She was seated at their square table on Kyle’s left, Eric across from her. Bomber was at the bar, a hooker leaning next to him, practically resting her tremendous jugs on the poor guy’s forearm. As uncomfortable as Bomber looked, it was clear he’d rather be there than here, too close to Gamboa and memories of the babelicious agent in nothing but skimpy underwear. Fact was, it probably wasn’t far from any of their minds that underneath her current clothing, Gamboa was still rigged out in some smokin’ hot purple lingerie.
“C’mon, O’Dryer,” she went on, taking a hard glug of her beer. “You have to…hahaha, don’t know why I keep calling you O’Dryer.”
“Me, either,” Kyle drawled, “considering that’s not his name.” He tipped some ice into his mouth from his glass.
“I should be calling you Eric, that’s what, not O’Dryer. Because somewhere along the way I started thinking of you that way.” She gestured again, and this time some of her drink landed in a wet splosh on the front of her dark green T-shirt. “Probably around the time I saw your dick.”
Eric took a strained sip of his beer, his jaw—face, nerves, sanity—looking breakable as glass.
Kyle glanced down at his empty gin and tonic, forcing himself not to clench his teeth, because that hurt like hell. He’d give his right nut to be able to go back in time and not fall off that ridge today. The doofus maneuver had led to a lot of crap going down in Carrera’s hacienda today—he was having his suspicions about just how much—and Nicole was clearly one messed-up little puppy because of it. And Eric…the man hadn’t been himself for a couple of days, but now he was heading way off the reservation.
“Sooooo, seeing as we’re all inti…inter…close now,” she hiccupped, “you should tell me why you’re called Landing Cone.”
Kyle dragged a hand down his face, peering at LZ over the top of his palm. “Someday we’re going to be able to laugh about this, right?”
“Having trouble envisioning that day, Mikey.”
Nicole held up her mug. “I want another.”
“No!” They both said in unison.
Eric scooted his chair back. “I think I should take you upstairs to bed.”
“Is that a proposition, Big Boy? And I mean big”—she jabbed a forefinger into Kyle’s side—“in every sense of the word. You get wha’ I’m saying?”
There were a hundred quips he could’ve tossed at LZ over that, but for once he chose not to be tacky. Something about soul-suppressing guilt probably holding his tongue. “Cool, Gamboa. Men like to hear about other dudes’ packages, true dat.”
“And you.” Nicole pointed at him with her beer mug and a forefinger. “You need to drop trou and show me your thing, too. Only fair.”
Kyle rolled another ice cube in his mouth, then bit down, a jolt of pain zinging through is jaw. “My thing?”
“After all, you’re the rotten little pervert who’s wanted to see my crotch this whole time. Turnabout is fair game…or…uh…how does that go?” She swung back to LZ, plunked her elbow on the table and set her chin in her hand. “You’re cute, you know that?” She gave Eric a sort of sloshy-dreamy look. “You should enter a beauty pageant.”
“I’ll do that.” LZ ran a hand over his slick head. “Because I put so much stock in your opinion right now.”
“Actually,” Kyle said, “drunk is about the one time you can trust a chick. All the inhibitions go away and the truth just pours out.” The image flew into his mind of a glassy-eyed Sienna, her body pressed to his, her breath smelling of the Cosmopolitans she loved to drink because she thought it made her sophisticated like the Sex in the City girls. Though last he checked, those chicks were a bunch of hose beasts, so he didn’t get the connection, but whatever. You’re the only man I’ve ever loved, Kyle, she’d slurred. But it’s so painful to be around you…
Kyle jammed his fingers into his glass and scooped out another ice cube. Shoving it in his mouth, he chewed savagely, and, fuck, that hurt his jaw. To this day, he didn’t know what the hell pain Sienna was talking about—he’d done nothing but worship her—only that it was a favorite hobby of hers to cause him a considerable amount of it.
Nicole straightened in her chair and swayed forward. “Do you think I’m cute?” she asked Eric.
LZ sighed. “Cute brings to mind furry bunnies, Nicole. So, no.”
Nicole tucked in her chin and chortled. “And you know exactly how furry I am, don’t you?”
