Original Sin

She grinned, remembering all the little gifts and trinkets he’d bought back from his travels. He kissed her bare shoulder, his lips moving up to her neck to the soft curve of her cheek.

‘Hmm. That’s lovely,’ she smiled, her anxiety melting away.

As their kisses became deeper, he used both hands to lift off her slip dress.

‘Maybe we should argue more often,’ she smiled, letting him push her down onto one of the soft cream sofas.

‘Maybe we should,’ he growled, taking off his T–shirt and unsnapping her bra. He lowered his mouth back onto hers, his taste warm and sweet, and as dark chest hair brushed over her tight, erect nipples, she groaned with arousal and spread her thighs. Suddenly David pulled up on his elbows, his head cocked.

‘Shit, my work phone.’

‘Leave it, leave it, leave it,’ she begged, linking her arms around his neck. He began to kiss her again, but the insistent ringing continued.

‘Honey I have to get it,’ said David, pulling away.

‘You were the one who said we were on holiday.’

‘It could be important,’ he said, getting up and reaching for the phone.

She watched his face cloud with concern, her ardour cooling. Brooke had a love–hate relationship with David’s job. She smiled when her friends called him ‘Action Man’, and she enjoyed the fact that he was involved in important world events, even having some influence over them, however small. But it also bothered her every time he

was sent away. David was not a war correspondent and rarely reported from the line of fire – David suspected his father had spies inside the newsroom making sure he never went anywhere near a mortar or landmine – but still, he was reporting from hot spots such as Palestine and Sudan and there always seemed to be some element of danger.

‘What wrong?’ she asked, pulling her dress back on.

‘It’s the studio,’ he said, covering the phone’s mouthpiece. ‘A boat is on fire just off Islamorada.’

Brooke’s eyes widened. ‘But that’s in the Keys, isn’t it?’ she asked. ‘Is it national news?’

He nodded. ‘The boat was full of people. Women and kids. A fishing trawler is trying to get people out of the water now. Search and rescue are on the way there.’

David pulled his T–shirt back on awkwardly, trying to keep the phone to his ear.

‘I’m on hold,’ he said, ‘they’re trying to get hold of a local cameraman.’

‘They want you to do a broadcast?’

David perched on the edge of the sofa. ‘This is immigrant smuggling gone horribly wrong.’

‘Immigrant smuggling?’

He held up a finger. He was back on the phone.

‘Great,’ he said into the receiver, his voice clipped and business–like. ‘No, thirty minutes isn’t fast enough. Okay, just get there as soon as you can.’

She watched him, mesmerized, as he shifted into full gear, gathering his things, dialling numbers, barking orders. She found it strangely erotic. Finally he reached for his jacket.

‘So what’s happening?’ asked Brooke.

‘I’m going down there. I can be there quicker than a news team coming down from Miami.’

‘I’m coming with you,’ she said suddenly, jumping to her feet.

‘Honey, no,’ said David, ‘you stay here.’

Brooke shook her head adamantly. ‘I’m not staying here thinking about canapés where there’s kids drowning in the sea ten miles away.’

He gave her a grateful smile and took her hand. They ran out of the house and jumped into Leonard’s Jeep and roared away down the drive.