Shouldn’t have come in the first place.
She lifted her head, and her eyes connected with two big ol’ black holes of compassion.
He was right there, inches from her face, drawing her into his orbit with silent false promises of safety and security. His thumb rubbed a slow circle at the base of her skull. If she leaned forward, if she moved barely two degrees, her nose would touch his. She’d be close enough to taste him.
Close enough to tug down the zipper on his flight suit. To push the fabric off hisshoulders, to see if he still felt as hot and solid and potent as she remembered. She usually preferred a man’s brain to be his biggest muscle, but holy sweet jingle bells, she wanted this man’s body.
“Better?” he murmured.
She licked her lips. “Oh, sugar, that was just a test.” Her words were shaky, and so was the hand she tried to flutter. “I’ll be sure to tell your commander you passed with flying colors.”
He smirked. “Flyingcolors?”
The man was trying to kill her. “Flying colors,” she repeated, though her tongue tripped overflying.
He tucked an errant strand of her hair back behind her ear. “Why would you trust me to take you flying?”
Why, indeed? “Seems to me you want to live through it as badly as I do.”
“Not so sure anybody wants to live half asbadly as you do.”
“I’m gonna assume that was a compliment.”
“Do you really want to go flying, or is this your way of trying to get into my pants?”
“Aww, your ego is too precious. Captain, if I wanted in your pants, I’d already be handing them back to—mmph!”
His mouth covered hers, his fingers tangling in her hair, his tongue making a slow stroke of her lower lip. She latched onto the rough green fabric of his flight suit, and though her pride said she should push him away, she spread her knees and tugged him closer, his hips between her thighs. She parted her lips and touched her tongue to his. A primal male rumble came from his chest, rattling beneath her grip over his heart.
And Kaci fell.
Under his spell, into his gravitational pull, with no safety net.
She was sitting on a chair, but she was soaring, unrestrained,alive, her heart dancing, her skin tingling, her body pulsing.
His hands slid down her neck, down her back, then under her shirt, his fingers hot and hungry on her skin, pulling her closer to him, spreading her legs wider, the ache at the core of her begging to feel himthere. His nimble fingers reached her bra strap.
She scooted closer.Closer. Almost?—
Whoosh.
The chair beneath her backside was suddenly gone. Her shoes slipped on the rug. Her feet shot forward. His arms tightened under her armpits, but she slid right out of his grasp, hands in the air, tailbone thumping to the ground. Her shirt was half up, and she was face-to-face with the tent in his flight suit, her rear end throbbing.
She’d slipped off the danged chair.
And she wanted to launch herself at him,kiss him again, peel his clothes off and ride him like she’d just gotten out of a convent.
“Aw,shit, Thumper? The blonde? Really?”
At the second voice in the room, she shoved at Lance.
A young pup who looked vaguely familiar was gawking at them from the door.
“Shove it, Juicy,” Lance said. He untangled himself and pushed back on his heels, eyeing her as thoughshewere the problem here.
She was, wasn’t she?
“You okay?” he asked.
