Memories After Midnight

by Linda Randall Wisdom

  She stood in the shower with her back to the shower-head so Dylan wouldn’t hear her cry. She didn’t leave until she was certain her tears were finished. After dressing in a pair of lilac cotton pajama pants and a lilac lace-trimmed print camisole top, she curled up under the covers with the intention of rolling into the fetal position and whimpering until she fell asleep.

  She’d felt his hunger, tasted it, so why did he reject her? She’d enjoyed it a great deal and was ready for more. Instead, he’d pushed her away, told her it wasn’t the right time.

  As she rolled over onto her side, her gaze fell on the night table. After reading her regrets over the divorce she knew she couldn’t read anymore.

  She never realized a blow to the head could turn her world upside down. Now came the hope she could find a way to get it right before it was too late for her and Dylan. She sensed he was open to a new start for them and she wanted the chance to make it happen.

  “I could make it up to him,” she whispered. “I can show him I’m a different person now.” She glanced at the night table. She stretched out her hand and touched the drawer where she knew her journal lay. She brushed her fingers against the drawer pull with the intention of opening it, then pulled back. She jerked her hand back and tucked it under the sheet before she gave in to temptation and pulled out the journal for some late-night reading.

  Be honest with yourself, Alex. He did the right thing by turning you down out there, a little voice inside her brain whispered. You have to respect a man who has such high principles even if you hate him right now for having them. She turned out the light and closed her eyes tightly as if sleep could come that easily.

  “It would have been nicer if he could have forgotten them for a little while longer,” she whispered with a forlorn sigh.

  Chapter 10

  Dylan had expected a sleepless night. He was already familiar with the fact that Alex’s couch wasn’t exactly designed to provide a restful night’s sleep. Except tonight turned out to be a painful one, too. Alex had turned into one sexy handful the night before and it just about killed him to dissuade her from their indulging in some fresh-air sex on the balcony.

  He had been tempted. Oh, man, had he been tempted! Making love with Alex in the past had been mind-blowing at the very least. They had always been in sync where their desires were concerned. He had a sense that whatever would have happened between them last night would have surpassed anything they’d shared in the past.

  But no, he had to be Mr. Nice Guy. He couldn’t even toss and turn on the couch if he didn’t want to end up on the carpet. As it was, he ended up sharing the couch with Clarence.

  “Come on, cat. You have a perfectly good bed in the office,” he grumbled, punching his pillow with more force than necessary. “Why don’t you go use it?”

  He shouldn’t have been a gentleman. He should have given in and put them both out of their misery. He should have done what felt right and damn the consequences when the light of day hit them.

  “That will teach me,” he muttered, rolling over onto his side. He was just drifting off to a troubled sleep when a whisper of a sound alerted him he wasn’t alone. He sat up and looked toward the darkened hallway leading to the other rooms. Alex stood in the archway. Her pajamas were badly rumpled with one strap hanging off her shoulder. Even though she’d gone to bed an hour earlier, she was already sporting a serious case of bed head. She looked every bit as miserable as he felt.

  “Come here, you,” he softly invited.

  She wasted no time running over to the couch and dropped onto the cushion by him. She picked up Clarence and set him in her lap as if she needed to hold on to something.

  “I feel as if we had a fight instead of—” she whispered. A lone tear trickled down her cheek. “I don’t want to fight with you, Dylan. My memory may have all these gaps, but I do know that something bad happened in the past. I wish I could remember what it was because then maybe I could find a way to fix it. Since that isn’t possible, can we at least get past that? Is there any chance we could try for a new start?” she appealed to him.

  If Dylan tried to harden his heart against Alex it would have melted before she got two words out. All he had to do was look at her hopeful expression and hear the sincerity in her voice.

  She could stomp on your heart all over again, buddy, the logical side of his brain whispered. And you’d be left behind, picking up the pieces.

  Or you could have pure heaven, the hopeful side also whispered.

