Breaking the Rules

by Lewis, Jennifer

  The waiter served their food. Susana ate slowly, hesitantly, tasting each mouthful with painstaking deliberation. Joe suspected she approached everything in her life with such cool calculation. Did she ever lose control?

  He reached for a piece of paratha and at the same moment she reached too. Her fingertips brushed the back of his hand, short nails grazing the skin.

  She jerked her hand back as if he’d stung it. “Sorry.”

  She blinked. Nervous. His skin buzzed a little where she’d touched it, stray electrical impulses remaining even after she’d withdrawn her hand.

  “Here.” He handed her a piece of bread and she took it hesitantly.

  “Thank you.” She lowered her eyes as she ripped the soft paratha with delicate movements of her hands, bracelets clinking.

  As she opened her mouth, he wondered what it would be like to push his tongue between those slim lips and taste the mysteries within.

  Was that a vision of the future?

  Or the mental wanderings of a desperate man?

  He shoved a big forkful of chicken in his mouth and washed it down with a gulp of water. Shoved some bread in, too. Suddenly he was ravenous and had to keep reminding himself not to gulp down his food as if he were back in the mess hall.

  The exotic aromas heightened his senses, his tongue alive with the taste of the spices.

  On the stage the musicians had finished warming up and tuning their instruments, and now played with vigor. The sharp singing notes of the sitar rang through the air like the voice of a mournful woman.

  Joe glanced up at Susana and wasn’t the slightest bit surprised to see her watching him. Reading him.

  “What do you see?” His question sounded like the challenge it was.

  “A man.” She held his gaze.

  “What kind of man?” His gut tightened. How did he look to a stranger? He’d been afraid of mirrors lately. Not wanting to see his empty eyes.

  “A sad one.” She said it softly, almost apologetic.

  The haunting minor scale notes of the unfamiliar music swept through her words and turned them into a song.

  “Is there a gypsy cure for sadness?” He tried to make light of it.

  A smile flickered across her lips. “Yes.”

  “Oh yeah?” A spark of adrenaline kicked in his gut. “Can you heal me?”

  “Only if you want to be healed. If you’re ready to leave your sadness behind.”

  Again the music wove through her voice, transforming her soft speech into a melodic chant. The effect was a little hypnotic. Joe struggled to keep his wits about him.

  “Who wouldn’t?”

  She surveyed him coolly. “Sadness can be a protective cloak. An armor that shields you from further pain.” She paused, her penetrating black gaze unsettling. “I think you know that.”

  “I don’t think I know much of anything any more.”

  He could see the pulse in her slim neck, and he tried to distract himself with thoughts of how that fluttering heartbeat might feel under his lips.

  But already memories were crowding his consciousness. Memories that trailed after him, clanking against the guilt in a ball and chain of mistakes and failures that would drag behind him the rest of his life.

  Memories of that one night that was the beginning of the end.

  The drumming quickened, rising to a crescendo as the wailing song of the sitar filled his ears like a scream of panic. Panic that ripped through his nerves.

  “Let’s get out of here.” He leapt to his feet, shoving his chair clumsily against the patron behind him. “Sorry.” He groped in his pocket for change. A $50 was the smallest thing he had so he threw it on the table and grabbed his bag.

  Confusion covered Susana’s face as she rose slowly from her chair. He grabbed her hand where it paused on the table. Seized it in his and pulled her. He needed to get outside, breathe the night air. And he needed her with him.

  He stumbled out into the hot, dark night, gasping for breath as the high-pitched keening of the sitar pursued him like his nightmares. He clutched her small hand, its coolness a balm to him.

  “Where are we going?” Her voice a little breathless, her eyes wide, she struggled to keep up with him as he strode down Sixth Street.

  “To the water.”

  Water calmed him. The endless flow, the powerful streaming persistence of it. Nothing could stop water. Dams, doors, banks, cliffs, canyons—sooner or later they all gave way under the heavy weight, the relentless pressure. The heaving presence of an unbreakable life force.

