If Tomorrow Never Comes (Harper Falls Book 2)

by Williams, Mary J.

  She had fought hard to overcome her false image of a delicate flower. Women envied her curling locks and men wanted to wrap her in cotton and protect her. They also wanted to fuck her. Most of them loved the idea of her being too fragile to do anything but lift a cup of tea. That, and spread her legs. Sometimes participation wasn't even necessary. She only had to lie there and let the big, strong man have his way.

  One time a guy had spent five minutes arranging her hair over the pillows, making sure all her tresses lay just so.

  Dani had been so appalled that she had let him, fascinated in spite of herself. He'd seemed so normal. Five dates and he'd done nothing more than compliment her on how beautiful she was. Flattering. Nothing weird. How could she have known that the guy had a full on hair fetish? When he'd finally gotten everything just right, he'd rushed to get his camera and Dani had rushed out the door.

  Determined to make a change, Dani found a beauty shop the moment she got to Lisbon. It didn't matter that no one in the shop spoke English or that Dani's Portuguese consisted of ten or twelve basic words. When she walked out two hours later, she was unrecognizable.

  Gone were the waving white gold locks. In their place was a severe, short cut dyed an unrelenting black. The woman in charge of her transformation had been close to tears during the entire process, but Dani had loved every minute. She'd never understood why people worried so much about their hair. If she wanted to, she could always let it grow—and bring back her original color. But for now she was free of her fairy princess image. When Dani looked in the mirror, she was no longer a delicate flower but a kick- ass woman. It was exactly what she had needed to start this new chapter in her life.

  The first thing she did to help herself embrace the new Dani was take a picture and send it off to Tyler and Rose. She also made them promise not to show it to any of her family. Dani might be a fully grown, independent woman, but she had enough little girl in her to worry about what her mother's reaction was going to be. Better to break it to her gradually. Or better yet, not tell her at all.

  Setting aside her excitement over her new look, Dani got down to the business that had brought her here in the first place. She thought her job was going to be a great way to get her feet wet in her chosen profession. She had been hired by an online travel magazine to capture the unknown Portugal. They wanted her to skip all the usual touristy spots and concentrate on where people her age liked to hang out. What did they do during the heat filled June days? Where were the trendy places they partied at during the sultry nights?

  Dani knew she would never find the answers staying at the generic travel lodge she'd been booked into, so she used the internet—and a few recommendations from friends who were seasoned travelers, to find a funkier, younger hotel. After she had checked in, Dani set out on foot, camera ready, to explore the city.

  It hadn't taken much time to connect with a couple of women her own age who were willing to show her where Lisbon's hip kids hung out. Dani had always found it easy to make friends, so it wasn't long before they were laughing and talking as if they'd known each other for years. Soon, they were inviting her to join them that night at a club just off the main downtown strip. Very hot and very exclusive, Acesso, which translated to access in English, was the perfect place for her to start her assignment. If she had a little fun along the way? Well, that was a bonus that she was more than happy to take advantage of.

  Dani might have been in a foreign country, but she knew clubs like Acesso pretty much had the same dress code no matter where in the world they were located. Deciding that nothing she had matched her new hair, Dani spent the afternoon shopping. Her budget didn't allow for anything too extravagant so she asked her new friends for some suggestions. Happy to oblige, they steered her to the Portuguese equivalent of an American thrift store. Not only did she find exactly what she was looking for, but she was able to get some great photos for her article. She had a bounce in her step when she set out later that night. So far, her new life was going better than she could have dreamed. But she wasn't going to go crazy.

  As giddy as she was, she knew how to take precautions. She was not going to break her parent's hearts by becoming a statistic. Dani might have been young, but she wasn't naïve. She knew the dangers that a woman of any age faced when she traveled alone in a foreign country. She also knew that just because the girls she had met earlier had seemed completely safe, she would be a fool to put herself in any unnecessarily precarious situations. As such, she'd agreed to meet them instead of being picked up and she left word with both Rose and Tyler so they knew where she was going and with whom. Better safe than sorry.

  As it turned out, she had nothing to be sorry about.

  The club could have been anywhere in the world. There were the same strobing lights, same synthesized dance music, and the same pickup lines—just spoken in a different language. Dani chuckled to herself when she realized this was one time she didn't need an interpreter. Hey gorgeous, what’s your number, sounds the same no matter what country you were in.

  Dani spent the first hour surreptitiously taking pictures with the most unobtrusive camera she owned. She didn't need much, just some action shots that captured the vibe of the club. Everyone was too involved with their little games to notice her, which was what she wanted. It was important the shots be informal and unposed. Happy with her efforts, she put her work away and got down to enjoy the rest of the evening.

  "Can I buy you a drink?"

  Dani shouldn't have been surprised to hear an American accent—tourists were everywhere. But this club didn't cater to an international crowd. She planned on politely turning down the offer. If she was going to start something, she wanted a change of pace from what she got at home.

  Then she looked into his eyes and knew no matter how hard she searched, she would never find this at home. This man was so far out of her ordinary that she wondered for a moment if she had conjured him up in her overactive imagination.