  He reached out and whisked away the tear with his thumb before he picked up the cat and deposited him on the floor. Clarence shot him a dirty look and stalked off with his tail held high. “A new start sounds good to me.” He pulled her onto his lap and settled back against the cushions. Alex sighed with relief and curled up against him with her head on his shoulder.

  “I just feel so scared,” she admitted in a whisper. “All I remember is that if it wasn’t for you I’d be alone. I know it sounds crazy, but I don’t feel safe unless I’m with you.”

  “You’re a brave and strong woman, Alex,” he assured her, smoothing her hair away from her face. “You can handle anything that comes your way. Look how well you’ve handled dealing with your memory gaps.”

  “I don’t feel brave and strong when someone out there hurt me and apparently means to hurt me again.” She buried her face against the curve of his shoulder. “I look all around me and I see nothing but strangers.”

  “I know it’s taking time, but you’ll work through this,” he soothed, running his hand down her spine in slow, relaxing strokes. “You’ll learn to adjust and handle all this just fine. I have faith in you, Al.”

  She lifted her head slightly so she could look into his face. “You do, don’t you? You’re not just saying that to make me feel better. You really mean what you say.”

  “Of course I do.” He framed her face with his hands. “You’ve always had grit, Alex. Maybe it took what happened for you to realize that there’s nothing wrong with a little change in your life.”

  “But I haven’t realized it,” she argued.

  “Sure you did. You just don’t want to admit it. But I saw it,” Dylan said softly. “Remember what Celeste told you. Even if your memory doesn’t fully return you’ll still be fine.”

  She pondered what he said. “Meaning there’s no reason why I can’t make changes in my life,” she murmured.

  “Sure you can.” He couldn’t help wondering just what changes she might plan on making. He liked this new Alex a lot and he wanted to stick around and see what she’d do with her new self.

  “Which is why I hope we can start over,” Alex said quickly, as if she wanted to say the words before she lost her nerve. “Will you give me that chance?” She looked deeply into his eyes to convey her sincerity.

  Dylan studied Alex as if he’d never seen her before. The minimal light cast shadows on Alex’s face as she gazed down at him. As far as he was concerned, there was no choice to make. That decision had been made for him long ago. Time might have passed along with a lot of animosity flowing between them, but a knock on the head had changed all that and they were at different stages of their lives. She was right. It was time for that new start. He inhaled the soft, powdery scent of her skin.

  “I’d like that.” He knew he was throwing caution right out the window by saying that, but God help him, he’d never really fallen out of love with her.

  Her smile of relief lit up her face. “I want to do things right,” she vowed.

  “Then why don’t we start with doing a little recreating of what we started earlier?” he asked.

  The slightest curve of her lips gave him hope.

  “I don’t know why that can’t be arranged,” she murmured, placing her hands on his bare shoulders.

  “Then come here,” he growled, pulling her closer to him and fastening his mouth on hers. The minute his mouth touched hers, the heat flared up like wildfire—and this time, he was going to give in to it. He wra
pped his arms around her as she lifted one leg over and settled herself in his lap. She obliged him by resting her legs on either side of his, setting her hips directly against his. She started to wiggle against him, but he stilled her restless movements. She looped her arms around his neck. “Slow and easy,” he murmured. “Even if it kills me, we’re going to take this slow and easy.”

  She ducked her head and gently fastened her teeth on his earlobe. “Don’t worry, Dylan, I intend to keep you alive.” A teasing note entered her voice as she whispered in his ear. “Now, where were we?” Her hand trailed slowly down his bare chest, pausing when she reached the waistband to his boxers. She fingered the fabric circling his waist. He reflexively sucked in a breath that compacted his already-flat stomach.

  “Oh, no need to do that. You have the six-pack abs,” she assured him, sliding first one finger then two under the waistband, pulling it out just a bit. She dipped her head and trailed her lips across the line of his jaw. “Everything is nice…and hard.” Her lips curved in a teasing smile.

