Into the Blue (A Wild Aces Romance)

by Chanel Cleeton

  THOR

  I hadn’t been able to stop thinking of her. She’d consumed my dreams last night, my body lingering over the memory of our mouths fused together, of her soft curves and sexy scent. I’d woken up eager to see her, ready to pick up where we’d left off. I’d missed every part of her and now I was greedy for the pieces she doled out to me.

  “Do we have a shot?”

  I waited to see how she’d react to my offer, if she’d open the door another inch to let me in.

  “Maybe.”

  It was the same answer she’d given me last night, but for a guy who deserved to have the door slammed in his face, “maybe” felt like a hell of an opportunity.

  I stood up, not wanting to push her, needing this chance to make things up to her, even in this ridiculously small way.

  “Do you want soup or something?” I asked. “Tea?”

  “Tea sounds good.”

  I handed her the box of tissues. “Okay. Got it. Peppermint?”

  She hesitated for a beat, a flash of surprise crossing her face. It might have been a decade, but I remembered every little detail, all her likes and dislikes, knew all her favorites.

  “That would be great, thanks.”

  I walked into the kitchen. She’d turned her apartment into a cozy space, the decor welcoming shades of blue that reminded me of the apartment we’d shared in college. We’d been so poor, both of us working as much as we could while taking a full-time course load, but even then Becca had been determined to give us a home.

  I hadn’t appreciated it when I was younger. Not like I should have. I’d taken that side of her for granted, not realizing how lucky I’d been to have someone give me that, not realizing at the time how much I’d miss it when it was gone. I’d been young, stupid, and arrogant, accepting all she gave as standard because she loved giving it, not realizing how much of a bastard I’d been.

  I fixed the tea and walked back into the living room, setting the mug on her coffee table.

  “Thanks.”

  If things had been different between us, I would have taken her to bed, wrapping my arms around her and holding her while she slept. Instead I hovered there, my hands in my pockets, waiting for her to dismiss me.

  “Is there anything else that you need?”

  “No thanks. You can go. I’ll be okay.”

  “I don’t mind sticking around for a while.” I reached out and squeezed her hand. “I want to take care of you. You shouldn’t be getting up when you’re sick.”

  Two spots of color appeared on her cheeks. “You don’t have to.”

  “I know. But I want to.”

  She hesitated. “Okay.” She nodded toward the TV. “Do you want to watch something?”

  I couldn’t have cared less, could’ve spent the entire day just sitting with her and not even speaking, but today wasn’t about me.

  “Whatever you want.”

  I handed her the remote and she flipped channels for a bit before settling on a movie we’d seen together when it came out and both liked.

  I shifted on the couch, sitting on the end near her feet, lifting her blanket-covered legs onto my lap. She flinched at the contact, and I wondered if she’d pull away, but she didn’t. Slowly her body relaxed against mine, until she lay there with my hand on her ankles, stroking her legs through the blanket.

  An hour later she was asleep on the couch, soft sighs and snores escaping from her lips, her face scrunched up as she dreamed. My heart clenched at the sight of her and the memories it evoked. It was strange to have the remnants of an intimacy that had died long ago. Some things felt so natural, and yet I had to remind myself that I’d lost the right to those parts of her.

  I lifted her feet off my lap and stood, scooping her up in my arms and carrying her toward the bedroom. Her eyes fluttered as she stirred.

  “Did I fall asleep?”

  I nodded, my mouth dry at the feel of her in my arms, at the familiar scent that filled my nostrils.

  “What?” Becca mumbled between yawns, still clearly half-asleep.

  “Shh. I’m putting you to bed. I’ll leave some medicine and juice on the nightstand, okay?”

  She didn’t answer me, but she turned in my arms, her body burrowing deeper into the curve of mine, her lips resting just above my hammering heart.

  She felt amazing. So fucking amazing.

  I carried her over the threshold, through the open doorway into her bedroom, my heart thudding at the sight of her big bed, covered with pillows and floral sheets. It was so feminine, so Becca.

  I adjusted the covers over her, tucking her in, another pang filling my chest as she buried her cheeks against the pillow, her hands tucked under her chin, a soft smile playing at her lips.

  “Thank you.”

  I bent down, brushing my lips against her forehead. Once. Twice.

  “You’re welcome. I’m sorry, but I have to go; I have my friend’s wedding in Sumter in a few hours.”

  I hesitated for a minute, wanting to stay with her, some twisted-up, aching part inside me wanting to watch her sleep. I shook it off, forcing myself to put one foot in front of the other and carry myself away from her. Today felt like another step in the right direction, and no matter how badly I wanted more, I told myself this was enough for now.

  Tomorrow I’d take the next step.

  ELEVEN

  THOR

  The wedding went well. Reign and his wife, Sarah, spent the whole evening laughing and dancing. Easy went home with a bridesmaid. I went home alone.

  I sent Becca a text the next day to see how she was feeling. On Monday, I ran into her picking up her morning coffee at Casey’s.

  Okay, fine, maybe “ran into her” was misleading. More like “spent an hour waiting for her at Casey’s.”

