China Sea by David Poyer Read Free Book Online Page B

Manama, he’d been wary of her, wary of love. Disappointed twice, once by divorce and once by death, he’d tried to fight clear. But it hadn’t worked, and though he hadn’t told her yet and they had never discussed it seriously, he knew now he was one cooked gosling.
    Some time later she stirred, and he jerked awake. She yawned, lifting a bare arm shining with fine golden hair to check her watch. “You awake?”
    â€œSorry. Didn’t mean to drift off.”
    â€œDon’t apologize. You did great for somebody who looked as bushed as you did. Are we going to lie around here all evening?”
    â€œSounds like a plan.”
    â€œAre you really that sleepy?”
    â€œNo.” He rubbed his eyes. “What do you want to do?”
    â€œIt’s almost dinnertime. Then I have to make this reception, at least for a little while.” She half-rolled, then stopped at his choked protest. “Have I got something caught?”
    â€œLet’s just say I’m not in a position to object.”
    â€œI sense signs of returning life. Let’s investigate.”
    Looking down at her shining hair, he lifted his body in a half-protesting arch, then resigned himself to her frictionless caress. A moment later she mounted him, taking him with a sudden ferocity that matched the mouthwatering impulsion he’d brought to his first ingress, and rode him to her own eye-clenched climax and then, changing rhythm and grip, with a mischievous grin and quick vertical strokes brought him to a second exquisitely near-painful discharge that left him sagged back sweating into the damp, wrinkled sheets as she swung a leg off and went briskly into the bathroom.
    *   *   *
    THE restaurant was dim and the chandeliers glittered above white linen. After some encouragement he ordered braised Norwegian salmon and black truffles. Blair decided on lamb en crèpinette.
    â€œSo how’s the overhaul going?”
    â€œWe should be done in two more weeks. Maybe sooner, if the hydros go well.”
    â€œYou were having trouble with the foreign commanding officer, weren’t you?”
    â€œActually, that’s smoothed out. Khashar doesn’t do things the way I would, that’s for sure. But he’s not actually around all that much. I wind up dealing with Commander Irshad; he’s the operations officer and general whipping boy.”
    The wine steward. She ordered a pinot noir. He asked for orange juice and tonic.
    â€œThe trouble is, you get attached. I have to keep reminding myself she’s only mine for a little while. Unless the transfer’s preempted by operational considerations—”
    â€œMeaning Desert Shield.”
    He nodded, wanting to ask her if the Allies were going to attack but knowing he had no right to. He had no doubt she knew, though maybe not the exact hour. He couldn’t ask her about Gaddis , either, whether Munro’s charge to him was based on a concrete plan for canceling her transfer. So instead he asked about the base closing commission, and she sketched diagrams on the tablecloth with her fingernail to show how reduced infrastructure translated into force modernization.
    â€œThat’s why all our ships are going away?”
    â€œThere’s no reason to keep them. Iraq, Iran, North Korea—none of our remaining potential adversaries is a sea power.”
    â€œWhat about five years down the road? Ten years?”
    â€œI don’t want to get into an argument with you. But there’s a real question how much insurance an obsolete ship actually represents.”
    â€œIt’s a lot quicker to install up-to-date equipment and put an old hull to sea than it is to design and build a whole new one. We proved that with the battleships. Missouri ’s on her way to the Gulf right now, loaded with Tomahawks.”
    â€œI take your point, but we have to look at political realities. The shipbuilders don’t want