Falling for Flynn (2 page)

“Forget it.” He ran a hand through his short hair. “Ancient history now.”

“How long are you in Melbourne for?”

She shouldn’t have asked but seeing him again rattled her more than she cared to admit.

Despite the carefully erected barriers around her heart, seeing Flynn after six years had her focusing on all the wrong cues: the breadth of his shoulders, the clean-cut army-poster-boy haircut and those expressive dove-gray eyes that tugged at her soul all over again.

“I’m setting up a training school here.”

His blunt response sent a shiver down her spine, whether of excitement or dread she didn’t know.

He’d moved back? For how long? And why Richmond? Melbourne was a big city; he could start up his stupid school anywhere, why here?

Shaken, she tried to disentangle her trolley from his. “Good luck with that.”

“You visiting your dad?”

“I live here.”

“What happened to New York?”

You
happened. You and the aftermath of that one, incredible night we shared.

“I changed my mind.”

His eyes narrowed, appraising, assessing. “You talked of nothing else but being a life coach once you finished your degree. You were going to take New York and London by storm, in that order.”

She shrugged, impressed by how much he remembered, annoyed by the fact she cared.

“People change.”

He stared at her as if she’d lost her mind. “The army was my dream, New York was yours. You don’t give up on your dreams.”

To Flynn’s surprise, Lori threw back her head and laughed, a fragile, harsh sound devoid of happiness.

“No,
you
don’t give up on your dreams. I just changed the boundaries of mine.”

“So you’re a life coach here?”

She shook her head, dropping her gaze but not before he glimpsed a shimmer of regret.

“No, I’m a teacher.”

Surprised, he raised an eyebrow and she merely tilted her head to one side, mussed curls falling to her shoulder in a dark cascade, beckoning him to reach out and twist one around his finger, just like he used to.

Lori hadn’t changed: the same hazel eyes, the chocolate corkscrew curls, the smooth olive skin with a smattering of endearing freckles across her pert nose. He allowed his gaze to briefly drift downward before returning to her face.

Correction, she
had
changed. Her body had filled out in all the right places, her womanly curves begging to be caressed.

Don’t even think about it,
his brain warned as his libido struggled to keep up.

To make matters worse she still wore the same fragrance, a spicy vanilla designed to tantalize his senses and drive him crazy in the process. It had certainly worked the last time she’d worn it, the night before he’d headed to the Middle East when he’d lost himself in her, in the magic of the moment and the promise of what might have been.

“Flynn?”

Dammit, even the way she uttered his name hadn’t changed, her soft tone reaching deep into his soul and dredging up memories better left forgotten.

“I don’t get it,” he said, wishing she’d stop staring at him with those bewitching eyes. He’d always been useless when she looked at him like that, from the first minute he’d met her as a seventeen-year-old glaring at him from the opposing school’s debate team. Back then, he would’ve done anything to see the gold flecks light up her eyes. If he was completely honest, he probably still would.

“When we last met you were planning on buying a one-way ticket to New York. You couldn’t stop talking about it.”

She bit down on her bottom lip, shook her head, her gaze evasive as he tried to read her shuttered expression in the harsh fluorescent store lighting.

“My life isn’t any of your business.”

Spurred on by the speculative gleam in her eyes and an insane urge to bundle her into his arms, he pushed aside their trolleys and snagged her hand.

“I’d like to make it my business.”

The minute Flynn touched her Lori couldn’t think, let alone respond as a jumble of sensation flooded her body, from languorous heat to icy shivers with a liberal dose of the shakes thrown in for good measure, her body’s traitorous response catapulting her back in time.

She’d had the same reaction that night they’d gone crazy, the night they couldn’t get enough of each other, the night that had changed her life.

He hadn’t been deterred by her spasmodic responses to his emails while he’d been away training, had insisted they catch up his final night before deployment. She should’ve refused, should’ve left the past in the past. But she’d had a real connection with Flynn Logan before he’d enlisted and curiosity demanded she see him one last time.

