Rage

Ruth was outraged. Shocked and appalled. Or rather, she wanted to be shocked and appalled, but really, she could completely believe it. This was so like Harry to do. Nine times out of ten, even ninety-nine times out of a hundred, he was a brilliant boss and the best Section Head anyone could ask for. But that one time he failed, he did so spectacularly.

This time, when Erin had come to Ruth and told her what Harry had done, it took everything in her not to scream in anger. Even more upsetting, Erin had come to Ruth as a way of tattling on Harry. In any other circumstance, a Section Head giving such an unbelievably stupid instruction would be reported to the DG or even the Home Secretary. But when Harry misbehaved, it was Ruth who they reported to. And everyone knew it. Damn him for making sure everyone knew what they were to each other, damn him for micromanaging and mistrusting his team, damn him for leaving Ruth to pick up the pieces, damn him for all of it!

"Where is he?" Ruth asked Erin, after the problem had been explained.

"I think he went home, actually," she replied.

Ruth's blood boiled. "Right." Without a further word, she grabbed her bag and her coat and stormed out of Thames House. Her ire did not cool on the bus to Harry's side of town. She was no less infuriated when she marched up his front walk and banged her fist on his door.

He answered a moment later. "Ruth?" he greeted in surprise. "What's wrong?"

It was a fair question. She would not appear on his doorstep for anything less than an urgent problem. "Let me in, Harry," she demanded.

Ruth felt like a woman possessed. Her anger had somehow given her a strength she'd never known. Oftentimes when she got upset, she would become despondent and sad, shying away from confrontation and instead quietly retreating in on herself. Harry had seen her do that far too many times. But not this time. This time, her position as Senior Intelligence Analyst and the only officer in Section D who had been on the team for more than a year put her in a different position. This time, she knew enough to know that Harry had made a mistake and she had enough authority to tell him so.

Upon entering Harry's home, she removed her coat and hung it by the door. This was not going to be a short visit, she knew. Eventually she would calm down and they would discuss together how to proceed. It's what they'd done for a long time now, making those decisions together, Harry seeking her counsel and Ruth offering her opinion. But when she turned back to face him, she was able to look at him properly for the first time.

And he looked maddeningly gorgeous.

His coat and tie had been discarded. His shirt was untucked from his trousers, the sleeves rolled up, and the top three buttons—one more than was usual for him when he was relaxing—were undone. His feet were bare on the hardwood floor of his entryway, and everything about him looked deliciously rumpled. Ruth felt her heart skip a beat and her breath hitch slightly in her throat as she stared at him with wide eyes.

"Ruth?"

She blinked back to the issue at hand. "Harry, I cannot believe what you've done."

"What have I done?"

"You sent Callum and Dimitri on a wild goose chase and left Erin completely out of the loop!" she shouted. "She in their Section Chief. And she's very good at what she does. But she isn't Ros or Adam, who understood your mind as well as you do. She isn't Tom, who needs to be managed and handled for going rogue, and she certainly isn't Lucas, in danger of being given too much trust! This is your team, Harry, all of them. And they are young, but they're good. And they trust you and respect you just like Beth did and just like Zoe and Danny and Jo and all the rest. They deserve your respect in return."

Harry looked nearly as outraged as Ruth felt. "Is that what you think, Ruth, that I don't respect my own team?"

"It isn't just what I think, Harry, it's the truth. And if you deny it, you're lying to me and to yourself," she fired back.

"Why don't you tell my why it's you coming to me at my house to yell at me, and not Erin speaking to me in my office, since that is her job and it certainly is not yours."

"It most certainly is my job! You are my job!"

"And I suppose that's all I am, is it? Your job?"

Ruth screeched in frustration. "Argh! Harry, you make me want to tear my hair out sometimes!"

"I feel the same way, Ruth, though I've got far too little hair left to go around tearing it out," he quipped.

Of all the times for his obnoxious sense of humor to come out. Ruth did want to tear her hair out. For the way he handled the team and this operation, for the way he treated her and left her to pick up the pieces for him, for the way he'd created her as this person she barely recognized. And he had created her, pushed her into becoming the born spook he told her she was. She'd given up everything for him and her world had been spun upside down and turned inside out because of what they meant to each other. And now here she was, in his house, nagging him like his disgruntled wife, bearing all the burden and none of the reward. "Damn you, Harry," she breathed, her head hung down in defeat.

"What was that?" he asked, taking a step closer to her.

She looked up sharply. "You bloody heard me." In that moment, she wasn't sure what she wanted to do. Slap him across the face or kiss him or fall weeping into his arms. Something. She had to do something.

It was as if her body moved on its own accord. Before she realized it, she'd put her hands on Harry's chest and shoved him back until he collided against the wall. Harry stared at her in shock. Never before had she been even close to violent like this, certainly not with him. "Ruth?" His voice was tentative. Afraid, almost.

"God damn you," she growled.