  New Alex, new moves. He toyed with the strap that drooped down her arm. With a graceful movement, she raised her arm up, freeing it from the strap. Keeping his eyes on her, he pulled her top off and tossed it back over his shoulder. She brought his eyes to her bare breasts as she raised her arms over her head in a graceful motion before settling them back on his shoulders. Her pale skin gave off an ethereal gleam in the dim light.

  “Alex, you are so beautiful you take my breath away,” he murmured, tracing the delicate lines of her collarbone. He couldn’t help but notice that she was leaner than she had been when they were married. He used his hands to trace random circles around her breast, feeling the skin heat under his touch. “Fire and ice,” he murmured, dipping his head to taste her again. “You’re all mine.” He felt a primal possessive emotion rear up inside as the words echoed around them. “All mine,” he repeated as he captured her mouth with his. He quickly discovered that slow and easy wasn’t an option when her taste flooded his senses. She lifted her hips as he pulled her pajama pants down and pushed them away, then rose up so she could do the same with his boxers. He silently vowed it would be slow and easy next time. It had been too long for them, and this primal connection was something they both needed.

  He threaded his fingers through the red curling hair at the juncture of her thighs and found her damp and receptive. He kept his gaze on her face as he pressed his fingers up and inward. Alex uttered a soft moan and murmured his name over and over again as his movements first quickened then eased back to intensify the pleasure. With her hair wild about her shoulders and skin bearing a rosy flush, she looked like any red-blooded man’s ideal dream woman. The powdery fragrance of her skin deepened with the musky scent of a woman aroused by her mate. It only made him hungrier for her. He was eager to fully claim her as his own. When she ducked her head and covered his mouth with her own, he thrust his tongue between her parted lips, mimicking his fingers’ movement inside her body. Except too soon it wasn’t enough and they needed more.

  When Dylan moved to thrust upward, she sat back, holding his shoulders down to stop any movement.

  “Easy, boy,” she murmured. She reached down and circled him with her fingers. Dylan hissed, as if he had been seared by incredible heat. As she guided his shaft into her, she kissed him with a passion that hadn’t been present during any of the times they’d made love.

  Dylan swore his nerve endings fairly hummed as Alex moved her hips in counterpoint to his thrusting. He kept his eyes on her body sinuously moving in an ancient cadence that heated his blood to a boiling point.

  “Okay, we’ll try slow and easy next time,” he groaned as he felt his body tighten to the point of pleasure pain. He rubbed his fingers against the sensitive nub that had Alex gasping.

  The minute Dylan buried himself deeply inside Alex, he felt as if their separation had never happened. Or perhaps like Alex, he conveniently forgot that painful period known as the end of their marriage. All he knew was that what was between them was something very special and it felt very right.

  He clenched his jaw against the pleasurable agony of her tightening her inner muscles as he started to withdraw. She bore down on him, tightening her muscles around him.

  “Yes.” Her sigh came out as a sexy whisper. “Please, Dylan.” She tightened her muscles more to keep him deeply within her.

  He would have given her anything including the world. He would have thrown in the entire galaxy if it meant she didn’t leave him again. As his movements quickened, she held on to him tighter, whispered his name over and over until she was lost in the same sensual whirlpool. He covered her mouth with his, muffling her cries.

  “Dylan,” Alex murmured, sounding as satisfied as he felt. Her sigh moved her breasts up against his chest. “Wouldn’t we be a lot more comfortable in the bed?”

  He rested his forehead against hers. “Yeah, just as soon as I have the energy to move. Which might be in a year or two…or five.”

  She chuckled softly. “As far as I can tell you’re moving pretty good right now.”

  Dylan’s muscles may have felt like mush, but he knew that parts of his body were recovering quickly.

  He carried Alex back to the bedroom and lightly tossed her onto the bed. He wasted no time in joining her on the tumbled covers, rolling over onto his side. He turned over to switch on the lamp by the bed, which threw a soft light throughout the room.

