Waves licked the Spanish beach as the sun embraced the horizon line. I lay next to Trent in a rocking strappy black bikini on a chaise lounge and sipped sangria. He wore dark blue swim trunks and drank a bottle of water.

I glanced over at his beautiful physique, displayed in the rays of the setting sun. “Now this is the way to spend a Friday evening.”

Staying in Granada together was just too dangerous. It was only a matter of time before someone saw us, and we needed some time to ourselves. So we rented a car and drove forty-five minutes south to the Mediterranean Sea. Our pastel hotel overlooked the water, and we decided to soak up the sun before we went to dinner. Tomorrow we’d try acroyoga.

“How did this get to be my life?” he asked, looking me up and down.

I grinned at him. “I don’t know. Maybe you just got lucky.”

He laughed, and his toned belly moved in the most delicious way. “That’s true. What’s the plan while we’re here?”

“Soak up the good ocean vibes, get a great dinner in town, make lots of love, and do yoga tomorrow.”

“Sounds good to me.” Then he paused. “I don’t know how I’m gonna be able to watch you in those tight yoga pants, that perfect ass in the air, without getting a stiffy.”

“You’ll just have to deal, baby.”

After I took another drink of sangria, I texted Lulu. I’m in Nerja for the weekend. You doing okay?

Yeah. Just hanging with Wyatt. That was her teacher friend. Not that I wanted to stick my nose into it, but he should be something more.

You still getting into trouble, and by that I mean Mr. Trouble?

Actually, he’s getting into me.

She texted me the eye roll emoji.

I set down my phone. “Want to get paella for dinner?”

“Paella sounds good, but Danika sounds even better.”

* * *

I knelt on the hotel bed, my face in the pillow, his hard cock in my pussy. I held a vibrator to my clit, bracing it against the mattress, moaning and lost in absolute pleasure.

“Dani,” he panted, “are you close?”

The vibrator on my clit was as determined as Trent. Making sure that I was taken care of. No way to escape.

“I’m there.” I let go, shrieking into the pillow, my body quivering so hard I thought it might break apart. The orgasm hit me so strong, I questioned whether I would survive. I didn’t remember anything except what it felt like. I wanted to stay here forever. I wanted to have him in me always.

Trent wasn’t being gentle. This disciplined man, who neatly folded the underwear in his bag, was taken over. Crazed. While he always, always made sure I got off first, now it was his turn.

“Dani. Fuck, babe. I can’t hold back. I can’t. You’re just too fucking hot, and I want you so much.”

“I’m yours.”

The salty breeze from the Mediterranean came in through the open window.

With a gentle palm on my ass, he flipped me onto my back—wet, slick, breathing hard, wanting to keep this going. I put the vibrator back on my clit, and he slid back inside me. My body clenched in and out, wanting him so badly. Not feeling whole except when he was thrusting into me. Wholly lost. Wholly one. One with him.

Trent was mine.

In this position, I saw his face, his beautiful, handsome, earnest face, and I saw what I was doing to him. Whereas before he was a little lost, now he looked found. No thought of our past, no worry of our future, the only thing that mattered was right now.

It didn’t matter who was older than whom, who was paranoid about safety and who was a freebird. Who was the teacher and who was the student.

The only thing that mattered was that he and I were joined, and it was perfect.

I could tell his orgasm was coming. He sped up, twitching, wanting to keep it going. I loved how my patient, disciplined, OCD soldier acted when he couldn’t keep it under control. When he lost everything—his mind, even himself in the instance of release.

“Come, Trent,” I murmured. “I want to see you. I want to see you give yourself all to me.”

“I already have, Dani. For years.”

His eyes widened and then he leaned his head back, closed his eyes as if in agony, and opened them while he speared into me, coming so hard he groaned, the sexiest noise ever.

His arm gave way and he rested on me, supporting himself by his elbow. I wrapped my legs around his waist, loving his cock twitching and throbbing in me. He felt over me, in me, with me. How strong and how patient. How giving and how loving.

Dammit.

I was getting in trouble. My feelings for him scared me.

“What’s up, babe?” he asked, tracing my cheek with his finger.

I looked up into his expressive, open eyes. Could I give this up?

No.

“What’s happening?” I whispered.

“You’re one with the Universe, babe. You tell me.”

My heart raced. “I think we might be one consciousness.”

He bopped my nose. “We just might be.”

After he cleaned up and came back in bed, he curled up next to me, holding his arm across my body. I exhaled, feeling secure and sated.

“Can we do that again?”

“Yes. Give me five minutes.”

I giggled. This was the advantage of dating someone younger. The stamina.

“Actually, we probably need to get cleaned up so we can go get dinner.”

“Sounds good to me,” he said. But he didn’t move, he just kissed the nape of my neck.

I walked my fingers over his tattoos. They were mine now. But would that last?

* * *

“Are we really going to do this?” I asked, the next morning.

My shoulders rose almost to my ears as I tensed up, held my breath, and closed my eyes. I let my shoulders drop, exhaled, and gazed down at Trent, who was lying on his back on the bright blue yoga mat placed on the ground. His broad shoulders nearly spread across the edges of the mat. That floppy bit of his hair fell backwards, and his clear eyes answered me without him saying anything.

