“Damn, you’re pretty,” he breathed, slipping a strap down her shoulder. She smiled at how easy he was to please. One of these days she was going to get dressed for this and really blow his mind.
Her breast was bare and chilly, but then he started warming the very tip of it with his mouth. Her breath caught as he slipped another strap down and moved to the other side. His tongue teased her, and she felt his hand slide between her legs.
And then he was doing it again, that slow, wonderful exploration that made her absolutely mindless. He kissed her and touched her, and she moaned into his mouth and tried to press even closer. She glided her palm down the solid wall of his chest so she could feel his heart pound. Then she moved it lower and felt him shudder as she gripped the waistband of his jeans. Soon his clothes were piled on top of hers, and he was stretched out beside her, driving her crazy with his hands and his mouth and whispering things that made her blood rush. When she was just on the verge of bliss, he took a second to retrieve a condom from his pocket and cover himself.
She closed her eyes and tried not to think about it, about how she’d lied to him before and how she still, even now, wished she could do it again.
But then he pushed inside her and her breath left her, and everything faded away except him. She opened her eyes and watched him as they moved together, his eyes hazy, his arms and shoulders flexed. She couldn’t believe she did this to him, that he wanted her this much, that he always seemed so desperate for her. She wanted to memorize the feeling of him and keep it with her always, no matter what happened. Sweat beaded at his temples as the tension built and built until it was too much.
“Celie…God.”
Suddenly her body tightened around him, and his muscles bunched, and she lost herself in a perfect, endless moment in which the world was right and she loved him more than she’d ever loved anything in her life.
Then he lay on top of her, immobilized, and his weight there made her feel safe and good and even a little bit sad.
He propped up on an elbow and peered down into her face. He traced a finger down her cheek, and she realized she was crying.
“Sorry,” she said, embarrassed. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me today.”
“It’s okay.” He gazed down at her with that look of complete acceptance, and she gave in to the urge to stroke her fingers over his jaw, careful to avoid the spot where she’d cut him.
She swallowed the lump in her throat. “You know that thing I said earlier? In the kitchen? I don’t really hate you. I don’t know why I said that.”
He brushed a wisp of hair off her forehead and looked down into her eyes. “I do.”
For a long moment, they stared at each other, and she wondered if he really understood how she felt. And if he did, what did his silence mean? Her stomach fluttered with anxiety, that faint twinge of pain that comes from imagining what it feels like to be rejected. He’d said he wanted to have fun, and so here they were, having fun. Celie was having so much fun she was going to hurt herself.
He pulled back abruptly and wiped his brow with his forearm.
“Damn, this place is stuffy. Don’t you ever get hot in here?”
“Not really.”
He levered himself off the sofa and picked up his jeans, then walked into the bathroom and closed the door. Celie sat up and pulled a throw over herself.
When he came back a few moments later, he was wearing his jeans again. He stood beside the sofa with his hands on his hips and looked at her. “When was the last time you got outside?”
“I just got back from the store.”
“No, I mean really got outside. Did something for recreation.”
She thought about it. “I don’t usually—”
“Do you trust me?”
The mischievous gleam in his eye put her on her guard.
“Trust you how?”
“Nope.” He shook his head. “That’s the whole point, you have to trust me. You don’t get to know ahead of time.”
“Know what?”
He laughed. “Where we’re going. I want to take you somewhere, but you have to trust me.”
She watched him for a second, overcome with curiosity. “Okay.”
“Really?” His whole face brightened, and she immediately second-guessed her answer.
“Is it all right if my eyes are puffy when we get there?”
He grinned. “Shit, by the time we’re done, puffy eyes’ll be the least of your worries.”
John knew he’d successfully snapped Celie out of her funk. The sniffling, tearful woman from that morning was long gone, replaced by a Celie he’d never seen before. She wore a French braid and goggles, and her body was zipped into a purple nylon jumpsuit.
“You okay?” he yelled over the roar of the airplane.
Celie nodded and darted a glance out the window. “How high are we?” she yelled.
“About ten thousand feet, give or take.”
Her eyes widened.
“You’re gonna do great,” he assured her, clasping her hand. “First time’s always the scariest.”
She nodded stoically, and John felt a rush of pride. She was doing better than the two other first-timers sharing the back of the Twin Otter. Out of ten skydivers, three were virgins. Of those, one had changed her mind about jumping, and another had just heaved his breakfast all over one of the instructors.
“You’re doing great,” John reiterated. “Just remember everything from the lesson. And if you start to panic, your partner will handle the chute.”
She nodded again. John looked over her shoulder and made eye contact with the instructor harnessed to Celie’s back. Like most first-timers, Celie was doing a tandem dive, which meant an expert would be right there with her if anything went wrong. John, who was working on his class-A certification, was diving solo today.
Celie squeezed his hand, and her fingers felt like ice. “When this is over,” she told him, “I want a margarita.”
