Nonstop (Open Skies Book 3)

by Becca Jameson

“Come on.” He grabbed her hand, opened the door, and tugged her outside.

  She couldn’t help but smile at how eager he was to pull her down to the water. The inlet was far enough from the main body of the ocean that the only waves were more of a gentle lapping of water. Calming. Soothing.

  She sighed as she leaned back against his chest. “I could get used to this.”

  “Good. We’ll stay as long as you’d like.”

  The next four days were about as perfect as Bex could ask for. Bill and Joan were amazing. They were nothing like her parents. Bill and Joan were extroverts. They were talkative and open about their lives.

  Bex’s own parents, Rex and Tricia Safire, were nice enough people. Bex couldn’t complain about them. It’s just that they were incredibly conservative. Maybe staid or proper would be a better description.

  Joan had been extremely respectful of Bex’s tendency to keep to herself, but at the same time, she’d made it perfectly clear that if Bex ever wanted to talk about anything at all, even just to vent, she was available. She didn’t pry, but she took the time to tell Bex stories about events in her own life that had shaped her. Her own trials over the years and how she overcame them.

  On the fourth morning, when Bex wandered into the bedroom she was sharing with Bracken in one wing of the house, mug of coffee in hand, he was just coming out of the bathroom. “Hey.” He took the coffee from her, set it on the dresser, and pulled her into his arms.

  He was still in his shorts from sleeping. “I heard my mom talking to you. I hope she’s not making you uncomfortable.” He smiled. “Please tell me she hasn’t mentioned china patterns or baby clothes.”

  Bex chuckled. “Not at all. She’s lovely.” There was no way to hide the twinge of sadness Bex felt though, and she sighed as she snuggled in closer to Bracken, hugging him tightly, absorbing his strength and warmth.

  “Talk to me.” He took her by the hand and lured her back to the bed, tugging her down next to him. After glancing at the open door, he held up a finger, climbed back over her, and then shut and locked the door.

  Moments later, he was back at her side. He wasted no time, getting right to the point of whatever he wanted to say. “Sometimes you seem kind of faraway, maybe a little nostalgic or sad when my mom is talking. It worries me.”

  She slid her hand up his bare chest, loving the feel of his muscles against her palm. They hadn’t had sex since they’d arrived. Even though Bracken had made a point of insisting he wouldn’t go a single night without making love to her, he had simply held her every night. She knew it was because of the terrorist attack and had nothing to do with honoring her nervous concern about having sex in his parents’ home.

  He lifted her chin, making her realize she was staring at his chest still.

  She sighed. “It has nothing to do with your mom. She’s amazing. I love her. It’s that being here with your perfectly normal parents has made me realize more than ever how not normal mine are.”

  He frowned. “You’ve told me about them several times. You’ve never mentioned anything overly odd about them.”

  She licked her lips. “Well, I told you they’re religious. Not that that matters. It doesn’t, really. It’s just that I’m realizing more and more that they did me a disservice when they moved me away from my high school and then stopped discussing what had happened as if it had never occurred.”

  He slid a hand up her waist. “You mentioned that when we met with Dr. Rawlins. It must have been painful.”

  She shrugged. “I didn’t think much about it at the time, and I know they meant well. They thought they were doing the right thing by me. But the truth is that I probably wouldn’t be quite so unhinged now if I’d been able to fully deal with my problems years ago.”

  He nodded. “I get that. I can’t imagine going that many years without talking about your feelings and how the trauma affected you.”

  She met his gaze. “My stupid problems surely seem trivial to you. I’m sure you’ve been through a thousand worse experiences.”

  He shook his head. “You can’t make that comparison, baby. For one thing, even though I’ve witnessed horrors you can never imagine, they weren’t happening to me. They were happening to other people. I had to disassociate and do my job, usually rescuing people from the exact kind of shitty situations you’ve found yourself involved in far more times than the average human.”

  “Yeah. I get that.” He had a point.

