Hotshot

by Mann, Catherine

  “Congratulations! That’s an awesome accomplishment. Your mom must be so proud. It’s a shame your father died before he could know that.”

  His eyes dropped for the first time. “Actually, my dad didn’t die like my mom told everyone.” He looked up again, a flicker of the old defensive Vince shadowing across his face. “My father went to prison by the time I was seven. I even remember visiting him.”

  A thousand questions scrolled through her head. She settled on, “Is he still alive?”

  “He did die, just not when or how mom insisted we tell everyone. He died in a jail yard fight at Leavenworth when I was ten.”

  “Leavenworth?” Shock echoed through her. “A military prison?”

  Defensiveness morphed to a chilling, detached expression, a look that scared her, more because of the resemblance to her own dad than the fact that a cold Vince looked mighty intimidating.

  “My old man was court-martialed for smuggling drugs into the country in his military cargo plane. Mom had already divorced him by the time the verdict came in. She hated the military, blamed the military.”

  “How does she feel about you being in the air force?”

  “Mom doesn’t return my calls.”

  “That’s really sad.” She could understand the woman’s frustration, but to so categorically lump all military people together for a hate fest? That didn’t make sense. A tiny, insistent, and annoying voice whispered she was doing much the same because of her own father. “What did she want you to do with your life?”

  “Not be my dad.” He shoved away from the wall toward the window.

  Could the people on the floor below hear his boots thundering?

  He adjusted the air conditioner. Paced. Tweaked the part in the curtains. Paced. “My mom was a receptionist at an oil change garage, and I hung out with her after school. She told me she took that job to give me male role models who would start me on a solid career, living in one place, away from temptations.”

  His mother’s rationale made sense. What a tough position for her to be in with so little support and a teenage son running rogue.

  He checked the locks again. “For a while, it worked. I learned to take apart any engine and put it back together. I could have used that as a way out. Instead, I started jacking cars.”

  “You stole cars?” She couldn’t hide her gasp. She’d known he skirted the edge before her dad recruited him for CAP. He’d even pushed boundaries for a while after meeting her father.

  “You know what’s strange?” He dropped to sit on the edge of the bed. “I didn’t keep them. I drove around, sometimes popped the hood to give it a tune-up, then put it back.”

  “That’s unusual.” Although not surprising to her, since she knew he didn’t have the heart of a criminal.

  “Then I got caught. At that point, jail would have been fine with me.” He glanced up with a wry smile. “But like most teens, I wanted to rebel against the parent trying hardest to help. When the judge offered community service by joining Civil Air Patrol, I figured the military angle would push my mom’s buttons way more. God knows I didn’t magically settle down the minute your dad passed me my first uniform.”

  All these revelations about his past were only making her realize her initial instincts about him back then had been right. He was a good man. Now she just had the proof from Mason and Vince’s own mouth to support it.

  And, oh God, she was hovering so close to the edge of falling right back into that huge vat of confusion that came with having feelings for Vince. “Something must have changed to make joining Civil Air Patrol be about more than pushing your mom’s buttons. I remember you being totally into the program, even when Tommy tried to tempt you to do otherwise. What happened to make you clean up your act?”

  He leaned forward, elbows on his knees. “I got to know you.”

  Paulina usually enjoyed her job. Not so much tonight.

  Once Don had shown up at the luxury Cleveland hotel and continually ignored her, job satisfaction had taken a serious downswing. She swept her briefcase off the round corner table in the hospitality suite designated for their use and eyed Don a few feet away dialing his cell phone.

  They’d cordoned off a floor of rooms for the Congress members, their aides, and security. Shay, Deluca, and his crew blended seamlessly into the mix of check-ins.

  Of course business should take priority, but some kind of acknowledgment of their explosive sex at his condo wasn’t too much to expect. Sure she’d rushed out of his place quickly. She’d been too emotionally raw to talk to him after sex, definitely too upset to discuss forgetting about birth control. He hadn’t seemed in the mood for talking either.

  Once she’d pulled out her day planner in the car, she’d realized the timing was wrong in her cycle. And if she turned up pregnant anyway? She couldn’t let herself get excited over the possibility, especially with things so unsettled between her and Don.

  Damn it, she was the one who had every right to be prickly and distant. Not the big jerk chatting on his cell phone. Forget waiting for him to approach her.

  She took charge on the job. She took charge in all other aspects of her life. She would take charge of this. If that meant the end of things with Don, then so be it.

  Her throat closed up.

  Her feet plowed forward all the same. Stalking past a silver coffee carafe and spray of hothouse flowers, she spiked divots in the plush carpet as she set her eyes on Don. She tapped her moody lover on the shoulder. “Don? A minute of your time.”

  He flipped his cell phone shut. “Sure, but we should make it quick. I need to meet up with Lieutenant Colonel Scanlon.”

  That ripped it. “We need to talk.”

  Slowly, he tucked his phone inside his sports coat. “Actually, I was planning on talking to you right after I finished up with Scanlon.”

  Yeah right. “If you’re worried about your daughter, that’s fine. If you’re mooning over your ex and wanting to end things with us, that’s not okay, but either way, speak up like a man.”

