Thanks to anyone who read/reviewed/followed/favorited this story! You guys are very gracious and fucking awesome, and it keeps me writing.

Just as a quick note, this is the complete second chapter. Before, I think some people were confused as to how it ended, but it was intentional-it was already long enough, and I just didn't want to get into all the, ahem, details again. I think some stuff is best left to the imagination, no?

Disclaimer- I own nothing.

Chapter Two

Us

Cameron Morgan couldn't concentrate.

Of all of her classes, she had always loved P&E the best. It was an hour of pure physical release that almost therapeutic, in a way. She could kick and punch, yell and curse, cry and moan all she wanted without the threat of strange looks or reprimands from her teachers.

She had spent countless hours there, with her classmates and best friends as they discussed the mysteries (and boys) that had haunted the better part of their time at the Academy. The world always seemed to make sense after a workout at the P&E barn.

It was also one of the few places that had witnessed the tears of Cameron Morgan. She would sit on the floor, staring at the moonlight that shone between the holes in the roof; she would punch the bags that hung from the ceiling, swing from the chains and zip lines that were part of the dreaded obstacle course they had to pass at the end of senior year. She would cry until she couldn't breathe, until she had calmed down enough to remember who she was and where she fit in the world.

More recently, the barn and its accompanying swallows had seen a number of interactions between Cameron Morgan and her (rumored, but everyone knew they were a thing) boyfriend, Zachary Goode, most of which consisted of yelling, then crying, then hugging, then kissing, then sleeping.

These memories-combined with the fact that they had slept together for the first time just a week prior-were clogging Cammie's mind and mashing it into goo and making her unable to concentrate on anything besides the fact that Zach had taken off his shirt.

He was her sparring partner, which wasn't unusual. Their P&E teacher knew that they worked well together. She wasn't afraid of his lean, muscular build and he wasn't afraid to kick her and break all of her bones in the process. They both knew this, and were happy enough to fight and throw little quips in between round-house kicks and Bernouli Manuevers.

But today he took his shirt off. Which wasn't unusual, in and of itself. It was just the naked thing, and the sex thing, and the 'holy crap has his six pack become even more defined' thing that made today a problem.

"You okay, Gallagher Girl?" Zach wheezed, bent at the waist after she halfheartedly did a Mariatti Maneuver on him. "I'm not writhing in agony on the floor, so something must be off."

She gave him a strained smile, wiping sweat off of her forehead, suddenly self-conscious about the tank-top and short shorts that clung to her sweaty body. Why did it matter? Her friends had assured her that the need for self-consciousness was way past-he had seen her in every possible disgusting, embarrassing situation and still seemed to like to kiss her.

She rolled her shoulders and told herself to stop being stupid. She would just ignore the whole shirtless thing, and the weird tension between them that she was the only one who seemed to notice.

It had been there ever since the morning after. They had gone downstairs to a huge Christmas breakfast that Grandma Morgan had lovingly made, which was accompanied by kisses and hugs and wrapped Christmas presents for both of them. It was normal enough to almost make Cammie forget about what she and her sort-of-boyfriend had done the night before.

But she didn't, not entirely. And the more she tried to ignore it, the more she would notice Zach and everything about him; the way his broad shoulders strained at his Gallagher uniform; the way he seemed to read every thought that ran through her head; his hand on hers, or the small of her back, or on either side of her face as he said a hurried goodnight before they were caught.

He was just being himself and she was being herself and it was what she wanted, right? She didn't want more than kisses or long talks about their relationship or even the acknowledgement of the fact that they were graduating in four months. Or, God forbid, more sex and intimacy that was enough to make her forget her name.

But then Zach took his shirt off.

And her mind collapsed in on itself. And even as she reminded herself that she had seen him shirtless multiple times before, her stomach still twisted and her knees went weak and that place between her legs began to buzz...

Damn him and his glorious abs. And arms. And chest.

Now, he straightened up, his breathing normal again. He was still looking at her with an intensely worried expression as she, dazed, stared at his chest. She didn't really care if he noticed her or not. She just wanted to look.

Cammie was a spy, so she was used to looking for details. She was trained to see the angle of every situation, every image, every person... So it was perfectly understandable, she reasoned, to let her gaze roam over the planes and lines of his torso. He was taller than her by quite a bit, so she craned her neck a little as her eyes wandered over his broad shoulders, his chest, his abs. The tendons beneath his skin, coiled and hard, were long and lean—most of him was long and lean, even if he was muscular—and she just wanted to touch it all. She wanted to kiss his shoulders and his stomach and hear him moan and feel the same little fluttery breaths coming her as he kissed her back and his tongue slipped in her mouth and she buried her face in his neck as he...