Kyle shot a look at LZ. Holy—
LZ slammed to his feet. “Why don’t we get some water down you?” He stalked to the bar, his spine rigid as a tow bar, his strides stiff like he was knocking about those mammoth-sized blue balls Kyle had known his friend would end up with.
Kyle blew out his cheeks. Two very messed-up little puppies, and—His cell phone beeped. Fishing it out of his pants pocket, he glanced at the screen, saw who the text message was from, and tightened his jaw—ouch! Crap! Scowling, he punched his thumb onto the open button. He’d tried ignoring Sienna’s messages many times before. Never worked. The only thing not opening one of her text messages did was make him obsess about it until the inevitable happened and he read the words his ex-girlfriend had set to screen to torture him. Which meant that he mainly had himself to blame for his own pain. If he deleted Sienna’s messages, instead of relentlessly reading them, maybe he could get on with his life.
Unbelievable, Kyle! I’ve been trying to get in touch with you for WEEKS, and u haven’t been answering me…like the complete jerk you are. And now I find out ur DEPLOYED!! I know you think you’re mister naval aviator, too good for everyone but I actually have something very important to tell u. Get in touch with me u ASSHOLE or I’m going to ur command…and the things I’ll tell your CO will mess up ur stupid career FOREVER. Don’t test me on that!!!
Face pounding—because now he couldn’t unclench his jaw—Kyle rammed his cell phone back in his pocket. Important to whom, Sienna? To you and only you. Go blow yourself, you self-centered bitch. Kyle pushed to his feet just as LZ returned with a couple of water bottles. “What’s Spanish for ‘how much for a blow job’?”
LZ frowned over that, then understanding hit and he glanced at the whore trying to tattoo herself to Bomber’s side. He shook his head. “We landed a US Navy helicopter at a Colombian Air Force base, Mikey. Guaranteed we’re being followed. We have no idea who that woman is.”
“I’ve only had two drinks, LZ, so I can safely promise I won’t disclose my gym locker combination.”
LZ’s frown deepened as he thought it over.
“My ibuprofen is wearing off and I need the distraction.” And Sienna texted me more of her bullshit. How pathetic was it that he needed to numb himself in such a blatantly textbook manner? Page 5 of the Pussy Whipped Guy Handbook: girl-messes-you-up-bang-other-girls. Damned pathetic. He suspected LZ already knew how pitiable Kyle could get when it came to Sienna, but there was still no reason to advertise.
Nicole looked up at him. “You say ¿Cuánto por chupármela?” she provided.
He swept a hand across his chest. “The rotten little pervert thanks you.”
Back in Kyle’s hotel room, Miss Jugs sprawled between his spread thighs on the bed, making a show of slowly unzipping his jeans, her eyes angled up at him through sparse lashes. Like that was supposed to entice him? Well, at least she was trying to give him the most bang for his buck, attempting to be seductive and all.
She stripped his pants down, and he grimaced when the zipper snagged on his leg bandage. A mere twinge compared to his forearm, the real motherfucker. Ice packs hadn’t done crap-a-doodle-do for the lump there, and the thing was pounding hard as a hangover after a six-day binge. He doubted he’d get much shut-eye tonight, even if he could’ve gotten past a mattress as lumpy as boxer Billy Collins Jr’s face after Luis Resto beat on him with hand wraps secretly soaked in plaster of Paris.
Miss Jugs tut-tutted over his leg injury. Awww, so sweet and maternally concerned for him. It was amazing what money could buy these d
ays.
She removed his boxer shorts, and his cock flopped out, not even close to being hard. But then, pain plus a whore who’d probably never even had a prime to get past weren’t exactly his idea of aphrodisiacs.
Jugs got the party started by pulling down her top, releasing a set of huge milkers, brown flesh covered by pale stretch marks. Looked like the whore gig was to provide for a kid or twenty.
Depressing.
He leaned back against the headboard and gazed at a dark spot on the carpet, only partially concealed by a lamp table. He was so damned tired. It was the kind of exhaustion that settled deep into a man’s bones, the kind he felt after he’d killed those bandidos. It was probably just from blood loss. Speaking of. He was pretty sure that dark spot was an old blood stain. Peachy.
