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It’s a near-silent drive on the way back to the hotel, just Flynn and me in the Range Rover. He’s propped his elbow underneath the tinted window, hand on his chin, as we speed idly through evening traffic, headlights flashing, flags flapping at the windows.

“Any updates on the prime minister?” I ask, nervous, smoothing out the wrinkles in my dress to give my hands something to do. It’s been, what, eleven hours since she went missing?

Flynn shakes his head, unreadable; I’ve been trying to pick apart his expression since the speech. “You were great back there,” he says finally. “Just as likable as Sofia. Equally strong.” He hesitates, eyes flitting from the road to the back seat. “That line you quoted, from Mary Oliver. Did I give you that book?”

“Bar Harbor,” I remind him, quiet.

“You wanted to try out that popover stand,” he says after a moment, swallowing. “We got caught in the rain. Yeah, I remember.”

The past hovers between us like fog. “I still have it, you know. The book.” I tuck a piece of hair behind my ear. “I think it might be my favorite. That and Wild Geese .”

“I have that one, too,” Flynn says, just as quiet as I am. “On my shelf, in my apartment.”

For some reason, this surprises me: an off-duty spy reading poetry. “Really?”

“Saw it at a secondhand shop in Buenos Aires.” He clears his throat. “Made me think of you.”

Even as we turn into the hotel, I’m stuck on that—Flynn, half a world away, picking up a used copy of Wild Geese because I was there, somehow, with him.

Gail snaps me back to the present.

“Do you have any idea the chaos that you two have unleashed?” Gail says, clipped voice flying into the room. The second we stepped into the suite, she called. “Did you panic, Agent Forester? When the cameras started flashing? What about you, Max? Did you panic? When I panic—not that I ever do—my lips don’t just fall onto the nearest state representative! Next time, Agent Forester, when you want to cover the woman’s face, whip off your jacket and throw it over her head. Barrel through the elderly people. That would be easier to explain than the kiss heard round the goddamn world.”

Flynn’s listening with his hands on his waist, elbows poking the air, and I press my lips together in a tight line. We’re like two schoolchildren being scolded by the principal.

“That’s not even the reason why I’m calling,” Gail says. Her flat-soled shoes click against the floor, wherever she’s walking; I can hear the angry echo, how she’s pacing like a caged panther. “We caught the Producer.”

My pulse staggers. “Where?”

“When?” Flynn jumps in, all business.

“Twenty-six minutes ago,” Gail says, answering us both, “eating a panini, just outside of Siena. Tripe and tomato broth, which tells you everything you need to know about his personality. Traffic police flagged him for illegally parking his motorbike, and he gave them one of his aliases—which set off our alarm bells. We’re interrogating him now.”

Blood pounds in my ears. “Okay, what about Sofia?”

“This puts us one step closer to finding her. Early signs still point to the Halverson family.” Gail lets out a sharp breath over the phone. “The only thing you can do, Max, is keep up appearances. Look as in love with Agent Forester as you can. Otherwise, the prime minister is the woman who’s having an ill-advised Italian fling with her bodyguard. You’ll sell the relationship, tastefully.”

Tasteful, in relation to Flynn, gives me actual goose bumps.

“Tomorrow’s your last day in Positano. This is now a couple’s retreat. Seaside in the morning, then travel to Rome. You’ll attend a simple event: a birthday celebration for the Italian president’s grandson. Very secure, a family affair. Don’t worry about the political element; no one will want to talk shop around clowns. We’re canceling the prime minister’s slot on La Visione Italiana . National TV isn’t a risk we’re willing to take, understandably. We’ll speak again in Rome.”

When the call ends, I scrunch up my face. “Did that feel right to you?”

“When she randomly mentioned clowns?” Flynn pinches the bridge of his nose. “Or the fact that a notoriously evasive assassin eluded Interpol, the CIA, and Austrian intelligence services, only to be caught coincidentally by barely trained traffic police, while chowing down on a sandwich?”

“So we’re on the same page here.”

“I mean, I was wrong about Calvin,” he says, shaking his head, “and the Producer hasn’t exactly been bringing his A game lately. But my gut’s telling me they haven’t gotten it right, again . I’m not sure that I can—” He bites down, hard, on his lower lip. Like he has to physically stop himself from what he was about to say. “Do you need anything else tonight?”

He’s so abrupt, so impossibly toneless, that it gives me conversational whiplash.

I stare at him. “No, I guess not?”

