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It was absurd. It was all absurd. Andrew had come back into her life to recruit her to be a spy, and now he was threading bobbins on her sewing machine in the middle of the night.

“That’s hardly funny,” he said, scowling over his shoulder.

“I’m sorry,” she managed between chuckles. “It’s just that you’re so irritated to have to admit that there’s something about me you might actually admire that you have to say something awful. It’s like you feel obligated to be an absolute bear.”

Then something extraordinary happened. Andrew Colter’s stern visage cracked, and a smile shone through.

That smile. She’d forgotten how it used to wash over her like the sun breaking through clouds on a winter day. She used to bask in it, never knowing that she should appreciate the easy way he had about him during the time they spent together, sixteen and so in love that the entire world could’ve fallen away and they wouldn’t have noticed. That smile had accompanied optimistic picnics on the cold, windswept beach of their town and afternoons when Andrew would row them out onto the bay. It was the smile that she’d thought of during the long, dark nights of winter when it had seemed as though he would never come back to her.

“You are stubborn,” he said.

“Or perhaps I’m just persistent,” she said, lifting her finger to wipe at a tear that had escaped the corner of her eye while she’d been laughing.

With a sigh, he reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a handkerchief. “You’d better use this. You never could remember to carry one of your own when we were children.”

She hesitated but then took the scrap of unembellished but fine linen. “I still can’t. Some habits are hard to shake.”

His back was to the machine now, and he was watching her intently with his elbows on his knees. When she tried to hand back the handkerchief, he shook his head. “Keep it.”

Not knowing what to do with the fabric, she twisted it between her fingers. Despite everything they’d gone through, a crazy, irrational part of her wanted so badly for this man not to hate her. Just one moment was all she was asking for. Just a little time where they could be at peace, because maybe then she could believe that Andrew didn’t think she’d betrayed him at the first opportunity she’d gotten.

“Do you recall the night we tried to take your father’s rowboat out?” she asked quietly.

“How could I forget? A squall came and we almost drowned. If it had been any longer than ten minutes, we would’ve died in the bay.”

Chewing the inside of her lower lip, she carefully chose her words. “I remember bailing the boat out because the waves kept crashing over the sides. But I knew with absolute certainty that we weren’t going to drown, because you were with me. You wouldn’t have let anything bad happen.”

When she raised her gaze, she found his eyes had darkened, their piercing stare penetrating to her very soul. There was danger there, along with something else—something headier that she’d long ago forgotten and wasn’t yet brave enough to name.

“I can’t promise that something won’t happen to you just because I’m here, Lavinia,” he said.

“I know that, but I feel better knowing that you are.”

A pause stretched between them, weighty with awkwardness.

“I’m so sorry for what I—”

“Lavinia,” he said, his voice gravelly.

“If you’ll just let me apologize—”

But she never got her apology out, because at that moment Andrew dropped to his knees, closing the gap between them, and kissed her.

Chapter Nine

THIS IS MADNESS.

The thought cracked like lightning through Lavinia’s mind, but it was gone just as fast as every bit of her being surrendered to sensation.

Half drunk on exquisite feeling, she melted into his kiss, opening to let him in. He was at once familiar and novel—a comfort from her past mixed with experience and surprise. The grip of his fingers on the back of her neck, seeking purchase in the strands of her hair. The warmth that snaked through her, waking up every part of her body that she’d long neglected.

Her hands went around his neck as he dragged her down with him to the floor. Her skirts spread wide, enveloping them both in soft fabric. He gently tugged at her hair, searching for the pins he needed to release it. He used to gather it up in his hands and drink in the scent of her as though it were the sweetest perfume. But this was not the kiss of those lazy afternoons and long evenings spent learning each other’s bodies in the abandoned house at the edge of town. This one was fueled by raw, deeply held urgency, and when her fingers danced over the knot of his necktie in the faintest request for something more, Andrew moaned low.

He wedged his leg between hers, bunching her skirts up against her. There was too much fabric for her to truly feel the muscle of his thigh, but the weight of his body over hers was enough. She gasped and squirmed under him, desperate to press in just the right way to relieve the ache. A low growl sounded in the back of his throat, and his tongue dove into her mouth, slipping over hers in a hot caress.

His hands danced down her body, lingering on her breasts and smoothing over her stomach before glancing over her hips. Her heels pressed into the floor in frustration, the longing for his touch too powerful to deny, and when his fingers reached the hem of her skirts she nearly gasped out yes. She wanted Andrew. Needed him. Desired him. That had never stopped.

He kissed her, bruising her mouth deliciously as his hands dove under her skirts to find stocking-clad skin. Her skin lit up when he circled her ankle, stroked up her calves, and glanced up over her knees until he found the tops of her stockings. There skin finally met skin, and she nearly cried out in thanks. His fingers pressed into the soft flesh of her inner thighs, pushing through the slit in her drawers.