  His eyes narrowed at her final words. The air crackled between them with that same dangerous spark they’d succumbed to last night.

  “You don’t pull any punches, princess.”

  “I think we already established that with our workout at your condo.” Her body still simmered from the intensity of the coming together, a heat that could swallow her whole if she didn’t tend it carefully.

  His face stayed closed, too classically handsome for his own good, attractive in that way that just grew better with age. She thought for a moment he would walk away right here and now.

  Then he crossed his arms over his chest. “I forgot to use a condom.”

  “Right. I noticed. I was there, remember?”

  “Damn it, Paulina, what if you’re pregnant?”

  His words sank in with a thud. Because of his heavy-with-doom tone? Or because she suddenly realized she didn’t want his baby, not this way.

  She looked deeper into his expressionless face and found a glimmer of something in his eyes, something that looked incredibly like outright horror.

  “It’s fine.” Words tumbled out of her mouth ahead of her brain. “I started my period this morning.”

  Of course she lied, but she couldn’t live with this awkwardness for even a few days until she started for real. Or didn’t.

  Right now she needed to focus on not slugging him for the mammoth relief flat-out shuddering through him. She might not want to get pregnant this way, but the thought of carrying his child did not fill her with horror.

  Dumping his ass would be a lot more satisfying than any punch.

  She threw back her shoulders and thrust her chest out just enough to give him a peek at the lilac lace he would not be seeing up close later. “I think we both know it’s time to call it quits.”

  “What?” His incredulity was almost ego soothing.

  “Last night was . . .” She struggled for words and could only come up with, “Too much. Destruc
tive, even. We need to end it while we can still be civil to each other.”

  He stepped closer, sliding a hand along her neck, stroking his thumb behind her ear. “Come on, Lina, we had a fight. We’ll do better next time. When this is all over, let’s crawl into bed for a week.”

  She stared at him through narrowed eyes. “Did I ever mention I really would like to have a baby?”

  He jolted back like a man struck by a live electrical wire.

  “Exactly.” She fought tears. Angry tears. Not the other kind. “Now go away, to your ex-wife or your own lonely corner. I don’t care. But please do not insult me by going on about how I’m wrecking a good thing.” So much for not having words inside her. Now there were too many to contain. “You think this is a good thing? Never talking about what’s important? Never going anywhere together except work and our apartments? I think what we have is crap.” Paulina spat out the last word and turned on her heel away from him.

  He gripped her shoulder. “Can’t we agree to finish this conversation later?”

  “I don’t have time for this now or later, Don. I have members of Congress and their aides to keep track of, as well as your daughter. Then I have a life to live.”

  She jerked free, determined to make it to the door before he could see the tears gathering behind her eyes. She would hold on to her pride. She wasn’t that poor, needy little mountain girl in the Kentucky trailer park.

  Don watched Paulina stalk away. There was no other word for it. Certainly not swish or sway or anything at all meant to entice him. He stood stunned. He hadn’t planned on forever, and he was relieved about the baby issue.

  But he hadn’t foreseen her reaction or his disappointment.

  A rattle in the hall startled him—for all of two seconds until he saw a maid pushing her cart down the hall. Thank God this was a secured area, or anybody could have taken him down. Some agent he made today, no good to Paulina, Shay, or himself. He was always careful. Always in control.

  Last night, nothing had been about control.

  Don pressed his palm against the pinch in his chest. Had all the females in his life gathered to stage some collective intervention to convince him he was a fucked-up dude? He looked down at his hand and wondered for the first time if maybe those chest pains had less to do with age and more to do with stress.

  Somebody needed to alert the media.

  He didn’t need persuading anymore.

  Shay didn’t need any more persuasion.

  Hearing Vince say meeting her had changed his life for the better delivered an aphrodisiac stronger than anything she could imagine. His words soothed the old hurt inside her.

  But thinking about that hurt, that night, made her wonder. “How can you say that when I slept with your best friend?”

  “That event happened later, if you recall.”

  She stared down at her dog, sleeping peacefully in the chair beside her. What a thoughtful gift from Vince. He’d seemed perfect to her back then. He still seemed amazing, but more real. “If I was so important to you, why did you turn me away?”

  “Respect for your old man. Respect for you.”

  Oh God, she needed air. She’d been so mired in insecurities then she’d missed out on a chance for so much. With her restraint already falling fast, this tipped her the rest of the way over the edge. “If I could go back to that time . . .”

  “Well, I have to admit I wasn’t all that sure you really wanted me as much as you wanted to piss off your dad. That stung my pride more than a bit. Little did I know it would hurt a helluva lot worse when Tommy threw your panties at my chest.”

  She squeezed her eyes shut, her fingers burying deeper in her dog’s fur. She’d wanted something like that to happen, having no clue how much she would regret it now from an adult perspective. “I’m so sorry.”

  Silence hung heavy with her memories of driving over to see Tommy. Of intending to tell him she’d made a mistake sleeping with him. Instead, she’d found Tommy and Vince circling each other, knives drawn. The fight had sucked in more teens, until finally the police arrived.

