by Diana Gardin
He shrugs, spreading his arms out to the sides. I see his gaze flash quickly to Brantley standing beside me before he trains his attention back on me. “Don’t look at me. This was all Flash’s idea.”
“Thanks for throwing me under the bus, asshole.” Flash’s voice, from behind me, makes me whirl.
He walks out of the sliding glass door holding Nitro’s harness, with three people behind him. “Guys, you remember my brother, Axel. And this is a good friend of mine, Arden Fontaine. Her friend, Brantley Sloan, is right beside her.”
A tingle of discomfort shoots through me at the way he introduced me. Friend.
Why would that upset me? We’ve only kissed once, and sure, we’ve gotten close. But would I expect him to call me anything other than a friend? I don’t know. My brow furrows. My mind is such a jumbled mess when it comes to this man.
Not to mention my heart.
“These two are fellow fighter pilots. The really ugly one is Jake Rodriguez, and he’s with his wife, Alex. The woman who can probably kick all our asses is Lola Broderick.”
My eyes zero in on Lola, because she’s a fighter pilot and she’s gorgeous.
And she also has an arm linked through Flash’s.
Long, ultra-straight black hair hangs past her shoulders, and is much thicker than mine. Her creamy brown skin is flawless, and her body is curvaceous, like the proverbial Coke bottle all women aspire to be like. Where I’m thin and willowy, she sports lush curves for days. And she can’t hide them in the maroon skinny jeans she’s wearing, either.
“It’s nice to meet you all.” The words are right, but my voice sounds wrong.
Jealousy strikes, a vicious snake poised to sink its fangs deep into my heart.
Flash said he was inviting the three people who meant the most to him in the world after his brother, and one of them is this woman?
My eyes suddenly sting with tears I’m so thankful Flash can’t see. A small nudge from Brantley tells me that she knows exactly where my head has gone, and when I glance in her direction, she shakes her head slightly. Telling me that I need to relax, that I’m being ridiculous.
Which I know I am. Flash and I aren’t together. No labels have been thrown around where we’re concerned. Hell, I’m probably too much of a mess for him to even want to have that conversation with me.
Jesus. My palms begin to sweat as my breaths come fast, too fast. Forcing my feet to move on wobbly legs, I heft my purse higher on my shoulder and excuse myself.
Back in the kitchen, I ignore the delicious smells wafting my way and rush into the main level powder room, closing the door behind me.
Shit. Shit. Shit.
My back to the door, I slide down until my butt hits the floor. I place my head between my knees and try to take deep, calming breaths. Only every time I inhale, I picture Flash’s face, and how good he would look standing next to a beauty like Lola. And she’s a freaking fighter pilot? I’m not sure how many female fighter pilots there are, but I’m pretty certain this makes her a complete badass.
The total opposite of my waist-deep mess. There’s no comparison at all. My breathing accelerates, along with my heart rate, which beats an irregular tune just for Flash Jackson.
It’s been weeks since I had one, but the sound of the blood roaring in my ears and the way my hands shake as I pull out my bottle of anxiety meds is all the proof I need to know that I’m having a panic attack.
And this time, it’s not because of grief.
It’s because of the thought that I might lose someone else who’s become deeply important to me, before I even have the chance to make him mine.
16
Flash
I have one ear on the conversation happening on the patio, where one end is set up as an outdoor dining room and the other has the fire pit, while I wait to hear the sound of the slider opening as Arden rejoins the group.
When a few minutes tick by and she’s still not back, I take the few steps that lead me to where Brantley is listening to Jake and Axel rib each other about who looks better in a flight suit.
I pull Brantley aside. “Everything okay with Arden today?” I ask, keeping my voice at a murmur. “Knew it would be a rough one for her, but she seemed fine when you both came in.”
Brantley snorts. “I know you can’t see my face right now, Flash, but if you could, I promise you I’d be rolling my eyes.”
Confusion takes hold, twisting my features. “What?”
