That sobers me up and I sigh. “Oh yes, it’s over. In every way, but on paper.”
“You guys don’t have …” His inability to say sex after all the dirty things he’s said to me in the last few days is endearing. Just like everything else about him is.
“No, we don’t have sex. And haven’t since before I had the twins.” I finish his sentence for him.
“He’s crazy.” Stone’s voice is full of bewilderment
“Not really. Marriage, family -- it’s not for everyone, as you know.” My laugh is hollow, and I don’t want to give him the chance to agree or ask me anything else about it. So, I change the subject.
“So, you went to Colombia to find yourself?”
“Yes and no. I used to think I could save the world,”
“And now?”
“Turns out the world is saving me. Traveling has taught me more than any classroom I’ve ever been in. And I’m having the time of my life in Colombia.” The smile that lights his face makes me a bit envious. There’s so much I haven’t seen.
‘What’s it like?” I ask, hungry for details that I can use to paint a picture of it for myself.
“It’s like everywhere else on earth - families, single people, old people, public parks and traffic. But it’s got this… tenacious spirit.” His hand clenches into a fist. “There is so much misery everywhere and yet, they hold on to every scrap of joy, make use of every resource and take such pride in their town’s history. It’s turned me into an optimist.”
I huff an amazed laugh. “I’m so used to hedging my bets, so stuck on cynical, I can’t imagine that.”
He nods, a pensive light in his eyes as he gazes out at the river. “I get that. It’s safer to not expect anything. But then I see the hope on the faces of the women who come through our clinic. Their lives are incredibly hard. Poverty, political unrest, lack of food security, disease, you name it. And yet their aspirations for their children are unmitigated. It’s hard to look at them and not feel like anything is possible.” His eyes blaze with passion and fondness.
My heart blazes with affection and respect. His empathy and his conviction inspire me.
“Will you be sad to leave?”
“Yeah, especially for the flat, endless sea of suburbia also known as Houston, TX.”
“What?” I sputter, incredulous that anyone could feel that way. “The only true thing in that sentence is flat. Are you kidding? Houston is America’s melting pot.”
His shrug is noncommittal. “It’s fine, but I haven’t lived there in a long time and when I did, I didn’t exactly get to enjoy it.”
“Maybe it’s because I call it home. Besides my time at SMU and the five years we lived in Paris, it’s the only place I’ve spent any decent amount of time. But I think it’s an amazing place to live. When you’re back, I’ll show you all the things you missed on your first stint.”
His smile dims a little and I could smack myself.
“Don’t worry, I haven’t forgotten what we agreed, I just…” I trail off not sure how to explain myself.
His expression loses all its levity and he takes my left hand in his. He strokes my bare ring finger. “I know you haven’t, but this is…nice. We could be… friends, right?” his eyes bore into mine. I don’t know what to say, and I can’t hold his gaze.
How could I pretend that he’s as much of a stranger as his brothers are? But how could I do anything else?
He lets go of my hand and the first uncomfortable silence I can recall us ever sharing, descends.
“Okay, it’s time to paddle back to the beach,” our guide calls. It’s a welcome interruption and neither one of us tries to prolong the moment. We clean up and get ready without any of our normal banter.
When we’re back on the paddle boards, we wade out, side by side.
“You’re a natural at this,” he says, his tone free of the tension that seemed to rattle us both a few minutes ago.
I’m relieved and flash him a grin. “I can’t believe it. I was so sure I’d fall off. But I’m afraid to look away,” I admit completely amazed at how easy it’s been to stay upright.
“Say cheese,” he calls.
“What?” I turn to face him again. He’s got his paddle tucked under one of his arms and his phone aimed at me.
“Trust me, you’ll want to see yourself like this,” he says
“Okay, let me pose,” I lift my arms into the air, my paddle gripped in one hand and bare my teeth like I’ve just vanquished a foe.