  Alex laughed and turned over onto her stomach to lie alongside him. “Did I happen to tell you that you are incredible?” She ran her nail down the center of his chest, through the light dusting of gray hair that matched the hair on his head. She absently wound a tuft around her finger. “Whoever said that gray-haired men are old doesn’t know just how hot they are.”

  He was too engrossed in the seductive sight of her shapely bottom and one leg bent at the knee, her foot waving idly back and forth, to concentrate on what she was saying.

  “Dylan! Are you listening to me?” She grabbed hold of a tuft of chest hair and playfully pulled on it.

  “Ow! I am now!” He grabbed hold of her hands before she inflicted more damage. “I’m listening to every word you’re saying,” he said, even as his gaze drifted over her bare back and beyond.

  “Maybe you can concentrate now.” She ignored Dylan’s groan of dismay as she reached down and pulled the sheet up over her. She touched his cheek with her fingertips. “Thank you,” she said softly. “Thank you for giving me something so beautiful when I know you could have told me to go away again.”

  “I didn’t want to reject you earlier,” he admitted, understanding she needed to keep the tone serious right now. “I was trying to be a gentleman.”

  “I already know you’re a gentleman. I wanted my hu—lover back.” She picked at the stitched hem of the sheet. Her whisper was so low her words barely reached his ears, even though they lay close together. “My memory might not be perfect right now, but I do know that I miss you.” She drew a deep, shuddering breath. “I think I always have and probably didn’t want to admit it.” She managed the smallest of smiles. “I’m very stubborn.”

  Dylan chuckled. “The red hair is a pretty good indication.” He thought he was falling before, but now he knew that fall was pretty much complete. Alex had woven her web around him and had well and truly snared him. He couldn’t even blame it on their lovemaking, because he was falling before then. It was her vulnerability that reeled him in and he wasn’t the least bit unwilling. He thought of all the changes he’d seen in her the past few days. The one that stood out was that Alex wasn’t the utterly focused, self-assured and driven woman she had been before. “Stubborn is good sometimes.”

  “Such as when I pushed you to keep me in the loop on this investigation.” She shifted her position so she could rest her upper body on her elbows. “You make me forget things,” she admitted.

  “And that’s a bad thing?”

  “I know that Detective Whitmire wants to shelve
the case,” she said quietly.

  He pressed his fingers against her lips, but she shook her head. “He has to take what happened to you on the street into consideration,” he pointed out.

  “Almost happened to me,” she corrected him. “For all we know it was a careless driver who wasn’t looking. And he did honk a warning. Detective Whitmire doesn’t think the attacker will be caught. How do we know he hasn’t left town?”

  “And how do we know he has?” Dylan argued. “Call it a gut feeling, Alex, but I think those two guys are still out there waiting for another opportunity.”

  “We don’t even know what they want.” She sat up, curling her legs under her body. “I feel as if we’re starring in some spy drama where the villain is after a stolen roll of microfilm. We looked through my suitcase and briefcase but didn’t find anything. And the cell phone returned was mine, so it isn’t as if I picked up someone else’s by mistake. The same with the PDA.”

  Dylan climbed out of bed. “Hold that thought. I’ll be right back.” He left the room and returned, now dressed in his boxers. “I don’t want to distract you,” he said wryly, stretching out on the sheets. “Good idea, by the way, thinking that you might have somehow picked up someone else’s cell or PDA.” He grinned at Alex’s look of glowing pride at her detecting skills.

  “And my notebook computer is password-protected, so they couldn’t get into it easily.”

  “Unless they know your birth date,” he muttered.

  “It’s easy to remember,” she said huffily. “I don’t like having to remember different passwords for different situations. I’ve never had problems before.”

  “That doesn’t mean you’re immune. Your password is too easy to figure out. Throw in some extra numbers or a few letters. Use Clarence’s name if you want something easy to remember. You need to get some street smarts, Alex.”