Page 72 of Beehive

“You’re the expert. I need a drink. It’ll help my . . . sniffles.”

Will snorted.

Visla frowned. For a moment, I thought her fist might raise with a new, more inventive insult, but she simply turned and strode out the door, slamming it behind her.

“A drink sounds good right now. It’s been a long day,” Will said, reaching up and stroking circles in my back.

“Mmm. Wish you could just keep doing that, maybe more than that.”

His pressure increased, kneading sore muscles.

“God, I love you,” I moaned.

“Shh,” he hissed, his hand freezing in place.

“Sorry.” I leaned down and whispered in his ear. “I just miss this.”

As I rose, I nipped his ear and enjoyed the stifled yelp that followed. “Every time that throbs, you’ll think about me. You can thank me later.”

Without giving him a chance to bite back or punch my arm, I hopped off the bed and made my way down to the kitchen.

26

Will

“What was that shit, lighter fluid?” Thomas asked, smacking his gums like he’d just eaten a beetle and it was still fighting back.

I grunted and dropped into the chair at the desk. “When was the last time you tried lighter fluid? How would you even know what it tastes like?”

The door clicked shut, and Thomas appeared behind me, his firm hands digging into the muscles of my neck. “It tasted like lighter fluid smells. How’s that?”

“Fuck lighter fluid,” I moaned. “You have about twelve hours to stop doing that.”

He leaned down and kissed my head as his hands retreated from their work.

“Aw, really? That was like five rubs. That doesn’t even qualify as a massage.”

Thomas shook his head and pointed around the room where someone might hide a listening device. I shrugged and turned my attention to the rabbi while he checked our room.

A half hour later, I was still staring into the old man’s eyes, feeling along the etchings, and failing to find a way to unlock the hidden chamber. Thomas’s fingers clasped my shoulders, and his thumbs dug into my back. Before I could even moan, he leaned down and kissed my neck.

“I love you, Will Shaw, more than anything in this world.”

Fear stabbed into my chest. I set the statue down, turned to face him, and mouthed, “They might be listening.”

Thomas smiled and shook his head. “I’ve searched everywhere, and I’mverygood at my job. If they’re still listening, they deserve the show they’re about to hear.”

My brows shot up as he bent down and pressed his lips to mine. They were warm and wet. I melted into their touch. I wanted Thomas so badly it hurt—no, Ineededhim. He wasn’t some man I cared for; he was part of me, the better part, depending on who one asked.

I fell in love with him the moment we’d met back at Harvard, though it took months for my ape brain to catch up and realize it. Once it did, and my worldview adjusted, I couldn’t imagine life without him. His quirky, sideways smirk and sharp wit were maddening—and the very things that drew me to him. I wanted to swim in his smile, to lose myself in its light, to drown in its warmth.

He became everything to me.

Then we joined the OSS. That had been terrifying in a very different way.

My life plan, such that it was after my parents died, never included foreign service. It certainly hadn’t included undercover intelligence work. That was the stuff of moving pictures, not my real life. But join, we had, and in doing so, we’d been thrust into a band of brothers and sisters who dwelled in shadows and played with secrets.

Back then, I was sure we’d be sent to opposite ends of the Earth; but when Uncle Sam put us on the same team bound for Europe, I knew we would live—or die—together.

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