Phoenix

by Crouch, Janie

  Which suited him fine. Every single time.

  The fire was dying down, but between their proximity and the blankets, they were plenty warm.

  He held his breath as her fingers skimmed over his left pec. He knew exactly what tattoo she was touching.

  The one right over his heart.

  He’d waited a long time to get the tattoo there. He’d wanted to make sure the one closest to his heart was absolutely perfect. He’d gotten it a couple of months ago, although he’d known what he’d wanted there for more than a year.

  “This is new.” It wasn’t a question. Girl Riley was intimately aware of every piece of ink on his body. She’d been with him when he’d gotten some of them.

  “Yeah. Finally decided what I wanted.”

  She lifted her head so she could study it in the dim light of the fire. “A globe inside a compass. Simple. I like it. What does the writing say? I can’t quite make it out. You’re usually one for images, not for words.”

  That was true. This was the only tattoo of the dozens on his body that included any words. He’d done that on purpose.

  “My greatest adventure.”

  She nodded. “A globe. The world is your greatest adventure. That makes sense. It’s a good choice to go over your heart. I get it.”

  She didn’t get anything. Couldn’t see it all, at least not the details about it that were most important. “Wildfire…”

  “If you had to pick one, what would you say was your greatest adventure?”

  No, she didn’t get it at all.

  “BASE jumping from the Grand Canyon?” she continued. “Hiking to Everest base camp? Nah, that’s too tame. The X Games? Hell, you have too many gold medals from them for it to be your greatest adventure.”

  He smiled. He’d definitely done a lot of stuff in his life. “No, the X Games wouldn’t even rank in my top five.”

  The thunder shook the shelter around them.

  “Okay.” She tapped his chest with her finger. “Hang on, let me see if I can guess. You have to tell me if I’m right.”

  “I’ll tell you if you get one of the top five.”

  Not that he’d actively sat around ranking the things he’d done in his life. But his top five were the best by such a huge margin it was easy to label them as the greatest.

  “Snowboarding in the Alps when you became the only person in the world to complete the quadruple cork with the rotation.”

  He laughed. She was way more into this guessing game than he would’ve ever thought she’d be. “That definitely ranks as one of my more memorable experiences, even though I only held the record for less than a month.”

  “That’s not in the top five? I thought for sure that would be number one.”

  “Nope.”

  “How about when you were part of the group that got to skydive into Washington DC airspace and land on the White House lawn? That has to rank up there.”

  “That was good. But nope, not top five.”

  She smacked him on the chest, and it was so reflective of the playfulness of their relationship that it was almost impossible to believe they weren’t still together.

  He would do almost anything to keep her with him like this. Surely she’d have to see how good they were together. How naturally they fit.

  He’d play the Guess the Adventure game until she could see it.

  “Come on, Wilde, keep guessing.”

  “Give me a hint.”

  “How about I give you one of my top five. A freebie, since you saved my life today and all.”

  She smacked him again, but this time he caught her hand and held it against his chest. He started talking before she had a chance to pull away. “Scuba diving two years ago. Great Barrier Reef.”

  “What? I was with you for that. It was pretty amazing, but I can’t believe it falls in your top five.”

  That’s right, sweetheart. You’re the smartest person I know. Figure it out. But he just shrugged. “It’s definitely top five. I’ll even give you another one since your brain is so addled.” He smiled at the sound of her laugh.

  “Okay, jackass, what?”

  “This race three years ago.”

  She nodded against his chest. He loved her all relaxed like this, even if it was because she was too exhausted to do much else.

  “That was a pretty prestigious win. I know the Linear guys were a little surprised. They never expected somebody nonmilitary to win it.”

  She still didn’t get it. Didn’t see the top-five pattern.

  Didn’t see that she was the pattern.

  She guessed some more, and they talked about other things he’d done and ones they’d done together.

  “I’m going to have to think about this longer. I can’t believe I can’t guess it right off the bat.”

  Honestly, he couldn’t believe it either.

  They were silent for long minutes, him rubbing her naked back with the tips of his fingers and listening to the storm outside. They couldn’t go anywhere until that passed anyways.

  “I let Zac know we were here. He said to wait out the storm.”

  She nodded against his chest. “Your backpack is at the bottom of the ravine.”

  “I know. Finn is going to be a little pissed since he let me borrow it. Not to mention it’s going to be a bitch going the last two days with no prepackaged food.”

  “You’re not going to quit?”

  “Ha. Who are you talking to, woman? There’s nothing in the rules that says we have to eat MREs. I’m certainly capable of feeding myself in the wild for two days. I’ve done it longer than that under much harsher conditions. Not only am I going to finish WAR, I’m going to win.”

  “Of course you are,” she whispered. “That’s what you do. Phoenix. You rise from the ashes and go and do and win.”

  Why did that not sound like a good thing? “Wildfire…”

  His lifestyle was crazy. He knew that. In the beginning stages of their relationship, he’d gone out of his way to help her adjust to the travel, the cameras, the people who sometimes surrounded him. He wasn’t a movie star, or someone truly famous like Cade Connor, the country music superstar who was dating Riley’s best friend, Peyton. But Phoenix’s life could get overwhelming.