"Cammie, are you sure you're okay?"

She looked up into his eyes, startled. They were dark and concentrated solely on her.

"I really don't feel that well," she rasped, her throat suddenly dry.

"Do you need to go to the infirmary?"

"No!" she said abruptly. "Uh, I'm just going up to my room, I think."

Aware of how stupid she was acting, Cammie walked away, with Zach following soon after. She grabbed her duffel bag as Zach—who assumed that he was going with her she figured—explained to their teacher what was going on.

"Where are you two going?" Bex asked suspiciously, suddenly at Cammie's side.

Cammie knew Bex would see right through her and her hurriedly improvised excuse. Bex always did. Still, Cammie looked straight at her—kept her heart rate under control, pupils dilated, her light eyes on Bex's chocolate brown irises—and said that she wasn't feeling that well.

"And Zach is going with you…?"

Cammie shrugged. "I guess."

Bex smirked, but her eyebrows didn't rise suggestively or otherwise indicate what she was thinking which, knowing Bex, wasn't exactly reassuring. Cammie knew that, if her roommates didn't already know, it was just a matter of time before they did.

"Ready to go?" Zach asked her, the concerned crease still between his eyes as he took her elbow and smiled at Bex. "No worries, Baxter, I'm just taking her to her room."

"Oh, yes," Bex mumbled. "That's bloody exactly what you're going to do, I'm sure…"

She sauntered away and left Cammie with a sinking feeling.

"Come on, Cam," Zach said, and she could still hear the worry in his voice as they walked away.

"Zach, does Bex know what I think she knows?" Cammie whispered (in Russian this time, so the group of ninth graders jogging past them wouldn't understand what was going on).

It was the first time either of them had even mentioned what had happened in Nebraska. If Zach reacted behind her—him holding her elbow as they walked, single-file, through the winding pathways that led to the school—Cammie didn't notice. The pressure of his large, warm hand on her elbow didn't change as he said, his voice flat, "It's Bex, Gallagher Girl. What do you think?"

"Do you think the rest of them know?" she asked.

"If Bex does, then the rest of them do. You know that."

They had reached the doors of the school, and he stepped around her and held it open for her, bowing ironically at the waist as the winter wind ruffled his dark hair. He was trying to reassure her and make her smile and worry about her and the way she was acting in P&E, all at once, and Cammie chose not to stop and marvel at why he allowed her to see everything in his eyes, and how he felt so many things and managed to hide it with a smirk.

She rolled her eyes and walked back into the school, suddenly sprinting up the Grand Staircase in an unofficial race she had just decided they were running.

"Hey, no fair!" he called behind her. The silent halls of the school—emptied of girls, all of whom were actually in their classes, like Zach and Cammie should have been—echoed with his footsteps behind her. "I thought you were sick," he said, barely winded, as he grabbed her from behind, his arms strong around as she laughed and he playfully kissed her neck.

"I feel better now," Cammie replied, her heart fluttering as his lips traveled up her neck to the skin beneath her ear.

She reluctantly broke out of his arms, grabbing his hand and walking forward before A) he could protest, B) a teacher could see them, C) she could change her mind about what she was about to do.

"Where are we going, Gallagher Girl?" He chuckled, catching up so they walked side by side.

"Where we said we were going all along," she whispered back.

They cut through the empty halls quickly, taking shortcuts through the East Wing and then through the hall where his room was. "Oh, I need to put my stuff away," he said suddenly, stopping in front of his door and turning the knob.

"You don't have your door locked?" She asked, genuinely surprised.

Zach turned, the room dark behind him. His face was serious as he said, "Not all of us need key-pad protected doors, you know."

"Yeah, well, maybe you do need them." His dark eyes were intense, and she felt her chest tighten as memories of all that had happened in the past year—D.C., the Tombs, last semester—rushed through her head. Her words were barely a whisper when she said, "They want you, too."

He shrugged, breaking her gaze as he turned and flicked on the light switch. He dumped his duffel bag onto his bed. "Not as much as they have always wanted you."

Cammie closed the door behind them, her footsteps soft as she stopped behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist. Her face rested against his back and she breathed him in as he covered her hands with his own.

They stood there for a while, quiet in the cloud of memories that hung heavy in the air. The sound of the wind outside, bringing a sudden snowstorm to Roseville, almost drowned out the sound of their quiet breathing. Zach had started humming sometime in the minuets they had been standing there, and she almost recognized it but couldn't trace the tune.

