“Yeah.” She glanced up in time to see Ethan make his way over. “But I’d be better if I knew what the hell this is all about with you two.”
“Not gonna happen.” Garrett and Ethan retorted it in unison. They followed that by locking palms in their gruff version of a handshake.
“Hey,” Garrett stated. “I owe you, Runway.”
Ethan chuffed. “You owe me shit, boss.” He cocked a sideways smile at them both. “See you at the pit. Have fun, Sage.”
She tossed back a grin of her own, but the expression faded as soon as the plane accelerated, gained air, and began to climb into the clear summer sky. She kept glancing at that sky, trying to think of how much it looked like Garrett’s eyes, struggling to take strength from that as the earth began to resemble a watercolor below. Structures and landscape blurred together, a beautiful but daunting reminder of the fact that they were rapidly climbing to ten thousand feet—and that she’d be traveling back through that distance by hurling her body through it.
Shit, shit, shit.
What the hell was she thinking?
She tried another stab at thinking about anything except the fear pounding at her body. Had she turned on the dishwasher this morning? Damn it, she didn’t think so. Maybe they needed to turn around and land so she could go handle that. Oh God, oh God, they weren’t going to do that, were they? Okay, so maybe she’d cook dinner for Garrett tonight. They could grill something. She’d mash some sweet potatoes for him. He loved her mashed potatoes. No, wait. She was ticked at him. And Ethan. What was that all about again?
Her brain gave her nothing. It was official. It had checked itself out from her body down on the tarmac. The conclusion gave her a fabulous excuse to seize Garrett’s hand and crunch his big long fingers for everything she was worth. The indentations at the corners of his mouth, normally so tight, loosened into twin brackets of mirth. She retaliated by whacking his shoulder.
“Dork,” she yelled.
“Cherry blaster,” he called back, making her heart do a backflip between its terrified convulsions. The slang term for a first-time jumper became four syllables of pure sex in his husky bellow.
Her moment of ease was short-lived.
The pilot pulled back on the engines, slowing the plane. A crewman got ready to open the door.
With a grin, Garrett unbuckled and got to his feet. It was a good thing he moved first, because none of Sage’s muscles would budge. She didn’t remember him unlatching her seat belt, but suddenly she was on her feet and guided into position in front of him so their tandem rig could be connected. Next, she felt Garrett clip the heavy chute pack onto his back. He jerked a little as he double-checked the cords and parachute release. Please double-check the release!
The crewman pushed the door open. T-Bomm and Kell were first up in the rotation, a fact that apparently deserved ear-splitting war cries from both warriors. As the two of them careened out the door, their cries disappeared with them.
She and Garrett were next.
He nudged her closer to the door. Her vision filled with nothing but sky and the ground below.
Very far below.
She flung her hands backward, trying to grab him. Though Garrett was already pressed close and safe behind her, literally bound to her, she craved more. Couldn’t she do this the other way around? Couldn’t she flip around, burrow against his chest, squeeze her eyes closed, and pray she got to the ground safely? She had to pee. She longed to scream. She wanted to die.
“I-I’ve changed my mind! F-Forget it, okay?”
Garrett’s mouth was a warm, heavy pressure at her ear. His lips curled into a fervent kiss on her lobe. At a volume only she could hear, he murmured, “I’m right here, sugar.”
Somehow, the words sank in, though it was impossible to respond. She couldn’t nod. Or speak. Or move.
This wasn’t sane. This wasn’t rational. Why did people do this? Couldn’t they find an easier way to get troops places? Somebody seriously needed to talk to armed forces leadership about this. Somebody needed to talk to the president about this.
Garrett’s voice was back in her ear. But it wasn’t an intimate growl this time. Now, he yelled at her in full, commanding throttle.
“Go!”
She wanted to die. Instead, she stepped into thin air, and the breath-robbing force of freefall whomped every cell in her body. Her heart rate was a rocket. She was pure electricity. She was raw energy. She felt everything yet nothing at once, all thoughts of past or future gone. There was only right here, right now, and in this insane moment, she was only certain of one thing.
Yeah. She was going to die.
Chapter Eleven
Garrett had long ago lost track of how many jumps he’d completed, but like the best thrill ride, it never got old.
The exhilaration was even better this time, though. It wasn’t every day that a guy got to take the woman of his soul on the world’s most incredible adrenaline rush. Getting to experience the jump through Sage’s eyes, even down to her terror, actually made him feel better than he had all week. He wished he could tell her that here, at ten thousand feet over the earth, she was the safest she’d been in seven days. In more than a year. He’d never been more aware or thankful for the hand of irony. Up in the plane, he’d actually relaxed. He’d gotten so sarcastic with Sage, she’d laughed and called him a dork. For a few incredible seconds, they were just a guy and a girl again, flirting with each other, falling in love.
But that thirteen-hundred-foot bonus dwindled fast.
He let the freefall go on for a few thousand more feet before he finally yanked the pud handle that deployed the drogue parachute, preparing them for deployment of the main chute. The bigger canopy flowed out next, yanking them into the wild swoop of shock when it opened. As they swung forward again and he started to guide them toward the landing pit, Sage let out a long, gleeful shriek—her first sound since they’d left the plane. A bunch more followed as they rode the wind together, and Garrett couldn’t help but laugh. He tried to remember that an hour ago, he’d been in the Taj Mahal of royally pissed at her. He struggled to dredge up what it felt like to see King’s gutter dogs in that hangar, sniffing at her with their hungry eyes, looking at her as nothing more than a means to a fat payback. He fought to recall how the Otter couldn’t take off fast enough and how he’d breathed easier with every foot they’d ascended.
He struggled to remember all of it, yet the only thing that seemed to matter now was now. This moment. This pure, soaring joy. For a few precious seconds, time was flung backward. The only thing that mattered in the world was just the two of them. Lost in each other. Wrapped around each other. Flying once again as one.
Muscle memory took over while his hands pulled at the steering and brake lines, aligning their descent with the landing pit. The perfect jump conditions didn’t preclude him from taking care with the task. The pit was a little sloped because it was bordered on one side by a dense forest—a challenge the army had created during the years units were being deployed right and left to the Afghan mountains and needed training on terrain like this. He slowed the chute down by intervals, bringing them down for what was going to be a textbook landing.
“Legs up, Captain,” he instructed Sage.
“Yes, sir.” A tiny giggle in her voice drained the respect from the words. His brain, already untethered from a number of its usual restraints, kicked in with a reaction that sent his senses on another freefall. He imagined disciplining that sass out of her—right on her tawny, smooth ass. Then he’d force an apology from her with his cock head, refusing to let her pussy have him until she said those two words with breathy, needing reverence…