She’d wept at his grave. She’d left flowers, more for herself than him. It was impossible that she could be touching him again, but his taste was achingly familiar, sharp and edgy, and potently male, like the man himself—Romo the crusader, the warrior. An island unto himself.
Pushing that last thought aside, along with the small, weak part of her that wanted to argue that he really had changed, that he was an entirely different man now, she lost herself in the moment, in the press of his hard, masculine body against hers. She rose against him, twined around him and they eased down to the mattress together.
In deference to the healing wound on his shoulder, they lay on their sides, face-to-face, kissing and touching. Sara’s blood spun through her, warm and effervescent as her body shaped against his. She worked her hands beneath his shirt, relearning the warm, yielding flesh she’d touched three days earlier when she’d tended his wounds and marveled at the heat of him.
He groaned, his breath coming fast. Hers was, too, and as they met for another kiss, she felt his excitement as her own. It had been a long time since she’d been with anyone—after a couple of attempts to reenter the dating scene after she and Romo had broken up, she’d turned her attention to her work out of necessity. She didn’t ask whether he’d been with anyone in the interim, didn’t want to know. And in a way it didn’t really matter, because this was the first time for this new—and apparently improved—version of him.
She sensed the differences in him even on the most basic of levels, as he drew his hands along her spine, across her hips and up again to her breasts, where he shaped her most sensitive flesh with gentle, inciting caresses. Pleasure spun through her. She arched against him, rubbed her body along his, wanting to share the powerful sensations. Always before he’d been a thorough, demanding lover. Now, though, he let the moment linger, let the sensations turn soft for a moment before bringing her back to flashpoint with a kiss and a whisper.
She clung to him, shuddering with the enormity of emotions that went way too far within her. All she’d wanted—all she’d been prepared for—was to reconnect with the man she’d loved, and who now claimed he’d cared for her but hadn’t known what to do with the feelings, or the fear brought by those emotions. She wasn’t ready to open herself to him. Not yet. Maybe not ever again.
Buffering herself against the poignant connection, she turned her face to his and kissed him openmouthed, hard and hot, demanding that he respond in kind. Heat leaped between them, flaring to lust between one heartbeat and the next. He caught her in his arms and held her close, so their bodies shaped one into the other with no gaps, no distance. She could’ve wept with the mad joy of holding him, and wanted nothing more than to hang on forever, never letting him go.
He’s not yours to keep, her inner cynic reminded her, though even that part of her sounded vaguely sad about it.
He paused midkiss and pulled away to look at her with eyes gone dark and serious. He cupped her face in his hands. “Sweet Sara,” he said, voice husky with emotion. “I was such a fool.”
And there, she realized, was what she’d needed from him back then. Not the apology, but the owning of what he’d done, what he’d forced her to do in response. And with that acknowledgment, somehow, it was finally, really and truly okay.
Her lips curved and the tears receded, giving way to true pleasure and a sense that she was, for the first time in a long while, exactly where she wanted and needed to be. Yes, terrible danger waited for them beyond the anonymous safety of their hotel room, and there seemed little certainty of success in what they needed to do. But at the same time, somehow, they’d found each other again, had found the connection they’d lost along the way.
Her smile widened. “Hey, Detective,” she said, as she’d called him before. “Welcome back.”
The creases beside his beautiful eyes deepened and his voice was husky when he said, “It’s good to be back.”
They left the rest unspoken, because for the moment, just being back was enough for both of them.
After that, she stopped comparing the Romo she was with now with the one she’d loved before. She stopped thinking or planning, stopped analyzing and let herself simply feel. A quick dip into her badly battered handbag yielded the two condoms she carried as much from habit as optimism. She returned to the bed and sank back into Romo, into a kiss that quickly morphed into a hurried race to shed clothing, albeit with some care for his bandages.
His body was lean and tough, roped with capable muscles that slid effortlessly beneath a layer of slick skin and textured with masculine hair. She touched him with her hands, with her mouth, and was surprised to find that they didn’t fall back into any sort of rhythm from before. It truly was as though they were coming together for the first time, though with the benefit of some familiarity. She found a new scar along his ribs, another at his hairline, and told herself not to think of where they’d come from, or what he might’ve done to his attacker. But that fear added poignancy to their next kiss, and brought a sharp edge to the pleasure as he touched her with clever, inciting fingers, bringing her to a point hovering at the edge of madness and keeping her there as they twined together, bound by need and remembered loneliness.
In that moment there was no past or future, there was only sensation. The world coalesced to the feel of skin on skin, the taste of him on her lips and tongue, the sound of his harsh groans, his voice whispering praise and pleasure. Foil ripped and he dealt with the condom, then returned to her, touching her once again, bringing her up until need coiled hard and hot and joining with him was as necessary as her next breath.
“Romo,” she said in invitation, in demand. It wasn’t a plea, though. She was done asking.
She arched against him, heard him catch his breath as he shifted, rose above her and paused a moment, poised to join his hard length to her body.
“Sara,” he said, and stayed motionless until she opened her eyes. She found herself trapped in the openness of his expression, the intensity and unexpected tenderness when he said, “If you remember nothing else about me, remember this—you’ve been in my heart all along, even when I was too stubborn, too scared to admit it.”
