Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) (8 page)

It was exhausting work, pretending you were having more fun than you really were. My cheeks hurt from smiling, my feet had begun weeping, begging me to stop dancing an hour ago, and my arms were growing tired from fending off Bandit’s increasing advances. Not to mention the pounding in my head that told me I was either getting sick or had drunk too much—or some combination of the two. I was surprised I didn’t have a crick in my neck from how much time I’d spent looking at Eric when he wasn’t looking at me, trying to gauge his reaction.

I was too old for this shit.

I didn’t know what I’d intended tonight, hadn’t really thought my actions through beyond wanting to get a reaction out of Eric, but I was beginning to think that all I’d proven was that I wasn’t anywhere near over him. And then I saw him, cutting through the crowd, his gaze trained on the spot where Bandit’s arm draped loosely around my waist.

I swallowed a lump in my throat, unable to do anything but stare at Eric, everything else falling away.

God, he was beautiful. There was an art to the way he walked. A lazy, long-limbed grace that ensured all eyes were on him as he parted the crowd. Even now, those blue eyes downcast, his jaw clenched, his shoulders hunched in defeat, there was something about him that screamed, “This one,” something that set him apart from every other guy in the room. I’d wanted to hit him where it hurt, to make him feel every inch of his loss, but I hadn’t predicted that the sight of him like this wouldn’t make me feel like I’d won anything, only like I wanted to soothe the ache inside him.

Maybe I was a fool. I probably was. But the thing with love was that once you felt it, it was impossible to turn it off.

So I’d miscalculated tonight when I’d thought I wanted to bring him to his knees, because at the end of the day, all it had done was bring me right down next to him.

Eric halted in front of us, Bandit’s arm tightening around my waist. Eric didn’t spare him a glance, didn’t do any of those annoying, stereotypical, he-man, I’m-going-to-pee-on-you-now-to-mark-you-as-mine things that guys did sometimes. Instead he looked me straight in the eye and asked, “Can we talk for a second?”

I nodded, the decision already made before he’d even made the journey over.

I turned toward Bandit, offered a shrug, and forced a smile. “I should go. Sorry. Thanks for the dancing.”

To his credit, he just nodded and released me.

Eric held out his hand, and I hesitated for a beat, and then I placed my palm in his, letting him lead me through the crowd, out the front door, until we reached the sidewalk. He stopped a little bit away from the entrance, until our bodies
were tucked into a dark corner of the building that shielded us from the crowds forming on the street.

For a moment, I just relaxed into the beauty of the night—the slight breeze in the air signaling the transition from sticky summer heat toward leaf-changing fall. I welcomed the quiet, the freedom from the bass and the loud voices, the open air hitting my skin rather than the jab of sweaty elbows. And of course, there was Eric, standing next to me, his hands shoved into his jeans’ pockets, towering over me, the scent of his cologne and the faint smell of the beers he’d drunk surrounding me.

I leaned back against the building, closing my eyes, tilting my face up to the sky. When I opened my eyes, Eric stood in the same place, staring at me.

I blinked. Still there.

“It feels like a dream.”

“What?”

“You being here. In South Carolina. With me.”

“Not a nightmare?”

“It depends on the day you ask me.”

He shot me a wry smile. “That’s fair.”

I swallowed, the butterflies kicking up in my stomach. “It’s been ten years.”

I didn’t know why that felt important to say, but it did. It felt like so much had passed between us, like we’d missed out on so much of each other’s lives—really the most important parts of them, the parts when we’d been growing into ourselves, figuring out who we were and what we wanted out of life—and still, he stood here before me, and suddenly it was like nothing had changed. I was at once both twenty-one and thirty-one, and both versions of me—the girl I’d been and the woman I was now—gravitated toward Eric.

“Yeah, it has.” He was quiet for a moment, staring down at the ground, and then his gaze was back on mine and another wave of flutters ripped through me.

Freaking butterflies. I would have thought I’d outgrown them, but apparently not.

He cocked his head toward the bar. “Bandit?”

I shook my head, answering his unspoken question, giving him the truth, even if it got me into trouble.

“You.”

I didn’t know if the alcohol had loosened my tongue, or if it was the emotion on his face and the pain in his voice. Either way, I didn’t have it in me to lie.

He let out an oath.

“I should have come back sooner. Should have made things up to you a long time ago.”

“Why didn’t you?”

I needed to understand. I hadn’t given him a chance to explain earlier, had been so focused on my anger that I hadn’t been willing to listen to any of his reasons. Maybe I’d been afraid that if I had, he would chip away at the wall I’d erected around myself, the one that crumbled after a few days in his presence anyway.