The rest of what happened that night? Hormones. Her excuse, she was sticking to it.

Now, six years later, having his simple touch elicit the same visceral responses had her yanking her hand out of his.

“You okay?”

“Fine, I just need to get home.”

“No time to catch up with an old friend?”

Friends? They’d never been
just friends
, the underlying spark between them a constant buzz that never abated their final year in high school and took little to ignite despite his four year absence at military college.

The moment he’d enlisted at the Australian Defence Force Academy she’d broken off their burgeoning relationship. Truth be known, she would never have started anything if she’d known his intentions.

Having a relationship with a soldier wasn’t an option, not after what she’d been through, what her mum had been through.

Flynn had persisted, tried to keep in touch during his three years at ADFA and year at Duntroon, but she’d stood firm with brief, terse responses out of politeness ingrained by her colonel father from a young age.

Until his final night in Melbourne before he transferred to the front line, when she’d been unable to resist.

And look where her weakness for him had got her.

“Maybe some other time?”

His lips curved and her heart flumped at the injustice of damn memories. The power-packed smile lit his face, accentuating the tiny lines radiating from the corner of his eyes, the groove-like crease bordering on a dimple in his right cheek, highlighting his rugged handsomeness.

“You’re giving me the brush off?”

Compressing her lips to stifle the urge to smile right back at him, she steeled her resolve not to give in and grab a quick latte for old time’s sake.

“Looks that way.”

“Why?”

His low voice rippled with curiosity, and she stiffened. The last thing she needed was Flynn asking questions she had no intention of answering.

“We’ve moved on, forged careers, separate lives, what’s the point of — ”

“This is the point.”

The kiss came out of nowhere. One moment she was rebuffing him, the next his mouth was on hers, commanding, demanding and despite all intentions to resist her lips softened.

Her body sang with remembrance as he cupped the back of her head, his fingers splayed through her hair, her scalp prickling with the instant electricity his touch elicited.

Oh yeah, she remembered
this
, this overwhelming, mind-numbing need to have him kiss her for minutes, hours, obliterating every obstacle standing in the way of a relationship, every doubt she possessed.

His kiss was cataclysmic.

His kiss was sublime.

His kiss was
wrong
.

Breaking away, she dragged a hand through her hair, surreptitiously itching her scalp where residual tingles fired annoying messages into her brain:
Why don’t you whack him? Why don’t you tell him to shove it? Why did you stop?

With the smug smirk of a guy who knew exactly how he affected her after all this time, his nonchalance rankled as he leaned against his trolley. She flexed her fingers, unsure whether she should deck him or pat him on the cheek and thank him for reawakening her hormones for the first time in years.

He eyeballed her. “That’s the goodbye kiss we should’ve had six years ago.”

“We did plenty of kissing that night … ”

A blush stole into her cheeks, matching the heat simmering through her body and she silently swore.

“So we did.”

She knew what he’d ask next before he opened his mouth.

“Why did you run out on me that night?”

She couldn’t tell him, any of it, so she settled for partial truth.

“You were flying out in the morning. I hated goodbyes. You knew that from the first time you left for the Academy.”

His probing stare had her transferring weight from side to side, fidgeting with her handbag strap, eager to flee.

“That’s a cop out.”

She shrugged. “You asked.”

“And I expected an honest answer.”

Trepidation tip-toed down her spine and she pointedly glanced at her watch.

“I really have to go.”

“This isn’t the end.”

Ignoring him, she pushed her trolley toward the checkout.

“I’m not that easy to get rid of,” he called out, his cocky tone reminiscent of their debating days. “I’ll call you.”

“I’m not in the phone book,” she flung over her shoulder, instantly regretting her quick look back when his taunting gaze followed her all the way to the checkout where she flung items at the bemused girl before bustling out the door, ramming a stray trolley along the way.

