I’d never met anyone like him. Ever.
I’d dated guys who acted like a two-year cell phone contract was too much of a commitment. This guy had basically given his adult life to serving his country and he acted like it wasn’t a big deal. He wasn’t trying to impress me or make himself look good. He just answered my questions with nonchalance, as though normal people moved all the freaking time, and went to war, and risked their lives. As if it was easy to sign away large chunks of your life. It gave a completely new meaning to the word “sacrifice.”
“How do you do it?” I asked, our hands still joined, my throat clogged with no small amount of awe. The fighter pilot thing might not have impressed me all that much, but his dedication definitely did.
“Do what?”
“All of it. It just seems like you’re giving up a lot. Do you ever regret it? Do you ever wish you could do something else or have a little more freedom?”
He shrugged, his stomach muscles rippling with the movement.
Gah.
“It’s a job like anything else. There are days that I get pissed off, days that I’m sick of the life. But I do it because I love it. There’s nothing like the feeling I get when I’m in the cockpit. I’d put up with anything for that. I joined the military because I wanted to serve, because I believe in the mission. But honestly, it’s not that altruistic. I have one of the coolest jobs in the world, and I love it.” His eyes darkened, his voice going all husky again. “Nothing else has ever given me the same high I get when I’m in the jet.”
God, he was intense, in the best possible way. It would have been easy to focus on the flashy watch, or the cocky glint in his eyes, or the fact that he definitely looked like he had game and was in the market to score. But beneath that, I saw a guy who carried an enormous responsibility on his shoulders.
“You’re not just a nice pair of biceps and a six-pack, are you?” I joked as I reached out, my hand resting on his stomach. My mouth went dry as I imagined kissing my way down those abs, licking, biting . . .
His smile uncurled, my nipples tightening with the wicked glint there. “Are you trying to get me naked?”
God, yes.
“Maybe.”
He pulled me down toward him, our faces inches apart. He nipped at my bottom lip and a shudder tore through my body.
“Good,” he murmured between our mouths.
He kissed me hard, his hand gripping the back of my head, tugging on my hair. His lips weren’t soft, his touch definitely not gentle. It was demanding—a kiss that yanked the lust right out of me until I was desperate for more. Our decision to go to Tao last night was beginning to feel like one of the top five decisions of my life.
Noah released my hair, his hands skimming down to my hips again, his fingers hooking under the ties of my bikini bottoms. When he’d toyed with me there before, it had driven me crazy. Now it wasn’t nearly enough.
Luckily, he seemed to agree.
His hands moved from my hipbones, tracing the delicate skin above the top of my bathing suit bottoms. His fingers brushed back and forth, each touch sending a tremor through my body that went straight to my clit.
And then he dipped under the fabric and I lost my mind.
His hand hovered there, inches away from where I wanted him to be, his eyes on me, as though waiting to see if he’d gone too far, waiting for some sign to move farther.
“Touch me.” I whispered the words, another tremor ripping through me, my nipples tight and aching, my body growing wetter with each second that passed.
Noah groaned, the sound filling the cabana, his fingers dragging down my skin until his thumb hit my clit and I found my nirvana.
He pressed against me, rubbing there, and my body arched forward, my head rolling back as I rode his hand. I’d been so turned on, so ready for this for so long, and with one touch I went off like a firecracker.
He toyed with me, teasing my clit, trailing down, pulling the arousal from my body, slick and wet, and then he slipped inside, his fingers pumping while his thumb rubbed me over and over again, driving me closer and closer to the edge, to the orgasm that lingered just under my skin.
My body was fire, heat engulfing me. My breasts were heavy, my mouth hungry. His touch anchored me, my entire body consumed by the hand that played with me between my legs. This was an appetizer, and as far as sex went, it was mind-blowing. At this rate, the main course might kill me.
I gripped his arms, the need building inside me, the beginnings of my orgasm strumming through my body like the prelude to a perfect note.
And then I shattered.
It was one of those orgasms that you felt from your head all the way down to your toes, aftershocks lingering after I came down, my skin unbearably sensitive. Not to mention, I was pretty sure he’d just given me a sex headache.
So much better than my vibrator.
Noah rolled me over onto my side, speech still eluding me, wrapping his arms around me, hooking a leg over my hip, drawing me even closer.
His lips brushed against my hair as he tucked me into the curve of his body and something fluttered inside my chest. My hands came down to his waist, ready to return the favor, fighting the urge to drift into the nap that was calling my name, my eyelids fluttering as a languid haze filled me, my limbs liquid.
I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came, and instead of taking things further, he just held me until my eyes closed and I slid into sleep, the steady beat of his heart my own private lullaby.
FIVE
JORDAN
“You could have skipped having dinner with us to hang out with Noah. I would have understood.”
I swerved to avoid bumping into a group of drunk girls in front of us as we made our way through the Venetian casino. Meg and I walked together, the other two girls up ahead a bit. We’d just finished dinner and were now headed to meet Noah and his friends for drinks and gambling.
“We planned these Vegas reservations months ago. My little sister is all grown up and getting married. Missing dinner wasn’t an option.”
Meg frowned at me. “We only have two nights left in Vegas.”
