Cinderella and the Spy

by Sally Tyler Hayes

  “Later,” he said, swearing softly, pushing her back onto the mattress, following her down. “Believe me, I want you to touch me. But later. For now—”

  He pinned her to the mattress, kissing her deeply. A moment later he rolled onto his back, bringing her with him, settling her on top of him, palming her hips and pulling her against him. He felt so hot, so big. She leaned down against him, draping her body across his. He kissed her greedily, thrusting inside of her with his tongue. She lost all track of time and space, her world nothing but him, his big, hard body, his wicked fingers, his hot, soft mouth.

  “Open your eyes,” he said, tugging on her hair, bringing her head up. “I want to see you this time.”

  She looked down into his fevered eyes. She felt his hands between their bodies, and a minute later, with one subtle little shift in pressure, she felt him, pushing at the opening of her body, stretching. He thrust inside of her, smoothly and deeply. Her eyes flew open. She gasped, watching him, his jaw tight, his eyes locked on hers, the rippling muscles of his chest, all that golden skin.

  She decided she liked having him inside of her, buried to the hilt. Liked wriggling her hips and making him groan. Liked that control he gave over to her in this position. Liked the fact that she could do whatever she wanted with him, that she could make him cry out. She liked thinking that one day she would know his body and play it with every bit of skill he used on hers, liked the idea of making him limp and spent and exhausted by what she would do to him, one day.

  But for right now, she was his. Utterly his. Her body spasmed out of control and she cried out, collapsing on top of him, her head finding that spot on his shoulder and hanging on. He moved even more urgently than before. She loved the urgency, the edge of desperation. Loved feeling the hot, pulsing of his release, the dig of his fingertips into her hips, the strain showing in every muscle in his body. She loved being able to see him, to watch him, to lean over and kiss him softly on his mouth, easing him down, as he’d eased her down that first night.

  It didn’t stop for a long time, she found. That slow, gentle slide into exhaustion, satiation, utter relaxation. Their bodies were damp with sweat, their breathing finally slow and deep. He had his arms locked around her, and she lay heavily on top of him, her head in the crook of his shoulder.

  “I like this spot,” she said.

  “I thought you would,” he murmured, turning his head, kissing her sweetly. “I missed you.”

  “I missed you, too,” she said cautiously.

  “So why were you trying your best to leave before I got back here?” he said carefully.

  “I was just trying to get my passport back,” she said.

  “I know. I went to considerable effort to make sure you didn’t.”

  She took a breath, seeing the determined side of him. The man who always got what he wanted. And she tried not to think of what he meant by that. She tried not to think about how very good it was to be with him, even for a little while, how it seemed like forever when it had been less than two weeks. If two weeks had felt like an eternity without him, what would a month be like? A year? A lifetime?

  She eased off him, rolling onto her back, pulling the covers up around her, and admitted, “I didn’t want you to have to ask me to go.”

  He swore again, threw back the covers and walked into the bathroom. She stared up at the ceiling, waiting. He was back a minute later, slipping into the bed beside her, staring at her for a long time, then said, “Who said anything about asking you to go?”

  “You would, eventually,” she said. It would be one more thing he would regret, and she didn’t want him to have any more regrets about the time they’d spent together. And then she thought of one more regret—one of her own. “I’m not pregnant. At least, I wasn’t, before this.”

  If anything, his expression seemed more stern than before. “You think that’s the only reason I’m here? To find out if you’re pregnant?”

  “It… I just thought you should know…that you don’t have to worry about that. Or, you didn’t. Before this time.”

  “I used a condom,” he said. “I managed to grab one in time.”

  “Oh.” She’d scarcely realized.

  The scowl across his handsome face intensified. She had the sensation of rattling a tiger’s cage, without realizing how dangerous he truly was.

  “Do you think I have so little regard for you?” he asked.

  “I know you care about me.” Just as she knew caring would never be enough for her.

