Chapter 6 - Six

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Tomb Raider: Origins, Part 6 – Mission Two: ‘The Mamanuca Situation’

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Zip wiped sweat from his brow. Tropical sunlight streaming in through the cabin window made the yacht’s interior feel more like a sauna – a sauna turned up to full heat on the hottest mid-summer’s day England had experienced in a century. He guzzled ice-tea, sweated bullets, checked the instrumentation panel. According to the GPS, they were nearly there. Just a couple more nautical miles due north, and he and Lara would be right on top of the co-ordinates specified by the text that his boss had spent the last three weeks of her life translating from some long-lost, little-understood Balto-Slavic language family.

Shielding his eyes, Zip peered out through the front window. Blue skies, panoramic, barely whisped by fine stratospheric clouds, curving down to a far distance horizon. At ground level a placid azure seascape stretched - as far as the eye could see - thinning in places to brilliant turquoise where white coral beaches curved up from the sea floor and emerged above the waves to form small tropical islands. These lush green dots of verdure were the only dry land that Zip could see for miles and miles, on an otherwise endless plain of sparkling sapphire blue.

Palm trees and dense inland forests had colonised some of the larger land masses. Some even sported dormant volcanic peaks that towered, grey and foreboding, above sweltering sea-level jungle canopies. Bright tropic birds fluttered between the treetops and the strange haunting calls of unseen primates echoed like fog horns over the water – three or four miles between the coast and the yacht, but so silent were the surroundings otherwise - disturbed only by the steady rhythmic swell and wash of slow-rolling waves against the ship’s hull - that the inland sounds reached Zip’s ears practically undistorted.

The Mamanuca Islands – a little known equatorial chain, just north of Fiji.

Paradise, for most people. For Zip: a logistical nightmare. A blue-tooth unfriendly zone with severely limited satellite topographical cover. Ninety-eight percent humidity, a-hundred-and-five degrees in the shade: hardly ideal conditions for electrical circuitry and hi-tech gadgets.

Still, the hot weather did have one upside.

“Zip?”. Lara’s voice, out on deck, calling him.

“Be right there”. Zip grabbed a printout and headed out into the sun.





Clambering up a ladder to the top deck he skimmed the sheets for stats: latitudinal co-ordinates, water salinity levels, depth, temperature norms, tidal patterns.

“Everything’s lookin’ pretty good so far, Lara”, his head rose above the varnished oak planking of the sun-deck. “Conditions are perfect for a dive. No adverse weather systems inbound, tidal patterns are stable... just another few minutes and we should be...”, he looked up, “...and we should be... er...”.

Suddenly, tech reports were the last thing on Zip’s mind.

“Daaaaammmnnnnn....”.

His eyes bulged behind his wraparound shades – the better to take in the beautiful sight that lay before him. Stretched out on a white sun lounger, reclining languidly with her ankles crossed and a tall glass of long island ice tea just touching her plump lower lip as she took a sip, her whole body gleaming with perspiration and sun tan oil, his hot new boss, Lady Lara Croft, was soaking up the tropic rays in a tiny black thong bikini.

“Ah”, unplugging her iPod, she peered up at Zip over her stylish designer sunglasses. “There you are. I was wondering where you’d gotten to. I do hate to be a pain Zip, but could you possibly furnish me with a quick update on our progress so far? A status report, that kind of thing. I’d go down and take a look for myself, but... well”, she arched her eyebrows, mock-pleading, “it’s just so comfy up here...”.

“Uh, y-yeah”, Zip gulped, his shorts suddenly feeling a couple of sizes too small. “N-no problem, boss”. He buried his head in his tech notes to stay focused. “Well, like I was just sayin’, everythin’s lookin’ pretty good so far. We’re on course for the co-ordinates that you specified in your briefing notes. I, uh, checked your scuba gear this morning and it’s all set to go. Valves checked, pressure gauges workin’, mouthpiece washed and scrubbed, all in full working order. And, oh yeah, your new wetsuit is downstairs. I just left it hanging in the changing room closet”.

