Unraveled_Steel Brothers Saga_Book Nine

by HELEN HARDT

  Shit, shit, shit.

  What the hell was she thinking?

  She tried another stab at thinking about anything except the fear pounding at her body. Had she turned on the dishwasher this morning? Damn it, she didn’t think so. Maybe they needed to turn around and land so she could go handle that. Oh God, oh God, they weren’t going to do that, were they? Okay, so maybe she’d cook dinner for Garrett tonight. They could grill something. She’d mash some sweet potatoes for him. He loved her mashed potatoes. No, wait. She was ticked at him. And Ethan. What was that all about again?

  Her brain gave her nothing. It was official. It had checked itself out from her body down on the tarmac. The conclusion gave her a fabulous excuse to seize Garrett’s hand and crunch his big long fingers for everything she was worth. The indentations at the corners of his mouth, normally so tight, loosened into twin brackets of mirth. She retaliated by whacking his shoulder.

  “Dork,” she yelled.

  “Cherry blaster,” he called back, making her heart do a backflip between its terrified convulsions. The slang term for a first-time jumper became four syllables of pure sex in his husky bellow.

  Her moment of ease was short-lived.

  The pilot pulled back on the engines, slowing the plane. A crewman got ready to open the door.

  With a grin, Garrett unbuckled and got to his feet. It was a good thing he moved first, because none of Sage’s muscles would budge. She didn’t remember him unlatching her seat belt, but suddenly she was on her feet and guided into position in front of him so their tandem rig could be connected. Next, she felt Garrett clip the heavy chute pack onto his back. He jerked a little as he double-checked the cords and parachute release. Please double-check the release!

  The crewman pushed the door open. T-Bomm and Kell were first up in the rotation, a fact that apparently deserved ear-splitting war cries from both warriors. As the two of them careened out the door, their cries disappeared with them.

  She and Garrett were next.

  He nudged her closer to the door. Her vision filled with nothing but sky and the ground below.

  Very far below.

  She flung her hands backward, trying to grab him. Though Garrett was already pressed close and safe behind her, literally bound to her, she craved more. Couldn’t she do this the other way around? Couldn’t she flip around, burrow against his chest, squeeze her eyes closed, and pray she got to the ground safely? She had to pee. She longed to scream. She wanted to die.

  “I-I’ve changed my mind! F-Forget it, okay?”

  Garrett’s mouth was a warm, heavy pressure at her ear. His lips curled into a fervent kiss on her lobe. At a volume only she could hear, he murmured, “I’m right here, sugar.”

  Somehow, the words sank in, though it was impossible to respond. She couldn’t nod. Or speak. Or move.

  This wasn’t sane. This wasn’t rational. Why did people do this? Couldn’t they find an easier way to get troops places? Somebody seriously needed to talk to armed forces leadership about this. Somebody needed to talk to the president about this.

  Garrett’s voice was back in her ear. But it wasn’t an intimate growl this time. Now, he yelled at her in full, commanding throttle.

  “Go!”

  She wanted to die. Instead, she stepped into thin air, and the breath-robbing force of freefall whomped every cell in her body. Her heart rate was a rocket. She was pure electricity. She was raw energy. She felt everything yet nothing at once, all thoughts of past or future gone. There was only right here, right now, and in this insane moment, she was only certain of one thing.

  Yeah. She was going to die.

  Chapter Eleven

  Garrett had long ago lost track of how many jumps he’d completed, but like the best thrill ride, it never got old.

  The exhilaration was even better this time, though. It wasn’t every day that a guy got to take the woman of his soul on the world’s most incredible adrenaline rush. Getting to experience the jump through Sage’s eyes, even down to her terror, actually made him feel better than he had all week. He wished he could tell her that here, at ten thousand feet over the earth, she was the safest she’d been in seven days. In more than a year. He’d never been more aware or thankful for the hand of irony. Up in the plane, he’d actually relaxed. He’d gotten so sarcastic with Sage, she’d laughed and called him a dork. For a few incredible seconds, they were just a guy and a girl again, flirting with each other, falling in love.