  She walked into the diner dressed in a black suit, looking much better than she had Saturday, her gaze sweeping the crowd. And then she settled on me and I felt that familiar piercing sensation in my heart as a smile took over my lips.

  I waved and she returned the gesture, her lip slipping between her teeth, indecision covering her features. She adjusted the bag on her arm and then she walked toward me, her long brown hair falling around her shoulders.

  She stopped at my table.

  “Hi.”

  I grinned, not bothering to hide how my gaze lingered over her in the suit. The skirt was snug over her hips, showing a tantalizing amount of leg tucked into black heels. She looked hot. Fantasy hot. Bend-you-over-a-desk-and-fuck-you hot.

  “Hi. Are you feeling better?”

  She nodded, a pink flush settling over her cheeks. “Thanks for taking care of me, by the way. I was kind of out of it, and I don’t remember if I thanked you, but I really appreciate it. You didn’t have to, and it was really nice that you did.”

  “No worries. It was my pleasure.”

  And it was. Everything about her was.

  “You look beautiful.”

  The flush deepened. “Thanks.”

  “Are you in court today?”

  “No, it’s a pretty quiet day in the office. My secretary rearranged my schedule just in case I wasn’t feeling better.”

  “But you are feeling better?”

  She smiled. “Yeah, I am. I think it was one of those twenty-four-hour things. Nothing that some Vitamin C and rest couldn’t cure.”

  “Good. I’m glad you’re better. I was worried about you.” I gestured toward the seat in front of me. “Why don’t you join me?”

  She hesitated. “I don’t want to bother you. I can just get coffee to go or something.”

  “Please.”

  She sighed, her lip popping between her teeth again, and then she was sliding into the seat across from me, removing her jacket to reveal a pale pink silk top that left her shoulders bare and just the smallest amount of cleav
age visible.

  There was something about that color—all that pink—that had me adjusting myself in my seat, trying to calm my growing erection.

  “So what did you do this weekend?” she asked after we’d ordered.

  “I went to my friend Reign’s wedding. He’s a buddy from pilot training, and he’s stationed at Shaw.”

  “How was it?”

  “It was good. I got to see a bunch of guys I’d known from prior assignments. A big group of us went golfing yesterday.”

  She laughed. “You golf now?”

  “Yeah. Crazy, I know. It’s big in the Air Force, so I took it up during pilot training. I pretty much suck, though.”

  “Please tell me you wear matching plaid shorts and a hat.”

  “Only on special occasions.”

  “Hmm. I’d like to see that.”

  “I’ll take you golfing sometime.”

  She made a face. “I definitely don’t golf.”

  “Okay, no golf. Go on a picnic with me instead.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  “Come on.”

  “Are you trying to hit on me?”

  “I’m not trying. I am hitting on you. It’s just a picnic. Just for a few hours.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “I’m asking for two hours. Maybe three if you like it. When’s the last time you took a break during the day and did something fun?”

  “Why am I getting déjà vu of high school and you trying to get me to skip? I have a job, you know.”

  “And I bet you never take a day off. Besides you said your secretary cleared your calendar, yes?”

  She nodded reluctantly.

  “So it’s already a light day. Come on, you know we only have a few more weeks before it starts to get too cold to enjoy being outside.”

  “Where is this picnic?”

  “Where else would it be?”

  We’d spent more days and nights than I could count hanging out in the fields on Mr. Eggers’s property—making out and talking about our future, dreaming dreams that never came true.

  “I don’t know—”

  I grinned, feeling like I had a fifty-pound weight on my chest as I reached for her, praying I didn’t come up empty. “I promise you’ll enjoy it.”

  I took her hand in mine, leaning across the table until she was inches away, swallowing the sigh that escaped from her lips like it was air and I was desperate to keep breathing. My thumb rubbed over her knuckles, back and forth, savoring the feel of her soft skin beneath me, her lips parting as I touched her.

  She made a little noise, somewhere between a hum and a sigh, the faintest glimmer of interest flashing in her eyes.

  “Fine. A few hours.”

  Victory.

  BECCA

  I was as nervous as I’d been the first time he brought me here, when I was just sixteen and he was the guy all the girls wanted, but few had had. He’d done his own thing in high school, was one of those guys who could have been cool if he’d wanted to be, but hadn’t seemed like he cared enough to bother.

  There had been something mysterious about him back then, a joke in his eyes and the curve of his lips that you wanted to be in on, the feeling that if he shared his secrets with you, you’d be the luckiest girl in the world.

  And he’d chosen me.

  Eric drove his rental car—a Mustang convertible—down the highway, slowing as we reached the edge of the Eggers farm.

  I’d always loved it here, nostalgia hitting me every time I made this drive. My parents’ property had bordered Mr. Eggers’s land, and while I hadn’t been back to the house I’d grown up in since they died, the drive always made me feel like I was going home. When we were younger, I used to daydream about me and Eric buying the house from the family who’d moved in after my parents died, imagined raising our kids there one day, building new memories and clutching the ones I’d had to me tightly.

  Eric turned on a dusty dirt road, one we’d traversed so many times when we wanted to be alone, kicking up gravel as the wind blew my hair.

