The Agent

by Ellen Lane

  Inside of ten seconds, she was tugging at his clothing - which was much more numerous than her own - and Russell devoted one of his busy hands to helping her. Only one handed, it took him longer than he would have liked to get out of his jacket and undo the fastening of his pants; but that was about all Alice would let him get to before she was wrapping her legs insistently around his waist.

  It took him roughly two seconds to realize that she wasn’t wearing anything beneath her silky scrap of a nightgown - and in that instant, Russell lost any and all composure he might have had. For a full week, he’d lain awake, alone, at night, wondering how the hell he’d ever managed to sleep before Alice. Needing her so badly that no amount of self-satisfaction would suffice. And now, she was in his arms.

  Taking hold of her hips, he adjusted his hold on her only slightly to thrust brusquely inside her. He only worried he might have hurt her for a split second before finding her deliciously wet and wanting. When her brazen moan echoed around the kitchen, Russell was nearly undone there and then.

  “Alice…” He groaned her name torturously against her ear, pinning her hips against the counter with his next thrust. “Bloody fucking God, you feel perfect…” His grip was like iron. She couldn’t have escaped if she tried. Luckily enough for him, Alice didn’t want to escape. She clung to him, gyrating her body against his in rhythm with the cadence of his hips and somehow, they managed to move in perfect unison.

  The way they made love was rough and primal - so much like the fucking Alice often demanded he give her. But this time, there was something more. Whenever she gasped his name - whenever he hit the spot inside her that made her shudder violently, Russell realized that he would never be able to purge her from himself. Not in the way he had counted on in the past.

  Alice was now a part of him, whether he liked it or not.

  And he would have to deal with the consequences.

  They didn’t go to work that day, or the next. Of course, this resulted in several harried calls from the movie set. Regina made a series of demands that enraged Lemmy, and Russell had to encourage him to deal with her as the director of the project - which, he reminded Lemmy, he was. There were no less than five costume mishaps – mis-measures and one instance in which the lace of a dress actually caught on fire.

  But nothing Alice’s assistants couldn’t handle.

  So, Russell and Alice spent the next two days in the sequestered world of her apartment, and he found himself divulging more to her than he had to anyone in a long time. Of course, ‘divulging’ to Russell was much less all-encompassing than it was to the average person. He didn’t tell long, drawn out stories of his youth or have a series of deep, meaningful conversations about his outlook on life. Instead, the way he gave of himself was a little more simplistic. He talked, but not too much. He told secrets, but nothing too terribly devastating. If he was going to do this, the agent told himself, it would be better not to get ahead of himself. There was a part of him that was still nervous that he would lummox up this entire process.

  But that didn’t mean he didn’t enjoy the forty-eight hours he spent with Alice alone. Unlike other women, she didn’t prod him when he didn’t tell her something in its entirety. She didn’t complain that he must not have feelings for her - that he didn’t trust her. Instead, she merely took what he gave her without complaint.

  Physically and emotionally.

  When he told her of the selfish reasons why he’d left Britain to pursue his own career, she concurred. They had both come from titles they didn’t want to confine them - and they both sought something more. When he told her of overbearing, meddling siblings (of which he had two sets, since his parents had separated long ago), Alice cited her own brother who, she told him, had an awful habit of interfering when she didn’t need him to. Of course, Alice also acknowledged that Lord Michael Tate only did so because he cared about her deeply. That, she could admit.

  It was evident, Russell concurred, in the way the man had threatened him. He hadn’t come over from England in person to gut him. No, instead, he merely urged him to consider what he was doing to Alice and her happiness.

  In the moment, Russell wondered how he might ever have contemplated anything else. Alice happy was a thing of beauty, plucked from the depths of his pleasantest dreams. She smiled and laughed - she strutted around her apartment naked, despite the presence of her single man-servant. That, of course, had taken some getting used to. But, eventually, Russell realized that Tom pre-dated even him and was perhaps the only other man to so regularly see Alice naked.

  Of course, Tom remained completely unmoved. In their quests to please Alice, Russell quickly ascertained, they had much in common - but Tom was in her employ, while Russell was merely under her spell.

  For two blessed days, he had her all to himself. The majority of that time, they spent in bed. In that respect, they never seemed to be able to get enough of one another. There were, however, some choice moments in which they emerged for tea or meals, and he listened to Alice as much as she did to him. She had ambitions, he soon found, that branched even further than what she had already accomplished. She liked costume work, she revealed, and would be happy to continue doing it if given another opportunity. That, of course, meant she would have to split her time between costuming and her brand, but Russell already knew of several other directors who had inquired about Lemmy’s costumes, meaning she would have no shortage of work if she wanted it.

  She, like himself, was a workaholic - passionate about what she loved. It was intoxicating to be around her. So much so that Russell found himself moving beyond his own comfort zone before their intimate time together came to a close.

  “I know it may be a while before we get another reprieve, Alice,” they lay in bed together, his hand stroking absently over her lower back - still damp from their recent exertions, “but I wondered if you might consider another holiday with me?”