She broke away, suddenly dizzy, and sat on his bed as he gathered clothes to change into. She almost giggled at his obvious attempts at dignified privacy—he went into the bathroom to change, the smug bastard—but kept it bubbled inside of her.

Flopping down on the bed, Cammie felt her eyes become heavy as she dreamily studied his room. It wasn't anything like the cluttered girl-lair that she shared with her friends. In her room, there were posters and knick-knacks and clothes strewn across the floor. Zach's room was much emptier, much more minimalistic. Still, it wasn't anything like the sterile suites that had housed the Blackthorne Boys during the exchange, which had been changed back to classrooms soon after. Unlike his old room, his bed was unmade and smelled of soap and boy; his books lay haphazardly on his desk, right next to a pile of CDs that she had never known he owned.

There was a picture of her on his beside table. It was unframed, no doubt from during the big cumulative examination sophomore year that had Madame Danbey giddy enough to unashamedly record the entire 'experience' with her camera that was disguised as a broach.

In the picture, she was laughing and not even looking at the camera, her expression far-off and distant. Cammie had almost forgotten how she looked that night, in the red dress that-after her unremembered summer-she could no longer fit into, with her makeup and hair styled.

The picture was worn and creased, like it had been with him for a long time.

"Where did you get the picture?" She asked when he came in from the bathroom. He must have taken the fastest shower in the history of the universe, because his hair was wet.

She looked up at him where he stood, a rare blush running up his face. He ran a hand through his hair in that usual way of his, and shrugged. "Joe, probably," he said finally. "He's always given me everything that had to do with you, information-wise, at least, so…"

"So, I take it he didn't just give you pictures?"

He smirked. "Maybe I just hacked into your file and got it all myself."

"So did he give you my history? First report from second semester?"

Still smirking, he shrugged noncommittally, but she knew it was true.

"The one about Jimmy?" He said finally. "Yeah."

She scooted over on the bed and he laid beside her, their bodies instantly melting into each other in a way that was new but strangely comfortable—his arm around her, her head on his chest, legs tangled together in a complicated weave of limbs.

"So you're not really just a spy. You're just a peeping-tom and a boy that reads the diaries of teenage girls."

She felt his laugh reverberate through his chest and she felt it throughout her entire body. She smiled, too.

"Only the ones I'm in love with," he said warmly.

The easy, goofy feeling that hung in the room—a stark contrast that of minutes before, one made of bloody memories—was instantly sucked out like the words he had just said were a black hole. All the things she had been willing to do, the rational thought she had been ready to set aside, all the things she felt collided in her in a giant mess of emotions.

She sprang up, her eyes wide, and he sat up, his expression unreadable.

"Don't say anything," she said quickly.

His mouth snapped shut.

She stood and started pacing, needing to move and think and do anything but look at the boy on the bed.

"Cam, it shouldn't come as a surprise," Zach said after a while, his voice steady. She looked up at him, and his face was pure determination. "I've thought it enough, and I know you have, too."

She didn't deny it as she stopped pacing, facing the ice-encrusted window instead. The sky outside had turned dark gray since they had come inside, reminding her how much time had really passed, and she cursed herself for forgetting to count the passing seconds, the passing periods, the minuets and hours her roommates must have spent wondering where she was.

She forgot to keep track of time when she was with him, and it scared the shit out of her.

"Zach, I told you we shouldn't do this."

"Yes, but you were talking about sex, then. Not love."

Her shoulders tightened at the last word. She said nothing.

"So this means that I'm not allowed to love you now?" he yelled, his voice rising in anger. She whirled back to him, her eyes darting to the door, and he nodded in silent understanding. They needed to be quiet.

"Jesus, Cam," he muttered, once they were sure no one else had heard them. She sat beside him, and he ran his hands through his hair again, the movement jerky and stiff. She wanted to touch it and glide her fingers through the chocolaty softness, but thought it would be counterproductive. "Why don't we just break whatever this is off until this whole Circle business is done?"

She swallowed the lump in her throat. "My sentiments exactly."

"I was being sarcastic," he said. "That's the last thing I want."

"But it shouldn't be!" She burst out, her voice frustrated and entirely too loud. "This is seriously hazardous, and it needs to stop while everyone is still in danger—"

"But that's the thing, Gallagher Girl!" He interrupted, his eyes wild, "We're never going to be safe. Don't you get it? We chose this life, and we have to live with whatever comes with it, but, right now, we're young enough that we shouldn't let it get in the way of us. There will be enough time to worry about everyone else later."