  Yet from the very beginning, Riley had handled it in stride. She was confident in her own abilities as a nurse—which were way more important and impressive than somebody who could jump out of an airplane anyway—and always seemed willing to let him have the limelight when needed for his stunts.

  They’d made the crazy life work. Done whatever they’d had to to make it work. So what was this emotion weighting her voice now?

  Resentment? How could he have missed that for so long?

  “Wildfire, if I have been unfair to you these years with how I lived my life, I’m so sorry.” He started to sit up so he could look her in the eyes, but she pushed him back down.

  “No. Don’t apologize for all the amazing things you’ve done. All the amazing things you’re still going to do.”

  “We can still do them together.” Desperation tore at him. There was something in her voice he couldn’t quite label, but it was bad. It was the heart of why she’d left him. “Do you want to come on more trips? Fewer? I know you love it here in Oak Creek. I know your job is here. With the new Adventure Channel show, I’ll have a lot more flexibility and say in where and when I go.”

  Maybe now was the time to tell her. The greatest adventure. What the tattoo really meant.

  “Listen. I don’t know how you and I got so far off our track. And I’m so sorry I didn’t recognize there was a problem.” The feel of the skin of her back under his fingertips was the only thing keeping him sane. “I want to tell you about the tattoo. About my greatest adventure.”

  “No! I want to guess.”

  Her words were emphatic enough that he was sort of stunned into silence. “Okay.”

  “The wakeboarding tournament you won in Dubai.”

  “No.”

&nb
sp; “The race across the volcano in Iceland.”

  “No.”

  “Kiteboarding in Nepal. Surfing in Maui. BASE jumping in Brazil.” Her voice was becoming more and more frantic. Jesus. What was going on here? Once again, something he didn’t understand.

  “Riley, stop.”

  “Freeclimbing the Todra Gorge. Winning the motocr—”

  He kissed her. He did it to shock her and get her attention, but her lips fused to his in a way that turned the tables.

  She hooked her leg over his hip and swung herself up so she was lying fully on top of him, never taking her mouth from his.

  He slid his fingers into her hair at her nape, holding her in place. Her tongue licked along his bottom lip, and he nipped at it.

  She scored her nails across his shoulders and neck in retaliation.

  Wildfire had always given as good as she’d gotten.

  God yes, he wanted this. He wanted to slow it down, take their time, but when she began kissing her way down his jaw, over his chest, then across his abs, then…

  His hips shot off the floor and breath hissed out of his throat when she took him into her mouth. His hands flew down to her head, holding her, guiding her, not that she needed it.

  He was alternating between panting and cursing as she licked his length. When her tongue slid over his crown, his head arched back, lifting his shoulders off the ground.

  “God, Wildfire.”

  “I love driving you crazy.”

  She’d always been able to. But, hell, she drove him crazy when her mouth wasn’t even on the same continent as his dick.

  She took him deep inside her mouth again and every coherent thought flew from his mind. His fingers were still wrapped in her hair. He loved the feel of it—no matter what color it was—through his fingers as her head moved up and down.

  “I’m not going to last another thirty seconds if you keep that up.”

  She worked him with her hand as she peeked up at him, devil in her eye. “Maybe I don’t want you to last.”

  In all his travels he’d never seen anything as beautiful as her so confident and sexy with her sly smile.

  But he knew as soon as this was over, they’d be going back to whatever was broken between them. He didn’t want that, or at least he wanted to delay it for as long as possible.

  Definitely longer than thirty seconds.

  There was one good way he knew to make sure that happened.

  The best possible way to make that happen.

  She was about to take him in her mouth again, up the score in some sort of game he didn’t understand the rules to, when he sat up and grabbed her by the waist.

  She squealed as he lay back down on the ground, dragging her up his chest until her thighs were on either side of his head.

  “Now let’s see how long you can last with the roles reversed, Wildfire.”

  “Riley, I am—”

  Whatever she was going to say was lost as he wrapped his hands around her hips and pulled her down onto his mouth.

  God, he loved everything about this woman. Loved her brain, loved the way she laughed, loved her smile, loved her taste.

  Definitely loved the way she sighed his name over and over as he devoured her.

  She tried to pull away as her sounds became more fevered, but there was no way he was going to let her go.

  He knew the exact moment she passed the point of reason and got caught up in what her body was feeling. She collapsed forward, catching her weight on her hands, and ground down against his face. He worked his tongue against her clit over and over in the steady motion he knew she wanted, her thigh tensing under his hands as he held her open to him.

  He was rewarded a few moments later with her sobs as she jerked, calling his name, then collapsed against him.

  He gave them both a moment to catch their breath before he sat up, moving her with him once again, except this time he slid her back until she was straddling his lap.

  They both let out a moan as he slid deep inside her wet, slick heat with one hard thrust.

  His hand slid back into her hair, bringing her face in for a kiss.

  She didn’t shy away, but he could see the demons of whatever she was keeping from him clear in her eyes.

