Summer Fling
by Serenity Woods
Summer Fling
Text copyright 2012 Serenity Woods
All Rights Reserved
This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the writer’s imagination or have been used fictitiously. Any resemblance to persons, living or dead, actual events, locales or organizations is coincidental.
With thanks to KP, for her sharp eyes
Also Available
Writing as Serenity Woods
Black Hawke Down
Surrender Your Heart
Something Blue
White-Hot Christmas
An Uncommon Sense
Come Rain or Come Shine (anthology)
Stranded with a Scotsman
Remember Me
Writing as Faye Robertson
Holly’s First Noel
Kiss and Make Up
Bloodlust
Coming Soon
Seven Sexy Sins
Whistling Dixie
Making Sense
Mr. Insatiable
Six Naughty Nights
Reviews for some of Serenity’s other books
Seven Sexy Sins (an excerpt of this story is available at the back of this book)
“Fun, sinful, and colorfully sexy, this story is a buffet of wicked deliciousness... It is a test of friendship and self-awareness that I thoroughly enjoyed, with wonderful character growth, a generous pacing, and an outstanding storyline.”—Whipped Cream Erotic Reviews
“Seven Sexy Sins is a delightfully fun read that made me smile... What I particularly loved about this story is how Ms. Woods makes the interactions between Rusty and Faith fun yet serious at the same time... I highly recommend Seven Sexy Sins for anyone who loves erotic romance but especially for women looking for ways to spice up their love life.”—5 Ribbons from Romance Junkies
An Uncommon Sense
“This book was an unexpected delight... I’ve never read a book quite like this one and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Hats off to Serenity for a completely romantic read!”—Close Encounters with the Night Kind
“This is not your typical sappy romance; you get a full range of emotions from laughter to almost tears.”—Recommended Read by Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews
“An Uncommon Sense had me laughing at some of the antics and things Grace blurted. The end came before I expected as the story rolled along so easily, leaving an enjoyable afterglow.”—Sizzling Hot Books
White-Hot Christmas
“Highly recommended”—Library Journal’s XPress Reviews (their first ever starred review of a digital-first book)
“This is a light-hearted, sexy read but a totally enjoyable one.”—Recommended Read by Dear Author
“One of the best holiday books I have ever read.”—Best Book by Long and Short Reviews
“An absolutely wonderful romance.”—5 stars and a Recommended Read from Guilty Pleasures Book Reviews
To Tony and Chris, my Kiwi boys
Chapter One
“I should be on top,” the willowy blonde protested.
She sat on the bench in front of Garth with her back against his chest and her butt nestled between his thighs. He stifled a groan. What red-blooded male wouldn’t misconstrue that statement?
His brain had been in sex mode since she’d pulled on her jumpsuit. She’d leaned forward and the neck of her T-shirt had gaped to reveal generous breasts only just covered by the cups of her lacy white bra. He’d fought hard to concentrate on her training, too rusty at flirting to make a comment, but now the image of her sitting naked on top of him returned in full force.
He attached the last clip of his safety harness to the one on her right shoulder and chuckled in her ear. “That’s kind of forward, Chloe, considering we’ve only known each other for thirty minutes. But I’m not going to argue with you.”
The airplane’s engines roared, but she’d obviously heard him because she glared reproachfully over her shoulder and her cheeks turned a delightful rosy pink. Her dancing eyes told him she wasn’t really insulted though. “I meant when we freefall. That way, if the chute doesn’t open I have something soft to land on.”
“This way’s best, believe me. For now, at least.” He shouldn’t be teasing her, but pleasure surged through him when her lips curved at his suggestive comment.
Their gazes met, locked. Her eyes shone the bright blue of the New Zealand summer sky outside the Cessna’s windows. Something passed between them, invisible, chemical, and his heartbeat raced. A tingle descended between his shoulder blades, all the way down his spine.
Then she lowered her long lashes, breaking the spell, and Garth frowned. What was he doing? True, a soft female bottom tucked against the groin would make most guys harden faster than quick-set concrete, let alone a man who hadn’t taken a woman to bed for an ice age. But even though he did tandem parachute jumps for a living, and strapped himself to the fairer sex anything up to a dozen times a week, he rarely gave the intimate position a thought.
He was happy to admit he missed the regular sex a relationship brought. But the emotional baggage he carried after Jess’s death meant he hadn’t even looked at another woman in ages. Why had this one affected him so much?
He watched her examine her shaking hands. She’d braided her long hair back, although a few wisps softened her hairline. Before they’d got on the plane, her skin had held a healthy tan like most young Kiwi women, a stark contrast to the pale skin of the girls he’d grown up with in Seattle, although now the color had drained from her face.
He tipped his head to the side, studying her high cheekbones and straight nose, and smiled as she chewed her bottom lip. That was another reason why he’d reacted to her words. In spite of her attempt at humor, her anxiety was palpable. The urge to alleviate it had risen inside him instinctively.
