When Megan’s lips brushed his cheek, Holt turned, pressing her mouth against his. Her breathing was chaotic, telegraphing her need and dissolving his control beneath the fever of her request. Megan’s urgent demands shattered his good intentions as her hand slid up his chest, entangled in his thick, dark hair, brushed his nipples, and sent a torrent of urgency through him.
In moments, Megan felt her slacks being pulled away from her hips to reveal her long legs. She felt no shyness as Holt joined her on the bed, skimming her torso and her hips as he removed the last of her lingerie. His smile was very male when she leaned upward, claiming a long, drugging kiss from him. His fingers combed through her hair and gently, he guided her down to the bed and smiled into her eyes.
“I need you,” he breathed. “I want you more than anything I’ve ever wanted.” And then, he leaned down, running his tongue across her lower lip, feeling her quiver and then arch her hips up against him. The contact was electric, fiery. Holt released her thick hair, caressed her small shoulders and captured her breasts, drawing the first nipple into his mouth, suckling her.
A little cry escaped from Megan as he lavished her with attention. Her world spun around her senses, around his strength as a man, and what they shared together. There was such satisfaction as he groaned when she pressed herself against his hips. The sound reverberated through her, and she felt a part of him on so many other levels already. Slowly, he released the puckered, throbbing nipple, a smile in his eyes. The depth of his worship of her skittered through Megan’s scattered senses, telling her that he applauded her equal assertiveness in their shared lovemaking. She smiled back, running her fingers through his short, dark hair, and felt his muscles tense across his back and arms, wherever she touched him.
Nothing had ever seemed so right to Megan. She saw the smoldering look in his eyes and a small breath caught in her throat as his hand moved downward across her belly. Shimmering rings of fire radiated downward and Megan grew taut, expectant. His hand eased between her thighs.
“Silk,” he murmured against her lips, “you’re wet, sweet, hot silk.” She was smooth, warm velvet as he caressed her dampened inner thighs, feeling her small cry as he gently stroked her for the first time. Sam wanted to make sure she was ready for him. There was such a moistness to welcome him as he slid his finger into her, lavished her, explored her with loving strokes meant to pleasure her, that it humbled him. Each time he touched her, a little cry burst from her. Sweet, vibrating sounds caught in her exposed, slender throat, a primal music to his senses.
Her womb tightened, the walls surrounding him contracting violently. An explosive fire burst within her and she cried out, arching against his hand, gripping his shoulder. The orgasm rippled almost violently through her and it spun her mindlessly into another dimension as he continued to caress her intimately, stroking her secret knot of nerves that burst with another orgasm following the first one. His mouth suckled her other nipple, and the tension tripled throughout her. Fingers digging deeply into his taut shoulder, Megan made a little sound of frustration. She needed to feel him deep within her, to feel captured, loved even more.
As if sensing her need, Holt rolled over on his back. Her red hair became a crimson pool across his chest as he brought Megan on top of him. The strands were thick and heavy, carrying her spicy scent as he placed his hands on her hips, guiding her as she sat up. There was such arousal in her eyes that his heart burst with an unparalleled feeling of happiness. It took his breath away. They were evenly matched to one another, both knowing it, both savoring the moment to come.
“My beautiful red-haired woman,” he whispered huskily, guiding her, wanting to feel himself deep within her wet, molten confines.
Gripping his arms, Megan felt herself being lifted. Her breath caught and she arched, throat exposed as they made contact. There was such strength and hardness against her soft, womanly core as he sheathed deeply into her, taking her, creating wave after wave of motion that unhinged her. His groan reverberated through her. Power met and melded into a cauldron of tempestuous heat and flame. He gripped her hips, and cajoled her to express all of herself within his hands, his body.
Eyes shuttering closed, Megan felt the pressure and neediness welling up deep within her once again, so hot and explosive. The orgasm wrenched through her and she cried out as she gave the gift of herself to him. Seconds later, she felt Sam stiffen and groan. Her world collided with his, they both shattered and were reformed again seconds later in the fire of their love. Lightheaded, Megan swayed, completely disoriented, feeling, not thinking. Weakness saturated her.
