Janelle Taylor (18 page)

He nodded. “I got my pilot’s license right after Jeanette and I were married. We wanted the freedom of being able to take off at a moment’s notice and go wherever we felt like going. We loved the sensation of being up there in the clouds, alone together—just the two of us, and Tyler …”

Another sob broke loose. He clasped a hand over his mouth.

“It’s okay,” Jordan said softly. “You can let it out. Don’t bottle it up, Beau.”

“Tyler was only …” He gasped, sobbed again. “He was only three. He and Jeanette were strapped in back. I was about to land. It was wind shear.”

Wind shear.

He remembered the awful moment when he lost control…

The plane plunging toward the water …

Waking up, what felt like hours later—he later learned it had only been a minute, maybe less….

Struggling to free himself from the submerged wreckage, surfacing to find himself alone in the eerie darkness,
alone in the strangely still, snake-and-gator-infested bayou …

The moment he realized that they were still in there, trapped in the crumpled remains of the plane, was the worst moment of his life. It was a moment he was destined to relive countless times in waking nightmares and in the real thing.

“The plane crashed and you tried to save them.” It wasn’t a question. It was a statement. He could tell by her expression that Jordan seemed to see, somehow, the horrific vision in his mind.

“I didn’t try hard enough. I was disoriented. I went down a few times, but … I couldn’t even find the plane.” His voice had become a wail. “Later, I saw pictures—the wreckage wasn’t even entirely under water, Jordan. All I had to do was look, and I would have seen …”

“You were disoriented. It was dark. You were probably injured yourself, Beau.”

He was. A concussion. Lacerations. Fractured ribs. Nothing compared to what happened to them.

“They drowned, Jordan,” he sobbed. “They were alive when we hit, and they were alive under there, struggling, waiting for me … and I didn’t come. While I splashed around helplessly, they were drowning a few feet away.”

“Don’t torture yourself, Beau.” Jordan’s hands were on his shoulders, her face inches from his, her eyes like magnets drawing his gaze. “Nobody could have saved them.”

“I could have.”

“If you could have, you would have.”

Yes.

If you could have, you would have….

Somehow, her words pierced the armor of his profound contrition, his self-inflicted punishment.

If he could have saved them, he would have.

In hindsight, he had done nothing. He had failed.

But then, and there …

Had he done all that he was capable of doing in that terrible time and place?

A last shuddering sob escaped him, and with it the first shard fell away from the impenetrable fortress he had built.

Jordan’s simple words had brought him a glimmer of peace. Not the temporary numbness the bourbon allowed, nor the illusion of normalcy forged by his work.

This, he somehow recognized, was real. There was hope for him. Hope for healing. Hope for the future.

Jordan gently dried his tears with the sleeve of her robe, her movements wafting more of her scent around him.

As he breathed deeply, the storm subsiding, something other than calm settled over him. He recognized it, of course.

It was the same need that had taunted him earlier, driving him to bring her out here.

His next movement surprised him—clearly, it surprised both of them.

He pulled her down into his lap. It just happened, the way their first kiss in her town house had just happened.

Jordan didn’t resist. As he pulled her against him, her face tilted up expectantly. The wonder of it nearly took his breath away. She knew he was going to kiss her; she wanted him to; she was waiting.

His lips met hers tentatively at first. But in no time caution gave way to passion. Groaning, he slid his tongue
past the moist barrier and entered an erotic duel with her tongue and her lips, probing, stroking until they were both moaning and their hands began to roam.

He was caught off guard by her feather-light touch when it sent shivers of anticipation through him as she explored his bare chest. He kissed her more deeply and was gratified by the sensation of Jordan’s hands splayed on his naked shoulders, as though she were pulling him closer still.

Tonight she seemed to meet his unbridled desire with a fierce need of her own, welcoming him, teasing him, making him crazy with need.

