17 April 2005

For a time he just held her, the pair of them panting and hopelessly tangled together, sweat-slicked skin sliding as he cradled her close. The car was hardly ideal for this sort of thing but they'd made it work, as best they could; Nick was stretched out across the back seat, his back propped up against the door, one leg flat on the floor, one leg bent along the seat, and she had made room for herself atop him, his glorious Trish. She must have been as exhausted as he was, for the moment he spilled himself inside her she'd collapsed against his chest, and there she remained, her breath warm at the base of his neck.

I could get used to this, he thought, his palm trailing across the satin softness of her bare back. To tell the truth, he'd adjusted to this new reality already, this life where she cared for him, as he did for her, where she'd welcome his touch, so long as no one was watching. It was beautiful, but it was dangerous, too; every time he kissed her he only found himself falling further and further under her spell, and he knew that the risk of being discovered was only growing. They'd been living in the city for months now, and Nick had learned his way around, found the places where they could most easily hide, not just from SIS, but from the rest of the world, too; he never would have been so careless as to strip her bare where anyone could see. Out here, in the secluded spot that had quickly become his favorite, there was no one but the trees and the birds to bear witness to their sins, and the trees kept their secrets well. He could only hope this safe haven would last.

"This is nice," Trish whispered, her lips brushing lightly against his skin. Nick hummed; it was a hell of a lot better than nice, but he knew what she meant. The car was warm, and the radio was playing softly, and he was still going soft inside her, and they were, for the moment, both of them content. Just holding her felt like a gift, precious and rare beyond price. In the house he had to toe the line, keep his hands to himself, stop himself from giving voice to all the emotions that threatened to strangle him every time he looked at her, but out here, under the trees, he was, finally, free.

"I'd give anything to do this in a real bed," he told her, and he felt more than heard her answering laugh. In the beginning, when he'd finally found the courage to admit to his feelings for her, and she'd left him utterly shaken by revealing that she felt just as much, they'd agreed nothing more could happen in the house. At least, not regularly. SIS was bound to notice if they took to disappearing into the bathroom together, and neither of them wanted to answer questions about what they were getting up to in there. The bed was out, as well, as was the rest of the house; the cameras were trained on them twenty-four seven, and they couldn't risk demolishing their operation and their own lives, no matter how much they were both enjoying themselves. But having had a taste of one another, both of them knowing now that their feelings were returned, they were ravenous for more, and this was the solution they'd come to. They could steal away, for a little while, enjoy a moment's peace and a moment's privacy, so long as they came home with a bag of shopping to keep their cover intact. They couldn't do it too often, not every day, but they took the opportunity when they could, and enjoyed every second of it.

"It would be nice not to be on top, for once," she told him wryly, and it was his turn to laugh; they'd discovered early on that his legs were too long to allow for much creativity in the backseat, but they made it work. Made it work very well, in Nick's opinion, for he'd never enjoyed a woman as much as he enjoyed her. Everything about her delighted him; he was fucked in every possible way, and he knew it.

"You're doing great, sweetheart," he teased her, and in response she nipped lightly at his shoulder, silently chastising him for his cheek while he chuckled beneath her, his hands continuing their progress across her back.

"I've been thinking," he said.

"Why does that make me nervous?"

"No, seriously," he answered, and she shifted just a little, propped her chin up on his chest and looked up at him curiously. "Hartono's going out of town in a fortnight. We're not going with him. There won't be anything for us to do that weekend. I was thinking maybe we could take the company card, charter a boat of our own. We could take Frank and Marcy, pretend it's a fact finding expedition. We could fish, and swim, and then at night we could go back to our room."

And he could roll her beneath him in a bed, a real bed, could take the time to make love to her properly, not keeping one eye on the clock; they could be together the way he so badly wanted them to be. He could see it now, Trish laughing in that green bikini, Trish sighing beneath him while he sank himself inside her, nothing to worry about, nowhere to be, no dangers, no SIS handlers, nothing but them. He was supposed to be running a successful shipping empire; surely, he thought, millionaire businessmen got to take vacations.

"Oh, sweetheart," Trish sighed, and he knew before she spoke another word that she was about to blow a hole right through his beautiful little fantasy. "You know we can't."

Nick grunted, to let her know he was listening, but he did not interrupt her; he could tell from the tone of her voice that she was just getting warmed up.

"SIS doesn't want us out of their sight, it's too dangerous. Even these little trips make them antsy. We have to explain every purchase on that card, and Abdul would flip if he found out we used it to take a vacation. Besides, Hartono may be gone, but there's still goods coming in, and he might call. And if he does, and SIS doesn't find out about it until later, they're going to be furious. We can't...we're not actually married, Wes. We aren't these people. This isn't our life."