  “However, what happened to us the other day did involve me. My own woman was there. I can’t tell you how fucking scared I was. If I had chosen the wrong moment to make my move, been off by even a centimeter when I fired those two shots, I could have lost you. I’m still scared out of my mind remembering it. That bastard could have killed you. I could have accidentally killed you.”

  She sucked in a breath. It hadn’t occurred to her what Bracken had experienced that day or every day since. She’d been too busy wallowing in her own pity party. “God. I’m sorry. I’ve been insensitive to your feelings.”

  He shook his head. “No, you haven’t. Don’t go there. We’re both processing in our own way. I’m just saying that I understand what you’re feeling now. I get it a bit better than I have before. I also know how much you mean to me, and the thought of losing you scares me to death. I’ve woken up every night several times and leaned over you just to make sure you’re still next to me. Still breathing. Still real. I feel irrationally protective and don’t want you to stray out of my sight.”

  Tears fell down her cheeks and she swiped at them. “Don’t make me cry again. I’m tapped out on tears.”

  He leaned in closer and hauled her chest against his. He kissed her neck and nibbled a path up to her ear. “I also need you, baby. I need to be inside you. I need to feel the way I feel when you come around my cock, when you cry out my name, when you moan into my mouth. If you’re not ready, I’ll understand, but I’m nearly shaking with the desire to be closer to you again. It’s life-affirming.”

  She nodded against him, her body growing restless at his words. “I want that too.” She meant it. She’d missed their intimacy. She wanted to be naked with him, his skin touching hers, every inch of them aligning. “How on earth am I going to be able to keep from screaming loud enough to alert not just your parents but the neighbors?” she joked.

  He lifted his gaze and grinned at her. “You’re going to have to try.” He shrugged. “And if you fail, I’m certain my parents won’t say a word.”

  Just then a knock sounded at the bedroom door, making Bex nearly jump off the bed and put several feet between her and Bracken as if they’d been caught kissing.

  “Yes?” Bracken asked, gripping Bex tighter when she started to squirm out of his embrace.

  His mother’s voice came through the door. “I just wanted to let you know that your dad and I are going into town for a while. I want to have a fish fry tonight and we need a few things.”

  Bracken’s smile widened so far that Bex rolled her eyes. “Okay. Sounds good, Mom. See you in a bit.”

  Bex groaned softly as his mother’s footsteps retreated.

  Bracken immediately sat upright, grabbed the bottom of Bex’s sweatshirt, and pulled it over her head, taking her tank top with it.

  She couldn’t keep from giggling as he moved to tug her yoga pants and panties off next. “You gonna wait for them to pull out of the garage?” she teased.

  “Nope. I need every moment of this time to ravish you.” Before she could respond, he was between her legs, his hands on her thighs, his mouth against her sex.

  She gasped, her hands going to his shoulders. “Bracken…”

  He lifted his face. “Yeah, that’s all I want to hear from you for the next hour. My name in a variety of pitches. Over and over.”

  The sound of the garage door floated into the room, making Bracken smile and wiggle his brows. “See? Already gone.” He lowered his mouth once more and flicked his tongue over her clit.

  She cried out, surpr
ised by how sensitive she was. “Oh. God.”

  He sucked her swollen nub into his mouth next, tormenting it with his tongue.

  She rolled her head back and forth. For some reason, every stroke of his tongue and his fingers felt better than ever. She imagined it was because they hadn’t had sex in several days. Every touch felt more intense than usual.

  She didn’t think the garage door was all the way down before she cried out her first orgasm, and Bracken was grinning triumphantly as he crawled up her body and stared down at her. “That’s one.”

  He climbed off the bed as if the house were on fire, shrugged out of his shorts, grabbed a condom from the bedside table, and was poised over her moments later.

  She expected him to thrust into her without hesitation, but he surprised her by instead grabbing one of the pillows and then tapping her hip. “Lift your butt, baby.”

