Page 12 of Dirty Sweet Valentine
Harrington helped me salvage what I could, and, though I’d already said I’d go to a hotel, he offered his flat instead. I couldn’t resist his dazzling smile and suave persona. Besides, the sex was incredible, even before we’d memorized each other’s preferences. Without hesitation, I agreed.
I was madly in love with him by the end of five days. He seemed to feel the same. We were inseparable after that.
At the time, I knew that Harrington had some government type job that he couldn’t talk much about. I knew that he loved it. I knew he was a translator, able to speak Hindi, Punjabi, and Urdu. That was about all I knew. I imagined that he was called in to translate secret messages or help with interrogations. I liked picturing the confident charmer. My James Bond even then, minus the danger. It was exciting.
We’d been together for eighteen months before he broke down and told me all of it. I’d been pushing for a commitment, a ring. A promise. A possibility for someday, even. When he refused to give it, I was devastated and heartbroken. He hated to hurt me like that. It crushed him. Against all better judgment, against policy and his oath to his officers, he told me he wasn’t “just” a translator. He’d been working undercover for the past several years on an important project, and his relationship with me had provided a good cover. He hadn’t expected to really fall in love. Now that he was, he was stuck. His obligation was to the job and the people he worked to protect, but his heart belonged to me.
Cold, cold comfort to hear.
“One day,” he’d said, “I will be called to a new assignment. I’ll be forced to cut off all ties to the people I know. I will not be able to contact you again. I will simply disappear.”
It was a tough blow, but one I eventually came to understand. He’d trusted me with his life by telling me what he had, and that was a testimony to his love that I couldn’t deny. Over the next several months, he offered me a few more hints to the truth of his situation. They were bitter crumbs from a trail I couldn’t follow. He spelled out the rationale for no personal attachments. He explained that his current assignment wasn’t qualified as dangerous, but his next assignment would likely not be as safe. The best part was that he was finally able to show me a part of him he’d been hiding, and I quickly learned just how passionate he was for his work. As passionate as he was for me.
Eight months later, just as he’d warned, he was gone.
He made it easy for me, told me to accuse him of cheating. I was to tell our few friends that he’d moved to the United States. Our friends were really all my friends. No one took his side. No one asked for his forwarding address. No one had a clue there was anything other than the story I gave. They made the appropriate angry noises about me not deserving that, and him not deserving me. No one saw the truth of my pain.
He never asked me to wait for him, and I didn’t. Not on purpose. Just, there was never a man who could fill his shoes. Never a man who could fill my soul the way he did. So, although I led an active sex life after he left, I never gave anyone else my heart. But I did give a good portion of it to my career, throwing myself into it with the passion and energy I’d once devoted to Harrington.
Now, my job is what means the most to me. What I am most proud of. It’s more than a job, it’s my identity. I couldn’t imagine walking away from it. It would tear something out of me that could never be replaced. I would do it, though, for Harrington. Even though I barely know the man anymore, I’d do it. But it would damage me.
And there’s the impossible choice again, because there is no doubt in my mind that Harry would be just as damaged if he were forced to trade working in the field for a job behind a desk.
“Hey,” he says, stirring now beside me. He catches my eye and his sleepy grin fades. “That’s the look of a woman who’s about to tell me goodbye.”
I slide into his arms, and he turns on his side so we’re laying face to face. I rub my knuckles across the scruff of his jaw. “I love you too much to go with you,” I say quietly. The tears are already stinging my eyes, but I manage to keep them in.
His features darken. I see the emotions wrestling across his face, usually so placid. He’s showing me this on purpose, letting down yet another wall. “I asked you to come with me, but I think I love you too much to let you actually do it.”
My mouth finds his, and we get lost in long, slow, languid kisses. His fingers drift low and rub my clit, and by the time he rolls me under him, I’m wet and ready for his cock to glide inside me. His thrusts are sweet and unhurried, but each one is purposeful and full of desperate desire and love. Mostly love. So much love.
Later, at the door, it’s harder.
“I could quit altogether. I could stay here and be a regular guy.”
