Dammit, this was his dream. He wanted a porno star sex goddess.
"Chad.” She backed out of the kiss.
No, dammit, no coaxing required on his planet.
"Chad, wake up."
What the hell? The pleasing weight eased off his body, leaving his cock to throb against thin air.
Shit.
Scrubbing his hand over his face, he sat up. He peeked through his fingers, his fear confirmed. Casey stood in front of him, slightly ruffled and blushing five shades of pink.
"I wasn't dreaming, huh?” Even though he knew the answer to that question, it felt polite to ask. After all, he'd just mauled the general's daughter.
"Umm, no."
"God, Casey, I'm so sorry."
"I, umm, well, just forget about it. Okay?"
Whatever the lady wants. “Deal. What time is it?"
"A little after two."
Geez, he'd only been asleep for a few minutes. He remembered the end of the show he'd been watching on the Military Channel, but not the beginning of the next one.
"I take it no one showed up."
"Unfortunately, no. It was nice and quiet.” Her face fell as he gave her the bad news. He knew exactly how she felt. He wanted to catch this guy and pummel the crap out of him.
The sooner the better.
Too many more nights curled up on Casey's couch, getting comfortable in her home, would test his sanity. The past week was already placing serious strain on him. The two-bedroom apartment was an eclectic mix of styles, warm and homey and inviting. It was obvious a child lived there without being cluttered or chaotic. In a rare moment of honesty with himself, it reminded him of his family home in Alaska and what he'd always envisaged for his own. It was a far cry from the stuffy, dust-wouldn't-dare-show-its-face apartment Brenda had furnished for them after their marriage. He'd always felt out of place going back there at the end of a shift, sweaty and reeking of jet fuel. His boots had looked out of place by the door. Hell, he'd been out of place in the ultra-modern decor.
Too much more time at Casey's could get him thinking about things he had no business thinking about. Like a forever he couldn't offer, might not ever be able to offer. But if he did return from Cancuen in one piece, could he resurrect the heart Brenda stomped all over in her stilettos?
Too much more time at Casey's just might make him want to remember that not all women were like his late wife.
"You do think it's Brian, don't you?"
She'd interpreted his silence to mean doubt. That had to be rectified. “I'd be willing to bet it's that rat bastard."
"When you got so quiet—"
"I was trying to think if there's another way to get this idiot.” Not quite a little white lie since he didn't relish spending too much more time here.
"Any ideas?"
"Only the first one. I think it's going to take some time to catch him in the act.” Time I may not have. With the training exercise underway as of oh eight hundred that morning, he knew he was living on borrowed time.
"I hate the thought of you giving up your free time for this.” Her lower lip stuck out, perfectly suckable.
"What else would I be doing?” Except Candi, or Brandy, or Bambi. Little Chad laughed at the very idea. All he wanted was standing right in front of him. That's what he wanted to be doing instead of going back to his lonely apartment and slap-boxing the one-eyed champ.
"Still—"
"No, still. When do you close again?"
"Thursday."
"Then I'll see you Thursday, if not sooner. Good night."
He had no clue what possessed him, but he leaned in and kissed her soft cheek. Then he turned on the heel of his sneaker and all but ran out the door before he bent her back over his arm and dove into the pleasure of her mouth.
Casey watched him go, her fingertips grazing the spot where he'd pressed his lips. Twice. He'd kissed her twice in a ten minute time span.
Snap out of it, girl. It didn't mean a damn thing. And neither did that erection when he pulled you down on top of him. Men get hard when they sleep. You know that.
That didn't explain the sweet kiss. The amazing kiss. The oh-my-God-fireworks-went-off kiss. She felt that contact all the way to her toes and in some interesting places in between. Add in the friction from that baseball bat he carried in his shorts and she'd been ready to toss aside her convictions for this particular fighter pilot.
Definitely not a good thing. For herself or for her son. Because she knew that to be true with the certainty that fighter jets screamed over the casinos on the strip. She'd seen it in his eyes.
