Nights Of Fire

by Laura Leone

  "Something else," he murmured. "Tell me more about us."

  "Well, there was the night I realized you liked me. Um, more than liked me."

  "More than liked," he repeated blandly. Even his mostly-absent memory had already shown him what an understatement that was.

  "Well, you usually avoided me. Were jumpy and distant with me. Even a little cold."

  "And I hurt your feelings when I overruled your plan to sleep with some Nazi."

  "I was hurt." After a moment, she admitted, "But I got over it pretty quickly. My skin crawled even when he smiled at me. The thought of actually letting him—"

  Paul grunted involuntarily. "Don't even share that thought with me, if you please."

  He couldn't stand the thought of that pig touching her!

  "You can't stand the thought of anyone touching her," Didier had surmised.

  "It's too dangerous," Paul said coldly.

  "Has it escaped your attention that there's a war on?" Didier prodded.

  "Don't get sarcastic. I'm not in the mood."

  "I can tell what you're in the mood for." When Paul glared at him, Didier grinned and added innocently, "A fight. Which I'm not going to give you."

  "Gabrielle can make herself useful in other capacities that don't involve almost certain discovery and arrest."

  "'Almost certain?'" Didier repeated. "According to whom?"

  "I thought you weren't going to fight with me."

  "I'm not. But I will argue. You're not thinking clearly. She's prepared to—"

  "End of discussion."

  "Oh, for pity's sake, why don't you just go after the girl yourself and get it over with?"

  "Not going to happen. I have my duty, and she has hers... and... and..."

  "Yes?"

  Paul sighed. "Just give me some cognac and shut up, would you?"

  "I knew it hurt your feelings," Paul said now, his head resting in her lap. "I knew you thought I didn't like you. And that state of affairs felt safer to me... except when I saw it was making you unhappy. I couldn't stand that."

  "But when you were friendly to me, or kind, then I wanted you even more. And it made me feel that much worse when you withdrew again." She rubbed her palms gently over the blanket covering his wounded back. "So whenever I make you unhappy, just remember that you deserve it."

  He chuckled. "So what happened the night you realized I 'liked' you?"

  "I found out that Pierre Devereaux had died in a concentration camp." Her voice was filled with sadness now. "We had been good friends ever since art school. He was a homosexual. Soon after the Nazis invaded Paris, they took him away."

  Paul closed his eyes and pressed his face into her stomach, sad for her, for the artist who had died in a concentration camp, and for all the innocents the Nazis were butchering across Europe.

  "You collapsed at the post office," he said slowly, "where you got the letter from a mutual friend informing you of Pierre's death."

  "Yes." Her hands gripped his shoulders.

  "I... No, I don't think I remember more. I just remember... I was there, too... And seeing you scream and collapse like that... I felt like someone was tearing my heart out of my chest."

  "You took me home. Stayed with me all night. Comforted me while I cried. Talked to me." He felt her kiss his hair. "You made me tell you all about myself, my friendship with Pierre, the times we spent together... Paris before the war. You helped me..." She made a little noise. "Helped me say goodbye to Pierre, in a way." She sighed shakily. "His arrest was a terrible shock. He didn't meet me when he was supposed to one day. So I went to his apartment... The door was off the hinges. Everything inside was broken and destroyed. They had actually... urinated on his beautiful work."

  She wept, brokenhearted, for a world which would destroy such beauty. Her friend's work, fouled and besmirched. Her friend himself arrested, incarcerated, and murdered because the Nazis didn't approve of the way he loved.

  She wept, and Paul felt his heart breaking with every tear, every sob. He held her in his arms, comforting her, talking to her, listening to her... and knew he could never really keep himself apart from her again. He didn't even want to try anymore.

  Duty, responsibility, clarity, security... He'd figure it out. He'd manage it somehow. He had to be with her. Being without her didn't seem possible anymore.

