A Kiss in the Dark (25 page)

“Extreme conditions,” she repeated, breathless. “As in…?”

“As in how high and fast can I push her?” His voice was low and husky, the faint Spanish accent more pronounced. “What kind of thrust can she tolerate without beginning to wobble, or shudder, or, worse, fly apart completely? How hot can her engines run before the inner liner of the combustor melts down?”

Sedona slid a finger inside the prim collar of her shirt, pulling it away from her skin. “Yes, I think I’m beginning to understand, Lieutenant Commander.” She swallowed hard. “But it sounds…dangerous. Are you certain you want to do this?”

He was so close, Sedona could see the individual spikes of his lashes and feel his warm breath against her cheek. He was too close. Too hot. Too completely irresistible.

“Oh, yes,
mina,
” he purred, “I’m absolutely certain. The only question remaining is…am I cleared to launch?”

She was a goner.

With a soft sigh of surrender, Sedona leaned forward, her lashes drifted closed and her lips parted for the inevitability of his kiss.

“Sir? Ma’am?”

Sedona’s eyes flew open and she leaped back from Angel. Unfocused, she turned abruptly away and then gave a sharp cry of pain as her head connected with the horizontal stabilizer, the small wings that protruded from the tail of the jet. Her eyes smarted with tears and she swiftly bent her head to hide her confusion. How was it that when Angel was near, she lost all ability to concentrate?

A young man peered at them from beneath the underbelly of the Coyote, and his blue eyes twinkled with unmistakable amusement. “Ah, sorry to interrupt, sir. Captain Dawson is asking for you.”

Angel passed a hand over his eyes and then nodded his acknowledgment. “Thank you, Ensign.” His voice sounded rough. “I’ll be right there.”

“Yessir.” The man touched his fingers to his brow. “Ma’am.” Then he was gone.

Sedona listened to the ensign’s footsteps fade as he sprinted toward the hangar doors, and then pressed her hands against her cheeks, appalled. She had come so close to kissing Angel, right in the middle of the hangar. Worse, they’d almost had a witness. So much for maintaining a professional distance.

“Sedona.”

She drew in a shaky breath and looked at Angel. The amusement and regret in his eyes nearly undid her. “Don’t you dare apologize,” she warned, hating the way her voice wobbled. “Just don’t—don’t do it again.”

She brushed past him and walked quickly toward the exit. Angel reached her before she’d gone more than a half dozen steps. He captured her arm and swung her around.

“Angel, please,” she whispered. “It’s bad enough—”

“Are you hurt?”

Before she could protest, he uncinched the clip that kept her hair up, causing the unruly mass to tumble around her shoulders. He drew her forward and gently worked his fingers through the loose waves, probing her scalp where she’d struck it. The sensation was cathartic.

“Mmm.” The soothing pressure of his fingers was delicious, making her want to melt against him. Just as quickly, she regained her senses and shoved his hands away, horrified. “Stop that. What are you doing?”

“You banged your head pretty hard back there. Are you sure you didn’t hurt yourself?”

“Quite sure. I’ve been told I have a very hard head.” She snatched the clip from his hands and turned away from him. It seemed when Angel was near, the only thing she could think about was him. She couldn’t remember feeling like this about any other guy. Ever. He overwhelmed her, made her realize again just how completely out of her league she was.

Angel fell into step beside her as they walked through the hangar. He watched as she scooped her hair up and coiled it neatly before clamping it securely to the back of her head.

“Why do you wear it like that?” he asked. “I prefer your hair down.”

“It’s easier like this. Besides, I can’t wear it down if I’m working near moving parts.” She thought of Petty Officer Heilmuller and her short crop of spiky blond hair. The technician managed to ooze sex appeal despite her olive-drab coverall and steel-toed boots. “Maybe one of these days I’ll just get it all cut off and be done with it.”

“That would be a shame,
mina,
considering how much I enjoy your hair spilled across my pillow.” He gave her a roguish grin.

Sedona’s stomach flipped and a peculiar heaviness descended into her pelvic region. She closed her eyes briefly against the images his words conjured. She needed to put some space between herself and Angel before she did something completely unacceptable in a military-aircraft hangar. She pictured Captain Dawson’s reaction if he came across her clinging to Angel’s neck with her legs wrapped around his waist and her tongue down his throat. She almost smiled. Nope, definitely not the way to get on the captain’s good side.

She stepped outside into the brilliant sunshine of a cloudless day. Overhead, two low-altitude Coyotes rocketed through the skies in formation, and Sedona’s entire body vibrated to the thunderous roar of their engines. Shielding her eyes, she watched them streak across the heavens until they disappeared on the horizon.

“Looks like they’ve already begun to conduct test flights,” she commented. Lowering her hand, she arched an amused brow at Angel. “You’re late, flyboy.”

He grinned ruefully. “Actually, I was down on the flight line at 0500 hours.” Seeing her look of dismay, he shrugged. “Must be the time difference. I couldn’t sleep. I told the flight captain I’d report in later this morning, after the brief.”

