Hotshot

by Jo Leigh

  For a couple of minutes, his mind was blissfully quiet, filled with nothing but steam. Then he started thinking again. Jesus.

  He’d always been a simple guy. The opposite of deep. He liked flying and women so he’d built his life around those two things. Unapologetically. A second layer, which he’d had to concede when he went into flight training, turned out to be his competitive streak, his pride and satisfaction in service to his country and his strong affection for well brewed beer. It should have been a damn-near perfect life.

  Then his F-15 had slammed into a mountain in Khwaran Ghar, Afghanistan, and his world had spun into an unrecoverable dive.

  Turns out there was a third, and now possibly a fourth layer to him. Before the crash, things had been right on track. He planned on living a long life emulating his personal hero, test pilot Chuck Yeager. Instead, Luke had screwed the pooch. Evidently, there was no going back. And even more evidently, he had no idea how to move forward.

  He grabbed the soap, and thought of Sara.

  They hadn’t had a minute alone. Not when the team rehearsed until their throats were dry and tempers were on edge. Still, Luke thought about her every spare moment. On his run, in his bed, in his dreams. Since the night she’d tested him at Lefty’s, things had been better between them, at least more friendly.

  He kept going back to the way she’d touched him. The way she’d spoken to him as if he wasn’t the enemy. She’d smiled and meant it. While he was grateful as hell, he didn’t understand it. He hadn’t apologized yet.

  The shift in her attitude had bewildered him. Sara thought his rambling talk had been okay. He barely remembered a word.

  What he didn’t know was whether he still needed to say he was sorry, or if apologizing would reopen a wound that had already healed.

  It was too big a question for this late at night, and what he really wanted was to go to bed. With Sara.

  Shit.

  Hadn’t she’d told him to feel free to come talk to her if there was anything she could help with? Time to test the waters.

  SARA PUT DOWN THE LATEST logistics memo when she heard knocking on her door. Had to be O’Malley. He knew she’d still be working at ten-forty.

  She opened the door and stared, astonished. “Luke?”

  “Hey,” he said, holding up a six-pack of bottled soda. “Thought you might be hungry.”

  “It’s late.”

  He nodded. “Time stopped having any meaning days ago. So, pizza?” He lifted the soda again, then realized his mistake with a laugh. “Jeez, I’m punchy.”

  The very ends of his hair were damp, his plain white T-shirt looked as worn and comfortable as his low-slung jeans. It had been a long time since she’d seen him in jeans. She ran a self-conscious hand down her hair, wishing she’d done more than drop her cap and let it fall.

  “Is this too weird?” Luke’s gaze met hers, and there was that disconcerting uncertainty right there, out in the open. She wondered if he realized how transparent he was, that she could see the chinks in his armor.

  “It is,” he said, taking a step back.

  “What?” She’d been staring. Still was. “No. Sorry. I’m dead on my feet.”

  “Should I go?” he asked, although he didn’t move.

  “What kind of pizza?

  “Half veg, half pepperoni.”

  That had been their regular order. She never had been able to give up her beloved pepperoni, even though it was terrible for her. She stepped back, knowing it was a bad idea.

  He passed her closely, and she let herself look at him, his broad shoulders tapering to his slim hips. He stalled when he tried to put the box on the table as it was already covered with notebooks and file folders. Sara scrambled, keeping her piles in order as she transferred them to the counter by the sink. She would have put them on the bed, but she hadn’t finished reading that lot piled there.

  She turned around to find he hadn’t put the box or the drinks down. Luke abruptly lifted his gaze. He’d been staring at her legs. God, she was in her shorts, the really short shorts. Barefoot. T-shirt, oversize and bulky, but oh, crap, she’d taken off her bra. From the look on Luke’s face, he’d just realized the same thing.

  He got busy with the meal. Pizza box open, napkins and little packets of cheese and dried red pepper flakes on the open lid, two sodas lifted from the six-pack then placed carefully in front of each chair.

