Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance) (10 page)

The wedding went well. Reign and his wife, Sarah, spent the whole evening laughing and dancing. Easy went home with a bridesmaid. I went home alone.

I sent Becca a text the next day to see how she was feeling. On Monday, I ran into her picking up her morning coffee at Casey’s.

Okay, fine, maybe “ran into her” was misleading. More like “spent an hour waiting for her at Casey’s.”

She walked into the diner dressed in a black suit, looking much better than she had Saturday, her gaze sweeping the crowd. And then she settled on me and I felt that familiar piercing sensation in my heart as a smile took over my lips.

I waved and she returned the gesture, her lip slipping between her teeth, indecision covering her features. She adjusted the bag on her arm and then she walked toward me, her long brown hair falling around her shoulders.

She stopped at my table.

“Hi.”

I grinned, not bothering to hide how my gaze lingered over her in the suit. The skirt was snug over her hips, showing a tantalizing amount of leg tucked into black heels. She looked hot. Fantasy hot. Bend-you-over-a-desk-and-fuck-you hot.

“Hi. Are you feeling better?”

She nodded, a pink flush settling over her cheeks. “Thanks for taking care of me, by the way. I was kind of out of it, and I don’t remember if I thanked you, but I really appreciate it. You didn’t have to, and it was really nice that you did.”

“No worries. It was my pleasure.”

And it was. Everything about her was.

“You look beautiful.”

The flush deepened. “Thanks.”

“Are you in court today?”

“No, it’s a pretty quiet day in the office. My secretary rearranged my schedule just in case I wasn’t feeling better.”

“But you are feeling better?”

She smiled. “Yeah, I am. I think it was one of those twenty-four-hour things. Nothing that some Vitamin C and rest couldn’t cure.”

“Good. I’m glad you’re better. I was worried about you.” I gestured toward the seat in front of me. “Why don’t you join me?”

She hesitated. “I don’t want to bother you. I can just get coffee to go or something.”

“Please.”

She sighed, her lip popping between her teeth again, and then she was sliding into the seat across from me, removing her jacket to reveal a pale pink silk top that left her shoulders bare and just the smallest amount of cleavage visible.

There was something about that color—all that pink—
that had me adjusting myself in my seat, trying to calm my growing erection.

“So what did you do this weekend?” she asked after we’d ordered.

“I went to my friend Reign’s wedding. He’s a buddy from pilot training, and he’s stationed at Shaw.”

“How was it?”

“It was good. I got to see a bunch of guys I’d known from prior assignments. A big group of us went golfing yesterday.”

She laughed. “You golf now?”

“Yeah. Crazy, I know. It’s big in the Air Force, so I took it up during pilot training. I pretty much suck, though.”

“Please tell me you wear matching plaid shorts and a hat.”

“Only on special occasions.”

“Hmm. I’d like to see that.”

“I’ll take you golfing sometime.”

She made a face. “I definitely don’t golf.”

“Okay, no golf. Go on a picnic with me instead.”

“I don’t think so.”

“Come on.”

“Are you trying to hit on me?”

“I’m not trying. I am hitting on you. It’s just a picnic. Just for a few hours.”

“I don’t know.”

“I’m asking for two hours. Maybe three if you like it. When’s the last time you took a break during the day and did something fun?”

“Why am I getting déjà vu of high school and you trying to get me to skip? I have a job, you know.”

“And I bet you never take a day off. Besides you said your secretary cleared your calendar, yes?”

She nodded reluctantly.

“So it’s already a light day. Come on, you know we only have a few more weeks before it starts to get too cold to enjoy being outside.”

“Where is this picnic?”

“Where else would it be?”

We’d spent more days and nights than I could count hanging out in the fields on Mr. Eggers’s property—making out and talking about our future, dreaming dreams that never came true.

