Back Up

"Remember you can't tell me everything," I reminded him with unease. "Plus what good would my knowledge of that do?"
He stared at me for the longest time and then frowned.
"Not that it matters — because it doesn't, it won't even change the way I feel — but how many people have you killed?" I thought about asking him this question and how I really had been avoiding it purposely. I really didn't want to know.
"Truth, we have to abide by the law. That's why we've managed to stay in the shadows. And to continue operating that way, there has to be a level of balance, plus Agents are not contracted to kill. The spies get information as clean as possible." he hesitated for a moment, and a strange tone overwhelmed his voice. "We have technologists that do a brilliant job at coming up with gadgets that help officers do their jobs much easier but certainly nothing extreme that can cause harm to people. There are rare conditions though, were death is unavoidable."
He stared at me with an unreadable expression. His eyes looked lighter against the harsh darkness of the night, they almost seemed to — glow, in the dark. I stared at him until he sighed and looked away.
I let out the breath I'd been holding, disorientated.
"Don't let that fool you, we're dangerous — extremely dangerous."
"But you just said —"
"I know what I said." His voice took on a hard edge.
I flinched.
"Just because we have to operate within the law doesn't mean all of us do." He glared at the sky in sudden furry. "It doesn't mean I'm not putting you in danger by spending so much time with you, openly being seen with you. It possess a treat, to you, and do you think not every spy seeks to complete their mission at every cost?
"Like Bond?"
He frowned. "That's where we draw a line between fiction and fact."
"Exploding pens?
"Fiction."
"Knives coming out of tires?"
He actually laughed at this. His voice was beautiful in the eerie of the night. Like the sirens of mermaids.
"Oh Nuru," he chuckled. "Fiction."
"So all in all, there aren't any people in M16 licensed to kill?"
"Mythology, I tell you." He smiled. "...Very misleading, the info the general public has about espionage."
"How do you pretend to be something you're not?" I asked him. "Being Roman, instead of Bradley?"
"It's like acting," he mumbled. "We're usually very skilled at what we do. It's one of the best parts about this job. I'm Roman for as long as I'm in the organisation or a new cover comes for me to play."
I couldn't speak.
"This is wrong, sharing so much with you." Roman ran his hands through his hair in frustration. "How can something so wrong, so dangerous feel so toxic, so addictively right?"
"Us?" My voice dropped a note, heavily laced with sadness.
"Yes. Don't you get it?" He closed his eyes, lost in his agonised anguish. "I'm not the best man for you." He sighed irritably. "I'm not the best option."
"Says who?"
"I say so."
"That has to be a mistake. I feel safe when I'm with you. Invincible. "
"That's a mistake — placing me as a safe bet." He frowned and raised his hand to touch my face — my heart walloped. "I'm essentially the worst thing that's ever happened to you."
"On the contrary, you're the best thing I've ever had."
Roman didn't miss the double meaning in that and he almost smiled.
We were silent for a while. I watched the moon carefully, breathing in the cool salty air mixed with a lingering scent of spring — Roman's scent. Suddenly I realized that time was never on my side when I was with Roman, I could spend hours talking with him but it would only feel like seconds. I was afraid I might not get another chance to learn as much about his world as I would have loved to. Who knew when he would leave again and for how long. The idea that the end of Roman's character might be the end of our relationship terrified me. What if he had to play another cover role, one of Amos, a father, a devoted husband, someone else's husband. Decidedly, I couldn't waste another minute I had with him.
"Talk to me," I pleaded desperately.
His eyes flashed up to my face. "What do you want me to say?"
I flushed. "Anything, just as long as I get to hear your amazing voice... again."
Roman leaned in to kiss my forehead. A shock ran through my body at his sudden gesture of affection.
"So your organisation, where does it get its resources?"
He looked at me, sceptical, startled by my question and tone. "Well, the world we live in doesn't allow us to work in isolation. So we have close relations with the GCHQ and M15."
