A/N: Here `tis ... the much awaited Chap 7. Thanks for following, reading and reviewing.
Thames embankment. Saturday. 1.15pm:
Malcolm watched through squinted eyes as Jude approached the bench. This time she was dressed casually in faded jeans, a fair isle knit jumper in autumn colours, topped by a dark grey anorak with bright red lining, resplendent with studs and zips, and on her feet she wore lace-up boots. This was Jude slumming it. Were she ever to occupy herself with gardening or DIY (neither concept being familiar to her), then these are the clothes she would wear. She walked briskly, probably because her legs were rather short. He smiled as she drew level with the bench.
"You look pleased with yourself," Malcolm observed.
"Just you wait. The shit's gunna hit the fan in such a way that it'll stick to everyone who conspired to have this happen."
"Am I to know what you've done?"
"You know," she said, sitting down beside him and turning to look at him with a direct gaze, "some things are best kept secret. Let's say, Calum and I have handed on the information to those whose job it is to spread the word, and generally create mayhem the likes of which hasn't been seen since Oliver Cromwell."
"Ah …... the superlative gets an airing." Malcolm stared at her for a few moments, the slightest of smiles at the edges of his mouth. "I need to know that Calum's identity is being kept secret, otherwise things could get very messy."
"I had my main tech guy make him a press pass in the name of Grant O'Hare. Calum played the part to perfection. I had to keep an eye on him, because I sensed he was about to hit on the journalist from The Daily Express."
"Ah …... so the press are being co-operative."
"More than co-operative. I was also assured that several online bloggers would be interested in the story. And if Panorama do the story they said they will, government in the UK will never be the same again." Jude crossed her legs, and shoved her hands into the pockets of her jacket. "It's bloody cold out here, Malcolm."
"Yes, it is," he replied. "When is the story due to break?"
"I suggested no earlier than Monday week. It will take them at least that long to organise the evidence on the memory stick you gave me. Harry Pearce has resigned, and Friday of this week will be his last day. It's important that he not be seen to be complicit in any way."
"I agree, and I'm glad he's resigned. He and Ruth deserve a life together. I'll have to ring him in the next day or so, and advise him to stay out of London once he's finished with MI5."
Ruth's flat in Cheltenham. Saturday 2.04pm.
Harry had taken Ruth shopping, for clothes as well as groceries, and he'd insisted she pay for the lot using his credit card. Ruth had complained loudly about feeling like a kept woman, but Harry had ignored her protests. They'd eaten lunch at a small café not far from where Ruth lived, and then Ruth had showed Harry where she worked.
"It's closed today, but you can see through the window. That's my desk at the back, behind the large potted palm."
He leaned close to her as they peered through the office window. To his mind, Ruth deserved to be anywhere other than behind a potted palm. When she didn't move away from him, he put his arm lightly around her waist, and pulled her closer, breathing in her smell. He was ready now to love her properly, to take up where they'd left off before Lucas had kidnapped her. He wanted to hold her close to him and make love to her. He suddenly pulled away from her, not sure of whether he should say anything to her.
Ruth had noticed the change in Harry, and turned to look at him.
"Is anything wrong?" she asked. "You look …... strange." Strange is right. She saw the raw look on Harry's face, and she recognised it from when they'd been together. She'd also seen it in his eyes a couple of times in the weeks leading up to her stabbing.
"Can we go back to your flat now?" he asked quietly. He didn't explain himself. He didn't have to.
Back at Ruth's flat Harry carried the shopping bags inside, while Ruth packed everything away. She left her bags of new clothes on the sofa in the sitting room. There was plenty of time for her to go through them. Harry needed her, and she needed him.
"Ruth," Harry said, not turning to face her. "I can't stay here with you tonight. I need to go back to London this evening. There are some things I need to attend to at work, and I'll need to work all day tomorrow. It will no doubt take me a few days to leave everything ready for Erin to take over."
"Is Erin to be the new section head?"
"For now. After that, who knows? Things are a bit …... tense in Whitehall at present. Nobody knows what will happen."
"Do you want to tell me about it?" Ruth had joined Harry in the kitchen, and was standing just behind his shoulder. He said nothing for a minute or two, and Ruth thought he may not have heard her. She was about to repeat her question when he turned to face her. His face showed what was on his mind.
"I want …... I need …... you."
Ruth took another step closer to him, close enough for her to reach out and touch his face. She cupped his jaw in her hand, sliding her fingers across the stubble on his face. One of her more endearing memories from when they'd lived together had been those mornings – usually of a weekend - when he'd skipped shaving. She'd rub her cheek against his chin, and then run her fingertips along his stubbly skin, after which they'd enjoy, at the very least, a good old-fashioned snogging session, which had often developed into something much more. Harry was such a good kisser. He would kiss her lightly, so that their lips barely touched, but her body would burn with desire for more. He could also kiss her as if he had just crossed the desert, and his life could only be saved by devouring her and making them one. Ruth had missed Harry's kisses during the time they'd lived apart – safe maybe, but unfulfilled in so many other ways.
Harry watched her face as she allowed her memories of their time living together to surface.
"We were good together, weren't we, Ruth?"
"So very good."
"We still can be," he whispered.
He put his hands on her hips, and drew her against him. He was already partly aroused, and she sighed as their bodies slotted together, so, so familiar. Harry leaned in and kissed her, and everything which followed was down to muscle memory. Her mouth parted beneath his, their tongues met and tangled, he wrapped his hands around her until he supported her back and shoulders, her hands slid behind his head, and then slipped under his collar to touch the skin of his shoulders, his warm, warm skin. They pulled apart to look at one another.
