“You’ll get over it,” I said. “It may not seem like it now, but you will.”
“How?”
“You just…keep going. You don’t give up, you push harder. You fight through it. You won’t forget, but maybe having lived through it will make you a better pilot.”
Panther’s eyes fell on mine. “I think I’m starting to understand you a little.”
“A little is way ahead of the curve.”
“Because you keep everyone at arm’s length.”
I interlaced our fingers, and when Panther lowered his eyes to where our hands were joined, I said, “Not everyone.”
We sat there for a couple of minutes, the only sound the waves crashing against the rocks below. It was a comfortable silence, something I didn’t have with many, and when I saw Panther looking at me, the expression in his eyes made my heart thud a little harder.
I was usually on the receiving end of an exasperated sigh, or an irritated curse, so the fierce look of approval and admiration in those blue depths made my stomach flip-flop as though it were the first time I was climbing into the cockpit of a jet.
“What?” I said, when the silence shifted from comfortable to something much more intense—nothing bad, but nothing quite as simple as companionship.
“Hmm?”
“You’re looking at me funny.”
“Am I? And here I thought I was just looking at you.”
I swallowed, a sudden case of nerves making me feel as anxious as I had on my first date ever, and all because Panther was looking at me as though he were seeing me for the first time.
Trying to muster up some of that bravado I was so well known for, I scoffed and settled back in my seat. “Oh yeah? And what do you see?”
Panther grazed his thumb over the top of my knuckles, and holy shit, he might as well have stroked his palm between my legs. Heat infused my body, flames licking along my veins as his eyes roamed over my face and down my neck, then he licked his lips, making me shift in my seat.
“I see a man I wasn’t looking for. A man I didn’t even know was there, until right now. And Solo?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t think of anywhere else I’d rather be than sitting with him in this car right now, holding his hand.”
11Panther
I WASN’T USUALLY one to pour my heart out, so no one was more shocked than I was at what had just fallen off my tongue. Though Solo also looked pretty fucking shocked, staring at me from across the car as though I’d morphed into a complete stranger.
Hell, maybe I had. But something about this place, the sun shimmering over the water, the food, and Solo sitting there holding my hand had lowered my defenses until I’d been unable to hold back how I was feeling.
For so long I’d had to squash my impulse to be who I really was at the core of my being. From my career to my private life, everything revolved around what others would think, what others would say if they found out I was hiding integral parts of myself away. But after almost dying, and my father looking me in the eye and telling me for the first time that he’d never been ashamed of who I was, my emotions seemed exposed, and for once in my life, I didn’t want to hide them away.
“I’ve shocked you into silence. That’s got to be a first.”
Solo blinked those gorgeous eyes of his and then licked at his lower lip, and if I didn’t know better, I would’ve thought he was nervous. But no, this was Solo—fly by the seat of your pants at a million miles an hourSolo—and nothing made him nervous.
“I think it might be,” he finally said, and looked down to our joined hands again.
“Did I make you uncomfortable?”
Solo shook his head. “No. I just… It’s…”
I smiled as Solo tried to form a sentence. But when nothing came out and his cheeks flushed—actually fucking flushed—I full-on grinned.
Nothing made Solo nervous, except, apparently,me. “You don’t want that?”
