Page 14 of Wild Card

It was time to walk the talk.

Trouble was, she didn’t know if she could take a single damn step at the moment.

“So what is it?” A deeper growl threaded Sam’s voice, backed by the command in the finger he jerked beneath her chin. Jen forced out a self-deprecating smile.

“I’m…just being stupid. Indulging in too much Jane Austen lately.” And Emily Brontë. And Diana Gabaldon. And Nicholas Sparks. Okay, maybe not him. The last thing she needed to end this thing with was a call to room service for three boxes of tissue to mop up her tears.

“I happen to like Jane Austen.”

Because you had to get more perfect than you already were.

“Caleb, Dirk and the others would probably revoke your guy card for that.”

“Which is why I may need to fuck a vow of silence into you.”

Yes. He really was perfect. Evoking Austen one moment, wetting her sex the next with his nasty growl and naughty grin. After kissing him to confirm her approval of that plan, she decided to let honesty take over. He’d get it out of her eventually, anyway. “Sam.” She splayed fingers along his jaw. “Why didn’t we do this sooner?”

He pushed his face against her touch, abrading her fingers with his stubble. “Because we’re bloody idiots. At least I am. When I think of all the fantasies I’ve had of you in the last nine months…”

“Wait.” She didn’t hide her gape. “Fantasies? About me?” A new thought struck. “Riiight. And half the other girls on base too, yeah?” But when his stare didn’t waver, then turned that earnest shade of pewter, she gulped. “Shit. Sam.”

For another long moment, he didn’t say anything. Kept his face fitted into her palm, watching her in silent contemplation. “Mouse,” he finally murmured. “There was…a reason…why they sent me over for the cross-training.”

“Besides the fact that you can turn a fighter jet into poetry?”

Her compliment could’ve been in Swahili for all its effect on him. “I wasn’t…in a good place. The deployments finally started taking their toll—or so everyone enjoyed telling me. Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Afghanistan again…”

“God.”

“Stop.” His violent bite betrayed a truth she’d long suspected. Enduring anything he saw as pity was like forcing him to swallow rat poison. “I wanted them, Jen. Every single one of those assignments was an honor. I would’ve gone again, had they called. I wanted to go again.”

“Why?” She didn’t hide the confusion. Sure, she knew the shit from all the pilot boy rah-rah speeches. Through adversity to the stars. True heroes run to the danger. The sky is no longer the limit. But he’d carried his share of those torches and then some.

“It was…easier.” He grimaced. Though he knew it for a truth, he didn’t like it. “The missions, the pace, the noise, the violence. When your world is consumed by all of that, it’s effortless to block out the rest. The rest of life just…freezes, I suppose. At least in your mind, yeah? You just think of it all like leaves caught in ice.”

“Until they’re thawed out.”

“Until they’re thawed out.”

“And you hope they’re still there.”

“And you hope they’re still there.”

“But they’re not.” She trailed the center of his sternum with her fingers. The comfort she’d hoped to give him…not happening. The flesh beneath her touch remained taut as stone. She pushed on anyway, “You find out that the ice turned into a river, and carried them away.”

He rolled to his back, yanking the sheet up to his waist. “And you don’t even recognize the river anymore.” His stare, fixed on the ceiling, darkened. “Even the bridges you remembered are gone. And everyone who meant anything to you before…is standing on the other shore.”

Jen pushed up until her face hovered over his. “I’m right here. On this shore.”

She shook a little as she proclaimed it. The words felt huge. Risky. Yet never so right. If he laughed her off, so be it. There had been few things she meant more in her life.

Sam didn’t laugh. “I know.” He tucked her head against his chest. “I know—which is why I’ll never stop thankin’ them for sendin’ me here.” Beneath her cheek, his big body rose and fell with a deep breath. “Thank God for you, Jenny Thorne. Thank fuckin’ God for you.”

She was damn glad for the bulk of him beneath her now—considering how the universe just listed on its axis. Was this happening? Was he confessing something like that right now? If so, then what the hell was ‘that’, anyway? They’d been blessed with nine months of an awesome friendship then one hour of wall-rattling sex. Neither dictated he owed her anything more than a little pillow chatter.

But now, he said things that didn’t just somersault her stomach or even zing her pussy. This was the kind of shit that clutched a girl’s soul. Made her believe in—

Things that weren’t going to happen.

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