I was all too aware of that. It figured I would meet Chupacabra-guy on a freaking vacation.
“And that’s why it was important that I didn’t miss out on your special dinner. We only have a few more of these nights left before you become an old married lady,” I teased.
“I would have understood.”
“I know you would have. But I would have felt like shit if I’d missed out on celebrating with you over some guy. We came here to help you burn off one of your last single weekends. Not so that I could get laid. I could do that back home.”
Sort of. After today’s preview at the pool, I definitely wasn’t getting what Noah was giving anywhere else. And even though I wasn’t willing to ditch Meg for dinner, I had big plans for later on tonight.
Meg made a face. “Nice try, but it didn’t escape my notice that you were going through a bit of a dry spell.”
Emphasis on the past tense.
I grinned. “Vegas might have changed my luck.”
Her gaze narrowed speculatively. “Just how lucky did you get? Did you have sex with him at the pool today?” she screeched.
I laughed. “You know, I don’t think they heard you over at the craps table. Maybe we could tell the entire casino the explicit details of my sex life. Or lack thereof.”
“I don’t care about the rest of the casino. I need more. Spill. Now.”
I shrugged. “We just hung out.”
“You were with him for a while.”
We’d napped together in the cabana, the combination of a night spent partying, a delicious orgasm, the Vegas sun, and alcohol making me unbelievably sleepy. I’d woken up to a smile and an invitation to hang out with Noah and his friends tonight. Which had led to me spending
an hour getting dressed earlier.
“Just hanging out. Even I’m not ballsy enough to have sex with a guy in a thinly veiled cabana.”
Just let him finger-fuck me until I came. Whatever.
A gleam entered Meg’s eyes. “He’s hot.”
“He definitely is.” My voice turned teasing. “Are you allowed to say stuff like that now that you’re practically a married lady?”
Meg’s fiancé, Mike, wasn’t the kind of guy who was cool with her gawking over other men.
She laughed. “It’ll be our little secret. Besides, married lady or not, I’m pretty sure you’d have to be dead to not notice those guys.”
“Valid.”
“He seems into you,” Meg commented.
One of the benefits to having dated a lot was that you learned to read guys pretty easily. And I had to concur; Noah was definitely into me.
“Have you thought about keeping in touch with him after we leave?”
I laughed. “Considering I haven’t known him twenty-four hours and he lives across the country? No, not really.” Okay, maybe once or twice. “I haven’t really thought past tonight.” Although to be fair, I’d thought about tonight a lot.
“I’m just saying it might be something to consider. You guys could keep in touch.”
“What, be like pen pals?”
“Whatever works for you.”
I gave her some side-eye. “Are you really so concerned about my single status that now you’re throwing me at men?”
She grinned. “It looked like you were doing just fine with that on your own.”
She had a point there, but I definitely felt no shame. It was kind of hard to regret going after what you wanted when a guy like Noah was waiting for you on the other side, ready to pounce. And with a body like that, he could pounce on me all night long.
I was entertaining thoughts of keeping in touch with Noah, mixed with weird images of lions mating that the word “pounce” had conjured up in my mind, and then we hit the blackjack table and spotted them and I had to catch my breath for a second as the sight of him pushed everything else out.
Tonight Noah wore a pair of jeans that encased his long legs and my fashion eye instantly recognized as Diesel, and a steel gray dress shirt with the collar unbuttoned and rolled sleeves that exposed a nice amount of tanned skin. Easy and Thor flanked him, another guy who looked a little older than the rest of the group, but no less hot, by their side.
Noah laughed at something Easy said, and I watched, a knot in my chest, as Easy nudged him and Noah’s head turned, his gaze on me, and the laugh slid off his face to make way for the gleam in his eyes I recognized from earlier when his hand slid between my legs.
Noah left the group without a word, walking toward me, and then his arms were around me, my body enfolded in his, his lips brushing the top of my head.
He pulled back, a soft smile on his face that complimented the gleam. “Hey.”
God. That “Hey” melted its way through me, leaving me warm and gooey on the inside, like chocolate melting cake. Hot didn’t quite cover it. Nothing covered it. This feeling inside me, like a slow burn I couldn’t extinguish, was simply beyond my control. I was thirty years old, I’d been around the block enough times I basically had my own corner with a lemonade stand, and he made me feel fifteen again. Well, fifteen in the body of a thirty-year-old woman who had hit her sexual peak and wanted to take advantage of the hottie in front of her.
“You look gorgeous,” he whispered, his words sending a thrill down my spine and validating the hour spent primping in front of the mirror.
I’d definitely brought my “A” game tonight and I liked that he was the kind of guy who seemed to appreciate it. There were a lot of guys who wanted a low-maintenance girl who went hiking, and did marathons, and didn’t wear makeup. That girl was awesome; I was just not that girl. Those guys inevitably got upset when it took me an hour to get ready for a night out, or bitched when I pushed luggage weight limits to the max on trips. Those guys said soul-crushing things like, Do you really need that many pairs of shoes?
I was fully aware of the fact that I could kind of be a pain in the ass, and I definitely appreciated that so far Noah seemed to like that I was the kind of girl who didn’t know the meaning of the word “understated.”
