From time to time melancholy over the loss of Zena dampened her spirits. She occasionally mentioned the helicopter in conversation and though she bore no guilt, Zena was special, Frankie’s first full-fledged assignment as a pilot. Gage also knew the loss of her father’s dog tags weighed heavily on her conscience.
He blinked and looked out across the horizon.
The honor of nicknaming the new helicopter had been given to him in a unanimous vote among every New Harmony crew. Gage was stunned. He chose the name Stella — after his mother.
He glanced up. The sky was changing again. Mauves and oranges of sunset shimmered across the sky as old ghosts of the past combined with a host of new troubles to bombard him.
He was in great physical shape but Frankie was wearing him out. He needed a rest. If they kept up their current lovemaking pace, they’d never make it into work the next morning. Maybe he should give them both a break and head home for the night.
His mouth quirked in a sly grin.
Was he really complaining about getting too much sex? Had his brain slipped a cog? Frankie had found a manual at the library and was in the midst of doing intensive research—on him.
“I hope you don’t mind,” she’d announced. “Some of these pictures are downright bizarre. I have a lot of questions and you’re my partner of choice when it comes to getting answers.”
His eyes squinted into a frown at her remembered words.
Partner of choice?
Did she really think she had a choice? Hadn’t his actions made the fact very clear that Frankie belonged to him now? She was his woman. There would be no experimenting with anyone else. If she had a question, he’d gladly answer it for her. If she wanted to try something out of the ordinary realm of acceptable sexual behavior, he could provide that service too. Gage didn’t have many taboos. Whatever Frankie wanted was hers for the asking. Except for one thing. She would have no other lover, no partner but himself—period.
Gage sucked in a breath.
Period. Period? The word drifted wistfully through his thoughts. When was she due for her next menstrual period? His mind raced across the four years they had worked together. Was it the first or last of each month? She never paid attention and the event usually caught her unawares. It was Quinton who always received the dubious request of running to the store for feminine toiletries while she waited in the bathroom for his return, trying to pretend she wasn’t embarrassed. Gage scratched his head, mentally matching calendar to event.
The first of the month.
Noises from the beach below captured his attention. A host of sightseers clogged the shore, strolling across the warm sand not more than fifty feet from where he was leaning against the patio enclosure. He didn’t blame anyone for wanting to be near the ocean when the weather was so outrageously fantastic. Migrating to the beach on a beautiful day was popular sport.
However, those same people could also get themselves in hellacious predicaments, oblivious to the danger an incoming tide presented until stranded on a rapidly disappearing island.
The grating of the patio door opening drew his attention from the frolicking tourists. Gage glanced over. His mouth fell open. Blood rushed straight to his groin like fire down a trail of gasoline.
Clad in a flowing skirt and oversized chiffon blouse that all but bared her breasts, Frankie stepped outside. Her hooded eyes made contact with his. She moved toward him. Gage hitched a curious eyebrow.
The woman was going to be the death of him.
A predatory grin twitched at the corners of her generous mouth. If she was trying to seduce him, it was a done deal. She stalked across the patio and stopped directly in front of him, swaying, staring up with smoky eyes.
“I want to taste you,” she spoke in a barely audible voice.
Without permission, her hands skimmed under his shirt and down his waist to the shadowy indentation of his navel. Gage felt her work the zipper of his jeans. A thin line of sweat broke across his upper lip. The feel of her hands drove him crazy. Frozen in amazement, he stared down.
Her fingers curled around the pulsing hardness of his erection. She slid to her knees. Silken lips played with the muscular ridges of his abdomen as she pushed his pants below his knees. Her mouth brushed the pear-shaped birthmark on his right hip and returned to give it a little bite.
Gage nearly went airborne.
Frankie drew back and licked her lips. She touched her tongue to the damp tip of his shaft. He bucked as her mouth closed around him. He was too large to take in all the way. She went down as far as she was able and slid back up, adoring the taste, the scent, of his thick cock.
Frankie lazily teased with her lips and tongue. Back and forth. Over and around, in tight little circles. It was impossible not to give up to the pleasure she offered. Gage’s eyes drifted shut. She nuzzled him, her hands reaching around to grip and spread his ass. She kissed down the underside of his shaft and licked the soft sac of his balls, swirling her tongue around them, taking first one and then the other gently into her mouth. He almost howled. He gritted his teeth, prepared for her next caress, only to find he wasn’t prepared at all. His fists clenched at his sides. Gage was reasonably certain that his heart was going to fibrillate.
“Francesca,” he sputtered breathlessly.
Her face was a study in the ecstasy of giving. She murmured something he couldn’t hear, circled lightly then plunged the tip of her finger inside his ass as she drew his cock deep into her hot mouth. The moan torn from his lips sent a couple using the beach access path scurrying on their way.
Gage couldn’t hold back the explosion. Hot semen poured down her throat. Frankie licked and sucked him, her mouth racing along with his heart. The center of his universe zeroed in on the singular place where pleasure ruled him completely. His hands wound into her hair as she sucked every precious drop from him.
Blood returned slowly to his brain.
His eyes uncrossed.