Holt guided her down on him so that her head lay where his shoulder connected to his neck. Her hair was a molten pool of red across his chest, just as he had always envisioned it, wanted it, dreamed of it. Megan quivered in the aftermath, but it wasn’t out of fear, it was out of good lovemaking. A smile touched the corners of Sam’s mouth. Sweat trickled down his temple as he skimmed his hand across her damp back and shoulders. The words that begged to be torn from him—I love you—remained stuck in his throat.
Instead, as he continued to caress her, worship her firm, loving form, he rasped, “A long time ago, I dreamed of you, long before I’d ever met you.” He sighed, feeling her move and lift her head to meet and hold his gaze.
Megan drowned in Sam’s smoldering dark blue eyes. There was such love in them for her that she couldn’t speak. Words weren’t coming easily, anyway. It was as if loving Sam had erased the shrill voice of doom in her head. If fact, she had no mind, only a rich tapestry of feelings and lingering aftershocks of pleasure like tidal waves in her core and womb after loving him. A soft, trembling smile formed on her lips, and Megan leaned down, her brow resting against his mouth.
Sam kissed her brow, tasted her saltiness and inhaled her very feminine scent. Lifting his hands, he threaded his fingers through that mass of fiery hair. He watched her soft smile of womanly knowing in her verdant gaze that was partially hidden by her thick lashes. “This dream,” he went on in a low voice, “had a red-haired Valkyrie in it. She had your face, your color of hair.” Placing a light kiss on the tip of Megan’s nose, he added, “But most of all, she had your wild, beautiful green eyes.” And then, Holt sobered, growing serious. “I like what I see in them now, Megan. I want that look to always be there, to be shared by us.”
With a sigh, she laid her head down on his shoulder, content to feel his arms go around her. “I never remembered my dreams,” she admitted wistfully.
“If you had, I would’ve been in them.”
Laughing quietly, Megan nuzzled Sam, kissed his neck and then his jaw. “You’re so conceited.”
“No, honest.”
It was her turn to become serious. “That’s something we’ve always been with one another, hasn’t it? Our honesty?”
Gently, Sam placed Megan next to him and levered himself up on his elbow. He cradled her flushed cheek. Megan’s eyes glowed with such life that he never wanted to forget that look that had been created between them, because of them. “Yes,” he said hoarsely, “I’m not sorry this happened, Megan. Only the way it happened.”
She nodded, closing her eyes momentarily, the pain of nearly losing him still sharp and hurting in her heart and memory. “I thought I was in a nightmare. I—I couldn’t believe you might be dead, Sam.”
Tracing her brow, he removed those small wrinkles of pain he shared with her. “I know. I nearly came unglued over at Ops. I was at the desk filing my flight plan when the crash siren started screaming. I found out it was all a drill. A lousy drill.”
Megan grimaced. “I wonder how many pilots’ wives it affected similarly?”
“All of them,” he said grimly. She was warm and soft beside him. Sam admired her long, slim body, an alabaster color against the cobalt blue of the bedspread. “But enough about them. All I was worried about was you. Your reaction.”
Megan sought his arms and pressed herself against the length of Sam’s body. There, she found sanctu
ary, safety. He continued to caress her, and kept her fears at bay.
“Talk to me, Red. I can feel you thinking.”
“How?” she asked, amazed. It was impossible that he could read her mind. And then, Megan realized that he was a highly trained test pilot, sensitized to even the slightest change of pressure, position, sensing perhaps more than actually seeing her discomfort. “Never mind,” she murmured wryly.
With a sigh, Sam sat up, leaned against the headboard and brought Megan into his arms. She came without hesitation and that was reassuring. “How can I ‘never mind’ when I care about you, your thoughts and how you feel?” he teased her gently with a smile.
“I don’t think you want to hear it. No pilot does.”
Sam gave her a small shake. “You’re talking to Sam Holt, the man. Remember?”
