To be honest, Dani had forgotten. Getting everything waxed had been another stab at rebellion. It felt wicked and decadent, something she hadn't expected anyone else to see. Squinting, she tried to gauge his reaction.
"It's new."
"And smooth." He lifted his gaze. Locking his eyes with hers, he slowly leaned in and took his first taste. Their groans of pleasure were simultaneous. Their thoughts synced.
That was amazing. Again.
Dani didn't know how she remained standing. She found herself gripping Alex's head for balance, and to keep him doing what he was doing Her body felt liquid. At any moment, she could melt, her bones dissolving into a pool of bliss.
"Alex," she breathed, her fingers digging deeper into his scalp.
"Let yourself go, baby. I've got you."
His words and his magic tongue sent her over. Lights burst before her eyes and her heart tried to jump from her chest. She was vaguely aware of Alex lifting her and depositing her on the bed. It wasn't until he joined her, pulling her close, that she was able to string together a coherent thought.
"You've done that before."
"But I've never enjoyed it so much."
Dani smiled. "Good answer." She shifted closer, noticing for the first time that he had shed this clothes.
It was a little disappointing—she had wanted to watch. But having access to all his warm, male skin made up for it. She had to touch him. She couldn't get enough of the dips and planes that made his body so gloriously different from her own. When she would have reached between his legs, eager to take his erection in her hand, Alex stopped her.
"Not a good idea, I'm too close."
"I'm sure you have more than one go in you, old man."
"As you will find out. But I want the first to be inside you."
It was only when he rolled them over and positioned himself between her legs that Dani realized that he had put on a condom. How could you not love a man who thought of your protection when you were too far gone to do it yourself. And it was love—her brain didn't stutter over the thought. It didn't matter how long she'd known him or ultimately how short their time together would be. For the first time in her life, Dani was in love.
She couldn't say the words out loud. It wouldn't be fair. But she could will him to see it. As he entered her, Dani let her eyes cry out her feelings. All he had to do was look and he would know.
Alex was close. Dani. Sweet, sweet Dani. No woman had ever affected him like this. The control he had always been so proud of eluded him. He was relieved when he felt that she was just as near the end as he was, that he was going to bring her pleasure before he found his own. He'd long ago lost track of how many women he had been with. But what he had told her had been the truth—this was better. This was the best. He had always been able to walk away without a backward glance, but this time it would hurt because, unlike all those countless women, Dani mattered. She would never be the blurred face of someone he'd used to relieve the loneliness and stress of his job.
They orgasmed together. Dani didn't know if it was because she wanted it so badly, maybe she imagined something that wasn't really there. But when her eyes declared her love, for a fleeting moment, she had been certain his eyes had answered, I love you, too.
THEY SPENT EVERY moment of every day together. Dani still had a job to do, but it didn't get in the way of her time with Alex. If anything, he was able to help. Alex knew people that Dani never would have had access to. Through him, she found out about a rooftop swimming pool in the heart of Lisbon. The owner hosted some of the most exclusive parties in the city, and somehow Alex got them invitations. Dani knew how to take pictures without being noticed—besides, all of the faces would be blurred for publication. It was a coup, one that photographers with years more experience couldn't deliver.
Around midnight, when the party goers lost their bathing suits and had a group skinny dip, Dani put away her camera. It wasn't that kind of magazine. One eyebrow raised, Alex gave her a questioning look. She glanced towards the pool, then back at him. It was a light-hearted group and she trusted Alex to keep her safe. She nodded and with a carefree laugh, they dropped their suits and jumped.
"PROMISE ME ONE thing, Alex."
They were back at her hotel, wrapped in each others arms. Their lovemaking—Dani refused to think of it any other way—had been slow and sweet. Alex always seemed to know what she needed. From their first time to this one, and all the many in between, he gave her so much more than a mind blowing orgasm. He instinctively reached into her emotions and found a way to be her everything. Dominant, playful, intense. They were all Alex, and she was starting to wonder how she was going to live without him.