  "I had never gotten to see him after he was arrested," Gabrielle continued, stroking Paul's head. "I was never able to find out where they'd taken him. Then when I received the news that he was dead..."

  "I've failed him!" she wailed. "I let them kill him!"

  "Gabrielle," he said, his arms around her, "you couldn't have stopped them."

  "I should have protected him!"

  "You didn't even know they'd arrest him. And how could you have pro—"

  "I should have gotten him out of there!"

  "You couldn't even find out where he was," he reminded her. "Couldn't find any record that he even existed." She'd told him how the Nazis had denied all knowledge of Pierre's whereabouts, condemning his sexuality and insisting he had committed unspeakable crimes and then fled France. It wasn't true, and all of Pierre's neighbors knew it wasn't true; but Gabrielle couldn't prove anything under a government controlled by the murdering criminals who had taken her friend in the first place.

  "Risking your life daily in the Resistance," Paul said, "is not failing Pierre. You're doing everything you can for him and for every other victim of the Nazis in France."

  The fingers stroking his hair paused. "At some point in the night, I realized you cared about me. You were gone when I woke up, but I knew that things would be different from then on. You couldn't pretend after that that I didn't matter to you. Even you aren't that good at pretending."

  "So you seduced me?"

  "It was very much the other way around," she said primly.

  He kissed her belly, pressing his mouth against the cotton slip long enough to be sure she felt his heat on her skin. "Tell me." He wanted to remember the first time they'd made love.

  "You and Deschamps were going to spy on a German army contingent planting landmines. You wanted to know what was in the minefield and exactly what its geographical location and boundaries were. As you were preparing to leave, Didier told me to change places with Deschamps. You objected, but Didier pointed out that if you and Deschamps were caught, you'd go straight to the chateau. Whereas if you and I were caught, we could pretend to be lovers so absorbed in what we were doing that we had failed to notice the army."

  "Oh, that's a likely story," Paul commented. "As if I would take a woman there to—"

  "It's more likely than you and Deschamps feeling a burning desire to spend time together on fallow farmland with nothing around besides a new German minefield," Didier shot back.

  "As it happened," Gabrielle said, "Didier probably saved your life with that plan. After we got the information we wanted and started making our escape, we encountered a small squad practicing maneuvers."

  "So our cover came in handy," he murmured.

  He grabbed her and kissed her, pulling her down into the damp, cool grass. God she tasted good, felt good, smelled good. Her mouth was warm and responsive beneath his, her tongue so sweet, he sucked on it like sugar. He felt her shifting restlessly beneath his caressing hands, heard her moaning softly with pleasure.

  "Paul, Paul..."

  He buried his face in the warm valley between her breasts, kissing, tasting, starving for her. He was already erect and hard for her, already planning to make her his before either of them took another step—

  Already forgetting about the German squad which now crept up on them. His blood turned to ice as he recognized how much danger she was in.

  Panting hard, he told her, "Slap me. Act offended. I lured you here. Let them rescue you."

  She nodded, but begged, "Kiss me again."

  "Do it now," he ordered, unable to resist, pressing his mouth urgently to hers.

  "The Germans thought i
t was terribly amusing," she said. "We put on a good show for them. Lots of shouting, accusations, sexual hysteria. You," she added archly, "were particularly convincing."

  "Oh, yeah." He winced. "A hard-on the size of a Panzer, as they said."

  "You remember?"

  "I'm now stunned that even a head injury could have made me forget, however briefly, what had to be the most excruciatingly embarrassing experience of my life."

  "I think that's why they believed us. Surely not even dedicated spies would make themselves look so absurd." He heard her giggle.

  "But even the embarrassment couldn't make me forget what it was like to have you in my arms." He closed his eyes and consciously relaxed, waiting for another memory to drift to him. One did, causing him to chide, "And you didn't help."

  They found the motorbike they had hidden at some distance from the minefield, and they mounted it, eager to make their escape. Torn between fear, mortification, and amusement, they hadn't exchanged a word since leaving the Germans.

