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My lips curl into a smile. That’s so Jamie. But it’s not her too. “Come on, diavolessa. You’re a lot of things. A bore isn’t one of them.”
She smiles at the suggestion. Yes, I guess I am being a bit of a bore, focusing on my job as an assassin. There is more to me than my love of arranging a crime scene. “What about the fact I was working you all that time?”
“What about it?” I ask, in that same even voice she used. It’s a fact, yes. It doesn’t have the implication she thinks it does. “You liked me. That was real.”
She blushes. “There was something about the way you wore your sobriety like a chink in your armor. I should have exploited that weakness, but I had this impulse to protect it. Then… well, I think it started the first time we had sex." Her laugh lights up her blue eyes. “You saw through my routine instantly.”
For a moment, I’m back there, in my apartment, on my leather couch. Jamie was wearing some sexy black dress and she practically lunged at my belt.
At the time, I thought she was nervous. Or used to men treating her like an object.
Or performing, because she thought it was the kind of sex I wanted.
It almost stopped me then. Fuck, do I really seem like one of these guys?
Maybe I did. I wasn’t exactly tender when I was using.
I didn’t want to be that person anymore. I needed her to know that. I needed to cut through every bit of falseness.
When I redirected her, she looked at me like I had two heads. Like she couldn’t believe any man would turn down a blow job.
Now, I see what it really was. She didn’t think anyone would try to see the real her.
I give it to her gently. “No offense, princess, but you were practically transparent. What sober woman says, ‘I’ve been dreaming about you pulling my hair as you come in my mouth,’ the first time?”
She smiles. “I would believe you, if you said it. That you dream about me coming on your face.”
“If I said it, it would be true.”
Her cheeks flush. Her chest too.
Maybe this is who she really is. Not the perfect girlfriend. Not the sassy spy. Not the electric enemy.
Just Jamie.
Here, in Greece, in the warm light of afternoon, Jamie leans in to kiss me.
I kiss her back, softly at first. Then harder.
Desire surges though my veins, but I stop myself. Pull back. Place a hand gently on her cheek.
I ask the question that’s been wearing on me for years. "Did you ever think about staying?"
Her eyes turn down. “And what? Telling you everything and begging you not to turn me into the feds?”
“Did you think I would?”
“You did.”
“That was after—”
“But you did,” she says. “And you would. It’s who you are.”
I chose duty over love. She’s right. More right than she knows. “Is that the only reason you didn’t stay?”
“Mattie…” She looks out toward the sea. Studies it a long moment. "Do you really want to face this?"
"Face what?"