  After she took her seat and Luke settled across the table from her, the déjà vu was so strong it made her dizzy. It hadn’t been a round table in college, but a storage chest. The dorm rooms had been tiny. No one had thought twice about eating and studying while on the floor. Or doing other things.

  It was safer to focus on the food, and not the man. She hadn’t even realized how hungry she was. Luke was right, the days had blended together. It seemed like weeks since they’d stood outside Lefty’s.

  She sneaked a peek at him. When he peeked back, she shifted her gaze. So high school. Them in high school. In the cafeteria. Her with Tricia and Susie, him with his football buddies, stealing furtive looks.

  “You forgot the pepper and cheese,” he said. “I got you extra.”

  “Thanks,” she murmured, amazed he remembered so much.

  “Your hair’s long.”

  She touched the ends. “It’s for the cap,” she said. “Pinning it up is easier.”

  “It looks good.”

  She waved her slice and gave him a pfft. “It looks like hell.”

  He only smiled, his gaze flicking to her breasts. Then he leaned back, totally at ease, as if he owned the damn room. This was more like the old Luke, the one she’d known so well. The guy she’d loved beyond reason.

  Sara grew conscious of the need to breathe, to blink. To step the hell away from the edge of the cliff.

  LUKE CAUGHT THE SECOND her interest turned to alarm, and he cursed himself. Too soon, too much. It didn’t help that his cock ached against his fly.

  He smiled with as much nonchalance as he could fake. “Hanover told me that when he did a couple of college talks the students asked really embarrassing questions. Like how we handle bathroom breaks on a mission and—” Rick had been asked if it was creepy, jerking off in a barracks where everyone could hear “—stuff.”

  Her eyes were no longer wide and startled. Good, that was good, only, she didn’t seem interested, either. The flush had vanished, leaving her skin pale from too much work and not enough sleep. Her pupils had contracted, and to his disappointment, her nipples, which had been poking through her faded shirt, had, too.

  He knew exactly how to fix that.

  The memory of her in his mouth made him bite back a moan, a reason to pull himself together. He grabbed his soda and drank, just to have something to do with his hands.

  “He was only trying to get a rise out of the new guy,” Sara said. “When it comes to hazing, you boys never grow up.”

  Luke had to think for a second to figure out the context of her comment. Hanover. Hazing. Finally back on track, he said, “No, that wasn’t hazing. Hazing was when they dosed my salmon with half a bottle of habanero sauce during my welcome dinner.”

  She laughed as she got herself another piece of pizza. “Did you eat it?”

  “Every damn bite. Thought I was gonna die, but I ate it.”

  “I’m sure everyone appreciated your team spirit,” she said. “I’ve been on a lot of college tours, and you’ll get some smart-asses in the audience, and some anti-war protesters too. But you’ll handle it.”

  “You seem pretty sure about that.”

  She chewed for a minute, swallowed. “You may be new to public speaking, but you’re still you.”

  He wasn’t, though. How did Sara not see it? She’d known him better than anyone, even better than Alf. It bothered him, when maybe it shouldn’t. He expected too much from her and now he was flying blind, no stabilizers, no command center to guide him home.

  Luke stared at the pizza crust in his hand, worried that if he st
ayed, he’d do something irrevocably stupid. “I’ve been meaning to ask,” he said, “how did you end up with O’Malley?”

  She didn’t answer right away. When he looked at her, he found her brows lowered and her head tilted just so. Just as she always had done when she didn’t quite understand.

  Then her head straightened and she smiled. “O’Malley’s something else. He volunteered for this tour. Astonished the hell out of me. He was running logistics at Randolph. O’Malley knows everyone. Everything.”

  “He knows you,” Luke said, hoping she wouldn’t hear the jealousy in his voice.

  “He does. I’m not even sure how we became friends. Proximity, at first. We kept bumping into each other. Something ridiculous made us both laugh, a slip of the tongue by a colonel, and we ended up having lunch together a couple of times a month.”

  “So you got your gossip from the horse’s mouth?”

