More Than a Mission - Caridad Pineiro [60]
Somehow he managed to get her on her back without breaking away from her. He would have rather died than lose that contact with her, he thought.
She looked up at him, wide-eyed and vulnerable. Almost disbelieving the passion sizzling between them. Afraid. “I’m feeling it too, Lizzy.”
“It’s…scary,” she confessed, creating a spot in his heart for her he didn’t want to have.
Leaning down, he brushed a kiss on her lips and said, “Don’t be scared. I would never hurt you.”
Although he knew he would, because there was no good way for this to end between them. If she wasn’t the Sparrow, he’d still have to leave at the end of the day. He’d already warned her he wasn’t a stay-at-home kind of guy.
And if she was the Sparrow…
He was doomed for sure, he thought, as he moved in her and brought them both to the edge again before they slipped over together.
Afterward, when they were finally breathing and their legs could hold them, they slowly walked upstairs to her bedroom and climbed into bed.
He held her cradled to his side, knowing they would make love again. It had been too amazing for them not to. But before then…
He had a mission. That was why he was here. Liar, the little voice in his head yelled, but he ignored it and pressed forward with his assignment.
“What was it like growing up here? Always being in one place?” he began, in part because he needed to discuss her family, but also because a part of him actually did wonder what such a life was like, having never had such stability during his younger years.
She ran her hand across his chest, the gesture soothing, one of connection rather than desire.
“Nice at times. Annoying at others. In a town as tiny as Leonia, everyone knows everyone. Everyone knows everything about you.”
“Hmm,” he said and rubbed his hand up and down her arm, but didn’t say anything else. He didn’t want to press too hard and arouse suspicions.
“And you? What was it like always moving around?”
Aidan’s answer came quickly, too much so, he feared. “When I was younger, it was hard. I would just get used to the place and make friends and we would get our next assignment.”
“And later? When you were older?” she asked and snuggled closer to him, her body plastered along his side, one thigh tossed over his legs beneath the sheets.
His arm was tucked under her and he eased his hand over the curve of her waist to hold her close. “When I was older? I stopped trying to make friends. It made it easier,” he confessed.
She was quiet for a long time before she said, “I had my friends and family. And all the aunts and uncles and cousins, not to mention the neighbors and the milkman…” She stopped with a chuckle and he joined in her amusement.
“It must have been nice. I just had my family.”
“And Mitch,” she added.
Involuntarily, he stiffened at the mention of his friend’s name. Especially coming from her. But she was right. He’d had Mitch. “Mitch was…like a brother.”
“Did they ever find out—”
“Why he was killed. No,” he answered tightly, since at the reference to his friend, the headache he’d had that morning had begun to return.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t want to bring up anything painful.” She sat up then and the sheet fell away, revealing all of her to him.
“Headache’s back?” she added quickly. He must have been making a face of some sort for her to notice.
When he affirmed it, she straddled his legs so that she might have a better position and began a slow and careful massage along his temples. “Close your eyes,” she said.
He did, not only because she asked, but because the sight and feel of her was arousing him again and he had other things that needed to get settled first.
“Was it hard for you? After your mom and dad—”
“I’d rather not talk about that time. It was…difficult.”
He slowly opened his eyes, inspected her face. The hurt was there for the world to see. “Didn’t your other family help out?”
Lizzy stopped her massage and dropped her hands to her sides. Of course there had been family to help