His muddled thought processes cleared.
“You swallowed,” his vocal cords shuddered the declaration. “Where did you learn to do that?” he demanded.
“Do what?” She smiled and wiped a droplet from the corner of her mouth. He reached down suddenly and yanked her upright. Her eyes bulged at the unexpected roughness. She tried to pull away.
“You swallowed,” he repeated.
“Is that a bad thing or a good thing?” she asked. “You seemed to enjoy it.”
Gage jerked his pants up and tugged her across the porch. “Inside,” he nodded in the direction of the house while he guided her steps. He slid the glass door closed behind them and immediately spun her around to face him. Frankie tried again to wrench herself free of his grasp. Gage held tight.
“Who taught you how to do that?”
“The Sisterhood,” she blurted.
“The Sisterhood?” His incredulous look prompted her to keep talking.
“We had a discussion during one of our Margarita Mondays. Kristen had some very interesting theories about performing oral sex. She had us practice on beer bottles until we got it right.”
“Practice? You practiced right there in the pub?”
The veins in his temples were bulging, pulsing in time to his heartbeat. Being doused with ice water wouldn’t have cleared his head any faster.
“Yes.”
“And Edgar didn’t throw you out?
“No, but he did send his wife over to take a few notes.”
Gage let out a tortured sigh. “I should’ve known.”
“I’ll have to report back to them that Kristen was right on target.”
“You won’t say a word about this to anyone, ever. And the next time you decide to stick your finger in my ass, could you warn me first?”
Frankie’s chin flew up in defiance. “The whole point of it was to be a surprise! Kristin says that if the timing is right, that little fringe benefit in the end will shoot a guy straight to the moon.”
“To hell with Kristin! If I’d
wanted to go to the moon, I would have become an astronaut,” he roared.
“Why is this such a sore subject for you? The Sisterhood says that guys rank a great blow job right up there with one of the eight wonders of the world.”
Gage shook his head. Too many secrets existed between them. He would have to tell her. Sooner or later he would have to tell her everything, even if it squeaked out a little at a time. She had to know it all, judge for herself. Gage shuddered. Now was as good a time to start as any. He released her and took a step backward.
“Robin.”
“Who?”
“My ex-fiance.”
Anger burned deep in his stony gaze.
“What did Robin do to you?”
Gage forced his voice to a calmness he wasn’t feeling.
“She moved out.” He began pacing the confines of her living room. "She left me three days before our wedding.”
Frankie clenched her hands spastically. “Why?” she gasped.
“The note said she couldn’t handle the long amounts of time I was away. She was tired of being alone.”
“Didn’t she realize your lifestyle was exactly that from the start? It’s not as though you sold vacuum cleaners for a living. Pararescuemen can be called upon to do some cloak and dagger stuff. Was Robin aware of that fact?”
“She underestimated her ability to deal with it,” Gage replied evenly.
“She doesn’t sound like a very smart woman,” Frankie insulted. “I hate her already.”
“I was a fool,” he spoke quietly, staring at the ashes in the cold fireplace.
“No,” Frankie countered. “You were in love and she was an idiot.”
Gage shook his head to clear it. “About a week after she left me, I was drowning in a bottle of scotch when an old acquaintance wandered into the bar.”
Gage’s jaw twitched but he couldn’t formulate the words.
“And?” she finally prompted.
“He walked up and congratulated me. Shook my hand, said he was glad to see I had finally wised-up and there might be hope for me yet.”
“What?” she blurted. “That rude bastard. I don’t like him either.” Frankie was shifting from one agitated foot to the other.
Gage kept speaking. “He told me that Robin was infamous for her incredible blow jobs. At one time or another, she had gone down on almost every guy in our unit. I was the only bastard dumb enough to ask her to marry him.”
“Did Robin leave you in March?” she asked quietly. Gage nodded yes.
“Is that why you get so moody this time of year?”
He nodded.
“Is Robin the reason you left the PJ’s?”
Gage merely looked at her. Stricken. Silent.
“I need to know something Gage,” she said softly. “Please tell me.”
He squinted as he peered down at her.
“What we did, what we’ve been doing this week, all the sex. How is it going to affect our relationship at work?”
“It won’t.” He cut her off short and turned away. Moving slowly at first, he couldn’t find the courage to look at her again and see the stark pity he suspected was written all over her face. He wasn’t ready to tell her everything. He couldn’t. Not yet. Not another word or he would break. He didn’t want Frankie to see him like that. A familiar cold sweat beaded his forehead. He needed a long run, some fresh air and he needed it now.
Gage grabbed his car keys off the coffee table and headed for the front door.
“I have to leave,” he mumbled.
“I know,” she whispered.
* * * *
Frankie watched him go without a word, wishing every material possession she owned that she could spend a few moments holding him, offering what little comfort she could give. Robin. Frankie knew she’d never be able to hear that name again without wanting to punch somebody’s lights out. She took a deep breath and tried to roll the tension out of her shoulders.
Some broken things couldn’t be mended. They had to be put together with care, bit by fragile bit like building a pyramid out of toothpicks. She blinked away a single tear and felt sadness at seeing the magical sweetness of their week together scatter like interstellar dust.