"But what does 'us' mean, anyway?" She abruptly stood, fidgeting, the need to move incessant. "Were we even planning on an 'us' after graduation? Because honestly, Zach, I'm just glad to be alive right now. "

"Me too, Cam, but I still think about it. Every day I'm with you, I think of the future and what I want and what I know it will actually be like and how angry I am that that's the way it will be.

The air crackled as they stopped, breathing heavily with emotion.

"How will it be?" She asked, her voice small.

He smiled sadly. The look in his eyes made her feel broken. "The way I have always seen it, you're going to go into the CIA and live out the legacy your family and you have already made. I, on the other hand..." he pointed to his chest, the movement limp and sad and not at all like when he said 'spy'. "I will be lucky to get into any agency at all. I'm the son of a psychopathic terrorist who kills people for fun and God knows who else and I have so many black marks on my record, Cam, it's not even funny."

His dark eyes dropped to the floor, and she resisted the urge to collapse beside and kiss him until the shame in his eyes disappeared.

"I… I have always wanted a future with you, but I know that to want it is to drag you down with me and I won't do that. I refuse."

"What are you saying, then?" She asked, her voice chocked.

He shrugged, not meeting her eyes. "I guess I just wanted us to have this semester together. After graduation, I don't know where we'll be, and I just thought that we could make the most of now." His eyes met hers, dark and as intense as they had ever been. "I wanted you to grasp how I feel about you before we're dead or undercover or just... apart."

Cammie's chest tightened. Whether it was with discomfort or with the possibility in his words, she couldn't tell. Neither of them had gone into all of the feelings. All they needed to say was in the kisses, the worried looks, the sleepless nights spent wondering whether the other was dead in their corner of the universe.

Words were powerful, and she had never been sure that what they had was serious enough to merit them.

Still, she wanted to hear what he had to say.

"And how do you feel, Zach?"

He gave a sad, crooked little smile. The barely noticeable dimple in his right cheek winked at her, and she thought it terribly endearing.

"Spies don't talk about that kind of stuff, Cam. It's too dangerous."

She nodded, turning on her heel, half hoping that she would leave the room before he stopped her, the other half hoping he would. "Fine, then. I need to go, anyway, and I feel fine now, so..."

She put her hand on the doorknob, but his strong arms sliding around her from behind stopped her. Zach's breath was warm on her neck, and she could feel his heart pounding into her back.

"It was the red dress, Cam."

She furled her brow. "What?"

He chuckled. "The red dress. When I saw you in it, everything else in my life was gone."

Her heart started pounding, too.

"I was terrified," Zach continued, his voice shaky. "I didn't know what the hell was going on with me, because I knew liking you was dangerous. I knew that my mom was somehow involved with your dad's disappearance. I didn't know that they wanted you, but the Circle is never above kidnapping family to make their prisoners talk."

She nodded as he pressed his face into her neck, the bitter revulsion evident in the way his arms tightened around her. She grabbed a calloused hand and squeezed it reassuringly.

He took a deep breath and continued.

"Still, though, I knew I liked you. A lot. So I stayed away as best as I could and that lasted two whole weeks and I just gave up after that. It wasn't worth it, because I really, really wanted to kiss you."

She couldn't help but chuckle, and he exhaled a laugh in reply.

"I sound... I know. It's going to get worse, though."

She stopped breathing.

"I love you, Cam, because you are… God, I've had these thoughts for so long I can't keep them straight."

He swept her hair over her shoulder, kissing her neck thoughtfully. Cammie exhaled a soft moan, but Zach stopped and pressed on.

"I love you, because you are loyal. You would die for your friends and your mom and your grandparents, and I'm pretty sure there are others but I don't think it's my place guess who they are, even if one of them is me.

"I love you because you think you're this invisible being, this kind of… Ghost that only certain people can see. You are a pavement artist, Gallagher Girl, but you're also beautiful in a way that can't be put into words like Bex and Macey or whoever else you compare yourself to. Your eyes are different every time I look at you, but they're green the most. You never laugh around me or anyone besides your mom and your friends and even though I want to make you smile more than I do, I know it's because you're like me in the way we save ourselves for certain people. You're brave, and you have these three freckles on your nose that I always think are little specks of dirt whenever I see them, but then I find a way to brush your nose without it being weird and I find out it's just those freckles, every time."

