WIP Clip Wednesdays: Though You’re Still With Me…

…I’ve been alone all along. 

Well, I just didn’t know what to give you this week.  So you’re getting a little clip from a former WIP.  This is from a story called “Everything’s Made to Be Broken”.  We met the heroine just before she learned of the death of her best friend.  Driving across the country (foot-dragging?) she chanced to pick up an attractive hitch-hiker and have excellent sex with him in a seedy motel.  Our hero-hitch-hiker snuck off and continued on his way to a meeting in DC, and right now he’s sitting in an outer office deep inside the British Embassy. 

He let his head rest against the side of the big wingback chair in a posture that was uncharacteristic and weary.  It was almost eight in the evening.  He had gone straight from the airport to the embassy and been led immediately up stairs and down winding corridors to this antechamber in the heart of the building.  A half cup of tea sat on the table at his elbow, cold and forgotten.  Even at this late hour he was certain that the man he had come to see was behind the heavy door, the man who had ordered his immediate presence in the capitol, insisted he drop everything and use whatever means necessary to ensure his prompt appearance. 

            The man he knew as Caldwell did not believe in titles.  And so Jonathan didn’t really know where Caldwell fit into the chain of command.  No one had ever told him, and he had never asked.  Perhaps Caldwell didn’t fit in at all, but was something outside of it.  Whatever the exact degree of his authority, all Jonathan needed to know was that Caldwell was the man who ran the show in the States, and if he was called away from his assignment to Caldwell’s lair deep within the British embassy, then it must be important.

            However important it may be, however, Jonathan was annoyed at being ordered clear across the country only to be left in this tight little room to wait it out until Caldwell deigned to see him.

            He scrubbed his hands over his face, feeling the growth of beard.  He needed a shave, and he definitely needed a shower.  Over sixteen hours later he could still smell Siobhan on his skin.  Maybe that was only his imagination, like the way he could still feel her against him, still see her eyes every time he closed his own.  If he could just find a hotel, take a shower, get some sleep then he would forget about her.  Tomorrow he would hardly remember her name or what she looked like.

            The image filled his vision, and he didn’t even have to close his eyes.  She was sitting where he’d put her on the trunk of her car, shivering in the wet December night.  Wet hair curled darkly against pale, moonlit skin, and she looked up at him with soft violet eyes that were anything but cold.  The soaked knit of her dress clung to her body, to full breasts he knew fit perfectly in his hands.  The tip of her tongue flicked to her lip, and he knew she could taste him there.

            Jonathan blew out a long breath, shifting in the chair.  He wondered what it was that Caldwell wanted.  For a few moments he tried to concentrate, tried to guess what his next assignment might be.  But he had nothing to work with, and it was impossible.  Unbidden, he saw Siobhan again in her bed, in the strange nighttime glow of shrouded moonlight and neon, saw the way she searched his face.  He saw fear and need and other things he couldn’t put a name to before she came into his arms.  He could feel it again, the sensation when she came to him, the rush that flowed over him and stole his breath away.  That fierce protectiveness and aching tenderness.

            He never wanted to feel that again.

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