"Bedroom?" he asked, and she grasped his hand, and led him through the door into her bedroom, where they'd spent just one chaste night together.
They stood beside the bed, facing one another, while they removed their clothing. He lifted his own shirt over his head, and then helped her undo the buttons of her blouse, lifting it off her when he became impatient with how long it was taking. He stood silently while she unbuckled his belt, opened the button on his jeans, and then slid down his zip. She pushed his jeans over his hips, so that he could step out of them, and then, having removed all her clothing other than her bra and knickers, she stepped against him again, enjoying the feeling of his body against her own. She pushed her hips against him, and her breasts against his chest, and she sighed heavily. How had they ever spent ten months apart …... ten months without this?
They fell on the bed, each in their underwear – three articles of clothing between the two of them – and then they kissed deeply, the way they'd always kissed just before they made love. There was no longer anything between them, only a few layers of material, and memories of misunderstandings and lost opportunities. Harry's fingers traced the red scar on her abdomen, and she sighed, because it felt right for him to be doing that.
"Does it hurt?" he asked.
"Not when you touch it," she replied, and he leaned down to run gentle kisses along its jagged length.
Ruth could no longer hold back. She slipped her hand under the waistband of his trunks, and touched him gently with her fingers. He murmured something from the back of his throat as she caressed him with the tips of her fingers. She'd missed him so much. She's missed his energy and his passionate nature, and his ability to make her body vibrate with just the sound of his voice. She'd missed waking up next to him each morning to the sight of his hazel eyes lazily watching her as she drew herself from sleep. She'd missed this – his hardness, and how skilfully he used it. Yes, as shallow as that may sound, she'd missed his penis. It was part of who he was, just as her folds which opened into her vagina were an integral part of her own being. Their love-making had been so important to them, and she'd missed it.
Harry was being especially gentle, and he was taking his time, but Ruth was no longer prepared to wait.
"Now, Harry," she said, massaging his erection with her whole hand, while she continued to kiss him, her tongue exploring the inside of his mouth.
He moaned into her mouth, but her words had called him to action. He gently removed her hand from his penis, with the quiet words, "You know what that does to me."
Of course she knew. That was the very reason she was doing it.
Next he removed his trunks, then with one hand, he reached behind her and unclasped her bra while he teased each of her nipples with his tongue. As Ruth rolled under him, and he took position over her, she shuffled out of her knickers, and threw them over her head. Much later she would find them, draped over the light-fitting which hung from the centre of the ceiling.
He lowered himself so that his erection slid across her folds, across her opening, but not inside her. He repeated that until she lifted her hips and caught the tip of his penis in her opening. That'll teach you to tease me like that, she thought. As he gave in, and slid into her, she looked into his eyes, and saw his joy in their being together again. She grasped his sides, and smiled back at him, as they slowly adjusted their bodies to fit as they'd remembered. It felt so good to be together like that. Ruth had almost forgotten the feel of him inside her, how snugly they fit together, how arousing his eyes were as they searched her face, and how quickly she responded to him.
They didn't hold back this time. This was their first time in over a year, and it was exciting and new, like it had been back when they'd made love for the first time, after she'd returned from Cyprus for the second time, when she'd climbed into his bed late one night. That time, it had been her guilt over George's death which had held them apart, while prior to reuniting this time, it had been Harry who had carried the responsibility for them living apart for a year, and for her being stabbed by Sasha Gavrik. Love didn't dissolve the guilt and the pain they'd each endured, but it was a soothing balm for their souls all the same. Making love was not a cure-all, but it would help to hasten the healing.
Harry felt the familiar surging from deep within his loins. Ruth seemed to be lost within their love-making, so to ensure he didn't leave her behind, he reached between them, and vibrated her clitoris with his thumb. Her response was almost instantaneous, as he knew it would be. He felt her body arching beneath him, as her internal muscles began to pulse, and what followed was a combined crashing of climaxes, as his orgasm closely followed her own.
They each called out as they came, and then Ruth collapsed against her pillow, and Harry fell on to his elbows, before he rolled over on to the bed, taking her with him. He lifted the duvet to cover them, and they dozed for a while, wrapped in the arms of the other.
Later, when it was time for him to leave, it was clear that neither wanted to be parted again so soon after having been reunited. They stood just inside the front door, holding one another, putting off the moment when he would walk through the door to his car. Ruth was dressed only in her bathrobe, so she couldn't comfortably go outside to see him off, not unless she got dressed.
"It's going to be a busy week for me," he spoke quietly into her ear, "but I plan to come back next Saturday to spend some time with you. Perhaps we can go somewhere for a few days …... somewhere which isn't London or Cheltenham."
Ruth pulled her face away from his shoulder and looked at him and nodded. "That's seven days away," she said.
"Yes it is, but it's better than the three months during which I believed you to be dead, and you believed that I must have gone off you."
"You're right," she replied, smiling weakly.
"I'll ring you every day, and please ring me if you need anything, even if it's just to hear my voice."
They kissed again, a long and deep kiss, and then Harry opened the door, turned once more to kiss her, and then he was gone.
Ruth moved to the window and watched Harry open the back door of the Range Rover, and throw his bag on the seat. As he opened the driver's side door, he looked up towards her window, and blew a kiss. She blew a kiss back, even though she was sure he'd not be able to see her through the net curtains. As he drove away, she tasted the salt of tears on her lips.
