Worth the Risk (8 page)

“We’re going zero-g this afternoon,” he said once they’d hit the highway that led far from town and toward the airport.

“Zero-g?” Samantha shifted in her seat and regarded him with interested eyes, like she had x-ray vision.

“Zero gravity. We’ll experience what it feels like to be weightless. It’s you and me, babe, floating around like a pair of astronauts. And I for one am hoping to accomplish what no man has done before.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Getting frisky while floating.” He pegged her with his most charming smile, raised eyebrows and all, hoping she wouldn’t be opposed to his plans for more touching.

She broke eye contact to look out the windshield for a few moments before turning her head back to him, the naive expression on her face replaced by a look he couldn’t read. He wondered if her reaction stemmed from the zero-g comment or the frisky comment.

“Is this simulation on the ground or up in a plane?” she asked, her tone giving him little hint to her disposition.

“Our weightless flight is on a seven-twenty-seven aircraft.” He leaned over, lowered his voice. “It’s too bad I think we have to wear jumpsuits.”

He conjured up a vision of Samantha floating to him in nothing but a sheer black teddy, the material swaying around her body giving him glimpses here and there of her curves, and the flurry in his stomach moved south, causing his jeans to tighten. Damn.

I wonder if I can get a hard-on when weightless?

She smiled, and when she spoke a lighter tone fell from her luscious lips, like maybe she was on board with this adventure now. “You betcha.”

“What?” he choked out. She hadn’t just read his mind, had she?

“The jumpsuits. We have to wear them. I remember now, seeing a segment on
Good Morning America
or something, where they did this and everyone on board wore these thick gray jumpsuits.”

“Maybe they have a suit built for two?”

“Mmm. You wish.”

As if hearing the “mmm” come out of her sexy voice wasn’t enough to send his cock directly to a ninety-degree angle, she included a smile that amped up the sexual desires surging through his body. Fun was a great aphrodisiac for him, and today was already more amusing than he’d anticipated. By the time they got back to her hotel room tonight, he planned to take her every which way and remind her of just how potent her feminine wiles could be.

“I’m wishing for a lot of things,” he replied.

She let out a breath. “You know, you’ve done it again.”

“What?”

“You have this amazing way of making me feel like I’m freefalling even when my feet are on the ground. It’s the same way I felt the first time you took me hang gliding or river rafting. For the past few years, I’ve missed that.” She shifted her body so she faced him, one leg under her bottom. “Thanks for being the one to show me what it’s like to lose my inhibitions and really feel alive.”

“It’s easy with someone like you.” He lifted his arm and ran the back of his hand along her cheek. She was so soft, so lovely. When her head tilted to press against his skin he felt her reservations about him slip away. “You’ve got an adventurer’s spirit hiding inside that beautiful body.”

“You bring it out in me.”

Her words reminded him of her willingness to do whatever he’d suggested during their summer together. He remembered how she’d trusted him completely with her safety and well being. She’d never doubted his strength or abilities; she’d always looked at him with admiration and awe. Samantha gifted him with the utmost confidence, and he’d never forgotten that feeling. On days when work nearly got the best of him, his recollection of her faith in him restored his faith in himself.

“We should come up with a plan,” he said.

“For what?”

“For how to defy the odds of gravity and keep our hands on each other.”

She giggled. “What makes you so sure I want your hands on me?”

Dean felt a wide grin flank his face. “Just a hunch.”

“Some hunches are good,” she purred, straightening her back against the seat with a little shimmy that had his mind and other parts of him standing at attention.

Hell
. Things were worse than he’d thought. When did he lose his mind and think time with her was a good idea? Because come forty-eight hours from now, he’d have the Route 66 contract and would be heading back to California, where he now realized a stint in rehab would be required to save himself from the pain of leaving Samantha again.

…

“Are you planning on getting me drunk up there?” Samantha eyed the bottle in his hand as they exited the car. She hoped he
was
up to something like that. Ever since their hallucinogenic kiss last night, she’d teetered on the edge of wishful thinking, ready to catapult herself into Dean’s world and stick there whether he liked it or not. What a fool she was to think spending time together would remedy the hopeless devotion she felt for him.

Maybe getting drunk would help.

“It’s only sparkling apple cider. I hear even liquid is weightless during our parabolas, so I thought it might be fun to make a toast and try to catch the floating bubbles on our tongues.”

He picked up her hand and walked toward the large plane sitting on the runway. Once again, the contact made her forget her own name. She’d planned to keep things platonic today, but when Dean started flirting, she couldn’t help but relax and dish out some of her own playfulness. She knew the risk he posed, knew she was tumbling back into a painful repeat of their last good-bye, but she didn’t have the strength to stop herself.

Or the desire, if she were honest with herself.
Foolish girl.

“What are parabolas?”

“They’re the flight maneuvers that allow for weightlessness. It’s kind of like a roller coaster. The plane pulls nose up then levels off for a bit, then goes nose down. I think we get to enjoy about fifteen parabolic arcs that each last around thirty seconds. That’s when we’ll experience zero gravity.”

“And how long did you say your friend’s been piloting these trips?”

“A while now. You’re not nervous, are you?”

“No,” she said, shaking her head.

He stopped in his tracks and turned to face her. Then he brought her flush against him and kissed her. Hard. “You’ve got nothing to worry about with me around.”