His eyes strayed up from the printout for a moment, taking in Lara’s long sleekly muscled legs laid out on the sunlounger before him. Her whole body was tanned a beautiful golden brown colour, like thickset honey, thanks to four days straight of noonday sunbathing since they had set sail from Fiji a week ago. Her thighs were slightly flushed in the sweltering heat, burnished pink. And her slim toned belly looked satin smooth, glistening with plump beads of perspiration that had rolled down from her full, heavy DD-cup breasts. Zip’s eyes zeroed in on his boss’s pert nipples, clearly visible beneath the skin-tight black fabric of her tiny...

“Er... Zip?”, Lara broke the tech head’s reverie. “You’ve... trailed off”

Zip jolted back to reality, quickly moving the tech notes down to cover his groin, where a sizeable bulge had appeared.

“Oh yeah”, he stammered, as Lara eyed him suspiciously, “wh-where was I... er, yeah, yeah, I was just sayin’.. everything’s checkin’ out A-okay. The yacht’s cruisin’ on autopilot and we should be arriving at the destination in...”, he checked his watch, “...about eleven and one-half minutes”.

“Super”, Lara smiled, sipping her ice tea. “Many thanks, Zip”.

“No problem, boss”, Zip started back towards the ladder, relieved that his employer could no longer see the front of his shorts.

“Oh, just one more thing”, Lara called after him. “If it’s not too much trouble...”.

“Yeah boss?”, Zip looked back, and saw that Lara had turned over onto her front.

“There’s a bottle of coconut oil on the table over there... I seem to be drying out a bit... would you mind awfully just giving me a quick rubdown please?”.

Zip’s face lit up. “Sure thing, boss”. His shorts strained at the seams.





Discarding his tech notes, he returned to the side of Lara’s sun lounger and picked up the bottle of coconut oil.

“You’re a life saver, Zip”, Lara murmured. “Could you start at my feet, please, and then work upwards?

Zip squirted a healthy measure of the oil into his right palm, then rubbed his hands together grinning.

“Sure thing, boss”.

He cradled Lara’s slender ankle in one hand and tilted her foot up, then smoothed his slippery palm all over the tender underside of her sole. Lara’s cute pink toes curled up and wiggled slightly as Zip slid his fingers down between them, but she didn’t giggle or squirm as the tech head had expected her to – his boss had too much class to be ticklish. Turning her foot in circles in order to loosen up Lara’s ankle a bit, Zip then pushed his thumb-pad deep into the English woman’s high, elegant arches, easing it upwards in a slow kneading motion, smoothing all the pent up tension out of his boss’s sexy size six feet.

“Hmmmm...”, Lara murmured happily, “that’s lovely Zip, very relaxing”.

Zip repeated the movements on Lara’s other foot. Then he wrapped both of his hands around her slim calf and started pushing smoothly upwards, keeping a firm grip on his boss’s slender lower-leg muscle as it bulged beneath his slippery palms. He reached the back of Lara’s left knee, and kept going, drawn on by the satin-smooth softness of her warm tan skin. Massaging the full length of Lara’s long leg Zip ended up with his hands wrapped around the top of his boss’s luscious thigh, just below the bulge of her plump left ass-cheek.

The tech head swallowed hard, beads of sweat forming on his forehead and trickling down over his face. Zip had big hands, with long sinuous fingers, but even at full stretch he couldn’t quite get his fingertips to meet around the womanly fullness of Lara’s upper thighs. Taking his time, exploring every warm fleshy bulge of his boss’s healthy quads and toned athletics hams, he squeezed and kneaded Lara’s supple leg muscles until they relaxed completely in his hands, becoming malleable and pliant. Then he slipped his palmed down between her already slightly parted legs, levered them open as far as they would go on the relatively narrow sunbed, and oiled the tender insides of the tomb raider’s warm golden-brown thighs.

“Mmmmmmm....”, this time, she almost moaned.

“Feels good, huh?”, Zip asked, casually brushing the backs of his fingers against the underside of Lara’s bikini briefs, teasing her pussy through the skin-tight black fabric.

“Wonderful, Zip”, she replied dreamily, her eyes still closed, “but I think you missed a spot”. Smiling warmly, Lara flexed her ass-cheeks, tightening them up before Zip’s eager gaze; they dimpled nicely. “I know it’s a bit awkward, but, well, you wouldn’t want your boss getting sunburn on her bum, would you?”.