  He was right about the weather. It was the second week in October, and even though this year had been warmer than usual, you could feel the bite of fall lingering behind the sun. Soon the leaves would change, the weather cool, and we’d slide into my favorite season.

  And he would be gone.

  Eric cut the engine, getting out of the car and walking around to my side, opening the door and holding out his hand to me.

  The gesture took me by surprise, a small reminder of how he’d changed, gone from boy to man. He’d been a thoughtful boyfriend and fiancé, but he’d never had someone to teach him those moves; somewhere along the way he’d acquired them, transforming him into something unexpected.

  I placed my hand in his, the touch of his palm against mine, his fingers curled around my fingers, feeling like the beginning of a new start for us. One I wasn’t sure I was ready for, but took just the same.

  Somewhere between the kiss and him stopping by my apartment and taking care of me while I was sick, I’d thrown my rules out the window. He was only here for a few weeks, and it had been a long ten years of missing him and attempting to fill the void with pale substitutes. So fuck it, as long as my heart stayed out of the equation, I didn’t see why I couldn’t have a little fun.

  With his free hand, Eric grabbed a blanket and picnic basket out of the backseat of the car, and I shamelessly ogled the impressive forearms exposed by the rolled sleeve of his cotton button-down. My heart might have known he was off-limits, but my body was definitely ready to play.

  Eric hopped the fence first, using the rails to climb over the top. His feet hit the ground, a boyish grin on his face, and I knew he remembered how many times we’d done this.

  My hands met the wooden planks, the memory tugging at me, and then I hoisted myself up, my sandals slipping slightly on the boards. I straddled the fence, careful to keep my dress from billowing in the wind, and Eric reached up, his hands resting on either side of my hips as he pulled me down to the ground.

  His body pressed against mine as he settled me on the squishy grass, my back brushing his chest, his lips and breath tickling my neck as he held me to him, his hard length pressing into my ass.

  Neither one of us moved.

  A line of goose bumps puckered my skin. My breath caught in my throat as I struggled to keep from rubbing myself against him. His hands came up to wrap around my waist and chest, inches away from my breasts, his chest rising and falling rapidly against my body. We stayed like that for another beat, and then he released me with a sigh, reaching down and picking up the basket and blanket he’d discarded, holding his hand out to me again.

  At least I wasn’t the only one affected. If I was going to lose control, then I wanted him right there with me. My body felt like it was on fire, the breeze doing nothing to combat the heat building beneath my skin. Maybe I still had a fever.

  I placed my hand in his, the electricity between us crackling like a live wire. We walked through the field together, the tall grass tickling my bare legs, more memories flooding me, as though we’d traveled back in time.

  My gaze swept the open field, the colors bursting—red, purple, yellow flowers, the green grass, blue sky, white fluffy clouds that looked like someone had stretched out pieces of cotton into shapes and sent them up to the heavens. It was beautiful. So painfully beautiful. And so familiar.

  I hadn’t been here since Eric. Had told myself I’d outgrown dates like this in favor of fancy restaurants, candlelight, and wine. But coming back felt right in a way nothing else had.

  Something would happen here; the tension between us was too great to ignore. I wanted it, but I couldn’t deny the fears running through my head. It had been ten years. I didn’t have a twenty-one-year-old’s body anymore. Would he notice? Care? Would things stil
l be as good between us as they used to be?

  Eric tugged on my hand, bringing me to a stop next to him. “What about here?”

  I nodded, emotions clogging my throat. “This is perfect.”

  I waited while he spread the blanket down over the ground, while he unloaded the picnic basket, pouring wine into two plastic cups.

  My heart skipped a beat.

  He’d brought a hamper from Casey’s Diner along with a bottle of white wine, in a move that surprised me. The boy I’d known hadn’t necessarily been romantic—sweet, yes—but not necessarily smooth. Apparently he’d upped his game.

  Eric sat down, patting a space next to him, and I sank to the ground on shaky legs, spreading the full skirt of my dress around me, as if the fabric could keep him temporarily at bay and give me the buffer I needed while I got my heart and pulse under control.

  He offered me a cup of wine and I took it, our fingers brushing against each other and undoing that moment of calm. I felt like a teenager again, like the virgin I’d been when we’d first started dating. And at the same time, my body definitely did not.

  I knew what was coming and I wanted it—badly.

  TWELVE

  BECCA

  I took a sip of the wine and then I set it on the ground and lay back on the blanket, staring up at the sky. The sun beat down on my skin, the smell of dirt and grass around me, the barest of breezes lifting the hem of my dress.

  How many times had we done this growing up?

  I’d always been reluctant to skip school, too concerned with the prospect of getting in trouble to want to court Mr. Eggers’s potential wrath if we were caught sneaking onto his property. But Eric had always been there with a smile and an extended hand, and I’d never been able to resist the urge to wrap my fingers around his and let him pull me wherever he wanted to go. I’d been hopeless at saying “no” to Eric Jansen when I was a kid, and given where I’d ended up—next to him on the faded plaid blanket, our bodies so close we nearly touched—apparently that wasn’t a habit I’d been able to break.