're wearing slip off in an instant. They're both naked and sprawling back on the bed while he's still getting out of his trousers. And thank God, because Jack would not have wanted to miss this view: Irina, lean and golden and angular; Katya, smooth and rosy and soft. Only one lamp's light illuminates them, but it's all Jack needs. They are a Modigliani and a Renoir, similar mostly in their perfection. He doesn't know what kind of a figure he can possibly cut beside them, but when he's finally standing naked at the foot of the bed, their eyes are eager, and Irina holds her arms out for him.
"Jack," she whispers, and he goes to her. To them.
Within a few minutes he's learned that the best way to balance between them is not to try to balance - to just go with it, not to think, to obey his body and ignore his mind. One moment he's taking Irina's nipple in his mouth, teasing her gently; the next he's dipping his fingers between Katya's legs, stroking and probing, testing her heat. The sisters help him with this delicate equilibrium, one giving him attention as the other accepts it, pulling and pushing, the moon and the tide.
He wonders, through the haze of need that enfolds him, if they'll love each other - he never imagined sisters doing that, although the mental picture has some appeal. They don't, though. When Katya and Irina touch each other, it's gentle, even sensual, but their pleasure waits for him. Their touches are smaller things - Katya brushing her palm over Irina's forehead as Irina writhes beneath Jack's hand. Irina bracing Katya's back as she arches up, lifting her breasts to Jack's waiting mouth.
Irina is the first to slide down his body, to kiss his belly and the hard bone of his pelvis. When Jack stifles a groan, she gives him a wicked smile and slides off the side of the bed, kneeling to get the best angle. Jack pushes himself up, and Katya's arms slide around his waist, as if she's bracing him.
But when Irina dips her face between his legs, a lock of hair falls against his erection, and she has to brush it out of the way.
"I told you this style has advantages," Katya laughs, and Jack runs one hand over her seal-fur hair. But then she moves away from him and sits on the floor behind Irina, her pale hands in Irina's dark hair as she pulls it back.
"Thanks," Irina murmurs, just before her mouth closes over Jack's cock. The heat of her mouth sears him, as does the sight of Katya, gently braiding Irina's hair the whole time Irina goes down on him. He can't breathe in deeply enough, can't get enough air to fuel his fevered mind.
Just when Irina has him so hard it hurts, just when he's begun thrusting in her mouth with real intent, she pulls away, leaning back against Katya. "My turn," Katya says, hugging her sister.
"I want to watch this," Irina replies, crawling away from Katya to take her place on the bed. Her hair is gathered back in its messy braid, the sexiest Jack has ever seen it.
When Katya's tongue traces up the shaft, Jack breathes out one word, "Yes." It's all he can possibly think or say. Irina begins massaging his shoulders again, working her way down his back while Katya continues her ministrations. Katya does this differently - not better, not worse, just different in the strokes of her tongue and the rhythm of her touch - and the effect on his system is galvanic. Jack cups the side of Katya's face in one hand, reaches behind his back to tangle fingers with Irina with the other. Irina responds by leaning around and kissing him, hard.
Katya gets him in deep, and she sucks just right, and Jack tenses. "Wait," he says, pulling out of her mouth. "We have to wait." There comes a time in a man's life when he has to choose the moment more carefully. Why didn't Irina and Katya make this offer when he was 25?
"We'll wait," Katya murmurs, dropping a wet kiss on the very tip of his cock. "Now I want to watch you."
Jack falls back into the bed, and in an instant Irina is astride him, a few loose strands of her hair falling around his face. Katya curls beside him on the bed, her breasts brushing his arm, and quickly he turns and kisses her. But then Irina lowers herself onto him, and he can't think about Katya, can't think at all, can only close his eyes and thrust into her heat.
They start moving together, finding a rhythm that works instantly. Irina's noisy in bed - so much so that he used to be embarrassed for the neighbors, back in their first apartment with the paper-thin walls. He's always loved that about her. But for some reason the sound of her cries turns him on more tonight than he ever has before. Everything about her - the hard nubs of her nipples beneath his fingers, the catch of her breath, the flush in her cheeks -
And then Jack realizes that it's because of Katya. It's because he has a witness.
What he does to Irina - the way he affects her, the heat they have - it's not just his dream, not his wishful fantasy. He can do this to her, turn her into an animal creature, shameless in her need. How often have others wondered if she was ever in his bed willingly? How often has he been forced to doubt even this?
