The next ten days and nights followed much the same pattern. Her companion was as mercurial as a weekend in April, and she was as much stimulated as exhausted by the constant battle of wits in which his presence in the house engaged her.
He continued to deride her steady declaration that Dickon was a temporary feature of her life. She continued to try to find the kitten a good home, but the vet's gloomy forecast on that front was being borne out: the rescue centres for miles around already had all the cats they could cope with. And slowly but surely, the little creature was becoming a friend. His confident welcoming chirrup and the way he would run to her with his tail in the air made her feel all the more heinous a villain every time she tried to find someone to take him away from her.
Jag's mental state slowly seemed to become more stable. The periods during which he was snappy, suspicious and even potentially dangerous diminished, and only on a couple more nights did he revert to wolf-identity. On each of these she behaved as though nothing were amiss, and by morning he was himself again. Neither of them ever alluded to this reversion, though she was more upset by it than she allowed herself to show; damn her duty of confidentiality that would allow this criminal misuse of innocent young men and women to continue!
"You won't have to endure my company much longer," he remarked one morning, as he set out the breakfast things. "They want me back by Wednesday. Sane or otherwise."
"Sweetie, that is not funny."
He shrugged. "I'm not laughing."
Holly had been grilling bacon, but at this she turned down the heat setting and came over to him. He was wearing blue jeans and a white T-shirt, and looked fit and rested, but his eyes wore the old look of defiant recklessness, trying to hold her at bay.
"You're a shithead," she said gently. "Give me a cuddle."
That, he was always willing to do. It said much for how he had changed that his body was completely relaxed as her arms went around him.
Inevitably, his hands slipped down to her buttocks. Just as inevitably, she returned them to her waist. They compromised on a location that left him feeling just a little smug that he was getting away with something.
"Breakfast can wait," he breathed, kissing her.
"So can you." She kissed his nose and released him with a parting pat on the bum.
"I'm not sure two weeks of sex deprivation is a recognised form of therapy for Black Ops agents," he grumbled, returning to the basket of cutlery he'd set down. "I'll have you know you've already got away with murder, and you won't even let me shag you."
"Don't take it personally, sweetie." Holly smiled at him as she turned the bacon over and increased the heat setting again. "It just means I value you too much to add myself to the list of women you fucked and forgot."
His eyebrows rose, though next moment they contracted in a frown. She thought he was about to reply, but instead he turned away and concentrated on laying out the tableware with perfect precision – an activity that she watched thoughtfully even while she kept an eye on the bacon and presently tipped eggs into the frying pan.
Silence was not unusual between them; they were perfectly capable of being comfortable together without needing to talk. But she suspected that his silence now indicated he was troubled by her reply.
That was something for him to deal with. She was not going to press the issue.
She finished operations on the cooker while he buttered the toast, still silent. It was a beautiful morning; outside, the birds were singing, while inside Dickon fruitlessly chased a sunspot on the floor that was cast by a crystal hanging in the kitchen window. The window being open, the glass unicorn above the crystal turned on its wire in every stray breeze, and as it turned so did the sunspots it cast, much to Dickon's fascination.
Leaving the kitten to expend his energy in vain on trying to capture the things he could see so clearly but never set paw on, the two of them sat down to eat. Her companion poured the tea, but although he raised his own to his mouth he set it back down untasted in the saucer with a click that drew her attention.
"It wouldn't be 'fuck and forget'," he said quietly. "I can't believe you think that of me."
"Sweetie, right now I don't think it's really the best time for us to make things complicated. You've got to leave in a couple of days, and I ... I'm not invulnerable either, you know."
He digested that in silence as he started eating. "You've never shown the slightest interest in protecting yourself," he said presently.
"No relationship is as simple as the interests of only one of the people in it. And that's especially true if it wasn't just a 'fuck and forget' for you. Though of course, you might be just saying that to get my knickers off," she added with a twinkle.