He admired the way she was trying to cover her fear. He’d jumped with hundreds of people over the past year and had witnessed every gamut of emotion from exhilaration to fake bravado to downright terror. Chloe didn’t quite register at the bottom of the scale, but she wasn’t far from it. Her face now matched the whiteness of the clouds scudding outside, and she shook in her thick yellow jumpsuit.
He forced his mind away from the press of her between his thighs and the softness of her throat inches from his lips, and tried to concentrate. Now wasn’t the time to get distracted. He had to remember—safety before sex.
Smiling at the catchphrase, he checked all the clips connecting his harness to hers. Then he went over them again. Bottom left, bottom right, top left, top right. And again. “You’re all clipped in, Chloe. Check with me, okay?”
“Okay.” She lifted her right hand, and he moved it to either side of her waist and then to each shoulder. She tugged the clips with long, elegant fingers. An image popped into his head of that hand stroking his body and closing around him.
Jeez. He had to stop thinking about sex for five seconds.
He cleared his throat. “All secure. Are you happy?”
“Right now I’m too terrified to be happy.” Her forehead glistened with sweat and panic filled her eyes.
He sighed. Damn it. Another mule. Sometimes customers got all the way to the door before they dug their heels in and refused to jump. It didn’t occur as often as he’d expected when he first set up the business. In fact it had only happened to him twice, and both times he’d managed to talk the person into jumping. They’d thanked him afterward, but he’d much rather have the sort of passenger who didn’t balk.
He understood why most people suffered from nerves before throwing themselves out of a flying metal box with a tiny piece of fabric to hold them up. But being nervous and being petrified weren’t the same thing
, and Chloe obviously fit into the second category. He frowned as her chest rose and fell noticeably with her rapid breathing. Why leap out of a plane if the very thought of it terrified her?
His first ever jump remained clear in his mind, but he had no memory of terror or panic, only elation at the thought of freefalling into the clear blue. He still got that buzz every time he leaped out the door. Which was the main reason he kept doing it. Because the second his feet left the safety of the plane was the only moment he actually felt anything nowadays.
Or it had been, until he met Chloe. His skin prickled as he recalled the heated look they’d exchanged. But he blinked and forced his mind away from the thought of taking it further. He shouldn’t be thinking about sex. Chloe shook visibly, and he had to reassure her and make this as pleasurable an experience as possible.
He rested his hands on her upper arms and rubbed them through the long sleeves of the jumpsuit. In late January—the height of the New Zealand summer—the temperature read in the high seventies on the ground, but at this altitude the air had a distinct bite to it.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“N-no.” But she shivered in spite of her denial.
He continued to rub her arms, lending her the warmth of his body, and glanced at Andy sitting opposite them, who’d be skydiving with them to video her jump. Andy raised an eyebrow, presumably to query whether she’d go through with it. Garth shrugged in return.
“You okay there, little lady?” His tone was gentle, comforting. “Won’t be long now, and then it’ll be time to go. No more waiting.” The anticipation was the worst part for most people.
She nodded and swallowed, but didn’t reply.
He tipped his head to look at her profile again and tried to think of something to say to reassure her. “I’ve done this hundreds of times. Don’t worry—everything will go like clockwork.”
She closed her eyes. The pulse beat frantically in her throat. She gnawed on her bottom lip again and continued to shake in his arms.
He had to distract her or she’d be unable to move off the bench. “Why do you smell of chocolate?” He’d been wondering since she first sat in front of him.
She opened her eyes and looked over her shoulder at him again, eyebrows raised. Then she released her plump bottom lip from between her teeth and smiled. “I’m a chocolatier.” She sniffed the back of her hand. “I guess the smell must have seeped into my skin. Like when a person works in a fish and chip shop.”
The mention of chocolate made him think of Nick Stewart, owner of Cocoa Heaven, the confectionary shop in the nearby town of Paihia. Garth’s stomach twisted as he thought of the man who’d taken his wife. Bile rose in his throat, and he closed his eyes. He wouldn’t reflect on that now. Making a jump demanded absolute concentration. Unlike Stewart, he would not be responsible for another person’s death.
He opened his eyes. Chloe was looking at him. Concentrating on her might help take his mind off the man.
He lost himself for a moment in her eyes. They really were a beautiful deep blue, his favorite color. He liked anything that reminded him of the sky. Of freedom.
She moistened her lips with the tip of her tongue. His gaze slid to her mouth, and she inhaled. The air between them crackled with sexual electricity, and his heart raced again. Bad idea, Rowland. Jumping with a hard-on would probably affect wind resistance. Plus it seemed impolite to strap himself to a customer and then press his erection into her butt.
He opted for a light-hearted attempt at conversation. “Chocolate’s a much nicer smell than fish and chip grease.” The warm aroma of cocoa with a bite of ginger filled his nostrils. “You’re making me hungry.”
“And you’re trying to distract me.” An impish smile lit her face.
He grinned. “Maybe a little.”
Andy signaled him, and Garth squeezed her arms. “Okay, Chloe. We’re at nearly fourteen thousand feet. Are you ready?”
She nodded. “I can do this.” She said the words aloud, but the unfocused look in her eyes told him she was talking to herself. “I am brave, whatever he says. Screw you Ethan, you bastard. I can totally do this.”