He was rambling now, that much was obvious, but the words washed over her just the same. She felt warm, and cherished. She felt known, and seen.

She turned to face him, his arms still around her. He leaned his forehead against hers, moving a hand up to her face. He rubbed his thumb over her cheeks, her lips.

"I wasn't exaggerating when I said I went crazy when you were gone, Cam. Bex could tell you. I remember this one night, where we had just lost our last lead and, Gallagher Girl, I remember screaming. I just… I just started screaming and howling and crying, because I was hurting and missing you and I thought you were dead. There…"

He trailed off, as if he wanted to stop there. She wound her arms around his neck, and he went on.

"There were some nights when I thought that, if we found your body, I wouldn't want to exist anymore because if you didn't, I wouldn't want to, either. I would die for you, Cameron Morgan, and that is how I feel."

They both exhaled, their breath shaky.

They were silent, and Cammie knew what had to be done. Screwing up her courage, she said,

"I love you too."

"Is that all?" he joked, chuckling breathlessly. "Do you have anything else to say, or—"

"You don't think I'm crazy, you never have, you called my Grandpa Morgan 'sir', you smell like what I think heaven would smell like if it were made entirely out of whatever soap you use, you give me these looks that make me feel like you know every crevice and corner of me, you have that smirk and that way of switching from cocky to serious that makes my head spin, and you have a way of putting words together that makes me forget how to breathe, and you are good, Zach. You are a good person and a good friend and you carry around the weight of who your mother is and what you were raised to be and I don't think you should, because that's not who you are."

He said nothing, simply pulling her closer.

"Also," she mumbled, begrudgingly, after a moment, "You really are very attractive."

"What was that?" He asked, his grin playful.

She sighed in exasperation. "You're really attractive, and your abs… God, Zach."

"So, you like my abs, huh?"

"Yeah. When you took your shirt off in P&E today, I saw them and I needed to get out of there."

"Well, yeah, you weren't feeling well, so—"

"No, Zach, I was just horny."

He was silent for a moment. Then he laughed—the kind of wheezing, breathless, gut-busting laugh that could last for seconds or hours—and she did too.

They laughed until they ended up on the floor, too weak to stand.

They laughed until their faces moved closer and closer together.

When they started kissing, they obviously were not laughing anymore.

The room was filled with light when the door suddenly opened, revealing a tall, Macey-shaped silhouette standing in the doorway. If she knocked, they didn't hear it, and tried to untangle themselves as best as they could—his hand slipped out from her pants and to his side; she straightened his shirt and ran a hand through her mussed hair.

Macey just raised an eyebrow, crossing her arms.

"What's with you two and me finding you in compromising positions?"

Zach and Cammie, feeling like caught little kids from their sitting place on the floor, giggled.

Macey rolled her eyes. "Well, I was told to find the Chameleon so we could see if you were feeling okay, but—" her eyes slid over to them "You know."

She was about to walk away when Cammie burst out, "Macey?"

"What?"

Cammie looked up at her friend. "You won't tell my mom, will you?"

Macey pretended to look offended. "Moi?" She rolled her eyes again. "No, I won't."

"Or Mr. Solomon?"

"No."

"Or Bex and Liz?"

"Well…"

"Macey."

"Probably not about what you were doing, just that you're not dead or hanging off a balcony or whatever."

"Good," Cammie said, deciding to ignore the balcony comment.

With that, Macey closed the door and her sarcastic 'Don't get pregnant!' was ignored by the two because they were already back together like magnets.

Their kisses were frantic, and the tangle of limbs and mussed hair and hands was one that was familiar, one that they had discovered only a week or so before.

His shirt was the first to go. She inhaled his clean skin as she laid open-mouthed kisses on his neck, along his shoulders, down to his chest. She ran her hands along his abs, his chest, glancing down his sides to his hips. His heart was pounding, and his breathing was becoming deep. She felt his eyes trace every move she made. She traced the 'v' of his hip bones as she pulled his pants down, inch by inch, but he seized her hand before they were completely off.

"Cam, we're at school," he breathed. Their chests heaved together, and he untangled a hand from under her shirt, propping himself up on his elbows. "I don't think we—"

"Zach, we lost our virginity at my grandparent's house," she said drily. She still felt guilty about that, but she had done worse things in her life and knew she couldn't dwell on it forever. "I don't think we should have any qualms about having sex at school."