  “Care about you?” He frowned, moistened his lips and backed off a little, not crowding her so much. “I’m not handling this well. I haven’t handled this well right from the beginning. I thought about it last week and realized we’ve never even been out on a date. It sounds ridiculous to say it, but I’ve never even taken you out.”

  She looked around the candlelit room, the scene set for seduction. “This is your idea of a date, I suppose?”

  He frowned. “Believe it or not, I used to know how to make a woman feel special. I want you to feel that way.”

  “You don’t have to do that.” Amanda closed her eyes, hurting. She didn’t want him to treat her like all the others. “You didn’t have to go to all this trouble.”

  “I wanted to,” he said. “Don’t you know? Don’t you have any idea? I am absolutely lost without you. I can’t quite figure out what I’m supposed to do without you.”

  She curled her bottom lip over her teeth and bit down, trying not to make a sound. All the breath rushed out of her, and silly little tears flooded her eyes.

  “Amanda, I just spent the last three days rearranging my whole life for you.”

  “What do you mean, rearranging your whole life?”

  “My father’s resigning,” he said. “There are people looking for someone to take his place, and my name’s come up.”

  “You?” She gaped at him. “An ambassador?”

  He nodded, never once taking his gaze off her face.

  “Why?”

  “It seemed to make sense, once I thought about it. My father’s pushing for it, for his own sake. He likes the idea of being succeeded by his son, even if he does happen to barely tolerate me.”

  “I didn’t think you cared what your father wants.”

  “I don’t. But he has a good bit of influence. If he wants this, he could make it happen. And the job has its advantages. It would keep me in one place most of the time. I wouldn’t be flying off to this country or that one. It wouldn’t be quite as dangerous—”

  “It’s dangerous? Being an ambassador?”

  “Not much, not under normal circumstances. But one of the reasons certain people are interested in seeing me in this job—one of the reasons I’m interested in it—is that it would put me in a good position to do some discreet work for Division One from time to time.”

  “Oh,” she said.

  “Not a lot,” he rushed on. “And probably more behind-the-scenes stuff than I do now. Not as dangerous.”

  She sat there thinking. Obviously, she was missing something. “So your father wants it, and it wouldn’t be as dangerous and it would keep you in one place?”

  “Yes. That doesn’t mean we couldn’t travel. Paris is a good starting point to see all of Europe, Asia, Africa, the Far East. Whatever you wanted.”

  “Me? You’re doing this for me? You’d change your whole life for me?”

  “And for me,” he said soberly, quietly. “For us.”

  “You don’t love me,” she said. “You don’t want to ever get married, and even if you did—”

  “Don’t tell me it wouldn’t be you,” he said tightly. “Don’t you dare tell me that.”

  “Josh—”

  “I just never understood this part of it, Amanda. Jamie and I talked about marriage a couple of weeks ago, and she said something I hadn’t considered before, something that didn’t sink in for me until a few days ago. I always looked at the limitations that come with marriage. I saw it narrowin
g all the possibilities about how I would live my life—”

  “You mean the women,” she said. “Narrowing the possibilities with all the women.”

  “No,” he said, then backtracked. “I mean, I am talking about that. About limiting myself to one woman. I’ll do that gladly. I’m not expecting it to be any hardship. I don’t happen to want any other woman but you.”

  She just stared at him, wanting so badly to believe him.

  “Amanda, before that night on the boat, I hadn’t been with another woman in almost a year. Not since right after Rob died. Not since I decided I couldn’t stay away from you any longer, that we were finally going to have a chance together.” He grinned. “I knew I was in trouble when I realized how long it had been and I still didn’t want to do anything about it. Except get back to the States, back to you.”

  She lay back against the plush pillows, struggling for air. He leaned over her again, looking particularly god-like, his golden hair and his bare skin glittering in the candlelight.

  “You’ve gotten under my skin,” he said. “Inside my pores. Sometimes I feel you’ve got my heart in the palm of one of those delicate hands of yours and that my heart is yours to do with what you will. Lately it feels like you’re crushing it. Right now, looking as if you hardly believe a word I’m saying…you’re breaking my heart, Amanda.”

