High Octane

“Bobby and a few of his Army pals own Texas Hotzone, a skydiving operation thirty minutes outside of Austin. You can make your first jump with Caleb. He’s one of Bobby’s best friends. A nice, soft-spoken guy who’s gentle. You can give him control without feeling like you really gave it away, and he’ll keep you safe.”

“No,” Sabrina replied, setting her spoon down in rejection. “The idea behind me moving here was to live life. In other words—I don’t have a death wish.”

Jennifer shrugged. “I jump and I love it. But then, I’m not a control freak. I guess that allows me to enjoy things you can’t.”

“Oh, that was a low blow,” Sabrina chided, narrowing her eyes on her friend. “Really low.”

“I know.” She leaned in close. “But it worked and you know it.” Her watch beeped. “Shoot. I need to go.” She reached for her purse. “I won’t be back to the paper until next week.” She set a business card on the table. “That’s the address of Texas Hotzone. Meet me there on Saturday before two. That gives you three days to chicken out, but don’t do it. You moved across the country to change your life, so change it. Don’t relocate the old one.” She pushed to her feet. “I dare you.”

Sabrina sat watching Jennifer depart without really seeing her. She’d moved across country, left her job, changed her name, and all for what? To remain captive to her father’s world?

She grimaced. Who was she kidding? She didn’t want to report on strawberry festivals. It was simply that strawberry festivals were safe. Frank had been right. Reporting facts was different from writing her political POV as she had in New York. And investigative reporting had been her roots, the way she’d started in the media years before.

She wanted to go to this press conference. She wanted to find out the facts. She wanted to write the story she wanted to write. To choose the friends she wanted to choose. To choose a man because he was exciting, not safe, either.

Heck, she wanted to be able to have a one-night stand if she so desired and not worry about being gossip fodder. But she’d never dared such a thing before. She gave that a moment’s consideration, picturing a set of rock-hard abs, perfect pecs and wild, erotic passion.

She sighed and discarded the idea, inhaling a spoonful of her half-eaten dessert and deciding to savor every bite. The brownie was the closest thing to orgasm she was going to get anytime soon. Maybe she’d better go with skydiving. At least jumping out of a plane came without the risk of scandal. The risk of scandal… Would she ever be free?

IT WAS SATURDAY AFTERNOON, a hot time at the Hotzone for Ryan “Cowboy” Walker, who sauntered behind the front desk to complete the day’s log. He was outta here early today, taking off for the first time in a month, since their grand opening. He was heading out for an appointment with a real-estate agent to look at houses, though he hadn’t shared that little detail with anyone. He’d given himself a deadline for deciding if he was committed to the civilian life, and once he committed, he would be fully committed. Though secretly the idea of owning a home scared the crap out of him, far more than any of the many snake-infested jungles he’d seen in his time. The only home he’d ever been willing to claim was the Army, with his AK-14 as his front door.

Ryan believed you did things all the way or not at all. People who walked a line usually ended up dead or miserable. He didn’t like either of those choices. Which was why he’d left the Army a month before and invested with several of his Crazy Aces in the Hotzone. At one time, he would have sworn he’d have been a life-timer. But soldiers followed orders without question, and he no longer could. Not when he’d come to realize there was an outside agency involved in their mission, of questionable ethics. Nothing had been what it seemed. And so here he was, about to house-hunt, forced into domestication like some sort of wild cat, but still committed.

He slammed the logbook shut, satisfied he was ready for Monday’s jump class. He was going to show the new Special Forces recruits what had put the Crazy in the Aces—namely, him. They’d never jump out of a plane with anything but cool confidence when he was done scaring the hell out of them. Better they wet their training pants on his clock than on the enemies’.

Ryan was headed around the counter and toward the door when his gaze caught on the parking lot and the woman approaching the building; she gave hot a whole new meaning. He stopped dead in his tracks and a low whistle escaped his lips.

With an all-consuming interest that made house-hunting a distant memory, he tracked the curvy brunette’s path.

His gaze simmered on the confident stride of the woman headed his way, those long legs eating the distance between them. Oh, yeah. He was going to like this woman. Anticipation charged his nerve-endings with a fire he’d not known in far too long. His around-the-clock work schedule had left no time for dating or other pleasures. A dry spell that would soon be ending, he decided. His groin tightened at the sight of the sexy she-devil’s snug black jeans and fitted black T-shirt, both of which hugged her with deliciously arousing perfection.

She reached for the door; her silky dark hair fluttered around petite shoulders and high breasts. He wanted that hair on his face, on his stomach. He wanted this woman.

She stepped inside the small office equipped with a couple of steel desks and not much more, shoving her sunglasses on top of her head as the door swung shut behind her. Light green eyes the color of new grass blinked him into focus and connected with his, the attraction between them instant, hot. No. Damn hot. Electricity charged the air, stroking his cock to full attention, the room so silent it was eerie.

“Hi,” she said in a rich-wine kind of voice that rippled along his nerve-endings and sent a rush of fire straight through his veins.

His gaze slid to the rise and fall of her ample breasts, and then lifted in time to see the alluring scrape of teeth along her full red bottom lip. He wanted to taste her. He wanted to taste all of her. Ryan tipped his cowboy hat, undisguised interest in the heated look he fixed in her direction.

Another silent, crackling moment followed before she announced, “I’m here to see Caleb.”

