“It was ‘Falling in Love Again.’” He took her hand in his and she moved into him, putting her head on his shoulder as he lay back on the couch.
With a line like that, she couldn’t have resisted the temptation to lie in his arms even if she had wanted to. For these few hours, she could let go and pretend the world wasn’t waiting for them, that there was no hurt in the past, and this pocket of time was theirs forever.
As she listened to his heartbeat and the steady rhythm of his breathing, she thought of love. It was a strange word, a beautiful word, but odd nonetheless. It was a single syllable, and a word that could be said in a simple breath. It could mean a thousand different things: an emphasis added flippantly to everything from pizza to lovers, or it could be a whispered promise of forever, or it could be shouted to the heavens as a way to say goodbye. To every person, every relationship, every moment, it meant something different.
Their love, that love of the past, was gone. They had carried its weight together for years. Sometimes it had been like a feather, while at others it had been like a bag of stones—one that threatened to drown them in the depths of life.
Once she had let it go, that love was gone, forever.
She liked to think they could find a new definition for the feelings that welled within her as he ran his fingers down the length of her arm, making goose bumps rise on her skin.
But she wasn’t sure if she was ready, as love could also be defined as fear.
Chapter Twelve
He had made so many mistakes in his life, but none had been greater than watching Zoey leave him and doing nothing about it. They had both been hurting, and yet instead of moving closer to her, he had felt himself growing further away. At the time, he thought it would protect him, but he had also thought it would protect her. He had so much anger in those days.
That anger had quickly turned to rage and destruction—but the one thing he hadn’t wanted to bring down and destroy was what they had built together.
Once he had heard a statistic that couples that experienced a stillbirth were twenty-two percent more likely than the average couple to break up.
They had never really talked about having children, but when he learned he was to be a father the world shifted beneath him. Colors were brighter. Food tasted better. It was easier to get through the day. His anxiety lessened. Everything, even down to the way he brushed his teeth, changed. With the knowledge that they were having a baby came the feeling that his life now truly held purpose. It was strange, but he found comfort in the idea that he had been put on this planet to do something more. He was a father.
During those few blissful months, nothing else mattered—only them, their love and the family they were going to build.
And just like that, when he saw the pale, lifeless face of his daughter, it was all stripped away.
Though years had passed, there was still an ache in his heart as he recalled all they had lost.
Though there was no going back in time and there was no fixing the hurt that still lay between them, as he touched her skin, he allowed himself to pretend the well of pain had finally run dry.
He kissed the top of her head and she sighed, the sound relaxed and pleased. She must have felt as safe as he did. They had found one another again.
She moved against him, lifting his hand to her lips and kissing his fingers. Her touch was so unexpectedly sensual that his body stirred to life. He ran his thumb over the soft pink curves of her lips and as he did, she smiled and looked up at him.
He knew that look. Oh, that saucy, sexy look. Any resistance his body had in awakening fell away.
He wanted her. And there was no doubt in his mind that she wanted him.
They could surrender to this moment and let it erase the last bits of their feelings from the past. But there would be no going back if they went down this wonderful, erotic path.
Zoey had always been an animal in bed. Hands down the best he’d ever had.
When she made love, her body was like rose petals opening and curling as they came into the rays of ecstasy.
In watching her body move, he had always been forced to be mindful as he feared letting himself go and cutting short the beauty before him.
If he could spend a million lifetimes watching her atop of him, it would still not have been long enough.
There was nothing, and no one who could compare to her.
Part of what made her who she was were also a few broken pieces. Some of those pieces were from family, friends and former lovers, but too many of the cracks were put there by him. If he wanted a future with her, he needed to work to help her heal those parts or he would risk losing her again.
The thought of never having her in his arms had haunted him for too long as it was. He couldn’t go back to living that way. If that meant not having sex with her, or limiting how far they went right now, it was a sacrifice he was willing to make.
He needed her. Forever.
And though they were close right now, one misstep, and Zoey would pull away. It was what she did. It had taken him so long to break down those walls the last time, and he had been foolish enough to allow them to be rebuilt in his absence.
He would need to be careful doing what he knew needed to be done. He didn’t want her to feel rejected. That was the last thing that he could allow to happen. She could be so strong, so resilient, but if he chipped at her ego there was no question that she would resent him for it.
She moved her body up his, rubbing her hand over his pants in her ascent. “Did you ever think of me when we were apart?” she cooed.
“Every minute of every day.”
She paused for a moment, reading his face like she wasn’t sure whether or not she could believe him.
Didn’t she know he wasn’t like other dudes? He didn’t need one-liners to get a woman in bed.
“Did you think of this?” she whispered, her breath brushing against his lips even more gently than his finger had brushed over hers.
