“What are you doing?” Surely he couldn’t be so unaffected by their close call last night? By the intensity of their desire?
“I told you. Making coffee. We need to leave in about twenty minutes.”
Was he being purposely dense? “Why are you doing this?” She gaped at him.
He looked confused. “Doing what?”
“Acting like this?” Like he used to, in the old days. Before their relationship had become so complicated. She looked over her shoulder to check the kitchen door and listened carefully to the sound of running water.
Tyler’s gaze followed hers. His eyes narrowed and he pursed his lips. She lowered her voice. “Acting as if nothing happened between us?
As if we didn’t almost sleep together?” There. She’d said it.
He shrugged, keeping an eye on the open door. “How else would you like me to act? We almost slept together, but we didn’t.”
“I… Oh…” She couldn’t answer. Didn’t know how to cope with his nonchalance.
He slowly set the mug on the counter, took a step towards her so that he stood a little closer. “Would you rather I told you the truth, sweet Katie?”
His voice was low, dangerous. “Would you rather know that watching you run into that lift nearly killed me, but I let you go because you’re engaged to my best friend?” His eyes were midnight black, the pupils indistinguishable from the irises. “That I tossed in bed the whole night because I wanted you so damn much I hurt?” He winced. “Would you rather hear that I’ve had an erection on and off for the last twelve hours?” He took her hand in his, placed it on his groin and jerked beneath her touch. “That I have one now?”
Instinctively her fingers curled around him, holding him. Fire burned in her stomach, and heat rushed to her cheeks. The need to touch his bare flesh was overpowering. It knocked the breath from her lungs.
“Would you rather hear that right now I want you so bad I can barely see straight? That all I can think about is carrying you back to that hotel room and making love to you. Spending the whole day doing nothing but making you come over and over again.” He looked at her, but his eyes were unfocused.
“Fuck, Katie, I’m going insane.”
So was she. Hunger pounded through her veins. Desire trampled her logic.
Roughly, he pulled away from her, stepping back. “Is that what you want, Katie? The truth?”
“Yes, damn it!” that’s exactly what she wanted.
Steve turned off the taps. The water stopped running.
No! She didn’t want the truth. Not if it came at Steve’s expense.
Tyler swore viciously. “Do you want to know that the thought of Steve in your bedroom has me so fucked up with jealousy, I want to beat the crap out of him? Do you have any idea how I felt when I arrived here and saw his car, knew he’d spent the night?”
“He’s my fiancé. He has the right to spend the night here.”
“I know that.” Tyler choked out the words. “I have no right to begrudge him his place in your bed. But, so help me God, I do. I’m so jealous of my own best friend it’s killing me.”
She blanched, speechless. There was absolutely no response to his admission.
“Maybe I’ll just have my coffee now,” she said in a small voice, and he gave a bitter laugh.
He turned from her, grabbed the mug and set it on the counter with a thud.
“Milk, no sugar?” His tone was harsh, his voice uneven.
“Please.” Please, put the cup down. Please, come here. Let me touch you. Let me feel you. Let’s pick up where we left off last night. Please, please, please take me back to the hotel, away from Steve, away from reality, and make love to me.
She sat heavily in the chair he’d pulled out for her and picked up a piece of toast. “We leave in twenty minutes, huh?” Her thoughts were so far removed from the surprise outing, it was laughable.
He set a steaming mug in front of her. “Make sure and eat something now. You probably won’t get a chance later.”
They spoke. The words came out, the sentences were formed, but the air was thick with unspent passion and restrained jealousy and anger and neither was fooled by the detached conversation.
“Better make some extra toast,” she said. “For Steve.”
Tyler started to snarl, then stopped. His lips pulled into a tight grimace.
Katie could have kicked herself for her tactlessness. “Are you still staying at the hotel?”
He shook his head and fed bread into the toaster. “No. Last night was my last night there.”
“Have you thought any more about investing in it?” See? They could do this.
They could make small talk like any other mature adults. Like they used to.
His laugh was gruff. “No, Katie. For some reason, financial investments were not a top priority on my thought list after you left.”