Ryan barely contained a curse. Caleb. She was here to see Caleb. His partner. His fellow Ace. His friend. Ryan ground his teeth at the off-limits territory he was treading on, an out-of-character possessiveness rising within him. He’d never taken anything from one of the Aces. They were family, his blood without blood. But Caleb had better stake his claim on this woman and stake it fast. Because Ryan wanted her in a bad way, and what Ryan Walker wanted, Ryan Walker went after, and blood was the only thing that could stop him.

2

RYAN WAS LOCKED on to the brunette beauty, not about to let her get past him without getting what he wanted, and that was a whole lot more than name, rank and serial number. That was, until she was intercepted.

“Sabrina!” Jennifer shouted, charging past him and into the path of his target. “You’re late,” she accused, chiding the woman who’d become the center of his attention. “I thought you weren’t coming.”

“You mean you thought I was a big ol’ chicken,” replied the woman, Sabrina. She followed the response with a laugh. It was a sexy, smoky sound that did nothing to take the edge off Ryan’s growing desire or the bulge beneath his zipper.

Jennifer’s hands went to her hips, her back to Ryan, her body irritatingly blocking his view of Sabrina. “We both know your tardiness means you almost pulled a no-show.”

Jennifer stepped a bit to her right, her arms still planted on those hips, and Ryan could see the flush spread across Sabrina’s ivory-perfect skin before she asked, “Was there a specific time I was supposed to be here? I thought you said Saturday…as in anytime today.”

“Don’t play coy with me,” Jennifer scolded instantly. “I said before two o’clock and you know it.”

Sabrina laughed, skipping any attempt at denial. “Okay, I almost talked myself out of coming,” she admitted. “I know I’m late.”

“Ah-huh,” Jennifer said. “That’s what I thought. And you secretly hoped it would be too late to jump. Well, you got your wish. Caleb is booked all afternoon.”

Ryan leaned one elbow on the counter and crossed his dusty, booted feet. To hell with house-hunting. “I’ll take her up,” he said in a lazy drawl that defied the outright molten heat charging through his body.

Sabrina glanced around Jennifer, her pale green eyes glinting like crystals as they slid down his body in a long, lingering inspection, before her gaze popped to his. “And you would be?” she inquired.

“A better choice than Caleb,” he assured her.

“Not for Sabrina,” Jennifer countered and gave him her back. “Ryan is a wild ride you don’t want any part of. Trust me. You want Caleb.”

FROM WHAT SHE’D SEEN of Ryan, Sabrina was pretty certain he was the man she wanted. But she also had a feeling this “wild ride” equaled a plate of poisoned food to a starving man—pleasure with a lethal endgame. Jumping out of a plane was enough of a dare, thank you very much. She didn’t need to add a hot cowboy with a rock-hard body and sultry, brown, bedroom eyes. Besides, it wasn’t as if she was chomping at the bit to jump to her death anyway.

“I can wait for Caleb,” she said. “No rush, anyway. I can always come back next weekend.”

A slow smile filled Ryan’s too-handsome face. “I’ll be easy with you, darlin’. I promise.”

He promises. Said the cat to the mouse, she thought cynically, but that didn’t stop her imagination from conjuring an image of her strapped to a parachute, with his front attached to her…er…backside. Oh, yeah, he was dangerous. In all kinds of ways.

“No, Ryan,” Jennifer said urgently, and shifted her attention to Sabrina. “Caleb is calm and controlled. He’ll be a pillar if you get scared.”

“I’m calm and controlled,” Ryan said.

Jennifer took a long glance at Ryan. “There is a reason you take up the experienced jumpers, and you know it.”

“Yeah,” he agreed. “Because I teach them that calm control doesn’t have to be boring. I push them to the edge rather than pull them back. I show them how to expand their limits.”

The words resonated through Sabrina and spoke to her deep beneath the surface. She already knew how to be calm and controlled. She’d spent a lifetime living just that. What she didn’t know how to do was be calm, controlled and daring at the same time. To live outside her safety zone. Ryan was more than the man she wanted. Ryan was the man she needed. “I’ll jump with Ryan.”

Jennifer started to object. “Sabrina—”

Sabrina gently touched her arm. “It’s okay,” she said in a low voice. “Really. I’m here, and honestly, if I leave, I may never do this. And it’s a good idea. It’s a good thing.”

“You’re sure?”

“Am I sure about jumping out of a plane?” Sabrina asked incredulously. “Of course not. But I can’t go through hours of convincing myself to go through with this again. Now or never.”

Jennifer looked as if she might argue and then grabbed Sabrina’s hand. “This way.”

Jennifer then tugged Sabrina toward the interior of the office. In her path stood Ryan, whom she passed with mere inches separating them. Ryan, who looked hotter and harder, upon closer inspection. And inspect she did, she lingered on his long, muscular thighs poured into tight denim that would no doubt be hugging her thighs in the very near future. Her mouth watered, and she jerked her attention upward, her gaze colliding with the only soft thing about Ryan—his brown eyes—the sizzle between them impossible to miss. She was, indeed, in for a wild ride, and amazingly, though she was scared, Sabrina realized something she couldn’t ignore. She was excited. She felt alive for the first time in years. She was doing something she’d never have dreamed of doing a few months ago. She was changing her life, but also pushing herself to experience the world.