Inside Bet: Vegas Top Guns, Book 2 (21 page)

“Oh, God, no making out in my living room.”

They turned to find Leah in the doorway to her bedroom. She’d wet and combed her hair and put on a pair of yoga pants and a camisole.

Jon only flashed his asshole smile. “Keeping ourselves occupied while you proved perfectly capable of taking care of yourself. Well done.”

Leah flipped him off, but dark circles already hugged beneath her rich brown eyes. She stumbled back into the bedroom.

“Right back,” Jon said with a soft kiss.

He found a bottle of aspirin in the hall closet, poured a glass of water from a pitcher in the fridge and grabbed a stainless-steel bowl out of a cabinet. The actions were unerring. How often had this scene been repeated?

Heather stood in the bedroom doorway and watched as Jon forced his friend to drink all the water. “In the bowl, this time. Clean-up will be a bitch and you know it.”

“Ugh. Yes. Now go. I fucked up your date enough already.”

Jon said nothing, only shut off the nightstand light. “Sleep, Princess.”

Heather backed away as he left the bedroom then took his hand. She couldn’t say anything about what she’d witnessed. It was too close, too personal. She needed time to sort through what that evening had done to her heart. Wrapped it in barbed wire, maybe. Growing tighter every day.

But she needed it too. She was beginning to need him.

“Come on,” she whispered. “Time for your reward.”

He cocked an eyebrow. “Reward?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“I don’t know anyone who’d turn down a reward from you.”

They locked Leah’s apartment, with Heather still leading him by the hand. To her Camry. She thumbed the key fob but didn’t get into the driver’s seat. The backseat instead.

Jon loomed over her, framed by the door and a parking lot light five spaces away. “Do you live for this stuff, Heather love?”

“I haven’t.”
Not for a long time
, she added silently.

He shed his suit coat and vest, dropped his suspenders—right there in full view. “So I bring it out in you?”

“You do.”

“You should know I like the sound of that.”

She tipped him a saucy smile and leaned back onto the seat, stretching as much as possible. “Thought you might.”

Although a tight fit, Jon climbed in and shut the door. Locked it. They pressed together in the dark, their bodies still scented with sweat from the club. She liked that. Primal and real.

Jon unbuttoned her slim-fit trousers and flipped her onto her stomach. “Otherwise we’ll have to take them all the way off, and frankly, that doesn’t seem possible.”

Her cheek pressed against the seat’s upholstery. “Better than in your DBS.”

“You’re not by chance double-jointed?”

“Nope.”

“Then you’re right.” The sound of his zipper sent a pulse of want straight to her pussy. Then the condom. Then his prick right against her slick opening. “Now hold on, Heather love. I’m ready to claim my reward.”

Chapter Twenty-Four

Three hours into a class on avionics, Jon was two hours past frustrated. Pissed, maybe. He sat at the back of the briefing room, popping his pencil up and down on a notebook. Annoyance ate up his spine and twisted his muscles. He crossed an ankle over his knee. But boredom wasn’t even the problem.

Captain Eric “Kisser” Donaghue sat in the front row. He talked so much that he might as well have been teaching—except he didn’t understand half the trajectories he was bullshitting.

Jon couldn’t keep his mouth shut anymore. He leaned forward, elbows on his desk. “Kisser, run the route you’re describing, and plant your nose in the dirt. The numbers don’t support it.”

Capt. Donaghue twisted in his seat and sneered. “Flying isn’t all about the numbers, Tin Tin.”

“Planes don’t stay in the air because they
want
to. You have to do your part.”

Ryan stepped out from behind his podium, hands lifted. “Gentlemen. We’re in the middle of something here.”

The class wasn’t going to do Donaghue much good if he refused to listen or get his head out of his ass. Jon had seen the other man fly, been at his wingtip. Same as everyone else in the room. Apparently only Jon saw what a danger the man was.

The problem originated with sharp edges. Every time Kisser got in his plane, he pushed his yaw too hard. All jerky moves and lost opportunities.

The beastly F-16s were designed to work within specific parameters. The relaxed static stability meant enhanced maneuverability, but the engine couldn’t be pushed the way Donaghue fucked around.

