Hold 'Em: Vegas Top Guns, Book 3 (35 page)

The throttle bucked like a wild animal, but he used his bones and his flesh to fight back. After getting the nose level, he inched it higher. Higher. The fighter’s rear wheels stretched toward the tarmac. Streaks of rock whipped past his peripheral vision. Every fiber of his body focused on easing his shaking, ruined machine toward solid ground.

Touchdown.

The force of impact jammed against his chest as the harnesses yanked taut. His head lurched forward. He let it happen. No resistance. Less damage to the spinal column. Wheels squealed. A renewed flash of voices buzzed like cicadas in his radio. The runway narrowed and darkened at the edges, with fire engines at the end of the long, long stretch.

Flaps and brakes. The rear of the plane threatened to launch end over end, but he didn’t overburden the machinery. Calm. Slow. Lots of finesse.

His Falcon came to a stop.

A wail of sirens ran up to meet him. Gusts of flame retardant swallowed his view in the cockpit, which made him feel oddly claustrophobic. Rather than fight it, he simply slumped back against the headrest, breathing, letting tides of adrenaline grind his brain to dust.

A member of the emergency response team popped the canopy. “Nice work, sir. Are you injured?”

“No.”

“Then out you come.”

He allowed the airman to guide him down the ladder. Two medics waited with a blanket.

Shock. Yeah, he could see that.

Someone stripped off his helmet. He sucked in a deep breath of what felt like a hit of pure, cold oxygen. Plane after plane landed along the isolated airstrip. He tracked each one, as if failing to watch them come to a safe stop would curse them with what should’ve happened to him.

Maybe going nose to nose with death made a guy superstitious. Only when the last F-16 touched down did he let one of the medics ease him down on a gurney.

A feminine shout came from a far distance. “Wait!”

He surged upright without thought. Leah was running across the tarmac with her helmet in hand. She ditched it just before reaching the gurney. He expected her to pull up short and shove that god-awful wall back between them. But she didn’t hesitate, didn’t flinch. Her body folded against his. Gorgeous curves were wrapped in the utility roughness of her flight suit. She smelled as sweat-drenched as him.

“Jesus, Michael,” she said on a sob.

She clung to him—right there in front of everyone, as Fang and the rest of the squadron assembled at the base of the radar array.

Mike was completely at a loss. Shock on top of shock. Out of pure reflex, he cupped the back of her head. She pressed her face more tightly against his neck. Her hands were restless creatures roaming over his back, his shoulders, his arms, as if trying to reassure herself that he was whole.

A hysterical laugh gurgled out of her. “You scared the shit out of me.”

“Me too.”

Leah bracketed his face with her palms. “You did great.”

“Watch it, Princess. Everyone will see you cry.”

“I’m not gonna fucking cry, you monster.” Yet she buried her face against his chest.

Mike rubbed her back as she shook.

She’d brought their secret into the light. Great. Terrific. Too bad that small miracle had required a near-death experience. So he let her go. Pushed her away, truth be told.

Hurt mingled with fear and understanding as she stepped back. Once. Again.

That’s when he gave up. He’d just scraped back from the brink of poof, gone,
splat
. How hard would it have been to say she loved him?

Leah Girardi wasn’t the woman he’d believed her to be, which meant she wasn’t the woman he thought he loved.

“Sir?”

He looked up to find the medic waiting. “You want me in that ambulance, don’t you?”

“Yes, sir.”

Mike settled onto the stretcher, looking up to the roof. No amount of deep breathing got rid of his tension. It was twined with his marrow and refused to budge.

Fourteen hours passed. Medical assessments. Precautionary tests. Debriefings. Turned out he wasn’t to blame for the near accident, that was for damn sure. Video playback proved as much. The mechanics would need time to find the exact cause. Mike didn’t care. He was a zombie. Too much to process.

He slept fitfully as military and medical personnel came and went. Dawn lightened the sky when Dash was finally able to drive him home.