She pats my cheek. “I could go check on her, but it’s going to be better if you do it. Go on, Mr. Fix-It.”
I’m fucking bewildered. If anything were seriously wrong with Arden, Brantley would have been all over it. But something must have sent her running. Her voice was barely a squeak when she answered the introductions, and then she shot inside so fast, I didn’t even have time to pull her back to my side where I always seem to need her to be these days.
Leaving Nitro lying beside the door, I walk back inside and shut the slider behind me. Counting my steps, I pause just outside the kitchen and ask the caterers, “Gorgeous blonde? Which way did she go?”
There’s a smile in one of their voices when she answers me. “Power room just down the hall.”
When I’m standing outside the powder room, I knock lightly, the backs of my knuckles rapping against the wood. “Bunny? What’s going on in there, sweetheart?”
A beat of silence from beyond the door, and then, “I-I’m fine, Flash. Go back to your guests. I’ll be out in a minute.”
But she chokes on the last word, and I’m turning the doorknob in the next second. “Bullshit.”
Entering the small space, I shut the door behind me and even though I’m not yet touching Arden, I feel her in front of me. Reaching out, I find her waist and squeeze, turning her until she’s pressed back against the door. My arms land on either side of her head, caging her in.
I take a deep breath, and the sweet scent of her slams into me like a wave on the shore, threatening to pull me in and suck me under. “Talk to me.”
She shakes her head, the silken strands of her hair tickling my face as it whips back and forth. “I told you, I’m—”
Taking her chin between my forefinger and thumb, my body screams at me to touch her more, to press my quickly hardening cock against her, to take her in my arms and taste her until we’re both dizzy. Keeping my voice level, I remain focused on whatever sent her running into this bathroom to begin with.
“Talk. To. Me.” Each word is a demand.
She exhales, and I hear the rattle of a pill bottle in her hand.
Her anti-anxieties?
“Shit.” I breathe. “A panic attack. Is it because of the holiday? Are there too many people here? I’m sorry, Bunny—”
She interrupts me, one finger on my lips to silence my words. “It’s not that, Flash. I’m embarrassed to tell you…”
She drops her finger and tries to look down, but I’m still gripping her chin with a firm hold, and I won’t let her look away from me. The fact that I can’t see her in this moment means nothing. I’ve learned to read this woman so well that it’s almost better than seeing her. The turmoil thrashing around her, as her soul cries out for comfort, is something I can feel just as surely as her skin beneath my palm.
Edging closer, because I need the contact and I think she does too, I drop her chin and rest my forehead against hers. “You don’t have to do anything you don’t want to do, but right now, I really need to know what sent you running. Tell me.”
As I wait, her breaths slow until they match mine, and the wild thumping of her heartbeat calms against my chest. Reaching down, I grab the pill bottle out of her hand and place it on the counter behind me. “Come on, baby.”
“She’s…she’s really pretty. Your friend out there? The pilot …I mean, I don’t know if she’s your friend, or…” She’s stumbling over her words in a way I’ve never heard before, and I frown because she’s not making any kind of sense.
“You’re talking abo
ut Lola? What…” My words trail away as realization dawns, blazing the truth against the sky of my mind. “Baby…are you jealous? Of Lola?”
The words sound ridiculous coming out of my mouth, because the thought is nothing but insane. When Arden’s entire body wilts in reply, I know I’ve hit pay dirt.
I brush my lips against her forehead, finally giving into the need to touch her. Then I kiss each cheekbone, discovering they’re wet with tears. And damn, that shit hurts in a way that makes me want to send every last person I invited to this Thanksgiving dinner home.
“Fuck.” The curse falls from my mouth. “Don’t cry, baby.”
She sniffles, and my chest constricts. “I’m being ridiculous, I know that, Flash. There’s nothing holding you to me. I have no claim. We haven’t even talked about—”
I cut her off, settling my lips firmly over hers. I move my hand to grasp the back of her neck and run my tongue along the seam of her lips. With a sigh, she opens her mouth and I slip inside. Her hands move to my shoulders, clutching, bunching in my shirt, like she wants me closer. I feel it where her skin touches me, even through my button-down, like flames licking at my skin.
