The sun streaming through the windows found Valerie and Lorne in bed engaged in morning exercises, pausing their rambling conversation to focus on another orgasm. After Valerie had regained her calm, she glanced at the bedside clock. "Seven twenty-three. Too early to get up. Take me to another."

After two more in rather quick succession, Valerie lay slumped on top of Lorne, still trembling and drawing heavy breaths as she said, "Well past your turn. What do you want?"

"Hmmm." He grinned. "I'm catching your habit."

Valerie giggled. "It's funny from you. So, what would you like?"

"Let's try you kneeling above me and pulling away, leaving just my head in. See if you can get me off with gentle gyrations and squeezes. I love watching your lips in action."

"Be working on my G-spot that way, and I have it rather well-trained. I don't know if I can last long enough for you."

"One way to find out."

A short while later, Valerie's loud vibrato howl filled the room, her body quaking as she sat down to take Lorne's pulsations deep inside. Then she collapsed onto him, squeezing, grinding and moaning.

"Yeah." Lorne shuddered again as his ecstasy continued. He reached down and cupped her butt cheeks to hold her as his hips involuntarily bucked. "Yeah, that works."

"Oh, God! Understatement." She trembled again. "You're a master of understatement." She giggled. "And a master at pleasuring."

"I'm a quick learner."

"Yeah, aren't we both?" She purred a hum. "Shower?"

"Cuddle a while longer." He glanced at the clock. "It's only a quarter to eight."

"So, what's our schedule?"

"The chopper is at ten thirty, so we've plenty of time for a leisurely breakfast."

"And after breakfast? Which winery are you looking at?"

"Eikenhoutskloof. You may know their Coeur du Chêne or their Bulles du Chêne brands."

"No, I'm not familiar with them."

"You'll be impressed. They're why I started this process."

"Still negotiating?"

"We've a few details remaining; mostly legal now, all of it concerning the government, not the winery."

"Their new foreign ownership regulations?"

"Those aren't yet in place. They're still sorting out how to implement them without sending their economy into a tailspin, like happened in Kenya and Zimbabwe."

"Yeah, for sure. So what's the government concern?"

"Mainly their employment regulations. There are insufficient qualified, experienced and motivated among the previously disadvantaged to fill the required ratio. The winery is in default. Most of them are."

"Yeah, reverse apartheid. We see that in high-tech also. We've walked away from acquisitions because we couldn't transfer ownership until the company was stuffed with unqualified people."

"And unmotivated. They know they can't be fired. We're faced now with letting go good workers and hiring uninspired ones to meet the government ratio."

"Makes it tough for businesses to prosper."

"Yes, certainly. We had a long discussion about this aboard the chopper yesterday while we waited."

"That must have been a tense time."

"Only because I couldn't let you know what had happened."

Valerie squeezed him tighter and sighed. "We had only three hours of concern – once we realised. You had nearly ten hours."

"Both Lisa and Walter assured us we would be found, and told us the worst thing we could do would be to leave the helicopter." He chuckled. "The choppers are built in Canada, like my Bombardier, and they share the same high-quality interiors. They've deep leather upholstery with ergonomics being central to their design. We were very comfortable."

"So, you had a prolonged meeting with your senior staff."

"Yeah, and the more we discussed the deal, the less enchanted we became with the South African wine scene. Unless we can find a way around the employment regulations, we'll walk away and concentrate our efforts on New Zealand and Chile."

"What about Argentina? I've had some great Malbec from there."

"Too unstable, both politically and economically to consider investing." He ran his fingers lightly across her buttocks and listened to her quiet moans as she vibrated under his touch.

"That sends tingles all the way to my core."

"Yeah, I felt them." He did it again and chuckled. "Feels wonderful. I'm tempted to keep on doing this, but we should shower and discuss breakfast."

Half an hour later, showered and dressed, they walked into the main lounge to see Chloe on one of the couches, engrossed in her school books. " Morning, Sweetheart. Did you sleep well?"

"Very." She sprung to her feet and rushed to greet them in a three-way hug. "And I'm almost done my lessons for the day."

"You can finish that later. Maybe on the plane tonight. We've ordered breakfast, and it should be here in a few minutes."

Chloe looked up and sighed. "Daddy?"

"Yes, Sweetheart?"

"Were you scared up there? Like, when the engine stopped?"

"Remember what I told you about fear and climbing?"

"Yeah, to not be controlled by it."

"Exactly."

"So, what did you do?"

"Walter immediately told us to remain as still as possible to allow the pilot better control. Then he described how autorotation works, so we understood what was happening."

"Yeah, Patrick described it for us, and it sure made us feel better." She nodded. "That's good, isn't it. Knowing how things work rather than worrying because we don't know."

"Yes, it certainly is."

"So, how long did it take before you landed?"

"About a minute. Walter told us that the typical rate of descent is around twenty-five hundred feet a minute."

"How fast is that in miles per hour?"

Lorne pursed his lips, tilting his head back and forth for a few seconds. "About twenty-eight and a half."

"Fast."

"The pilot hasn't much time to find a safe landing spot and set up a glide path to it."

Chloe giggled. "No, I meant your calculation. How did you do that?"

"You tell me how you would do it."

"With a calculator."

"And what would you enter?" 

"Twenty-five divided by fifty-two point eight times sixty." 

"Exactly."

Chloe grinned up into his face. "Quick calc, it's a bit less than thirty. That's a fast rate downward, isn't it?"

"The chopper is moving forward at about eighty miles per hour, and the pilot uses the controls to convert the energy of the forward speed into lift as the landing spot nears. A skilled pilot can slow the descent to near zero just before landing. Do you understand conservation of energy?"

"Of course I do. Newton's laws of motion. So, you had a soft landing."

"We did. More gentle than on some of the powered ones I've had. I've asked Donovan if Lisa could be our pilot today."

"Did he say yes?"

"He has to check with her schedule, and ..." He paused at the sound of the doorbell. "That should be breakfast."