“When you’re ready.” The flat planes of his abdomen were hard, quivering with tension where she braced her palms against him. His voice had deepened. Gone hoarse. His eyes were the color of smoke, with flame beneath. Hot. Ravenous. “We’ll wait till every part of you wants this.”
“No.” She could not stare into those eyes or she would be lost. She bent her head. Her hair hung in tendrils that swayed when she shook her head. “I…No.”
He took a deep breath and held still. He was ready beneath her, ready as iron. “What is it, Cub?” Careful, his hands shaking a little, he lifted her chin and searched her face. “I swear, I wouldn’t have you like this if I didn’t think you wanted it. What’s the matter?”
“I do not…I do not do this with English spies…” It came out in short, frantic breaths. “…who do not give a fig for me. And who…confuse me.”
“You don’t do this with anyone, according to the best available evidence. A man knows, at this point.” He lifted strands of her wet hair and pulled them back from her face, left and right. She had to look at him. Laughter and stark hunger and tenderness poured from him…and a shrewd understanding that scared her witless. “Give me a little credit, Cub. You want this. If you didn’t, I sure as hell wouldn’t be deflowering you in a bathtub.”
“I…”
“From the first, I’ve known. You. Only you. Inevitable.” His fingertips skimmed her cheek, then over her lips. She shuddered. They both knew what he was doing to her. “We’ll make it work. Trust me. Do you want to talk for a while?”
“I cannot. You distract me.”
Oh, but he thought that was very funny. He made the water shake with his laughter. “I think I’ll distract you some more.” He kissed one breast, then the other.
She ached. Already, she swayed in his hands, unable to stop herself. But he wanted the words of surrender also. He tormented them both with his foolish scruples. She was not so naïve to acquiesce to a man while he laughed at her.
She no longer cared whether it was wise or disastrous or merely inevitable. I need him. I will have him. He would see the surrender she made to him.
She gripped the side of the tub and rose up. He was ready. She thrust herself downward, hard.
A deep cry wrenched out of her. She felt tearing inside. The stab of pleasure hurt. It was honey sweet.
“Good…God.” Grey surged upward to meet her. “Wait.” He locked his hands to the bones of her hips and kept her tight to him, panting, face contorted. “Wait. Wait a damn minute.”
“Yes.” She held most totally motionless, stunned past thought.
“That was…That…” He sucked in a tremendous, shaky breath. “Annique, men like to be prepared for this sort of thing.” He held rigidly still, savage with need, shuddering with laughter. “You’ll be the death of me, woman. Does it hurt?”
“No.” She shook her head. “Yes. Not exactly. It feels different.”
“I imagine it does.” His hands clenched. Released. Stroked the length of her body. Clenched around her again. “Don’t move, or this is going to be remarkably…brief.” He took another deep, ragged breath. “I’d planned something slow and elaborate.”
Elaborate. He need not have worried. Inside her, things were extremely elaborate. She made some sound.
“I’ve been looking forward to this for a long time,” he said.
She wanted to tell him that she had, as well, waited for this. But she could not speak.
“Stay still now. I’ll try to go slow.” His fingers slid down to open soft, sensitive parts of her. He eased gradually deeper into her. Pain by pain. Pleasure by pleasure. He was smooth as the water swirling past, compelling as the pull of tides.
Thought quenched. She gasped and started to move upon him.
“Softly, love. Wait.”
“I…I cannot.”
“You can. Gently with yourself.” He pressed her hips down to him, holding her still. His other hand caressed persuasively, building a restless anxiety within her. “We’re in no hurry. See. It doesn’t hurt when you hold still. I do this, and there’s no pain at all.”
She did not try to answer. She had misplaced the ability to translate between French and English. An overmastering rhythm gripped her. She was frantic to ride upon him. It was impossible to keep still. He would make her insane. She made fists and hit upon his chest in great strokes, like a bell tolling, as she rocked. Upward. Down. He opened his hold and let her move upon him, deeply. He gasped each time.
Again. Again. A wall, solid and heavy as bricks, but made of burning light, grew around her. And crashed down. Over her. Everywhere.
He must have felt what happened within her. He thrust upward, deep inside. Yes. And yes. She threw her head back and cried out, altogether lost. Except that she must hold him, tight, tight to her.
It did not hurt. Nothing could hurt when she was like this.
Pleasure rushed in. Filled her. Jolts of it hit, spaced by the moans she made. It was limitless pleasure, orbed and blazing, that glowed and burned inside her. She felt herself closing over him again and again.
Time flowed once more. The edge of that glory slid across her and away. She collapsed, inch by inch, shaking and pulsing, onto him.
His arms wrapped around her. She lay her head upon his heart. It beat like a horse running, strong and even.
“I am glad I did this,” she whispered in French, “whatever comes after.”
She felt everywhere light as feathers, but when she tried to move, she found she was, on the contrary, heavy as lead. It was a good thing she had someone beneath her or she would probably have drowned.
Twenty-four
HE CLOSED THE DOOR SOFTLY BEHIND HIM. Anaique slept on the couch in the study, wrapped in a white Turkish robe—his damp, sweet, vulnerable, and deadly French agent, exhausted from making love with him.
Miraculously and at last, she was his. He could solve everything else, now that he’d got that right. He wanted to grin like a fool and caper around the halls. Pity a Head of Section couldn’t do that.
“There’s nineteen beds in this house,” Doyle was waiting for him, leaning against the wall, arms folded across his chest, his ugly face set in lines of amusement, “if you count the cots in back of the kitchen. None of ’em’s good enough for you. You do it in the bathtub. God’s cat.”
That was the trouble, living with spies. They figured out every damn thing. No privacy. “We need to get her some clothes. I can’t keep her in a bathrobe.”
“Maggie’ll bring over some bits and pieces. They’re close enough in size.”
“Except Annique is what I’d call plum-size, very tasteful and understated.” Adrian came up, light on his feet. He wore his gentleman’s togs—charcoal jacket, dove-colored waistcoat, ruby stickpin in his cravat. He didn’t look like a man who’d had a bullet picked out of him ten days ago. “Maggie, on the other hand, is more—”
“And you, me lad, can stop right there,” Doyle said.
Grey needed a look at Tacitus and Montaigne. One final confirmation. They’d be on the shelves in the library. He started upstairs. “Where’s Giles?”
“I sent him to mop up.” Doyle allowed a short, innocent pause. “Seems the bathroom’s an inch deep in water somehow.”
“Send him to the office when he’s done. I shot a man in Kent. We have to notify a magistrate.”
“This spree of lawlessness you’ve embarked upon…” Adrian trailed them upstairs, shaking his head. “Fletch sends his compliments and suggests you return his nag. I take it the beast is tied outside.”
“Right. More work for Giles. And remind Ferguson to serve coffee at dinner, not tea. Annique doesn’t like tea. I’m glad you two made it out of France.”
“I’m glad she didn’t crack your skull on the way up from Dover,” Doyle said equitably. “For one thing, you can sort this mess that piled up while you were depopulating the countryside. First off, Military Intelligence knows we got Annique. They want her.”