She moans, and the sound reverberates, not only in my mouth, but all the way down to my dick.
Goddamn. This woman.
I rip my lips from hers, breaking contact only long enough to trail my mouth along her jawbone and down to her neck. Inside me, some kind of dam burst the second I touched her, and I don’t think I’m going to be able to stop.
“You want to know”—my teeth sink into the soft, sensitive flesh over her pulse, and she whimpers—“what kind of claim you have over me?” My tongue lashes the same spot, smoothing over the sting right before I suck lightly.
Reaching down, I grip her under the thigh and yank her leg up over my hip. Maybe being blind has given me some limitations, but I’m damned glad to find out that it hasn’t hindered me in this respect at all. In fact, I can feel my other senses working that much harder. The sounds she’s making, little moans and whimpers of need, the quick little hitches of her breath as I turn her on, and the feel of her pressed against me? It’s intense, overwhelming, and fucking incredible.
Just like she is.
I grind my hips into her, and I swear I can feel the warm heat of her pussy rubbing over my jeans-clad cock. I want to slip my finger inside her, and then another one, right before I taste her. And after that? I want to sink my cock so far inside her, I stay buried there until neither one of us can tell which way is up.
Grasping the long mane of her hair with my other hand, I tug her head to the side, so I can whisper in her ear, gratified by the shiver that rocks her body when I do. “You have every fucking claim there is. This? You and me? The only thing I’ve been waiting for is for you to be ready, sweetheart. The second you are…” I rock my hips again and she cries out. “You’re mine. You understand that, Bunny?”
She nods, a quick jerk of her head as she clutches me closer and circles her hips forward.
I mutter a curse. “Not here. Not in a fucking bathroom at my house, while people are waiting for us outside. I want you, Arden, don’t mistake that. Stay with me tonight.”
She goes still, and I lower her leg and draw back, wishing like hell I could see her face.
Shit. Is she ready for this? Am I pressuring her?
She sure as hell felt ready, the way her body reacted to mine just now.
I’m rewarded, only seconds later, with her breathless response.
“Yes.”
A few minutes later, I’m leading her by the hand through the slider and back onto the patio. We find seats around the fire, where my friends are laughing and talking about the times we had together, while deployed and stateside. I tuck Arden into my side on the bench, feeling the warmth from the fire crackling before us and from the people sitting all around us. I can only imagine the curiosity in their glances when they look at Arden and I, but I don’t give a shit. Until she and I figure out exactly what this is between us, no one else needs to know any details about it.
“So,” Arden starts. Her voice is almost shy, her throaty rasp that I find so sexy coming out quieter than I’m used to hearing. I tilt my head toward hers, wondering what she’s about to ask. “Can y’all tell us newcomers to the group how you all met?”
A beat of silence settles on the patio, and then a raucous roar of laughter shared by Lola, and Jake, and me.
“First day of Pilot Training,” all three of us say in unison. Then we all burst into another round of laughter.
“The three of us were straight out of the Air Force Academy, and this guy,” Jake elbows me hard in the ribs, “was always a cocky son-of-a-bitch.”
Chuckling, I lift my chin. “Had a lot to be confident about. Can’t blame a guy.”
Jake laughs. “None of us were friends at school…just ran in different circles. But we were thrown together the first day because we’d all graduated in the same class. Our instructor put us together for a simulation, and Flash took the lead.”
“Like he always did.” There’s affection in Lola’s tone. And respect.
“So, he acted like he knew exactly what he was doing, even though we were all fish out of water,” Jake continues.
“Hey!” I raise both hands in protest. “I still swear there was something wrong with the simulator.”
“Sure there was.” Axel stuffs a bite of food into his mouth and chews. “Excuses.”