  “You’re breaking mine,” she cried.

  “Oh, Amanda.” He kissed away her tears. “Don’t.”

  He kissed her softly, sweetly. She was dizzy by the time he pulled away.

  “My parents despise each other,” he told her. “The whole time they’ve been married, it seems. It is so ugly. I don’t think I’ve ever known two people who were honestly happy with each other and married. At least not until very recently. I thought of marriage and imagined fights and power plays and people inventing hundreds of little ways to hurt each other, as if it was a game of one-upmanship. I thought of love, and all I saw was disappointment and hurt.”

  “It doesn’t have to be like that,” she said.

  “No, I don’t suppose it does.” He put his hand to the side of her face, staring down at her. “Because I look at you, and I imagine all the things you bring to my life. You’re so generous. So open. So sweet. You have so much to give. And there’s so much I want to give you. What do you think about that?”

  “I don’t know if I can do this halfway,” she said. “I know I said I could take whatever time we have together and then walk away. I thought I could, but—”

  “I know.” His gaze was steady, sure. “I’ve always known that about you. You’re the kind of woman a man marries.”

  “So, you’re saying what? That you’ve thought about it?”

  “Yes.” He groaned.

  “But—”

  “What am I supposed to do without you, Amanda? Tell me that, because I don’t even know,” he confessed. “I’ve been walking around for two weeks with a knot in my stomach the size of a baseball and just about as heavy, trying to figure out how to make this work, and most of the time all I could think about was that I don’t even know what to do with my life without you in it.”

  “Oh.” She started to cry in earnest.

  “I can’t go back to the way things were before. You were right. I was hiding. I was running away, and I was lonely. I need you.”

  “And I can’t go back to the way things were before, either,” she said. “I decided I’ve got to get out. I’ve got make something different of my life. I promised myself I was going to see the whole world somehow.”

  “I want to show it to you,” he said. “I want to give it to you. I want to give you everything. I can make you happy. I know how to do that.”

  “I stopped believing in fairy tales a long time ago,” she admitted. “I stopped believing in just about every good thing in this world.”

  He grinned at her. “I will make you believe.”

  Amanda was dizzy. The room was spinning. “You’re saying you want to marry me?”

  “I’m saying I want to bind you to me, in every way possible,” he said. “I want to spend the rest of my life with you. I want to give you children. I want to protect you and cherish you and give you absolutely everything. I don’t think marriage demands any stronger commitment than that from a man.”

  “No,” she said carefully. “I don’t think it does.”

  “I won’t lie to you. It makes me uneasy. I’ve never seen a marriage that worked.”

  “We can make it whatever we want, Josh. Marriage isn’t a piece of paper. It’s the promises we make to each other. It’s what’s in our hearts.”

  “I want every little piece of your heart. I’ll guard it with my life. I will treasure it,” he vowed. “I’ll make you happy.”

  “You already have.”

  “I can make you happier, Amanda.”

  “That would be really hard to do,” she said, smiling through her tears.

  He reached into his pocket, took out a tiny box. A treasure box from Sunnie’s shop. He pulled off the lid. Winking back at her was a diamond, a round, glittering stone set amidst an ornate, medieval-like setting of intricately carved silver.

  She stared down at the ring. “Okay, maybe I could get happier.”

  Grinning, he slipped it onto her trembling hand.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said.

  “Just so happens, it’s part of a matched set.” He held up his right thumb. Around the end of it were two silver bands in a design that matched the ring. “I’ll wear the ring. I’ll keep the vows.”

  “It’s what you want?”

  “More than anything in this world,” he said. “Put me out of my misery, Amanda. Say you’ll do it. Say you’ll marry me.”

  “You forgot something,” she reminded him gently.

  He took her face between his hands, looking her right in the eye. “I love you,” he groaned. “Nothing in my life works without you.”

  “In that case,” she said. “Yes. I will. I’ll marry you.”

  ISBN: 978-1-4592-4109-1

  CINDERELLA AND THE SPY

  Copyright © 2000 by Teresa Hill

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