Page 76 of To Love A Spy
But he must never guess.
Holding back a sigh, she snuggled into the crook of his arm, and let herself be lulled to sleep by the gentle rise and fall of his breathing.
Valencia awoke a little later to find his beautiful eyes open and intent on her face.
“Val, I . . . I am?—”
She covered his mouth with her hand. “If you say you are sorry, I swear, I shall throttle you.”
He laughed, his breath warm against her skin. “I’m not sorry,” he said. “I am . . . I am at a loss to describe my feelings.”
“You? Speechless?”
“Bereft of words.” A whisper of a smile played on his lips. “Bereft of sanity, of self-control.”
“Is that so very bad, Thomas?” she asked hesitantly. “To allow yourself an interlude of personal passion once in a while?”
“Nay, Val. Not bad, but . . . dangerous.” His lips feathered against her brow, then he rolled on his back, facing up at the darkened ceiling. “You are like an ocean storm, an elemental force of wind and waves that I seem powerless to fight.” He laced his hands behind his head. “Yet I must, else I shall be in danger of drowning in desire.”
A dappling of moonlight, soft and silvery as spun silk, traced the outline of his profile. The chiseled cheekbones, the aquiline nose, the sculpted lips, now thinned in a half mocking curl—in such a light, his features were not merely austere, aristocratic. They blurred to a far more complex shape.
She knew every nuance of his expression by heart, but the momentary flicker of longing caused the breath to catch in her throat. “I’m not sorry. Not at all.”
He turned to look at her, his eyes aswirl with intensity. Their depth seemed go on forever. Unfathomable in their beauty.
“I am not sorry either. Though God help me, I should be.”
“Stop feeling guilty,” she cried. “You are allowed to be human.”
“I could say the same for you,” he replied.
Her throat tightened. “You’ve never failed like I have.”
“Oh, but I have. More times than I care to count.” He pointed to the scar on his shoulder. “This happened in Italy. A French agent beat me badly, and left my superior with his throat cut. Blood from the severed artery was everywhere, soaking his shirt and mine. It took several minutes for him to die in my arms.” Lynsley closed his eyes, as if it might shut out the memory. “So if anything, I bungled an assignment far worse than you can ever imagine, Valencia.”
Her eyes softened. “I didn’t know.”
“No, why would you?”
“How did you deal with it—disappointing not only your compatriots but yourself.”
“By getting up and trying again, no matter how much the wounds hurt,” he said softly.
“It’s damnably hard,” she whispered.
“Aye, it is. You blame yourself, and yet you were the only one to suffer the consequences. I failed, and had to watch my closestfriend and mentor bleed to death in my arms. Few people in our clandestine world of warfare escape unscathed.”
“Oh, Thomas.” Valencia drew him into her arms. “What a pair we are. Two scarred soldiers.”
He rolled onto his back, dragging her on top of him. “For a duo of aging warriors, we aren’t doing too badly.”
She arched her back, sinfully aware of the wonderfully wanton sensations against her skin. Her hair spilling in wild tangles across her shoulders. Her legs straddling his hard, flat belly. Her laughter, slipping softly from her kiss-swollen lips.
“It seems we are still capable of rising to the occasion.”
“I am not ready to stick my spoon in the wall quite yet,” he quipped. “But as for a certain part of anatomy . . . “
“Why Lord Lynsley, what a lewd and lascivious innuendo for a gentleman to make.”
