In the Weeds

by M. L. Buchman

  “You’re a funny woman, Saint Ives.”

  “Ha-ha funny?” She wasn’t feeling like laughing at the moment.

  The three VH-60Ns came racing in from over the horizon, high enough to glow brightly in the sun that had already left the runway in shadow. Low enough to suppress conversation for the few moments of their passage.

  “Not to me, Ivy. Funny as in each time I think I understand you, I discover that I don’t at all.”

  “Welcome to the club. I don’t understand me either most of the time. I’m a Marine who doesn’t fight. I’m a Marine pilot who no longer flies. How did I think that was a good thing?”

  “I did learn a few somethings about you over the years.” Colby’s look seemed kind, which must be a trick of the fading light. She didn’t deserve it after the way she’d shut him down.

  “Which is?”

  “Anything you do is a good thing. Anything.”

  His tone said that he firmly believed that. And knowing of his belief helped ease her own doubts. Made her once again remember how proud she’d been as she approached the White House.

  “Colby?”

  “Um-hm?”

  He saw her as more capable than she saw herself. When she wore her Marine Corps cloak, Major Ivy Hanson knew who she was. The woman-Ivy was more of a total-frame-loss accident that had happened long ago. But maybe, just maybe, there was hope for a woman named Saint Ives.

  And she felt that way because of how Colby was looking at her. Because of how he spoke of her. Because of how he made her feel.

  The three VH-60Ns hammered down out of the dark, landing on the pavement to finish their test run. Maybe it was time for her to test a thing or two herself and see how they progressed.

  She stepped forward into Colby’s arms and pulled him down far enough to kiss him.

  10

  Colby woke in the darkness with a start. The soft sound of the air conditioner said motel room. The soft snore close by the side of the bed told him Rex’s location. He must be on his back again; he only snored when he was upside down.

  The woman, a mere outline in the white nightgown standing close by the bed—no more substantial than a ghost—her he couldn’t place at all. The red LED clock informed him it was still short of midnight.

  Rex’s snore cut off.

  Not a ghost.

  The woman…

  “Ivy?” They had kissed at sunset. If he’d needed proof that the first kiss wasn’t a fluke, the second one had proved that it was because it was even more incredible. Her body had tucked against his like a custom fit. Her soft moan of pleasure had nearly taken him to his knees as he wrapped his arms more tightly about her. Ivy Hanson kissed as she did everything else: with her whole being.

  Then the flight leader had appeared out of the dark to report on the successful test flight. Which had led to a review of the next day’s mission and the multiple sorties that would be necessary to provide for the President’s itinerary. Which had looked simple on paper, but Colby had rapidly learned was anything but. Even the two-point-seven miles between the shuttle runway and the launch viewing area had to be carefully considered.

  Because of the events that had landed them in the Potomac that morning, she then became involved in discussions about changed security measures in case another drone approached any of the HMX-1 flight paths. Firing a hundred-thousand-dollar Hellfire missile capable of punching a hole in a Russian tank at a small object weighing ten pounds wasn’t a solution. He’d made sure she ate at one point, but she’d been so deep in it that he’d finally taken a ride to the hotel with Sergeant McShea.

  “Ivy?” His room ghost hadn’t replied.

  There was a slight movement of the gown that might reflect a nod.

  Unsure of what else to do, he slid to the far side of the bed as he folded open the covers.

  The ghost took a step forward, stumbled on Rex, and flopped down onto the bed completely unlike an ethereal ghost. There was a brief scramble as Rex moved to a new location on the floor and Ivy attempted to untangle herself from her second crash landing of the day.

  “So much for my dignity,” she mumbled.

  “Or any indecision about climbing into my bed. As you’re now sprawled in it.”

  “I told the clerk my mag card key had died, then gave him your room number to reprogram it to. Not exactly a high security place.”