  But that thirteen-hundred-foot bonus dwindled fast.

  He let the freefall go on for a few thousand more feet before he finally yanked the pud handle that deployed the drogue parachute, preparing them for deployment of the main chute. The bigger canopy flowed out next, yanking them into the wild swoop of shock when it opened. As they swung forward again and he started to guide them toward the landing pit, Sage let out a long, gleeful shriek—her first sound since they’d left the plane. A bunch more followed as they rode the wind together, and Garrett couldn’t help but laugh. He tried to remember that an hour ago, he’d been in the Taj Mahal of royally pissed at her. He struggled to dredge up what it felt like to see King’s gutter dogs in that hangar, sniffing at her with their hungry eyes, looking at her as nothing more than a means to a fat payback. He fought to recall how the Otter couldn’t take off fast enough and how he’d breathed easier with every foot they’d ascended.

  He struggled to remember all of it, yet the only thing that seemed to matter now was now. This moment. This pure, soaring joy. For a few precious seconds, time was flung backward. The only thing that mattered in the world was just the two of them. Lost in each other. Wrapped around each other. Flying once again as one.

  Muscle memory took over while his hands pulled at the steering and brake lines, aligning their descent with the landing pit. The perfect jump conditions didn’t preclude him from taking care with the task. The pit was a little sloped because it was bordered on one side by a dense forest—a challenge the army had created during the years units were being deployed right and left to the Afghan mountains and needed training on terrain like this. He slowed the chute down by intervals, bringing them down for what was going to be a textbook landing.

  “Legs up, Captain,” he instructed Sage.

  “Yes, sir.” A tiny giggle in her voice drained the respect from the words. His brain, already untethered from a number of its usual restraints, kicked in with a reaction that sent his senses on another freefall. He imagined disciplining that sass out of her—right on her tawny, smooth ass. Then he’d force an apology from her with his cock head, refusing to let her pussy have him until she said those two words with breathy, needing reverence…

  Thank God he had the landing to worry about.

  They hit the gravel at perfect velocity, making Sage squeal with victory. As Garrett unclipped them both from the rigging, she was a ball of pure, squirming energy. T-Bomb and Kell were doing the same about twenty yards away. They exchanged upturned thumbs with each other, indicating everyone had gotten in a good jump. Kell, as the unit’s rigger, came jogging over to collect his chute and rig.

  “The penguins will be here in about twenty with the van,” he stated.

  “Got it.”

  Garrett confirmed, reckoned it might be the longest twenty minutes of his life. He knew Archer would be riding with the ground crew and ready with an update about the assholes who’d snuck into the hangar. With any luck, the MPs would be able to detain the men long enough to discern how they’d tailed Sage onto the base.

  Tension jabbed its way back into his muscles. He grunted at the invasion, wistfully saying goodbye to those blissful moments up in the sky.

  He looked over in time to see Kell crack one side of his mouth up at Sage while he sorted through the lines and deflated canopy on the ground. “So, Sage Mouse, what’d you think?”

  If it were possible, Sage’s glow got a little brighter. Kell was one of the guys who’d been around long enough to remember the unit’s endearment for her, given
instantly after Garrett had fallen for her. “For once, the prey caught the hawk,” they’d joke. They got away with it because they knew it was true.

  Thank fuck none of them had a door to his brain, allowing them to see how the woman proved it glaringly true right now. Damn, she captivated him. She was even more stunning than before the flight, bouncing around like one of those dancers from the Irish fast-step troupes, even humming a silly tune as accompaniment. The brilliance in her eyes was a breath-stopper. Her dazzling grin hadn’t faltered since they’d touched down.

  “I…I didn’t think!” she exclaimed. “I couldn’t! And that’s what made it so…so…”

  Kell chuckled. “Yeah. Pretty good, huh?”

  “Pretty good?” She gaped like Kell had just grown horns. She spun around, pumping her fists skyward. “Wow! Fucking wow!” When her pirouette placed Garrett back in her field of sight, she stopped. Her smile dropped a little, but the change was good. Very good. It was the way only Sage could look at him, shoving past those doors inside him that said No Admittance, diving over the bullshit he gave everyone else and seeing him as nobody else could.