“I don’t know—”

I grinned, feeling like I had a fifty-pound weight on my chest as I reached for her, praying I didn’t come up empty. “I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

I took her hand in mine, leaning across the table until she was inches away, swallowing the sigh that escaped from her lips like it was air and I was desperate to keep breathing. My thumb rubbed over her knuckles, back and forth, savoring the feel of her soft skin beneath me, her lips parting as I touched her.

She made a little noise, somewhere between a hum and a sigh, the faintest glimmer of interest flashing in her eyes.

“Fine. A few hours.”

Victory.

I was as nervous as I’d been the first time he brought me here, when I was just sixteen and he was the guy all the girls wanted, but few had had. He’d done his own thing in high school, was one of those guys who could have been cool if
he’d wanted to be, but hadn’t seemed like he cared enough to bother.

There had been something mysterious about him back then, a joke in his eyes and the curve of his lips that you wanted to be in on, the feeling that if he shared his secrets with you, you’d be the luckiest girl in the world.

And he’d chosen me.

Eric drove his rental car—a Mustang convertible—down the highway, slowing as we reached the edge of the Eggers farm.

I’d always loved it here, nostalgia hitting me every time I made this drive. My parents’ property had bordered Mr. Eggers’s land, and while I hadn’t been back to the house I’d grown up in since they died, the drive always made me feel like I was going home. When we were younger, I used to daydream about me and Eric buying the house from the family who’d moved in after my parents died, imagined raising our kids there one day, building new memories and clutching the ones I’d had to me tightly.

Eric turned on a dusty dirt road, one we’d traversed so many times when we wanted to be alone, kicking up gravel as the wind blew my hair.

He was right about the weather. It was the second week in October, and even though this year had been warmer than usual, you could feel the bite of fall lingering behind the sun. Soon the leaves would change, the weather cool, and we’d slide into my favorite season.

And he would be gone.

Eric cut the engine, getting out of the car and walking around to my side, opening the door and holding out his hand to me.

The gesture took me by surprise, a small reminder of
how he’d changed, gone from boy to man. He’d been a thoughtful boyfriend and fiancé, but he’d never had someone to teach him those moves; somewhere along the way he’d acquired them, transforming him into something unexpected.

I placed my hand in his, the touch of his palm against mine, his fingers curled around my fingers, feeling like the beginning of a new start for us. One I wasn’t sure I was ready for, but took just the same.

Somewhere between the kiss and him stopping by my apartment and taking care of me while I was sick, I’d thrown my rules out the window. He was only here for a few weeks, and it had been a long ten years of missing him and attempting to fill the void with pale substitutes. So fuck it, as long as my heart stayed out of the equation, I didn’t see why I couldn’t have a little fun.

With his free hand, Eric grabbed a blanket and picnic basket out of the backseat of the car, and I shamelessly ogled the impressive forearms exposed by the rolled sleeve of his cotton button-down. My heart might have known he was off-limits, but my body was definitely ready to play.

Eric hopped the fence first, using the rails to climb over the top. His feet hit the ground, a boyish grin on his face, and I knew he remembered how many times we’d done this.

My hands met the wooden planks, the memory tugging at me, and then I hoisted myself up, my sandals slipping slightly on the boards. I straddled the fence, careful to keep my dress from billowing in the wind, and Eric reached up, his hands resting on either side of my hips as he pulled me down to the ground.

His body pressed against mine as he settled me on the squishy grass, my back brushing his chest, his lips and
breath tickling my neck as he held me to him, his hard length pressing into my ass.

Neither one of us moved.

A line of goose bumps puckered my skin. My breath caught in my throat as I struggled to keep from rubbing myself against him. His hands came up to wrap around my waist and chest, inches away from my breasts, his chest rising and falling rapidly against my body. We stayed like that for another beat, and then he released me with a sigh, reaching down and picking up the basket and blanket he’d discarded, holding his hand out to me again.

At least I wasn’t the only one affected. If I was going to lose control, then I wanted him right there with me. My body felt like it was on fire, the breeze doing nothing to combat the heat building beneath my skin. Maybe I still had a fever.