Jugs grabbed his cock.
He sipped a fresh gin and tonic as she yanked his member around like she was mixing up a batch of frijoles.
He crunched ice. Was it any wonder he kept finding his idiotic way back into Sienna’s bed? His conscious mind was very aware that his ex-girlfriend was nothing but a pointed stiletto in his heart, but underneath this duh, there was an inescapable truth. Sienna was the only woman who gave him more pleasure than just the perfunctory gratification of ejaculation. It was a pleasure he’d never thought to experience again after Sienna broke up with him following the one farewell lay he’d gotten out of her.
Then out of the blue she’d shown up in Pensacola, Florida, at his graduation from flight school.
There he’d been, standing on stage waiting to get his golden wings punched into his chest, and who did he spot in the crowd? Not the date he’d brought with him, but Sienna, of all the fucking gall.
He’d fumed and stewed for the rest of the ceremony, then the moment the hoo-yahs had quieted down, he excused himself from his date and sought out Sienna. Paraphrasing certain aspects of her scathing Dear John letter, he’d snarled at his ex to get the fuck back to Virginia, driving home the point that he didn’t want anyone in his life who was capable of saying such crap to him.
She’d merely looked at him with huge, pooling blue eyes, said she was proud of him and confessed she missed him.
He’d countered with eat shit and die, grabbed his date, and gone to McGuire’s Pub, where he drank himself stupid alongside his newly graduated pilot buddies, and, as was tradition, kissed the moose head tacked on the wall for luck. The moose was evidently on the fritz that night, because he had no luck whatsoever getting it out of his mind that Sienna had uttered the words “I’m proud of you” to his face. He stalked out of McGuire’s—just up and left without a word to his buddies or his date—his feet taking it upon themselves to hunt down Sienna at her hotel room. There, he started in on screaming at her again, she back at him, and after a lot of noise, he nailed her lights out…and nearly his own. It was the second best sex of his life.
The next morning he’d woken to an empty bed—no note, no goodbye. And for a long moment of shock, he’d just laid on the mattress and gazed at the ceiling, really amazed with himself for letting his heart get broken by that woman all over again.
As it turned out, graduation night set in motion a pattern with Sienna Kelleman that was six years running and still going strong. Sienna would sweep into his life. He’d tell her to leave him the fuck alone. They’d yell and scream. And then somehow—he was never sure how this last part happened—they’d fall into powerful, mind-blowing sex.
“Señor,” tonight’s disgruntled entertainment said, bringing him back to the present. “Concéntrese, no tengo toda la noche.”
He glanced down at Miss Jugs. Her hand was wrapped around his half-hard member, and he noted with a silent hot damn that she had some kind of dirty crap under her fingernails.
“Don’ have the whole of night, señor,” she said in broken English.
He shrugged. “Stop if you want to.” One-handed, he reached over and searched in the nightstand where he’d left some ibuprofen from his kit bag. He dug out four pills, and took them with a gulp of his G&T. “Alto,” he said, using the Spanish word he’d seen on stop signs.
Her mouth rounded. The pesos he’d promised her were no doubt running away right before her eyes. “No, no, señor. Es’ okay.” She bent over him and her warm lips closed around his cock.
He grunted. One thing that could be said for pros; they generally had great gag-reflex control. As Jugs deep-throated him, his cock got fully into the game, surging up big and hard into her mouth. Spurred on by this display of enthusiasm, her head started bobbing up and down on his lap as fast as if her neck were battery-operated. Wanted this over with quickly, did she? Fine by him. The woman smelled funny, like she’d used an expired Glade plug-in for deodorant. The more she sweated, the more she smelled like rotten flowers.
The area under his balls tightened, a telltale signal of oncoming completion. Setting aside his drink, he shifted his hips up. Whether she swallowed or not, he didn’t know or care. He offered no warning when his cock began to jet semen.
She turned her head aside and jacked him off the rest of the way.
Guess he had his answer.
He groaned once. The sound was still dying out when he grabbed her under the armpit and escorted her for the door.
“Oiga, marica ¡¿qué esta hacienda!?” Her boobs slapped her flesh as he hustled her out into the hall.