  He headed for the East River because it was closer. Susana followed him, quickening her pace to keep up with him and soon they were both running. The night air filled his lungs, soothing the restlessness that assaulted him if he stayed still too long. His blood pumped from exertion, not anxiety, and his brain calmed.

  He glanced sideways at Susana as she ran beside him, her long skirt clutched in one hand and her face lit with a breathless smile. He caught her eye and she laughed, a carefree burst that thrilled his heart to hear it.

  They shoved and jostled their way past the scattered crowds, breaking their pace only to weave through a honking stream of cars. Traffic roared beneath them as they took the footbridge over the highway, descending at last into the cool, dark stillness of East River Park.

  “Isn’t it dangerous, coming to the park this late?” Susana gasped the words, still running, her hand hot in his.

  “Anything can be dangerous.”

  But she didn’t look worried. Her face glowed as they pounded across tarmac and grass toward the beckoning dark swell of the river.

  At the embankment they stopped, and Joe dropped his bag and steadied himself with a hand on the cool hard stone. He turned to Susana and she bent over, gasping for breath, laughter escaping her in panting bursts.

  “What are we doing here?” she gasped, her smiling mouth half hidden by windblown black hair. Her golden skin shone under the nearby streetlight, and her lips and cheeks flushed dark.

  “I guess we’ll find out when it happens.”

  Already this was the craziest, most exciting night of her life. Her heart thundered at the unaccustomed exertion, the rousing unpredictability.

  Joe still held her hand tight, their hot fingers intertwined. His pulse mingled with hers in a fierce primal tune.

  “Look at the water,” he said, wonder in his voice.

  “It’s so black.” She shuddered a little at the heaving, night-colored mass.

  “It’s beautiful, ruthless, it never gives up.” He turned to face her, his bold features etched in moonlight. “It seeps in through cracks, trickles down crevices, drips and flows, pours and rushes.” Laughter sparkled in his eyes. “It always gets where it’s going.”

  A laugh bubbled up inside her. An echoing response to his unexpected boyish exuberance. The sound pealed out into the night air and sparked a grin that cracked across Joe’s face.

  The clean tang of his sweat caught her by surprise, mingled with the reassuring scent of detergent and soap, the smell of a healthy male. He suddenly seemed so alive, so vigorous.

  But she knew that other man lurked beneath the surface. The hard bitter man who’d come into her ofisa demanding answers, seeking retribution.

  A little shiver of fear crept up her spine as she realized she was all alone in a darkened park with that man. Any screams would be lost in the roar of traffic on FDR Drive, which separated the park from the rest of the city.

  She tossed her head, wild strands of hair dancing in front of her eyes. She’d never taken a chance like this. Never done something so blatantly foolish. Never done anything so irresistibly thrilling.

  “Susana.”

  “Yes.” Her voice emerged as a scared whisper.

  “Do you believe in fate?”

  “Yes.”

  “Do you believe that perhaps…” He paused, glanced out at the heaving black water. Her breath caught in her throat as she waited for him to finish.

  But
he didn’t.

  Instead he pulled her to him with one quick motion, wrapped his free arm around her back and settled his hot mouth over hers.

  His tongue pried her lips open and probed into her mouth. An instinctive adrenaline rush of resistance stung her, urging her to fight back. But she didn’t.

  A blistering swell of heat rose through her, starting deep in her belly and seeping along her limbs until her fingers and toes sizzled.

  You’re kissing a man.

  The taste of forbidden fruit burned her tongue, exciting in its punishing spiciness.

  Joe’s hands slid along her back, pulling her closer until her breasts sank against his hard chest. Calloused fingers danced along her spine, teasing the flesh through her thin shirt, sparking trails of heat that shimmered under his touch.

  Her nipples tightened against his firm muscle, thrilling to the hard masculinity of his body.

  Who are you, Joe Figueroa?

  Who was this man she’d seen so long ago—his fate entwined with hers? A vision so strange it made her doubt the strength of her own gifts.