“Good. Well…sleep tight.” He starts strolling away from me, hands buried in the pockets of his tuxedo. Where does he think he’s going to go? We’re sharing a room, for goodness’ sakes. He’s sleeping two yards away from my face. “I’m going to stay up and wait for intel from the interrogation.”

I do my best to blink away the confusion in my eyes, grabbing another pair of silk pajamas and treading into the bathroom. Why’s he acting this strange all of a sudden? Is it just Gail’s phone call? Was it our moment in the coatroom? Or my speech? Or—

Wow , this is stuck. It takes approximately six seconds to realize I have a minor problem: The stylists who fastened me into this tight-fitting dress aren’t here to squeeze me out of it. Twisting and turning, I re-angle myself, fingers scrounging for the zipper, which—of course—will not budge. It’s the Soviet Union during the 1939 peace talks.

“Everything okay in there?” comes Flynn’s voice, hesitantly, through the bathroom door.

“Yep, fine!”

“Doesn’t sound fine.”

“Well, it is!”

I make three more desperate attempts at unzipping myself, jiving around the bathroom like a drunk uncle at a family barbecue, as I release a stream of delicate grunts.

“Okay, I’m coming in,” Flynn says, shoulder clearly against the door.

I press the lock button on the handle. “No, you’re not.”

“You sound like you’re getting chloroformed.”

“If I was getting chloroformed,” I bat back, “I’d be silent.”

“Stop being stubborn,” he says, without any sting.

“I’m not being stubborn.”

“She says stubbornly.”

With a sharp inhale, I swing open the barrier between us, gesturing to the highest point on my upper back. “Zipper’s stuck.”

Grasping my shoulders, hands light on my skin, Flynn spins me around, almost like he did in the coatroom, taking a gander at the situation. His fingers pinch the metal, tugging hard and then harder—but nope, no dice. No glide. “Shit, you’re right.”

“Told you.”

He pauses, pensively. “You know what we actually could use right now?”

I’m thinking some CIA gadget, or a plain old pair of scissors. “What?”

“A bottle of Calvin’s ranch dressing.”

His delivery is so deadpan, so unexpected compared to his coolness a few moments ago, that a laugh crackles out of me. “You could just lube me up, and I’d slip right out. Wouldn’t even need the zipper.” Lube me up is, maybe, not how I should’ve phrased it.

Flynn clears his throat with an echo that reverberates across the tile. “Security hasn’t stopped looking for him, by the way. Calvin. We’ve diverted ninety-nine percent of our resources to locating the prime minister, but…I’ll try again, wiggle it a little.” He’s talking about the zipper. After a few seconds, the metal finally gives way with a ragged zzzz , gliding to the base of my tailbone, Flynn’s fingers skating all the way down my back. Neither of us moves. We’re suspended in this moment, his fingers resting softly against my skin, and I’m almost afraid to break the spell.

A question bubbles out of me before I can stop it. “What do you mean they haven’t got it right again ?”

His words crash softly into the back of my neck, both of us breathing at the same pace, quiet in the hush of the bathroom. “Max, I shouldn’t have—”

“Does this have anything to do with you almost dying? In the hospital? Just tell me. Please. It’s one less thing I’ll have to wonder about. My head feels like a squashed cantaloupe right now.”

Flynn pulls back his fingers, but I don’t turn around. It’s easier if we aren’t facing each other, if we can’t look each other in the eyes. “My last mission,” he begins slowly, “I spent over two years cultivating an asset, on and off. Intelligent guy, funny, always had a smile on his face. I liked him a whole lot, not just because he was a useful asset, but because he was a good human being. He ended up passing the CIA a few pieces of information that led to the arrest of some truly terrible people. Guy was a hero, and it was my job to get him out of the country. I had an American passport for him, a helicopter waiting. The CIA said we were in the clear.”

My stomach clenches. “Oh god, Flynn.”

“Next thing I know, the world’s tilting sideways.” His voice cracks for a second. “We were ambushed on the way to the helipad, after operations assured me that no one was on our tail. I went down, and when I woke up, my asset was gone.”

“Jesus,” I whisper.

“So I’m highly aware that the CIA makes mistakes, and I’ll be damned if I let them make a mistake with you.” He pauses like he’s trying to get ahold of himself. “When the prime minister came on the TV in the safe house, and I mentioned offhand that I knew someone, once, who looked just like her? You have no idea how many times I’ve wished I didn’t say that. How many times I’ve thought about just…going back in time, and stopping those words from coming out of my mouth. That day, when my boss called me in and there was your picture up on the screen, I thought they’d found you from your driver’s license. Run a scan for women around thirty with Summerlandian heritage. And it was just some fucked-up coincidence that I knew you. But then it hit me that I…I did this to you, Max.”

