said.”
Outside their bungalow, the rebel camp went suddenly dark. Water hissed over the campfire’s embers. Buitre switched off his generator, making the hum of insects seem suddenly louder.
“Look, I’m not trying to fight with you, Luce. We’re on the same side, you know. I’m not the enemy,” he murmured in her ear.
Given the longing rippling from her neck to her toes, she wasn’t so sure about that.
“We used to be best friends, remember?”
A vision of Gus driving from Rhode Island to Washington, D.C., in a blizzard so he could see her over Christmas break put pressure on Lucy’s chest. “I remember,” she conceded.
A long, reflective silence ensued as more memories sluiced through her mind, every one of them tinged with tenderness and love. Had her life really been that wonderful?
“What we had was pretty good,” he commented, revealing that his thoughts ran parallel to hers.
“We were young,” she reasoned. “Life wasn’t complicated like it is now.”
She gave a start at the feel of his finger running lightly from her forehead, over her cheekbone, and along the soft flesh of her lower lip. Desire looped through her, tightening its hold on her like a satin ribbon, matched by equal parts fear.
“Does this feel complicated?” he asked her.
Lucy’s chest felt tight. For the past eight years, she’d focused exclusively on her career. There had been no place in her life for tenderness or honesty. Yet here was Gus, touching her the way he used to, sweetly, gently, summoning a softness she hadn’t allowed herself to feel, let alone reveal the need for. “Yes,” she breathed.
“Why?” His fingers moved lower, down the length of her neck, giving rise to a pleasant shiver, before sliding away to trace her delicate collarbones.
“Because.”
“Because why?” His fingers drifted lower still, warming her as they traced the outline of her satin bra. With a crescendo of desire, her nipples peaked.
She grabbed his hand, her heart pounding. “We can’t,” she protested. But desire outmatched her reason, and instead of pushing him away, she pressed his palm to her aching breast.
Suddenly decisive, he pulled her under him, cupping her jaw and kissing her thoroughly as he settled between her thighs. Lucy clung to him, helplessly responsive, her thoughts spinning in confusion.
But the hum of desire as Gus’s lips trailed fire down her neck quieted her fears.
They were consenting adults, they were married, at least according to their cover, and suddenly it didn’t seem so dangerous, so threatening.
He edged her bra aside, and the rasp of his tongue over her stiff nipple silenced her reticence once and for all. She wrapped her arms and legs around him, reveling in his power and breadth, pleased by the way he’d transformed himself, heartbroken by the reason for it.
Oh, Gus. He must have been devastated when his father died. She wished he’d found a way to tell her, only she had severed communications with him just months before, fully focused on her upcoming career with the CIA. She hadn’t wanted distractions to slow her down.
She refused to consider that her decision had been a mistake. Still, she would have wanted to comfort him.
As he suckled her nipples, she sank her fingernails into the thick muscles of his back, longing to pull him closer, closer, but he eluded her, nibbling and licking his way down her torso, swirling in and out of her navel.
Lucy gasped, her back arching off the mat as anticipation bathed her in moist heat. Oh, please, yes. The mountain air touched coldly on her naked breasts, but with the blanket around her knees and Gus’s head between her thighs, she felt nothing but warmth and pleasure and heart-pounding anticipation as he tugged her panties down and stabbed his tongue against her pulsing flesh.
It had to be the danger, the threat of discovery heightening her pleasure. My God, she hadn’t come with another person in the same room for longer than she could remember, and here she was on the verge of shattering already. But then, this was Gus—James, who used to know her, truly know her. She didn’t have to fake it with him.
Adding his clever fingers, he coaxed her higher. Climax ripped through Lucy, so powerful and so endless that it seemed to wring her from the inside out. No sooner did it ebb than emotion ambushed her without warning.
As Gus covered her, nudged her slick opening, and sank implacably inside her, she held in the alarming urge to cry.
What is wrong with you? It’s just sex. Get a grip.
But