And then she couldn't help herself. Her fingers curled into the fabric of his shirt and pulled him down, their lips crashing together. With desperate, hungry desire, they were all tongues and teeth and moving mouths. Harry's hands found her hips and tried to flip them, but Ruth shoved him back against the wall. For once, for one single moment, he was not in charge.

He pulled back, looking at her with a mixture of baffled awe and endeared amusement. Ruth ignored it. She pulled at his shirt, ripping the buttons off and pushing the offending item off to bare his chest to her. Her lips found the hollow of his throat, licking and sucking on his soft skin, her teeth sinking into his flesh. He hissed in aroused pain, his fingers tightening their hold on her.

Harry allowed her to continue her ministrations. She would surely leave marks all over him, a thought that thrilled him to the core. But when her fingernails scratched down his chest and she pressed herself firmly against his growing erection, he tried to stop her. "Ruth," he said more firmly. She ignored him. He pulled away and held her face in his hands, forcing her to look at him. "Ruth, please," he begged.

Her stormy blue eyes met his soft hazel brown and all the world fell away. His expression was beseeching, filled with desire, yes, but so much more. She saw in his face the same longing she saw all those years ago at Havensworth. She saw in his face the same yearning she saw in the fields after Ros's funeral. She saw in his face the same undying devotion she saw when he'd rescued her during the hell of Albany. She saw in his face all the love she'd always known he harbored for her deep in his heart, a love she returned tenfold but never had the strength to show. She would show him now. She needed to. "Harry," she murmured.

And with that one word, their fate was sealed. Harry whirled her around, pressing her back into the wall where he'd just been standing. He kissed her with an intoxicating mix of tenderness and heat. Her fingers traced down his chest again, more gently this time. She unbuckled his belt and unzipped his trousers, never breaking their kiss. Harry had one hand tangled in her hair, keeping her anchored to him, and the other traveling up the front of her blouse, creating goosebumps all over her skin. He palmed her breast through her bra as she pushed his trousers off his hips and began stroking him through his trunks. They both groaned into each other's mouths.

Ruth pulled away, pressing his shoulders back and turning them back so he was the one caught against the wall this time. With a grin of cheeky anticipation, she reached for the hem of her blouse and pulled it over her head. Harry watched her, panting. She kept her eyes trained on his as she removed all of her clothes until she was left stark naked in the foyer of his house. And without thinking, she leapt up into his arms.

Harry, thankfully, registered what she was about to do just as she did it. He caught her, holding delicious handfuls of her bum as she started kissing him again messily and grinding her wet center against him. Harry turned them once more, pressing her against the wall to keep her anchored there as he pushed his trunks to his ankles and kicked them off. His hard cock sprang forth, throbbing and seeking her heat. Just one brush against her and he could tell she was ready.

She wrapped her arms around his neck and her legs around his waist, clinging to him, begging him with her body. They uttered no words as she sucked on his earlobe and he pushed himself inside her. She moaned involuntarily at the sensation, her body stretching to accommodate his length slowly filling her. When he was fully sheathed inside her, she whimpered and wiggled, needing his movement more than anything in the world in that moment.

When he did pull out of her and thrust back in, she linked her ankles and drew him in as deep as possible. He pounded into her over and over and over, unrelenting in his passion and strength and hardness and power. Ruth could distantly hear the sounds she was making, unable to control any part of it. All she knew was that he felt so good, so right. For years and years, she had been searching. And in Harry's arms, with him moving deep inside her, she had been found.

He moved faster, thrusting harder as he got closer and closer to his release. He seemed to know exactly what Ruth needed, tipping her over the edge before she realized how close she was. She came hard, biting down on his shoulder and screaming into his skin as her whole body shattered and trembled in his arms, pleasure radiating from her center through her numb limbs and back again. Harry's rhythm faltered as he tumbled after her, coming with a few pulsing spurts and a bone-deep groan of satisfaction.

Ruth was shaking all over. But it wasn't just her. She and Harry were both slick with sweat, and her weight in his arms was more than he could take just then. He rolled his back against he wall and slid down to the floor, still buried inside Ruth. They were tangled together amidst their discarded clothing, breathing heavily and barely conscious.

"Christ," Harry said finally.

"Yeah," she agreed, unable to engage in any more intelligent conversation.

"You should get mad at me more often," he chuckled, wrapping his arms tight around her waist and dropping a kiss to her neck.

"I don't know what came over me." And before he could interject, she added, "And don't say that you did, because that innuendo is far too obvious."

He didn't respond, only laughed breathily. Ruth remained nestled in his embrace, despite the fact that it was wildly uncomfortable to be sprawled on the floor like that. But in that moment, it didn't matter. She'd suffered far worse than stiff muscles for Harry before. She'd suffer much more for him any day. At least now they had found the joy to match their suffering, a joy that Ruth now intended to cling to as tightly as she clung to him here and now. And always.