Yes. We were really going to do this.

Those eyes held a confidence I didn’t feel, both for me and for us. Together.

Overhead fans cooled the large yoga room dotted with couples getting ready by their mats. I glanced around, then back at him prone on the floor, muscular, lean, and strong. Someone who’d traveled halfway around the world to find me. I trusted him.

Right?

I mean, I was gonna let him lift me up in the air and balance on him. So I had to trust him. Physically, absolutely. But while I’d let him in, that didn’t mean I wasn’t still scared. Because every time I opened my heart and loved someone, it turned out badly. Either they died or they were a jerk like Brian. It was a lot safer to live in my own world—a fort on a hill like the Alhambra or a constantly moving nomadic existence—just pull up a tent and go.

That itinerant existence hid tall walls I’d constructed around me so no one could get in and no one could hurt me. Trent scaled my walls as easily as if it were an army training course. He made me step into a country I’d never been to—my own soul. With him, I was so far out of explored territory, because staying with him I had to find my way in a new land—that of my own psyche—which was harder to explore than any foreign country.

These thoughts flitted across my mind, but then he smiled. His broad, comforting smile. One of security I’d never felt before.

“I’m your base.”

My base.

“We don’t have to do this,” he said. “But I got you.” And this was true. I couldn’t find a sturdier man to lean on if I tried.

Ana, the instructor, spoke in accented English as she wove around the couples in the room. “Partner yoga is special. With the help and support of each other, you can go beyond the edge. Go beyond any limits. Extend beyond your comfort zone into a new place of flexibility. A new space.”

I gave her a tight nod, steeling myself.

“The base must have his or her back firmly on the ground. Completely flat. Hands down on his or her side.”

Trent obeyed, pressing his back into the floor, his legs bent so his feet were flat on the ground a short distance from his ass.

“Stand there, babe.” He pointed to the edge of the mat. Walking over, I positioned myself so that I was standing near his feet. My mint green-painted toes touched his groomed, masculine ones.

Then those handsome toes reached up and rested against me, supporting the curve of my hipbone.

“Lean against the legs of your partner,” said the instructor.

I did. And as I leaned into him, he raised his hands.

Ana walked around, checking positions. “The fliers and the bases should have their hands together.”

I touched his hands, palm to palm. Energy pulsed from him to me and back again as his dry, calloused hands touched mine. Even though mine were so much smaller, we matched up, my hand a copy of his.

“The flier leans forward.”

I leaned into his feet.

“And lift.”

With almost no effort, he pushed me up as I took a breath. And I flew.

And in that instant, I knew. I could trust him. He’d never let me fall. He’d never let me get hurt. He’d care for me the way he’d been doing.

Walking me to my apartment at night. Bringing me drinks of water. Giving me the home I didn’t have anymore.

“As the flier is up in the air, your shoulders and hips should be aligned. With the help of your partner, you can go beyond the edge. Go beyond your limits into infinite flexibility.”

With tiny calibrations, I shifted on top of him, allowing my body to go deeper and deeper into the pose.

“Feet out and pointed. Head up. Breathe. How does it feel to be up there?”

It felt otherworldly. Like I was supported by something so strong, but constantly moving.

“The base and the flier’s hand can move in one straight line. The base gets a nice back massage from the weight of the flier, no?”

Exhilaration came over me as the two of us entered into this deep yoga pose together.

“Little by little, as you trust each other, the base can move the feet to the side, to allow the flier to move more. The flier can arch his or her back.”

I bent my legs up, letting Trent hold me until he set me back down again.

When I landed on the ground, he pulled me into his lap. “What did that feel like, babe?”

“You had me weightless and grounded at the same time,” I whispered. “Different than the indoor skydiving, which was exciting. But now? We’re connected on a whole new level. A deep one.”

He kissed me.

We tried it a few more times, and by the end of class, I was tired, but elated, and closer to him than I’d ever been.

At the end of class, we sat in a circle, the two dozen or so participants. “Be gentle with yourselves tonight,” Ana said, addressing the attendees. “Yoga can unlock unresolved issues.”

I knew that.

“Before we adjourn for the day, we will do some gentle stretches and poses to center us. First, we will do upward facing dog.” She showed us how to do the pose, arching her back. I’d done it before in class.

But she kept narrating. “Often, if we are in distress, we cover our heart. We pull in our shoulders. We get protective. This pose opens up. If you have throat blockages from things unsaid, this might clear them.”

Next to Trent, I started to do the pose, but her words made me pause.

“Part of yoga is learning to trust yourself. If you can stay in a difficult pose, if you can stay with yourself in a difficult pose, then you know you can handle more and more difficult things.”

I extended my arms up as my back arched.

“This is my belief,” she continued. “You can’t get over pain. And you can’t work through it. I believe that we integrate grief, suffering, and so on into our body through yoga. And if those aches become part of who you are, if you can live in your body with those emotions, then you are truly free.”