But now - with Irina shuddering on top of him, gasping in her first orgasm of the night - he knows it's true. Because there's someone else to see it, someone else who knows. And Katya smiles at them both, clearly alive with both envy and anticipation.
Irina pulls away from him, and it's all Jack can do not to groan in disappointment as his cock slips free. But Katya is here, waiting, her arms encircling him as he rolls atop her.
His wife's hand is hot on the back of his neck as he slides one knee between Katya's legs. "Now, Jack - now." In his fever he isn't sure which woman says it, but he's going to obey.
Katya's different than Irina - the angle, the tightness, the way she tilts her hips up to his. For a moment, he just looks down into her face, relishing this first moment. Only now, with Katya's pulse thumping all around him, does Jack realize how badly he was beginning to want this - how much he'd already begun to ask himself not if, but when.
What is going on Katya's mind? He can feel the trembling in her body, see the punch-drunk delight in her eyes - but beyond that, he can't guess. Is this really what she wants? Jack intends to do his best to see that it is.
They kiss, long and wet, and then he begins to move with her, taking it slow and easy. Irina's hands slide down his back, over his ass, feeling the muscles work as he fucks her sister. When her lips brush against his spine, Jack groans and pushes inside Katya harder.
Katya's head tilts back, and he kisses her neck. She isn't loud, like Irina, but in her own way, her silence is compelling, too. He wants to break her, win one of those rare cries.
When everything becomes too intense with Katya, he pulls free again, and they go on like this for a while - Jack makes love to one, then the other, with his cock or his tongue, depending on how close he thinks he is to coming. Irina seems to enjoy watching more than Katya does; maybe it's just that she makes more noise and lets him know.
But that's one of the reasons it hits him so hard when his mouth's between Katya's legs and she tenses - thigh muscles hard against his hands - and then she cries out, just once, short and sharp. Her clit pulses against his lips, and Jack knows a hot surge of triumph. "Good," he whispers, kissing his way up her belly. "I wanted to hear you."
"Yes," Katya pants. Her short hair is damp with sweat now. "I couldn't - I had to -"
"Shhhhhh." Irina soothes her sister while she reaches around and caresses Jack's cock. "It's all right."
They keep on, Katya coming again when he uses his hand, Irina when he takes her from behind. Jack loses all sense of time, of order, of doubt.
When it happens, it happens suddenly. One moment he's on top of Katya, thrusting hard but thinking he has control - in the next, Katya whimpers softly, and he feels the kick of her orgasm all around him, and then he's lost. Jack grimaces as he tries to pull it back, but he can't, he can't, and he doesn't want to. The world goes white and black and white again, and he hears himself shout out, as though from a great distance, somewhere far away in all the heat.
Jack opens his eyes to see Katya lying beneath him, loose and weak, trembling slightly. Their lips meet briefly, and then he turns to Irina. At first, the look in her eyes takes him back - there's a shadow there that wasn't before, and he wonders if he was supposed to wait, to save that for her. Only at that moment does Jack realize that's what he was doing, until his own body got ahead of him.
But then Irina kisses him, and he can feel her smile. "Don't stop just yet," she murmurs against his lips.
"I won't," he promises. And for another long while they continue, Jack going down on each of them again, making Irina come once more, so hard that she digs her fingernails into his shoulder. Katya enjoys it, but she's spent for the night, just as he is. Irina's last orgasm brings her to the same level of exhaustion, and thank God, because Jack's not sure how much more of this he could survive.
At last they're all sprawled in bed together, Jack in the middle. Everyone's skin is slick with sweat, and now that they're finally still, the sea air can cool them. Katya pulls a sheet over them all, insisting they'll want it later. Jack's too tired to argue.
Katya lays her head on one of his shoulders. Irina doesn't cuddle like that - never has - but she curls alongside him, entangling their fingers. Her skin is so warm.
Their eyes meet, and Jack smiles. It feels more intimate than anything else they've done that entire day. For one instant, he remembers Reyes' compound and what he did to her there; in an instant, it's gone. Those ashes have been scattered and blown away.
Irina closes her eyes and kisses the back of his hand. Jack doesn't even have time to think anything else before he falls asleep.
His dream is soft and indistinct - not a sequence of events, just a few images and a feeling. Jack stands on a riverbank, and there's light on the water, and a soft, warm breeze. Sydney is just a little girl, laughing on the bank. He thought she'd run too far ahead of him, but here she is, close enough for him to reach.
**
Read on to the next chapter.