Welcome back!
Thanks so much for the reviews for the first chapter! The encouragement and feedback are much appreciated and very helpful.
I'll be honest: this chapter and I are not the best of friends. We weren't even on speaking terms for a long time. But we started talking again and managed to work through some of our issues. I hope you enjoy it, but if it gives you a hard time, let me know.
Nighttime had settled Clarisse's suite in peace and quiet as well. No bustling Charlotte or flitting Olivia. No phone ringing off the hook. None of the foot traffic that her office back at the palace saw each day.
No cameras. Not that cameras were noisy, but their absence lent a significance all its own.
Nothing, but the blessed quiet. No one, but the two of them.
He could hear his heart thrumming madly. He was embarrassed by how loudly he swallowed. The door clicked shut behind him, breaking into the silence as explosively as a shotgun.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the warm glow of lamplight filtering from her bedroom, and he nearly stopped breathing. The invitation had clearly been to enter her suite. Whether she had a specific room in mind remained to be seen.
In his wildest imaginings, they were already halfway to bed, or as close to it as they could get, kissing passionately and flinging garments haphazardly along the way. Somehow that didn't seem appropriate now – or even possible, since he couldn't bring himself to simply reach for her. He wanted to, but his hands felt clammy. Also, touching her might prove this was merely another dream to add to his futile collection of unquenchable yearnings.
Of course, if he were dreaming, that would mean he had dozed off while on guard duty, and Joseph Romero never slept on the job. Whatever this was, it was real.
Oh, dear God. This was real.
The Queen had made a pass at him, and he had no idea what he was going to do about it.
Time to see if honesty truly was the best policy. He took a deep breath and cleared his throat. "What do we do now?" he asked.
She chuckled. "And there I was, thinking perhaps you might have a few ideas."
He grinned. "Oh, I have ideas. Plenty of ideas." He cleared his throat again. "I'm a little overwhelmed by all the ideas," he admitted.
"I have a few ideas of my own."
"Is that so?"
"Mm-hmm."
"We should definitely get together some time and compare notes."
"We should." She paused. "Some time," she echoed.
Ah, so it wasn't just him. He had not detected even a hint of nervousness within her aura of certainty. He had likely succeeded at projecting the same level of self-assurance she did now, the same easy confidence he had feigned on the other side of the door. He suddenly saw a picture of them, of this scene, in his mind - two perfectly composed people whose jobs often required them to look cool and unruffled despite whatever emotions might be surging just below the surface.
"Yes, another time," he agreed. "For now, maybe we should stick with…"
She eyed him curiously.
"...the basics," he said jokingly. She relaxed and smiled at him. He felt calmer, too, the light exchange defusing the intensity of this momentous step.
At last, his need to touch her surpassed his concern over damp palms. He took her hands in his as they stepped toward each other. "May I kiss you, Clarisse?"
"Oh, I do wish you would, Joseph."
They came together slowly, tentatively, as if they were each worried about spooking the other. When it was clear neither of them would be so easily scared, the kissing quickly became something else entirely. It was familiar, while at the same time thrillingly novel. It was eager, fueled by pent-up emotions of more than two decades; yet thorough with the knowledge that this had been worth the wait and was something to be savored.
They finally broke apart, but only just. He rested his forehead on hers as they caught their breath.
"Should we make ourselves more comfortable?" Clarisse murmured. Her voice was rich and silky like expensive chocolate, and hungry as he was, he thought he might taste her words if he kissed her mouth again.
When she nodded to the sofa, he felt a mixture of relief and disappointment that she hadn't indicated her bedroom. His unsteady legs, however, begged him to take her up on the invitation. Joseph released one of her hands, holding fast to the other to keep their contact unbroken – to keep his hold on this newfound reality – as he led her to the sofa. He sat down and pulled her close to him. She tucked herself into his side as he turned to pick up where they had left off by the door.
There was no hesitation this time.
It could have been minutes or hours, but at some point he was pulling her deeper into him and she was gripping his shoulders, and their kisses were increasingly urgent, almost fierce, as though life itself depended on this. She moved impossibly closer and he was painfully aware that she was in a thin robe lightly covering a delicate concoction of silk and lace. Her proximity made him euphoric, and he moaned softly.
Suddenly, they were apart. She had moved almost a full cushion away and their ragged breath filled the wordless space between them.
Careful not to trespass into her recently reclaimed personal space, he reached for her hand, pulled it to his lips, and kissed her fingers gently. She moved her hand from his and placed her palm against his cheek. With her thumb, she caressed the whiskers at the corner of his mouth.
"I know it will sound absurd," she said, her gaze steady as she looked for his reaction, "to say this is all happening so fast when we've been waiting forever." He leaned in to her touch, listening. "It's just, well… This morning, I had no idea this would be happening now. I didn't know twenty minutes ago, when I opened the door to talk with you."
"You mean, this isn't why you came looking for me?" he asked, his eyes twinkling.
"No," she laughed softly. "I only wondered where you were. You didn't answer the phone in your room, and it seemed unlikely you would be the one outside, but –" She stopped for a moment, her expression full of passion now tempered by a tender gratitude. "It was possible. You're always making sure I'm safe," she whispered. "Even when you're tired. Even when someone else can do it."