"What's GCHQ and M15?"
"**-?"
"What sort of treats are we looking at here?" My voice was laced with desperation. I hoped he wouldn't notice how worried I was about his safety. How worried I was that someday, any day he wouldn't come back to me. To our home. Because my fate was decided, my home was were Roman was.
He frowned sensing that something was wrong, his eyes flashed up to my face with sudden alarm. "It varies, from organisations from different states threatening the country with terrorism, to organisations that want to gain access to government secrets — what's wrong?" His arms grabbed both my arms and his gaze found my tortured glare. The second he made contact, I shivered and Roman's breath stuck in his throat.
"Nothing."
"Nuru, give me some credit," he mumbled. "I think I know you well enough to know when something is wrong with you."
"I'm afraid Roman," I confessed with a sigh.
"I thought you weren't afraid of anything." His eyes were intense, a sense of hunger dancing on the surface.
My heart hammered. "Nothing much scares me."
"Then?" He raised his hand to quickly brush the hair away from my face.
"What happens when you have to be Xavier Schuman?"
He frowned. "Who's that?"
"Your next cover up who's married, has kids, holds a stable regular job as a waitress down in Moscow?
"Then you'll be Onyx Steele, my feisty red-haired mistress."
I somehow managed to smile.
"Nuru," he said, taking my face between his hands. "I've been telling you this time and again. I will never leave you. I swear."
I leaned into him, involuntary. "I like the smell of your breath. It calms me."
He leaned into me as well, purposely, "I like the taste of your lips. I love the soft texture — Hmm — Nuru Lynn," he said my full name slowly, carefully. "... I want to possess your mind. Your body. Your heart. I'm mad about you."
His fingers traced the out line of my lips, another wave of shock surged through me.
"Nothing you don't do to me." My voice was shaking, having had the breath knocked forcefully out of me. "Just my heart? Roman... you have my very soul."
"Would you mind very much if I...?" He trailed off, his eyes looking at my lips.
"If you what?" I asked, horrified.
"Kiss you?" He was smiling.
"Are you trying to be funny?" I bellowed, glaring up at his gorgeous face, my jaw clenched.
We stared cautiously at each other, and then he leaned in closer and I was immobile, my heart accelerating sharply — the sound was loud enough for Roman to hear. I closed my eyes in shame.
"Did... do they teach this too — at the organisation — teach you how to seduce women?"
He grinned. "Oh no, these are genetics."
I listened to the mesmerizing sound of his laugh, committing it to memory.
"I took it from my dad. He was — what you call it? — a smooth talker. Polished."
"What did you want with Hazel?"
"She works for the opposition. She has access to information that might help us answer a few lingering questions."
"Did you find a back up plan since I ruined your original plan?"
"Yes." He paused thoughtfully for a moment, deliberating whether to clarify or not. "I don't usually resort to petty sexual innuendos. I wasn't going to have sex with her. I swear. I couldn't have been able to touch her."
"Why not?"
"I'm repulsed by the very thought... of my hands on another woman." His eyes took on a gentle touch as they fell on me. My heart was threatening to hyperventilate again.
"It makes me sick to even begin to imagine another woman kissing me, holding me, looking at me the way you do. I'm a one woman man, a man hopelessly in love with you. I was sick with worry, that whole day, wondering if you weren't as disgusted with me as I was with myself." He shook his head, ashamed, disgusted. "And then...."
"And then what?" I pressed.
"You'd walked into my room, naked, your skin glowing in the moonlight, your touch waking up every emotion I've only ever read about in novels."
I was troubled by the resentment in his eyes, the fury in his usually confident voice.
"And thanks," he continued.
I scowled. I didn't like thinking about him with other women. It physically hurt. "For what?"
"Saving me the trouble of sending her home," he reminded me.
I looked at my hands. "You won't be thanking me when you hear what I did," I responded, unable to hide the uncertainty in my voice. I didn't want to ruin the mood with my unnecessary confession.
"Oh?"