  Alice’s dark head popped up, her expression surprised. “A holiday? Where to?” Though his insides churned at the idea of the step he was about to take, it was clear she was pleased. He couldn’t rescind his offer now.

  “Back to England.”

  Alice arched a brow in inquiry. “England?”

  “Yes…” Russell took a steadying breath. “My family is there, and yours as well of course. You could meet my mother…. Cordelia Darwell. My parents are separated but still on very good terms. My father...he’s the queen’s nephew….and I have two half siblings as well. I’m sure they’d all be very pleased to meet you.”

  He had no idea if Alice knew how hard this was for him. In his life, Russell had only ever invited a woman home before once, and that had been when he was young and impetuous. Atop that, he almost never mentioned his family’s roots. When he left Britain, he swore he would leave all titles, pomp and circumstance behind. He wasn’t in the habit of name-dropping to try and impress people.

  But he wanted to impress Alice. He wanted her to meet his family.

  And the prospect was more than a little intimidating.

  For a long moment, the young woman merely stared up at him, her expression contemplative. Even nervous as he was, Russell couldn’t help but wonder at how gorgeous she was. In Alice’s presence, it seemed, he was constantly torn between arousal and devotion.

  It was a strange dual-emotion.

  Alice worried her lower lip thoughtfully a moment before she finally answered him. “I’ll go with you to England on one condition.”

  Russell’s heart leapt, and he fought to retain his composure. “And what would that be?”

  Alice grinned. “That you give me a day or two to spend with my family as well. They’ll be furious if they find out I’ve been in the UK without saying a word.”

  “Of course!” Russell all but stammered in relief. For a moment, he’d been worried that she might insist that he meet her family as well. Russell was pretty certain that in light of the way things between them had gone up to this point, her family would be none
too happy to see him. If that had been Alice’s condition, he might have been in quite the pickle.

  But, continually surprising him, Alice demanded no such thing. She gave him the space he needed - and for the umpteenth time, Russell wondered from what world and what planet she’d come from to know him so uncannily well.

  “We have to go back to the set tomorrow,” Alice announced as he ordered his thoughts, “so let’s make the most of our last few hours together.”

  Russell smirked at her announcement. He did so like to tease her over her forthrightness concerning sensual matters. “Does that mean you’d like to show me some of your latest designs?”

  Alice merely scowled at him, raising herself up until she was sitting astride his waist, her dark hair curtaining down over them both. “You, Russell Darwell, are insufferable.”

  And that was the last thing either of them said for a very, very long time.

  Of course, outside of their little bubble of intimacy, the world still turned. From the moment they left Alice’s apartment the next day, that much was evident. If everyone on set had known they were together and remained cordial about it before, now they were teased mercilessly, if playfully.

  It was a situation that, before, would have driven Russell half mad. Now, he swallowed his pride and took advantage of the circumstances to pull Alice aside at every spare moment to kiss and touch her. At first, she fended him off, fleeing his advances and, ultimately, looking around every corner before she went about her work. But, eventually, she enjoyed having him catch her and pull her into a secluded corner to tease the both of them to the point of insanity.

  They never went so far as to do anything inappropriate where all eyes could see them, but Alice had to know it was a close thing - especially considering the way she dressed for him. Usually, Alice dressed at the pinnacle of fashion, but with a conservative bent, considering she worked on a heavily populated set.

  All at once, the clothing she wore seemed to be meant to work at Russell’s composure. It wasn’t overt sexuality as much as she took into consideration the little things he told her. When he let slip that his favorite color was blue, Alice wore a set of lacy blue lingerie, the camisole of which was just barely visible beneath the neckline of the sweater she wore. When he commented that her legs looked amazing in the hip-hugging jeans from her own line, she wore them almost every day, though skirts seemed to be more common fare for her. She did little things to please him - and those little things almost caused them their decency in the middle of work days.

  But he couldn’t always be with her. Besides Regina, Russell had other clients. He had a firm that demanded his attention and a number of other business ventures. As the year was coming to an end, he found himself in his makeshift home office more and more, trying to wrap things up for the season.

  Then towards the end of November and beginning of December, he was lucky if he even had every other night with Alice. In the time around those treasured encounters, he was left to his own devices, be that business ventures or his own thought process.

  Russell greatly preferred the former. He was busy enough that he didn’t have a gigantic amount of time in which to face his own reservations, but when he did, his self-contradiction was enough to give him a headache.

  Alice made him happy, didn’t she? Did he have to feel so guilty about being happy?

  What he decided about women had been decided over ten years ago - long before he knew Alice would be in the picture. She was nothing like other women. She didn’t want him for his wealth and she didn’t want him for his station. In those two arenas, she could hold her own - perhaps even better than him.

  What Alice Tate really seemed to want, more than anything else, was to be loved.

  Russell had to wonder if he could truly give that to her.

  He thought that Amy was the only woman he’d ever given his all to...but this felt a bit different than things were back then.

  Certainly, Russell remembered promising himself that he would always be faithful to his first love, but at the time, he had never conceived that he might love again. He had never allowed himself to.