  She used her heels to lift her torso off the bed so he could slide the pillow under her. This was a new position. What was his plan?

  He dropped one hand next to her shoulder and used his other to tease her entrance with the tip of his erection.

  Her mouth fell open as he continued to stroke her sensitive skin until she was fully aroused once again.

  “That’s the look I was going for,” he whispered as he finally eased into her. “I love when your eyes go blank, your mouth falls open, and you suck in a lone breath because you can’t remember how to breathe with my cock against you.”

  She moaned, fisting the sheet at her sides. “Bracken,” she pleaded.

  “Oh yeah. Say it again, baby.”

  She met his gaze, though he was right. It was hard to focus. “Bracken.” Her voice was sultry.

  His mouth was on hers one second later, consuming her as if they hadn’t kissed for months. He groaned, desperate, eager. She met him halfway, parting her lips for him, grabbing his hips as she dueled with his tongue.

  She tugged on his waist, encouraging him to enter her, but he was stronger than she was and didn’t budge until he was good and ready. When he finally thrust into her, she gasped into his mouth. He was so deep in this position.

  Bex wrapped her legs around his waist, basically holding on to him with her hands and her feet, needing him closer, as if that were possible.

  He broke the kiss, cupped her face with both hands, and slid halfway out of her languidly, his gaze locked on hers. “God, you feel so good.”

  She squirmed underneath him. He was moving too slowly, not giving her what she craved. He knew it too. He was smiling as he slid in and out with painstakingly slow thrusts.

  “Bracken…please.”

  “Damn, I love it when you say my name while I fuck you.”

  She whimpered, unable to stop herself. Digging her heels in, she lifted her hips, trying to get more.

  “Tell me what you need, baby.” He held her face.

  She moaned, her eyes rolling back.

  “Look at me, Rebekah. Look me in the eye and tell me what you need.”

  She shivered as she met his gaze. Her breasts were heavy and her nipples felt incredibly sensitive as they rubbed against his chest. Did he really want her to articulate her wants?

  He gave her a chaste kiss. “Tell me,” he demanded.

  She licked her lips and found her voice. “Fuck me, Bracken. Fuck me so hard that all I know is your body inside mine.”

  She barely finished her brazen request before he started pumping in and out of her, deeper and deeper with each pass.

  Her vision swam as a second orgasm rushed to the forefront and consumed her, her channel pulsing around his shaft.

  Thank God his parents had left the house because she was certain she screamed. She did it again when he flipped her over and took her from behind, her butt in the air, her elbows holding her up.

  And she filled the air by shouting his name one more time when he pushed her to have a fourth orgasm after dragging her body to the edge of the bed and standing next to the mattress while he took her with his hands on her hips.

  It didn’t take an hour for Bex to find herself fully sated and asleep in his arms. She didn’t even care what his parents might have thought when they got back at lunchtime and found neither Bracken nor Bex had left the bedroom yet.

  Chapter 23

  “Are you sure you’re not mad?” Bex asked two days later as the two of them drove down the highway on the first leg of their long trip back across the country.

  He glanced at her from the driver’s seat and frowned. “Why on earth would I be mad?”

  She shrugged. “I’m sure you’d rather be on our return flight home instead of stuck driving.”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance. This way I get to spend every second with you for several more days as we turn this trip into a sightseeing tour of half the country.”

  She smiled. He was sincere. “Have I mentioned how incredibly awesome you are?”

  He smiled and reached for her hand to hold it against his thigh, something he did often when he was driving. “Not yet today, but I’ll take it.”

  “How did I get so lucky?”

  “Right place at the right time, I guess. That’s how I look at it.”

  She leaned closer to him and cleared her throat. “Now that I have you trapped in the car with me and no way to escape, tell me what your mom was referring to yesterday morning when she so cryptically kept encouraging you to tell me something.”

  He winked playfully. “You caught that, huh?”

  “Yes. How could I miss it? It must have something to do with baking. She seemed incredibly interested in our confections.”