Jake continues, laughter bubbling up through his words. “So, we’re all sitting there, trying to figure out what to do if we’re being shot out of the sky. We only have about a minute to complete the correct counter-maneuver, and Lola tells Flash she thinks he’s doing it wrong.”
I can hear the spark in Lola’s voice as she speaks to Arden conspiratorially. “Did he listen? No, of course not. Men.”
“He’s a stubborn one. You should have seen him when I told him I wouldn’t run with him,” Arden agrees, feigning total seriousness.
I turn to her, mock betrayal written on my face. “You’re all against me!”
Jake laughs, along with Brantley and Axel. “Man, we went down, and we went down hard. I swear our instructor almost had an aneurysm that day, the way he yelled at us. And Flash just stood there and took it, looking him straight in the eye. Lola and I wanted to hide, but not Flash. He accepted responsibility for the botched simulation and took the heat off of us.”
Arden leans into me, and I enjoy the sweet warmth of her side. “That sounds like Flash.” I feel Arden turn toward her left. “What about you? Were you a pilot too?”
There’s a grin in Axel’s voice when he answers. “Yeah. Followed in my big brother’s footsteps all the way. But I was a year behind these guys in flight school.”
“Didn’t stop him from being a bad-ass pilot, though,” Lola adds. “The Jackson brothers are practically legends.”
Just then, I hear the sound of the slider opening, and I incline my head in that direction.
“Mr. Jackson, if you and your guests would like to seat yourselves around the table, we’re going to serve dinner now.”
The caterer’s voice brings me to my feet, and I reach for Arden’s hand, lacing our fingers together.
She squeezes gently as we all make our way to the other side of the patio and the long table. “I can’t believe you wouldn’t just let us all bring something. You didn’t have to cater it.”
“Yeah, Mr. Big Shot.” Jake chuckles. “What gives?”
Axel doesn’t say a word, already being privy to the reason I didn’t want everyone bringing traditional sides and main dishes to this Thanksgiving.
“Told you all this is the Thanksgiving That Isn’t. That means we’re not having turkey and stuffing this year.”
The smells drifting our way from inside the house through the open slider definitely aren’t the traditional Thanksgiving aromas, although they’re most certainly making my mouth water.
“Oh, my God.” Brantley’s voice ri
ses with joy. “Is that…fondue?”
A gentle tug on my arm pulls me to a stop, and I turn to face Arden.
“I can’t believe you did this for me, Flash. I’m so thankful.” There’s an undertone of urgency in her voice. Something in her tone pulls, tugs, at the center of my chest, calling to that part of me that’s somehow conditioned to protect her, no matter what.
All I can give her is the truth. “I knew this would be a hard one for you. First Thanksgiving without them…didn’t want you going through that alone. So, I tried to make it different for you, and fondue in three courses is about as different from traditional Thanksgiving as it gets.”
She’s so silent, so still, with her small hand settled in mine that I immediately start to question whether I did the right thing.
Pulling my hand from hers, I use both of mine to touch her face. My thumbs brush against her cheekbones. It’s the place I read her best, feel her the most. When we’re sharing breath.
Lowering my voice, I wipe away a tear as it slides down her cheek. “Happy or sad? Because just say the word, Bunny, and we cancel this whole thing right now and I’ll cook you a fucking turkey.”
She laughs, and her hands lock around my wrists. “This is…God, Flash. It’s perfect. Thank you.”
The balloon in my chest, the one attached to whatever emotion she’s feeling at any given time, swells and fills and expands. I press my lips to her forehead and pull her toward the table, where our friends are seated and talking.
“Don’t ever thank me for putting a smile on your face, sweetheart. It’s starting to be my new favorite hobby.”
After we’re seated, Arden asks for my attention.
“Taste.” It’s a command, one that makes my lips tip upward.
“You’re feeding me?”
She prods my lips with the bite of food, and I open obediently. Chewing up the bite of shrimp drenched in a creamy, cheesy sauce, I close my eyes and murmur my approval.
“It’s good.”
“Did you see what I did there?” The smile in her voice pulls at my heart.
