The Paris Secret

by Natasha Lester

  He shouted back, his voice even more vehement than hers. “Because I fucking love you, Skye.”

  I love you, Skye. I love you, Skye. I love you. She shook her head. Stared at him, her mouth a well-rounded “O” of shock.

  “What?” she managed at last.

  “Without the obscenity this time.” He gave a wry smile, his tone gentle now. “I said I love you. I’m not engaged to Margaux. I never was. I’ve never even kissed her, except on the cheek. It was part of her cover.” He shook his head as if trying to comprehend something. “I was sworn to never say anything. But this morning, after I saw you at Portman Square, Wylde told me that, given you’d most likely guessed Margaux wasn’t working with the WAAF, I could tell you that much and he wouldn’t court-martial me. And that since they’d had more female agents start, they weren’t using cover stories like mine and Margaux’s anymore. So we could end the pretense.”

  Skye’s forehead creased into a frown as she did her best to piece together his words. He’d never been engaged to Margaux. Never kissed her. Had appeared to say that he loved Skye.

  He spoke again, when it became apparent that she could not. “From the moment you jumped out of the Spitfire at Tempsford, I have loved you more than you can possibly know. I know you hate me now because you think I keep acting like I have a right to tell you what to do, but it’s just that every time I so much as contemplate you doing something dangerous and maybe . . . dying,” she heard his voice crack, “I go a little crazy. I can’t bear the thought of losing you again. I can’t bear it,” he repeated, his eyes on her and his hand moving toward her now, as if all he wanted was to touch her.

  She reduced the distance between them to nothing.

  “Will you dance with me?” she said. “Properly. The way I’ve always wanted to dance with you.”

  Then she was in his arms and he wasn’t holding her away from his body but as closely as he could, both his hands on the small of her back, both of her arms entwined around his neck. Their cheeks touched as they danced, her barefoot and in a beautiful dress, him in a tuxedo, and every dance from the time she was ten and he was eleven enfolded itself into that one moment, unraveling the friendship they’d forged and built and treasured into something more beautiful and dangerous than a storm over a Cornish sea.

  At last he moved his mouth down to hers.

  * * *

  It wasn’t the way you were supposed to kiss somebody for the first time, tentatively, a shy unfurling of lip against lip. Instead it was her mouth pressed hard against his, his opening to drink her in, his tongue brushing hers, furious, almost as if they were fighting. And they were, in a way, fighting to not lie down on the grass right there and take off each other’s clothes and allow their skin to be as close as their mouths.

  Her hands moved down Nicholas’s neck to his back, sliding under his jacket so she could feel him all the better with only his shirt in the way, feel every exquisite muscle. His mouth slipped from hers, running along her jawline and then down her neck, making her whole body ache. She couldn’t breathe and could hardly speak but she managed to gasp out his name, indistinctly.

  “What?” His voice was a mere whisper as he took his lips away from her neck.

  That action alone almost made her cry out—that he shouldn’t stop kissing her—but anyone might come out of the house and see them beneath the moonlight.

  He looked at her, eyes telling her unmistakably what he wanted, his hands on her back ungovernable now, dropping down to the curve of her hips, drawing her in, and her breath caught as she felt every inch of him speak of the hunger that she felt too.

  “The folly,” she managed to say, pointing in the direction of a more private space, thankful that the night was forgiving rather than freezing. “Do you have . . .”

  He nodded, understanding the question. Neither of them wanted to risk a baby now.

  She took his hand, hurrying them down the path, wanting the folly’s walls around them. As soon as they were inside, one of his hands tangled in her hair, bringing her mouth back into that fierce kiss, his other hand holding her tightly as if he thought she might run away. She was dimly aware that she was quite capable of curving her leg around him and unbuttoning his trousers and having it happen right there, but she also knew that she wanted more than a quick extinguishing of desire.

  “There might be blankets,” she spoke against his lips, “in the box over there.”

