Let It Ride (8 page)

“Tell me.” He reached across and cupped her face, caressing her cheek with his thumb.

Oh, what did it matter? Meeting his gaze, she drew in a deep breath. “My story is disgustingly unoriginal. Girl meets boy. Boy seduces girl into running off to Vegas. Boy takes off and leaves girl stranded.”

He dropped his hand. “I want to find the bastard and maim him.”

“It was so long ago. He doesn't matter anymore.”

“He hurt you.”

He said it so tenderly. Suddenly her eyes stung with unshed tears. A protective armor seemed to fall away, letting feelings flood in. She realized she'd had to be strong for so long she'd never allowed herself to acknowledge the pain. There hadn't been time to grieve. Only survive.

“Do you…do you still love him?” His voice, was low, hesitant.

“No.” She pulled from his grasp and moved to kneel
between his thighs. Water sloshed and splashed around them as she placed her palm on his cheek and lightly touched her lips to his. “I just haven't let myself feel anything since then. But I can let the hurt go now.” She pressed gentle kisses on his nose and eyes and then moved to his right temple and down his scarred neck. “I don't want to be closed off from my feelings anymore.”

His arms came round her and brought her to him. “You're amazing.” He moved her hair off her shoulder and kissed her there.

“Have you ever…thought you were in love?”

He shook his head. “I've always wanted more out of life than a mortgage and two-point-five kids.”

“Did you always know you wanted to be a fighter pilot?”

He grinned. “No, I, of course, wanted to be an astronaut. I used to want to be the first man to walk on Mars.”

“Wow, big dream.” She raised her brows.

He shrugged. “It didn't seem out of reach. My dad always talked about the day Neil Armstrong first walked on the moon. How amazing it was. When I was ten, he took us to watch the space shuttle
Atlantis
launch from Kennedy Space Center. Skipped school to do it.” His gaze wandered to the ceiling and he leaned his head back against the shower tiles. “We drove all night and watched the sun come up.”

He was quiet a moment as if remembering, then lifted his head and looked at her again. “After that I read all about the Galileo probe, and tracked it for years thinking someday I'd go to Jupiter, too.”

“They have a probe that went all the way to Jupiter?” She turned and sat between his raised knees, leaning back against his chest.

“Yeah. Took six years.” He picked up the soap and rubbed it between his palms. “It witnessed a comet crash into Jupiter in '94, orbited it thirty-five times and sent back over fourteen thousand images before it disintegrated in Jupiter's atmosphere in 2003.”

In 2003. Seemed like a lifetime ago. She'd graduated high school that May and run off with Ian.

“So, you joined the Air Force to be an astronaut?”

He nodded and his soapy hands cupped her breasts and began caressing them with a slow thoroughness. Jordan moaned.

“That was the plan.”

“And you love being a fighter pilot?”

“Oh, yeah. There's no other rush like flying faster than the speed of sound. Went right into the Air Force Academy out of high school. Went to flight school at Randolph in San Antonio, and then trained at Nellis before I was deployed to the Middle East.”

She turned in his embrace and raised her fingers to the scars along his shoulder.

“Tell me how it happened.” She felt his body stiffen and feared she'd destroyed the moment.

With slippery hands, he lifted her onto his lap and cradled her in his arms. “I was assigned to a special tactics squadron. Our mission was to fly in undetected and establish an assault zone.” He was silent for a moment and stared across the bathroom.

“It was my own fault. I got too cocky. Flew in low to draw attention away from ground forces—against orders.”

She leaned her head back to look at him. “Did it work?”

He grinned. “Of course.” His thumb caressed the side of her breast. “But the insurgents had a missile launcher and I got hit. Still received a letter of reprimand.”

“You could have been killed.” The thought caused a horrifying lump in her throat.

He shook his head. “I ejected in time.”

“But what if you hadn't? What if you'd been knocked unconscious? Or been taken prisoner?”

He shrugged. “I'd rather risk it than live life in half measures. If I had it to do over, I'd—” He stopped. “Damn.”

“What is it?”

His arms tightened around her. “I've been pissed at myself for being such a hothead, for ruining my career. But—” he shook his head “—if I had it to do over, I know I'd do the same thing. Every time. Even if it meant losing everything, I wouldn't change what I did.”

“That's where we're different. I'd give anything for a do-over. Not for myself, but because I hurt my mom so much by running away.”

He squeezed her to him and she wrapped her arms around his neck and pressed her cheek to his shoulder. “I'm sure she understood and forgave you.”

Emotions she'd never wanted welled up, an awareness that this experience with him was something more than just sex.

On his right arm, just below his shoulder were the remnants of a tattoo. It looked like a drawing that had been half erased. The rest was all puckered new skin. She traced a finger around it and his gaze followed hers.

“It's a red-tailed hawk,” he said softly. “A raptor. It's the name for—”

“—the F-22, I know.”

She looked up and their gazes met.

“I figured I'd get another one on my left arm sometime.” He brushed the damp hair off her shoulder and slid his hand around her nape, bringing her mouth to his so sweetly, so gently.

With her defenses down, every emotion seemed intensified, every sensation sacred. He'd leave in the morning and she'd never see him again. She wanted to remember this night forever, the intimacy of her breasts pressed to his chest, the sanctuary in his arms, and the possession in his touch as his hands ran down her back.

His kiss enveloped her, surrounding her in a cocoon of protective warmth. He tangled his fingers in her hair as his other hand slid down the column of her throat to her breast and squeezed and played with the nipple. She could feel his erection hard against her stomach.

