Free Fall

“No thank you. I’m good with the tea.” She studied him intently, like he was a mystery to solve. “That must be difficult for you.”

He looked at her watching him and realized… She knew. He hadn’t told her about his alcoholism, but somehow she’d learned about it on her own. Of course, the woman was a professional agent. Apparently there wouldn’t be any secrets from her.

“Who told you? Or did you figure it out?” He forced himself to sit still, really still even though he wanted to charge right over to her side and ask if this was a deal breaker. “I wasn’t holding back; just waiting for the right time to bring it up.”

“I guessed, actually, although I wasn’t certain until now. I understand if you’d rather not talk about this.” She stared back, her gaze accepting, open. Sympathetic. “Men use half as many words as a woman.”

She declared it so matter-of-factly even though her green eyes glinted like dewy grass. And then he recalled what she’d said about having trouble expressing emotions, like her father.

So she rolled out studies to bolster those feelings she didn’t know how to express.

Something strange tugged at his heart, something that felt like… affection? So different from lust. “Studies show that, do they?”

“You’re teasing me?”

“A little.” To give himself time to figure out what he wanted to say next. “I’m sober. I’ve been through a rehab program. And honestly, Stella, during that time I’ve talked about the drinking, about staying sober… and talked and talked and talked. I went to AA—I still go whenever I can make meetings.”

She nudged his teacup toward him. “I’m guessing there isn’t a weekly group three doors down in some of the places you’ve been sent by the military.”

“Hey,” he smiled at her, grateful for levity to ease the tension, “that was a pretty good joke.”

“I was serious.”

“Oh, uh, sorry?”

She smiled. “Got you that time.”

He smiled back, so damn entranced by this woman who already understood him better than anyone he could remember. “You still surprise me, Stella.”

“I don’t know why. I’m pretty boring.” Her eyes lit with more of that tenderness that poured over him like aloe on a burn. “But we were talking about your drinking. Perhaps we could begin with why you started.”

She sounded so clinical. So precise. But instead of being put off by that seeming detachment, he was totally drawn in. If she had a tough time dealing with messy emotions, she could only be wading into his past crap because she genuinely wanted to know. Maybe she even cared.

“Stella, you know about statistics and studies. People can be genetically predisposed to alcoholism.” Maybe she would deal better with the more practical explanation. “You see one person get wasted every Friday night and then when he needs to stop, no big deal. Then someone else drinks half as much only to learn he’s totally hooked and the downward spiral starts.”

“You’re saying it’s in your DNA?”

“My mother, her father. Every generation as far back as I can trace.” What a legacy. He felt the weight of it all the more now as he told Stella, wondering if the words would send her running. “The stories people tell in AA about what triggered it for them… I don’t have that story. It just happened. One day I was hanging out with the guys drinking and the next day I realized, holy shit, I couldn’t quit.”

“You said your mother was an alcoholic.” She reached across the table and he could see her frustration at not being able to touch him. “That had to have left its marks on you as an adult.”

Down on the street, a shrill horn honked right beneath the terrace, louder than the steady drone of shouts and voices from the marketplace beside the ancient, storied river. Jose peered over the balcony, the scent of spiced meat rising from a vendor’s cart.

“Don’t try to make excuses for me. My dad held a steady job as therapist—there’s irony in that, don’t you think?” The old saying about not being able to cure your own family was sure as hell true. “We never went hungry. Mom didn’t drink when my sister and I were little. When things got tougher for her, Dad always brought supper home and made sure my sister had enough money to look after me while he was at work.”

Except she’d eventually used that money to buy booze for herself.

Stella sat quietly, just listening, never judging even though he judged himself. He refused to blame anyone for the decisions he’d made in ignoring his family history.

“My older sister left at eighteen, enlisting in the military to get out just like I did. Except she left the Army when she went into rehab for the second time, when she had to sign over custody of her two children.”

Now that part made her forehead furrow.

“How old were you when you quit drinking?”

“Twenty-two.”

“So that means you’ve been sober for five years.” Her forehead smoothed. “That’s quite an accomplishment.”

“See, that’s one thing about being an alcoholic. I can never allow myself to grow complacent.”

Did she get what he was saying here? How he was trying to tell her he couldn’t risk ending up like his mother or his sister, unable to care for their children. He was scared as hell to risk failing as a parent. He was going to make damn sure to break the cycle.

The weight of it all piled on top of him, threatening to smother him. He looked around the restaurant, at the exits, needing air and space.

Stella touched his arm lightly and his gaze zeroed back in on her fast. She looked at him with an understanding, or at least he hoped so, damn it.

“Stella?”

“Do you know Morse code?”

What the hell? He blinked through his confusion. “Of course. It can be crucial in a survival situation.”