  Calling what he felt with Alice love….it felt like a bit of a stretch to him. A frightening stretch. Yes, he cared about her deeply. He could even imagine a life with her. But did that mean that such a thing was possible for him?

  Russell spent many a sleepless night wondering.

  Despite the fact that the film industry was a restless beast, there was no way they were going to film straight through Christmas. In fact, Lemmy ceased all shooting preparations a full week before the holiday, giving them ample time to make any plans.

  For Russell, said plans consisted of him calling his mother.

  “Russell, darling. Always wonderful to hear from you.” Her warm, earnest voice was always enough to soothe him, no matter how anxious he might be. “How are things going with Regina?”

  He chuckled softly. His mother knew exactly how he felt about Regina - thus the question.

  “Well, she hasn’t killed me yet, though not for lack of trying. Honestly, I’m lucky I don’t have both her and Lemmy after me.”

  “That would be something to see.” His mother’s mirth matched his, and Russell could see her sitting in her armchair in the manor, smoking up a storm -despite what the doctor told her - surrounded by her veritable army of golden retrievers. Cordelia Darwell had always been something of an enigma in British society, despite her high birth. She was a bit like Alice in that she hardly seemed to give a damn what anyone thought of her. She had always paved her own way.

  It was that devil-may-care attitude that had garnered the attention of one of the queen’s favorite nephews. He had picked Cordelia over a bevy of other ladies that were arguably better bred simply because she intrigued him. In the days where London society was still very much run by arranged marriages, Cordelia and Titus Darwell had married for love.

  It was Russell’s opinion that they were still in love, to this day. They had separated after he left Britain, citing emotional differences that had to do with both of their prior marriages - but they had never divorced. Neither of them had made the drastic move to end the marriage completely, and they still spoke very fondly of one another.

  “Shall we expect you for Christmas this year, then, darling?” Cordelia asked hopefully.

  For once, Darwell was glad to be able to please her. “Of course, mother. I’ll come home within the week.” He hesitated slightly before forging ahead. “I also wanted to let you know...I’m bringing someone home with me.”

  “Oh?” A genuine surprise was rampant in Cordelia’s voice. “A woman, darling?”

  Russell smiled sardonically. Though his mother had never tried to force him into marriage, she was always asking after his latest romantic conquest. Perhaps that was why he hadn’t seen the need to tell her about Alice. Part of him hoped Cordelia might have learned about her from another source. It was always complicated having to explain one’s love life to one’s mother.

  “Her name is Alice Tate. I... I’d very much like for you to meet her.”

  Even that much was a stretch for him, and he hoped his mother didn’t pursue things much further. Luckily for him, Cordelia Darwell knew her son.

  “If you think highly of her, darling, I’m sure I will too.” There was no question that his mother knew the Tate name. Everyone in Britain knew the Tates. Now Russell only had to wonder what she was going to do with the information. “When shall I expect you?”

  Russell smiled in relief. “Three days or so. I’ll fly into Britain on the jet.”

  “Oooh, looking to impress someone, are we?” He had to grant his mother that jibe, if nothing else. Without it, she wouldn’t be Cordelia Darwell.

  “As you say, mother. I’ll see you soon. I love you.”

  “And I you, my sweet.”

  And just like that, the grand move was orchestrated. Russell hung up feeling no less nervous than he had upon calling. Being Stateside with Alice w
as one thing - returning to Britain was quite another.

  But if he wanted her - really wanted her - this was an obstacle that would have to be overcome. Like every obstacle in his life that Russell had overcome.

  He could succeed. He would succeed.

  He had never failed in a business venture he endeavored upon - why would he fail now?

  Alice, he was relieved to find, was aptly thrilled at the prospect of spending Christmas with his family, provided that she spent a portion of the day with her own family as well. She packed a gorgeous blue velvet gown for Christmas dinner - something she told him was from her winter line the year before. Russell was strongly tempted to find every piece and see her in it. Nothing less would satisfy him.

  As enthusiastic as she was about accompanying him, Alice still hesitated before boarding.

  “Russell,” she gazed up at him on the steps of the plane, clad in an utterly enchanting black lace gown that he was certain would be gone as soon as they reached cruising altitude, “Are you sure about this?”

  The Russell of one year ago would have taken her out without hesitation. Would have sent her home right then and there and patted himself on the back for dodging the bullet. But he wasn’t the Russell of one year ago, and he was determined to prove it to himself. Leaning down, he caught Alice’s face between his hands and kissed her slowly - lingeringly.

  “I’m sure.” The smile he gave her was utterly genuine, and Alice beamed in reply, taking the hand he offered her to board the plane. Then, there was no going back.

  In order to temper his apprehension, Russell spent the majority of the trip to London absorbed in his lover. Alice voiced not a single protest when he unbuckled her from her seat the moment they reached twenty thousand feet and whisked her into the private jet’s lavish bedroom. There, he took to committing every inch of her to memory with both his lips and hands. He brought her to peak after peak until she begged for succor - and only then did he finally enter her, assuaging her desires.