  His body felt like it would start vibrating when she climbed onto the motorbike with him. Her breasts pressed against him through his jacket, her thighs cradling his bottom... His erection, barely subsided despite his extreme embarrassment, now hardened with renewed vigor.

  "We have to get away from here," he said hoarsely.

  She nodded silently, her face brushing his neck. She was trembling. He could feel it.

  His blood was pounding so hard that his arms shook as he tried to steer the bike. His vision seemed foggy, his reflexes sluggish, his attention riveted on the womanly body pressed up against his.

  Before long, her hands crept forward, from their proper position on his waist, to stroke his stomach, his thighs, his... He screeched to a halt.

  "You do that again," he told her, "and the Nazis won't need to kill us, because we'll become a traffic fatality."

  She kissed him. He kissed her back. Their position was so awkward, the bike fell over, taking them with it.

  "Ow," he said.

  They nearly made love right there, on the side of the road, before he came to his senses and put a stop to it. With great difficulty. And without much conviction.

  He didn't want to take her to his grubby little shed in back of Didier's café, so he suggested her cottage. She knew of a closer place, though, and since every mile was agony now, he followed her directions.

  "To this barn..."

  "That's right," she said. "Where you ripped off my clothes before we even made it to the loft."

  "You ripped mine off, too, as I recall."

  "And you didn't let me get dressed again until the following day."

  He remembered now. How could he have forgotten? Seeing her naked for the first time. Watching her look at him naked for the first time. Touching her everywhere, kissing her all he wanted... Her mouth all over him. Her hands everywhere. The two of them delirious with passion, giddy with happiness. Making love...

  "How many times?"

  "I don't remember," she admitted. "A lot."

  Afternoon blurring into evening into night into dawn...They would talk, nap, wake up, make love again... and again...

  "I'm amazed we could walk the next day," he murmured.

  He was hungry, sore, exhausted, and too weak to stop her when she finally put on her clothes after about eighteen straight hours of this. There was nothing here but a pump, and water wasn't enough to replenish their strength after so much exertion. They walked up the hill and prowled the damp, tumbled ruins of her uncle's abandoned house, but there was nothing there either except some books, moldy furniture, and broken crockery.

  So they were ravenous by the time they arrived at Didier's café. While the two of them devoured food and wine, Paul spun some vague tale about eluding an army patrol and getting stranded for the night. Didier didn't believe him, of course, but he had too much respect for Gabrielle's modesty to say so. The old romantic never even chided Paul for letting him worry all that night that they'd been captured while they were, in reality, mating like minks.

  "And after that," Paul said, "I couldn't stay away from you."

  He thought he remembered fretting about whether or not to marry her now or wait until after the war. "I thought you'd be in danger if I married you and then my identity was discovered."

  "But you worried about me getting pregnant, since you couldn't control yourself when we were alone together—"

  "Me? Hah!"

  "And you wanted to make sure that I—and any child of ours—wouldn't be alone and abandoned if you died."

  "Ergo the secret marriage, which I told the OSS about. So you'd have money, protection, even passage to America if you..." He suddenly sat bolt upright.

  "Paul?"

  He frowned, his mind whirling with some urgent memory he couldn't quite grasp. "OSS. Special orders. Straight from the top." His head was throbbing as he looked at her in puzzlement. "Poker?"

  "Poker?" she repeated blankly.

  "Fortress Europe. The Atlantic Wall.... Utah..."

  "Utah? Isn't that in America?"

  "Neptune... Overlord..."

  "Overlord?"

  Their gazes locked. "Things we must do. And mis..."

  "Miss?"

  "Misinf... no. No, that's not the word."

  "What word?"

  "Disinformation."

  "When you spread the wrong information," she said, "to fool the enemy?"

  "I had a plan."

  "A disinformation plan?" She gasped. "Paul! Did you get captured on purpose?"

