Jean woke with the sun. She woke early every day. It was her job, certainly, to wake early and make coffee and tea and start breakfast for the household. But none of her usual duties filled her head when she woke up that morning.

She was lying naked in bed, tangled in the sheets of Lucien's bed. He slept on his stomach beside her, limbs all splayed out in every direction. His arm was resting over her stomach, loosely gripping her waist to keep her close to him.

Jean turned her head to look over at him. His hair was sticking out at all angles, curling beautifully. In the light of day, she was pleased that he kept himself looking well put together, despite the beard, but seeing him without artifice and without effort, he was so soft and beautiful.

The bedsheet and slipped down to his hips during the night, and with the daylight behind the curtains bringing a bit of brightness to the room, Jean could see the crisscross of scars all over his back. Thick ropes of white, hard flesh. He had not spoken much about the horrors of his past, but Jean knew he had suffered. He suffered the anguish of losing his mother and being sent away as a young boy. He had suffered the horrors of being a prisoner of war after losing his family. She had seen him drink and carry on and retreat to darkness and isolation. She had seen the terrible drawings of the things he'd witnessed. But this, the physical reminder that he had suffered, the plain vision of it etched on his body, Jean was moved more than she'd thought possible.

Any regrets that she might have expected herself to have from making love to a man who was not her husband—her employer, in fact—had not entered her mind yet. Perhaps later she would remember the black and white morals of the church and her own convictions. She might live to know her actions were wrong.

But here and now, seeing the golden glow of Lucien's scarred, bare skin, nothing felt wrong. She loved this man. Loved him fiercely. She'd embraced the courage to tell him so. She'd done precisely what she'd wanted and needed in kissing him and removing her dressing gown and joining him in his bed. Sleeping beside him, waking up to this, was better than she could have ever imagined.

Yes, later, let her worry about who would find out or what they were to do from here. But right now, Jean could not bear to contemplate such things.

She gently removed his arm from her body, lifting it and placing it up by his head. His face was turned away from her, but she did not mind. Jean shifted herself beneath the sheets to perch herself on the backs of his muscled thighs. Goodness, every bit of him was muscled. Beautiful and strong and perfect.

Jean leaned forward to kiss his scars. Her hands smoothed the ridges of them, ghosting over his bum and back up, over his shoulders and tangling in his soft curly hair.

Lucien hummed and sighed beneath her as he began to wake up. She pressed soft kisses on this side of his thick, muscled neck. "Good morning," she whispered in his ear.

He tried to lift his head to look at her, but found he was pinned beneath her. He had the strength to roll them both over if he wanted to. Instead, though, he grinned into the pillow. "Good morning, my darling," he replied. His voice was deep and gravelly first thing in the morning.

Jean got her fill of him from this angle and slipped off him so he could turn and face her. He pulled her into his arms and began to kiss her slowly and languidly. A perfect morning wakeup. She indulged as long as she could before reminding them both of reality. "I've got to get up and start the day. Hopefully Charlie won't catch me on the landing."

He sighed discontentedly. "I don't want to think about that yet."

She nuzzled against his neck. "No, me neither. But we have to."

"I don't want to think of anything but you. You, beautiful and lying in bed with me." His hands explored up and down her back, as hers had done to him earlier. "Oh Jean, I've dreamt of this."

"Have you?"

"Mmm," he hummed. "For such a long time."

Jean smiled, snuggling closer to him. "Me too," she replied.

She did need to get up and start the day, but she would live in the dream for just a bit longer.

Daylight woke Ruth. A sliver of sun escaped through the curtains of the hotel room. They'd not bothered to close them too carefully the night before. But now the light was right in her eyes. She did not appreciate being woken this way. She tried to bury her face in the pillow but found her movements slightly restricted.

Harry was curled around her body, holding her tight. Ruth had been sleeping on her side with his chest pressed up against her back. She could feel the warmth of his skin. The slight scratch of his chest hair on her skin. His hand was resting on her stomach, just barely touching the curve of her breasts.

As happy as she was to be snuggled up in bed with him, Ruth was awake now and starting to overheat. She took Harry's hand off her, kissing the back of it softly before escaping his grasp.

Ruth sat up, pulling one of the bedsheets with her to protect a bit of her modesty. She heard Harry grumble behind her as she opened the curtains fully. It was quite early, still, but the light was extremely bright. She'd never seen anything like it.

"Come back to bed," came Harry's growl.

She ignored his request. "Look at this, Harry," she said. "Have you ever seen light like that? Early morning in London is always a silvery gray, but this is nothing like that. This the most golden daylight I've ever seen. Isn't it beautiful?"

"Beautiful," he replied softly.

Ruth turned back to see him staring at her with a smile. "You're not looking outside."

"I'm looking at you," he told her.

"Well, come look at this," she requested.

"I don't want to look at anything now that I've seen you. Nothing else could be so beautiful."

In spite of herself, Ruth smiled. She fell back onto the bed with Harry, who did not hesitate to pull her into his arms. "Good morning, Harry," she murmured.

"Good morning, Ruth," he answered, pushing her hair back from her face and leaning in to kiss her.

As she enjoyed her morning kiss, Ruth could not help but reflect on all that had happened in the last two days. Good lord, was it really only two days? Everything had changed in those two days. All her fears overcome and realized all at once. And this happiness she'd been so convinced she could never have was holding her in his arms the morning after they'd made love.

"What's the matter?" Harry asked, pulling away suddenly.

Obviously she'd been distracted from the kiss and he'd noticed. "Everything's going to be alright, isn't it?"

"I don't know about everything, but I think you and I will be."

Ruth frowned. "Do you really think so? I mean, we're lying in a hotel room in a small town in Australia. We'll have work to do tomorrow at the army base. And then after that we're going to Adelaide and back to England. Our lives have never been very predictable. How do you know it won't all come crashing down when we return to normalcy?"

Harry gently cupped her cheek. "Ruth, you worry far too much. It makes you a brilliant secretary and perfect spook, but I hoped that we could have a bit of optimism now that we've finally sorted things out between us."

"Have we though?" she asked dubiously.

"I love you," he interrupted. "I love you and I will never, ever allow things to fall apart between us. You and I...this...it's all I want, Ruth. And if you want it too, I swear I'll do anything to protect what we've found."

The smile returned to her lips at that. "I love you, too. And I do want this. It's just..."

"What?"

Ruth chewed on her lips to find the words to explain. "I just…I was so convinced that if we ever…you know…that something terrible would happen. That the world would end and the sky would burn red."

"But it hasn't," he said.

And a bloom of warmth filled her at that. "No," she agreed happily. "It hasn't. It's just golden daylight."