My forehead crinkles, even though he can’t see it. I run a thumb over the gold-and-silver necklace, resting on my collarbone. “You didn’t do anything to me. You said you refused to recruit me, and when Gail showed up at my apartment, I didn’t have to say yes.”

“You think you didn’t have to say yes,” Flynn says, like his throat is closing. “But that’s what the CIA does, Max. They offer you this carrot that makes you feel like it’s your choice, that you can better your life, but really, they’re taking it away. They’re taking a piece of you away. And I’m not just part of that—it started with me. I’m the one who’s supposed to be protecting you, and I—” His voice breaks again. “I’ve put you in danger in the first place. If anything happens to you, Max— Jesus . You think I could forgive myself?”

I choose this moment to spin around, slowly, air grazing the bare skin of my back. The dress strap slips down one shoulder, but it’s hard to care. Forgive is one of my trigger words. I know a hell of a lot about guilt, how it feels to wake up every morning regretting the decisions you’ve made and the people you’ve hurt.

“I want you to listen to me very carefully, Flynn.” His eyes latch on to mine as I drop my voice to a whisper. “You are not responsible for me.”

“I am directly responsible for you,” he says, a sad laugh caught in his throat. It echoes against the tile. “That is exactly my job description. I handle the assignment; I handle you as an asset. And I keep thinking about your family. They wouldn’t want this for you. I can’t imagine the type of father who’d want to see his daughter put her life on the line for cash. I haven’t met your parents for years—and I can tell you that, straight up.”

“It’s not like that,” I argue, shaking my head. “I’m giving them their life back .”

“And I think they’d tell you to keep it. I’m trying to tell you to keep it—and I’m trying not to let you down, Max. You deserve a professional, someone who’s one hundred percent focused, not…” He doesn’t finish that. He doesn’t finish his next words, either. “When we were in the coatroom, I…”

“You what?” I gulp.

He looks down at me through the curve in his eyelashes. “I was remembering how it was before.”

I let that wash over me, like warm water, heat coiling in my belly. “Is that a bad thing?”

Now it’s his turn to gulp. “It’s a dangerous thing.” Even so, he takes a half step forward, the space between our bodies reducing to a sliver. He looks like he wants to reach out and mold his palms against the shape of my hips, but he’s stopping himself. Holding back. “Look, it wasn’t just the opportunity to travel. I couldn’t convince my dad to enroll himself in any of the open trials for his pancreatic cancer, and when he died my junior year, the CIA took me at my lowest. I thought, here’s a way I can handle things. Literally handle things. Keep people safe, just not the people I love. But I can’t keep assets safe if I form emotional attachments, and…the risks are too high here, with you, if I lose focus. I told myself that was going to be a hard line, but the line is getting…harder.”

The way he says it, with the hint of a growl, makes my thighs tingle. At the same time, I’m absorbing everything, all the emotional bombshells that he’s just dropped.

“I don’t know if I’m the only—” he adds.

I cut him off. “You aren’t. You aren’t the only one.”

It’s a risk. It’s a calculated risk. I’m hoping that he was about to complete that sentence in the way I’d complete that sentence . I don’t know if I’m the only one who cares here. Who still thinks about that time on the beach, after midnight, when his lips explored the curve of my breasts, and I thought, He is perfect, he is perfect, there is nothing more perfect than this .

Maybe he’s just as afraid as I am to go there.

But here —my body very much wants to go here.

“You have no idea how badly I want to touch you,” he says, in a way that’s so gentle, so genuine, it threatens to split me in half. We each raise one of our hands at the same time, almost shivering, pressing our palms together. Our fingertips brush before they intertwine—and it takes a whole lot of strength not to immediately close the space between us, not to say, You have no idea how badly I want you to touch me . His eyes fall on my body, slowly sweeping from the naked plane of my shoulders to the lipsticked curve of my mouth. “I thought you couldn’t get any more beautiful, Max. But when I saw you in Rome, you just…blew me away.”

