Worth the Risk

by Robin Bielman

  “Morning,” he managed to get out.

  They gazed at each other like they couldn’t believe they were together again.

  “I hope you haven’t been waiting long. I had a hard time waking up this morning. Lots of tossing and turning last night.”

  Dean wondered if her lack of sleep had anything to do with him. He reached out and put his arm around her waist, bringing her in close. Her feminine frame fell into his body and their mouths connected for a proper greeting. Temporarily satisfied, Dean let go long enough to grab her hand and pull her toward the exit.

  “Let’s get out of here. I’ve got something special planned for you.”

  “You do? What is it?”

  “You’ll see. We’ve got about an hour’s drive. I’ll fill you in along the way. But trust me, it’s beyond your wildest dreams.”

  “Why, Dean Malloy, are you whisking me away on another adventure?” Her voice chimed with an excitement Dean recognized from their summer together, and his own anticipation shot up a notch.

  As they reached his car, parked outside the lobby doors, he tossed a sideways glance at her, not worrying about the look of adoration he knew showed on his face. “You’ll be over the moon about this one.”

  He’d wanted to do this for a while. Lucky for him, after a call last night to his pilot buddy, all systems were a go for today. Looking over at Samantha, sitting so picture perfect in his passenger seat, his stomach flip-flopped.

  “We’re going zero-g this afternoon,” he said once they’d hit the highway that led far from town and toward the airport.

  “Zero-g?” Samantha shifted in her seat and regarded him with interested eyes, like she had x-ray vision.

  “Zero gravity. We’ll experience what it feels like to be weightless. It’s you and me, babe, floating around like a pair of astronauts. And I for one am hoping to accomplish what no man has done before.”

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Getting frisky while floating.” He pegged her with his most charming smile, raised eyebrows and all, hoping she wouldn’t be opposed to his plans for more touching.

  She broke eye contact to look out the windshield for a few moments before turning her head back to him, the naive expression on her face replaced by a look he couldn’t read. He wondered if her reaction stemmed from the zero-g comment or the frisky comment.

  “Is this simulation on the ground or up in a plane?” she asked, her tone giving him little hint to her disposition.

  “Our weightless flight is on a seven-twenty-seven aircraft.” He leaned over, lowered his voice. “It’s too bad I think we have to wear jumpsuits.”

  He conjured up a vision of Samantha floating to him in nothing but a sheer black teddy, the material swaying around her body giving him glimpses here and there of her curves, and the flurry in his stomach moved south, causing his jeans to tighten. Damn.

  I wonder if I can get a hard-on when weightless?

  She smiled, and when she spoke a lighter tone fell from her luscious lips, like maybe she was on board with this adventure now. “You betcha.”

  “What?” he choked out. She hadn’t just read his mind, had she?

  “The jumpsuits. We have to wear them. I remember now, seeing a segment on Good Morning America or something, where they did this and everyone on board wore these thick gray jumpsuits.”

  “Maybe they have a suit built for two?”

  “Mmm. You wish.”

  As if hearing the “mmm” come out of her sexy voice wasn’t enough to send his cock directly to a ninety-degree angle, she included a smile that amped up the sexual desires surging through his body. Fun was a great aphrodisiac for him, and today was already more amusing than he’d anticipated. By the time they got back to her hotel room tonight, he planned to take her every which way and remind her of just how potent her feminine wiles could be.

  “I’m wishing for a lot of things,” he replied.

  She let out a breath. “You know, you’ve done it again.”

  “What?”

  “You have this amazing way of making me feel like I’m freefalling even when my feet are on the ground. It’s the same way I felt the first time you took me hang gliding or river rafting. For the past few years, I’ve missed that.” She shifted her body so she faced him, one leg under her bottom. “Thanks for being the one to show me what it’s like to lose my inhibitions and really feel alive.”

  “It’s easy with someone like you.” He lifted his arm and ran the back of his hand along her cheek. She was so soft, so lovely. When her head tilted to press against his skin he felt her reservations about him slip away. “You’ve got an adventurer’s spirit hiding inside that beautiful body.”

  “You bring it out in me.”

  Her words reminded him of her willingness to do whatever he’d suggested during their summer together. He remembered how she’d trusted him completely with her safety and well being. She’d never doubted his strength or abilities; she’d always looked at him with admiration and awe. Samantha gifted him with the utmost confidence, and he’d never forgotten that feeling. On days when work nearly got the best of him, his recollection of her faith in him restored his faith in himself.

  “We should come up with a plan,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For how to defy the odds of gravity and keep our hands on each other.”

  She giggled. “What makes you so sure I want your hands on me?”

  Dean felt a wide grin flank his face. “Just a hunch.”

  “Some hunches are good,” she purred, straightening her back against the seat with a little shimmy that had his mind and other parts of him standing at attention.

  Hell. Things were worse than he’d thought. When did he lose his mind and think time with her was a good idea? Because come forty-eight hours from now, he’d have the Route 66 contract and would be heading back to California, where he now realized a stint in rehab would be required to save himself from the pain of leaving Samantha again.