"If I can." No automatic yeses from Alex.
"It might be easier if you lied." Dani lightly bit his shoulder to accent her words. "You could make me promises you have no intention of keeping, give me false hope."
"And eventually you would hate me for it," Alex explained. "I might have to leave, but I don't have to leave you with a nasty taste in your mouth."
"That's not likely—I love the way you taste—all of you."
Alex knew she was trying to lighten the mood, but he wanted her to understand. He was going to think of her—often. And he needed to know that after he was gone, the memories he left her with were the best they could possibly be. Lies were corrosive—he wanted Dani to remember him as a man of honor, one who kept his word.
"I love the way you taste too, Dani. I will carry your unique flavor with me no matter where I am."
It was the closest to a declaration she was going to get. Not hearts and flowers for them. The plain and simple truth was her Valentine.
"Promise me that when you leave, you won't say goodbye."
"Dani." Alex didn't like the idea of sneaking away like a thief in the night. His leave was coming to an end. Three more days, that was all the time they had left. There had been no emergency calls—for once the world had maintained a semblance of order. He had been lucky enough to have this amazing woman in his life for a short but intense couple of weeks, and now she wanted to end it as though they were mere acquaintances—not lovers.
"It would kill me to watch you walk out my life forever, Alex." Dani was about to break their unspoken rule, but she wanted him to understand. "I love you. I can't help it, but I'm not sorry. You've made it clear from day one that when you leave I will never see you again."
"It wouldn't be fair to you, Dani."
Bullshit, she wanted to scream. Her emotions were rapidly becoming a chaotic mess. Somehow she maintained a thin hold on her outward calm.
"Your choice, not mine." She felt him stiffen, but she didn't care. Why should this be easy? Her heart was breaking. She had promised herself to let him go, didn't she deserve the chance to deliver some honesty of her own?
"I don’t want to cry because believe me, I cry ugly. Heaving sobs, blotchy face, runny nose. That can't be your last memory of me. Me bawling like a two-year-old can't be the image you carry around burned into your brain. So I'm asking you, when the time comes, don't tell me. It will be easier."
So Alex promised. Not because he dreaded an uncomfortable goodbye, or because he was put off by a few tears. He agreed because she asked him, and because he loved her. He wouldn't say it out loud, where there was love there was hope, and Alex couldn't allow her to harbor even a glimmer of that. Instead, he gave her the only two things that were his to give. Verbally he gave her his promise—silently he gave her his heart.
CHAPTER FOUR
DANI SAT UP in bed with a start. She felt disoriented, out of place. And then she remembered. She had been dreaming of the morning she woke up alone. This wasn't Portugal, she was no longer twenty-two and madly in love. Like that long ago morning she found herself reaching for Alex and just like then, she found the other side of her bed empty and horribly cold.
When was the last time she'd had that particular dream? Dani racked her brain but couldn't come up with a definitive answer.
It used to be a frequent visitor, always leaving her empty and out of sorts for hours. As sick as it sounded, it had become such a part of her that after she finally stopped having it, she had missed the ache it left behind. The end of her dream seemed to signify the end of Alex. She needed to leave him behind, the same way she had all the remnants of her girlhood. Letting Alex go had been her last transition, a symbolic gesture of boxing up her dolls or taking down the pictures of her favorite teen idols. She couldn't keep turning to Alex in her sleep, hoping he would suddenly materialize when she opened her eyes.
So she let Alex go. It hadn't been easy, but she had done it. She'd finally stopped dreaming of him and instead let herself dream of a future with a different man, a man she had yet to meet. Dani wanted love. She knew what the real thing looked like. Her parents were a shining example of what it meant to commit yourself to one person and work like hell to hold it together, no matter what. The love her mom and dad shared wasn't out of a glossy book filled with unattainable expectations. No, they were the real deal, and Dani was determined to find it for herself.
