Wings of Gold Series

by Tappan, Tracy

  Eric’s face contorted into an expression of savage ecstasy. He kept pumping, faster. A moan threaded through his clenched teeth, then a hard shudder wracked his body and the moan grew into a shout of completion. His dick jerked inside her, then stilled. He didn’t so much stop as finish in a heap on top of her, his lungs laboring and his heart crashing against her breasts.

  She lay spent beneath him, her own lungs working. He was heavy as a Volkswagen. “We soaked my sheets,” she said at length.

  He gave her a hazy look and kissed her. “Do we care?”

  She exhaled a rusty laugh. “I’ll change them while you get dinner.”

  His eyelids drooped. “You’re requiring me to move?”

  “Yes, and double-time it, Lieutenant.” She nudged his shoulder. “Now I’m really hungry.”

  * * *

  Eric found his blue jeans on the dining room floor and tugged them on, his movements unhurried and fluid, edging toward stupefied. The ball bearings working his knees felt as if they’d been oiled down with a nice coating of Valvoline. Damn, he couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt this relaxed or satisfied. But then sex with Nicole was…a complete redefinition of the word, something that’d gone way beyond a mere physical act. It’d been a total emotional blindsiding. He shouldn’t be surprised by that. He’d been doing nothing but feeling unbelievably deep shit around her since the first day he met her in that hotel room of the Bogotá Marriott. What surprised him was how much he liked shedding his robot parts. He’d always figured that kind of exposure would be sort of frightening.

  He set two dinner plates on the dining room table, after, ahem, first cleaning it, then put out four open Chinese takeout containers with serving spoons.

  Nicole sauntered into the dining room, also moving in the languid way of a well-satisfied woman, you’re welcome very much. She was wearing peach terrycloth shorts and a white tank top that dipped into her cleavage and clung to the points of her nipples. No bra.

  Distracting as hell.

  She set a hand on the back of a chair. “So what have you got here?”

  He picked up a pair of wooden chopsticks and cracked them apart, then used them to point to each container as he named off what it was. “Kung Pao shrimp, moo shoo pork, cashew chicken, and broccoli beef. Rice is here.” On his way to Nicole’s apartment from his house on Coronado, he’d stopped by a favorite Chinese takeout joint of the military set. They all just called the place Wong’s after the owner, even though it wasn’t the true name.

  “Yum.” She smiled at him and sat.

  His stomach growled, and he sat, too. He spooned a hearty portion of Kung Pao shrimp onto his plate, then pinched a large shrimp between his chopsticks and popped it in his mouth. Damn, but he loved Wong’s.

  Nicole served herself the broccoli beef, and proceeded to stab the end of a chopstick into a strip of meat.

  He watched her for a moment, a smile working at one corner of his mouth. “Uh…you know that’s not how you use chopsticks, right?”

  She just gave him a close-mouthed smile and chewed.

  He chuckled. With any other woman he would’ve been filing this information away for later use as an annoyance for rapid bugout. With Nicole, the funny way she used chopsticks was just…charming.

  “I think I’m going to take some time off work,” she told him.

  He pinched up a snow pea. “Yeah?”

  “It’s been a rough couple of days,” she said, then snorted over that huge chunk of obvious. “Would you be up for going away with me for a few days? Or is that moving too fast?”

  “Too fast? For me?” Hell, he was already set to ask her to move in with him. “You’re the one who’s been fighting against us. Which, by the way, has me curious.” He unrolled a moo shoo pancake and slapped it onto his plate. “What changed? Last I heard, you didn’t like yourself around me.” If she’d made some spur-of-the-moment, I-almost-died-a-couple-of-times-in-the-last-few-days decision, he was fucked.