Her casual fling was over.
Frankie went from room to room, gathered what he left behind. She placed his belongings in a worn duffel bag by the door. “That must’ve been one helluva blow job, Moriarty.” Never again, she promised herself. She’d return the library book first thing in the morning.
Chapter 11
BACK TO WORK
Captain Jack Knight frowned as he gave report to the oncoming pilot. Something weird was going on. Moriarty was not paying attention. Edgy, more acerbic than usual, TB stared into space like she’d been lobotomized. “Must be on the rag,” he thought with a grunt. Knight snapped his fingers rudely in front of her face.
“Yoo hoo,” he whistled. “Anybody home?”
Frankie whirled on him and glared.
“As I was saying,” he continued, unable to resist the urge to reach down and scratch his nuts. “There are two separate wildfires raging about twenty miles northeast. We’re on standby to assist. The last time I checked there were eighty firefighters deployed and the total combined area covered roughly ten thousand acres.”
Ten thousand acres?
Frankie felt a twinge of guilt. She had no idea such a burn was going on. She’d been so absorbed in sex play with Gage all week that neither of them had even bothered to listen to the news. The spring had been unusually dry and lightning had started at least one of the fires. The other was being blamed on careless campers.
“When was that?” she asked.
“When was what?”
“When did you last check on the firefighters’ progress?”
“The top of the hour.”
Frankie nodded her head. Knight squinted and stared down his hawkish nose at her. He cleared his throat and began officiously, “With the cutbacks the forest service has taken in the last few years, resources are spread thin. The Regional Air Center in Piercy has requested that we provide assistance in case of emergency and HQ has given the go-ahead. Piercy has two helicopters on the fire. One of them is coordinating all of the air to ground efforts,” he sniffed. “The other is dropping fire retardant.”
Frankie gazed across the ocean at an ominous bank of dark clouds. She felt small, intangible—depressed. A fierce squall formed on the horizon with lightning zigzagging from cloud to cloud. “How many fixed wings are helping drop fire retardant?”
“Four air tankers out of Brewster,” he answered.
“The Bureau of Land Management only contracted four planes this season? They have their work cut out for them,” Frankie commented. “That won’t be nearly enough,” she whispered as an afterthought.
Knight paused for a moment and tapped her shoulder lightly.
“Are you okay?”
“Fine,” she answered absently. “Yourself?”
It was common knowledge that Jack Knight never missed an opportunity to talk about himself. He was his own best friend and fan club president. Frankie used that knowledge now to cover her own apprehension.
She was transparent!
Anybody who cared to look could see right through her. Flesh and blood, muscles, every vital organ, all the way to the bone. What they would see was a clear violation of her rule number one:
Frankie had shagged Gage.
Repeatedly.
Enjoying every millisecond.
The time she spent with him was undisputedly the most awesome of her life. She knew it must have been a ‘pity fuck’ on his part but she was grateful, nonetheless. Gage had been generous, caring and compassionate, more doting than either of her previous lovers had been. He went the extra mile to show her a great time.
So, why did she feel like shit?
She arrived fifteen minutes early to work that morning after a night of terrible dreams and scant sleep. She placed the bag with Gage’s cloth
ing right inside the laundry room and set about her duties as usual. Quinton came in a few minutes later. He made direct eye contact with her, smiled, winked and walked away.
He knew!
Her heart skipped a nervous beat. Quinton knew about them! Did Gage say something? Could he read her mind? Would he think less of her for what she had done? Waves of humiliation rolled over her. Ten minutes later Damon and Gage staggered through the front door together. Instead of the warm greeting she normally gave them, Frankie hung her head and took off in the opposite direction, mumbling something arcane about the off-going pilot.
She had found Knight seated in Stella’s cockpit picking his nose. Frankie pursed her lips and bit back a curse. The second the bastard left the area she was going to scrub Stella’s cockpit with disinfectant and give the helicopter a thorough rinse down.
Knight was talking again.
“The least of which,” he sniffed, “will be the difficulty the hotshots will encounter trying to build an organized fire line.”
You’ve got to be kidding, she thought wryly. The peckerwood was lecturing her on the dynamics of fighting a forest fire? Frankie held her tongue and let him prattle on, deciding not to enlighten him that before her sister got sick, Jeri worked as a hotshot each summer after graduating from high school, eventually pounding her way up to squad leader.
Jeri and her team would hike into a burning area, heavy loads of equipment on their backs, then proceed to clear a path wide enough to stop, or at least slow down, the fire’s progress. She had some close calls. One in particular spent hunkered beneath a thin aluminum shelter as the flames roared past. A brown-and-serve-bag, Jeri had called the fire blanket.
Frankie’s jaw twitched. She stared at the fluttering orange windsock and out at the choppy ocean swells. To the northwest, almost at the edge of vision, a lone sailboat, pushed south by a stiff northwest breeze on her stern, had reefed its mainsail, preparing for stormy conditions. The weather was changing for the worse. She took a pensive breath. Disinfecting Stella would have to wait.
Guarding the Coast Page 12