Unfortunately, love could not be forced. She might go into every new relationship full of hope, but love didn't materialize just because you wanted it to. Not that she hadn't had the chance to marry. She knew of at least three men who, if given an ounce of encouragement, would have proposed. But as much as she wanted a husband and children, she wasn't going to settle. One thing and one thing only would get her down the aisle—love.
Which brought her back to Alex Fleming and the dream.
It was always the same. She was warm and could feel his arms around her. She had gotten used to having him near while she slept, but that morning it was a false sense of security. His arms weren't really holding her, he was gone. He had kept his promise, and Dani had been devastated.
She left her bed, but not her memories. A long shower helped, and by the time she had dressed, grabbed her camera bag and headed out the door, Dani felt her perspective starting to return. Seeing Alex had been a shock—he wasn't supposed to be in her hometown. His presence disrupted her view of normal.
Dani crossed the busy street, waving at friends as they passed. Harper Falls was a small town. Almost one hundred years old and founded by a man with enough money to build from the foundation up. At one time, Harper Falls had been home to some of the richest Americans west of the Mississippi. North of town, they built their over the top mansions, having bought into Russell Harper's vision of Utopia. The land was cheap, the labor cheaper. Before the building of Grand Coulee Dam, the Columbia River, which ran parallel to the town, was a thriving waterway. Why wouldn't the elite make their homes where they could have their privacy, travel at will, and enjoy the grandeur of the Pacific Northwest?
Things had changed in the last century. Most of the opulent homes still existed, but they no longer stood on acres of uninterrupted peace and quiet. Money was needed to maintain such a lifestyle, and not all had survived the ups and downs of the stock market. Mansions changed hands, land was sold and condominiums built. But through it all one thing never changed—Harper House.
Russell Harper had wanted his home to stand out. He built it to reign over the town that bore his name, and he'd built it to last. To this day, it served as the focal point for anyone first arriving in town. The woman who lived there, though not related by blood, insisted on rigidly maintaining both the standards and the control the first Harper had wielded.
Like most people who had been born there, Dani seldom noticed the imposing building. Harper House sat on a bluff on the west side of the river—the first thing touched by the sun's morning light, and the last to feel its waning glow. She sometimes imagined Regina Harper looking out the third-floor windows, mentally honing her methods of keeping her status as queen bee. Not that anyone had ever really challenged her. A few had tried, but they had slunk out of town, singed—if not downright burned, by Regina's ruthless vengeance.
Through spies, Regina kept close tabs on what happened in her town, and quickly squashed any rumbling of unrest. Her only child, Andrew Russell Harper, had been reared since birth to take over and maintain Regina's iron-fisted rule. It had been a shock when the rebellion hadn't come from the town but inside her very own fortress. The day before his eighteenth birthday, Drew had left Regina, Harper House, and the Falls. He had taken only the clothes on his back and what little money he had been able to earn behind his mother's back.
It had taken years, but the scandal of the prince's departure had died down. It flared up again when he and his business partner, Jack Weston, had moved the hub of their billion dollar company to Harper Falls. Speculation had run rampant. Had there been a reconciliation between mother and son? Was Drew going to take his rightful place as town leader? It didn't take long for both questions to be answered with a resounding no! H&W Security had bought most of the mountain side directly opposite Harper House, the partners building their headquarters and homes among the abundant pine trees.
Dani had never been, but according to Rose, Drew's office was on the east side of the building. It might have been his intent to give his mother a metaphorical finger every time she looked across the river, but he refused to look back. It was a screwed up situation, but having been raised by a woman once described as ice encased in another layer of ice, it was amazing Drew had turned out as normal as he was. He'd had the strength to get away, but Dani only wished he hadn't battered her friend's heart along the way.