He didn’t answer me for a beat and I liked him more for not being glib, for not just giving me the easy answer.

“In the beginning, I didn’t come back because I didn’t know what I was missing.” He hesitated and I saw the exact moment when he decided to give me the truth, even as it was tough for me to hear. “When we broke up, I missed you, but I went straight into pilot training and busting my ass to make sure I didn’t wash out, to ensure that I was at the top of my class so that I could get a fighter spot. I worked twelve-hour days, studied when I wasn’t working, and didn’t have much time for anything else.

“When I graduated and pinned on my wings, I went straight into the F-16 basic course, and if I’d thought pilot training was tough, that was even harder. I was surrounded by guys who’d all graduated as the best of their pilot training classes, everyone willing to do whatever it took to get to the top.

“You know me. I didn’t come from a military background, didn’t realize how important that phase of my career was until I was thrown into it and I learned that the impression I made on my commanders would set the tone for my future. So my life became about flying. Being the best pilot I could be. I’d be lying if I didn’t admit that I thought of you, dreamed of you, missed you so badly I ached for you, but at the same time, you have to know that my entire life revolved around getting through, because if it hadn’t, I never would have.

“Then it was my first assignment, trying to make a good impression at a new squadron, deploying for the first time, more twelve-to-fourteen-hour days, getting up at the crack of dawn and going to work and then coming home when it was dark and rinse and repeat, doing it again.

“I’m not complaining. I fucking loved it. But that was my life. There wasn’t a lot of room for me to miss you. A lot of room for anything other than trying to be the best pilot I could be. I dated, but there was never anything other than casual, because that was all I had room for. And maybe, because I didn’t have anything left to give. I’d already given you my heart, and even if I’d wanted to, there was no way in hell I could get it back.”

I had missed him, mourned him, but at the same time, I’d had law school, and then my career, to keep me busy. Lizzie had tried to get me to date so many times, and even though there had been a string of guys, none of them had
even come close to meaning something special to me. I hadn’t been willing to prioritize those relationships, to give them the attention and effort they needed to sustain themselves. Instead I’d buried myself in work, not letting anyone get close. So in a way, I understood. That also didn’t mean I wasn’t wary.

“Everything you’re saying is in the past tense. So what changed? Why are you here now? What do you want now?”

What do you want from me?

He held my gaze, looking like he was searching for something there.

“I don’t know exactly. I guess it started off gradually at first. It started to wear on me—the coming home to an empty house, landing after a deployment or a TDY and not having anyone there waiting for me. I started thinking about what it would be like to put down roots, to have a home, a family. Started seeing other guys and what they had, and wondering if I was throwing my life away. I don’t know. I’m tired. So fucking tired. I’ve been going balls to the wall for the better part of a decade and I don’t know how much more I have to give. And after Joker . . .”

His voice trailed off, the pain there making my stomach sink.

“How long ago was it?”

“Four months. I started to feel this way before Joker, but after . . .” He took a deep breath. “I just started to wonder if it was all worth it, you know? When he died, I wondered what my life was all about.

“There’s no one special in my life. No one whose life I make special. Joker had that. He was married and they had this great marriage, and his wife, Dani, looked at him like he was the love of her life. And then in a flash, he was gone,
and she was a widow, and I watched her grieve for him, saw how his death rocked her, and while I know he loved to fly, I couldn’t help but wonder if he would have done things differently if he’d known how it would all play out.

“The truth is, we don’t think about dying when we’re up in the sky. Sure, there are moments in sorties when I have close calls, times when my brain just becomes a litany of ‘fucks’ as I deal with whatever emergency has cropped up in the jet, as I do everything I can to have to keep from fucking ejecting, but it’s not real, you know? It becomes so normal, living on the edge, that at times I forget how dangerous it really is. That I could die. It doesn’t feel real until it is, and I don’t know, I just keep asking myself if it’s worth it. When Joker died, he left behind someone who’d loved him, who mourns him. If I died . . .”

I couldn’t help it.
Fuck.
I took a step forward, closing the distance between us, hating the words falling from his lips, hating the way he spoke of his life. It was true—this was the path he’d chosen, the decision he’d made when we were young, but at the same time, I knew better than anyone that sometimes you couldn’t see your path until you were already so far down it that there was no way back.

“I can promise you . . .” The words stuck in my throat, blocked by a boulder of fear and do-not-go-there-he-will-crush-your-heart-to-dust. “That if something happened to you,
I
would care.” I swallowed. “A lot.”