John grinned. “You got it.” He glanced at his watch. “It’s one-thirty now. In an hour, we’ll be toasting your first jump.”
“Okay, boys and girls,” the pilot, a guy named Vincent, said over the intercom system, “two minutes to show-time.”
Everyone double-checked their gear. John watched as Celie’s partner cupped his hand to her ear and gave her instructions. Celie nodded and straightened her goggles. She looked at John.
“We’re going to go first,” she yelled over the din.
John smiled. “That’s my girl.”
But she didn’t hear him, and soon her partner had them positioned by the opening at the rear of the plane. Celie cast one last glance over her shoulder. John gave her the thumbs-up sign. She smiled and said something, but her words were lost on the wind.
“You ready?” her instructor roared over all the noise.
Celie’s chest constricted. She nodded as she looked out the hatch at the green earth peeking through tufts of clouds. The heels of her sneakers rested on the metal floor of the plane while her toes jutted into thin air. She was going to jump out of a plane !
A strange calm settled over her as she watched her instructor’s hand signals: three…two…one.
Suddenly her feet pushed off the airplane, and she was flying.
Only it wasn’t flying at all, but more like swimming inside a giant tidal wave of wind. She spread her arms wide and felt the tremendous wall of air push against her body. The force was invisible and cold, and she was shocked by the sheer power of it. Then everything went white for a moment, and suddenly the clouds were gone and a green-brown patchwork of farmland stretched out below.
She was screaming like a maniac, she realized, and tried to stop, tried to save her partner’s eardrums. But the sound kept coming, and the wind kept coming, and the earth below her loomed bigger and bigger and she could see the landing field.
Her partner signaled her, and for a moment she panicked and couldn’t remember what to do.
Then her body jerke
d, her breath rushed out, and she was floating.
“Oh my God!” she said, as time stood still and she sailed through the air. She pulled the ropes, like she’d done in practice, experimenting with pivots and turns. She didn’t have much control, so soon she gave up and simply let herself drift on the wind. Then the landing field was coming closer—rainbow-colored windsocks fluttering, people waving and pointing. Her partner manipulated the chute, slowing their decent as they came in for the landing.
Celie bent her knees and braced herself. The ground rushed to meet her. Impact. She ran and stumbled, but somehow managed to keep from falling.
It was over. The ground felt hard and strange beneath her feet.
“Great jump!” her partner said, and because Celie’s ears were ringing, the words sounded far away.
She pushed her goggles up. Her face was numb, and her body tingled as her partner unclipped the harness. “Oh my God!” she said inanely. “Oh my God !”
Other skydiving students came up to meet her, patting her on the back and telling her congratulations. Her partner laughed at her as he scooped up their chute, and she wondered if she looked as astonished as she felt. She’d never, ever experienced such a thrill. She hugged her partner, and her entire body vibrated with adrenaline.
“Where’s McAllister?” She darted her gaze around, and then she remembered to look up. A green parachute floated down toward the landing field, but it was a tandem team.
On the opposite end of the field, far removed from the crowd, she saw another green parachute, a diver dressed in blue dangling beneath it.
She sprinted toward him.
He staggered to a stop, and, when he looked up, Celie was running right for him. She was grinning ear to ear as she threw herself at him, knocking him back a few steps. He caught her in his arms.
“Oh my God !” she shrieked.
He shoved up his goggles. “You look happy.”
“It was incredible ! I want to do it again!”
He laughed. “I should’ve known you’d be a junkie.”
She flung her arms around his neck. “Are you okay? You looked great up there! I watched you land! It was so cool ! How was your jump?”
Her cheeks were pink, and she had goggle marks on her face. He couldn’t resist planting a big, wet kiss on her mouth. “Perfect. Fucking fantastic. I dropped right through a hole in the clouds.”
She giggled. “Me, too.”
He unhooked his harness and stepped out of it. Celie watched him, bouncing up and down in place. The woman was giddy.
“How soon can we go again? Can we go twice in one day?”
He smiled and looped the harness over his shoulder. “I thought you wanted a margarita.”
“Oh. Yeah, I do.” She gazed up at him hopefully. “Want to come back next weekend? Please?”
“Sure.”
“Next time it’s on me. Maybe we could get, like, a frequent-flyer discount.”
“I’ve already got one.” He gathered up his chute, compressing the air out of it and rolling it into a manageable size. They started walking back to the skydiving school, which was several hundred yards away. It consisted of a small, corrugated aluminum building beside a hangar filled with private planes. The landing strip had once been used as a practice site for military aircraft.
“Are you really getting certified? That’s so great! How much does it cost?”
She peppered him with questions as they trekked back to the building. He’d never seen her so euphoric. They neared the entrance, and suddenly she took his hand and dragged him toward the back of the building.
“Where are we going?”
“I just have to do something real quick.” She towed him behind a row of rusted-out storage drums.