Kate bit into her toast and quickly changed the subject. “Still not going to tell me where we’re going today?” she asked around a mouthful of sticky peanut butter.
Tyler looked at her and shook his head with a strained smile. “Your problem, lady, is that you ask too many questions for your own good.
Sometimes” he paused, and shifted in discomfort, drawing her eyes to his erection in the process, “it’s better not to know the answers.”
Katie sat silently in the back of Steve’s car, pleading exhaustion.
While Tyler and Steve chatted in the front, she rested her head against the window and pretended to sleep. Tyler’s thoughts were so tuned in to her body, he instinctively knew she faked her slumber. She was far too wired to get any sleep.
Her exclusion from the discussion in the car put an added stress on Tyler’s shoulders. Interacting with Steve was agony. Yes, he’d decided to challenge his friend and to win back Katie’s love, but he’d never planned on sleeping with Katie while she and Steve were still a couple.
He just couldn’t keep his damn hands off her. His guilt gnawed away at him.
He had to remember that no matter what happened between Steve and Katie, or between himself and Katie, he and Steve were still friends. In a few weeks, or a few days even, when everything came to a head because it would come to a head they might not be.
His stomach twisted. The thought was intolerable. How could there ever be a time when he and Steve were not best mates? How could he bear the loss?
They discussed Steve’s patient first, and then the viability of investing in the hotel chain. Although he felt like a guilty bastard, Tyler enjoyed the openness of their conversation. Steve had no problem expressing his distress at the loss of a patient, and Tyler found a good sounding board for his ambivalence about the possible casino investment. Inevitably, the conversation turned to the upcoming adventure.
“So, mate,” Steve said, “you still haven’t told Kate where we’re going?”
“Not a word. You?” While he’d chosen to keep it secret from Katie, he’d told Steve. Hell, he couldn’t wait to share the experience with him.
He hoped he’d love it just as much as he did, as Katie would.
“Nope.” Steve overtook another car. “You asked me not to.”
Tyler grinned. “I can’t wait to see her face when we get there.”
Steve laughed. “She’s gonna be pissed and a little freaked.”
Behind him Katie stopped breathing for a few seconds.
He granted her a short reprieve. “We’ll have a good hour’s wait. If Katie wants to pull out, she can. At any time.” He knew her too well.
She wouldn’t.
Steve glanced in the rearview mirror with an affectionate smile.
Katie, with her eyes closed, missed it. Tyler, with his eyes open, didn’t, but wished he had.
“It’s not too late for you to pull out either,” he reminded his friend.
Steve grinned. “I haven’t discarded that option completely.”
“Think you’re up to it?” Tyler asked.
He knew Steve wasn’t a hundred percent convinced of the wisdom of this outing. His first reaction to the invitation had been something to the effect of, “Are you out of your fucking mind?” His second reaction had been a quick grimace, followed by a fierce look of determination. Tyler had issued him a challenge, and Steve had taken him up on it.
Steve hesitated before answering with a bemused frown. “I’m still not convinced, mate.”
The sleeping Katie stirred behind him.
“You always were a wuss, you know that?” Tyler shook his head and grinned.
“Not a wuss,” Steve countered with a smile. “Just cautious about things that could get me and my fiancé killed.”
Katie drew in a sharp, quiet breath.
“No worries.” Tyler laughed. “They’ve never had any serious injuries here. I checked.” No, he couldn’t guarantee their safety one hundred percent. Only a fool would offer such assurances. But he knew Katie, and he knew Steve, and he knew the end result would more than justify the peril.
“Oh great.” Steve snarled good-humoredly. “Now I feel a whole lot better.”
Katie shifted in her seat.
In his gut, Tyler knew the challenge held more than just an invitation to do something crazy. Steve was aware of it too. It was the start of everything Tyler would throw at his friend, and Steve wouldn’t sit back and let it slide. he’d meet Tyler’s challenges every step of the way, and throw some of his own right back.
Take Steve’s unexpected late-night visit to Katie’s house, for instance.