I crumpled to the floor, unable to hold the pose any longer.

And what she said scared me. I was tough. I’d gotten over a lot. I’d worked through a lot.

But living with suffering?

No thanks.

I turned to Trent, his bright eyes assessing me. “You okay?”

“Yeah.” But I was scared. Did he remind me too much of my wounds? Would continuing on with him mean living with the pain? Because that sounded too much to bear.

* * *

That night after we’d spent the day doing yoga, playing in the ocean, eating delicious meals, and exploring each other’s bodies, he curled up behind me in bed.

“Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

A gentle finger made its way down my bare arm. “Why aren’t you on Facebook?”

I rolled over so we were facing. “Brian.”

“Who is Brian?”

I sighed. “My ex. My controlling, asshole ex-boyfriend.”

“You don’t want him to find you? Can’t you just block him?”

“I suppose. But it’s not that simple.” I placed my hand on his narrow waist. “Because of him, I just never wanted to be found.”

“What do you mean?”

“When I started dating him, in the beginning, it was great. We both wanted to travel close to the ground. Really get to know people. Do good work. We’d take buses everywhere or travel on cargo ships. Then we’d stay with people and help them farm or build a school. I loved it. We’d go wherever we wanted, just carrying a backpack. Sometimes we’d sleep out under the stars. Other times we’d be in someone’s house. It was an adventure. Every day was different.”

“That sounds like you,” he said with a grin.

“Yeah, well, it is me. But then things changed. He had no patience whatsoever. He’d lose his temper at everything. Anything. And take it out on me.”

His arms came around me and gripped me to him.

“On the outside, Brian was all peace and love. But he started getting paranoid. He’d check my phone, wanting to know who texted me. He wanted my ATM card and the password. He told me to cancel my credit cards. I don’t know what got into him. Maybe he smoked some bad weed or something.”

Trent kissed the top of my head, stroking my hair. “He sounds like an ass.”

“He was. I got sick in Peru. He wouldn’t let me stay in bed, said I’d brought it on myself by being out of touch with the Universe, and that we had to keep going. So we got on the bus and went to the next town in the Andes. I had a fever for five days. I couldn’t eat. I just had chills and sweats. He didn’t believe in doctors, thought modern medicine was a racket. So I got sicker and sicker. Only when I started coughing up blood did he take me to a clinic in Lima. We found out I had pneumonia and needed antibiotics. Because of him, I almost died.”

“Motherfucker,” he muttered through his teeth as his hand tensed behind my head. He let out a breath and relaxed his fingers.

“When I got better, I realized how fucked up that all was and how I’d rearranged my life for him, and he didn’t deserve it. He didn’t need to be in my business like that. It wasn’t a partnership, it was a dictatorship, and he was in charge. I wasn’t gonna do that anymore. I wanted out. So when I got better, I left the hospital, signed my own discharge papers, got on a bus, got on a plane, and went to Japan. I never said goodbye to him. I just left.”

“Holy fuck.”

“I figured he wouldn’t follow me there, because he’d said before it was too expensive. So by then I’d deleted all of my social media accounts. I just kept the one email to get in touch with Degan, Lulu, you, and a few others, but even that I didn’t check very much. I withdrew. I needed to get better. And I needed to be as far away from him as I could. So I stayed with an artist I met in Japan. She helped me recover, fed me all kinds of soups and teas, and when I felt better, I helped her build an art studio to thank her.”

“Did he ever try to find you?”

“I have no idea. I just kept running. And I never stopped.”

He held me tenderly, cradled in his arms. After a while, he murmured, “He’s never gonna find you. I’ll make sure of that.”

“I don’t know if you can promise that. But I think he got the message. Towards the end, I wasn’t sure if he even liked me. Because what kind of person does that to someone you love? You don’t. You take care of people you love.”

“Right.”

The sounds of the night came in through the open window. We were so close to the water we could hear the constant crash of the sea. The moonlight made a narrow beam on the floor by the window. He stroked the top of my head, and asked, “Are you scared of me?”

I wiggled to look at him. “What do you mean?”

“I mean, do you think I’d do that? That I’d take over your life like that? That I’d not take care of you?”

Letting out a long breath, I considered my words. “I think, intellectually, I know that you’re sweeter than him. I mean, you are very much so. But you do scare me. You’re a soldier. You’re used to action. Ordering people around—”

“Actually as a soldier, you get told what to do more than you tell people what to do.”

“Well, as a bossy type, I can see you doing those things. And yeah, that kind of makes me hold back.”

He didn’t say anything for a moment. Then, in the dark, Trent’s fervent eyes locked on mine. “I swear to you, Danika Anderson, that I would care for you when you’re sick. That I’d let you be fully you. Don’t you understand? I like you just the way you are. I like all your zany sayings and your hippie-girl style. I like how you’re like an elfin princess, doing your thing. I just want to watch you live.” He paused. “I’ll be your base, babe. I wanna see you fly.”

Heat spread from my heart to my fingertips and toes. No one on the planet made me feel better than Trent Milner. “Thanks,” I whispered, and snuggled into him and went to sleep.