My heart hammered, my hand moving to cup his cheek. The second I touched him, his body stiffened, his eyes widening. I was pretty sure his expression mirrored mine since I wasn’t sure who was more shocked by the gesture.

And then some part of me gave up fighting it, and I leaned forward, rising to my toes, my mouth colliding with his.

Kissing him felt a lot like coming home.

My hand slid to his neck, threading through his hair, pulling his head down to mine, pressing my body into the curve of his, and then his arm hooked around my waist, his cock brushing against me, his lips parting, his tongue swooping in.

He tasted so freaking good, his lips and tongue laying siege to mine. His mouth contained the kind of hunger I couldn’t ignore if I tried, his hands holding me like he never wanted to let me go.

His teeth sank down on my lower lip, drawing it between his, sucking on it, laving my flesh with his tongue as my nipples tightened and my clit throbbed.

It was both familiar and new all at the same time. As though I was kissing a stranger, because there was a desperation to this kiss that hadn’t been there before. This was a decade of pent-up unrequited whatever-we-were, and we kissed like we couldn’t get enough of each other.

My hands were all over him, gripping his hair, stroking his neck, moving lower to feel his impressive shoulders, going lower, my hands gripping his biceps, holding him close to me. His body felt amazing against mine and I found a whole new appreciation for the physical demands of his job. He’d always been in shape, but he’d never felt this hard against me, his muscles impressive enough to make my mouth go dry and make my body so very wet.

I moaned as his hands gripped my ass, pulling me closer, his leg sliding between mine so that I rode him, the friction sending even more heat through me.

My fingers dug into his skin, and he made a noise somewhere between a moan and a growl, nipping at my lip again, his hips canting toward me so I could feel every inch of how badly he wanted me.

And by the thick, hard length brushing against me, apparently he wanted me a lot.

Of all the ways I’d imagined this playing out, I hadn’t dared to hope that the evening would end with my arms around Becca, my mouth on hers, drowning in the taste of her. And I definitely never would have predicted that the reality of kissing her would blow the memory out of the fucking water.

Whatever doubts and fears I’d had were silenced the instant our mouths connected. I’d been an idiot before and thrown away the best thing that had ever happened to me, but there was no way I was making the same mistake again. I’d wanted an in with her, some kind of sign that hope wasn’t lost, and if this wasn’t a flashing-light-burning-bush kind of sign, I didn’t know what was.

She pulled away first, her lips swollen, eyes wide, her chest rising and falling as she tried to catch her breath. I knew exactly how she felt, because I couldn’t have gotten control if I tried. Forget the beers, I was utterly wrecked by her.

I ran my tongue over my bottom lip, capturing the last taste of her while she watched, that familiar look in her eyes that my body instantly recognized.

I took a step back, needing to put distance between us before I did something I’d regret. I wanted her and she wanted me, but as easy as it would be to fall into bed with her again, there was still too much between us for sex to do anything but complicate an already messy situation. I wanted her, but I wanted more than her body, even as I didn’t know what I had to offer her in return.

Becca swallowed, my gaze immediately drawn to her mouth.

“That was unexpected.”

I couldn’t fight the grin at how cute she sounded—as I remembered just how much she hated the unexpected, how she tended to want everything in her life to fit into a neat container that she could label and manage. What she called “unexpected,” I called “inevitable,” because there was no way we could be near each other, setting off the kind of sparks we did, without something catching on fire.

“Go on a date with me.”

She blinked. “Are you joking?”

I stepped forward, taking advantage of the way she just stood there, staggered, and twined my fingers through her hair, pressing my lips to hers.

“One date.”

Her mouth opened, her breath mingling with mine, her body relaxing into my embrace.

“No.” Her hands settled on my hips, holding on to me as her words pushed me away.

“Becca.”

I sucked on her bottom lip as she shuddered against me, the grip on my hips tightening, her body arching forward.

She tasted amazing. So fucking sweet. All soft curves and sex.

“Give me a chance,” I whispered against her mouth. “Please.”

She stilled and I waited, everything hanging on her answer.

“Maybe.”

One word. It wasn’t the one I wanted, but it was enough to give me hope, and considering it was probably more than I deserved, I’d take it.

“Okay.”

I held out a hand to her, feeling like the luckiest guy in the world when she slid her palm into mine, following me back inside the bar to find the rest of the group.

“Maybe” was a lot to hang everything on, but right now I clutched it in my fist, praying it was
enough.