“Perfect,” he declares with a smile. But then, he drops his paddle into the water and pushes himself ahead of me. I’m sorry for the strain between us, but grateful for the distance, too. I need to make sense of what I’m feeling.
“To your left you’ll see a flock of Black-necked Stilts,” our guide calls.
The mangroves are fascinating – a wetland in the middle of this otherwise arid region and the tangle of trees is a lush ecosystem bursting with a wide variety of fish and birds. But my eyes are fixed on the back of the man who reminded me of all the things I’ve missed.
I always heard mid-30s were peak time for a woman’s sexual drive, but I didn’t believe it. I thought my plug-in vibrator and I had already reached it ten years ago.
But it’s not just the mind-blowing sex that’s gotten under my skin over the course of the last few days. It’s his wonder, his compassion, his conviction, his tenderness. It’s the way he wears his heart on his sleeve and the way he listens. He brought me here so I could go home with happy memories. I can’t remember the last time anyone did something just to make me happy.
This was supposed to be fun, and sex.
But it’s gone far beyond that. I’ve attributed all of my flutters and skipped heartbeats to adrenaline. But after a lazy day of swimming in the crystal-clear water with sea lions and sunbathing on sparkling white-sand beaches, those flutters and skipped heartbeats are more intense than ever. And, there’s no doubt as to why.
Which is too bad for me.
Even if I wasn’t still tangled up with Marcel, he’s just told me he wants to live footloose and fancy free. Which is nothing like my life is now.
I don’t doubt that one day, he’ll change his mind. Then he’ll find someone who can be more than just a holiday fling. The knowledge that my dream man will one day give all of this to someone else, turns the sweet aftertaste of our kisses, bitter.
I banish the encroaching self-pity.
This was never meant to last. Which is fine, because I don’t need it to. I just need it for now. But as I follow him down the river, I know I’m in for a world of hurt when we say goodbye.
I may be keeping myself upright on this board, but Stone has brought my heart to its knees.
Chapter 25
Everything
Stone
It’s our final night together. We got lucky and the hotel we picked has a hot tub on the deck. I climbed in while Regan called her kids and changed. I gaze up at the star-spangled cosmos. Every star, every planet, every speck of dust has a role to play. The universe looks like beautiful chaos, but it is in fact, perfectly precise and predictable.
“Is the water nice?” Regan appears in the doorway, dripping wet and wrapped in a towel.
“Yeah, come join me,” I hold up the two bottles of beer resting in the cup holders.
She wrinkles her nose. “I just showered…”
“Thank goodness there’s more water so you can do it again. Come on. It’s our last night.”
She sighs, but nods. “Okay, let me put on a suit, I’ll be right out,” she smiles, slides the door close, and disappears back into the suite.
The tension from our conversation on the banks of the mangroves is gone, but the question that sparked it, is still unanswered.
And for now, it’ll stay that way. We’ve got this one night left in this perfect dimension we’ve carved out of nostalgia and attraction and I want to spend it happy. Tomorrow, we’ll go back to the real world. And no matter how m
uch I wish it, no matter how bright and shimmering this thing between us, we’ll go our separate ways.
But there’s no way I can go back to a life that she's not part of.
Cosmos taught me that the universe is an impeccable timekeeper, every single thing happens as it should. Us meeting here like this wasn’t an accident.
In my line of work, brilliant women aren’t rare. And almost all of them can claim something that makes them physically attractive. But, as cerebral as I am, I’m even more adventurous and thrill seeking. I know it’s a rare combination, and I’ve yet to meet a woman who can hang with me on a hike and then talk to me about all of the things that interest me - movies, books, food, travel, family, politics.
Until I met Regan Wilde. She’s adventurous, beautiful, bright, and kind. But she’s not the kind of woman you win with a few nights of sex and flattery. Nah, if I want it all, I’ve got to earn it all.