"Oh, that's where this is headed, huh?" He said, exhaling a laugh as he brushed hair out of her eyes. Their eyes mirrored the same look-sleepy, leisurely smile, eyes soft and glazed with happiness and lust. "I just didn't know if we would get in trouble with anyone, or—"

"We'll be extra quiet," she murmured against his neck as she kissed her way up to his ear, then along his jaw. He sucked in a breath, and gave in.

They made their way to his bed, in between open-mouthed kisses and little breathy moans and giddy shushes as reminders of the need to be quiet. He caught her before she tumbled onto the bed, and laid her down softly, his hands lingering on her sides and hips. The frantic energy was gone as he pulled her shirt up, inch by inch, until it was finally off and she felt the warm rush of having eyes on her without them being calculating or curious or cruel but were there, simply because the person looking loved what he was looking at.

His hands roamed all over her torso as he explored the planes and hills of her body—the swell of her breasts, the fall of her stomach, the curve of her sides as they tapered down to her hips. She smirked as he mumbled—in Farsi, because the expletives in that dialect seemed to be his favorite—about how inconvenient it was that she was wearing both a bra and pants this time.

"Well, sorry," she said sarcastically as he searched for a clasp then realized that there wasn't one because it was a sports bra.

"You know what? I'll just worry about it later," he huffed dramatically. She rolled her eyes as he moved his hands downward, and the annoyance in her vanished when he—in one smooth motion—slipped her pants and underwear off.

"Zach! Zach, what are you—"

"Hush, Gallagher Girl," he murmured. His eyes met hers as his hands wandered over her hips and down to her thighs, worshiping her form with reverent, calloused hands. Her eyes went wide as thumb wandered over to where she had known it would go, and he grinned playfully. "Just lie back and enjoy the show."

"Zach…" She hissed in warning, but he wasn't paying attention at that point.

He knelt down in front of her, parting her knees with his hands. She gripped the sheets as she stared up at the ceiling and tried not to think about the possibility of someone walking in, or the Circle attacking at that precise moment, or who knows what else. Even if she was the one to stop his worries on that front, the fear wasn't far from her mind.

All thoughts, however, rushed out of her head when his tongue… oh God.

Macey had told them about this one time, when she and Preston were alone, how they had taken things further than kissing. A lot further. Cammie and her roommates had closed their ears and told her to shut up, ignoring their curiosity so they would be able to look Macey in the eye once the story was over. Macey went on, though, and her muted voice told those stories of Preston doing unspeakable things with his tongue vice-versa and it was fascinating to Cammie but it was Preston and Macey and she didn't want to picture them doing those things.

But now, though, Cammie clenched the sheets in her hands and she knew why Macey wanted to tell them about it. She felt him grin against her, and she let go of the sheets and tried to pull his head closer, his silken hair sliding through her fingers. Her chest started heaving, and his name slipped from her lips over and over, like a song that she couldn't stop singing, or a prayer, each time becoming more and more breathless until the only sound in the room was the air coming in and out of her lungs faster than it ever had before.

When it was over, Zach slowly stood and slid his body over hers, gently moving her almost-naked, panting form up the bed so her head could rest on the pillows. Somewhere in between her climax and him coming back up, he had taken the rest of his clothes off and she could feel all of him, all over her, and the warmth that was creeping back into her belly was like the sun.

He leaned his forehead against hers, and she knew that every inch of him ached to just be with her. Still, something was holding him back.

"Zach, what is it?" She asked, her voice still breathless. "Because I'm on the pill, you know that—"

"No, it's just… Am I really good, Cammie? What you said before, about being a good person? Was that true?"

He leaned his head back, still over her and looking at her with an expression that nearly made her cry, so she could only imagine how he felt.

Her hands moved to his face .Like he had done before, she stroked his cheeks, his lips, his eyebrows and freckles. His eyes closed, and she felt a stirring, all over again, at how much he let her see; in the world that had been hers for so long, no one had ever truly let her hold power over them. But with this boy-the boy who was broken by his past, the one with the fathomless eyes, the smirk that covered up so many things- she fully felt what the weight of being loved felt like, more than ever before. She truly understood how much she had to loose.

Still, the life of a spy is built upon risks. Every time they either of them took a breath was another second that their enemies could kill them or the ones they loved.

And yet, Cammie mused, what is life without risks?

"Yes, Zach." Her voice was hushed, her eyes serious. "It was the absolute truth, and I will believe it until I die."

He kissed her, then, and it was a kiss full of belief. He believed what she said, even if it was only because the words were from her. But it was enough.

She pressed her hand to his chest, over his still-pounding heart, and she wrapped her legs around his waist and brought him close and knew that she would never allow herself to let it be otherwise.