Page 9 of Dirty Sweet Valentine
I’m still jerking his cock, but my hand stumbles noticeably in its stroke.
Harrington chuckles. “You know you can’t win this battle, baby. Fall apart on me. Lose control.”
It’s the term of endearment that does me in—after all this time, after all these years, I’m still his baby. It doesn’t matter that he might have said it without thinking or that he might have said it to countless women. I hear the naked honesty underscoring the simple word, and I shatter.
My body quivers, and spots form in front of my eyes. When they clear, he greets me with a smirk that tells me how much he enjoyed watching me come apart on his hand.
“Better now?” he asks as though his sexual charms are potent enough to fix everything that remains unspoken between us. Emphasizing his confidence, he sucks my juices off his finger.
Fifteen years older and Harrington Steele is still a cocky bastard. It’s reassuring to know that there are some things in life that are constant.
Despite the renewed simmer of arousal in my belly, I roll my eyes and stare down at his abandoned cock, still hard and throbbing. My fingers close again around him, but he stops me. “Let that wait.”
If we aren’t going to fuck, then what does he want instead? He’s still standing close, still caging me in. His gaze catches on my lips, and I suspect he’d be content to stay just like this—his hand stroking my arm, his lungs sharing the same air as mine.
It’s extremely intimate. The kind of intimate that falls thick and heavy like the snow in the Alps. If I stay standing in its path, I’m likely to be crushed underneath the weight. Fucking would be easier. Fucking would be less intrusive.
But he’s putting himself away, and I’m not in the mood to seduce him.
I push at him to move, then hop to the ground when he does. I head toward the bowl of chicken salad and the waiting slices of bread.
“I was just making supper. I assume you’re staying?” It isn’t really a question. I pull out the loaf and reach for another plate from the cupboard even before he answers.
“I’m yours all night.”
The comment smarts for complicated reasons. Because I’ve longed to be his for so long. Dreamed of it for all these years. Then, when I finally reclaim the title, it has a time limit attached.
I swipe at the sting like it’s a pesky mosquito instead of the tightening of shackles that it feels like. I concentrate instead on my task, spooning the filling onto the bread, smooshing the slices together.
“Chicken salad’s on the menu. Sorry. I know it’s not your favorite.” Not that I’d been expecting him. I hand him a plate, recognizing how pathetic it must seem that this was how I’d planned to spend my Valentine’s Day evening. Frankly, I hate the holiday and choose to ignore it. It’s perfectly normal to be alone on a Wednesday night after work. And a sandwich is perfectly suitable for a weekday dinner.
Still, I’m compelled to snatch a bottle of Chardonnay from the wine fridge to fancy the meal up.
A few minutes later, we’re settled on the sofa in front of the fire. On the surface, it seems terribly romantic, but it’s a gas-lit thing, only turned on with the flick of a switch, and I’d already had it going before my visitor arrived. The wine has been poured, though, and Harrington is sitting too close, his body turned in toward me. There’s nowhere for me to move—I’m already seated against the arm. I consider asking him to back up and give me space, but, in the end, I like him this close as much as I don’t.
We eat in thick silence, the kind of silence that’s alive. It crawls along my skin and breathes heavily in my face, and everything, everything I want and need to say to this man hides in its shadow, gathering courage to step into the light. It’s possible that I’m not that brave. Not that open to vulnerability.
“This is rather good,” he says, halfway through his sandwich.
I chortle. “Please. You don’t have to patronize me. I know you’d prefer corned beef or pastrami.” He’d always liked his food “manly.” Anything mixed with mayonnaise, and, god forbid, grapes, was immediately qualified as feminine.
“I’m as surprised as you are, but I’m quite serious.” His brow knits as he considers the remaining half in his hand. He looks at it like I might look at a spreadsheet, determined to tease out the pertinent information. “Perhaps it’s the pecans. I find the crunchy texture appealing.”
I study his forehead as he talks, noting the new lines that mar the once smooth plane. I find these appealing. I long to trace them with my fingertips.