Megan didn’t know whether to believe him or not. If only. “Loving you was the most right thing I’ve ever done, Sam. I felt so—” Megan groped for the right words “—free to be myself, to be all that I can be.” Looking up, she held his gaze. “Does that make sense?”
“Sure does. I felt the same way. We’re good together, sweetheart.”
“We’re opposite.”
With a laugh, Sam said, “Oh?”
“You’re the extrovert, I’m the introvert.”
“So, we’ll counterbalance each other’s moods. That’s a positive.”
“You’re able to laugh at life. All I see it as is a responsibility.”
Stroking her shoulder, Sam leaned over, placing a small kiss on it. “I’ll teach you how to laugh, and you teach me how to be more responsible toward you.”
Touched beyond words, Megan grew quiet. How could this be a line coming from Sam? He sounded so sincere. She was quiet for several minutes, mulling over their other problems.
“I can hear you thinking. Want to share it?” Sam coaxed. He closed his eyes and savored Megan’s warmth. There was something so incredibly peaceful about having her with him. It was so right that it hurt.
Megan’s throat constricted, but she forced the words out.
“I didn’t want to like you, Sam. Somehow, you got to me. I don’t know how, you just did. I was getting so tired of fighting you off, telling you to go away when you wouldn’t…and all the time, I was afraid.”
“Of what?”
Megan shuddered, feeling his arms tighten momentarily around her. “I was afraid of ending up like my mother. Every time my father flew a test flight, she hit the bottle hard. When I’d get up in the morning, she was already roaring drunk. Father wouldn’t say anything. He’d just leave early to get away from her tears and yelling. Becky’s suicide attempt today brought all those horrible memories back to me.”
With a sigh, Sam rested his chin lightly against her shoulder. He wanted to protect Megan from the anguish in her voice, in the pain she still carried in her heart. “So you got the brunt of your mother’s anger over your father leaving without a word?”
“Yes.” Miserably, Megan added, “Monday, when you flew, I began feeling shaky and fearful inside. Mother used to describe to me how she felt before Father flew a test.” Her voice became thin, inaudible.
“And you felt the exact same way last Monday?” Sam asked.
To say the words was like admitting she was her mother. Something inside her couldn’t do that. “It was awful, Sam.” Megan gripped his hand.
He kissed her fingers and then rested her head against his chest, her ear over his heart. “I had a feeling you were worrying,” he confessed.
“It wasn’t your fault.”
“More than anything,” Sam told her earnestly, “I don’t want you to worry. We have something special Megan, something I know can transcend your fears.” He saw the doubt in her eyes, not ever wanting to lose her now that she had trusted him enough to give herself to him. “Look, not every wife or girlfriend of a pilot has the fears your mother had. Or that Becky Merrill has. There have got to be ways to cope with this. The other wives do it.”
Could love overcome her fear? It hadn’t in her mother’s case. And Becky had made the ultimate cry for help, the fear too much for her to handle any longer. Megan was unsure about herself. Looking up, she studied Sam’s serious features. The ache to tell him that she loved him was real. It was too soon, their relationship, too tenuous. “I think,” she said softly, “we have to take what we have one day at a time. If I look at my past, I get afraid because of what happened to my parents. If I look to the future, my imagination runs away with me, and all I see are the negatives, a crash and,” Megan choked, “losing you. I thought I’d lost you today.”
“It’s not going to be easy,” Sam agreed, “but more than anything else, we’ve got to talk. Communicate. Some of the other pilots I’ve overheard all say the same thing—talking helps dispel the fear.” He wanted so badly for Megan to see and understand his point of view. “What do you think? Feel?”
A quiver of a smile fled across her lips. “Sam Holt, you could sell anybody anything, do you realize that?”
“Honey, the only thing I want to sell you on is us. The day I met you, I felt like somebody clobbered me with a baseball bat. You stood out in that crowd, so beautiful, so independent and apart from everyone else.” Sam kissed her cheek and relished her velvet softness. “I couldn’t get you out of my mind or dreams. I didn’t want to.”
Giving him a shy look, Megan admitted, “I couldn’t get you off my mind, either.”