  She felt his forehead nod against hers, and the wrench as he pulled away. While he searched the box seats that lined one wall of the folly, she reached around behind her neck and undid the knot of silk so that her dress slipped off.

  When he turned back to her, she stood in just her knickers and brassiere, the one he’d seen her in that day when he’d caught her sunbathing on a plane. He stopped, and almost dropped the blankets.

  She couldn’t help smiling. “This wasn’t what you were expecting,” she said mischievously.

  “God, Skye. You are . . .” He swallowed, but it didn’t help to steady his voice. “There isn’t a word that can possibly describe how you look right now.”

  “I think it’s only fair that you take something off too,” she said, smile growing. “It’s been a long time since I’ve seen you in your underwear.”

  He laughed, threw the blankets onto the ground and shucked off his jacket. “You certainly didn’t look like that the first time I saw you in yours. Which is good, because if you had I would have been terrified.”

  “Are you terrified now?”

  He unbuttoned his shirt and slid it off before he answered, and it was Skye’s turn to swallow as her eyes roamed the muscled expanse of his chest, his dog tags moving up and down in time with his uneven breathing.

  “Yes,” he said. “Terrified and so damn turned on. Skye, you are magnificent.”

  As a reward, she unhooked her bra and let it drop to the floor. The folly wasn’t completely dark; star shine and moonlight filtered through and she knew that he could see her, almost naked. He drew in a sharp breath and let it out slowly.

  “Trousers,” she said, voice strangled.

  Once his trousers were gone and they both stood in their underwear, Skye saw that Nicholas had grown into a very fine man. She watched his eyes travel over her body, up and down, sweeping across her breasts, lingering, falling down to her legs, crossing to her hips, resting there.

  “Skye.”

  The word was the faintest whisper and then he strode across to her, taking her back into his arms, and they were kissing again, a clash of mouth on mouth, a skirmish of tongues, the unbearable agony of his hand moving to her breast to stroke, ever so gently, too gently, her nipples. Her leg lifted to wrap around him, and one of his hands dropped to her hip to slide inside her knickers.

  “Skye,” he said again. “I have to stop kissing you for a moment.” He drew back, and if she’d thought his breathing was fast before, now it was ragged. “I don’t want this to be over,” he said. “I want this to take forever, but if you kiss me like that it won’t last more than a minute.”

  He was right, she knew, so she took his hand and drew him down onto the blanket. He lay on his back, and she tucked her hair behind her ear, one arm bracing her body above his. As she sat astride him, she moved her hands to his underwear, suddenly uncertain.

  “Can I?” she asked softly.

  He grinned. “It will be much trickier to do this if I keep them on.”

  She laughed. “You’re making fun of me,” she said, fingers coming to rest on his hip bones.

  “I’ve just never seen you nervous before,” he said, running his thumb over her lips. “Even when you jumped out of that plane at Tempsford after the Luftwaffe chased you, you barely raised a sweat.”

  “I’m not nervous. It’s just . . .”

  She studied him: that face, so familiar, but also unfamiliar, overlaid with the man he’d become. And everything else about him unfamiliar too—his chest, the line of hair traveling down
to where her hands were now.

  “I feel as if everything,” she continued hesitantly, “everything since the moment I cartwheeled in front of you has been leading to this. As if the future’s been waiting for us to kiss. And now here we are, and there’s so much at stake.”

  His response was to reach up and kiss her again, and in that kiss Skye knew that the moment was there at last, and they were going to sink bodily and sensually and with their entire beings into it. So she did reach down and remove the second-last piece of clothing between them, and he did the same to her, and then she lay beside him, more aroused by his thigh against hers, her chest grazing his, their lips almost touching, than she’d ever been by anything she’d done with a man before.

  “If it feels this good just to lie next to you . . .” she said.

  “I can’t even imagine how it’s going to feel very soon,” he replied, his words a whisper in her ear as his hand dropped to explore her.