  “It’s going to make me sound ruthless, but…” She speared a hunk of broccoli. “I found some peace from taking out Carrera.” She sipped her water, then ran the tip of her finger around the rim of the glass. “For a long time now, I’ve been doubting myself in my job, not sure how to deal with my looks, and confused about who I am because my father’s voice has been inside my head. I handled myself wrong in a lot of situations, lashing out defensively. I’ve been getting so angry with everyone for making me feel used, when this whole time…I think I’ve really been angry at myself for letting the need for acceptance pressure me into making the wrong decisions for myself. When I took down Carrera, it was just me against him, no other agents in the room to impress, no father looking over my shoulder. Only me, being a fighter. I am a product of my dad’s upbringing—the tough karate kid—but it’s also who I like to be.” Using her two chopsticks like a mini shovel, she scooped up more beef and ate it. “Anyway, I couldn’t really be with you until I was myself, right?”

  He plopped a scoop of moo shoo pork on the pancake. “I like your tough side, too, Nicole. I think you know that. But there are softer sides to you—the woman who gave Vicodin to a hurting man she didn’t even like, the woman who was willing to sacrifice her own potential happiness so that I wouldn’t have to sacrifice mine—and some awesome sexiness. I really hope you don’t keep rejecting those sides of you. Because I like those just as much as your badassery.”

  She laughed softly. “You sound a bit like my mother. And, yes, you’re right. I need to be okay with my femininity.” She nabbed the cashew chicken. “Speaking of Mom, I also got a huge speech from her in the hospital. She saw it all over my face, and lectured me about not being a coward.”

  He frowned. “Saw what on your face?”

  “That I’m crazy in love with you.” Nicole looked into his eyes. “I really am, you know.”

  A torpedo went off underneath him, vectoring him right off the planet. He circled his jaw, trying to drum up the response she deserved and no doubt expected. He cleared his throat. Still, no words came. Dealing with the Nicole who ran from him, who put obstacles in his path at every turn, was the Nicole he knew how to deal with—well, sort of—who he’d expected to face, at any rate. Not this sexy, teasing woman who was hurling herself one hundred percent into their relationship.

  “When I was facing down Carrera, I also reminded myself that I’m a woman who fights for what she wants. If that’s true, then I guess I better get off my ass and fight for you.” She chased a piece of chicken around her plate with the tip of a chopstick. She couldn’t catch it. “And, by the way, that was the best sex I’ve ever had in my life, Eric. You’re beyond awesome in that respect.”

  Heat flooded his face. His Adam’s apple bumped around stiffly.

  Nicole set down her chopsticks and picked up the chicken with her fingers, slipping it in her mouth. Her eyes smiled at him. “Has anybody ever told you that you’re adorable when you’re speechless.”

  He finally managed to produce a sound—a snort. “No one’s ever had call to, believe me.” He cleared his throat against the very stubborn lump there. “And I agree. We’re great together. I’ve never felt so relaxed as I do with you. You understand what it’s like to be pigeonholed into perfectionism. You hate that, same as I do, and…” He inhaled-exhaled. Words were just coming out of his mouth. Maybe he was explaining this to himself as much as to her. “Knowing that about you lets me be myself around you, with all of my imperfections out and dangling.” Not that he was entirely sure who the real Eric O’Dwyer was, yet—the man he could be when he wasn’t being led like a bull by the ring by Sean’s dictates and expectations. But being around Nicole made him feel things he never had before, and he somehow knew that would help him set aside Sean’s bullshit. “There’s something else I’d like you to understand about me, though.”

  “What’s that?”

  He moved a shrimp around his plate for a moment. “I’ve been considering leaving the Navy.”

  Sh
e paused with her forearm propped against the edge of the table, her chopsticks sticking out at odd angles from her fingers. “For me?”

  “Yes,” he admitted quietly. “So that I might have a hope in hell of a future with you.” He looked at her. “But right after I considered hanging up my wings, I felt like I’d betrayed myself.” He exhaled broadly. “Don’t get me wrong, Nicole, if you and I discussed our situation and decided the best thing for me to do was to get out, I have no problem with that. Or if something with your past came up, then okay. But I don’t want to leave the Navy because I was afraid I couldn’t offer you a stable life. A Navy man can offer his family a solid, happy lifestyle.” Fuck Sean. “Because that kind of life comes from the couple themselves, you know what I mean?” He pushed his fingers through his hair. “Aagaard warned me not to make myself miserable for you, and I think…he’s right. I don’t want to get out of the Navy for the wrong reasons.”