I also find them infuriating. Each groove is part of the story of his life, a life that has been lived longer without me than with. Stories he can never tell from a life I could never share.
My eyes sting suddenly, and I turn my head away. I feel him scrutinizing my profile, and I lose my appetite. I stack my plate on his and set it on the side table before concentrating on my wine, praying that the numbing effects of the alcohol take effect as soon as fucking possible.
It’s not soon enough because I still feel too much when he sighs and says, “Oh, Amy, Amy. I’m dying to know what’s going on behind those muddy eyes. Tell me some of it, won’t you?”
My lids close briefly, an attempt to buffer the connection between us. It doesn’t help. I still feel him reaching into me, sneaking under my skin with long, electric tentacles.
I clear my throat. I swallow. “Soraya passed,” I say finally. “Three years ago now.” My grandmother and I had been close, and Harry had known her well. We’d spent long hours at her studio, listening to her chatter in her broken English, watching as she painted her vibrant, abstract views of the world. She’d loved us together, loved the way we loved each other, and I was fairly certain she’d attempted to capture us in her broad-stroked art. The two had wound themselves together in my mind, and the joy in her paintings is always mingled with the want of him.
When she’d died, I’d wanted Harry desperately. I was sullen and sad and convinced that no one could understand the depth of my loss except him. The cavity she left behind merged with the crater of emptiness that he’d created when he left. It made sense to believe he was the only one who could give me solace.
But he hadn’t been there, and somehow I’d survived. Or I’d thought I had. Sitting here, speaking of her now, my voice trembles, and I sense the coming wave of grief.
“I knew that,” he says softly. “I’m deeply sorry.”
The grief halts abruptly, and a storm of rage begins to gather in its place. “You knew?”
“I watch out for you. You’re always on my radar.”
“You knew and yet you let me suffer alone? Couldn’t bother to reach out? Send flowers? Or a note?”
“Amelia…” He reaches out to stroke my cheek, but I jerk my head away. His hand falls to his lap. “You know any c
ontact with you jeopardizes your safety and mine. I couldn’t live with myself if you ever became a target in order to hurt me.”
I swallow back the rest of my wine in three big gulps then slam the glass down on the table so hard I’m surprised it doesn’t break. “No contact, but you’re here now.” Now, when I want him but I don’t need him. Now, when it’s convenient for him but not when it was urgent for me.
His blue eyes cloud.
“It’s complicated. I was already coming to London, and I took precautions when I came here tonight. It’s safe. Probably.” He shoves a hand through his short hair. “Or maybe not. I don’t know.” He shakes his head. “It is safe. It will be because I won’t be here again, and I’m not in the middle of anything at the moment that would draw enemy attention. It was a risky decision, all the same. I’m aware. But, like I said before, I couldn’t not see you.”
I contemplate him as he works through his justification. Sometimes, when I’m feeling in the mood to pick the scab, I watch James Bond movies. I prefer the idea of a gentleman spy to whatever today’s militarized equivalent might be. And I know full well that the girl of the day is always the one in danger, either way.
It’s satisfying on some deep, selfish level to realize he’s thrown caution to the wind for me. His reality is too foreign, too abstract for me to find truly frightening, so his behavior doesn’t feel quite as risky to me as I know it does to him.
It knocks down a barrier between us, and I reach out again to rub the scruff on his jaw while I consider what else to share with him, since he seems keen on talking. There’s no one in his own family to inquire after—it was part of what made him the perfect candidate for undercover work. I was only ever his one liability. And I already know he’ll share nothing of his actual work.
The frustration of that subsides under the relief that I won’t learn anything that will keep me up at night worrying for him.
But that leaves me to bear the brunt of the conversation. It’s funny. All the moments, all the individual events that have transpired over the years that I’ve wanted to share are absent from my mind now. There’re too many of them, too many starting places in a large ball of yarn, and I don’t know which thread to pick at first to unwind the history of Me Without Him.