Tears skimmed along the surface of her soul, adding an aching sweetness to the moment when he shifted and slipped inside her. There was a pang of resistance, a stiffness of muscles long unused; then there was nothing but the feeling of him, of the two of them together. He filled her, surrounded her. Completed her, though she’d always hated the word, and the concept. She was fully complete on her own. But she was more than that when she was with him, she knew, and damned herself for the knowledge.
Twining her arms around his shoulders and turning her face into his neck as he thrust home, she told herself that it was just for tonight, no future or past, no expectations. If she expected nothing, she couldn’t get hurt again, right? Then her body started moving in time with his, in a rhythm as ancient, natural and life-giving as the act of breathing, and she wasn’t thinking anymore. She was feeling.
They surged together and apart, together and apart, loving each other without calling it love. The tempo increased from a slow wave to a slap of flesh on flesh, a building burn of intensity. Sara closed her eyes and pressed her cheek to his, giving herself over to the moment, to the man. Heat spiraled within her, took her over. She burrowed into him, clung to him, shuddered with him as they chased each other over the edge into madness.
The orgasm gripped her in a wave of sharp-edged pleasure, stealing her breath and her thoughts. She bowed back, crying his name as he cut loose within her and came, shuddering in her arms.
Pleasure suffused her, took her over, held her motionless for an eternal moment that ended far too soon. Because once it ended, once the madness dimmed and reality returned, she found herself wrapped around Romo, clinging to him as though he were the only solid object in the universe they’d found themselves in. She might as well cling to quicksilver, she knew, because he wouldn’t stay put, wouldn’t be tamed, no
matter what he said about being a new, improved version of himself.
But even as she thought that, she couldn’t help the wistful wondering of what if? What if he’d truly changed? What if they made it through the next few days somehow? What if there actually could be a future for the two of them, a second chance that wasn’t really a second chance?
“Hush,” he said, kissing her brow.
She frowned up at him. “I didn’t say anything.”
His lips quirked upward in a smile. “You’re thinking very loudly.”
That startled a laugh out of her. “Sorry to disturb you.”
“No problem. But do me a favor and don’t overthink it quite yet, okay? Tomorrow will be here soon enough.” There was a trace of sadness in his words, as though he, too, recognized that they were out of options and plans, that there didn’t seem to be a next strategy to try.
He shifted to his side, and slid from the bed to use the bathroom. When he returned, he slipped in beside her and gathered her close, fitting them together back to front. Looping an arm around her, he linked their fingers over her heart and simply held her as the hotel quieted around them and night took hold.
They dozed for a bit, ordered room service near midnight, made love again and then slept, exhausted. Sara dreamed of him as she hadn’t done since the funeral, which had put a final end—or so she’d thought—to any prospect of them being together ever again. She woke early, just as the sun was starting to lighten the world beyond the window. The dim light showed her his stern profile, gone soft at the edges in postcoital sleep.
He slept sprawled on his stomach, with his face smashed into the soft hotel pillow and one of his hands loosely holding one of her wrists, touching her in sleep as though he feared she might disappear on him.
How many times had she watched him like this, and wondered what he was dreaming? Always before, she’d known he had secrets that drove him, corralled him. Now, knowing about what had happened to him in Vegas, she thought she understood better why he’d had a hard time accepting that he’d fallen for her, and that their relationship should follow the more or less natural progression from dating to lovemaking, to nights spent at each other’s places, to living together.
In retrospect, she was almost surprised they’d gotten that far. Him moving into her house had been his idea, one that had seemed more than reasonable given that they spent most nights there together anyway. It had, again, seemed more than reasonable for him to keep his own apartment for six months or so, in case it didn’t work out, or it turned out they needed more space than offered by her little house. At the time it had all seemed perfectly logical. Now she realized it had been more of a test than she’d realized at the time. He’d been challenging himself, experimenting to see whether he could live with her and still hold a piece of himself apart.
It’d be different for us this time, she thought, though the words rang hollow inside her own skull. That hollowness weighed on her, prompting her to lean in and touch her lips to his, waking him with a kiss.
His lips curved under hers and he kissed her back thoroughly, wonderfully. Humming her pleasure, she moved into him, but he didn’t take it further, instead easing away to look at her, his green eyes serious and searching. “Morning,” he said, but what she thought he meant was, Do you regret last night?
“Morning,” she returned, and let the warmth in her soul turn her lips up in a smile that she hoped answered his questions.
Instead of easing, his expression grew darker. He sat up, pulling the sheet with him to pool in his lap. “Sara, we need to talk, and you’re not going to like what I have to tell you.”
Something froze inside her. Fear flared. Oh, God. What now? Whatever it was, she could see from his face that it was serious, and very bad.
Feeling suddenly too naked and vulnerable, she slipped from the bed, taking the comforter with her as a shield. “Let me get dressed.” She grabbed her clothes and escaped to the bathroom, where she glared at herself in the mirror. “Don’t,” she said harshly, “be an idiot.” That was the only pep talk she could come up with, because she didn’t know what was coming next. It might be some sort of dangerous plan she wouldn’t like—at this point she almost hoped it was, because the alternative was something along the lines of “it’s not you, it’s me.”