  “Just like I didn’t want to fight for the wrong reasons.” She smiled softly. “I do understand how you’re feeling, Eric, and I’m all about being true to yourself. I respect it.” Her smile widened. “I like it.”

  He felt some heaviness leave his chest. “So me being in the Navy isn’t a deal-breaker for you?”

  She peered at him with her warm s’mores eyes. “No, Eric. It isn’t a deal-breaker.”

  Chapter Forty

  So her new boyfriend did like morning sex…rolling on top of her when her eyes were scarcely open, his body warm with sleep and smelling of blankets and a little like a Bounce dryer sheet…entering her with a languid roll of his hips and making love to her in a relaxed, easy way that was like sex inside a dream.

  Nicole came twice, two quick, intense bursts that took her breath and pushed pleasure all the way down to her toes.

  After her wakeup shower, she strolled into her dining room to find a lopsided tower of pancakes stacked on a plate on the bar set between the kitchen and the dining area.

  On the other side of the bar, in the kitchen, Eric was standing at the stove with a spatula in his hand. He was barefoot and in blue jeans, the top button left undone, no T-shirt. Dios mío, was there a more enticing sight in all the world? Was it too soon to jump his bones again? “I can’t tell you how much I freaking love that you cook.” She plunked down on a bar stool, grabbed the plate he’d put out for her, and forked four pancakes onto it. “You should’ve told me that before. I would’ve snapped you up sooner.”

  One side of Eric’s mouth lifted. “I’d prefer to think I won you with my prowess in bed. Better for my ego.”

  “Ah, yes.” She glugged syrup onto her pancakes. Her taste buds were so excited. “I noticed you were a little lacking in the confidence department.”

  He laughed. “Those are made from scratch, by the way.” He swung the spatula around to encompass her entire kitchen. “You’ve got a well-stocked kitchen for a temp place.”

  “It’s not temporary.” She cut into her pancakes. “I live here.”

  Flipping pancakes on the griddle, he glanced over his shoulder, frowning. “What?”

  “Bogotá was a two-year assignment. I’m normally stationed in San Diego.” She stabbed a fork through four triangles of pancake. God love the all-American fork.

  Shoving the griddle off the burner, Eric rounded on her. “But on Monserrate Mountain you said you didn’t know that San Diego’s weather was hot.”

  She stuffed the pancakes in her mouth, and groaned. “No. I said that San Diego’s weather is hot, like I knew. Which I do.”

  “What the fuck, Nicole?” He tossed the spatula aside and planted his hands on his hips. “This whole time I thought we’d be forced to have a long distance relationship, and you never bothered to clear that up?”

  “What was there to clear up? I was supposed to go back to Colombia.” She forked up more pancakes. “Although now I’m not.”

  “Why?” Eric strode out of the kitchen.

  She stuck the pancakes into her mouth, groaning again. Pancakes from scratch were the bomb. She was never—

  Eric took her plate away.

  “Hey!” She jumped off her stool. “I’m completely prepared to fight for those.”

  “Why?” he repeated. Kind of testily, actually.

  “Aagaard and I worked it out in the hospital,” she answered, thrusting her hand out for her plate. “I’m going to take on a new partner here, and someone else in the San Diego office will step in for me in Bogotá for the remainder of the tour. So you’re the only one who’s going to screw over our time together with your stupid deployments.” She shook her hand at him. “May I have my pancakes back, please?”

  He handed her the plate. “Actually, I have news about that. Remember the day you saw me in my white uniform at the squadron?”

  She sat down and dove right back into her breakfast. “The ice cream man outfit?”

  “That’s the one. I’d just returned from an interview for a position as an admiral’s aide.” He tapped his finger on the screen of his cell phone, which was sitting on the bar. “I received a message this morning. I got the job. That means shore duty in San Diego.”

  She finished chewing and swallowed. “Shore duty?”

  “I’ll be around for two solid years, Nicole. Working long hours, yes, but not deployed.”

  “Two years…with no stupid deployments?” She set her fork down, stunned—so stunned she stopped eating pancakes, which was pretty flabbergasted. She hadn’t fully dealt with the idea of Eric being gone for long periods of time. Because who wanted to think about living without the man she’d finally allowed herself to flip over? It was too depressing. But now… “I’d jump up and kiss you if these pancakes weren’t so good.”