  A gun was drawn.

  Bullets flew, and Tommy dropped.

  A horrible possibility bloomed in her mind. Her eyes snapped open. “Were you two fighting about me?”

  Vince stared back at her, his dark eyes totally somber for once. “He threw your underwear. I threw a punch. Things went downhill from there.”

  As if she hadn’t already felt guilty enough about that night. The truth was even worse than she’d imagined. The stab of guilt went deep.

  That night rolled back over her. How much she’d hated herself for giving away her virginity out of anger. The ache in her heart and between her thighs over how raw the rough, brief encounter had been in the arms of someone who didn’t really care about her.

  Now to hear that Tommy had lorded it over Vince . . .

  She sat up straighter. Tommy had arranged for her to meet him that night. Could he have planned the whole explosive event? As much as she wanted to hate him for that, she couldn’t scrounge anything more than a deep sadness. They’d all been so young, reckless, even outright stupid.

  No one deserved to die because of the ignorance of youth.

  Shay saw the same weight of guilt etched on Vince’s bold face. “How do we get past feeling responsible for what happened to him?”

  His fists opened and closed on his knees. “I wish I had the answer.”

  She couldn’t even hold his gaze and looked down at her dog again, her sweet little spoiled pet that Vince had gotten for her. Somehow he’d known how much she needed the comfort Buster would bring in the middle of this chaos.

  An image of Vince from that night came back to haunt her. Vince wrapping himself around her to shield her after the cops came. That vision collided with memories of the drive-by shooting at the center when he’d covered her yet again. And here he was again, putting himself in harm’s way for her, protecting her, comforting her even.

  Shay stood and walked to his chair. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders. He stiffened in her embrace, but she forged on, urging him to rest his head against her chest, hugging him close, offering comfort.

  His hands slid up to palm her waist, then circled around. She wasn’t sure how long they held on to each other. Nobody cried or spoke, but the air thickened with something she couldn’t quite define.

  But it was something she absolutely couldn’t miss.

  He tugged, catching her off guard and off balance. She tumbled into his lap as he sealed his mouth to hers. Urgency pulsed from him into her. She blinked through her surprise to find her body already burning for more.

  Her chest rose and fell with ragged breaths. Raw emotions from the past and from the present scoured through her, and she couldn’t resist the outlet his kiss, his body offered. She suspected much the same feelings stirred through him.

  Twisting, she knelt to straddle him without breaking their kiss. The bold sweep of his tongue over hers sent a fresh jolt through her.

  Her legs clamped against his as she wriggled to get closer, yet she was already as close as she could get without crawling inside him. He cupped her head, palmed her bottom, wrapping her in heat.

  She stroked her fingers over his smoothly shaved scalp. So sleek. So sexy. She nipped the corner of his mouth. “Don’t you want to ask me fifty questions like, am I sure this is what I really want?”

  He teased her earlobe between his teeth. “Or why the change of heart?”

  “Or what are we going to do once tomorrow is over?” She arched her neck to give him better access.

  “Or how about, when are you going to stop talking, because tomorrow is the very reason we need this?”

  “I can’t argue with that.”

  She stripped off his shirt, and wow, she’d shortchanged herself in not taking the time to look him over last night. The hard cut of muscles twitched under her gaze, the tattoos shifting with the roll of tendons as if coming to life. The phoenix tattoo draped
over his shoulder, wings down his back, was familiar. “I remember this from when you used to strip off your shirt to work on your motorcycle. Did you know how we girls drooled over you?”

  “God, I loved that rat bike.” His fingers rasped up her sides, his thumbs grazing her breasts.

  “Rat bike?” She shivered at the wash of tingles.

  “Rat nasty,” he explained between nipping his way down her neck, into the vee of her shirt, “held together with baling wire and a prayer.”

  Shay kissed her way over his shoulder for a better look, and yes, she’d remembered correctly. The wings flowed down his back with the word Freedom interwoven in the feathers. An amazing piece of art, it must have taken a full day to create.

  Shay skimmed her hands over his broad shoulders, thinking of that first night of his return when he’d walked in and nearly scared her to death with his intimidating size. Now her mind filled only with memorizing every inch of him. She crawled across his chest, Carpe Diem etched on his abs, another mark from his teen years, an earlier tat, this one not as expertly scrolled.

  He peeled away her shirt and unhooked her bra in a smooth sweep and toss, teasing over her skin. She gripped his arms and found the roughened texture of another tattoo on his other biceps. Could she have forgotten? No. She remembered everything about him. She broke the kiss to look.

  “Yeah, it’s a new one,” he growled, his hands rising to cup her breasts, plucking lightly on both until she beaded harder with pleasure.

  Her lashes fluttered shut for an instant before she forced them open again, determined to look her fill this time. She found a dagger with Chinese lettering on the handle.

  The blade gave her pause.

  She forced herself to lean forward and press her lips to the tattoo, to own it as a part of him and not a part of her past. “Any other new inkings I should know about?”

  “You’ll have to find out for yourself.” His callused hands rasped along her skin as he stroked from her breasts around to her back, fingers dipping below her waistband. He gently snapped her thong.