  Right now her body didn’t care who he was. Didn’t care about fate, destiny or the future that lay even five minutes away.

  Joe licked the inside of her upper lip, triggering a gasp as the sensitive nerve endings shivered under his touch. Then he plunged deep into her mouth.

  His tongue wound around hers as his arms pulled her close, drawing their bodies tighter and tighter in an unforgiving embrace.

  And she found herself kissing him back.

  With her teeth she grazed his tongue, tested his lower lip. Her mouth teased over his hard cheekbone as she strained upward on tiptoes, wanting to claim his face with her mouth.

  Joe bent down to give her the access she craved. Her heart stirred at his trust when she brushed her lips over his eyelids, feeling his eyeballs flicker beneath them.

  She skimmed her lips over the semicircle of his scar, tracing the slight indentation with her tongue, and sensed him shudder slightly as she did.

  His breath burned hot on her neck, his lips on her pulse as she explored him, trailing her mouth over the sharp prickle of his unshaved cheeks. The roughness of his face stung her swollen lips, exciting in its unfamiliar maleness.

  Curls of desire rose though her like smoke, creeping along her limbs and making them heavy. Joe’s thick arms supported her, holding her close and tight as she allowed the sensation to flood her.

  His mouth tickled her ear, hot breath sparking a little tremor as he whispered, “I don’t believe in fate.”

  Her eyes flashed open, falling on the half moon shivering in the silent black water. Then his eyes caught hers, black and unreadable, and a quiver of alarm rang through her.

  “What do you believe in?” Her voice emerged reedy and breathless, hung with apprehension.

  “Life. Clinging to life with everything you’ve got.”

  She could see the hardness in him then, its brittle bitterness gleaming beneath the surface of his skin. And she could see it now for what it was—his life force, an unbreakable diamond forged in the furnace of whatever he’d been through.

  She shuddered gently, afraid of his past. Afraid of her own future.

  Joe rubbed her back softly. “Cold?”

  “A little.”

  A night breeze dispersed the blistering heat and humidity of the day. Its cool breath on her skin soothed her, taming the fierce inferno of desire Joe had triggered with his shocking kiss.

  It wasn’t the cold that caused her tremors, but she didn’t want him to know that.

  He pulled his arms gently away from her and she shivered again, suddenly bereft of his warm touch.

  He bent down and unzipped his bag, fished around in it, then brought out a dark sweatshirt.

  “Here.” He arranged it carefully over her shoulders.

  His thumb touched her chin tentatively, and he looked into her eyes. ”Maybe we shouldn’t be out here in the middle of the night.” The wary expression in his eyes seemed almost shy. “Sometimes I get these crazy urges. I’ve learned to act on them.”

  “I’m glad you did.” The words slipped out before she could stop them. Her lips still stung with the force of his kiss, her belly tight with the heat coiling inside it.

  “Me too.”

  His eyes gleamed with something that shone through the hardness, a vital warmth she saw there for the first time. Had their kiss lit a flame inside him, too?

  A moment of awkwardness followed. Now that they weren’t touching each other a gulf suddenly gaped between them.

  “I need to find a hotel room before it gets too late.”

  “You don’t live in the city?”

  “Nope. Not yet anyway. I arrived this morning from western PA.”

  “Oh.”

  “You wondering where my luggage is?”

  She shook her head. He didn’t seem like a man who’d have luggage. Just baggage.

  “Well, in case you are and you’re too polite to ask, I don’t have any. I’m a rolling stone. Wherever I hang my hat, that’s my home.” He winked at her.

  A smile teased across her lips. “You don’t have a hat.”

  “Nope, and I don’t plan to get one either. Too much stuff just weighs you down.”

  Stuff. She knew all about that. She lived surrounded by decades’ accumulation of someone else’s stuff. The old furniture, the old rugs, the old knickknacks.

  The old ways.

  A sudden vision of Joe standing in her grandmother’s apartment tickled the beginnings of a giggle inside her.