  His hair was short—really short. Maybe a military cut? Seeing a set of dog tags peaking out of his white cotton button down shirt, Dani congratulated herself. Nice get, Dani. In the dimly lit club, it was hard to tell if his hair was black or brown, but there was no question about his eyes. They were like melted dark chocolate and filled with a kind of warm good humor that made her oddly giddy. Dani wasn't a stranger to good looking men, but this one had something that set him apart. There was no defining it, it just was.

  On top of that, he looked like a good kisser. At least she hoped he was. It would have been criminal for a mouth like his to go to waste. He had a full lower lip just begging to be bitten and then soothed with a stroke of her tongue.

  "Is it a tough question?" His voice was low and easy to hear even in the din of the surrounding voices and music.

  Right—he had asked her something. A drink.

  "I'm not much of a drinker when I'm out at a club."

  He watched her for a moment as though carefully considering her words.

  "Smart. You never know what someone might slip into your drink." He leaned closer, his eyes filled with concern.

  "I hope you didn't learn that the hard way."

  Was this guy for real? Dani had never been much of a club scene person, but when she did go, the guys always seemed to be pushing drinks at her. Turn them down? They just pushed harder. They couldn't grasp the concept of not getting falling down drunk and hooking up with the most attractive person that would have you. But this guy? Mister Military? He not only understood but was concerned that she might have been assaulted sometime in her past. She thought this kind of guy had gone out of style with her father.

  "Sorry, too personal?"

  "No," she answered, then added, "to both questions." Dani realized that she needed to start keeping up her end of the conversation. Long pauses were a good way to have him lose interest. And that was the last thing she wanted.

  "Would you like to get out of here? There's a coffee house just down the street and I promise not
to try anything."

  With a nod, Dani preceded him out of the club.

  The air outside, though still warm, felt good on Dani's skin. They walked in companionable silence until she realized she didn't even know his name.

  "I'm Dani, by the way. Dani Wilde."

  "Dani?

  "Jordanna, to be exact. But I've always been called Dani, thank goodness."

  "Alex Fleming."

  Nice name. But she couldn't resist teasing.

  "Alex?"

  His smile was brief, but it brought her eyes back to that amazing lower lip. She really had to find out if it was as soft and luscious as it looked.

  "Just Alex." He held the door to the coffee house open for her. "I know it's boring, but my parents wanted to give their children simple names. I don't know why but they have an aversion to nicknames."

  Dani let him seat her and waited until Alex sat down opposite her.

  "So what you're telling me is, it’s a good thing I'll probably never meet your parents."

  "You know, I was hoping you'd miss that," Alex laughed. "My folks wouldn't have a problem with your name, Dani."

  "You're sure?" It felt so natural, the teasing back and forth. She was enjoying his company immensely.

  "Almost positive," he winked. "I've known them all of my life and I can say with very little hesitation that they have no prejudice against people with nicknames."

  "Well, that's a ringing endorsement. Almost positive and very little hesitation?"

  "I've found that nothing is a dead certainty. Just when you think you know something unequivocally, that's when it gives you a roundhouse kick in the face."

  "Ouch," Dani winced. "Did you learn that bit of wisdom in the Army?"

  "It's that obvious, huh?"

  "Between the haircut and the dog tags, yeah, pretty obvious."

  Alex gave her a long, penetrating look. She wondered if he liked what he saw. Just yesterday she would have presented an entirely different picture. Would he have approached her if her hair were long and blond? She would never know. Alex seemed to like edgier women, women like her. Right then she was even happier with her decision to lose the princess and embrace the badass.

  They talked until dawn. The subject matter wasn't terribly deep, just getting to know each other stuff. He told her about growing up in Baltimore and that he had one sibling, a sister. She told him about her parents and brother, and the two women she considered sisters, Rose and Tyler.

  Never a big coffee drinker, Dani nursed one cappuccino while Alex went through the straight, strong stuff like it was water. Around five a.m. they split a sweet roll, the name of which Dani stumbled over, but the words rolled off Alex's tongue as if he were a native.

  Languages had always come easily to him, he explained. In high school, he had aced French and Spanish without breaking a sweat. When she asked him how many he spoke and if he'd learned them after he joined the Army, Alex tensed briefly. She had already noticed that he did that any time they came close to talking about what his job was. It didn't take much deduction on her part to put the few pieces together. An easy grasp of languages, lots of secrecy. Maybe she had seen too many movies but she would have bet that he was involved in military intelligence. Not wanting to put a damper on what so far had been a near perfect night, Dani quickly changed the subject.

  "Why the Army? Do you have any family in the military?"

  Relaxing again, Alex shook his head. "There wasn't any money for college and my grades weren't scholarship material, so the day after graduation I joined up."

  After that the conversation looped back to her and why she had become a photographer.

  Alex sat back as Dani launched into an animated explanation. God, she was gorgeous. The moment he saw her, he had been hit by an attraction like nothing he had ever known. He'd known that he had to meet her, and after that, he'd known that he had to get her alone. He was glad he had given in and let his buddies talk him into going out. If he had had his way, he would be sleeping away his leave instead of sitting here with the most interesting woman he had ever met.