  “I love you, Wildfire.” He punctuated the sentence with a thrust, gripping her more tightly as she ground against him. “I know you still love me too. Say it.”

  He thrust again, wrapping his hands around her shoulders and keeping her body flush against his.

  She shook her head.

  Thrust. “Say it.”

  “Riley—”

  “No.” Thrust. “Say it.”

  “I love you.”

  The words were barely even a whisper, but they were enough. He tilted her body back and thrust over and over until they both gasped and the world burst around them.

  He rested his head against her shoulder for a long minute as conscious thought finally reentered his mind. Keeping her pressed safely against him, he lay back down.

  She loved him. That was all he needed to know. The rest they could figure out.

  He rubbed his hands up and down her back as his eyes began to close.

  She loved him. He was not going to let her go.

  Not now. Not ever.

  But when he woke up again, she was gone.

  Chapter 20

  She could feel Riley lying beside her, sleeping, as she tried to wrap her head around what had just happened.

  Sex had always been good between them but that… That had been almost unfathomable. Not telling him she loved him hadn’t even been an option.

  And, of course, it had only been the truth.

  She was going to have to tell him about the MS. There was no way around it. The most she could hope for now was to tell him after the race. He’d gone through so much to get this far, and he wanted to win. She wasn’t going to rip the opportunity for victory from him by dumping this news.

  But she wasn’t going to stick around here and give him the chance to start wearing down her defenses even more. They were still broken up. Their relationship was still over. That hadn’t changed.

  Lying here naked was not going to help convince him that she meant it.

  She silently slid away from his sleeping form. He hadn’t had any more ill effects from whatever had bitten him, but between that and all the excess energy he’d been expending for the race, not to mention the energy he’d just expended a few minutes ago making love to her, his body needed rest. Plus, they needed to go in different directions anyway—her back to the RV, and him forward on to the next base camp.

  Him forward, her backward. How apropos.

  She slipped on her clothes, which had mostly dried in the warm air of the shelter. She took a calorie-dense nutrition bar out of her bag and set it out for Riley. Since he’d required medical attention, she was allowed to give him that assistance.

  She didn’t need to worry about him. He’d be awake and on his way toward the new base camp within the next couple of hours. It was about five miles away. He’d be there long before dark. Especially without a backpack. But she left an EpiPen next to the nutrition bar just in case he needed it.

  She slid out the door and headed back toward the rope bridge. Her body was stiff and jerky. No doubt a combination of MS-flare-up issues and the extremes she’d put it through—both good and bad—over the past few hours.

  When she got to the bridge, she stopped and let out a curse.

  It had been hit by lightning some time during the storm. That wasn’t really surprising given how crazy the storm had been, but it meant there was no way she could get back over to the RV.

  She pulled the walkie-talkie out of her backpack.

  “Zac, this is Riley, come in.”

  A few seconds later the walkie-talkie beeped in her hand. Zac’s deep voice came through. “You okay, Riley?”

  “Phoenix seems to be recovering without any issues from the anaphylaxis. He’ll be leaving the hunter’s she
lter within the next couple hours, I would think. I came back to get the RV, but the rope bridge was destroyed in the storm.

  Zac let out a curse. “Roger that. You’re better off turning back around and walking to base camp two. It will be shorter and a more direct walk than trying to circumvent that ravine. I’ll send someone from here to pick up the RV and drive it back.”

  “Will do. Did Anne make it to you all right?”

  “Yes. The competitor who was hurt is on his way to Reddington City with her. She’ll be back tonight.”

  “Roger that. I’m running a little slow, so I’ll see you in a couple hours.”

  This area wasn’t particularly rough terrain, but her body already wasn’t cooperating.

  “Roger that. See you then. Be safe.”

  She didn’t waste any time. Boy Riley wasn’t going to sleep all day, and she didn’t want him to catch up with her. If she could just make it to camp two, she’d be able hold off “the talk” until after the race.

  She was about halfway into the five miles she needed to go when she had to accept that the oddness she felt in her body was more than just physical exhaustion, and it was getting worse.

  Her doctors had warned her that stress could exacerbate her MS, provoke symptoms and outbreaks.

  Today had been way too much. She’d been feeling tingling and numbness in her limbs for a while. She’d kept walking, but when she took a step a mile later and misjudged the distance between her foot and the ground, she knew vertigo and balance issues—both common with MS flare-ups—were coming into play.

  But she’d kept moving forward. Slowly, awkwardly, unevenly…but forward.

  By the time she was a half mile from the camp, her legs were once again spasming the way they had when she’d fallen into the lake.

  She needed a break. Needed to lie down for a few hours and give her body a chance to recuperate. Hopefully, this wasn’t a full-on flare-up, because that would mean leaving the race.

  She willed her body to make it. She was so close.

  One step at a time. It was taking way longer than she’d told Zac it would.

  She finally reached the wooden bridge the competitors crossed less than a quarter of a mile from camp two. Compared to the rope bridge, this was nothing. It was a little shaky, and maybe a little scary if you were afraid of heights, but ultimately, it was pretty harmless. All someone had to do was hold the rails and step across the wooden beams.