  Holy fuck, he loved that look. And hated it.

  And right now, he had no idea what to do about it.

  Sage didn’t abandon him to the dilemma. Before he could form another thought, she threw herself against him. “Thank you, baby!”

  She clearly intended the embrace to be over as soon as it started, but Garrett’s instincts, still on overdrive, forced another plan. He held her in return. He didn’t want a damn hug. He needed an embrace. As he wrapped his arms around her, he ducked his head against the side of her head. She felt so tiny. She felt so warm. She felt so right.

  “You’re welcome.”

  He knew how rough those words came off his lips, and he saw the recognition of it in Sage’s gaze when they pulled apart. He also saw what she wanted to do about it—if her lingering touch on his ribcage still meant what it had a year ago. On top of that, the celadon of her gaze deepened to a shade that matched her name, and her tongue snuck out in a tentative slide between her lips.

  Damn.

  He wanted to send his tongue in after hers.

  And if he was interpreting her stare right…

  She yearned for the exact same thing.

  His blood fired with new heat, spiking his heart rate. It became an anaerobic fun zone as his mind took things from there, turning the image into a fantasy that ended with both of them naked, gasping, and drained. Damn it, this was getting messy.

  And impossible to deny any longer.

  Somehow, he managed to let Sage step back. But even those two feet were intolerable. His body gunned like a dragster at the start line, the key in the ignition and all cylinders ready to fire. If he didn’t get to open the throttle soon, the engine was going to explode.

  “Kell,” he called without ungluing his stare from Sage. “We’ll be right back.”

  “Okay. Where you going?”

  “Yeah.” Sage frowned in confusion as he dipped his head toward the woods, indicating for her to follow. “Where are we going?”

  He willed his voice and his gait into feigned ease. “Maybe we can find that—er—house key. Yeah, your house key. You said it fell loose just before we dipped in over the trees.”

  “Oh.” Suddenly she quickened her own pace. “Right! Yeah, that’s right. Damn. I can’t believe that happened. Hopefully we’ll see it. Be right ba—”

  He literally snatched the rest of the word out of her, pulling her through the underbrush at damn near a run.

  The second they were out of eyesight and earshot from Kell, he whirled Sage around. The spot he’d picked was perfect, with plenty of bush cover and a wide tree right behind her. With one solid slam, he had her pinned between the trunk and him. Her mouth popped open in surprise and provided the perfect beacon for his. He didn’t waste a second, smashing a deep, hungering kiss on her.

  A high cry swept up her throat. The vibrations of it filled his mouth, pulling his tongue deeper inside her. Perfect. So fucking perfect. She set him afire with her open, incredible surrender and fanned the blaze higher by stabbing her arms under his top, fisting his T-shirt, and pulling hard on the sweat-soaked cotton.

  “Garrett!” She pleaded it against his jaw when he dragged away to let her breathe. “Oh yes…”

  He stopped her with another kiss, though he wasn’t sure this still qualified as kissing. Conquering her mouth, controlling it completely, was a rushing, consuming exigency. He needed this. Fuck, he couldn’t get enough of her.

  He bracketed her face with one hand, holding her in place while he plunged, plowed, and explored with his tongue and teeth. His imagination went into hyperdrive again. It taunted him with the fantasy of her creamy and nude against the leaves and mud. Ditch the dream, Hawk. Isn’t going to happen here. But the creative imagery exercise left its mark in his blood, torching him from head to toe so even the act of pulling down her jumpsuit zipper was a pure carnal pleasure. Her answering moan urged him on. In seconds, he found his way under her T-shirt and bra, landing his eager fingers on one of her erect nipples.

  He finally pulled away from her lips but didn’t go very far. The soft column of her neck beckoned. He marked the skin there with his teeth while he continued to tease her breast. “Damn it, Sage,” he growled against her jugular, “I should still be furious with you.”