  She took a hit of soda, eyed a third slice of pizza. “He’s actually completely discreet. The only reason I know he knows everything is because other people started bugging me for gossip. I asked him about that, naturally.”

  “Brave.”

  “I knew him by then. He was tickled. Said his spy network only reached half the world. That the trick was never letting on which half. I don’t think he was kidding. I’ve seen him go into private meetings with generals.”

  “Probably didn’t salute them, either. I don’t personally care, but I bet it rankles some officers a great deal.”

  “That might be a safe bet.”

  “Well, he scares the crap out of me.”

  She laughed. Luke’s chest tightened.

  “I think that’s the point.” She gave in to piece number three, and that made him stupidly happy for no reason at all.

  “He’s on this tour because of me, though,” she said. “He doesn’t have a family. I think he enjoys looking out for me.”

  Luke nodded, felt that damn stirring low in his belly again.

  “It’s late.” Her eyes had darkened. The edge of her teeth skimmed her upper lip.

  “I should let you get some rest,” he said, making no move, hoping like hell she’d ask him to stay.

  “You need some yourself. It’s been a brutal schedule. But you’ve really stepped up to the plate. I appreciate it.”

  Reluctantly, he stood.

  She got up, too, and she was close. He could reach out and touch her shoulder, her waist. For God’s sake, the bed was right there.

  Her gaze went to his arm and his muscles flexed. He hadn’t meant to show off or anything, or maybe he had. If he stepped a little closer, he’d catch her scent. He brushed the back of his hand against her arm as he reached for the pizza box. He froze right there. Still touching.

  His hand turned slowly until his fingers wrapped around the impossibly delicate circle of her wrist. He forgot how to breathe again as his body gave in to the pull.

  He kissed her.

  No thought, just movement, just pressure. Taste, dammit, the taste of her and he was gone, past Mach II, into the stratosphere. Jesus.

  She moaned, something high and needy, and he stepped closer until he was pressed against her, and there was the scent of her. Of Sara and pizza, the way it used to be when things were simple. They were lovers on a single bed, with tomato sauce on the T-shirt he threw to the floor, they tasted like heat and beer and cheese and Sara, her long legs wrapped around his waist as she rose up to meet his thrusts.

  Her fingernails dug into his shoulder, her tongue chased his, and he never wanted to stop, not for anything in the world.

  Until she stilled. Completely. Tongue, breath, hand, body. Froze as cold as ice.

  He stepped back. Left the mess on the table as it was. Hurried to the door. “Luke.”

  He paused, his hand on the knob.

  “That was…”

  He couldn’t look at her. He hadn’t meant to do that, but that was no excuse.

  “Next time,” she said, “eat with one of your team members.”

  SARA STARED AT THE CLOSED DOOR, the ghost of Luke’s touch making her shiver. He’d done a nice thing, bringing her dinner. The conversation had been easy, and they were both so tired. That was it, of course. If she hadn’t been so exhausted, if it hadn’t been so familiar.

  It would have been so simple to take the next step. As easy as breathing. Now it was the memory of Luke’s body that heated her, from her lips to her thighs. There had been too many pizzas connected with too many kisses, and she couldn’t separate them. One touch brought back a hundred others, perfectly preserved in overwhelming detail. His laugh, his words, how he’d said her name mingled with other nights, other rooms, and it was all too much.

  She had to get rid of the pizza box. The soda could stay, but not the food, not the smell. She opened her window first, wishing there was more of a breeze. Then she gathered his napkin and his crust, threw her trash on top of the congealed cheese, shut the box and grabbed her keycard.

  Shy of a jog, she reached the motel’s back exit, pushing against the metal bar hard with her side. She realized she was barefoot and braless as she went off the path to the big trash bin and threw the box so it banged against the side, certain its disappearance would quell her circling thoughts.

  Stubbing her toe helped more. She hopped, cursing, until she was inside again. Leaning on the beige hallway wall she looked at her foot. No real damage. Only pain.