"I've already seen you without your knickers."
"Does that worry you? It doesn't worry me."
"It bloody well ought to worry you," he growled. "I was sent here because even the Section couldn't depend on me, and there are you flaunting your arse at me and thinking I'm too much of a gentleman to do more than admire it!"
"But you haven't, have you? So there you are. I was right all along." She triumphantly speared half of a grilled tomato.
"Another word might be 'lucky'," he retorted through gritted teeth. "Do you just enjoy walking the wire? Have you ever stopped to think about the risks, or are you some kind of closet adrenaline junkie?
"I mean, I get it. I know there's a kick in seeing just how far you can push it, how much you can get away with, God knows I do it all the time. But I don't do it for fun like you seem to do, and you've got so much more to live for than I have."
"I've never heard so much drivel in my entire life!" Holly set down her cutlery with such violence that Dickon fled under the sideboard. "Don't you dare, ever again, in my hearing, say that you have less to live for than I have!"
The brief tenderness in his eyes vanished in a flare of anger. "You know fuck-all about it!"
"I know more than you do if you think that life is something without value – even if yours isn't what you want right now!" She stood up, reached across the table and grabbed him by a fistful of his T-shirt. "You are a brave, honourable, good-looking young man, you're in a bad place right now but I know, I know, that sooner or later you'll come through it and you'll look in the mirror and be proud of the man you see looking back at you!"
His hand moved and for a second she thought he was going to slap her. But his fingers twisted in her hair and pinned her while he moved in and kissed her savagely. "Let me fuck you," he hissed. "I want you so much. Spread yourself for me and I'll be the best you ever had."
"No!" She pushed him off. "You want to make this about sex because that's the only thing about yourself you can believe in, and I'm not going to let you. Your value is nothing to do with how many times you can make me orgasm – even if it probably would be in double figures!"
They glared at each other across the table, but eventually she released her grip of his clothing, sat down again and began eating. At first this was in a tense silence, snatching glances, but eventually they caught each other at it. It occurred forcibly to Holly that they were like two nervous cats peering around a dustbin, each hoping that the other has gone away. The thought was so ridiculous that she exploded into giggles, which set Jag off as well, and moments later both of them were in peals of laughter.
"If you change your mind, you will let me know, won't you?" he asked, wiping his eyes. "And I'll do my best to make the double figures."
"Oh dear! Oh my!" she gasped. "– Yes, sweetie, you'll be the first to know, I promise."
"You do realise you talk to me like I'm about five. And that's another thing – I told you my name the first day I got here, so why the bloody hell do you keep calling me the same thing you call that cat?"
Without answering, though she was still chuckling intermittently, she pierced the yolk of her egg with the point of her knife and carefully coaxed the runny yellow insides onto a piece of fried bread, which she sprinkled with salt and then ate with every evidence of enjoyment. Only after she'd popped the last piece into her mouth did she look up at him, apparently completely unperturbed. "You have not told me your name," she pointed out. "You told me the handle by which an immoral organisation chooses to refer to you. You are neither a feline predator nor a classic car, and I am not employed by Section 31. Therefore I am not going to call you Jaguar."
He sat back, folded his arms and glowered at her. "Then for God's sake find something a bit more dignified than 'Sweetie'!"
"'Shithead'?" she offered demurely.
A snort. "It's an improvement on 'Sweetie', I suppose."
"It's a deal." Holly buttered a second piece of toast and gave him her sweetest smile. "'Sweetie and Shithead'. Sounds like a comedy duo on a late-night talk show. Not sure it'll ever make the BBC, though, so I wouldn't get your hopes up."
Jag dealt viciously with a sausage. "I swear, if ever I get my hands on your arse I'll give it such a slapping."
"Even such an alluring promise as that doesn't tempt me. Sorry and all that." She dropped another kiss on his nose as she went to refill the teapot, and, still grumbling, he went back to finishing his breakfast.