I need to be in the same city, and I need a plan. But until she wants me more than whatever she’s getting out of staying married to a man she doesn’t like or live with.
I might fail. She might trample my heart again, but to be able to finally claim her as mine, is a hell of an upside.
The door slides open, Regan steps out onto the balcony, and my eyes nearly fall out of my head.
I’ve seen her naked and it shouldn’t make me nearly swallow my tongue. But as she walks toward the hot tub, bathed in silver moonlight, I see Venus, - my ultimate woman – come to life.
She’s got on this tiny silver bikini. Her dark hair is swept back and off her face and sits piled on top of her head. It gives me an unobstructed view of her exquisitely symmetrical face, and her long, graceful neck. Her wide, thickly lashed eyes look bigger. Her kiss swollen lips are slick with the coconut lip balm she bought from the small gift store in our hotel lobby.
“Where’d you go?” she asks as she climbs in and sits next to me.
I reach over the side and lift up the tightly rolled joint. “To get this, our tour guide told me where I could.”
“I didn’t know doctors smoked weed,” she looks scandalized when I lift it to my lips.
“And, now you do. And it’s not something I’d do if I had to work in the morning,” I say, light it again, and hand it to her.
She gives the joint a dubious side eye, her pert, sunburned nose wrinkling. “I’ve never tried it. I don’t want to be hungover.”
“You won’t be hungover. But, no pressure.” I pull it back to my lips.
“Wait.” She lays one of her small, neatly manicured hands on my forearm.
“Change your mind?” I ask with a knowing smile.
She nods, but instead of taking it from me, she leans forward. “Show me how?”
There’s meaning layered in those three words that gives them a gravity that I’m helpless to resist. It pulls me to her the way the moon and the sun pull the tide.
She puckers her lips to make a tiny ‘O” for the joint, I put it to her lips, my heart hammering wildly when her lips touch the backs of my fingers as she draws in the heady smoke. I slip my other hand behind her neck and pull her forward, so that our lips are almost touching. When she exhales, I pull the curling white smoke into my mouth.
Her eyes dart to my lips. I trace small circles on the soft, damp nape of her neck. She sighs and a wide smile spreads on her face, her eyelids droop as the joint starts to take effect.
I take her hands in mine and lift them to press a kiss to each of her palms.
What started as a casual caress turns into a genuinely interested inspection. Her nails are short and painted in a glossy color that reminds me of Marble Slab’s sweet cream ice cream. They’re elegant and with not a single chip in sight. But her fingers and the back of her hands have faint scars that are completely at odds with the rest of her.
“Don’t look at my hands,” she says and pulls them out my grasp and tries to tuck them under her thighs. I grab her wrists and pull them back up and after a few seconds she stops resisting and lets me look at them.
“Why not?” I ask.
“They’re terrible. My kids are picky eaters, and most nights I make three different meals, and my hands take a beating, nicks and cuts, oil splatters, whatever. I draw as little attention to them as possible. Nude nails, no extravagant rings.”
She curls her fingers inward and I lower my head to press kisses to her knuckles as I uncurl them one at a time so that I can press our palms together. My hands dwarf hers.
“They’re beautiful. And your kids are lucky. Even before I went to Blackwell, I don’t remember my mother cooking a single meal.”
She turns our joined hands over and examines mine. “Tell me about her. Where is she?”
“Right now? In College Station. Hayes came back to town and she scampered. She doesn’t need money since my stepfather left her an annuity. We’ve all been estranged from her for years, except Dare – my youngest brother.”
“Wow. I’m sorry.” The pity in her eyes makes my skin feel one size too small.
“Don’t be. I’m not. Like you said, family isn’t for everyone.” My mother didn’t completely abdicate her role. But she didn’t do much more than was required to keep Child Protective Services off her back.
All the things a parent is supposed to guide you through— friendships, falling in love, learning to drive, getting applications in on time —I taught myself, and then tried to teach my younger brothers. I did the best I could, but it wasn’t always enough.