“You’re not a regular guy, Harry.”
“I could be.”
“This isn’t the kind of job a man just walks away from.”
“You aren’t the kind of woman a man just walks away from.”
We kiss again, for a long time. I’ve given up making it to work on time, but there’s a client meeting at ten and a staff meeting at noon, and I’m already being ripped away from the fantasy in front of me by my reality.
Harrington feels the same, I can tell. His eyes say he’s already out the door, already half wrapped up in whatever assignment he’ll be given next.
And so it’s time to say goodbye.
“We aren’t over, Amelia,” he promises as he steps away. “One day, it will be our time.”
“I’m counting on it.”
Then I shut the door on my dirty sweet Valentine, take a deep breath, and close my eyes against the tears.
When I open them again, it’s just another day without Harrington Steele. But it’s also another day closer to when we’ll meet again.
Amelia also appears in the Dirty Sweet Duet, Sweet Liar and Sweet Fate .
Cherry Popper
This title was originally published in the Laurelin Paige, Kayti McGee sampler. It has been reedited for this edition.
One
If I were writing an article about tonight, I’d call it Chase Matthews Discovers Religion.
Because this right here? This is my idea of goddamned heaven.
When I’d originally agreed to tag along with my buddy Jared to this dinky little bar forty-five minutes outside of our college town, I’d thought we’d have a good time—shoot some pool, flirt with some chicks, use our fake IDs to get a couple beers.
I sure hadn’t expected to be crashed against the wall of the back storage room with the legs of the sweetest little blonde in the place wrapped around my waist.
The instant I locked eyes with her, I felt the mutual attraction. There was a pull between us. It had only taken thirty minutes of eye-flirting before she’d made it over to our table. She was alone, which was the universal signal for I’m into you, and into this, and we don’t have to pretend. At least it had been where I grew up. But I wasn’t taking it as a given. In a lot of ways, Colorado wasn’t anything like California.
For half a second, when she sashayed over looking that delicious, I worried Jared would try to pick her up instead. I didn’t want to have to go alpha on my buddy. But then God intervened—Chase Matthews Witnesses a Miracle—and another hot chick scooped Jared off to some dark corner.
And now here I am, with Kira’s legs wrapped around my waist and her lips locked on mine.
Man, she tastes good. There was a faint hint of Amaretto Sour, but mostly she tastes of the cherry flavor lip gloss she’d applied and reapplied throughout the evening. Even without the gloss, I suspected she’d taste good. How could she not? Those luscious lips of hers were made to be kissed.
And the things she does with her tongue… Every time she flicks it across the tip of mine, my dick throbs as I imagine it flicking across my crown. And the sexy little sounds she makes in the back of her throat are making my jeans even tighter.
Chase Matthews Verifies the Existence of Angels.
I press her against the wall, relie
ving some of the weight from my arms so my hand can explore other parts of her body. The new position angles our pelvises more perfectly together. It’s both amazing and amazingly uncomfortable all at once.
Trying to ignore the ache in my pants, I distract myself by concentrating on Kira’s breasts. If I could just hold one of those perfect little mounds in my palm, I know it will be worth the blue balls I’ll have later. I sweep my hand down the side of her torso, then up again, this time a little closer to the object of my desire. Finally, on the third pass, I can’t take it anymore. My hand circles around her perky tit and squeezes.
Instead of the protest I’d half expected, she moans. I was nearly exploding already, but that sound has me desperate to make her feel that good again. Within seconds my hand has made its way under her T-shirt and slipped under the cup of her bra. Had I thought I’d made it to heaven before? Well, I was wrong. Because this was definitely heaven. Soaring on the wind, floating on air, heaven.
Then she says the magic words—the words every guy wants to hear when his dick is painfully hard and his hand is wrapped around her breast—“I have a condom.”
Sweet Jesus, I’m going to get laid in the back of this dive bar.
But I’m not an asshole. I know the rules of chivalry. I break from her lips and kiss up to her ear, delighting at the shiver that rolls through her body when I nip at her lobe. “Are you sure?”