He untangled his hands from her damp hair and reached swiftly for her robe. He slipped it effortlessly off her shoulders. When he began to kiss her neck, she gasped. For a moment, he thought it was pleasure, but then she pulled back slightly. Looking at her nude body, at the stark contrast between her breasts and her arms and shoulders, he remembered: the sunburn.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered, trying to slow his panting breath. “I forgot. You’re in pain. We don’t have to—”

“Yes, we do,” she said, and pressed his head to her breast. “It doesn’t hurt here.”

He kissed one rigid nipple, lapping it gently with his tongue.

“Or here,” she said, and he moved to the other as she arched her head back. The purring sound that escaped her throat drove him into an inner frenzy, but he fought to maintain the languid pace, to keep his movements gentle as he nuzzled the silky mounds she offered.

She squirmed in his lap, grazing his arousal beneath the barrier of his shorts. For a moment he didn’t realize her movement was deliberate. When she did it again,
and he understood, it was all he could do not to take her into his arms, lower her onto the wooden deck, and ravish her right there.

He held his breath as she wriggled against him, then began to stroke him. The fabric did little to desensitize her exquisite touch, and he was almost dismayed when she stopped to tug at his waistband. But he lifted his hips and allowed her to pull his shorts down so that they were both naked and in each other’s arms at long last.

She straddled his knees and bent over to kiss his chest. She did to him what he had done to her, suckling his nipples and sparking an erotic tension that only increased when she moved away … moved lower. She trailed kisses down his abs, and he could feel his muscles clenching in anticipation when she didn’t linger there.

She moved lower still. He groaned when he realized what was going to happen, and he groaned when it happened. He allowed her mouth only a few moments to lavish his rigid flesh before gently tugging her away.

“I can’t hold out,” he said, his breath ragged. “Not like that. And I want to be inside of you when it happens.”

“But…”

“It’s okay,” he said, fumbling for his shorts on the deck beside his chair. He retrieved the square packet from his pocket and held it up.

She stared.

For a moment, he thought he had made a huge mistake. She knew now that he had come out here prepared. She knew this wasn’t entirely spontaneous. Not for him.

He waited for the icy veil to descend in her eyes, waited for her to scold him, to walk away.

Instead, a smile teased her lips. “You were pretty sure of yourself when you asked me to come out here, huh?”

He felt a lazy grin spreading across his own face. “Nope. Not at all. I was hoping…”

“So was I,” she confessed.

That did it. He needed her. Now.

He ripped into the packet and sheathed himself swiftly, ready, willing and …

“I don’t want to hurt you,” he remembered, seeing her sunburn again. “Your skin …”

“It won’t hurt this way,” she whispered, reaching for the chair beneath him. She released the lever that held the back in an upward slant, lowering it—and him—into a flat position.

Then she inched her way up, from straddling his knees to stradling his hips, her hands on his shoulders. As she lowered herself over him, her groan mingled with his and he was blinded by sheer ecstasy.

He was careful not to touch her sensitive shoulders or back as she began to move rhythmically above him, allowing his hands to roam over her breasts, her flat belly, her firm backside.

Her breath was coming in soft little pants as she began to gyrate her hips in a movement that sent him over the edge. His body bucked beneath hers as they exploded in tandem, ripples of pleasure giving way to a deluge.

As the waves subsided, he pulled her head down against his chest and stroked her hair as they listened to the pounding surf.

“I wish I didn’t have to go,” he said softly.

“So do I.”

“Maybe you and Spencer should come with me.”

“No,” she said, pulling back so that he could see her
face. “I can’t take him back to D.C. Not until I know it’s safe. We’re better off here.”

He knew that. He had told her that himself. But now that he had her in his arms, he never wanted to let her go.

So much could happen in twenty-four hours.

So much could happen in an instant.

Nobody was ever truly safe.

But fate had given him a second chance. A chance to deliver this woman and child from peril. This time, he was going to succeed. Even if it meant making himself vulnerable once more to the very loss that had shattered his life.

He had come into this of his own accord, telling himself he could maintain the necessary detachment. He had been a fool to believe that… and he was most certainly a fool right now.

But it was too late for detachment.

He had learned the hard way that you could never turn back the clock.

You could only go forward blindly, and live with the choices you made.