And then she kissed him—a full-on, soul-scorching tongue kiss. Her nails sank into his neck, her breasts pressed against him, and all the blood in his body rushed straight to his groin.
“It was amazing,” she murmured against his mouth. “You’re amazing.”
Shit, he should have shoved her out of an airplane months ago. He dropped all his gear and wrapped his arms around her.
She backed him clumsily against the building. Her skin still felt cold from the jump, but her mouth was hot and eager, and her hands were all over him.
“You’re killing me,” he said against her neck.
“I know. Can we—”
He jerked his head up as something in his peripheral vision caught his eye.
“What?” She looked dazed, breathless.
“Someone’s watching. Over there by the parking lot.”
She glanced over her shoulder. “Who?”
“I don’t know. He’s not there anymore.”
“Probably my surveillance guy.” She turned back to him and started kissing him some more, her hands wandering everywhere. He gripped her hips and pulled her snugly against him. They shouldn’t do this here. They definitely needed to stop.
But she was into it. She wanted him now, he could tell. He was so overwhelmed, he thought his knees would buckle.
“Fuck.” He caught her wrists in his hands.
“What?”
He looked down at her. As much as he wanted to, he couldn’t screw her against the side of a building. He needed to take her home.
“Go get changed,” he told her. “I’ll turn in all my gear, and we’ll go back to your place.”
She smiled up at him. “Yours is closer.”
He kissed her mouth. “I love the way you think.”
Celie shoved the jumpsuit down her legs, and only then remembered her sneakers. She toed them off, stripped away the nylon suit, and wiggled back into the pair of jeans she’d worn that morning. Her body was still shaking, and she wasn’t sure whether it was the jump or McAllister or an intoxicating combination of both. Whatever it was, she felt gleeful. Alive. Happier than she’d been in months. Years.
She pulled on her T-shirt and jammed her feet into shoes. Then she turned to look in the mirror on the back of the dressing room door.
The door opened. Celie jumped back, startled, as a man stepped into the room.
“My apologies, Ms. Wells. I didn’t mean to alarm you.”
“Who are you?”
“I’m Special Agent Dominguez, with the FBI. I work with Agent Rowe.”
“What—”
“I will explain later, but first I must get you to a safe location. You were followed here by a man working for Manuel Saledo, and I’m afraid your safety is in jeopardy.”
Celie took a step back. Her gaze veered to the closed door, and she tried to remember if she had a tube of Mace in her purse.
The man held up his hands, palms out, trying to calm her. He wore an immaculate beige suit and a white, open-collared shirt. “Again, I don’t mean to frighten you, but we really must leave now.”
Celie took another step back and bumped against the wall of lockers. The man’s dark eyes softened. He reached into the front of his jacket and produced a leather billfold, which he flipped open to reveal a shiny gold badge. Celie recognized the eagle-topped FBI shield and released the breath she’d been holding.
“We must hurry,” he said, tucking the billfold away. “I’m not sure if the operative who followed you here is alone or with others.”
She remembered the man McAllister had seen lurking in the parking lot. How many of Saledo’s men were here?
“I need to get my friend,” she said. “John McAllister?”
The agent nodded. “He’s being briefed right now by one of my colleagues. We’ll transport both of you to a safe location.”
Celie grabbed her purse off the bench and stepped toward the door, but the agent gestured to the rear of the dressing room. Celie looked around and saw a back exit she hadn’t previously noticed.
“We don’t want Saledo’s man to see you,” he said.
Celie went through the back door and squinted in the bright sunlight. The partial cloud cover had dissipated since their jump. She glanced
around, looking for McAllister.
“This way,” the agent said, leading her toward the airplane hangar. A gray Taurus was parked on the pavement just outside the hangar’s open doors.
She looked around as she walked, searching for McAllister or any sign of someone suspicious. “Where are we going?”
“Just this way.” He led her past the car, and her steps slowed.
“I don’t understand. Where’s Agent Rowe?”
“Please, Ms. Wells.” He looked back at her imploringly. “We don’t have much time.”
She glanced over his shoulder at the small white plane sitting beside the hangar.
Her mouth went dry.
“We must hurry. Please.”
The man stepped toward her, and temper flashed in his eyes. She tried to lunge away from him, but he caught her arm. He leaned close, clenching her arm in a vice, and she felt like the earth was falling out from under her feet.
“See that plane?” he growled.
She nodded, staring past him at the sleek little jet.
“Your boyfriend is sitting inside it with a gun pointed at his head. Join him now, or you will see his brains splattered all over that window.”
John exited the men’s dressing room and plunked his diving gear on the counter near the front door. The woman who’d rung up their bill earlier checked in his equipment.
“You two have fun?” she asked John.
“You bet. We’ll probably be back next weekend.”
A bell jingled, and John turned to see the pilot coming in the door. He peeled off his leather bomber jacket.
One Wrong Step (Borderline Book 2) Page 23