It might have been ten years, but the embers of Drew and Tyler's romance still smoldered. In fact, things had been heating up between them, especially the past few months. The bets were fifty-fifty as to whether it would end with clothes being ripped off or hearts being stomped into dust. She'd known Tyler her whole life, and still Dani had no idea what was going to happen.
As she did most mornings, Dani made her first stop her parent's house. On her lucky days, she would get there in time for breakfast, the one her mother had fixed almost every morning for the past thirty-three years. Sometimes it was bacon and eggs, sometimes hot oatmeal, but it was always delicious, filling and the perfect start to any day.
Then there was the company. If she had just wanted a good meal, there were several excellent options between her place and the house that she grew up in. Sitting down at the old kitchen table that had the same old nicks and scratches, she would watch the way her father's adoring eyes followed his wife as if they were still newlyweds. It lifted Dani's spirits like nothing else could.
"Hey, there's my girl."
Terry Wilde had never been a man to hide his feelings. A tall, thin man with thick red hair and a ready laugh, he loved his wife, his children, and his dog unconditionally. If a friend needed a favor, Terry would go out of his way to help, but family always came first. Dani sank into his hug, holding on a fraction longer than usual. She knew how fortunate she was to have parents like hers. Rose and Tyler had lived next door, but it was the Wilde household they came to when they needed support. They spent the night so often her father had purchased bunk beds for Dani's room. Neither girl was ever turned away, no questions were ever asked. As far as her parents were concerned, they had been blessed with three wonderful daughters.
"How are you feeling, Dani?"
Roberta Wilde, Bobbi to most, put a plate of steaming pancakes on the table before wrapping her daughter in her arms. She kissed Dani's forehead, surreptitiously checking for a fever. Satisfied that she felt nothing out of the ordinary, Bobbi gave Dani a little push towards the table before taking the maple syrup off the stove and pouring it into a green earthenware pitcher.
"I'm fine, better than fine. But if I hadn't been, a stack of your pancakes would have cured me. I'm surprised Tyler isn't here. She can smell these a mile away."
"Take as many as you want, you know I always make too much batter." Bobbi washed a stray bit of syrup from her hands, drying them on the towel that always hung over her shoulder. "Now, are you going to tell me why you left the picnic yesterday? And before yo
u use that headache excuse, remember who you're talking to. A woman who stands for six hours in the blazing Moroccan sun on the off-chance of getting a picture of whatever it was is not going to wilt under a little Eastern Washington heat."
"It was an elephant shrew."
Her mother just looked at her. Steady and slightly quizzical, it broke Dani every time. It had worked when she was six and it worked today. She found it impossible to maintain the façade of a fully grown adult woman when faced with the stare.
"I…," Dani started, but she had nothing to say. Yes, it would have been awkward to explain about Alex—talking sex with your parents was never easy. She could have given them a watered down version, but Dani was afraid once she started everything would come tumbling out. Once that dam burst, she would have to spill every last drop. As such, she chose the only action left—she stalled.
"You're right, as always." Her mother's little knowing smile was as close as she ever came to gloating.
"So?" Her father had finished his breakfast and was sipping one more cup of coffee before leaving for work. He did quite well as an accountant and was able to set his own hours. If the door to his office opened a few minutes late, no one's world would come to an end.
"Will you both trust me enough to let this slide, at least for now? I promise to tell you everything, but I need to keep it to myself for a little longer."
Terry waited while his wife mulled over Dani's words. This was her purview—she had always known instinctively when to push for information and when to let their children work things out for themselves. It had worked beautifully for as long as he could remember. There was no reason to believe now would be any different.
"You know we're here if you need an ear."
With that, the decision had been made. They would trust their daughter to find her own way and would, as always, be here as a safety net. Their door was always open, 24/7.
"And it's such a pretty ear." Dani gave her mother another hug. "Though after years of lending it to all of us, I'm surprised you have anything but a bloody stub left."
If Tomorrow Never Comes (Harper Falls Book 2) Page 5