Whether or not he suspected anything happened between them, by going to Katie he’d clearly marked his territory. Katie may have forgotten about the outing today, but Steve hadn’t. He hadn’t forgotten Tyler’s promise to be at the house early this morning either.
Steve’s spending the night was no coincidence. It was a silent statement of possession.
At Tyler’s directions, Steve turned off the highway and onto a dirt road.
He’d barely driven a hundred meters when he slammed on the brakes. “Fuck me,” he muttered.
Katie gave up any pretense of sleep. Following Steve’s gaze, she turned to stare out the window up at the sky, and gasped. “Jesus, Tyler,” she choked.
“I am now utterly convinced that at some point over the last two years you lost your mind completely. There can be no other plausible explanation.”
The world looked different from a small plane. Very different.
They’d flown through the clouds, and what just a minute ago had been a dull, drab sky was now a dazzling blue, the glare from the sun blinding.
Beside her, Steve looked decidedly less relaxed than he had been an hour ago.
His cheeks had drained of color, and his gaze was trained on the door, which any minute would open and, along with his tandem-skydiving instructor, he’d jump out of. He turned to face her, and without words, the look in his eyes told her Tyler wasn’t the only one who’d lost his mind.
She gave him what she hoped was a reassuring smile.
Wedged between her knees in front of her, was Tyler. Unlike them, Tyler was jumping solo a new favorite pastime of his, he’d informed them. Was there something in the water in London? What had happened to the friend she’d fallen in love with? As adventurous as he’d always been, he now displayed a risky streak the size of the Amazon River that she’d never seen before.
Why? What possessed Tyler to expose himself to such dangers?
Kate raised her eyes to the roof of the plane and questioned his sanity and her own. Tyler must have sensed her fear, because he placed his hand around her calf and squeezed gently. If she hadn’t been paralyzed with terror, she might have taken a second to appreciate the warmth and reassurance emanating from his touch.
At thirteen thousand feet, lights flashed and the door opened. A blast of icy air hit her full in the face. Before she could blink, the first jumper was out the plane. Then the second and then the third. Tyler stood, knocked his fist against Steve’s, kissed her quickly on the cheek and jumped.
Katie’s heart lurched. One second he was there, the next he was gone.
Vanished.
Steve took her hand in his briefly, and then, along with his instructor, he too was gone.
For a split second, Katie sat in the open doorway, staring out at the clouds way, way, way down below, and wished she’d never been so stupid, or so stubborn. If she could change her mind, she would, but her instructor counted to three and jumped, and Katie had no choice.
She went with him.
From the solidness of the plane they fell.
And fell.
And fell.
Plunged towards earth at an impossible speed. The sensation was like nothing she’d ever experienced. It was terrifying, exhilarating and heart-stopping all at the same time. Frigid wind rushed her face. She would have screamed in terror, but she couldn’t breathe, couldn’t move.
Her heart pounded so hard she feared it might stop. The clouds rushed at her.
Above her, the instructor signaled to make sure she was okay. She couldn’t respond, couldn’t think. It was all up to him. If he made one wrong move she’d be history. They both would.
They met the clouds and hurtled through them. The silence was complete. The rest of the world invisible. All she could see were thick wisps of grey.
Where were Tyler and Steve? Were they okay?
And then there was a small jerk, and as quickly as she’d fallen she was pulled to safety. The death-defying sensation of nose-diving vanished, and all at once she floated on air. At this speed the clouds were just as thick, just as silent and just as beautiful. The sense of being cocooned in billowy puffs of moisture in the middle of the sky was nothing less than magical.
Kate took her first real breath of air since leaving the plane and relaxed.
The tension dissolved from her muscles, and she laughed in sheer delight.
Specks of land became visible as they floated downwards, breaking through the clouds. Houses, tiny in the distance, fields of green and small lakes teased her from her height.
She was alive, she’d made it through the fall, and she was having the most incredible time of her life. She didn’t have a clue where she was. Hurtling to earth at two hundred and forty kilometers an hour left her a little disoriented. She didn’t care. Even the sharp turn that left her stomach a good hundred feet above her body when the chute had deployed didn’t faze her.
She was on top of the world, and it was amazing.