Kingsman: Statesman Meets Challenger

Chapter 2

"What do you want to do, sugarplum?" he asked softly, brushing a stray wisp of hair away from her face with his thumb. "Honest answers only."

"Ooo, that's a tough one," she answered, her eyes softening as she nestled into his embrace with a confiding snuggle that melted another layer of his long-frozen heart. "What if the answer's complicated?"

"I can do complicated," Jack assured her, leaning down and brushing a kiss across her forehead. "Tell me what you want, sugarplum."

Marissa rested her head on that way-too-comfortable shoulder and really thought about it. What did she want? The answer jumped into her head with startling clarity.

"So what's the answer?" Jack whispered as he nuzzled the fine strands of hair at her temple, his lips moving against her skin. "You thought of one."

"Honestly? I want to fall asleep in your arms, so even in my dreams I'll know you're there," Marissa admitted, a fine blush highlighting her cheekbones, "but inviting you into my bed to sleep seems like a really mixed message."

Jack wasn't expecting that answer and his heart melted a little further. God, but she was adorable. He didn't have a clue how someone so sophisticated could be so sweet when he got past that mile-thick armor she wore as casually as her Cartier and Fabergé jewelry, but now that he was here, the very last thing he wanted to do was leave.

"If you want to take it slow, sugarplum, I like the idea," he murmured, his lips traveling over the cheekbone her blush highlighted. "And believe it or not, I can behave."

"Where's the fun in that?" she breathed against his mustache.

"Now that, sugarplum," Jack murmured as his lips found hers, "is a mixed message. But if that was an invitation to share your slumbers, I accept."

The tenderness he kissed her with decided the matter for Marissa. She might be making a mistake getting involved with a Statesman agent -that whip was a dead giveaway as to who he was, she designed half the retractile components for it personally- but she hadn't felt like this in an age, and if the redoubtable Agent Whiskey was willing to take her leisurely romantic pace, she was willing to take the risk of falling for someone with his frankly dubious reputation.

"My bedroom's on the third floor," she said, setting her thumb against the scan plate before sliding her arms around his neck and drawing his head down so she could kiss him more fully, "and I'd really like it if you'd stay, cowboy."

"Whatever you say, sugarplum," Jack whispered, briefly wondering if he really could resist the urge to make love to her, but he pushed the button marked '3' and picked up her briefcase, keeping her tucked close against his side as they kissed.

Going up three floors was not nearly enough time to learn what the recesses of her mouth tasted like, but when the elevator chimed softly -no annoying dings or clangs here, Jack was pleased to note- and the doors slid open, she led him down a shadowy hallway whose details he couldn't make out, not that he cared.

Her bedroom was of a piece with everything else about her, elegant, tasteful and dripping quiet, understated class. It was also huge, with a ceiling easily twelve feet high, and so spacious the enormous carved wood furniture looked normal-sized by comparison- and it wasn't. This stuff would look at home in Buckingham Palace, and he'd been there, he knew.

Jack dropped her briefcase into a nearby wing chair -she must like them- and waltzed her over to an enormous canopy bed hung with what he was sure were blue silk bed curtains soft as moonbeams, the fabric floating and rippling with the faintest movement of the air.