I placed my hand in his, the electricity between us crackling like a live wire. We walked through the field together, the tall grass tickling my bare legs, more memories flooding me, as though we’d traveled back in time.

My gaze swept the open field, the colors bursting—red, purple, yellow flowers, the green grass, blue sky, white fluffy clouds that looked like someone had stretched out pieces of cotton into shapes and sent them up to the heavens. It was beautiful. So painfully beautiful. And so familiar.

I hadn’t been here since Eric. Had told myself I’d outgrown dates like this in favor of fancy restaurants, candlelight, and wine. But coming back felt right in a way nothing else had.

Something would happen here; the tension between us was too great to ignore. I wanted it, but I couldn’t deny the fears running through my head. It had been ten years. I didn’t have a twenty-one-year-old’s body anymore. Would
he notice? Care? Would things still be as good between us as they used to be?

Eric tugged on my hand, bringing me to a stop next to him. “What about here?”

I nodded, emotions clogging my throat. “This is perfect.”

I waited while he spread the blanket down over the ground, while he unloaded the picnic basket, pouring wine into two plastic cups.

My heart skipped a beat.

He’d brought a hamper from Casey’s Diner along with a bottle of white wine, in a move that surprised me. The boy I’d known hadn’t necessarily been romantic—sweet, yes—but not necessarily smooth. Apparently he’d upped his game.

Eric sat down, patting a space next to him, and I sank to the ground on shaky legs, spreading the full skirt of my dress around me, as if the fabric could keep him temporarily at bay and give me the buffer I needed while I got my heart and pulse under control.

He offered me a cup of wine and I took it, our fingers brushing against each other and undoing that moment of calm. I felt like a teenager again, like the virgin I’d been when we’d first started dating. And at the same time, my body definitely did not.

I knew what was coming and I wanted it—badly.

I took a sip of the wine and then I set it on the ground and lay back on the blanket, staring up at the sky. The sun beat down on my skin, the smell of dirt and grass around me, the barest of breezes lifting the hem of my dress.

How many times had we done this growing up?

I’d always been reluctant to skip school, too concerned with the prospect of getting in trouble to want to court Mr. Eggers’s potential wrath if we were caught sneaking onto his property. But Eric had always been there with a smile and an extended hand, and I’d never been able to resist the urge to wrap my fingers around his and let him pull me wherever he wanted to go. I’d been hopeless at saying “no” to Eric Jansen when I was a kid, and given where I’d ended up—next to him on the faded plaid blanket, our bodies so close we nearly touched—apparently that wasn’t a habit I’d been able to break.

“What are you thinking?” he asked, lying down next to me, folding his arms behind his head.

“Just looking at the clouds.”

This, too, had been a tradition.

“Cow, three o’clock.”

My eyes narrowed as I considered the shape. “It looks like a cat.”

“How does that look like a cat?”

I pointed to the sky. “See, those are its ears. And that’s its little cat face.”

“Nope. That’s its cow face.”

I grinned. “You always were terrible at this.”

“Hey, you were the one who lacked imagination. It used to take you ages to come up with shapes.”

I rolled my eyes. “Some of us like to be deliberate. Like to make sure we’re getting it right.”

“And sometimes you spend so much time trying not to mess up that you miss it entirely.”

Touché.

“Do you remember that time we went to the air show at Shaw?”

I did. That had been a rare good day near the end. I’d never been to an air show before, and he’d been so excited to go see the planes. We’d found a spot to set up a blanket and we’d lain down on the ground, my head in his lap as we watched the planes fly overhead, as he pointed out the different airframes. It had been the moment when I’d realized how serious he was about flying.

“Sometimes when I’m up in the air, I’ll see a cloud and think of you. Remember the days we spent just looking up at the sky.”

I turned my head, staring into his blue eyes. Our gazes locked, a hint of a flush beneath his cheeks. I couldn’t fight the smile. He’d always hated those blushes, unable to fight the curse of red hair and pale skin. Of course, it wasn’t fair
that he also had a warrior’s body and a face that broke hearts—my heart.