So she was proving herself to a guy. Fair enough. His admiration for her grew. “Come on, honey.” He pushed her to her feet and wrapped his left arm around her waist. “We’ll show him how much courage you have.”
Chapter Two
There were two other people due to jump with her, and they made their way before her to the doorway. Ahead, one of the cameramen opened the door to reveal the clear blue blanket of sky, and the noise level increased to a roaring.
One by one, the cameramen, followed by the jumpers and their instructors, leapt into the blue. And then her turn arrived.
She donned her goggles and stumbled forward. Her heart pounded so hard it could have bounded out of her chest and completed the parachute jump on its own. Garth tightened his arm around her though and kept her on her feet, his chest reassuringly solid against her back. He put his mouth next to her ear and yelled. “Don’t look down. Keep your eyes on Andy, okay?”
Chloe nodded. She loved his American accent, and the interested look in his hazel eyes hadn’t helped the surge of adrenaline in her bloodstream. But right now, she couldn’t think about anything but fighting the urge to throw up.
All her life, she’d been able to see both sides to a situation. She’d put that down to being a Libra. Those born under the sign of the scales were supposed to have the ability to weigh the pros and cons of any decision. This skill frequently manifested in her head as a cheeky little devil on her right shoulder arguing with a prim, occasionally pompous angel on her left.
You can do this, you can do this, the angel repeated like a mantra as it stroked her hair soothingly.
Are you effing mad? the devil yelled, hanging on for grim death. Why didn’t you just take an overdose if you wanted to kill yourself?
Telling them to be quiet in her head, she took several deep breaths. She nearly fainted, however, as Andy gripped hold of the side of the door and swung himself out, still holding on with one hand, the camera in his other.
“Jesus!” She clenched her jaw.
Garth moved her into the doorway. In spite of his warning, she looked over the edge and nearly lost the contents of her stomach. Fourteen thousand feet was a looooooong way down. She was about to jump out of a plane with only a flimsy piece of nylon to stop her hitting the ground like a piece of meat. Her hands shot out and held onto the sides of the doorway, and her whole body froze.
“Let go, Chloe,” Garth yelled.
She fixed her gaze on the tiny fields and roads far below her. She couldn’t go through with it, she just couldn’t.
Tears filled her eyes. Embarrassment at showing herself up in front of the gorgeous instructor mingled with a sharp stab of disappointment. She’d taken her driving test not long ago, and she also had an interview in a few days’ time. But even though both those things made her nervous, nothing beat this for absolute terror. She’d known it would be difficult—jumping out of a plane and a fear of heights didn’t go together logically after all—but she’d been determined to go through with it and prove Ethan wrong. However, everything he’d said had been right.
Coward, yelled the devil, and she couldn’t deny it.
You don’t have to prove anything, soothed the angel, but it didn’t stop the tears welling.
To her right, a buffeted Andy gestured to the guy strapped to her back.
Behind her, Garth shifted. Would he push her out of the plane? Surely not. She’d sue his ass off if he did that without her permission.
But he didn’t. With his left arm still tight around her, he slid his gloved right hand around to cup her cheek and turned her face toward him.
He wore dark sunglasses and she couldn’t see his eyes, but she knew they were a warm hazel, sympathetic and friendly. His light brown hair fluttered around his forehead from the wind as he surveyed her. The same frisson that she’d experienced when the
y’d exchanged a heated look in the cabin tingled through her again, in spite of her nerves. She waited for him to say something, but he didn’t speak.
Instead, he leaned forward and kissed her.
His warm, firm lips on hers were so unexpected it completely threw her. He lingered for a moment, his mouth on hers as his hand cupped her head firmly. Thoughts fluttered in her brain like scraps of paper caught in the wind. Bloody cheek! She should slap his face. How dare he? But her heart pounded in spite of her indignation, and his tight arm around her waist, and muscled chest hard against her back, pushed all other thoughts from her mind.
When he finally released her, she stared at him, blinking rapidly.
“Let go,” he mouthed, adding a smile, and she did, gripping the shoulder straps of her harness.
Garth gestured to Andy—who still hung outside the plane—and held onto the sides of the doorway. Garth rocked them one, twice, and then the third time he pushed hard, and she fell forward into the blue.
She screamed, but she couldn’t hear herself, her voice swallowed up by the roar of the air by her ears. The world spun. She caught a glimpse of the underside of the plane, and then they rolled and she faced down again, Garth’s body hurtling at a hundred-and-twenty miles per hour on top of hers.
Above her, Garth pulled a cord, releasing the drogue chute that would slow them enough to make sure they fell at the same speed as Andy, who plummeted with them somewhere off to her left. Garth tapped her right hand, and she remembered the brief training she’d had on the ground. She had to let go of the straps, spread her arms, and curve her body upwards. If she let go of the harness, though, might she somehow slip out of it? Mind you, he’d pulled it so tight it had practically cut her in half. But her safety depended on doing exactly what he told her to do, so she unclenched her fingers from the straps and spread her arms wide.
Summer Fling Page 1