  He slowed time then, his fingertips drawing a soft circle in the hollow between her collarbones, another between her breasts, and then around her navel and back up to trace that same light and sensual path around one nipple, again and again, and then the other.

  Skye felt her back arch, and arch still more when he stopped using just his fingertips and stroked each breast with his hands. All she could do was say his name and reach up to kiss him, rolling him onto his back, straddling him, doing the same to him but with her mouth—kissing one shoulder and then the other, his chest—and she hadn’t even reached his navel when he said her name, more loudly even than she’d said his. Then she was on her back and his mouth and his eyes told her that he wanted her, and she told him the same thing in just the same way.

  He slid inside her and she braced herself, used to this part being somewhat uncomfortable and rather a disappointment, but he lifted her hips a little, moving tenderly, unbearably slowly. She felt her legs wrap around him tightly, felt too much all at once, until she gripped his back and he smiled at her and that was it—she was falling into St. Elmo’s fire but this time she wasn’t alone. Nicholas was with her, in the explosion of her body and his, her mouth and his, her soul and his.

  Thirty

  They didn’t stop kissing for a long time after, not until their breathing settled and their hands unclenched. Eventually, Nicholas reached across to wrap the edge of the blanket over her, mistaking her shivering for cold, but it was impossible to be cold when he was still so close to her, chest against chest, leg against leg, forehead against forehead.

  “That was worth waiting for,” he whispered.

  “It was very surprising,” she said, and he looked suddenly worried.

  “You didn’t like it? I’m sorry—”

  She smiled and kissed him again. “Nicholas, for someone who knows me as well as you do, you say some very strange things at times. Did I look or sound as if I didn’t enjoy that?”

  “No, but—”

  “I just meant that on the other two occasions when I’ve done something similar, it wasn’t like this. It was at best interesting and at worst uncomfortable.”

  He drew back so she could see the intensity on his face as he said, “There is so much more that we will do together, Skye.” She shivered again at the prospect. “And it damn well won’t be either interesting or uncomfortable. If it is, you have to tell me because I want you to love us being together like this as much as I do. Every single time.”

  “Every time?” She smiled. “It sounds as if you plan to do this rather a lot.”

  He grinned. “As much as you want to.”

  “So all the time then.”

  He laughed.

  “I loved it,” she said. “I promise.”

  “And I love you, Skye. So much.”

  It almost hurt to hear those words, so longed for. She clung to them, turning them over and over in her mind with the wonder of a person seeing the moon for the very first time.

  “I didn’t know what love was when I left Cornwall at fifteen,” Nicholas said, kissing her forehead, her cheek, and then her lips, “but I loved you then and I’ve never stopped. Not ever. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever had to do to not tell you I loved you over this past year and a half. Every time I saw you, I wanted to hold you or kiss you; do anything except be the person I had to be.”

  She blinked and buried her head in his chest, but he lifted her face to his so he could see her eyes.

  “Are you crying?” he asked gently, bringing the pads of his fingers up to sweep away, so softly, the tears that she was indeed weeping.

  “I try not to do it very often,” she said with a faint smile. “But I’ve cried more tears over you than you know.”

  She lay with her head on his chest then, his arms firm around her, her leg wrapped over his. Until the sound of voices, closer than the general waft of noise from the party, threatened.

  “We need to get dressed,” she said reluctantly.

  They stood up, which meant seeing him naked once more, and she couldn’t help kissing him as if she intended to do all over again what they’d only just finished.

  “Skye,” he said, fingers dancing along her back, “you can’t kiss me like that if you want me to get dressed.”

  “I don’t really want you to get dressed,” she confessed with a grin and he laughed.

  But the voices sounded again, closer.

  “Damn,” he said, and this time they both grabbed their clothes and fumbled into them.

  Even so, it was impossible for Liberty and O’Farrell to interpret the scene in any innocent fashion when they walked into the folly and saw the blanket on the floor, Skye’s hair a tangled mess around her shoulders, her cheeks flushed, and Nicholas with his jacket off and shirt unbuttoned.