  “Not complaining. Surprised as hell, but not complaining.” As they spoke, he tried to lean in to assist her. Instead of finding her elbow, he found something else wonderfully soft beneath smooth flannel. “Whoops!”

  When he went to pull away, she grabbed his hand and kept it against her breast. “As good a place to start as any.”

  “Ivy? Maybe we should talk first?”

  “Why?”

  Of course Ivy Hanson would be as straight-ahead about sex as she was about everything else.

  “Because…”

  But Ivy had gotten herself straightened out, slipping under the covers and moving against him. There was something about a woman in flannel that begged to be touched. And on Ivy’s body, every touch was a wonder. That lean strength of hers was unlike any woman he’d ever been with. She had the strength of a bodybuilder and the lithe slenderness of a dancer.

  This was, uniquely, Ivy.

  Little Ivy—who didn’t feel little at all.

  Reggie’s little sister—but Reggie was a thousand miles away.

  She was—

  Her kiss removed his last attempts at rationalization.

  He scooped her against him and groaned at the feel of her so close, so real. There would be no shedding of her nightgown, they were already too tangled together. He wanted to feel her flesh to flesh, but through the ever so slight barrier of flannel, she also felt enticing and fantastically exotic as he stroked up and down her body.

  Each slide of Colby’s hands seemed to peel a layer off her skin. This HMX-1 liaison to the WHMO had just spent five exhausting hours in an intense review of procedures. So immersed that she hadn’t even noticed when Colby had left. One moment he’d been there, with Rex asleep at her feet, the next they’d both been gone. There hadn’t been a moment to miss them, but she did.

  His hand stroked down over her behind and tugged her thigh up to drape over his legs and the Marine Corps major washed away faster than her thirty-second combat shower had rinsed off the Potomac.

  She liked that he slept without pajamas or even underwear. Someone as male as Colby Thompson would of course sleep in the nude. Studying his body, as he was clearly doing to hers, revealed so many things she already knew but hadn’t known.

  Colby’s strength had been breathtaking when he’d caught her on the South Lawn this morning. Again when he’d lofted her out of the sunken helicopter as if she was weightless. But it was also reminiscent of the visceral thrill when he would sweep up a young girl and heave her into the ocean. He’d always been the strong one of the three of them.

  Lazy and directionless, sure. Though he wasn’t directionless at the moment as he shifted to take her breast with his mouth through the thin cloth, forcing her to arch into the powerful sensation.

  She could get past his guard with subterfuge, but never with strength. Now he was using all that glorious muscle to keep her tight against him. The hand at the small of her back that said she wasn’t going anywhere, not that she wanted to. Even the leg, which had slid between hers until she’d clamped it between her thighs to hold tight to the sensation, was solid with the muscle of a man who walked for a living.

  When he finally peeled the layer of flannel, one slow, agonizing, spectacular inch at a time, she finally lost all track of Ivy Hanson. In Colby’s arms she was simply a woman. Not just some girl. Not a mere crazy-hot kiss—emphasis on the crazy if she was in bed with Colby Thompson.

  In Colby’s embrace she felt more female than with any other lover she’d ever had.

  Most lovers made her painfully self-aware. Each move, each touch considered and measured. There was no
flight plan with Colby. Every touch was natural, normal, unplanned, and a nerve-tingling escalation over the one immediately before, which had been an escalation of…

  The first waves slammed through her and she felt no embarrassment that she climbed the peak alone. How could she, with Colby’s hands upon her in the most personal ways. Without her noticing, he had spooned her back against his chest. The arm her head pressed against continued around her so that she was completely pinned. His other hand had drifted down between her legs and driven her aloft without her even noticing what he was doing.

  She had no metaphors for the sensations. She should. Flight, combat, something. But she couldn’t recall anything except for the intense blasts from her nervous system as she gave herself completely over to him.

  Control. She always had control. Was always the one in control. Could always—

  But not this time.

  Everywhere Colby led her, she was helpless to do more than follow.