“So you could understand if I blinked a message to you right now.” She tapped his wrist once more before folding her hands in her lap. “Something that might be too risqué to say in such a public place.”

“I believe I could.”

He followed the sweep of her long eyelashes as she blinked to him a message that showed she understood him completely.

Time to leave. Together.

***

Stella kept her eyes closed, pretending to still be asleep recharging from her time as a captive. She just wanted to be close to Jose for a little while longer, because once she looked up at him, the reality of their breakup would be there between them. For a while longer, she could indulge in the feel of his lean body pressed to hers. She could draw in the scent of his shampoo with each breath.

How could everything about him be so familiar even after a month apart? She’d been trying so hard to forget him, even thought she’d made real progress. Wow, had she ever learned otherwise. All their time away from each other seemed to have faded. And as long as she kept her eyes closed, this little faraway room and the generic bed could have been their hotel room in Egypt that night they’d first made love.

They’d had dinner on the Nile after an exotic day of sightseeing. He’d delivered another wildly unique date. Nothing about Jose was ever predictable, which made him all the more intriguing to a woman who’d devoted her life to solving puzzles.

Her heart had been tugged by how hard he’d worked to build a life for himself. She’d known there was no turning away from him, from the inevitability of what her heart and body wanted.

She’d blinked Morse code at their table, then again later in the crowded elevator, enjoying making him deliciously uncomfortable. Although from the glint in his eyes, he hadn’t really minded.

And then they’d been in their room together. Alone. And hungry for each other. Some things definitely never changed…

***

Silently, Stella did a half circle in their hotel room in Egypt. Her job had taken her around the world, but this place still struck a dreamy chord deep inside her. An archway swept over the double doors leading out to a terrace with mosaic tiles. Lights from an island shore and boats on the Nile glittered in the night, the same waters that had served as such an incredible backdrop for her romantic meal with Jose. Words failed her right now, but apparently he felt the same, so that was cool.

Turning back to the room, she took in the heavy furniture, the gold gauze draped in a swag over the carved headboard of a king-size bed. Jose stood in the middle of the space in a loose linen shirt and pants, a quietly commanding presence just by existing. He didn’t have to try. He was one of those individuals born with integrity, with an earthy magnetism.

But he didn’t make a move on her as she would have expected. He just tossed his wallet on the armoire by the TV along with his room key. She thought she caught sight of a condom tucked in his wallet, but that didn’t matter. She carried her own.

Nerves tapped in her stomach and she tried her best to decipher why she was scared, but apparently nerves didn’t know Morse code. She knew this was right and she was absolutely certain she wanted to be with him. The scents of their date swirled in her mind so tangibly she could swear she still smelled the incense, the spices, and the light glistening of perspiration. The things they’d shared with each other about their childhoods had been intense, unifying.

While she couldn’t help wishing they’d met at a less complicated time, they were here together, now, and she wasn’t turning away.

“Jose,” she said simply, “this night has been almost perfect.”

“Almost?” A dark eyebrow angled upward.

Nerves tingled along her already sizzling skin. She’d been thinking of this since their first date, in reality probably since the moment she saw him lift that scuba mask on the boat. She knew this was right, that he was the one, but with expectations so high, she couldn’t help fearing somehow something would go wrong.

Steeling her spine and pushing back doubts, she pulled her hand from her hobo bag and placed a condom on the bedside table. “But I bet we can make it one hundred percent perfection by morning.”

He ambled toward her, one sexy step at a time. “That’s a bet I’m more than happy to take.”

Then he kissed her and the last thing she thought about was the room’s décor or timing. All she cared about was the man in her arms. He swept back the green cloth over her hair, the silky fabric slithering down and off. His hands followed. Stroking. Tempting. Along her back and sliding down to cup her bottom. Her body melded to his. Her br**sts went tingly and tight against the muscled wall of his chest. The rigid length of his erection pressed into her stomach.

Kissing him, being with him set her on fire in a way that so defied logic she was caught unaware again and again. And right now, she didn’t want reason. She just wanted to feel.

He touched her with the same intuition he’d shown in how he’d known just what to say when her heart had been bare and hurting over sharing about her mom. Jose understood and that connected them. She’d recognized they were meant to be together from the first moment she’d seen him.

The way he swept off her blouse and loose fitting pants with such ease, he could have been her longtime lover. His moves synchronized with hers. His clothes fell away into a pile as entwined as their bodies. Bare flesh to flesh, his skin sealed to hers, the cut and definition of masculine hardness turning her inside out.

His lips trekked down her throat and she could swear she heard him whisper “freckles” with a low growl before his finger teased her nipples, plucking with just the right amount of pressure to make desire pulse through her. She pressed her knees together against his thick thigh. She squeezed harder against the moist ache between her legs, burning for more. With each husky word Jose whispered against her skin, he promised to deliver.