“Right back at you,” I tell him, voice barely a whisper, and I’m definitely not misreading the signals this time. It isn’t like on the red carpet. No one’s going to burst in here with cameras. We aren’t covering for anything, distracting anyone, and there’s a need in Flynn’s eyes that—I’m sure—matches my own. He reaches up with his other hand, stroking the side of my face. That does it. That little movement bridges the gap, pins us against each other. The sequins of my dress glide against the smooth fabric of his suit, and I can feel the hard lines of him, the lean muscle of his chest. His heart’s beating so fast through his shirt that I wonder who’s more nervous—him or me.

Because I am nervous. When he first stepped into my suite, I drew a line in the sand. No crossing here. Nothing personal between us. And now—even though I’m scared, even though I’m afraid he’ll break my heart again, or I’ll mess this up—all I want to do in this moment is full-on submerge.

“I meant it,” he says, thumb moving slowly along my jawline. “What I said in the coatroom. No one could take their eyes off you.”

“It’s the sequins.” My chest isn’t moving in a rhythmic pattern. Nothing about my pulse is smooth, under control. “I’m like a disco ball.”

Flynn’s breath flutters against the crook of my neck. “You would’ve done it for me in a pantsuit.” It’s funny, and it’s sweet, and I’m laughing as he plants a soft kiss on the side of my cheek, then again, right by my ear. I stop moving, closing my eyes and homing in on that movement, that feeling—how every place his lips press leaves a mark. Heat is pouring off his skin. He is summer itself, and I can’t get enough of his light, my hands roving under his jacket as he slips it off, the fabric falling in a pile on the floor. All that’s left is the thin white shirt, my fingers skimming the lines of him, and he’s doing the same with me. Gentle touches, gentle brushes, like if he presses too hard, I’ll startle. I’ll slip away from him.

“Wait,” he says, swallowing hard, pushing an inch back from me. “I want to—I want to explain. What happened, back then. We should talk about it. You were never just some summer thing to me, Max. I hope you know that.”

Immediately, I think about us. That night. One of the last nights, both of our firsts, and he was so careful with me, protecting my first time like he’s protecting me now. “Please don’t take this the wrong way,” I tell him honestly, soft enough that the words barely come out, “but I’m not sure I want to go there right now. I just want to…stay here. Unless you need to talk about it, and then we can—”

He shakes his head heavily, giving me whatever I want, and leans in again. When his eyelashes dust my face, I don’t know why I ever tried to convince myself that it’d be easier, somehow, to leave him in the past. A little gasp emerges at the back of my throat, and he reads me, every shift of my body, every subtle cue, dragging his mouth to my lips—and tasting the sounds I’m making for him. Only for him. Both of my hands clasp around the back of his neck, pulling him closer, until the hard length of him presses into my stomach. He groans when I slip my tongue into his mouth, and he meets me there—pulsing heat, the tip of his own tongue, the taste of spearmint.

How many times have I imagined what it would be like to kiss him again? The two of us, unencumbered by rules and restrictions—not having to sneak around. Not having to worry about making too much noise, or getting caught. What we might do with each other—to each other—if we were ever alone again. How he might lick a path across my collarbone, bite my neck, show me just how unrestrained he can get.

It’s scary how much I’ve missed this.

Missed him.

I don’t want to tell him that, but also, I’m saying it with every whimper bursting from my lips. Our tongues clash; his hands roam along the curves of my dress, finding my bare back again, fingertips imprinting against my skin. Goose bumps erupt everywhere, all the way down to my thighs, the other strap of my dress slipping down. Every goose bump, every touch and every gasp, is a confession, and he’s soaking it up—giving me the same energy I’m giving him. I could wrap my legs around his waist, and I know he’d hold me tight to him.

“Your skin is so soft,” he breathes. “Am I allowed to say that?”

“I think so,” I bat back. “I think you’re allowed.”

“You’re not going to pesto me?” he teases, nipping at my lower lip.

“God, that sounds wrong in a sexual context.”

He laughs, our foreheads pressing together as my hands spread underneath his shirt, palms against the solid heat of his skin. Maybe, after everything—all the chaos of the past few days—we’re letting ourselves get carried away, forgetting about the consequences or how this might work or anything besides the frantic need for each other. My hands want to explore him, map him, feel the rigid curve above his hips, sink my thumbs into the line above his shoulder blades. His hand reaches down to cup my ass, lifting me slightly, and together we’re spilling into the bedroom, clashing into each other, our movements suddenly a lot less gentle. He’s grasping for me; I’m grasping for him. His tongue is running down the front of my neck, along my freckles and my throat, traveling downward, lower and—

I remember. I remember the heat of his mouth, the warmth of his tongue, and it’s happening again—as he dips down to tug my dress, exposing my breast, his tongue flicking over the nipple before he sucks. Heat ripples everywhere, down my thighs, between my legs—and I’m not sure that either of us is truly breathing. It’s more like we’re gulping in air, desperate. “Beautiful,” he tells me.

