Free Angel, Archangel by Nick Cook

collar open. The glow from the fire played over her face, its soft light making her look even more beautiful. She had let her hair down and the long, gently waving curls fell over her shoulders and down her back.
    They had spent the last three hours at the dinner table talking the light-hearted banter of two adolescents discovering each other for the first time. To his surprise, Kruze realized that he was probably falling in love.
    She looked at him and smiled.
    He moved to her and ran his hand up her back, felt the heat of her skin beneath her shirt. She held him tightly and looked into his eyes.
    “I need you,” she whispered. “I hope you don’t think that’s -”
    He kissed her before she could finish the sentence.
    He explored her mouth. She responded, slowly winding her tongue round his. Then her hands were combing his jacket, undoing the buttons, tugging at his uniform. She managed to get it half off before he helped her. It fell on the ground between them. She ran her hands through his hair, then traced a long nail down his scalp, his neck, across his back. She felt the perspiration that soaked the top of his shirt, smelt the fresh, outdoor smell of him as she twisted and turned in his embrace.
    He stopped and held her at arm’s length. She opened her eyes and watched him as he stared, questioning, into her face. She smiled and opened her mouth a little. The flames flickered in the grate and reflected momentarily on her glistening lower lip. He ran his hands down her back and pulled at her shirt. Then his fingers moved over her bra strap, seeking the catch. He tugged and it seemed to give. She had undone her buttons so that when he slipped his hand under the cups of her bra, both it and the shirt fell to the floor.
    She stood standing before him in the semi-darkness with only her skirt on. He bent down and put his mouth around her nipple and sucked.
    She moaned softly.
    “Take me to bed.” Her words were choked. He could hardly hear them.
    They took the rest of their clothes off slowly, watching each other all the time, neither wanting to rush in case they broke the spell. Kruze felt as if he were drugged, or dreaming. Suddenly he prayed this was real, that he wasn’t about to wake up and find himself in a strange place, without her.

CHAPTER FIVE

    The Focke-Wulf 189 was a curious-looking aircraft. Between its twin engines the cockpit area was covered almost completely with perspex for maximum visibility, designed as it was exclusively for observation and tactical-photo reconnaissance.
    In the nose of the German plane, Oberleutnant Rudi Menzel felt cold and vulnerable.
    Cold, because his electrically heated flight suit was not functioning properly and because the damned FW 189 was more full of holes than the Wehrmacht’s boots. He had remonstrated with the ground crew before the last flight for not patching up the aircraft following its brush with a Soviet La-9 several days before. Now the icy slipstream cut into his face as it was forced through the bullet-holes and into the cabin at 280 kph.
    Vulnerable, because the FW 189 was slow and under-armed and he quite expected to see more Lavotchkins, Yaks and any other Red Air Force fighter he cared to think about between their present position and Chrudim, their destination, east of Prague.
    His headset crackled. At least that seemed to be working; Menzel almost allowed himself to smile.
    “Keep a look out for enemy fighters. Especially you, Freddi, you dozy sod. No slip-ups like last time or I’ll put in a personal recommendation to the Kommandant that you join our ground forces in the defence of the Reich. If we get bounced by Ivan we can’t expect any help from our own fighters. Just remember that.” The pilot, Hauptmann Pieter Klepper, sounded edgier than usual, Menzel thought, but he was right about Frederik Lutz. The idiot had let the La-9 get really close to them two days before because he’d thought it was one of their own FW 190s. The La-9 didn’t