But what gorgeous eyes. Deep-set hazel eyes topped with dark eyebrows and impossibly long lashes. His chiseled cheeks and strong chin had been covered with a hint of a beard, the roughness of it tickling her as they'd kissed.
Stop it, stop it, stop it.
Pulling her Cockpit t-shirt over her head, she shuffled in the direction of her bedroom. Sometimes she thought the slow nights were worse than the busy ones because they allowed her time to think about the fact that she was on her feet for so many hours straight. Torturous because it allowed her to watch the mating games being played and wonder if she'd ever again trust a man enough to allow him to get close. Tossing the yellow garment in the hamper, she wiggled out of her jeans and panties, and moved into the shower. All she really wanted was a quick rinse and to climb into bed. She had to pick Jackson up and get him to preschool by nine.
Instead, the removable showerhead taunted her, made her want to relieve some of the tension thrumming in her veins.
It was a damn good thing she'd learned to live on less than six hours of sleep.
* * * *
"Casey, it's me, Chad."
He'd snuck out of the hospital room when the doctor came back to exam Kelli. He'd heard something that sounded suspiciously like “progressing quickly,” and hoped to hell that didn't mean what he thought it meant, just before Casey picked up the phone. He'd finally tracked her down at The Cockpit.
"Hi. How are you?"
Damn, just hearing her voice made him smile. Soft and melodic, it soothed him and excited him at the same time. In the week and a half that he'd been keeping an eye on her apartment, he'd come to enjoy her company, seeing past the sexy as hell package. Oh, he still saw the curvaceous femme fatale, he just saw her personality now, too. And isn't that a kick in the teeth?
"Umm, well, I've been better."
"Oh, no, what's wrong?"
"I'm here at the hospit—"
"Oh. My. God. What happened?"
It took him a minute to calm her down and explain the situation. Kelli Babcock had gone into labor, something about her contractions being five minutes apart. Unfortunately for her, Rebel Babcock was up in his F-16 engaged in some heavy duty air battle. Kelli had called Chad and begged him to take her to the hospital. She was scared, the baby wasn't due for another month and she just couldn't do it alone until her husband managed to get back to base.
She didn't know, couldn't know, what being back in this hospital in the maternity ward was doing to him. But he'd sucked it up for his buddy's wife, because that's what friends did for each other. They'd gotten each other through the Academy and he'd get Kelli through this. Even if it killed him.
What a hell of a way to spend a Friday night.
"You're kidding me?"
A loud pained scream came from inside the room, chilling his blood.
"I guess you're not joking."
Of course she'd heard that. Satellites monitoring foreign communication heard that.
"So, anyway, Casey, I'm not sure what time I'll be there this evening. As soon as Rebel gets here and I can shake free.” God help me, my ass is outta here as soon as he shows his sorry face.
"No problem. You have a key. Besides, the odds that Brian has something better to do on a Friday night are high.” Someone better, he heard it in her voice.
Oh, no, his gut told him the idiot would show up tonight. He'd stayed alive this long
listening to those instincts.
"I'll call you at The Cockpit when I get to your place."
"You might be there awhile."
"How long does it take to have a baby?"
He didn't like the sound of Casey's laugh, not one little bit.
"Like I said, I'll call you when I'm settled in at your place."
"Thanks. I wish Kelli the best of luck. She's lucky you're there for her."
He wasn't so lucky. Flipping his phone shut, he braced on the doorjamb, waiting for the doc to finish up.
He'd met Brenda when he'd been stationed here at Nellis. They'd met at The Cockpit and tumbled into bed. A month later, she'd come crying to him that she was pregnant. He'd done the honorable thing—hadn't dreamed of doing anything less. When the order came through for him to PCS, he'd just assumed Brenda would follow him to Florida to his new assignment. She'd refused to leave Las Vegas. It was her home, she'd said, unless, of course, he was to leave the Air Force and join the family conglomerate in Alaska. He had no intention of doing that, so he'd set her up in an apartment and flew back as often as he'd been able to hitch a ride.