“I know,” she lied. She wanted to believe whatever happened between them was innocent. But what if Dean was simply trying to distract her? Make her forget about the Route 66 contract? After the way he left her five years ago, she’d be a fool to trust him again.

When ninety minutes later they were dressed in the requisite jumpsuits and laying on the padded floor of the wide-open airplane preparing for their first parabola, Samantha forgot about Dean’s motivations.

They’d been instructed on what to expect. The position they were in now, on their backs, waiting for the parabola, would be required between each weightless timeframe. As Sam looked around, the emptiness inside the aircraft reminded her of a giant playroom. And she couldn’t think of anyone else she’d rather be with. Despite the looming job decision and their personal issues, Dean filled her with more joy than she’d felt since…well, since their last adventure.

“Ten, nine, eight…” their coach (and expert at zero-g) said, ticking off the time until the first arc. He looked about fifty, was built like a tank, and had a kick-ass attitude.

Her stomach fluttered with anticipation. When the countdown got to one, she and Dean were airborne.

“Holy shi…” Samantha floated up, up, and away, weightlessness stealing her body and tossing her around the aircraft as if she were light as a feather. The feeling tickled her from the inside out. Giggles from deep in her gut spilled out of her mouth and she couldn’t stop. She was part of the air, had little control over her movements. Just had to go with the flow. Dean hovered across the way on the…ceiling? She had difficulty telling which end was up.

Thirty seconds later, they were back on the padded floor.

“That was incredible! How many more of these do we get?” she asked.

“At least a dozen,” the coach replied.

Dean beamed at her, his eyes twinkling brighter than the stars wishes were made on. A jolt of euphoria struck her. She had to feel the floor to be sure she wasn’t still floating on air.

“You’re amazing, and your excitement is so damn contagious. I can’t imagine experiencing this with anyone else.”

“Me neither.” She’d like to wish upon his gaze—wish for things to be different, wish for something she swore she’d never think about again. Because she knew better than anyone that Dean’s commitment lay with the environment, not with any woman.

Today was make-believe. A game of pretend:
Let’s pretend we’re a couple one more time; have a wild, crazy adventure that we’ll never forget, but never tell anyone because there is no “we.”

Sam knew come Monday, everything would change. But lying next to Dean, she did want something. She wanted to push aside the fear of heartache and dance with him one more time.

Several tries and fits of laughter later, they’d only achieved parabolic pantomime, reaching and grasping for each other with swipes of contact to show for it. Though they moved in slow motion, the lack of contact was her fault. She couldn’t keep still.

“No more zigging when I zag,” he teased, seconds before they lifted off again.

“I thought I was zag and you were zig.”

“Yank and spank,” the coach said with an authoritative voice, like he’d had some experience navigating the sea of weightless interaction between opposite sexes.

Samantha and Dean exchanged glances and grinned. Without saying another word, they knew what they had to do. As their bodies floated up, Dean hauled Samantha toward him with both hands on her shoulders, sliding them down to her back and landing firmly on her butt until the space between them dwindled. Samantha wrapped her legs tightly around Dean’s waist and crossed her ankles. Her arms slid around to his backside. She grabbed hold of his jumpsuit.

It worked. Chest to chest, pelvis to pelvis, they held on to each other until an attempt at lip contact resulted in bumped foreheads and loss of stronghold. They spiraled away from each other, laughing at the botched attempt, Samantha doing a backward somersault and some other acrobatic maneuver deserving of an Olympic gold medal. Weightless kiss or no kiss, though, Samantha was on cloud nine.

…

An hour later, Dean still couldn’t stop smiling. “That was amazing,” he said, walking back to his car. “It far outweighed my imagination.”

“Mine, too. It’s definitely something I’ll never forget.” Samantha walked with a spring in her step, like she’d just had the best day ever.

“Me neither.” Opening the passenger door, he watched Samantha get comfortable before closing it and stepping around to his side.

He clicked his seatbelt into place and sat for a moment, committing everything to memory before fumbling to put the key in the ignition. “I’m sorry,” he said.

“For what?”

“For hopping on a plane five years ago without telling you how I felt.”

Sam sucked in a breath and turned her head to look out the passenger window. Seconds ticked by. She pressed her hands into her lap.

“I was a jerk. And then I lost your number when I was sailing and dropped my phone into Lake Cascade.”

Sam met his gaze, and the skeptical look he saw in her glassy blue eyes hit him straight in the gut. “You were going to call me?” she asked.

He undid his seat belt and turned his body toward her. Could she see how furiously his heart was beating? “Honestly, I don’t know. Our lives were going in different directions. But having the choice taken away from me sucked.”

Her eyes moved to something over his shoulder.

“So I flew to Chicago. I had a friend at Northwestern who helped me track you down.”

She flinched. “But—”

“But when I got there, you were with another guy, so I left.” His pride had taken a big hit when he saw her with someone else so soon after they’d been together. Maybe that made him an ass, since he’d thought it was okay to leave her. But he’d changed his mind. He’d missed her. And she’d moved on.

She searched his face, shook her head. “That’s impossible.”

Was she saying there hadn’t been anyone right after him? He pushed that thought aside, because if his eyes had been deceiving him that night…