“That was some scary shit, Strap.”

Mike let out a long breath. “You’re telling me.”

They pulled to a stop outside his bungalow. Dash’s expression was one hundred percent hardcore. “Don’t fucking do it again.”

“And you don’t fucking do it
ever
.”

They slapped each other on the back a few times. Mike trudged up to his porch. Key in lock. Duffle on floor. Every movement was truncated, in reality and in his head. Higher thought would take a day or two to return.

The eerie pink of sunrise added a surreal quality to his living room. The details, however, were just as he remembered—and just as shitty. Two flattened pillows, a jumbled blanket and a discarded pair of briefs looked like accusations. He’d lived on his couch during his off hours, without the guts to sleep in his own bed. His drawer of toys was in his bedroom, as were a hundred erotic, tender memories he wasn’t ready to stare down.

Those memories had been of a couple with potential. Maybe even a future.

The truth was much plainer. Mike was a bachelor. Grease-stained pizza boxes and cardboard containers of empty beer bottles proclaimed that with exclamation points.

Jesus.

The worst was his hope. Hope that Leah would’ve visited him in the hospital room. Hope that she would’ve been waiting when he was discharged from the hospital. Apparently her outright burst of emotion on the tarmac didn’t carry through to the hours and days and years that made up a real commitment.

Fuck it. He’d just survived the impossible. He should be grateful to have a skull, guts and limbs, all in the right places. Even that reminder didn’t help. So he showered, barely managing to drag jeans on. Glared at the coffeepot he still hadn’t used. Ate cereal while standing at his counter. He sure as shit didn’t need to head to base for a couple days, which meant he’d hit the sack pronto.

Back to the couch.
Fuck.

A knock at the front door made him jump.

Through the peephole, he saw Leah.

Christ, he didn’t need this now. But he still opened the door because she was there—because he needed her to be there.

She lifted her head, which seemed like a huge effort. She’d cleaned up, wearing jeans and a kitsch ABBA T-shirt that molded to her breasts. A lightweight Air Force hoodie covered her arms. His necklace encircled her throat, which felt like an insult. Her hair was loose, damp at the ends. Yet to say she had bloodshot eyes and dark circles would both be understatements. She looked completely blasted.

Mike glanced over her shoulder toward his driveway. “Where’s the Ducati?”

“Took a taxi from my house.” Her voice was a hoarse mess. “My bike ride from base wasn’t exactly…steady.”

“I just got cleaned up and ate. Now I’m going to sleep. You should go home and do the same. No way am I up for whatever reason you’re here.”

Leah kept silent but pushed past him, into the house.

“You heard what I said.” His tone was biting. Too bad. He was still hurting in ways he hadn’t catalogued.

“I heard.”

“Whatever, Princess.”

He set about cleaning up the pizza boxes and beer bottles. That she was there to bear witness to that telling mess was humiliating. She had to know how she affected him. Did he need to spell it out for her too?

No way could he look at her. Something she said or did would pull him back again, when compromising was no longer an option. So he headed to the kitchen and tossed everything into a recycling bin.

Let her friggin’ stand there all day.

“Michael?”

A part of his brain snapped in two. “I told you to shut up with that shit!” He stalked back to the living room. But she wasn’t standing.

She was on her knees.

Mike could only stare. His blood drained down through the hardwood floor.

“What the hell is this? You drop by after I just about bite it and decide to screw with me? Wasn’t that little display on the tarmac enough of a head-fuck? Get out before I say anything I regret. There’s already too much to list.”

“Michael, please.” She swallowed and looked about ready to puke. He could relate. “I need to apologize.”

He could’ve been punched in the chest and felt less pain. Hope was a goddamn bastard with a wicked right cross.

Her compressed lips were nearly colorless. Her back was rigid, as if supported by an iron spike. Yet her gaze never wavered. “You were right. I’ve been a complete coward. After trying my whole life to be better and braver than everyone else, I turned chickenshit when it mattered the most.”