“Was I in your dreams?”
“Yes.”
“Want to share them?” He grinned.
Megan laughed fully, throwing her arms around his neck. “Sam Holt, you’re such a conceited male animal.”
It felt so good to stretch out across the bed and lie at Megan’s side. Sam skimmed his hand over her clean-limbed body, savoring her. Megan was responsive, the heated look in her green eyes telling him everything. He wanted to make passionate love with her again, a celebration of their joy. Holt stilled his hunger for a moment longer, his hand coming to rest on her hip.
“One day at a time, with lots of talking, right?”
Megan nodded. “I don’t know where this is going, Sam. No promises.”
He leaned over, tasting her lower lip with his tongue, and felt her press provocatively against him in response. “No promises, just hard work because we want this, deserve this,” he whispered, moving his hand to her breast and cupping it. “But we’re going to push the envelope on what we have, sweetheart. That’s the only way to find out.”
The test-pilot term “push the envelope” vaguely registered on Megan as she responded to his mouth trailing a lingering trail of kisses down her throat to her awaiting breasts that cried for his knowing touch. If a plane stayed within the limits of its flight envelope, it remained stable and flyable. If it went beyond it, the plane became out of control, frequently crashing. There were no guarantees, no promises to their relationship. Just risk, with huge gains and equally huge losses. Megan shut off her mind and centered on Holt’s searing touch, if just for a little while.
15
Megan was shaky and raw feeling the next day as she waited for Melody Stang to show up at the Antelope Valley Inn. Sam had slept overnight, leaving around 10:00 a.m. He was going in to visit Becky at the hospital, and then drop over to see if Curt needed help at the house. A fierce love for Sam welled through Megan as she sat with a glass of water, waiting for Melody to appear.
Sighing, she could do nothing but feel. Last night, a huge barrier had been torn down and taken from her by loving Sam. A part of her knew it had been right and good. This morning, Megan awoke not being sure at all. Sam had sensed her vulnerable state, and had wisely said nothing unless she wanted to talk about her feelings.
Frowning, Megan took a sip of the water, not tasting it. Too much had happened too quickly. She needed time to assimilate and absorb it all, and he uncannily sensed it. Sam’s sensitivity toward her did nothing but unstring more new emotions toward him she’d been hiding from hers
elf.
“There you are,” Melody greeted, thanking the hostess and joining Megan.
Forcing herself back to the present, Megan managed a slight smile. “Mrs. Stang.”
“Please,” she said, taking off her black leather gloves, “call me Melody.”
Megan was dressed in a pale pink dolman-sleeve pullover tunic and a pair of tan tailored pants. It was Saturday, and she wasn’t going to dress up for anyone. On the other hand, Melody was elegant in what Megan was sure was a designer suit. Which designer, she didn’t know. The dark gray wool peplum jacket was set off by a jabot blouse of pale cream silk, and finished off with a sleek, narrow gray skirt. By any standards, Megan thought, Melody dressed the part of a successful officer’s wife on the way up the ladder to claim his general’s stars.
“Of course, Melody.”
She gave her a brittle smile, ordering a Manhattan from the waitress, taking no note of Megan’s disapproval. “Thank you for meeting me here. It was quite a surprise to see you at George’s.”
Megan smiled to herself. No one called the commanding general of any base by his first name. Especially a captain’s wife. How sure Melody must be of Jack’s forthcoming major’s leaves, and his power on the base. “My father knew General Dalton for twenty years. I more or less grew up in front of his eyes at the different bases he and my father were assigned to.”
The drink came, and Melody thanked the waitress. Lifting the tumbler, she took a small sip, and then set it down on the linen tablecloth. “I’m grateful you didn’t bring up Scotty’s predicament. Thank you.”
“I don’t believe any child should be used as a lever in any political situation or power play,” Megan said tightly.
“How honorable of you, Megan.” She laughed. “In our business, politics is the name of the game, isn’t it?”
“Unfortunately, it can become that.”
“Everyone’s fair game. That’s the rule.”
Night Flight Page 23