With one arm around her waist, the other beneath her bottom, he lifted her as she straddled his lap. “I wanted to go slow the next time, but…” With a groan he gripped her hips and pushed her down over his hard length. His head thrown back, his eyes closed, he moved inside her.

Jordan gripped the rim of the tub behind his shoulders and rocked her hips to create a rising friction.

He groaned her name. His Adam's apple bobbed as he swallowed and she lowered her mouth to the tendons at the junction of his neck and shoulder, nipping her way up his scars to his earlobe.

He slid his hand between them and began to stroke her.

Jordan cried out as he brought her to a writhing, sobbing pleasure. Water sloshed over the edge of the tub as her movements became more frenzied, but she didn't care. With every rise and fall of her hips she felt her passage stretch for him, felt him so deep inside her, filling her. The thought sent her over the edge. She gripped his shoulders as wave after wave rocked her.

He bent his knees and curled his fingers into her waist as his hips rose and he spent himself inside her.

Falling limp against him, she laid her head on his shoulder, satiated as she'd never been before. Lazily, she listened to his breathing return to normal and knew she'd never forget this night, this experience, this man. Not for as long as she lived. She'd be an old lady, a grandmother, a great-grandmother, and she'd still recall this night.

His chest rose as he drew in a deep breath and sat up. “Jordan. I didn't—Are you…protected?”

Omigosh. She wasn't. How could she have ever expected this? For a panicked moment, Jordan drew a complete blank as she tried to remember where she was in her cycle. Think, Jordan. This was the third week of May. Memory returned. She should be safe.

“Um…no, but, it should be okay,” she said with more confidence than she felt. Wouldn't that be the stu
pidest thing she'd ever done? Just as she was getting her life straight.

“Are you sure? I can't believe I didn't even think about it. Just so you know, I've had all the tests.”

She nodded, but she wanted to slap herself. “I've never needed to.” Before now. She'd always insisted Ian wear a condom. How
could
she have been so irresponsible this time?

“Okay.” He let out a deep breath. “But you promise you'll contact me if…I'll leave my contact info, all right?” He stood, water sluicing down his skin, and bent to give her a hand. “You hungry?”

Her stomach growled, but the reality of her situation hit her hard. Did he think she was trying to trap him? He'd made it clear from the beginning he wasn't the home-and-hearth kind of guy. She had to get to her place, be with her mom. She shouldn't have stayed this late. What would Mrs. Simco say?

“No, I should go.” Shoving her hair out of her face, she tried to stand on her own, but he clasped her elbows and lifted her against him, skin to skin. Their gazes locked. Then he stepped out and grabbed a thick, fluffy robe from a hook and draped it around her shoulders.

The spell of the evening had definitely been broken.

As she pushed her arms through the sleeves, he wrapped a towel around his waist and padded into the suite. “Are you sure I can't get you something?” he called to her.

Jordan closed her eyes. He was trying to fill the
awkward silence. One would think she'd have learned by now that acting irresponsibly always had its consequences.

She forced herself to leave the bathroom and started gathering her clothes and backpack. “The lady who watches my mother will be wondering what happened to me.”

“Oh, right. Of course.” Cole grabbed her T-shirt and handed it to her. “So, your mom can't stay alone at all?”

“No, not anymore.” She stood clutching the robe together at her neck with her clothes bunched in front of her. She wanted to retreat to the bathroom to dress, but it seemed kind of silly after what they'd done together. For a moment she let herself relive the feel of his mouth on her, of his hard body against her, of him coming inside her. It seemed strange to think she'd never see him again after tonight.

“It's Alzheimer's, right? Who watches her? You have a nurse?”

“No, right now, it's a neighbor of mine, Mrs. Simco. She's really good with her.”

He nodded, meeting her gaze without pity this time. “How long has she been sick?” Casually, he dropped his towel and pulled some clean briefs from a drawer.

“It's been about three years since we noticed the initial symptoms.” Jordan was still standing with her clothes in her arms. She dropped everything on the bed and started dressing. “At first, she forgot normal things. Like we all do sometimes. Certain words, or where she'd put her glasses.” She remembered those early days, when her mom would call from Iowa, and Jordan
would make a joke about Alzheimer's. “Then one day I called home, and she was crying and scared. She'd been late for work because she couldn't remember how to get to the diner. That's when she knew something was wrong. She'd worked at that diner almost twenty years.”

“I can't imagine what she's been through. What you've both been through.” While she talked, he'd pulled on the same jeans and shirt he'd worn earlier.

Jordan nodded. No one could unless they'd lived it.

“I'll give you a ride.” He sat on the edge of the bed and tugged on his boots.

“Oh, no. That's okay.” She fumbled in her backpack for her brush and started trying to tame her hair.

He looked up at her, his jaw set. “It's four in the morning. I'm taking you home.”

Stepping into her sneakers, she wrestled her hair into a ponytail. “Okay.”

He escorted her downstairs, and into the parking garage, and loaned her his jacket again before getting on his bike and taking her home. After he walked her to her apartment door, he took her by the shoulders and gave her a slow lingering kiss.

Oh, God, she wished the kiss would go on forever. Any day his orders would come through and he'd be shipped back to Iraq. But she wouldn't regret this night. He'd helped her feel alive again. And not so afraid of her wild side.

But what about him? He was a daredevil fighter pilot. What if something happened to him again?

The thought of him being killed brought a chill to her
chest. She tore her mouth from his and hugged him tightly around the neck. “Be careful, Cole.” Before she could burst into tears in front of him, she gave him one last quick squeeze, then rushed inside and shut the door.