Crossfire

There. She felt it. A fluttering beneath her index finger. Faint at first, then stronger.

Hope surged. “Wesley. Can you hear me?”

There. She heard it. A low sound breaking from his throat. “What?”

“Quit…pulling my hair.”

The words were slurred, but they rushed through her like the cool wind whipping through the plane. “Come again?”

His big body shifted, turning toward her to reveal eyes burning overly bright. “I’m not goin’ anywhere, sweetness—you don’t need to hold on so tight.”

His breath rushed against her neck, warm and strong and vital. She went very still, staring at the swirling butterscotch of his eyes, the dilated pupils and gleam that warned of shock. Cuts streaked across his face, a tiny piece of glass embedded at the base of his right cheekbone. But he never blinked, never looked away. Very slowly she looked from his face to the back of his head, where her fingers clenched his hair like a lifeline.

Reality punched hard. Her lungs refused the oxygen she tried to deliver. “I got you awake, didn’t I?” she asked with a simple logic she didn’t come close to feeling. Fear and relief crashed inside her. She wanted to dive against him, feel the warmth and strength of his body, assure herself he was all right. Instead she forced her fingers to uncurl.

“Desperate times call for desperate measures,” she said. “Isn’t that what you always say?”

The corner of his bloodied mouth lifted. “Since when have you listened to a damn thing I’ve told you?”

Only once, and the fallout had destroyed. “I didn’t have a choice this time,” she said, sidestepping. The more lucid he became, the more the heat of his body soaked into hers. She still had a hand at the base of his neck, could feel his pulse thumping more strongly every second. “You were out cold—”

“I’m fine.” The flash of his eyes was the only warning she got. He came to life almost violently, pushing from the trashed instrument panel and discarding the safety belt that hemmed him in. And then, just like the night before, he had his hands on her body. They were big and warm, his callused palms surprisingly gentle, and everywhere he skimmed, she burned. He ran them along her sides and her arms, up her neck to her face.

The abrupt transition from out cold to in command jump-started her heart.

“I’m okay, Wesley,” she said, wanting—needing—his hands off her body. “Really.”

He skimmed a finger along her cheekbone, drawing her attention to moisture she’d not noticed. “The hell you are you.”

Wincing, she lifted a hand to her face, feeling the warmth of his fingers and the stickiness of blood. “Just a cut.” So much less than what could have happened. “There’s glass—”

He didn’t let her finish. He had her against his body before her heart could beat, his mouth on hers before she could pull away. The kiss was hot and hard and demanding, completely without finesse. He had one hand against the small of her back, the other tangled in her hair. Whiskers scraped her jaw.