  “You two have been having a reunion,” Liberty said with a grin.

  “Perhaps you could give us a few minutes,” Skye said to her sister.

  “Oh, I’m sorry. When I suggested to O’Farrell that we go for a walk, I didn’t realize I had to avoid the folly in case of possible debauchery. I was actually planning my own debauchery, but I can see I’ll have to find another location for it.”

  “Let’s go,” O’Farrell said, turning around and striding off.

  “Not back to the party,” Liberty called, hurrying after him. “Or Margaux. I have to talk to you.”

  Nicholas sighed. “I should explain to him.”

  Skye shook her head. “I don’t think he’s mad. He chose my sister months ago. And he and I never shared more than a few kisses.”

  “Really?”

  “Really. I just couldn’t . . .”

  Nicholas drew her back into his arms and she forgot about Liberty and O’Farrell as he whispered in her ear, “I can’t bear it if I don’t see you again for weeks. Can you get leave for the weekend, before it’s all revoked?”

  “My leave started tonight. I have the next two days.”

  “Let me arrange my own two days,” he said. “I haven’t had leave for six months, and full moon’s over. It shouldn’t be too hard. Especially as there won’t be any more for the foreseeable future.”

  “Let’s go to Cornwall. To the house,” she said, knowing that the place where they’d first met was where she wanted to be with him.

  * * *

  Nicholas stepped out of the car at Porthleven and whistled. “It’s exactly the same as I remembered,” he said.

  “It is,” she agreed.

  They stood together, staring, as sunrise set the sky aflame, rendering the cottage a silhouette. Its shape sent him tumbling back into the past, to the first time he’d stood there with Skye, awestruck by this amazing cartwheeling girl who’d shared her cove with him, and with whom he’d shared his father’s pocket watch.

  An absence of weight had him reaching into his pocket, only to discover that the watch wasn’t there; it must have fallen out in the folly. It didn’t matter. He’d find it before he next went flying—O’Farrell might have picked it up. Besides, he had Skye
now and she was a more powerful good luck charm than any timepiece.

  He reached down to touch her cheek, marveling that he could do that now; that the restraint of the past year and a half had vanished, never to return.

  The smile she gave him stole his breath and he couldn’t do anything other than kiss her, arms circling her waist, already regretting the end of these two days.

  They hardly moved from the bed all that day, finally falling into sleep toward evening, a sleep Nicholas awoke from near midnight with a nightmare fading behind his eyes. Somehow, Skye sensed it because she stirred and reached out for him.

  “What is it?” she asked sleepily.

  “You’re going to do it, aren’t you?” he said, certain of her answer.

  She understood the question. “I have to.”

  Of course she would. She had been asked to help her country, and it wasn’t in her nature to refuse.

  He saw his nightmare now: the SOE agent who’d been shot in front of him blurring into a Nazi leading Skye into a hotel room, and her having to do what Margaux did. They wouldn’t ask that of her, surely? He would never know—she wouldn’t be allowed to tell him anything: not her code name, not the details of her missions, nothing. For the first time in his life, he knew the heart-pounding sickness of real terror. He closed his arms around her so tightly that he thought she might pull away, but she only held on.

  If only he could be the one to fly her into France. But if Wylde had known enough about Nicholas and Skye to give Nicholas permission to tell her what he had, there would be a note on a file somewhere that Nicholas Crawford and Skye Penrose were never to go on a pickup operation together.

  He’d make sure it was O’Farrell who flew her over. But once she was on the ground in France, what then?

  There was also the matter of Liberty. Nicholas wasn’t allowed to tell Skye about that either, unless for some reason they crossed paths at the cottage in Tangmere. The risk of a captured agent giving up everyone else in the organization was too great so SOE tried to keep meetings between agents and knowledge of who else worked for the organization to a minimum. What would Skye say when she found out about Liberty, and that he’d known all along?