  Her grandmother’s apartment? It was her apartment now.

  Her grandmother was gone. Though she did live on in all the dust-gathering clutter she’d left behind. And in all the rules and codes and warnings and arcane rituals she’d left behind to clutter Susana’s mind.

  The thought of Joe’s big, brawny, untidy, rather hostile presence in the midst of her grandmother’s lace-festooned parlor suddenly seemed irresistibly appealing.

  The suppressed chuckle burst up and became a laugh.

  “What’s so funny?” His brow wrinkled with confusion even as a smile tugged at the corners of his mouth.

  “I just had a crazy thought.”

  “Yeah?” He raised an eyebrow.

  Susana bit her lip. Was she really about to ask a man back to her apartment? A man who’d just stolen her breath with an uninvited kiss?

  It was a terrible idea.

  “You were in the Navy, weren’t you?”

  A terrible idea that made her toes tingle with excitement.

  “Yes.” Joe tipped his head, curious. “Seven years.”

  “So you know how to obey rules.”

  Joe pursed his lips and nodded his head. “I guess I have some practice with that.”

  “And you need a place to sleep?”

  “Sure do.”

  She hesitated and he waited quietly, watching her. Expectation hummed in the air between them.

  “I live a few blocks from here, near Delancey Street.”

  “Oh?”

  She could see wheels turning in Joe’s head, but he kept quiet. Waiting for her to make her move.

  “And if you can agree to a few ground rules…” She lifted her chin. “If you can commit to those rules…” She stared hard at him, defying him to lie to her. “Then you could come stay overnight. If you like.”

  As she said the last words it suddenly occurred to her that he might not want to.

  But a hotel room would cost him upwards of $100 and she didn’t think he had that kind of change burning a hole in his pocket.

  He didn’t reply right away though.

  Joe’s eyes narrowed and he surveyed her coolly.

  “And what exactly would these rules be?”

  She tossed her head and drew his sweatshirt about her.

  “No touching.”

  “No touching.” He nodded thoughtfully, surveying her with suspicious black eyes. “And? You said ‘rules.’
That’s just one.”

  “No poking about.”

  He raised an eyebrow. “I’d think no touching pretty much ruled out poking.”

  “I mean through her possessions.”

  “Whose possessions?”

  “My grandmother.”

  “Your grandmother lives there, too?”

  “She used to.”

  If Granna was still in residence there would be no way Joe could set foot in that apartment. Not and live to tell the tale, anyway.

  “She died?”

  “Six months ago.”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Me, too.” And she was. Her grandmother had raised her, been a mother to her after her own mother died so suddenly.

  But another part of her was glad to be free.

  Free to do something crazy, something stupid, something dangerous and maybe wonderful.

  “So you live alone?” Joe hoisted his bag onto his shoulder.

  A prickle of fear raised the hairs on her neck.

  “Yes,” she murmured hesitantly. “I live alone.”

  Spoken aloud it made her sound vulnerable. Easy prey.

  “I’ll obey the rules. Heck, it’ll be nice to be in a home and not some dumpy hotel room. I’ve stayed in enough of those lately. I’ll keep my hands to myself.”

  He shoved the hands in question deep into the pockets of his faded jeans. “See?”

  Susana chuckled, tamping down the swell of apprehension that stirred in her chest as they set off back toward the city streets.

  She knew she had good instincts about people. She’d honed them over the last ten years of prying into strangers’ lives. She had a good feeling about Joe. He needed help, no doubt about that. Could she help him? Maybe, maybe not.

  Did she trust him? Kind of. She trusted him probably as much as he trusted himself.

  And for now, that was enough.

  CHAPTER 3

  “Jesus.”

  Still breathless from the climb up six flights of stairs, Joe was unprepared for the strange world that awaited him on the other side of the battered door to Susana’s apartment.

  Her grandmother’s apartment.

  For the old lady clearly still resided there in spirit, if not in body.