She'd been eight months pregnant the last time he'd seen her alive. He'd asked her again, tried to reason with her, to move to Florida with him. He wanted to be a part of their baby's life; he didn't want to be a weekend dad. That had been when she'd dropped the bomb on him. She'd never wanted to be an Air Force wife. She'd tricked him into marrying her—had poked holes in their condoms with straight pins—thinking that if he had a family, he'd want to leave the military, go to work in the family business, and claim his share of the millions owed him as one of the heirs to his family's oil fortune. She'd been cruel and downright vicious that night. And he'd walked out.
Only to return a week later, called back to make a gut-wrenching decision. Brenda had been hit by a drunk driver and had sustained irreversible brain damage. Transported to the base hospital after her military ID had been found, medical personnel kept her on life support long enough for him to arrive and make the call to deliver the baby. The impact from the accident had been too great and his son had died in his arms, only an hour old. He'd named him John, after his father, and buried them both right there in Las Vegas, because, as she'd told him time and time again, it was her home.
"Chad!” The wail jerked him from his maudlin remembrances.
Rushing to Kelli's side, he noticed the hive of activity. A nurse handed him a sterile garment and ordered him to scrub his hands. He heard the words “ten centimeters” and “push."
Oh, no, this is not happening. Rebel was supposed to be here for this part. He was just supposed to be moral support. He was just supposed to hold Kelli's hand and feed her ice chips until her husband dragged his sorry ass out of the cockpit and double-timed it to his wife's side.
"Kelli?” She looked so tired, so scared. When she held out her hand, he marched over and clasped it. “Honey, Rebel's not here yet; are you sure you want to do this now?"
"Do I look like I have a fucking choice?"
Good God. He expected her head to spin around. If she threw up, he was outta there. Buddy loyalty only went so far.
"The damn Air Force doesn't give me a choice in anything, why the hell should this baby?"
The nurse on her other side encouraged her to breathe deeply as waves of pain wracked Kelli's body. The next thing he knew, the nurse was telling Kelli to hold her breath and push like she had the mother of all BMs. The hand wrapped around his clenched so tight he lost all feeling. Damn, that hurt.
The scene repeated itself every minute or so as the large clock on the wall ticked off fifteen minutes. If he hadn't been watching it so closely—God forbid he see anything else—he'd have thought they'd been at it all day. Kelli cursed and panted and pushed and sweated and swore some more. So much for the gentile Southern belle he'd been introduced to. In her place was this amazingly strong woman determined do what amounted to pooping out a watermelon. The whole production was not something for the weak of stomach or for people who hadn't been in the room when the baby had been conceived.
Where the hell is Rebel anyway?
Next thing he knew, the doctor was talking about the baby crowning—they put a crown on the damn things?—and the nurse asking him to grip her knee and pull it back so the doctor had enough room to work. Okay, way too much information about a woman he'd never slept with. Every time the blue sheet slipped, he looked everywhere but there.
Where the hell is Rebel?
Kelli grunted and shouted a few unladylike expletives that would have made a sailor proud. She questioned Rebel's paternity and his skill as a lover. The doctor praised her. And—huh?
"Would you like to come down here and pull your baby the rest of the way out?” That ridiculous comment came from the doctor, a supposedly intelligent man.
"I'm not the father, Doc, and I'd rather not see my buddy's wife up close and personal, if you don't mind."
"Then you won't want to cut the cord, either?” Chad noticed the twinkle in the doctor's eyes above the mask that covered his mouth and nose.
"I'll pass, if it's all the same to you."
"Okay, Kelli, one more push and we'll have ourselves a baby.” The doctor focused his attention back where it belonged.
Her body tense, Kelli hooked her hands on her knees, levered her upper body off the bed and grunted.
"It's a boy!"
Tears flowed down the exhausted woman's cheeks, a huge smile on her lips. The squalling infant appeared on her chest, all wet and slimy and not looking in the least like the baby boy the doctors had handed him. Which was a good thing. As Kelli cooed and cried, a nurse cleaned up the little boy. Chad had one very uncharitable thought—for all the work it took to get him to come out of a vagina, he's going to spend most of his adult life trying to get back in them.