“Don’t,” he said.

“Don’t what?”

“Don’t shut down on me. Not yet. Not this afternoon anyway. Just enjoy this.”

That was the problem—it was so easy to enjoy it, to lie here and pretend we were young and in love again. The same nerves that had lived inside me then flooded me now, the same questions running through my head:

Would he touch me? Kiss me? Was it even a question or had we come here for this, the need lingering unspoken between us?

“Do you want something to eat? More wine?” he asked, his voice soft.

For all the nerves pinging through me, I’d come here because I wanted to be alone with him, because he’d kissed me and the promise of it had fueled a fire within me, because even though I shouldn’t want it, I
wanted
him to press my back down into the grass. I wanted what this place had represented for us, what my body recognized now, even as my mind protested.

I swallowed, the bodice of my dress suddenly feeling tight, my skin electric. “I didn’t come here for the wine.”

His eyes darkened and he shifted, his bare arm brushing against mine, his skin warm from the sun.

Hadn’t we been building our way toward this all along? Did it matter that it was just temporary? That it was likely just sex? That I didn’t know where this was going? That I didn’t care?

His pinkie brushed my finger, the soft touch sending a tremor down my spine, my nipples tightening, a flash of heat building just under my skin.

More.

His finger hooked around mine, the breath leaving my body with a soft
whoosh
.

We lay there, staring up at the sky, holding hands, but not really holding hands, rewinding time.

His finger stroked my palm, sending another wave of want through me, a steady throb building between my legs as anticipation built inside me. He shifted beside me, turning onto his side, squeezing my fingers, his gaze raking over me with an intensity that might as well have been his hands shaping, molding, imprinting themselves onto my flesh.

He started at my face, my eyes, my lips, before moving lower, his gaze hot on my breasts in a move that had me arching my back a little, giving in to vanity, to the desire burning inside me to make him want this as badly as I did. To shatter his control.

His gaze dipped lower and I swore I could feel his touch on my stomach as clearly as though he’d dragged the pads of his fingers down my skin, dipping into my belly button, goose bumps rising on my flesh, and then lower still, until I
did
feel him—

His finger grazing my bare knee with such aching gentleness that for a moment I wondered if he’d touched me at all, if it had all been a figment of my imagination—my filthy imagination that was currently running wild with all the things I wanted him to do to me beneath the sky—or if I’d merely confused the breeze on my skin with Eric’s hands.

He answered the unspoken question in my head with a soft caress to the hollow spot behind my knee, tickling the sensitive skin there in a move that had me biting down on my lip.

Fuck me, this is happening.

It had been a while. More than a while. So independent of the fact that this was Eric, that he’d forever been the yardstick against which I measured all other men, I wanted this, needed it, had to have it. For once in my life, my brain could shut up. I wasn’t interested in hearing all the reasons why this was likely a stupid idea; I knew them all. I just wanted to come, and considering Eric was the Picasso of orgasms, I wanted to come with his mouth on me, his hands stroking me, his cock inside me.

A girl had only so much willpower. It was time for me to get mine.

His hand trailed up my leg lazily, each caress unraveling me inch by inch. I stared up at the clouds, the breeze tickling my face, his magic hands releasing the tension that had been inside me for so long. I stretched out on the blanket, my body languid as he turned me into a boneless heap.

He played with the hem of my dress, his fingers dipping under the fabric and stealing the air from my lungs as he stroked my inner thigh, drifting higher, higher . . .

I turned my head, staring into his blue eyes, the lust there sending another tremor between my legs. I reached out, my fingers tracing his full mouth, and then I watched, arousal flooding me, as he sucked my fingers between his lips, his tongue joining the party and sending a message that had my clit tingling in anticipation.

Yes. So much, yes.

I pulled away, my hand falling to my side, my fingers clutched in a wet fist.