  “I know.” Her voice was a rasp, but her hands gave him a different message. She tore at his back with her fingernails, her touch almost bestial with need. “I know, and I’m sorry…”

  Garrett went at her mouth again, and she dug at his back even harder. He grunted from the new pressure but followed with a rough moan. If his endorphins weren’t turbo-charging everything in his body, he imagined her ploughs would be painful, but the only sensation he cared about was the hotter, harder heaviness between his thighs.

  Hell. They needed to stop. The most dangerous prisoner in his psyche began stirring again. The dark beast paced the cage of his soul, demanding a little exercise. Okay, a lot of exercise. And his brain had run a goddamn mental obstacle course for the last two hours, depleting his strength to fight the monster.

  He needed to push away. He needed to leave her the hell alone, or the cage was going to snap. This animal he didn’t know, much less control, was going to break free. Seeing her like this, with her hair half-down and her eyes half-wild, didn’t help. Not one fucking bit.

  “Sorry,” she offered again, lifting her lips to his chin, his neck. “Garrett, I really am—”

  “No.” The mix of the beast’s voice and her plea was a double whammy on his dwindling restraint. He moved his hand into her hair and yanked her head to one side. As he sank his teeth again to her neck, he slid his hand to her other breast. “No,” he repeated in a seductive snarl, “I don’t think you really are.” Her peak came alive under his squeezing fingers. Her sharp gasp was exactly the reaction he sought. He could feel her hammering pulse through his questing tongue. “But if we were anywhere else, I’d make sure you were truly sorry.”

  A deep swallow undulated down her throat. “You…you would?”

  “Damn straight.”

  Her head tipped deeper to the side, sending her hot, panting breaths into his shoulder. She nipped at the skin there and dipped her head, as if trying to determine how to crawl inside him. “How?”

  Her question shot lighter fluid into his cock. It had been four hundred forty-five days since he’d last been inside her—not that he was counting. He let out a harsh breath as his BVDs chafed with a familiar wetness. Hello, precome.

  “I’d have this jumpsuit down past your knees.” Acting on at least part of that fantasy, he unzipped the jumpsuit farther. Her body had warmed the inside of it, forming a perfect welcome for his wind-chilled hands. She let loose a gorgeous sigh as he swept his grip around, cupping her ass with voracious force. “Then this bra would be gone too. You’d be naked for me. Exposed. At my mercy.”

  H
e felt her thighs tremble. She scored his spine with her nails. “But I still wouldn’t be sorry.”

  “No,” he said, “you probably wouldn’t be.”

  As he gripped her tighter, fitting the apex of her body against the center of his, he angled his gaze to lock into hers. Damn it, here came the animal again. It charged the disintegrating cage of his control, completely taking over his next words.

  “That’s why I’d have to get you over my knees.”

  Sage’s lips parted. Her eyes glimmered like a tigress in heat. Feral. Magical. Thoroughly aroused. “Oh,” she murmured. “Over your—”

  “Knees.” He nodded as she shivered again. Though he hated the animal, he adored the creature it set free in her. He was transfixed by the new softness in her face, living there right beside her wildcat. He was helpless against her sensuality, drowning in it. “Yeah, that’s what I said. Over my knees. With your head against my calf, and your ass high and proud…waiting for me.”

  “W-Waiting?”

  “Yes.” He curled his fingers deeper against her ass, scraping the flesh inside her cheeks with his nails. “What do you think it would be waiting for, Sage?”

  She closed her eyes for a second. When she opened them again, the sun kissed her tawny lashes and highlighted her deep arousal. Holy hell, she was gorgeous, wildness and tenderness together, a creature all but begging for his claim. Garrett had never remembered her so beautiful, and the realization that he’d caused it was better than ten shots of Patrón.

  She was even more mesmerizing as she answered his query. “Your punishment,” she whispered. “It…it would be waiting for your punishment.”

  “Damn right, sugar. It would be waiting for my punishment. For me to spank it hard, as many times as I wanted.”

  He ground his bulging ridge along her crotch, letting her feel what this forbidden fantasy was doing to him.

  Her head fell back against the tree as he pressed close, her heartbeat slamming at the base of her throat. “Garrett. Oh, hell!”