One of the nurses finally took the baby over to a corner to weigh and measure him, leaving Chad curiously alone in the bustling room. Looking down at the new mom, he'd never seen a more beautiful woman. She'd just worked harder than he'd ever worked in his life. Damn, they didn't call it labor for nothing. In spite of everything she'd been through, she glowed, positively beamed.
As the squirming bundle of newborn baby was thrust in his arms, he realized this wasn't what Brenda wanted. She wanted a life of luxury, money, prestige. She'd almost brought an innocent life into her quest to achieve it. For the first time, he felt sorry for her. If she'd have lived, she'd have missed out on the joy of holding that newborn bundle, on the awesome responsibility it entailed, not as a means to an end, but as a new beginning.
Dammit, his hands were full, making it impossible to dry his eyes. The doctor must have used something that was burning his eyes. That was his story and he was sticking to it.
"Kelli, honey, I got here as fast as I could.” Rebel came sliding into the room, all elbows and knees and God-awful ugly looking hair. What is he trying to do? Scare his kid?
"Not fast enough, flyboy. Your son is even faster than you.” She sank back to the bed while the doctor did God only knew what beneath that damn blue sheet that hadn't kept near enough hidden from unsuspecting gazes.
"Son? It's a boy?"
Only then did Rebel notice Chad, sitting at the head of the bed, clutching a blue-wrapped bundle. Something tugged at Chad's heart as he handed the baby over to his father.
"Yeah, it's a boy. And from some of the comments your wife made during labor, he's better endowed than you."
A corner of Rebel's lips ticked up in a smile, tears welling in his eyes as he stared at the newborn, who looked decidedly more normal now that the nurses had worked their magic. Chad pushed to his feet and tried to sneak out the door, away from the overwhelming emotion.
"Chad.” Kelli's soft voice stopped him in his tracks. Pivoting on the heel of his athletic shoe, he found her holding out her hand to him. With two long strides, he was back by her side. “I can't thank you enough for dropping everything and coming to get me. Please tell whoever
you stepped out into the hall to call that I'm sorry I interrupted your plans."
"Casey understands. Don't worry."
"Casey? As in the general's daughter, Casey?” Rebel lifted his head, all ears.
Great, Rebel gossiped like a damn woman.
"I'm helping out a friend, nothing more."
Not that Rebel looked like he believed him for one second. Hell, if he were on the other side of the conversation, he wouldn't believe him either.
"Thank you.” Kelli tugged on his hand until he leaned over to give her a hug.
Truth be told, as much as he'd dreaded this and wanted to run in the other direction when she'd called, she'd helped him put some ghosts to rest. “You're very welcome, Kelli. I'm glad I was home."
Rebel gripped his shoulder as he stood, pulling him into an embrace. Pulling back, Chad locked eyes with his buddy. “Take care of both of them, Rebel. She's an amazing lady and you're one lucky son of a bitch."
Nothing stopped him this time. He kept walking until he stood outside in the parking lot under the wide Nevada sky. It was still early, not even nine o'clock, leaving him plenty of time to head over to Casey's and wait for the ex to show his ugly mug. But first, he was swinging by the store to grab a six-pack. After the past couple of hours, he needed a drink.
* * * *
Chad reclined on the overstuffed, overly comfortable couch, his second beer propped on the end table beside him. He'd wanted to get rip-roaring drunk when he arrived at Casey's apartment, but decided against that idea. He had an obligation to fulfill and couldn't do that with too many beers under his belt. He'd flipped through the cable guide after he'd phoned Casey, but the Friday night fare left much to be desired. Most of America must go out on Fridays. Even his beloved Military Channel didn't offer any programming that held his interest.
So instead, he'd curled up on the couch and grabbed a magazine from the coffee table, some sort of parenting magazine. He'd never realized there were enough topics to fill up an entire publication. A cute little kid stared up at him from the cover and even more from the inside pages. It was kid overload.
Call of Duty [Class of '93 Trilogy Book 3] Page 14