"It feels like our life to me," he said, letting his hand drift lower on her back, cresting the swell of her bum while she shivered in his embrace. Melbourne, and the state police, his house and his mates, it all felt like something from a dream, just now, but Trish was real, warm and soft in his arms. "But you're right," he rushed to add. "You always are."

We aren't actually married. He was grateful to her for saying it, much as he hated the reminder; he forgot, sometimes. They did the shopping together, cooked their meals together, ate together, slept together, shagged like the world was ending, laughed, when they could. The way he felt about her, the way they moved through their days together; it was what he'd always imagined having a wife would really be, the easy familiarity, the warmth, the comfort. But the rings on their fingers were just for show, and she was still a stranger to him, no matter how well he'd come to know her.

"I'm not saying I don't want to go," she said, very quietly. "It sounds...perfect."

"It sounds like a dream," he said. That was all it was, all it would ever be; a dream. Not just the vacation, the dream of a chance to actually shag in a bed, the dream of swimming through crystal blue waters without a gun runner watching menacingly from the deck of a yacht high above, but his life with her. It was a dream, insubstantial, and designed to end.

"In another life," Trish said wistfully. "I would have wanted that, very much."

You could have it. The words were just there, on the tip of his tongue, but he managed to hold them back. He could beg her to tell him her name, to tell him where she lived, to tell him how to find her when this was all over; he could give her his own name in turn, and one day, when this job was through, he'd turn up at her door with a case of beer on his shoulder, and she'd smile that smile that made him weak in the knees, and…

He could almost see it all playing out like a film reel in his mind. Sitting with her on her sofa, drinking his beer, talking about everything they had never been allowed to say. Her taking his hand, leading him back to her bedroom, paintings she made with her own hand hanging proudly on the walls. Curling up with her beneath the blankets, being as loud as they wanted to be; he'd make her breakfast, in the morning. They'd go out for coffee, for dinner, go to movies, walk through city streets hand-in-hand with one another. He'd introduce her to his mates, and she'd cheer him on when he played footie at the weekend, and one day he'd charter a boat, and spend days just watching her tan skin sparkling like gold in the sun.

It's just a dream.

She'd not tell him her name, no more than he'd give her his own. They'd both sworn their oaths, and sealed their fates in blood. Whatever he wanted, whatever might have been, he'd never know. There was no future for them, no happy ending, sailing off into the sunset together.

"Wes?" she said, and he knew then that he'd been thinking too loudly, that she must have understood the course his thoughts had taken, or at least felt the tension in him as he lamented for the life that never would be.

"I'm glad it was you," he said. SIS could have chosen anyone, could have picked any one of a hundred different women to be his Trish, but they'd picked her, clever and brave and strong and heart-stoppingly beautiful, and he could not imagine anyone he'd rather share this nightmare life with than her.

"I'm glad it was you, too," she answered, and ducked her head to press a gentle kiss against his chest. "I was worried when we first met, you know."

"About me?" he asked, surprised. He wasn't the sort of fella who usually made people anxious.

"You were so...confident," she said, and he grinned, because he knew what she'd meant was smug. He had been a bit, when they first met; he'd been so sure of himself, and she'd been on the back foot, and her indignation had made him smile, at first. At least, until he realized just how anxious she was, and then he'd stopped teasing her, and done what he could to make her feel more at ease with him. "You knew everything, and I felt like I was walking in blind."

"You found your feet pretty damn quick," he told her. He knew she still resented Abdul, just a little, still felt like their handler told Nick more than he'd ever told her, and he knew better than to kick that hornets' nest, even if he disagreed with her.

"Yeah, well, you helped," she said, and he shifted his grip upon her so that he could press a kiss against her forehead.

"I do anything for you, sweetheart." She shivered in his arms, and he smiled sadly; she was getting cold, and they'd been gone too long already. They still had to swing by the shops to pick up some dinner, to explain the time they'd spent away, and it was getting late.

"Come on, then," he said, and urged her to rise, watching with his heart in his throat as she lifted herself up, her blonde hair tumbling around her angel's face, her breasts soft and perfect, the movements in her body sending an ache radiating through him from the place where they were still joined.

"Let's go home." He let his hands trail over her hips for a moment, not entirely willing to part with her, and she smiled at him softly, knowingly, and leaned in to kiss him once sweetly before shuffling about in search of her clothes. This dream had ended; it was back to real life for them both, now.