Twenty-four hours had passed since Lori had bumped into Flynn and thankfully he hadn’t made good on his promise to call. She needed time to think, to sort out her feelings, for despite her act that he meant nothing to her she knew it was just that — an act.

The minute she’d looked into those fathomless gray eyes she’d been sucked in, drowning in a pool of sensation, hazy memories combining with his potent presence, compounded by the fact he’d hardly changed.

His eyes still held that same indefinable quality that hypnotized and resistance was futile. She’d had a sleepless night to prove it.

As for that kiss … logically she shouldn’t have responded but her body had had other ideas, that one intoxicating, mind-blowing kiss short-circuiting her in a big way.

After tossing all night, she wondered if maybe she should’ve had a quick chat with him, been polite? After all, they shared more than a history.

“A fact I’d rather forget,” she muttered, shoving the pile of essays she needed to mark that night into her car boot, slamming it shut, sending a silent prayer heavenward that the result of their shared history never discovered the truth.

“Still have that habit of muttering under your breath, huh?”

She jumped and whirled around, her heart slamming against her rib cage, as her history became her present.

The schoolyard was almost deserted this time of evening so she should’ve heard Flynn. Guess soldier boy had practiced stealth among the many other moves she’d rather not know about over the past six years.

“Where did you spring from?”

Her shrewish tone had little to do with him startling her and everything to do with the sight of him in faded denim and a white T-shirt that snatched her breath.

He’d spent years on the front line, confronting and seeing and dealing with goodness knows what, so why didn’t he look more battered, more damaged?

A cruel thought, malicious, but she hated her subliminal reaction to his compelling physicality: the impulse to smooth her floral A-line skirt and tug at the hemline of her peasant top, the urge to pull the butterfly clip out of her hair and shake it loose in the hope she didn’t come across as an uptight schoolmarm, the type of teacher they’d both despised way back when.

“I was told I could find you here.”

“How?”

He tapped the side of his nose and winked. “Army Intel. If I tell you I’d have to kill you.”

“Not funny.”

“I guess not.”

Rattled by his appearance, she didn’t speak and he shrugged. “Remember Michael Fuser? He’s my accountant, said you taught here.”

She’d personally throttle Michael at tax time.

“And another thing that’s not funny, you kissing me the other day.” She folded her arms, then thought better of it when his gaze flicked to her chest.

“I’m not going to apologize for it, if that’s what you’re thinking.”

Another problem. She couldn’t think straight at all when he was around.

“It was out of line.”

He shrugged. “Sue me.”

She could’ve pushed the issue but it wouldn’t be wise. Best to relegate that kiss to a spur of the moment mistake, one she had no intention of repeating.

Flynn glanced around the school grounds and she wondered what he thought of the newly painted buildings, the immaculate gardens and the state-of-the-art sports stadium that had recently been erected. He’d scoffed at her “toffy” high school when they’d first met and by the disdain on his face now, his opinion hadn’t changed.

“What do you teach?”

“English and Human Development.”

“Human Development?”

She fought a rising blush and lost. “Sex education in our day.”

He grinned and the blush spread all over her body, notching her temperature up to unbearable levels. “You’re an expert on the subject?”

She stifled a snort. Considering he’d been her one and only lover, her theory was definitely more accurate than her practice.

Desperate to bring the conversation to an end, she jingled her car keys.

“Every teacher needs to have a solid grasp of their subject matter to impart knowledge to their students.”

His grin widened and she almost cringed at her pompous answer.

“With an opening like that, the predictable response would be me asking you for private tuition. But I guess you already know I’m far from predictable?”

He leaned against her car, braced by his arms and she could hardly tear her eyes away from his bulging biceps. She may hate the army and all it stood for but it sure bred toned, muscle-bound guys.

“What do you want, Flynn?”

She would’ve loved to flirt with him, to fall back into their old, easy-going camaraderie but couldn’t do it. Too much had happened between them, too much at stake and the longer he hung around the higher the risk.