His nerve endings tingled, like a limb easing back from the edge of frostbite.

“I didn’t realize how hard it would to keep from talking to you. Or for you to ignore me. I don’t just mean right now. After…after how I screwed up. I crawled out of my skin every time I saw you on base.”

Mike fisted his hands.
Stay put, idiot. Don’t you fucking move.

She fidgeted with her fingers, the hoodie’s zipper, the pockets of her jeans. “That must’ve been what you felt when I kept us a secret. To have you so close but not
have
you? Just horrible. And to think I’ve done that for months to the man I love.”

Crossing his arms over his chest was a last ditch means of defense. He was crumbling by the second.

“Michael, nothing has ever scared me so bad as today. To lose you…” A tear trailed down her left cheek. “How could I stand it?”

The crack in her voice marked the end of his control. He closed the distance between them, although his joints had turned to slush. He stood over her because, damn it all, he deserved an apology that pushed her to the edge. He needed to know if she would retreat or hold firm.

From the pocket of her hoodie she retrieved a black velvet box. Her lower lip quavered. The sunlight glimmered across her wet cheeks. Wordlessly, she lifted it. An offering.

“I’d have been at the hospital, except I had to make an emergency trip to the jewelers. Look inside.”

Mike swallowed and accepted the box. He opened the hinged lid. Inside was a smooth, lustrous cuff of gleaming copper, unadorned except for the word
Pet
engraved on the inside of the band.

What he’d been waiting for. Only now he needed her words too.

“May I?” she asked.

Soberly, he said, “That’s the first time you’ve asked my permission for anything.”

“I hope…”

“You hope what?”

Her dark eyes were big, luminous, shimmering. “I hope I won’t screw up so bad that I have to do this again. And I hope you’ll take me back.”

Silently, he held out his right wrist. Leah sucked in a slow breath. Another fat tear crested the apple of her cheek. Her fingers shook as she fastened the cuff and reverently touched the copper.

“I should’ve given this to you at our birthdays. I saw it in the shop and…I backed off. Told myself it wasn’t perfect enough, when that was just a copout. What you’ve offered me is so beautiful that I didn’t think I deserved you.”

The tension he’d thought permanently fused inside his bones seeped away. He could
almost
think again. Without fanfare, he grabbed beneath her arms and hoisted her up. She swayed on unsteady feet and used him as her anchor. He held on tight. As if relief had broken her open, she lost control of her tears. Her sobs could have smashed his heart, except his arms were full of Leah again.

“Enough of that,” he said against her temple. “When I told you that I wanted to treat you like a princess, I didn’t mean it to take anything from you. It’s a give and take—the good we could share. Do you see that?”

She pulled back and raised her chin. Braver now. Clear-eyed, despite the streaks of tears. “I do. Honest, I do. I’ve been fighting for so long to make my mark… I don’t think I believed I could be successful
and
pampered.”

“I won’t compromise anymore.”

“I wouldn’t want you to. I won’t either.”

Heady warmth eased out from his chest. “Then chalk it up to learning the ropes of something neither of us knew dick about.”

She swiped at her cheeks. They were close enough to breathe one another’s air. “You mean it? Because if you’ll let me, Michael…”

The hesitation was yet another request: to use his full name. “If I’ll let you?”

“Then I’m yours, Michael. All yours.”

His exhalation was painfully deep. “And what about me, ma’am?”

“
You
, my darling pet—you’re mine.” She wrapped her arms around him. Holding him. Binding them together. “I’m strong enough to believe that now, with all my heart.”

Epilogue

Leah adored the look Michael wore when he was washed over with pain—the pain he enjoyed. His eyes lost focus. That lovely mouth of his quirked at the corners, as if he could barely believe it was so good. She brushed a lock of hair back from his forehead.