Zip took in a slow, deep breath – and held it.

“Nope...”, he reached for the coconut oil, “we definitely would not want that to happen”.

He was just about to squirt some more of the liquid onto his palms, but then thought, screw it, and upended the whole tube above Lara’s thong-clad ass.

“Ooooohhh...”, she cooed sexily as Zip drizzled the glistening oil all over her sun-burnished buttocks.

Lara’s bikini briefs were Brazilian-cut, practically T-backs: they rode low on her hips and covered less than one-eighth of the tomb raider’s healthy tan ass-cheeks. Zip skirted the garments’ tapering hemlines with his thumb-pads, his palms resting on Lara’s warm round buttocks. He pushed the fabric inwards slightly, revealing a small V-shaped swathe of untanned ass-flesh underneath – creamy white skin untouched by the sun’s rays.

Breathing shallowly, he started working Lara’s ass: gently stroking and lightly caressing her luscious olive skin at first, then digging in with his strong sinuous fingers, deeply kneading and firmly moulding her supple young glutes. He massaged every smooth square inch of his boss’s perfect heart-shaped bottom until Lara started squirming around and writhing on the sun lounger before him, her shapely hips now rising up to meet his downward-pushing palms; her slippery buttocks flexing and dimpling, pushing back into Zip’s sure, firm grip as he slid his hands sideways over her hips and, pulling Lara’s plump glutes wide apart, exposed her cute pink asshole and neatly waxed glossy pussylips where the bunched up crotch of her black bikini briefs didn’t quite cover them. Lara moaned softly. Zip was almost losing control by now. He just couldn’t get enough of his boss’s hot ass. He loved the way his fingers sank about a centimetre deep into her luscious bronze ass-flesh; how, when he squeezed Lara’s plump glutes hard enough, they gave fleshily and bulged out between his grasping digits, shiny and smooth like wet PVC.

Growing bolder, Zip slid his fingers down into the valley of Lara’s peachy ass-crack. He pried apart her oil-slick buttocks then wormed his glossy digits underneath the back of her bikini bottoms. Lara tensed up, shuddering with pleasure, but did nothing to stop Zip as he worked her ass-cleavage, rubbing slippery-hot coconut oil all along the insides of her twitching butt-cheeks - subtly teasing then brazenly rimming her asshole - until her tight round buns gleamed beautifully in the bright tropic sunlight – and her skin was fully protected from any harmful UV rays – Zip’s chief concern the whole time.

Forcing himself to move on, before he lost control completely, Zip pushed his palms down into the curve of Lara’s supple lower back, then slowly slid them upwards along the length of her dimpled spine, and up between her muscular shoulder blades. He squirted some more of the sweet-scented coconut oil onto the surface of Lara’s honey-hued upper back. Then rolling his knuckles back and forth and making light chopping motions with the outsides of her hands, he Shiatsu-massaged the nape of Lara’s neck, rubbed her shoulder and smoothed the hot oil all the way down the length of her slim arms.

Lara’s glossy ruby lips curled to form a sly smile as she rolled over onto her back. She took in a deep breath, filling out her chest. Then arching her lower back, raising her arms above her head and pointing her toes straight down, she stretched herself out languidly on the sun lounger – tantalising Zip almost beyond his ability to control himself with an incredible close-up of her full sun-bronzed tits, straining against the small triangular cups of her bikini top, almost snapping the garment’s skimpy tie-strings.

“Okay, Zip”, she relaxed back, eyes still closed – feigning innocence, “just one place left to go”.

“Err... S-sure, boss”, Zip croaked hoarsely, his hard-on straining against the front of his shorts, tenting them almost a full foot out.

His hands trembled as he squeezed oil onto Lara’s toned abs. The supple musculature of his boss’s slim, sunkissed belly felt unbelievably good beneath his palms as he spread the slippery-hot liquid all over her shiny skin. He stroked his palms back and forth over Lara’s lower belly, just above the hemline of her bikini bottoms, admiring the plump beads of perspiration that clung to her cleavage and rolled down between her full breasts, collecting in the valley of her chest to form a small clear pool of iridescent sweat. Then he moved upwards.