She leaned in, and their lips met. Bursts of endorphins exploded in his brain, making him feel as though little fireworks were going off throughout his body. Though it felt amazing, he was certain that if he allowed them to continue, he would undoubtedly get burned.
But he couldn’t pull away.
Not yet.
He reached up, spreading his fingers through her loose hair as he cupped her face in his hands.
She tasted of vodka, ginger, the past and a hint of the future. He had almost forgotten what it felt like to kiss her, the way she sucked in a breath and released it as a low, throaty moan as her body moved against him.
Climbing atop him, she straddled him and rocked her hips.
Damn.
He wanted to rip off her clothes and take her there. Forget the consequences. Just feel her. All of her.
She rolled again, and her breasts rubbed against his cheek as she moved.
He couldn’t stop his tender, lusty hum as he buried his face in her cleavage. She smelled of sweet sweat and the fragrance he knew so well.
It was all too much. If he didn’t turn away now, he would never be able to.
If he took the risk and made love to her, so many things could go wrong.
He kissed the supple skin of her left breast, then the right in greeting. It had been so long and after tonight, he might never have the chance to be this close to her heart again.
His lips grazed her cashmere skin as he pulled back and lowered his head against her chest.
He wanted it all. Everything they had to offer. And, in the stolen moment, he knew that was more than either of them could give.
“You are fantastic.” He exhaled, trying to gain control over his body and his mind.
“I can’t believe we are here again. I’ve missed you.” She ran her fingers through his hair, gently tugging as she moved.
“I’ve missed you, too,” he said, hoping she would not misread what he needed to say. “Every day I thought of you and our child.”
She leaned back from him, like the word child was an electric shock to her system. That wasn’t the reaction he had wanted, but he wasn’t surprised. There would always be pain there no matter how much time went by.
But they needed to move forward. Even if it wasn’t together, a pain like that must be confronted, dealt with and then not allowed to embitter. If allowed, pain like that could break a person. He knew all too well, as it had broken him.
He would never forget the promises that had grown in her belly, and the dreams of a future that never came, but he couldn’t keep reliving their loss. That was no kind of life.
She said nothing as she looked at him. In a way, he was glad she did not want to talk about the baby, especially now. And perhaps he had made a mistake in bringing it up, but it had fallen from his lips thanks to the purple haze created in his mind by her touch.
“I want you,” he said, his hands drifting down until they rested on her fleshy hips. She was so close to perfect, that it pained him to see her looking at him like that, like she was just waiting for the next zap.
Which made what he had to say that much harder. The old adage of damned if you do, damned if you don’t popped into his head.
“You know I want you,” he said, moving beneath her so she could feel exactly what she did to him. “But I’m... I think if we do this, you’ll come to resent me.”
She opened her mouth as if to speak, but slowly closed it again. It was as if she wanted to argue with him, to tell him what he was saying wasn’t true, but she must have realized he was right.
“We only just came back into each other’s lives, and I don’t know that either one of us is healed enough. I’m afraid if we do this, and you let me back in your life like this, I’m going to want to stay in it. And I can’t lose you. I can’t go through that kind of heartache ever again. You tore out my heart.”
There was a slight sheen to her eyes, and she blinked back the start of her tears. “I get it, Eli. I wish none of that had ever happened,” she whispered.
He wanted to tell her that she had done nothing wrong, that he could understand her reaction and why she had screamed out of his life. However, he didn’t completely understand. And even if she tried to explain it to him, he wasn’t sure that would ever make it okay. But what he did understand was that there was no going back in time. There were no redos.
There was only forgiveness.
“Thank you. And I’m sorry for pulling away. I just didn’t know how to deal with everything.”
“I didn’t, either.” She moved off him, saving him the agony of having to tell her that he couldn’t make love to her right now. “I often wonder if our jobs destroy a certain element of our soul that makes us capable of being vulnerable. You know?” She moved to the couch beside him and picked up her drink, taking a long sip like it was a salve for the wounds that rested within her.
He wasn’t sure he agreed. He felt pretty damned vulnerable right now.
She set her glass down, ice clinking against the sides of the cup like a bell tolling to mark a funeral. Sadness welled within him. Though logically he had known the decision to pull away was right, it felt as though he was losing her again as he watched her stand up and walked back to her seat.
Her movements carried an air of finality—an air he had seen before.
* * *
HE TRIED TO catch some sleep on the rest of the flight, but what little he had gotten was spent restless with dreams of firefights and lost battles. Every time he looked over at Zoey, she was clicking away on her computer and carefully ignoring him.
The ground they had gained in their friendship seemed lost.
Maybe it was better this way. Some hurts were just too big, too defining, too much.
As the wheels of the jet touched down, she finally looked up at him. Her eyes were bloodshot, and he would have assumed she had been crying if he hadn’t known better—she had never been the kind to shed a tear, not when she could stuff away emotions and try to forget they were there.
