“I sleep enough.”
“No, you don’t.” Her hands sweep through my hair. It’s getting too long on top, but I can’t bring myself to cut it. The feel of her running her hands through it is too good.
I put Fleur down on the bed and follow her under the covers. Sitting up, she waits for me to stretch my arm across her pillow before she tucks herself into me.
“I don’t hate you either.” Her whisper ghosts over my chest.
“Good.”
“Good.”
“Go to sleep, Trouble.”
“You too, big man.”
I feel her smile on my skin, and I pull her closer, holding her tighter as she falls back to sleep.
Fleur’s tired from the target practice. She’s not bad, she’s just not great at the whole shoot on impulse thing. A lot of it is because it’s taking her longer to catch her breath, and with her centre of gravity being off, it also takes her longer to steady herself enough to take a decent shot.
“How are you so good at this?” she growls, coming to a breathless stop. “My heart feels like it’s about to explode.”
“We’re done for today.”
“No, I just need a moment.”
“We made an agreement—I would teach you, but you wouldn’t go crazy. If you get hurt now, there’s no point to any of this.” Taking the Glock from her, I take out the magazine and kick the bullet in the chamber out, catching it in my palm on its way to the ground.
“Ugh, I hate you. You’re exactly what my father used to call you.”
I load the discarded bullet back into the magazine and holster it back at my side. “And what was that?”
It doesn’t surprise me that Charles Winterbourne, the former foreign secretary, used to talk about me. I used to technically be at his beck and call after all the shit went down on the last mission.
After that everything got messy with Cameron, and they pulled our cadre altogether because we refused to let him be the scapegoat for a mission that was doomed to begin with. Our whole squadron was discarded for reconnaissance mistakes the secret service made.
“Lean, mean k
illing machine…” she giggles, her head thrown back onto the tree trunk lolling from side to side like her own laughter is a euphoric drug. “Minus the lean—I added that in for impact.”
It’s definitely a drug that I can’t get enough of. Maybe because it makes me want to laugh too. And the way she’s looking up at me with chill kissed cheeks and glittering onyx depths tear lined with her mirth…
I want to do nothing else but kiss her. I want to suck all that fucking joy into my lungs and bathe my soul in it.
No doubt it’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever thought, but yet, it makes so much sense that I do it. Crouching to Fleur’s height, I hoist her up my body, my hands grasping her tight arse as my mouth finds hers. Her breathless moan when I bite down on her lip vibrates through me, heating my insides as it culminates at my hardening cock.
Everything around us fades as her fingers twine into my hair and her breathy moans fill my mouth. Her tongue circles with mine, and the deeper our kiss gets, the more manic it becomes. Like it could be our last.
It might be.
I hate that thought. I hate that thought so much that I hold on tighter as I pin her to the tree with my body. Her legs hook around me, and I kiss her harder as she claws at my shoulders, as though we can get closer than we already are.
God, she’s so warm and so perfect. And I really can’t let anything happen to her. Fleur can’t be another casualty of this fucking war.
“I lied,” she rasps once we’ve pulled away for air. She sounds like she might need an oxygen tank though.
“You lied?”
The heat coursing through my veins chills at the extremities.