’Course, given his friends and his profession, I doubted there was much I could do that would shock him.
I grinned, letting my gaze devour him like a hungry lion faced with a gazelle. “You look pretty good, too. How was dinner?”
He matched my smile. “Boring.”
His head dipped, his lips claiming mine. “I was too busy looking forward to dessert,” he whispered against my mouth before his tongue slid in and he kissed me senseless.
My arms wrapped around his neck, my chest plastered against his, his hands on my lower back, grazing my ass. He didn’t hold back because we were in public, or because we were surrounded by our friends, and considering it definitely wasn’t in my nature to hold back, I was greedy for more.
His tongue was tendrils of fire licking through me, his hands sending sparks throughout my body, his lips embers that warmed me, my body humming with need and heat. I’d told myself we would hang out with our friends for a bit and then maybe sneak away. That plan was becoming more untenable with each second he kissed me.
Noah pulled back first, smiling down at me, his eyes twinkling, his tongue sweeping out over his lips as though he wanted every drop of me.
Gah.
His arm wrapped around my waist, pulling me against his body, the thump of his heart beating against my skin. I tipped my head up, inhaling the scent of his cologne, my face buried in the crook of his neck. It took a remarkable amount of willpower to keep from dragging my tongue along the skin there.
Easy cleared his throat loudly, the sound pulling us apart, a teasing smile on his face. “We were thinking of playing some blackjack. You guys in?”
I’d almost forgotten they were all even there. My sister stared at me with wide-eyed curiosity. The other girls looked at Noah like he was the last piece of cake and they all had a wicked sweet tooth. The guys had various expressions of amusement on their faces.
“Do you want to play blackjack?” Noah asked me.
I shrugged. “I’m not great with cards, but I’m up for it if you want.”
I didn’t want to play blackjack. I didn’t want to be in this casino. Right now all I wanted was Noah naked and a room with a bed. And really, at this point, the bed was optional.
He nodded to Easy. “Yeah, we’re in.”
Totally stupid, but I kind of liked being part of a we.
He nodded toward the guy I hadn’t met yet. “Joker, this is Jordan. Jordan, this is our squadron commander, Joker.”
More melting. It was impossible to miss the fact that he introduced me like I was someone special, someone he was proud of. Impossible to miss the way his arm tightened around me or his voice rose as he made the introductions, as though I was someone he wanted to show off instead of just a casual lay.
I wasn’t entirely sure why this mattered, but yeah, it kind of did.
I smiled and held out my hand. “It’s nice to meet you.”
He returned my smile, his gaze speculative, his big hand engulfing mine. “It’s nice to meet you, too.”
He wasn’t as hot as Noah or Easy, or even as cute as Thor, but he was definitely handsome. He looked to be maybe a decade or so older than the rest of the group, and he carried himself with a calm air the other guys lacked. His cockiness wasn’t as in your face and I figured the thick platinum band on his left ring finger had something to do with it.
I wondered what it would be like to be married to one of these guys, but somehow I couldn’t imagine it. I was pretty chill in relationships, had never really seen much point in getting jealous, but I figured it had to be
weird to be home in Oklahoma while your husband was out in Vegas with guys like Easy. And likely, even weirder that this was a common occurrence.
“He’s my boss,” Noah murmured as the rest of the group headed toward the blackjack table, us lagging behind. “He’s a good guy.”
I smiled up at him, so many emotions pinging through me that I wasn’t sure I trusted my voice. We’d gone from my wheelhouse to something I didn’t know how to navigate.
“Are you okay?” he asked and something lurched in my chest.
It was the same something I couldn’t shake. I’d told myself this was a fun weekend, but little by little, fun was giving way to this feeling inside me, this idea that maybe we could keep in touch after this weekend. Maybe it wasn’t that ludicrous. We could e-mail or something.
I froze, staring up at him. I didn’t know what I was. What I wanted. What I needed. Where this was going. If I even wanted it to go anywhere. I knew nothing beyond the rush of desire crashing into my body like waves over rocks and the feeling that I’d been caught up in the eye of a hurricane, unable to get my bearings.
His gaze darkened, his voice achingly soft, a whisper that trembled through my bones. “What?”
I shook my head and started to walk forward, some part of my brain convinced that I just had to outrun this, fight or flight giving way to flight. I made it a step, maybe two, and then his hand tugged me back. For a moment we faced off in the casino, the sounds of slot machines pinging around us, people yelling, the bright lights flashing around us, the scent of smoke, and cheap perfume, and alcohol adding to the sensory overload. And then it all fell away.
Noah stared down at me, his gaze intent, as if he could somehow sift through all the confusion in my head, as though he could see that I was freaking out, that this had gone from fun and casual to quicksand in the blink of an eye and I didn’t know how to deal. He reached out, brushing my hair over my shoulder, his touch lingering on my bare skin, his hands branding me. My throat closed up, my heart pounding, my limbs achy, my body feverish like I had the flu. And then the chills hit me, my nipples puckering, my body flashing hot and cold as desire pushed past the point of want into have-to-have-you.
Fly With Me Page 5