“We will find him,” Eli said, decidedly turning the conversation away from them and back to just her. She and her family needed the most help right now. The rest could wait.
“I hope so. I looked everywhere, but found nothing.” There was a depth in her voice that made him unsure exactly what she meant.
He wanted to tell her that life had a way of working things out as they should be, but even he didn’t believe that. Life was a constant kick in the butt.
“We’ll keep looking. We won’t stop looking until we find him, I promise.”
She smiled as she stood up and motioned for him to take the lead. As they made their way out of the plane, the Spanish heat washed over them. The city smelled of dust, poverty and the forgotten sea.
The airport staff loaded their luggage into the waiting car as they got in. It didn’t take long to get on the highway that led to Sitges and their waiting hotel.
As they drove, they passed by the wall of catacombs, the few occupants of the city who seemed interested in the ocean that washed against the city’s stony cliffs. The graves were walled in glass and as they passed by, curiosity drove him to search for the skeletons of the long dead.
The city of the dead was macabre and strangely beautiful, a far cry from the American style of death and memorial in which loved ones were forgotten and tucked away at the edges of society. Here, they were given a view, a place in everyday life, and thought of even by those, like him, who bore no ancestry.
As they twisted through the tunnels carved into the mountainsides, he thought about his searching of the graves. Perhaps there was something really wrong with him in the fact that instead of focusing on what could be, he found himself searching for ashes and bone.
When they arrived at the small European-style hotel, they were ushered in by staff and called by name. Zoey made a point of grabbing her bag, as though she were afraid someone might steal it.
As they checked in and followed the bellhop toward their room, she leaned into him and whispered, “Do you think everybody in Spain knows we’re here?”
He chuckled, but beneath his mirth was the realization she may have been right. People were watching them as they strode through the lobby. “There’s plenty of tourists that come to this area. We’re going to blend right in.”
She glanced around as they made their way up the set of double-winding staircases. The place was quiet, the only sounds besides their footsteps and the slight humming coming from the bellhop was the chatter from a small bar offset from the lobby.
He had made sure to get two rooms that adjoined one another thanks to a small interior door. He would leave it up to her whether or not she left the door unlocked. Either way, he wasn’t sure he minded—by giving her the decision, it kept his mind from running in circles.
He watched her enter her room. With a nod, she closed the door behind her.
He had been wrong in thinking they could take their relationship to the next level in the future. Though the world would always keep moving forward, and they could function as a team, they had proven that two people could go through the motions of the present and stay firmly entrenched in the past.
Chapter Thirteen
Zoey couldn’t believe she had let things get that far with Eli yesterday. As fun as it was to fantasize about being with him again, reality was another thing entirely. There was a chasm of wounds between them that ran too deep and too wide for them to ever cross.
It was never her intention to hurt him, rather just save herself. She had known that there would be collateral damage when she left, but she had thought he was so much stronger than the man who had kissed her last night.
She looked at the door that rested between the two hotel rooms. For a second,
she thought about going over there and opening the door and letting him back into her life. But she wasn’t sure she was ready. Instead, she scrolled through her phone and looked for more search results in hopes of finding Chad. Nothing. Always nothing.
A few times throughout the night, she had wondered if the video they had seen at the bank was even real. It was almost as if he were a ghost, slipping in and out of this world and teasing her with his presence.
She pulled a hair dye kit out of her bag and went to the bathroom. The pink had started to fade in her hair, and though she knew she could fit in with any color hair here in Spain, she decided on brown teak. The color was bland and indistinguishable from the masses. Hopefully, she could dress down enough to disappear. The last thing she needed was for them to be spotted before they could get in touch with Chad.
There was a knock on the front door as she let the color set.
She took one look at herself in the mirror. There was nothing sexier than a woman wearing a clear plastic shower cap and yesterday’s makeup. Maybe this was what Eli needed to see in order to bring him back into the reality of who she really was.
But as she walked to the door, she hurriedly tried to wipe the mascara from under her eyes.
There was another knock at the door, more impatient this time.
“I’m coming.” She opened the door, and standing there in the hallway was room service complete with silver platters of Spanish pastries and silver-domed plates on a fully loaded rolling trolley.
“I have the breakfast your friend ordered,” the man pushing the trolley said as he struggled to look anywhere but at the mess on her head.
She stepped back and motioned for him to bring the trolley into the room. As the man walked by her, the scent of oatmeal, coffee, sausage, beans and eggs wafted toward her and made her mouth water. She reached into her wallet and grabbed some cash for the man as he made his way out.
Eli must have known she would forget to order breakfast for herself. As she closed the door, she caught another glimpse of herself in the mirror. Perhaps she was getting to see who Eli really was, as well.
Her Assassin For Hire (Stealth Series Book 3) Page 10