Chapter 17
540 Words
Chapter 17
“You have the strangest idea of what constitutes a date.” Daniel’s smile was soft and his voice teasing. He’d walked Alice to her apartment door and now they huddled under the narrow porch roof to escape from the light snow that started falling as Daniel drove her home.
Alice admitted she’d bit off more than she’d intended. Her nerves were still freaking out. The attack had seemed so real, her death so imminent. Nothing in the CIA’s S.A.D. training had prepared her for the reality of SOAR training. Of course, all they’d gotten from S.A.D. as non-combatants was a helicopter ride and a quick thirty-minute flight in a jet that could flip and roll better than any amusement park ride.
What she hadn’t been prepared for was the realism. Or that Daniel had thrown himself between Alice and the attackers, simulated or not. She’d always stood up for herself, known she was on her own.
He ran a gentle thumb over her lower lip, his fingertips brushing her cheek, cradling it with a tenderness that brought tears to her eyes and a pounding to her heart that she’d only read of and scoffed at in books.
She wanted to run inside and weep at the wonder of a man who would willingly sacrifice his life for hers, even in simulation. She wanted a cup of hot cocoa with a very large shot of brandy in it to calm the jitters. And Alice also wanted to drag Daniel into bed and lose herself in the throes of the passion that was raging for release. A passion she’d kept safely under wraps her whole life because no one had ever called it forth.
Alice slid her hand up Daniel’s chest and around his neck. She pulled him down to her, their breath steamy in the cold night air mingling, merging, and gone when their lips met.
A warmth spread through her as he tipped her back the last few inches until she lay back against her own closed front door. The soft porch light shone down over Daniel, lighting him like an angel. Her own personal angel.
She couldn’t stop the smile crossing her lips.
Daniel smiled back in response and pulled back just far enough to speak. “What?”
“Sounds stupid.” And it did.
“Say it anyway.”
She looked up into his eyes and over his shoulder saw a Secret Service agent standing just a few paces back.
“I’m sorry, sir, but you’ve been called back to the White House.” He held out a cell phone.
In moments, with barely a word beyond “South Africa conference again,” a few choice moments of silence when any less tactful man would curse a blue streak, and a final light brush of fingertips down her cheek in apology, Alice lay alone against her front door and Daniel was giving rapid instructions over the phone as they hustled him back to the escort car.
She unlocked the doors and turned on the hallway light. As usual, the mess that was her apartment had not magically rectified itself during her absence.
“Is that the kind of life you want?” Alice asked the empty room. The lack of privacy. The inability to complete something you hadn’t even started yet.
She didn’t know which was more shocking, that she even considered asking the question or that the answer was yes. For this man, it just might be worth it.
- Writer