  This trip to Portugal had been his first real break in almost a year. Other than the odd weekend off, Alex's schedule had been non-stop. He needed to get away, both he and his superiors knew it. They told him to leave everything behind—clear his mind and refresh his body. To Alex, that meant turning off his phone and locking himself in a light-tight room for a marathon sleep session. To his buddies, it meant getting their all too serious friend away to play. And the first stop once they reached Lisbon? The hottest club in town—Acesso.

  He knew his friends were trying to help. Alex had a reputation as an intense, driven individual. He would spend hours, days, even weeks pouring over intelligence reports until he cracked the problem. And when he was in the field? No one was tougher. His team knew their backs were covered when Alex was around.

  They also knew, when the moment was right, Alex Fleming could let loose with the best of them. In his early Army days, there had been some epic parties. The women had been left smiling and the stories were still being told. He had been nineteen, and his motto was—work hard, play harder.

  Four years later, his party days were less frequent. A few beers with the guys and a hot woman in his bed was about as wild as he had gotten in some time. When his friends pulled him along on their quest for debauchery, Alex hadn't put up much of a fight. He had plenty of time to become old and boring. He needed to prove to himself that he wasn't there yet.

  Twenty minutes of unrelenting noise and music, not to mention a few shots of tequila, and Alex was glad he had come. He felt the tension seeping from his body. Now all he needed was a willing lady and his evening of relaxation would be complete. That was when he saw her.

  His gaze had been scanning the crowd when it came to an abrupt halt on a black-haired beauty whose tough girl stance exuded enough attitude for a dozen women. She seemed to be saying I may be here for a good time but approach at your own risk. It was an intriguing combination that Alex hadn't been able to resist.

  He made his way across the room, taking in the details of her appearance as he went. She kept touching the ends of her short hair. Either it was a nervous habit or she wasn't used to the style. Alex decided it was the latter. It might be a new thing, but the cut suited her. He didn't know what look she had been going for, but what he saw was a delicate face framed by a dark fringe of hair and a woman so beautiful she took his breath away. Hours later as the sun was just starting to light the city streets, Alex had gone from interested to full-on infatuated.

  As he walked her back to her hotel, Alex thought about the contrast in their appearances. He the tall, broad-shouldered man dressed in scuffed boots, faded jeans and a crisp, white shirt. Dani was the much smaller woman in a form-fitting black dress that showed off her mouth-watering legs and matched the color of her hair exactly. They might have looked like an odd couple. Obviously from different worlds, they appeared to have little in common. But looks could be deceiving. Right now, they shared the most important trait—they liked each other.

  Feeling like a kid for the first time in years, Alex was suffering a sudden bout of nerves—he knew the reason. In a very short amount of time, Dani had come to mean something to him. He was afraid of doing the wrong thing, of scaring her away. He hadn't had a girlfriend since high school. One-night stands were just easier. But Dani was no one and done girl. If they had met at a different time—if he were a different man—he would reach over and take her hand and never let go. He almost groaned with relief when she made the move he couldn't.

  Luckily Dani's thoughts weren't at all conflicted. She wanted to hold his hand so she did. She laced her small fingers with his much larger ones, enjoying the rough calluses against her smoother skin. Whatever his duties, he didn't spend all his time behind a desk. Alex Fleming was a young man just moving into his prime. Every bit of him screamed fit, disciplined male. Was it wrong that her thoughts kept straying to images of them both naked, her hands gr
ipping his amazing ass while he gave her the best orgasm of her life?

  "Are you all right?"

  "Fine." Had she groaned out loud? Dani thanked the Lord that her fair skin wasn't prone to blushing. "High heels and cobblestones don't exactly go together. It's my own fault for wanting to boost my height. Not to mention what they do for my legs."

  Alex smiled as Dani stopped to pose, her hand running up the length of her thigh as though she were a game show hostess showing off a high-performance sports car. The twinkle in her eyes let him know that she would be one hell of a ride.

  "What is it with women and their shoes?" Before Dani could defend her sex's obsession with footwear, Alex turned, presenting his back to her.

  "Hop on."

  With a delighted laugh, Dani jumped. She wasn't going to argue with any suggestion that let her wrap herself around his body.

  The rest of the trip was over much too soon. Before she knew it, they were in the lobby of her hotel and Alex was saying goodbye. Not see you soon, but see you never.

  This couldn't be the end? She had to see him again. He wasn't even going to kiss her. After fantasizing all night about his luscious lower lip, didn't she at least deserve a taste? Even a brief one?

  "Dani," Alex began hesitantly. He knew what he wanted to say, but he didn't think he had the right to say it.

  "Yes, Alex." Please don't just walk away, her thoughts screamed.

  "I'm on leave for the next two weeks."

  That was an encouraging start. Dani was only scheduled to be in Lisbon for a week, but she was more than willing to stay on if Alex would be here.

  "I want to see you again, but—"

  "Yes," she cried before he could finish.