Behind Closed Doors (Rochester Trilogy 3.50)

This is the only place I ever want to be for the rest of my life. What could ever convince me to leave?

Pleasure ripples out over me. It takes me in its hands and squeezes, pulsing until it shakes my body around the thick intrusion of him. Until Sam’s moving with me in that pleasure and fighting for his own.

His body tenses, and he comes with an animal sound. I feel like it’s been pent up inside him for years and years. He’s been craving this. He needs this. He might die without the touch of another person. Without being inside me.

I hook my fingertips into his back and hold him while he shudders out all that pleasure. When he’s finished, he rests his head against me, breathing hard.

I don’t think this is normal. He’s so strong. It can’t possibly have been too much for him. It feels monumental, though. My skin is all tingly with the aftershocks. My whole body is awake with how intimate this is.

“That was good,” I murmur into his ear, looping my arms around his neck.

“Thank god,” he says. “Thank god.”

He was pretending. Pretending to be calm and sure and confident. He didn’t know if I would like this, and he’s relieved.

Sam’s found a kind of solace.

He’s safe.

I’m just not sure if I am.

Chapter Eight

Sam

I can’t bring myself to leave her alone in the bed.

When Marjorie falls asleep, I lay my head on the pillow and sleep next to her. I want to be near her so much that it overrides all my years of training and knocks down my commitment to detachment. I could try to justify it to myself by saying it’s about getting closer to her. That it’s about reducing her fear so I’ll have more time to hunt down the evidence. That it’s about the job and nothing else, but it’s not.

That’s bullshit.

I just want to be near her. I want her body folded against mine. I want to hear every peaceful breath. I want to breathe her in the whole damn night.

And the next night. Every night.

Being in bed with her makes me imagine a future outside the CIA. That’s not an option for me. It hasn’t been an option since the day I signed on the dotted line. A contract like mine is for life. Once in a while, an agent retires, but for what? You’d always be looking over your shoulder. I knew what I was giving up when I signed on. By the time I’m ready to hand in my weapon, it’ll be too late for a regular life as a civilian.

Despite all that, I fall asleep fast and hard next to Marjorie.

In the morning, I wake up to find her still pressed close to me. Her body has molded itself to mine. The pretty little innkeeper sleeps comfortably in the warmth I’ve created for her. The sun creeps up over the horizon. Any other day, I’d be out of bed the minute my eyes open. A run, a shower. My routine doesn’t break for anything.

I’m not ending this a second early.

It’s not long before Marjorie stirs. She comes out of sleep slowly. Stretching. Sighing. Her body presses against mine. I run my palm over her stomach to let her know I’m awake, too.

She turns over onto her back, dragging her hand over her eyes, and looks into mine. “Hi.”

“Good morning.”

Her gaze travels down over my chest. My stomach. The job has decorated me with marks over the years. Patches of skin that won’t be quite the same. Burn marks that never faded. More than a few scars. It feels like she’s rifling through all my secrets, the way I was doing to her.

Marjorie raises a fingertip and traces it over my chest.

Her touch fills me with warmth. It shouldn’t. It’s not secrets she’s seeing, I insist to myself. It’s just my track record on the job. This is the path the rest of my life will take. It’ll involve more skin damage at the very least. That much is a given.

She brushes her fingertip over a red half-moon scar near my ribs.

“A job in the Middle East.”

“Were you in a fight?” she murmurs.

“I saw it coming but decided to take the wound rather than blow my cover.”

There are more scars for her to discover. She grazes one of them with her nail. “And this one?”

“Paris.” I shift closer to her. “This is pretty one-sided. I want to know about you.”

A soft laugh escapes her. Marjorie must believe there’s nothing to know about her. It’s bullshit. She has one hell of a history, but more than that, she has a present. A life. It’s fascinating in a way I never expected. I memorize her touch while I wait for the answer. It’s the question I was supposed to ask, but I didn’t do it to impress my handler or wrap things up here.