“Yeah, but still, I’m sorry,” she repeats, her expression not at all what it should be. I don’t want to talk about my mother and tarnish the shine off this last night with the bitterness just talking about her evokes.
“Come here and I’ll show you how you can make it feel better,” I say with a lascivious grin and a waggle of my brows. She laughs, and glides through the water toward me.
Chapter 26
Adieu
Regan
We’ve been quiet most of the morning. Stone’s family has already arrived, and we’ve agreed that when we get back to the resort, he’ll drop me off and go drop off the rental. We won’t see each other again until the night before we’re both set to leave.
I’m bereft of him already.
This trip has been like finding my way home. I was a planet on the verge of extinction, saved by this man’s divine light. I may not get to keep him, but that light, the perspective, the feeling that I can do the hard things I’ve been avoiding – I’m taking those home with me. It’s time to figure out who I am. But God, I wish we had more time.
“I don’t want to go back.” I give up trying to hold it in and sit on the bed, the T-shirt I was folding gripped in my hands.
He joins me, sitting so our thighs touch, but he doesn’t put his arm around me. And I need him to, so desperately.
“I know,” he says, his voice is as hollow as my heart feels.
“Are you okay?” I ask, running my fingers along the soft scruff on his jaw.
He nods. “For now,” he whispers. He leans in and my eyes flutter closed. My lips tingle in anticipation of his touch. Instead of his mouth, the firm pads of his fingers stroke my lips.
My eyes pop open in surprise, and the conflict and misery in his eyes make me want to scream and cry at the same time.
That tortured gaze follows the path of his hand. He runs his fingers up the center of my nose, over the arch of brows, ghosts them over the tips of my lashes and then finally he cups either side of my face.
“You’re so much more than I could have imagined, Regan. I…” His voice is strangled, his eyes full of desperation that makes me tremble. He opens and closes his mouth a few times before he seems to abandon the idea of speaking.
Instead with a groan that sounds like surrender, he swoops down and claims my lips in a searing kiss.
His magical mouth thrills me to the edges of my senses and sends my imagination scouring for a new word to describe what we’re doing.
Because to cal
l this a kiss, is akin to calling pearl, sand. It may start that way, but when pressure, passion, and fate collide– simple, small things become extraordinary, fathomless treasures.
With every breath we share, we are creating something so priceless that we’d be fools to let it go.
I’m falling in love with him.
God help me. How could I be so stupid?
It’s only been a handful of days, but Stone Rivers has already made me feel more alive than I thought possible. I feel connected to the earth, grounded to the moment. When I look at the night sky, I don’t notice the dark. I just see an endless spray of brilliant, blazing possibilities.
We make love one last time. There’s a rhythm, a natural push and pull between us that is at once cadent and capricious.
We are wanton, wild, wicked and so fucking happy.
My lips may say this isn’t real.
But my heart beats with the secret truth…and there it shall have to stay.
Chapter 27
Crash Landing
Regan
“Oh, dear Lord, I feel almost human again,” I groan and lever up to sitting.
I can’t quite meet the eye of the woman who just finished washing my hair. It felt so delicious that I closed my eyes for a few minutes and pretended she was Stone. I might have come if she hadn’t stopped right when she did.
“You’ve got such incredible hair. It’s like the wigs everyone wears; these curls are to die for.”
It’s not vanity that makes my eyes roll. It’s boredom. My hair is unique, but then…so is everyone else’s.
But I’ve learned that attempting to dissuade or explain my resistance to accepting compliments is far more painful than just saying thank you.
I hear a commotion from the front of the small salon. Never one to ignore a fracas, I leave the flabbergasted hairdresser and stroll out front to see what is happening. A very familiar blonde is arguing with the extremely discomposed young receptionist. It’s Hayes Rivers fiancé. Stone’s soon to be sister in law and the very last person I should want to see.
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