"No one else can do it," he stated matter-of-factly. "I only keep these other guys around because sometimes I have to sleep." He reached to stroke her hair. "I never fully trust you with anyone else."
"I know. I couldn't be in better hands."
A charmingly wicked smile lit across his face. "Speaking of my hands, and your being in them…"
She laughed at him and leaned forward to press her lips to his once. "You are already adjusting to this more quickly than I am."
He smiled reassuringly. "No. I understand. Things have been just as they are between us for an awfully long time."
"Just as they are...," she mused. He wasn't sure what she was thinking, but something drew her back to him. She scooted closer again and leaned against him, nestling her head under his chin. He wrapped his arms around her and sighed contentedly; he felt her smile against his neck.
For a few minutes, they said nothing at all, and in the rare peace and quiet, Joseph slowly realized that the honesty of that moment – starting to say out loud the things they both already knew, that had been hovering without words or definition beneath the surface of their friendship for twenty-three years – was as fulfilling as any fantasy he'd ever concocted.
"What do you want to be, Joseph?" Clarisse asked point blank.
He didn't have to think about it. "Everything, Clarisse. I want to be everything to you."
He heard her breath hitch and felt the rapid fluttering of her eyelashes and waited for her to regain her composure before he reciprocated.
Sort of reciprocated. He would have to rephrase the question. She could give the same answer – I want to be everything – but it would have a different meaning. He wanted to be her everything, and so would be. She belonged to an entire country, and only had so much to give, no matter how much she might wish otherwise.
"What do you want us to be, Clarisse?"
She was quiet, and her soft sigh against his skin told him she had caught the significance of his reworded question. Finally, she replied simply, "I just want to be us."
"Is this being us?" he asked with a smile.
He felt a silent chuckle against his chest, and he tightened his embrace.
"Tonight it is." She pulled back to look him in the eye. "Like you, I am a little overwhelmed by all the, um, ideas."
"One thing at a time then." He kissed her forehead, then the tip of her nose and the corners of her mouth. "This is already heaven."
She quirked an eyebrow at him. "Really? If cuddling is heavenly, what will you think of all the other options?"
"Lots of adjectives come to mind: amazing, spectacular, phenomenal, earth-shattering… I could go on."
"Please, don't," she laughed. "I'm suddenly feeling enough pressure with those."
He brushed her hair back behind her ear and smiled reverently at her.
"Clarisse, what turns my thoughts and dreams into fantasies is the fact that you're in them. With me. That we're together. All adjectives fall short in the face of that. All words fail."
She stared at him with shining eyes. "Damn, you're good," she declared in a husky voice.
"Now I'm feeling the pressure," he teased. "I don't want you to change your opinion...later."
"You mean, when we're - how did you put it? - comparing notes."
"Exactly."
She started to respond - with something tantalizing and suggestive if the smugness of her smile were any indication - but just then, his internal alarm went off, elbowing its way into his bliss in order to shove him back fully into the present. He checked his watch to confirm it was the witching hour, then sighed.
"It's almost midnight," he offered as explanation and apology.
Her eyes widened. "Will your ride turn into a pumpkin?"
"No, pumpkins are too...orange. And you know me: I don't go in for fairy tales." He smiled crookedly at her. "Although tonight might make a believer out of me."
"It is almost too good to be true, isn't it?" she asked ruefully. "After all these years? As though we're tempting fate, just asking for the spell to be broken."
He was too happy to admit that, on some level, he felt the same. Real as this all was, it was fragile and daring and would have to be carefully guarded, kept closely between the two of them.
He stood up, pulling her with him into one more embrace. "I won't let anything or anyone break this," he whispered.
He felt her arms squeeze more tightly around him, and it was all the response he needed. With a small grumbling sound, he found the strength to move apart from her.
"What happens at midnight?" she asked, following him to the door.
"Shift change. If I'm not out in the hall, my colleagues might assume the worst and sound all the alarms before it occurs to them to simply knock on your door."
"I suppose there's such a thing as being too enthusiastic."
"These young guys today. I think they watched too many Jack Ryan movies growing up."
"It's nice to know they care, anyway."
"That's one way to look at it." He turned around, reaching for her to give her one last kiss. She met him halfway, easily reclaiming her natural place in his arms as if they'd been like this for years.
"Good night, my queen."
"Good night, Joseph."
Sheer force of will caused them to finally separate. With one more smile, he disappeared into the hallway.
"I love you," she said to the space he had just been standing in.
In the hallway, where he leaned against the door, he closed his eyes as her words unwittingly crossed over to him.
She loved him. Heavenly didn't begin to describe it.
So they hadn't stumbled to bed in a blinding passion. She had said she loved him and that she wanted to be with him. If he were honest, those were the things that made up the plot of his wildest imaginings. Those comprised his oldest and dearest fantasy, the most impossible one, which on this night, was miraculously fulfilled.
to be continued...
I've never actually seen a Jack Ryan movie, but I did watch Guarding Tess. None of that is relevant to this chapter so I should probably stop now.