With his free hand he lifted my dress, the warm sun hitting my bare skin. I spread open, any shyness that might have reared its ugly head taking a backseat to how
fucking good
it felt to have him touch me. He lay there, propped up
on his arm, his gaze on me as he lifted my dress to my waist, baring the white scrap of lace that, if I were totally honest with myself, I’d definitely worn for him.

His breath grew ragged, and for a moment I thought he’d speak, but then it passed, as if he’d realized that, in this case, words would break the connection between us. I didn’t want to be reminded of reality, didn’t want anything to spoil this. If this was wrong, I didn’t want to be right.

He stroked me through the lace; if there had been any doubts in his mind about how badly I wanted him, they’d just been answered. My eyes closed, my head falling back on the blanket as I gave myself over to the only sensation I wanted to feel—his hand between my legs bringing me closer and closer to ecstasy.

His knuckles grazed me as his fingers hooked under the band of my thong. I lifted my hips and he pulled the lace from me, his big hand resting on my hipbone, the warmth of his touch a brand on my flesh, his fingers inches from where I wanted them to be. And then I felt it—his breath on the inside of my thigh, tickling my skin, sending another shiver down my spine, and then another as he teased me, those little releases of breath nothing and everything at the same time.

I wanted, needed,
more
.

His breath hovered over my skin, the little puff of air blowing directly onto my clit, my body aching and tight, needing relief, grasping for pleasure even as it slid through my fingers like sand.

“What do you want?”

The words sounded rough falling from his lips, as though his control hung by a thread just like mine.

My eyes fluttered open and I stared up at him, looming over me, his mouth a harsh slant across his too-handsome
face. Holy hell, in this moment, his call sign seemed totally apropos. He looked like the god of thunder and lightning, like a warrior who commanded and men followed. If I hadn’t been close to coming before, the look in his eyes and the sheer beauty of his fucking face propelled me to the edge. The arrogance in his voice had me teetering there.

He didn’t ask the question for anything other than to make me answer, because there was no way he could have any doubts about what I wanted. But he was definitely going to make me say it.

Fine.

“Your mouth on me.”

No shame. No point.

“You want to come,” he drawled, his lazy tone another silken caress.

I managed an eye roll, no easy feat when you were strung as tightly as I was. “Gee, what gave you that idea?”

He rewarded me with a grin, his dimple making an appearance that had me squirming beneath his gaze. I’d forgotten how playful he was in bed.

“I thought you hated me,” he teased.

Holy hell.
I was
thisfreakingclose
 . . .

“Can we not talk? Maybe there are
other things
your mouth could do right now.”

His smile deepened, a chuckle escaping those beautiful want-them-on-my-body lips. His answer was to dip his head down, his mouth closing down around my clit—

I bit back a moan, and then his tongue dragged across my swollen flesh, and I gave up all pretense of silence.

He didn’t play around, didn’t tease me; instead, he feasted on my body like I was a banquet laid before him, sating himself with the arousal that flowed through me, the sighs that escaped my lips, the way my body quivered and shook
as he took me closer and closer, that familiar sensation building in my body, except this time there was a sharpness and an intensity that hadn’t been there before with him and all the guys in between.

I reached down between us, my fingers threading through his hair, holding on to him even as my world shifted and I lost control. I came hard, my hips bucking beneath his body while he held me down, his mouth swallowing every tremor, his tongue laving my swollen, aching, dripping flesh.

As quickly as it had come on, the orgasm slid out of me, leaving me hollowed out and spent, way too smug with pleasure to make room for doubt or regret.

Maybe we sucked at love, but we definitely knocked this out of the freaking park.

Eric stared down at me, a lazy smile on his face.

I reached out, touching my fingers to his lips again, feeling myself on his skin. Our gazes locked, a conversation passing between us without the need for words. His fingers closed around my wrist, pulling my hand away and bringing our hands together until we were joined palm to palm.

He lay back down on the blanket and hooked his arm around me until my head came to rest on his chest, my cheek above his heart, the steady beat lulling me to sleep beneath the cloudy—
cat
-filled—sky.