  …

  “Are you planning on getting me drunk up there?” Samantha eyed the bottle in his hand as they exited the car. She hoped he was up to something like that. Ever since their hallucinogenic kiss last night, she’d teetered on the edge of wishful thinking, ready to catapult herself into Dean’s world and stick there whether he liked it or not. What a fool she was to think spending time together would remedy the hopeless devotion she felt for him.

  Maybe getting drunk would help.

  “It’s only sparkling apple cider. I hear even liquid is weightless during our parabolas, so I thought it might be fun to make a toast and try to catch the floating bubbles on our tongues.”

  He picked up her hand and walked toward the large plane sitting on the runway. Once again, the contact made her forget her own name. She’d planned to keep things platonic today, but when Dean started flirting, she couldn’t help but relax and dish out some of her own playfulness. She knew the risk he posed, knew she was tumbling back into a painful repeat of their last good-bye, but she didn’t have the strength to stop herself.

  Or the desire, if she were honest with herself. Foolish girl.

  “What are parabolas?”

  “They’re the flight maneuvers that allow for weightlessness. It’s kind of like a roller coaster. The plane pulls nose up then levels off for a bit, then goes nose down. I think we get to enjoy about fifteen parabolic arcs that each last around thirty seconds. That’s when we’ll experience zero gravity.”

  “And how long did you say your friend’s been piloting these trips?”

  “A while now. You’re not nervous, are you?”

  “No,” she said, shaking her head.

  He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. Then he brought her flush against him and kissed her. Hard. “You’ve got nothing to worry about with me around.”

  “I know,” she lied. She wanted to believe whatever happened between them was innocent. But what if Dean was simply trying to distract her? Make her
forget about the Route 66 contract? After the way he left her five years ago, she’d be a fool to trust him again.

  When ninety minutes later they were dressed in the requisite jumpsuits and laying on the padded floor of the wide-open airplane preparing for their first parabola, Samantha forgot about Dean’s motivations.

  They’d been instructed on what to expect. The position they were in now, on their backs, waiting for the parabola, would be required between each weightless timeframe. As Sam looked around, the emptiness inside the aircraft reminded her of a giant playroom. And she couldn’t think of anyone else she’d rather be with. Despite the looming job decision and their personal issues, Dean filled her with more joy than she’d felt since…well, since their last adventure.

  “Ten, nine, eight…” their coach (and expert at zero-g) said, ticking off the time until the first arc. He looked about fifty, was built like a tank, and had a kick-ass attitude.

  Her stomach fluttered with anticipation. When the countdown got to one, she and Dean were airborne.

  “Holy shi…” Samantha floated up, up, and away, weightlessness stealing her body and tossing her around the aircraft as if she were light as a feather. The feeling tickled her from the inside out. Giggles from deep in her gut spilled out of her mouth and she couldn’t stop. She was part of the air, had little control over her movements. Just had to go with the flow. Dean hovered across the way on the…ceiling? She had difficulty telling which end was up.

  Thirty seconds later, they were back on the padded floor.

  “That was incredible! How many more of these do we get?” she asked.

  “At least a dozen,” the coach replied.

  Dean beamed at her, his eyes twinkling brighter than the stars wishes were made on. A jolt of euphoria struck her. She had to feel the floor to be sure she wasn’t still floating on air.

  “You’re amazing, and your excitement is so damn contagious. I can’t imagine experiencing this with anyone else.”

  “Me neither.” She’d like to wish upon his gaze—wish for things to be different, wish for something she swore she’d never think about again. Because she knew better than anyone that Dean’s commitment lay with the environment, not with any woman.

  Today was make-believe. A game of pretend: Let’s pretend we’re a couple one more time; have a wild, crazy adventure that we’ll never forget, but never tell anyone because there is no “we.”

  Sam knew come Monday, everything would change. But lying next to Dean, she did want something. She wanted to push aside the fear of heartache and dance with him one more time.

  Several tries and fits of laughter later, they’d only achieved parabolic pantomime, reaching and grasping for each other with swipes of contact to show for it. Though they moved in slow motion, the lack of contact was her fault. She couldn’t keep still.

  “No more zigging when I zag,” he teased, seconds before they lifted off again.

  “I thought I was zag and you were zig.”

  “Yank and spank,” the coach said with an authoritative voice, like he’d had some experience navigating the sea of weightless interaction between opposite sexes.

  Samantha and Dean exchanged glances and grinned. Without saying another word, they knew what they had to do. As their bodies floated up, Dean hauled Samantha toward him with both hands on her shoulders, sliding them down to her back and landing firmly on her butt until the space between them dwindled. Samantha wrapped her legs tightly around Dean’s waist and crossed her ankles. Her arms slid around to his backside. She grabbed hold of his jumpsuit.

  It worked. Chest to chest, pelvis to pelvis, they held on to each other until an attempt at lip contact resulted in bumped foreheads and loss of stronghold. They spiraled away from each other, laughing at the botched attempt, Samantha doing a backward somersault and some other acrobatic maneuver deserving of an Olympic gold medal. Weightless kiss or no kiss, though, Samantha was on cloud nine.