One day he would go too far. Jon just hoped those he cared about were well out of the way.

By the time class dismissed and he made his way to the office he shared with Leah, Jon let his head wrap into the numbers—a predictable place where everything made sense. If any pilot flew so hard and low, the way Donaghue advocated, the drag on the aerodynamics would catch hold and pull him down even farther. The speed required to overcome that difference would be too significant.

After dropping into his desk chair, he scratched out the numbers on a piece of scrap paper. He punched them into a calculator, just to make sure he was right. He always was.

Tossing the pencil down, he sighed and pushed his palms against his closed eyes. The slight burn didn’t help.

Christ only knew why he was trying to make Kisser’s flight plan work. The man had all the charm of an orangutan, and he and Jon had never gotten along.

The door to the office opened to reveal Leah, looking as clean and put together as she always did in uniform. She grinned at him and sat without grace. “How they hangin’, Tin Tin?”

He leaned back and laced his fingers over his utilitarian flight suit. “You always recover so well. As if nothing even happened.”

She shrugged. “The benefits of healthy living.”

“Uncountable margaritas and half a dozen shots of tequila is healthy living?”

“Nope. But my five-mile run this morning?” She pumped her fists as if she were running before folding her hands behind her head. Elbows out. Legs stretched to full length. She looked as chill and relaxed as possible. “That set me up right and tight.”

He shook his head while he laughed, then shuffled papers around on his desk. This right here. This was why he couldn’t help but see if Eric’s numbers worked. These people were his family, and it was in his nature to try. Try and try, even when people like Leah seemed more like solid concrete. Or the fact that Jon knew he’d always give Donaghue another shot. If the opportunity came up, he’d sit the man down and have a chat about the limitations of their planes.

Leah’s mouth quirked. “Spit it.”

“
You
. You drive me nuts, you know that?”

“You’re just jealous of my recovery time.”

“You’re wasting your potential, do you know that?” he echoed, this time with deliberate harshness. Maybe something would sink in for once.

Darkness filtered across Leah’s features. “Bullshit. I fly fighter jets for a living. I’m about as awesome as they come.”

“Right. That’s why you don’t remember how you got home on Saturday night.”

“Your girlfriend. Her car.” She winked. “Besides, we had fun up until then. You’ve got to admit that.”

Jon’s mouth opened, but before he could answer, his phone chirruped. He dug it out of his pocket and swiped the screen. It was an email, which was normally no big deal. Except the sender was Heather.

He wished he were actually as laid-back as he made people believe. Mr. Cool’s heart jumped into a heavier, faster beat. He should’ve been more worried that he was a sap, but his head filled with images of their round in the back of her car. The way they twisted and grappled. The way they’d fogged the windows until she gasped his name.

“Now there’s a look I could have done without.” Leah made a show of holding up one hand and putting the other over her eyes. “Just
wrong
.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about.” He glanced up even while he held the phone. He should wait. He shouldn’t open the email yet.

He clicked.

“Dirty thoughts. You were thinking dirty thoughts.” She paused. A little frown pinched her mouth. “I didn’t… I don’t remember everything I said that night.”

He stacked his hands over his phone. “Look, you were fine.”

She shifted in her seat, picked up a flight manual, tapped it on her knees. “It’s one thing if I wreck myself. But I wouldn’t ever want to put you in a bad place. Or say the wrong thing to your girl.”

His girl.

Maybe she was. Maybe she wasn’t. The email was the first time she’d initiated contact.

His issues with Heather were secondary for the moment. Jon targeted Leah in his sights. “Wreck yourself?”

“I don’t mean anything by it. Just if I get myself in trouble, it’s no big deal. I’m my own responsibility.”

“That’s where you’re wrong. We’re friends. Changes everything.”

She laughed, although it sounded strained. “Your Tin Tin is showing.”

“Whatever.” He sat back again. “I can tell when you’re not in the mood.”

“You just make sure it’s Heather’s moods you pay attention to.” Leah all but launched out of her seat. She shoved a notebook and her running shoes into a black workout bag.

He ran his thumb along the cool metal edge of his phone. “Her moods are my business, thank you very much.”