  His voice lowered to a velvet rasp. “Do it, anyway.”

  Smiling, she hopped off the stool and flung her arms around Eric’s neck, planting one on him.

  He came up for air, chuckling. “You taste like syrup. And caramel. How do you always manage that?” He kissed her again, his thumb stroking across her cheek.

  A knock sounded at the door.

  She glanced through the door that led from her dining room into the living room. “Who could that be?”

  Eric let go of her and started for the door. “It’s Mikey.”

  “You’re kidding?” She made a face.

  “He texted me that he wanted to talk, so I gave him your address.”

  She reclaimed her stool and gave her breakfast a despairing look. “His presence will contaminate the food.”

  Smirking, Eric opened the door, and sure enough, Hammond strode inside her apartment.

  He walked straight over, plucked a pancake off the top of the stack, folded it in half like a taco, and jammed the whole thing in his mouth.

  Nicole offered him her you-gotta-death-wish? smile.

  The smile Hammond tossed back was just as psycho.

  Eric went back into the kitchen. “I’m still riding the waves of some serious post-coital bliss. Don’t you two fucking ruin that.”

  “Not me,” Hammond said around a mouthful.

  Assurances aside, the idiot did eyeball another pancake.

  “In fact,” Hammond added, “I’ve come here to bond with Gamboa.”

  “Bond?” She narrowed her eyes. “What does that…? Mierda, with you that probably means hanging out for a day of anal bleaching. I’ll pass.”

  Hammond laughed so hard, he choked. “No, I…” He snatched up a napkin and wiped his mouth. “Christ, Gamboa.”

  Hearty guffaws were coming from the kitchen.

  “I’m just saying,” Hammond went on, “that we’re, like, blood brothers now. You killed Carrera, and I killed a couple of druggy assholes on Isla Gorgona.” His smile turned lurid. “We’re bonded.”

  Fantástico. “Are we supposed to toast that or something?” She rolled her eyes. “Oh, I know, how about aguardiente shots? Let me get three glasses—”

  “Two glasses.” Hammond made a dismissive gesture at Eric. “LZ’s not in
the club.”

  Eric’s brows inched upward. “I stabbed a man on Carrera’s yacht and threw another overboard.”

  “They both survived. Sorry.” Hammond hiked a shoulder. “You’re still a murder virgin.”

  Eric snorted. “Oh, well.” He poured a mug of coffee and handed it to Hammond.

  “Thanks. Anyway…” Hammond drank some coffee. “I also came by to report that the DEA found the dirty bomb and disposed of it, then caught some of Carrera’s men, while other bad guys ran for the hills. Case is basically closed.”

  “For now,” Nicole said. “Carrera may be gone, but some other scuzzbag will be waiting in the wings to take his place.” She was still betting on the Jiménez brothers. “There always is.”

  “That’s job security for you, Gamboa.” Hammond turned to look at Eric, an expression coming over his face that Nicole had never seen on him before, one of…happiness.

  “I wanted to tell you,” Hammond said, “that according to initial reports, my kid’s taking to the bone marrow treatment. The doctors think he’ll be okay.”

  Nicole’s jaw dropped. “Your kid?”

  Hammond glanced at her. “LZ will explain.”

  Eric pulled Hammond into a backslap hug. “Hey, great news, Mikey.”

  “Yeah. Anyway, I gotta go.” Hammond backed up toward the door, his blue eyes fastening on her. “You be good to my boy here, Gamboa, or I’ll bounce you off the walls.”

  She popped her eyebrows up. He would bounce her off the walls? The idea was laughable, but… “All right.”

  Hammond left, and Eric moved to stand in front of her, tugging her off the stool and drawing her against him. “So you’re planning on being good to me?”

  She draped her arms around his neck. “For two whole years, apparently. That could be dangerously exhausting.”

  “I’m up for the challenge.” He brushed his lips over hers. “In fact, didn’t you mention something about going away together for a few days? Where did you have in mind?”