He tossed twenty thousand Colombian pesos at her—the equivalent of about ten bucks—then slammed the door.
He listened to her footsteps and grumbling curses fade down the corridor. Chill, lady, I gave you twice the pesos I promised you. He returned to the bed, limping heavily now, and slouched down on the edge of the lumpy mattress. He grabbed his gin and tonic and took a deep swallow.
LZ would be happy to know that nothing—absolutely nothing at all—had been compromised during that encounter.
Chapter Sixteen
Irish Catholic by upbringing, Eric had seen the inside of his fair share of churches, although he didn’t make a habit of praying. Now he uttered a dozen thank you, Gods when he finally found Nicole’s hotel room. Getting her up to the fourth floor from the bar had been a knee-bumping and leg-tangling journey that had put him in constant full-frontal body contact with her, since Nicole refused to let go of his neck. This naturally resulted in constant contact with her breasts, a torment he could’ve done without.
Since I have you on the line, anyway, God… Hadn’t he already fulfilled his quota in the sex torture department for today? Because as far as tortures went, being so close to a woman’s entrance, as with Nicole in the hacienda, and then not pushing inside her had to be in a category all by itself. Just saying.
He stopped in front of her room door. “Key?” he asked her.
“Back pocket,” she murmured.
He stared at the number on her door. It was 43, although with the three knocked over on its back, it looked more like an uneven 4W, and he was not touching her ass. Rediscovering the lushness of that part of her body would put too damned much on his plate. “Can you get it?”
She reached behind her and wriggled her hips as she searched.
A groan pushed up his throat and landed squarely against the back of his teeth. C’mon, God, no need to hold a grudge against me for missing so much church. Nicole’s fidgeting was pushing her mons against his cock, and, argh, considering blood hadn’t been far from his organ ever since their sex show, it didn’t take much for his dick to stand up with a Now?? Great! I’ve been waiting forever for… Only for his mind to steal all of his cock’s hopes and dreams with a rolled newspaper to the snout. No! Not now. Probably never.
“Found it.” Nicole held up an antique metal key.
He took it.
She leaned into him as he fumbled the key into the lock, more breast action, mons torture, all topped off with her hot breath caressing his neck.
“You smell good.” Her voice was sultry heat against his throat. “What cologne do you wear?”
“That’s just m
e.”
“Mmm, even better.”
Did she purr? Please tell me she did not just purr. He shoved the door open and leg-bonked her inside, steering her toward the bed. As soon as the backs of her knees met the edge of the mattress, he reached around his neck and took her wrists, giving them a slight tug. “Time to let go, Nicole.”
She leaned back, not letting go, but instead peered up at him with a set of dark eyes he was coming to know as Sensual Nicole. Did she even know she had such a look? Did she have any idea how those eyes undid him?
“Aren’t you wondering about it?” she asked him.
He exhaled roughly. “Wondering what?” How long it would take to return to normal? Regain perspective? When his dick would quit being a nuisance?
“What it’d be like to make love for real?”
The image flashed, her seated on Carrera’s dining room table, all smooth soft flesh, long legs open to him. His balls clenched. “Nope.”
A slow breath eased from her nostrils. “It’s just that…we came so close to it today. It’s all stuck inside my head.”
“Did we? I hadn’t noticed.”
She smiled, a huge, brilliant, amused smile.
His heart stopped. “I think you’d better let go,” he warned softly.
“What’s the matter, flyboy? Don’t you know what to do with me when a drug lord isn’t directing you?”
She was teasing him? That’s it. Flat on her back and him fucking her cross-eyed right now. “You’re drunk, Nicole.” Hello and welcome back from the dead, nerves-of-steel Eric.
“So take advantage and kiss me.” She tilted her chin up.
His eyes dropped to her lips.
Her throat moved. “Although I think I’m on the verge of barfing.”
“Awesome.”
A grimace tilted her mouth. “And I also need to soak my destroyed feet.”
He sighed. “Why don’t you just hit the sack, Nicole? You’ll feel better in the morning.” And maybe the magical fairies who suction memories from a man’s brain would come by in the night, and then they could both feel better tomorrow. He pried her hands apart and gave her a little nudge.
Wings of Gold Series Page 11