  She was Luke’s supervisor. His boss. He was a part of her team, no more, nothing more. There had to be distance, physical distance because he still unnerved her. The way she wanted him bypassed her logic and reason. Which didn’t mean she had to succumb.

  He wasn’t her boyfriend, he was her colleague, and every time she saw him that had to be the very first thought. Her only motive.

  She might not be able to do anything about their strange alchemy, but she could control her own actions. And if she couldn’t repress the old memories, she had to stop new ones before they got started.

  LUKE RAN A HAND OVER his face. He’d had a lousy night’s sleep after leaving Sara’s room, and he’d paid for it all day.

  He’d been such an idiot. Too much, too soon. Of course she’d told him to go. What had he been thinking?

  He’d wanted the pizza to be a kind of peace offering. Get them to a place where they could talk. Just talk.

  So then he had to go and kiss her.

  He closed his eyes, and he was back there again, holding her, tasting her.

  One more deep breath, one more internal reboot, but just like every time he’d tried to stop thinking about Sara, about how he’d messed up, it didn’t work. He should have known. Sara had been nice to him for a couple of days and he thought he could march into her room with a pizza. Moron. He’d thought about her so much for so long, and she hadn’t thought of him once. Not until he’d crashed her party.

  He wished like hell he was already at Eglin, learning the intricacies of his new jet. He would be able to breathe there. He could forget about Sara, move on.

  His gaze locked on the papers in front of him. He finally had the talk part down. Most of it was memorized, and he knew enough now to fill in appropriately where his memory failed. It was the question-and-answer crap that had him up at 10:00 p.m. Again. When he wasn’t thinking about Sara, his head swam with job descriptions, qualifications, options for new recruits.

  The college kids were the problem. He wasn’t worried about the job fairs, but students had those damn hormones going on. All that confusion about what came next. Unless kids had changed a hell of a lot since his day. But then, he’d known forever that the air force was going to be his life.

  Luke stretched his neck, rolled his shoulders. It wasn’t enough. He got up from the conference table and arched his back. The room felt different now that most of the boxes had been loaded into trucks, but the Victoria Inn would continue to be home base until they’d finished the rotation of venues in the Greater San Diego Area. In fifteen days they’d go on to L.A. and
that would last two and a half weeks, then they’d finish up in the Bay Area. Two days after the last speaking engagement, he would report to Florida.

  The empty room closed in around him. He wasn’t used to this much time sitting on his ass. What he needed was to get the hell out of here. City air would clean out his lungs, help him get back on track. Yeah, he knew it was full of smog, but there wasn’t any sand for miles, it wasn’t a hundred and twenty degrees and it was, by God, the good old U.S. of A.

  He turned off the overhead light and went toward the lobby.

  “Hey, Solo.”

  His head jerked up at the feminine voice, even though it wasn’t Sara’s. Terri Van Linn stood at the front desk, her smile as friendly as always, but instead of her uniform, she wore snug jeans and a shirt that showed off everything important.

  “Heading out?” she asked.

  “Thought I’d walk a bit before I hit the books again.” “Want company?”

  Instinctively he wanted to say no. He’d gotten a couple of confusing vibes from her in the past. But she was a colleague, one of those people Sara had told him to eat with. “I’m not heading anywhere special.”

  “Just where I wanted to go.”

  They met at the front entrance, and he held the door for her. She smiled up at him. He returned it. As she passed him, he glanced back to find Sara staring at him with big wounded eyes. Even from across the room, he could tell she was jumping to the wrong conclusion.

  Shit.

  6

  “SOLO?”

  He turned away from Sara—a remarkably hard thing to do—and faced Van Linn. He’d tell her he forgot something, that he had a phone call to make.

  But something made him glance back to the hallway. Sara had gone.

  He should go to her room, explain…what? It was just a walk. Van Linn was on the team. And she was waiting.

  He stepped outside.

  “You okay?” Terri asked.

  He glanced behind him again. Whatever he did next would be wrong. “I’m fine,” he said. “It feels good to get out of that conference room.”