  …

  An hour later, Dean still couldn’t stop smiling. “That was amazing,” he said, walking back to his car. “It far outweighed my imagination.”

  “Mine, too. It’s definitely something I’ll never forget.” Samantha walked with a spring in her step, like she’d just had the best day ever.

  “Me neither.” Opening the passenger door, he watched Samantha get comfortable before closing it and stepping around to his side.

  He clicked his seatbelt into place and sat for a moment, committing everything to memory before fumbling to put the key in the ignition. “I’m sorry,” he said.

  “For what?”

  “For hopping on a plane five years ago without telling you how I felt.”

  Sam sucked in a breath and turned her head to look out the passenger window. Seconds ticked by. She pressed her hands into her lap.

  “I was a jerk. And then I lost your number when I was sailing and dropped my phone into Lake Cascade.”

  Sam met his gaze, and the skeptical look he saw in her glassy blue eyes hit him straight in the gut. “You were going to call me?” she asked.

  He undid his seat belt and turned his body toward her. Could she see how furiously his heart was beating? “Honestly, I don’t know. Our lives were going in different directions. But having the choice taken away from me sucked.”

  Her eyes moved to something over his shoulder.

  “So I flew to Chicago. I had a friend at Northwestern who helped me track you down.”

  She flinched. “But—”

  “But when I got there, you were with another guy, so I left.” His pride had taken a big hit when he saw her with someone else so soon after they’d been together. Maybe that made him an ass, since he’d thought it was okay to leave her. But he’d changed his mind. He’d missed her. And she’d moved on.

  She searched his face, shook her head. “That’s impossible.”

  Was she saying there hadn’t been anyone right after him? He pushed that thought aside, because if his eyes had been deceiving him that night…

  “I wasn’t with anybody during law school.”

  This completely derailed him. “Tall, black hair, big build, wearing an old Cubs sweatshirt and had his arm around you in a very intimate way.”

  Sam pushed him in the arm. “You big idiot! That was my cousin. He was a year ahead of me and probably consoling me over a class. Or you. Those first few months are sort of a blur.”

  Dean rubbed a hand across his jaw. “Me?” Regret flooded him. He’d been too cocky to approach her that night. He’d wanted her to continue thinking she didn’t matter to him, when the complete opposite was true. What an idiot he was.

  She stared at him like he’d just asked if bears had fur.

  “You didn’t exactly tell me how you felt either, you know.” Dean wondered deep down if she’d loved him. But wasn’t that part of the reason he’d fled? He’d never been a coward until that day at the airport. Afraid of the depth to which they’d connected and how that might affect his future.

  Rather than argue with him, she said, “I guess we both could have done things differently.”

  “Yeah.”

  Silence splintered the confessions between them. There was nothing else to say, really. They couldn’t change the past. Dean slipped his seatbelt back on and turned the key in the ignition.

  Samantha leaned over and kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you,” she whispered. “Today was great.”

  He appreciated the way she focused on the present and let their misunderstanding from five years ago fall away. “You’re welcome.”

  She leaned back in her seat and put her feet up on the dashboard. “Once again, Mr. Malloy, you’ve succeeded in expanding my horizons. We’d conquered the earth, and now the skies. What do you have in store for me next?”

  Her words and posture were casual, but if he didn’t say what was on his mind, he knew he’d regret it. “If it’s okay with you, I’d like to see the inside of your hotel room.”

  Chapter 7

  The elevator doo
r closed, trapping Samantha and Dean alone for the ride up to the fourteenth floor of her hotel. This was no parabola, but the air in the small confines of the space felt so charged, Samantha doubted her feet were touching the floor.

  “Room service sounds good to me, too,” she said.

  “Good, because I’m hungry for much more than food.” He pressed her back against the cold metal rail, his body cornering hers. Lifting one arm, he placed his palm on the wall just above the left side of her face. He leaned in close, her thigh now snug in the crux of his legs.

  With his devilish smile, he made her pulse quicken. She felt her nipples tighten and tingles radiate out from their peaks. An unwonted flutter settled low in her belly and a craving for more blunted all thoughts of reason. When his warm breath touched her neck, dizziness overcame her.

  Was she really about to do this? Despite his apology and their misunderstanding from five years ago, Sam still wasn’t sure she could trust that Dean had no ulterior motives to this seduction.

  He steadied her with his other hand, gently cradling her lower back. The feel of his arm around her added to the surrender taking over her body. She let her head fall back, her neck becoming a pliable muscle she couldn’t hold upright. With his eyes glued to hers, he came forward and nibbled on her bottom lip.

  Ding. The chime of the elevator door stopped any further interaction. Dean pushed away from the wall and led her down the hallway—her walking rather clumsily behind his steadfast strides.

  Samantha weighed her options on the short walk to her room. From a purely physical standpoint, she wanted to make love to Dean all night long. But from an emotional standpoint, she wasn’t sure she could handle the ramifications.

  Would she ever be rid of her attachment to him if she succumbed to what he offered? She didn’t think so, but she felt like she couldn’t stop herself. The pull to be with him was too great. She wanted Dean no matter his intentions and even if it meant trying to forget him all over again.