One of his hands palms my thigh through the silk before sliding all the way along my leg and hooking the slit in my dress. He pauses, chest rising and falling, a question in his eyes—and my answer is yes. Half crashing against the wall, he pins me, leans into me, our hips rolling, his fingers roaming until he finds the thin fabric of my underwear. His thumb settles in exactly the right spot, rubbing.

If this wall weren’t half holding me up, my legs would be shaking so hard, I couldn’t stand.

“I need to hear you say it,” he rasps. At first, my head’s so fuzzy, so warm, I’m not even sure how to condense the words. How to say that I want his shirt off, his suit off, his skin against my skin. I want to bite down on his shoulder as he fills me completely. Instead, he’s restraining himself, bulging against his zipper, waiting, and I meet his eyes, imagining how easily his fingers would slip in, how I’d clench all around him, my own hands sinking below the triangle of his waistline, tugging the length of him free.

“You’re the only one who’s allowed to touch me,” I pant into the crook of his neck, echoing his words from the coatroom. “Just you.”

This undoes something in him. He hisses out a breath, one of his fingers sliding into me, every shift of my body met with one from him. When I arch my hips, he adds another finger, and I’m unzipping his pants, tension coiling in my belly, the heat and weight of him finally in my hands. He tilts his head back, closing his eyes for a second before gazing at me again, half-lidded, and it’s that movement—the head tilt, the way he’s desperate to go inside himself but also doesn’t want to stop looking at me—that makes me realize we’re not even going to make it to the bed.

“I’ve missed all the sounds you make,” he tells me in a strangled voice as I grip him, thick between my fingers, pumping faster, and then he’s stepping out of his pants and lifting me up. We’re moving toward the couch, so in sync it’s like the years have evaporated. He tells me he’s clean, and I whisper that I’m on the pill, that he can have me just like this, if he wants. “Are you sure?”

“I’m sure.”

“Because if you change your mind, I can always—”

“I know.” And I do know. I believe that he’d stop, wait, pull back if I said Slow down .

We stumble back onto the couch, my thighs straddling him, his hands curving into the crease above my hips. I light up everywhere he touches, the silk of my dress hot against my skin as he lifts it above my head, and then there’s nothing between us. He palms his cock before sliding into me with a slow, deep thrust.

I actually tremble. “ Flynn. ” My mouth falls open against his, and we rock together, his hands plunging through my hair.

“I would’ve…given anything for this,” he murmurs, and the way he says it? Kind of makes me feel like he has. I bite his bottom lip, and he returns in kind, pulling me down hard on top of him.

“I’ve never wanted anyone like I want you,” I gasp, a full truth, shaking as he holds me tighter. Maybe I’ve said too much, but at this moment, it’s hard to focus on anything else but the velvet of his skin under my fingers, how tight I am around him, the wave rising up inside me.

“I’ve got you,” he says, low, into my ear. His fingers intertwine with mine. “I’ve got you.”

That last whisper does it, pressure mounting until I let go with a moan. He follows me, forehead dipped into my shoulder, his pulse colliding with mine.

Afterward—after the first time, and the second time—we stay wrapped up in each other, the night unfolding outside the windows. “You know, you don’t have to…” I gesture to the sofa beneath us. “I’m saying that the bed is, it’s…”

“It’s what?” he asks, raising one eyebrow, almost taunting me to finish.

“It’s big enough for both of us.” My gaze flicks across the diminutive width of the mattress. “Well, barely. How are Italians so small, with all the pastries and the pasta?”

“They smoke. They drink coffee. It’s very healthy.”

I snort out a laugh, thinking, Have we skipped the awkward part? I don’t feel any second-guessing, any Should we have done this? It’s Flynn. It’s natural. It feels so completely right when he runs his thumb along the corner of my smile, when he carries me into bed, nuzzles into my neck. How is it possible that his lips are even softer than I remember? “You have a gentle mouth,” I tell him, nose touching his. “Like…a golden retriever.”

He laughs so deeply, the bed shakes. “I’m not sure if that’s the best or the worst thing that anyone’s ever said to me.”

“Let’s go with the best.”

“Okay,” he says, smiling at me in a way that makes my heart race all over again. “Okay, Starfish. Let’s go with that.”