  When he slid on some protection, she tried to ready herself. Ready for power. Ready for rough handling and hard driving.

  He eased into her so gently that she almost wanted to cry. As if he worshipped her, rather than just finally taking what he really wanted. The climb this time was so much slower and so much more certain that when she crested it was like a long, smooth ride home after a dangerous mission.

  When they were both done, he didn’t roll away. He didn’t just collapse on her either, though she’d have welcomed the weight of him. Instead, he simply held her, kissed her neck, and whispered her name in her ear as she drifted away into the silence of space.

  Colby’s first sight was a puzzled frown on Ivy’s face. Morning had happened outside the curtains and enough light entered to see her clearly. She sat cross-legged on the bed, once again shrouded in her snow-white nightgown. It wasn’t her anger frown—which brought a chilly winter snap to her light blue eyes.

  “Sadly, that doesn’t look like a frown of considering how soon we can jump each other’s bones again.”

  “What?” She’d been concentrating on something so deeply that she actually startled when he spoke.

  “Good morning, Ives. Where did you go?” He brushed a hand over her cheek and enjoyed the impossible softness of her fair skin.

  “Good morning.” She neither leaned in nor flinched away. Back to being unreadable.

  And, typically, she didn’t answer the more important part of what he said. He wasn’t going to let her dodge it this time. “Ivy?”

  “What?”

  “What are you thinking about so hard?”

  “The President’s flight schedule.”

  “Bullshit.”

  She shrugged, but this time there was a hint of a smile.

  “Well?”

  “I’m not a very sexual person.”

  Colby couldn’t even manage a bullshit remark. His jaw wouldn’t retract enough for him to form any words.

  “I just assumed I was broken somehow. Inside.”

  “So not,” he managed. “By the way, it feels awesome to be inside you. Just in case I didn’t make that clear last night. Need another demonstration?”

  “Not just yet,” she shook her head. Her fine blonde hair, out of its Marine Corps bun, danced around her shoulders. It was so light that it seemed to glow, even without the sun shining on it.

  “Well, that gives me a little hope.”

  “What are you expecting out of this, Colby?”

  “Expecting? Out of what?”

  “Out of you and me being together.”

  “We’re together?”

  Her eyes found the icy blue so fast it made his head spin.

  “It was a joke, Ivy.” He sat up to face her, though he kept a sheet and blanket over his lap.

  Her scowl didn’t agree. She never was good at recognizing jokes. Reggie could get into it when it was just them and a couple beers, but not Saint Ives. A tease, sometimes, but a joke didn’t work for her.

  Wait. They did. At least they used to. The only times they didn’t work on her was when they mattered—when it was something important. Then she had no sense of humor at all.

  She began to back away.

  Grabbing her hand to stop her retreat earned him a hard right cross to the gut, or would have if he hadn’t blocked it.

  At a loss for what else to do, he dragged her into his arms and held her for a moment until she stopped struggling. No head butt to break his nose. No knee to the balls or whatever other lethal mayhem she’d been trained how to deliver. So, just a pissed off woman rather than one who really wanted to get away.

  Once she stopped fighting, he eased her back, keeping both hands on her upper arms to at least buy him a moment to speak before she escaped out of his bed and maybe back out of his life.

  “Look, Ivy. This is all new to me, too. I wanted you since the moment you stepped off that helicopter. Hell, probably since you were still jailbait sixteen and I was too-old nineteen—even if I didn’t know it at the time. It does not mean that I have a clue how to handle whatever this shit is that’s going on between us. You are so incredible to make love to, it’s like nothing else that’s ever happened to me.”

  She looked down at her clasped hands, shaking her head. It caused a blonde cascade that hid her face.

  He risked unleashing one arm to brush her hair aside. The blue eyes that finally looked up at him were softly gray now. Gone was the fury, but the perplexity of the morning’s frown had returned.