She kept him on his toes, even more so than his friends—Leah and Ryan and the rest. Things worked out with them because they gave him the same support in return.

It remained to be seen whether Heather would prove to be that real.

Leah stopped in the doorway. “We should go out this weekend.”

He couldn’t help his chagrin. “I’m not up for another vomit fest.”

“I get it. You don’t think I do, but I do. Maybe rock climbing or something?”

“Yeah. I’ll give you a call.”

A minute later, she was gone. He hated to attach the word
finally
to a friend, but there it was, hovering in his head. He flipped his phone, woke it up and scrolled down to Heather’s message.

The first line was in carefully researched French, but he thought by the formal conjunction that it might have been translated by a website. He didn’t care. The content made him smile. An invitation to dinner at a place Jon recognized as a dive joint with awesome malts. She’d attached a caveat—she would be there exactly at six and she wasn’t waiting.

A glance up at the military-issue wall clock showed he’d be cutting it close. No time to scramble to his condo and get changed. He had a spare T-shirt and pair of jeans in his office. Locking the door, he stripped out of his flight suit and changed in the tiny, windowless room. At the last second, he grabbed his flight jacket. Plenty of dry warmth lingered in late summer, but once the sun went down, cold would kiss the air.

At one minute before six, he pulled into the diner’s small asphalt lot. He battled the impulse to wait in his car, simply to make the point of a precise entrance. Or maybe it was the realization that he hadn’t been on a date with Heather when not dressed to the nines.

He shook it off. Not exactly worth worrying about.

Pushing through the plate-glass doors, he found a square room with little depth. At the far end was a pick-up counter and a window into the kitchen where an army of cooks swarmed. The booths were small and laminated, with black-cushioned seats. The walls were covered with a mural that must’ve been painted by a cadre of eight-year-old girls obsessed with neon colors and fantasy animals. People gobbled fries and burgers out of red baskets.

He stood in the doorway until he spotted Heather. She was seated in the far corner, fiddling with a white straw and a Styrofoam cup, as if she was nervous. He liked that possibility too much.

She looked up. Her expression didn’t change for a long moment. Jon’s chest contracted when she smiled—slow, drawn out. That smile promised all the things she’d like to do to him later.

Or maybe those were
his
thoughts.

As he approached, he couldn’t help but admire how good she looked. The blouse was ivory against her pale skin, with a hint of lace at the buttoned-up collar. Technically her breasts were covered, but the slick satin gave him a visceral reaction. His hands wanted to take and touch, to let tits settle in his palms.

He followed pure instinct without second-guessing. Once he reached the table, he leaned down and took her mouth, fast and swift. Their kisses spiked so quickly—wet heat under his tongue and the scrape of teeth over lips.

He only pulled away once their breathing roughened. “Hello.”

Heather rubbed the corner of his mouth with her thumb. “You certainly do know how to greet a girl.”

“You looked so neat and proper. I wanted to mess you up a little.”

She tugged the hem of his T-shirt. “Funny, I could say the opposite about you.”

He helped her up and led her to the ordering window. “That doesn’t sound like a complaint.”

“It’s not, flyboy.” She slanted him one of those gorgeous, challenging gazes. “Not in the least.”

Chapter Twenty-Five

“Number eighty-five. Order up.”

Heather looked toward the window where a large man in an even larger greasy white apron slid two red baskets under a string of heat lamps. Beneath the table, she snuggled high heels between Jon’s boots. His jeans rubbed against her bare calves.

She took a long sip of her drink. “What do you think? Eighty-five hours at the gym to work it off?”

“Hmm.” He rubbed his chin as if in deep thought. “Perhaps eight-five health-code violations?”

“Eighty-five drips of sweat in the hamburger meat.”

Jon leaned his elbows against the white Formica table, which was, thankfully, squeaky clean despite the dive’s grungy atmosphere. He grinned. That full-on devastating grin. Complete with dimples. The one made of pure fun, with only a few glimmers of sexual intent. She saw it so rarely that Heather could only sit still, taking in the sight.

He cocked that one amazingly expressive eyebrow. “Eighty-five former employees who’ve been convicted of felonies.”

“Eighty-five barrels of fry oil used every week.”