“Zip?”, Lara cracked one eyelid half-open when she didn’t feel her employee’s hands on her tits, “... what’s wrong? why have you stopped?”.

“I... er... I-I just...”, Zip stammered hesitantly, “I just don’t know if this is the kinda thing that I oughta be doin’ – you know, what with the employer-employee relationship, and all that kinda...”

“Oh, don’t be so squeamish, Zip”, Lara interrupted him. “Look, here...”, she interlaced her fingers behind her head and arched her lower back, lifting her chest up. “I have noticed you... looking at me, you know. And, well, sometimes it’s not such a bad thing... for a girl to know men find her attractive. So, how about you... just think of this as a little reward, okay... a bonus of sorts, from me to you... for what you did last month in Tokyo”.

Zip looked up at Lara. He saw she was blushing and realised that his own reluctance was only making her more uncomfortable. He didn’t need any more convincing.

“Okay, boss”.

Draining the last dregs of the coconut oil out into his right hand, he drizzled it down over Lara’s sun-burnished breasts, then palmed their plump undersides and squeezed firmly.

“Mmmmmm....”, Lara half-smiled, half-pouted her lips, sighing with pleasure, “See... that isn’t so hard now is it?”

“Well”, Zip’s dick twitched in his shorts, threatening to pop out over the waistband, “that all depends on what you mean by ‘it’”.

Lara arched an eyebrow and smiled knowingly; Zip shifted his palms up and smoothed suntan lotion all over her hot sweaty cleavage. Working his fingers down into the fleshy cleft between his boss’s lush boobs he coated them thoroughly and conscientiously with the slippery-clear liquid until they gleamed like orbs of polished bronze. Losing himself in the task, he squeezed and massaged both of Lara’s firm luscious mammaries; tenderly at first and then with increasing lust and vigour as his boss arched her back and thrust her chest up into his eager hands, Zip worked the tomb raider’s gorgeous tits, sinking his fingers deep into her yielding young breast-flesh, making Lara’s supple sun-tanned melons bulge out between his sinking digits like a couple of overfilled water balloons.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

Seeing Lara take her pouty lower lip between her teeth and lightly bite it, Zip decided to test his luck. He eased his thumbs underneath the tight black fabric of her tiny bikini top, found his boss’s hot pink nipples and started circling them round and round.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

Lara gasped and breathed in sharply; Zip pressed his thumb-pads down into her yielding breast-flesh, inverting the tomb raider’s sensitive young nipples, making her squirm. Then he quickly flicked his oiled-up digits back and forth over her hotly erect tit-tips, teasing them relentlessly until they tautened up beneath her top, stood to stiff attention and throbbed with quickened blood.

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

“Er, Zip...”, Lara moaned huskily, her upper lip curling as Zip worked her fully-roused nipples, “wh-what’s that... beeping noise?”.

“Huh?”, Zip looked up, surprised – he hadn’t even noticed any...

*BEEP, BEEP, BEEP*

“Oh”, he nodded, “that. Yeah, sounds like the GPS just lettin’ us know we’ve arrived at the destination”.

“Aha”, Lara sat up quickly and swung her legs over the side of the sun-lounger; Zip’s hands slipped wetly from her breasts.

“Sorry to love you and leave you, Zip”, she rose to her feet, stretched nimbly, and started over towards the ladder that lead down to the yacht’s lower decks, “but I’ve got a hot date with an ancient Fijian artefact this afternoon, which I certainly wouldn’t want to miss”.

Zip watched his boss’s perfect oiled-up ass sway away from him across the sun-deck’s planks. His groin ached with pent up lust and heat; his balls hung heavy, swollen with unshot spunk. He almost sobbed.

“I’m sure you understand”. She turned and started climbing down the ladder, stopping just before her head disappeared below the varnished wooden planks to blow him a kiss.

“Thanks for the rubdown, by the way. Very relaxing”, she smiled. “Just what I needed before a big mission like this. Now, how about we schedule the briefing for twenty minutes from now? in the main quarters downstairs? I’ll just slip into my wetsuit, and then we’ll get down to business”.

And then she was gone, leaving Zip with considerably more than just fond memories.

Still, the frustrated tech head mused, at least he had one thing to look forward to – he’d seen the cut of Lara’s wetsuit.