“It’s okay, Ethan. According to him, I’m still a ghost.” She lifted her gaze, facing her reflection in those sun-drenched panels that sealed off his eyes from her. Guess he’d just pulled a few extra barriers out of his heart for the job. The man had plenty of personal walls to go around these days. “So I could call him a paranoid, close-minded, overprotective bastard right now and still be perfectly fine.”
She was more right about that than she wanted to be. Besides not reacting to her insult, Garrett didn’t even seem to hear it. Instead, he jerked his head right and then left, like a combat dog picking up a strong scent. “Fuck,” he muttered, his gaze probing back into the hangar. “Fuck.” Hot on the heels of his cuss fest, his cell buzzed. He slammed a finger to his earpiece. “Talk to me, Z.”
Boots crunched on the ground next to Sage. Ethan moved up again, his GQ-ready features compressing with a bloodhound concern of their own. “Guys.” It was a reprimand at Tait and Kellan, who’d started exchanging Angry Birds strategies, complete with screeching sound effects. “Guys, stuff it!” He leaned closer to Garrett, listening carefully. As Sage watched his stance tighten, tiny hairs along her nape stood on end.
It was the same feeling she’d had after Garrett’s gorilla tirade on the pier at home.
What the hell was going on?
She concentrated harder on Garrett too. For once he wasn’t paying attention to anything she did. If it were possible, the tower of his body coiled tighter. “Okay,” he uttered. “Got it. Yeah, man, of course I hear you. I’ve got three of them circling our position like buzzards, with a possible confirm of a fourth. We’re goddamn candy on a playground out here. You said base police are alerted? Well, they aren’t moving their asses fast enough. I know, Z. Shit, I hate it when I’m right about stuff like this.”
“About stuff like what?” Sage wasn’t able to constrain herself anymore. She moved up between him and Ethan.
“Check,” Garrett muttered like she’d disappeared instead. “I’ll keep you updated. Thanks, Z.”
He ended the call with a hard exhalation. On the same breath, he dipped his head a little at Ethan. The pair of them had totally dropped their pissing match of five minutes ago, which would’ve made Sage proud if the motivation didn’t seem so ominous.
“What’s up?” Ethan asked.
Garrett nodded his head again, this time at the twin-engine plane on the runway. “How soon can the Otter leave?”
“As soon as we want it to.”
“Good. That’s good.”
“Why?”
Garrett flicked a glance back at her again. Sage thought she’d fallen off his radar, but that action told her the situation was exactly the opposite. The prickles in her neck tumbled through her body. She squinted back toward the hangar but saw nothing different than the hustle and bustle of the work crews, same as before.
Her attention was yanked back by Garrett’s pull on her arm. “Don’t look there again.”
“Why?”
He dropped her arm and raised his sunglasses. No smoke in his gaze now. Fire had taken over, a searing cyan, clutching her heartbeat in its terrifying flames. He answered her query by giving her another order. “Stay.”
Sage wasn’t sure she could defy him if she wanted.
He pivoted to Ethan next, pulling the corporal several steps away. Damn it. She couldn’t hear a word of what they were saying, and thanks to the training they’d had to make them lethal opponents in a poker match, she couldn’t discern anything from their posture or frowns, either.
Finally, Ethan gave Garrett a brisk nod. “Got it, Hawk.”
He came back toward her again on wide, determined strides.
“Ethan, what the hell is—”
“Not now.” He issued it in a stern tone. His gaze swept the hangar and the tarmac now. Giving her a completely fake smile, he asked, “So you ready for an adventure?”
Sage blinked at him. “You mean we’re still doing this?”
“Yes.” That came from Garrett. His voice brooked less backtalk than Ethan’s response. He scooped up one of her hands in a steel-reinforced hold, though he nodded toward Ethan. “You got the set-up, Archer. Tell the other guys I need hustle on this. I’ll take Sage over like I’m giving her a last high-five for good luck.”
“Right,” Ethan returned. “I’ll be out of my uniform by then.”
“Excellent. We’re about the same size. Should fit me no problem.”
That caused Sage’s confused gaze to flip even faster between the two of them. “Out of your uni—huh?”
The men were back to pretending she hadn’t spoken. Ethan took off at a jog for the airplane. Tait, Kell, and the other five jumpers were at his heels. On the flip end of behavior, Garrett adopted a casual stance that made her feel like they stood on a high school lunch patio instead of an army-base tarmac. He added to the impression by beaming a full grin down at her. But his next statement sure as hell wasn’t charming quarterback. More like obey-me-now detention monitor.
“Follow me to the plane, sugar. No more questions, no more rebellion. Please, Sage. Not now.”
Please, Sage.
He hadn’t used the phrase once in the last ten days. Now that he had, it drew out mixed feelings. The tenderness in his voice was like a precious thread resewn between them. But that bond had been stitched with a needle of urgency and knotted off with dread.
“All right,” she told him. “Let’s go.”
He ambled out to the Otter with her, though once more she got the impression he barely refrained from a sprint. Sure enough, as soon as they circled around to the plane’s door, Garrett turned into the same daunting soldier she’d seen in Thailand. He swung up into the cabin in one smooth sweep. Once in, he strode directly to the back. Ethan was there already, and sliding out of his top. The olive and tan garment barely saw air before Garrett jammed his arms down the sleeves and then started zipping up. If their plan wasn’t clear to Sage before, it was now. Garrett was jumping as her tandem partner instead of Ethan, for reasons clearly above her pay grade. It seemed she was the first ghost in history bound to a security clearance.
Her mental trip into snark-ville didn’t stop her from staring at the two of them and attempting to read their minds—though maybe that wasn’t such a great move, either. Just getting into the plane had jumped her adrenaline a little higher, but now…
Oh, hell.
Ethan had already been pretty dashing in his combat top and bottoms, but the skintight brown T-shirt he wore beneath only amped the man’s irresistible factor. His chest was a defined sculpture of muscle, and the long ropes of his arms continued that chiseled trend. All that hard-hewn glory, yet the man was always ready with a gentle smile and a mischievous twinkle in his forest-green eyes.
Sage let out a conflicted sigh. Ethan was already dancing on the edges of flirtation with her, but just looking at him next to Garrett crystallized an epiphany for her. While Ethan was nice on the eyes and easy for companionship, turning her attention to Garrett did something…more.
So much more.
Even looking at him was a lesson in being consumed. From the moment they’d met, Garrett Hawkins was the blaze in her blood, the smolder in her sex, the molten magic in her heart. He was her fire. Period.
And damn it, she doubted if she’d ever be able to extinguish him. Or ever wanted to.
She found a seat, slid into it, clicked in, and ducked her head so she could clench back the fresh slam of tears. Shit, she was a mess!
“Suck it up,” she whispered fervently. “Do it, Weston. Get your shit together.” You want to make it as Airborne? There’s no crying in Airborne!
When Garrett took the seat next to her, she compelled her head back up. Well, at least enough to look at his knees instead of hers. She longed to wrap her hand around the inside of that knee, using it to pull herself over and curl against him. But rules were rules. And if crying wasn’t allowed in Airborne, breaking the personal affection parameters really wasn’t.
Still, in that sixth-sense way of his, Garrett leaned a little closer to her. He angled his body, completely protective about the pose and not seeming to care who saw. “You okay?”