  “It’s the best night I’ve ever had too,” her voice was a bare whisper.

  He guessed that she was no more in the mood for delving into it at the moment than he was. “How do you feel about mornings?”

  With a narrow squint, her eyes seemed to shift back to true blue. Blue backed by a hint of a smile. “Mornings, huh?”

  11

  “Hell of a smile you’ve got there, Major.”

  Ivy tried to turn it down, but Captain Juarez, the flight leader, just grinned at her efforts.

  “You should see the other guy,” she riposted and did her best to be dignified as she accompanied him to Marine One. She’d fly as passenger on one of the decoy helos, but wanted to make sure everything was squared away on the designated primary bird.

  The image of Colby, sprawled beneath her, with his palms cupping her breasts and his eyes practically rolled back into his head with the intensity of his pleasure just wouldn’t go away. It was a good image. Rex had popped his head up over the edge of the bed at Colby’s groan, then snorted and lay back down on the floor.

  Mornings indeed.

  But she hadn’t felt like laughing. Morning sex with Colby wasn’t some quick passage at arms. It was a drawn-out, ecstatic adventure that had left them breathless as they’d finally bolted for showers and rushed to change. Breakfast was a couple power bars and hotel-room coffee as they drove back to the airport.

  They hadn’t said a word, but there had been a thousand little touches: energetic towel rubdowns that were almost as erotic as the sex they’d just washed away, Colby tweaking the alignment of her oak leaf insignia on the collar points of her camo blouse, both reaching for the elevator button at the same moment.

  Though he had teased her as she’d struggled to put her hair up into the accepted donut bun as the car jounced along.

  She felt sixteen again. Not the incredibly painful moment of losing her virginity to Gregor on his parents’ couch, but the fun, flirting (she could now admit) moments with Colby. These were the teen hormones that had noticed Colby the collegiate athlete and driven her to find new ways to tease him.

  It was time to get her head in the game.

  “Colby, you’re with me.” She ignored Juarez’s smirk. “I think your best position—” was lying sprawled beneath her “—will be in one of the decoy helos. We’ll land ahead of Marine One. That will give you perhaps thirty seconds to test the immediate landing area prior to the President’s arrival.”

  He nodded, “Should be enough.”

&n
bsp; “Then you can expand into the crowd ahead of the President, which will already have been checked by other dogs, but I’d rather trust you and Rex’s nose as a doublecheck.”

  Again, the simple nod.

  No power games with Colby. Which was interesting; there hadn’t been any in bed either. It was something she’d come to expect from any lover. They had some need to control or manipulate the petite—gods but she hated that word—Marine Corps officer.

  Not Colby.

  Not even when he’d grabbed her this morning. She hadn’t known what she’d been reacting to, still didn’t. But the longer he’d held her, instead of getting angrier, the quieter she’d become. Leaning into him was a place of forgetful peace. Maybe that’s why he so confused her. She was Major Ivy Hanson 24/7…except in Colby’s arms when she simply became Ivy the woman. She had no clue who that might be.

  He and Rex headed off to recheck all of the helos and the flight crews.

  She’d never had much success being a woman. “A Marine with female body parts” had always fit her image of herself. Colby didn’t even see the Marine in her. Maybe it was some sort of sick echo of jailbait teen lust on his part that had made him—

  That wasn’t right either. If it had been that, then he would have been that manipulative, controlling jerk she’d met in so many others. Colby was… She wasn’t any more sure of what he was than what she herself might be. As much as she hated to admit it, they were going to have to talk at some point. But not too soon, as she had no idea what she wanted to say.

  “There,” someone called out.

  Ivy realized that she’d been studying her reflection in the side of the Marine One aircraft for this first sortie. Trying to see herself in the soft image—wax bright over dark green paint. A dim version of herself. Was that what she was? It wasn’t the Marine who looked back at her, but rather a dim reflection of a woman. That was new.

  She turned to see where everyone else was looking.