Perfect Strangers

When I wakein the morning and discover I’m alone—again—the disappointment is so crushing that for a moment I’m unable to breathe.

“Don’t be a fool,” I scold myself, gazing out the bedroom windows into another brilliant, beautiful summer morning. “You’re too old for illusions.”

Too old for hope. Too jaded for dreams. Too long in the tooth to be dumb enough to pin my heart to a shooting star.

I drop my head to my drawn-up knees and angrily promise myself that if I cry, I’ll cut off all my hair with rusty scissors.

A few moments later, the front door opens. James calls out, “I’ve got coffee and croissants!”

Joy explodes inside me, as bright and burning as a swallowed sun. I topple to my side and bury my face in the pillow.

This is bad. This is so bad.

What’s worse is that I know it’s going to end in tragedy, but my stupid, stubborn heart refuses to get the memo.

Heavy footsteps cross the apartment and stop short at the bedroom door. “Don’t tell me you’ve replaced me with another boyfriend pillow.”

I lift my head and regard him, standing in the doorway like some Greek god bearing Starbucks. Instead of blurting the pathetic starry-eyed sonnet my brain has composed in the ten-second interval between now and when he came in, I say tartly, “Maybe I have. Mr. Pillow here is extremely charming.”

Blue eyes twinkling, James purses his lips. “Hmm. I can see these feather-stuffed friends of yours are going to be an ongoing problem. Why don’t you go back to sleep so I can round them all up and toss them out the window?”

Rolling to my back, I stretch, noting with no small satisfaction how James’s gaze avidly follows every move of my naked body. “Are you jealous of an inanimate object?”

He smiles. Somewhere up in heaven a choir of angels break into song. “I’m jealous of anything that touches you that isn’t my hands.”

Dropping my fake indifference, I stretch out my arms and wiggle my fingers at him. “Speaking of your hands, I want them. Come here.”

“So demanding,” he murmurs indulgently.

“I’m always demanding before I’ve had my morning coffee. Crabby, too. Better hurry up and get your butt over here before I throw a tantrum.”

His smile turns smoldering. He sets the bag of croissants and the cups of coffee on the dresser. Then he launches himself across the room and jumps onto the bed, landing right on top of me.

“Oof!”

Peppering kisses all over my face and neck, James chuckles. “Oof yourself. I was careful not to smash you.”

He didn’t smash me, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to admit it. “You weigh a ton! I can’t breathe!”

He lifts his head and smiles down at me. “You can’t breathe because of how much I weigh, or because I’m lying on top of you in all my incredible manliness?”

I stop pretending to struggle to get out from underneath him and just stare at him, shaking my head. “It’s not your muscles that weigh too much. It’s your ego. You might be the most conceited man I’ve ever met.”

“Might be?” he teases. “I’ll take it.”

We grin at each other for a while, until something inside my chest goes all melty, and I have to look away so he doesn’t see it.

James bends his head and whispers into my ear, “You should know by now you can’t hide from me, sweetheart.”

I close my eyes and sigh. “God, that’s so annoying.”

He chuckles, nuzzling his nose into my hair. “You love it.”

There’s that word again: love. It keeps popping up during random cracks in conversations, like some persistent weed.

He must feel the tremor go through me at the thought of that scary four-letter word, because when he raises his head and looks at me, his expression has lost its lightness. It’s Intensity James gazing down at me now, all sharp edges and laser like eyes.

I beg, “Please don’t say anything. I just woke up. I haven’t had my coffee. I’m in no mental condition to deal.”

“Deal with what? No, don’t look at the wall. Look at me.”

Chewing my lip, I focus on the cleft in his chin. It’s a much safer spot than the black hole of his eyes, which will suck the truth right out of me.

He waits for me to speak with his hands framing my face and his body taut with anticipation. When I take too long to answer, he prompts softly, “Deal with what, Olivia?”

Oh, fuck it.If I lie to him, he’ll know, so there really isn’t any point in trying.

I say, “This,” then take his hand and press it to my chest, right above my pounding heart.

I thought I’d seen his blue eyes burn before, but in them now entire planets are on fire.

He presses down against my sternum, spreading his fingers wide so his big hand spans nearly the breadth of my chest. “This is how you feel about me?”

Beneath his palm, my heart is a wild animal.

Reaching up to sink my hands into the thick silken mess of his dark hair, I whisper, “That’s a grain of sand in a universe made of beaches how I feel about you.”

Then I kiss him, because someday not too far in the future, he’ll be gone, and I won’t ever have the pleasure of kissing a man as beautiful as he is again.

He kisses me back ravenously, making urgent noises low in his throat. When we break apart, we’re both panting.

He slides his hand down the length of my body and under me, gripping my ass. When I grind my hips against his pelvis, he curses under his breath. “I’m getting on a plane in an hour. I’ve got a car waiting downstairs.”

Germany again?So soon? He doesn’t elaborate, and though I want to ask, I can’t. But I’m distracted soon enough by his next statement.

“But we’re going to talk about this when I get back.”

His tone is dark. I can’t decide if it’s a promise or a warning, and that irks me. “Last I heard, we were being in the moment. No questions, no strings, no regrets. Any of that ringing a bell?”

His lips quirk. “You think I’d forget a single thing I said to you, smartass?”

“So you’re just breaking the rules on the fly, then?”

He gazes at me for a beat with that same unnerving stillness that comes over him sometimes, that quicksilver change that brings to mind a predator stalking its prey.

As if making a confession of murder, he says softly, “You have no idea the kind of rules I’m breaking here, Olivia. But if you asked me to, I’d break every rule there is. I’d smash every one of them to pieces.”

As we stare at each other, I have that same sensation of stepping out onto a tightrope balanced high over a black abyss…only now a cold wind has picked up and the rope is swinging.

Of a few things I’m certain.

One: we’re talking about different sets of rules.

Two: I’m falling fast and hard for a man who’s a complete enigma.

And three: the fact that he’s dying might not be the only big secret James Blackwood is keeping.