Grimly determined not to lose her cool, she washed her face and brushed her teeth with the toiletries they’d had sent up with their room service meal. She heard Romo’s voice out in the other room, and assumed he was ordering breakfast, or at the very least, coffee. Neither of them was at their best before caffeine in the morning. By the time she returned to the main room, he was dressed once again, and had pulled the bed to rights, albeit without the comforter she’d dragged into the bathroom.
Trying not to feel as though he’d tried to erase the evidence of their lovemaking from the hotel room, she returned the comforter to the bed and sat cross-legged at the foot of the mattress, facing him. “Did I hear you calling down for breakfast?”
“Among other things,” he said cryptically. “Coffee and bagels will be up in a few minutes.”
“And after that?” she said, figuring there was nothing to be gained by delaying.
“I don’t need more pentothal,” he said simply.
It took a moment for the words to penetrate, another for her to grasp their meaning. “You remember the rest of it now?” Maybe sleep had helped his brain sort out the flashes. She had the sinking feeling that wasn’t what he was saying, though.
He shook his head, grimacing. “Not just now. I remembered it all right away.” He paused, and then said harshly, “I lied when I told you I didn’t remember anything past the prison break. I had all of it, right up here.” He tapped his temple, as though daring her to respond.
She would have, but she didn’t know how. “What…” She trailed off, brain spinning, and was saved from continuing to flounder when a knock at the door announced the arrival of their coffee and bagels.
Her appetite was gone, but she went for the coffee while Romo tipped the hotel staffer for the delivery. Loaded with cream and sugar, the coffee warmed her where she’d gone cold, steadied her where she’d gone unsteady. Her body vibrated with confusion and the hollow hurt of betrayal, but over all that was a stinging sense of self-disgust that she’d left herself open for his apparent lies and betrayal by doing exactly what she’d promised herself time and again that she wouldn’t do.
Yes, Romo had lied to her; yes, he’d betrayed her. But she’d given him the opportunity and power by letting him back into her heart when she knew better, damn it.
When they were alone again, she returned to her seat on the bed and wrapped her chilled fingers around her mug of coffee. Romo took his own coffee and leaned against the bureau. His eyes never left hers as he lifted his mug and sipped, waiting for her response, braced for the fight, for the recriminations and the blast of her fury.
“I’m not going to yell at you, or get hysterical, or cry and accuse you of being all the things you already know you are,” she said finally, feeling a wave of weariness that cut through her to her bones, chasing away the warmth she’d so recently felt in his arms. “Why bother? It didn’t seem to make an impact one way or the other the last time, and this time is no different.”
Something flashed in his eyes, and he moved as if to set the coffee aside and cross to her, but stopped himself and stayed put. His voice, though, grated with raw intensity when he said, “This time is entirely different. I’m different.”
“Not from where I sit,” she said. When he would’ve argued, she raised a hand to stop him. “Please. Let’s not do this. There are more important things to deal with than who said what, or who did or didn’t do the right thing.” She paused, waiting for his shallow, tight-lipped nod before she said, “Tell me everything.” Which, she suspected, wouldn’t actually be everything. Instead, it would be what he chose to share with her. As usual.
“You were right from the very beginning,” he s
aid, as though that should matter to her at this point. “I can’t tell you all of it, for both our sakes, but suffice it to say that when I was contacted by what I thought could be an arm of al-Jihad’s network, looking for a programmer with federal database experience and an expensive lifestyle, I played along while contacting someone we both trust higher up in the task force. He put me in touch with the right people, and we cobbled together a plan to put me undercover. Al-Jihad’s people faked my death and set me up in that crummy apartment, with a fat offshore account and all the computer power I could want. I hacked into the accounts they told me to, cracked the codes they needed, always just seeing little pieces of the puzzle, never the whole.” He paused and fixed her with a look. “And like I said, I had lots of time alone to think about where I’d gone wrong in my life.”
Sara shook her head. “I can’t care about that anymore.” She knew she should feel vindicated to learn that she’d been right about him, knew she should probably be proud of him for sacrificing his life and his freedom in an effort to bring peace back to Bear Claw. All she could find inside her was emptiness, though. “What was the mission?”
“My federal contact wanted me to find a missing USB key that Lee Mawadi had hidden in a ceramic statue belonging to his wife, Mariah. She had divorced him while he was in prison, but the statue was her mother’s, and had enough sentimental value that he figured she’d keep it with her. Shortly before the prison riot, the task force became aware of the existence of this flash drive, and that the statue had been returned to Mariah’s mother. The FBI almost retrieved it in time, but Mawadi got to one of the drivers, nearly got to Mariah, too. She survived, thanks to her FBI protector, Grayson, but al-Jihad’s people had the flash drive. That was right about when I was first contacted, so the thought—the hope—was that they’d called me in to work on whatever information was contained on the drive. We figured my first few assignments were more tests than anything, so I played them straight, trying to work my way into the terrorists’ confidence.”
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