  It had been fun creating all kinds of delicious treats for Bracken’s parents while they’d been staying there. Bex and Bracken had baked far too many things, but his mother had assured them their treats would be gratefully devoured by the neighbors.

  “Mmm.” Bracken seemed to be thinking about what he wanted to say for several moments. “Well, she thinks we should open a bakery.”

  Bex flinched. “Open a bakery?”

  “Yep. Rather than you trying to peddle your delicious desserts to all the local bakeries, why not just open your own?”

  Bex stared at his profile. He was serious. “Because that takes a lot of money, which I don’t have.”

  He glanced at her and then returned his gaze to the highway. “You have a business degree, an incredible drive, and amazing recipes that make people’s mouths water. My mom is right. And I’ve been thinking the same thing for a few weeks now. I just haven’t mentioned it yet.”

  “Again, let me point out the amount of capital I would need to start my own business. I’m about to quit my job, which is going to make it difficult to pay my rent, let alone open a bakery.”

  He silently took the next exit and pulled off the side of the road, putting the rental car into park before facing her fully. “What if you did have the money?”

  She searched his face, wondering what he was getting at.

  He clasped her hand and grabbed the other one to join all four of them together. “I mean it. What if you did have the funds? Would you do it?”

  “It’s a rather moot topic, Bracken.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not.”

  She eyed him far more suspiciously. “Are you saying you have that kind of money?”

  He licked his lips and drew in a breath. “Yeah.”

  Her eyes went wide. “First of all, you must have really scrimped for the last twenty years on your military salary to save up that much cash. Second of all, there isn’t a chance in hell I would use a dime of your life savings to open a bakery.”

  He shook his head. “It’s not from my job. It’s an inheritance. From my maternal grandparents.”

  She gasped. “Seriously?”

  “Yes. I didn’t want to bring it up prematurely because I know how you are about being self-sufficient. And I get it. I don’t blame you. You’ve worked hard to build your career and take care of yourself. I know from the few conversatio
ns we’ve had that you’re not hip on the idea of letting me take on some of the burden. That’s why I haven’t pushed too hard.”

  She nodded. “I can’t lean on you, Bracken. It would stress me out. I have to make it on my own. Besides, we haven’t known each other long enough for me to let you pay for my shit. It’s ludicrous. Not as ludicrous as me using your inheritance to open a bakery, but close.”

  He squeezed her hands and leaned closer. “Rebekah, I need you to understand something. Hear me out.”

  She narrowed her gaze, certain she wasn’t going to like what he said.

  “From my perspective, you’re it for me. I’m in love with you. I want you to move into my house. I want your face to be the one I see next to me every morning for the rest of my life. If I had my way, you would find someone else to finish your lease, come live with me, and let me handle some of your burdens. I know it’s fast, but it’s how I feel.”

  She opened her mouth, but he cut her off before she could say anything, which was just as well since she had no idea what she was going to say anyway.

  “Wait. Just listen. Don’t say anything. I know this is huge for you. You’ve been through a lot. You have a lot of stuff to work through in the coming months. I get that, and I fully understand if it seems too overwhelming. So, let me just add two things, and then I’ll shut up and you can ponder.”

  She nodded.

  “First of all, I’d be just as invested in the bakery as you, so don’t think of it as me giving you money or some shit. I’d be a silent partner if that makes you feel better. We can draw up a contract or whatever. You’re the one with the business sense and amazing confections. I promise I wouldn’t step on your feet or get in your way. You’d be completely in control of every decision. But think of it as a joint venture if it eases your mind.”

  She wasn’t sure she could ever see it that way, but she kept her mouth closed. He’d said he had two things to say. She wanted to hear the other one.

  “Second of all, and I mean this in the nicest possible way, so don’t take it wrong, but half the reason I haven’t mentioned this possibility or pressured you harder to move in with me is because it scares the fuck out of me that you might turn me down. That maybe you aren’t as invested in me as I am in you.”