  He put his hands up to his head, which was throbbing viciously now. "I don't know. I don't..." His breathing was becoming harsh. "If I could just... remember."

  He felt her hands urging him towards her again. "You just need rest. You just need to heal."

  "No, we're in danger," he said with conviction.

  Her expression closed and her posture stiffened. "What do you mean?"

  "I don't know, I just..." He made a helpless gesture, his vision starting to blur as his head continued pounding.

  "Danger from the Germans?"

  "You said they let me go." He frowned. "Why? That doesn't make sense. Why did they let me go?"

  "They thought you were dead."

  "No, they didn't. I was still breathing, and they're not that stupid."

  "Then they thought you would die any moment."

  "Why release me? Why not just kill me?"

  "Paul, they obviously knew you couldn't just get up and walk away."

  "But they must have known someone might find me." He drew in a sharp breath. "Is that why they released me? They wanted someone to find me?"

  She looked very distressed. "Chéri, maybe they decided they had arrested someone who really was just a bad businessman just trying to survive the war. They knew they had gone too far with you, beating a civilian almost to death—"

  "There would probably be no repercussions for that," he argued.

  "And they thought the best thing to do would be to get rid of you before you died, and hope for the best."

  "Then why are you hiding me?" he demanded.

  She looked upset and confused. "In case I'm wrong and they really do want you dead."

  He tried to ignore the excruciating pain in his head. "You mean... letting me go might have been a mistake? Someone goofed?"

  "Someone goofed," she repeated, still looking distressed. The American slang sounded funny in her French accent. "Or..."

  "Or what?" he prodded. "Gabrielle?"

  She clasped her hands and looked down at them. "Or maybe... Paul... Is it possible... Not that I think you normally would, but given how badly they hurt you, is it possible that you..."

  "That I talked?" he supplied.

  He was touched by how guilty she looked as she nodded.

  "Honey, of course it's possible." When her appalled eyes flashed to his face, he continued, "I don't remember talking. I do remember being determined not to. I remember interrogation... and a lot of pain." He sigh
ed, more worried than he wanted her to realize. "I pray to God that I didn't talk. Especially since I now have no idea what damage I might have done, because I don't remember what I know. Even so..."

  "What?"

  "If I talked, keeping me there to learn more would have made sense. Sending me to a prison or concentration camp would have made sense. Even killing me, if they were sure I'd said everything I was going to say, would have made sense. But letting me go? No, that makes no sense." He thought about it for a moment. "Especially if they didn't know about the amnesia."

  "Maybe they did?"

  "Even if they did, they'd have been fools to count on it being permanent. The moment my memory comes back, I'll know what they did or didn't learn from me." Then something dreadful occurred to him. "Oh, God."

  "What?"

  "If I told them anything about the invasion..."

  "Yes?"

  "It might be impossible to repair whatever damage I've done. It's a safe bet that it's too late for the Allies to change their plans for an operation involving hundreds of thousands of men."

  Had he personally sabotaged the liberation of Europe?

  It was a horrifying thought, one which made his head pound with almost blinding agony.

  Chapter Seven

  June 5, 1944

  Rain was pounding insistently on the roof, battering hard at the edges of his consciousness. Paul could hear it all around them, smell it in the air, feel it washing a damp draft through the window.

  He grunted irritably and burrowed closer to his wife's warmth. This damn cottage of hers was so drafty. Better than his miserable shed behind Café Didier, of course, but hardly the Ritz.

  Heigh ho, the glamorous life of a wartime spy.

  Still, he got glamor when it counted. He smiled sleepily as he nuzzled her hair. No man in the world had a woman as exciting as his. No caliph's harem was as glamorous a place as this humble little cottage when Gabrielle was here. And no place on earth was as exotic and erotic as this lumpy old bed when she was in it with him.

  Where the hell was that draft coming from? It was practically a gale now. He curled his body around Gabrielle's, trying to get warm again. Something tickled and scratched him. He brushed it away and realized what it was: straw.