Page 98 of A Lady's Handbook of Espionage
Always.
By the time he settled between the cradle of her thighs, she was trembling. Callahan caught her gaze and held it as he lowered his head and put his mouth on her.
“Yes,” she gasped. “Yes.”
He focused on wringing more of those sweet noises from her, licking into her in slow, deliberate strokes. She was hot and slick against his tongue, hands twisting in his hair. It was too much and not enough. He sealed his lips around her clitoris and sucked, fingers thrusting into her.
She cried out as she climaxed, arching off the bed. Callahan worked her through it until she was shaking and so unbearably lovely he could hardly stand it.
Surging up her body, he claimed her mouth in a hard, hungry kiss, letting her taste herself. She curled her legs around his hips, and he groaned.
“Inside me,” she mumbled. “Please, Ronan—”
Hearing his name on her lips nearly undid him. Callahan reached between them to position his cock. He paused, the air between them electric. Waiting.
“Look at me, Trouble.”
Their eyes met. Slowly, achingly, he pressed forward.
They both moaned. Callahan forced himself to go slow, to savour her. Gritting his teeth against the urge to simplytake. But then Isabel rolled her hips, and—
He broke.
Braced above her on his elbows, Callahan started to move, each thrust measured. Deliberate. She rose to meet him, fingers clawing at his back, his arse, urging him harder. Deeper. He obliged, picking up the pace until the rhythmic creak of the bed filled the room.
When her second peak hit, she gasped out his name.
“That’s it,” he coaxed. He thrust hard into her, seeking his own completion. “Let go for me, sweetheart.”
With a harsh groan, Callahan buried his face in her neck and let his own release crash through him. His thoughts blanked, every cell in his body singing with pleasure so acute it bordered on pain.
Long, lazy minutes passed as their breathing slowed. Callahan had just enough presence of mind to roll to his side, bringing Isabel with him so she was tucked against his chest. If he concentrated, he fancied he could make out the slow, steady thrum of her pulse, an echo of his own, a Morse code tapped out into the chambers of his heart.
Here, it said.Still here.
Her fingertips tracing his face jolted him out of his reverie, light as moth’s wings as she mapped his cheekbones, the ridge of his brow, his jaw. There was an aching sort of tenderness in her touch. Something uncomfortably close to memorisation. As if she thought this was the last time she might ever be permitted to learn him this way.
Before Callahan could second-guess the impulse, he turned his head to press a kiss into the palm cradling his cheek.
“I love you,” he murmured.
Three small syllables he’d bitten back a thousand times.
A beat of silence, nothing but the harsh rasp of his breathing. The naked vulnerability laid out between them like an offering. Callahan briefly considered snatching them back, shoving this dangerous truth back into the locked box inside his chest where it had taken up residence years ago, sprouting insidious roots in Hong Kong, Athens, New York. Every heated glance and breath, every slide of skin and shared secret.
Finally, Isabel loosed a trembling exhale. Her smile was a fragile, bittersweet thing, and when she leaned up to brush her lips over his, it felt like goodbye.
“I love you too, Mr Ashford,” she whispered against his mouth.
Something plummeted in Callahan’s chest, even as he reached up to tangle a hand in her hair, keeping her close. Because that wasn’t his name. Not the one he wanted to hear from her, in the intimacy of tangled sheets and languid caresses.
It was a door closing. Like she was rebuilding her walls brick by brick, mortaring the cracks with that false name.
And he was letting her.
Because in the end, loving her and losing her hurt less than never having her at all. So he memorised her weight in his arms, the rise and fall of her ribs beneath his splayed palm, and told himself it was enough.
He willed his breathing to even out, feigning the deep, slow rhythms of sleep until Isabel’s breaths became soft and regular, her body going slack in repose.