Sedona stared at him. “You could already be in the air, and yet you chose to come to this? Why?”

He gave her a quick smile. “Why else? Because you’re here.”

Without waiting for her response, he strode across the tarmac toward the assembled inspection teams, leaving Sedona to gape after him. He had voluntarily subjected himself to the painfully boring brief in order to see her? She blinked, then smiled. Oh, yeah. He’d definitely gone above and beyond the call of duty. She conjured up delicious images of just how she would reward him for his sacrifice.

10

“H
EY
, S
TEWART
! Y
OU
staying here all night, or what?”

Sedona hunched her shoulders and ignored Ken Larson. She couldn’t leave the engine test cell, located in a concrete building next to the Coyote hangar, until she’d assured herself the tests they’d run that day were accurate.

“You know, it’s okay to get out and party at least a little while you’re here.” His voice was friendly. Persuasive.

With a deliberate, long-suffering sigh, she swiveled in her chair to face him as he leaned against the doorjamb of the dimly lit calibration room. “Not all of us are here to screw around, Ken.”
Well, at least not much.
“Some of us actually take our jobs seriously.”

So seriously, she hadn’t gotten back to her hotel room before ten o’clock for the past three nights, and hadn’t seen Angel since that first morning at the briefing.

Undeterred, Ken glanced at his watch. “Yeah, well, it’s almost eight o’clock, and all work and no play makes you a very dull girl.” He grinned at her. “Why don’t you go back to your room, get out of that jumpsuit and let me buy you a drink downstairs.”

Sedona arched a brow at him. Was it possible he was hitting on her? She coughed indelicately and turned her back on him to resume her study of the test results. “What’s wrong, Ken? Striking out with the babes at the hotel bar? Afraid if you don’t get somebody to sleep with you, you’ll miss out on the next big promotion?”

She didn’t hear him enter the room, didn’t know he was close until suddenly, his face was next to hers as he leaned over her shoulder and spoke softly into her ear.

“Actually, Sedona, I was hoping we could come to some kind of…arrangement. After all, you said you wanted to join the club.” She stiffened when he took a loose tendril of her hair in his hand and rubbed it slowly between his finger and thumb. His voice was low and silky. “I was thinking we could kill two birds with one stone. We could have a great time together, you know. We could get naked, take a few photos and maybe both get promoted.”

As Sedona sat rigid with surprise, he turned his face fractionally and inhaled. “Mmm, you smell good. I wonder if you taste as sweet.” His face moved toward hers.

She shot to her feet so fast the chair skittered out from beneath her and Ken took a hasty step back to avoid hitting his chin on her shoulder. Her heart slammed in her chest and her blood pulsed in her ears.

They stared at each other for a long moment until finally, Ken laughed softly and stepped back. “Think about it, Sedona. I haven’t had any complaints about my performance, and I wouldn’t expect our relationship to continue once we get back to the office.” He grinned as he looked her over. “But we sure could have a hell of a time while we’re here.”

“Somehow,” she finally managed to say, “I don’t think so. I—I’ve changed my mind about the whole thing. But thanks for the offer.”

He backed away slowly, his grin never wavering. “Well, okay, if that’s how you feel about it. But if you change your mind, you just let me know.”

“I’ll do that.”
When hell freezes over.

She heard him whistling as he made his way down the narrow flight of stairs and out the building. She rubbed a trembling hand across her eyes, and reminded herself that if Ken thought she was up for a little casual sex, she had no one to blame but herself. She’d all but begged the Membership to let her prove she, too, could have meaningless sex with a stranger. He probably thought he was doing her a favor by offering himself up as stud. Just thinking about sex with Ken Larson made her shudder. How was she going to work with the guy for the next week and a half?

They were only into their third day, but it felt more like three weeks. Each day, the routine was the same. Under Sedona’s watchful eye, a team of navy technicians pulled the engines from each of the hangared aircraft and brought them into four separate test cells. With four engineers on her team, including herself and Ken Larson, they each tested one engine per day.

Sedona examined the records for each engine prior to the engine teardown. During the disassembly, the team recorded torque values and then inspected each component for damage, wear or erosion. The engine components were also boroscoped for cracking.

Sedona spent the entire day behind a window of tempered glass, seated at a control panel that glowed with a multitude of lights, levers and illuminated displays, while she conducted calibration and performance testing on her engine.

While the work wasn’t physically demanding, it was mentally exhausting. Worse, the room reeked of the jet fuel they’d guzzled their way through during the tests. Normally, she didn’t mind the smell, but today it made her feel queasy.

She’d run several of the tests more than once, had painstakingly compared her findings to the model specifications and, to her relief, everything she’d tested thus far had come up negative. Long after the other engineers and the team of navy technicians had packed away their tools and returned to their hotel or billets, Sedona remained in the calibration room to pore over the test results for those engines she hadn’t personally tested.

She didn’t want to miss anything vital. There was no way she’d let Angel fly with a compromised engine. She needed to assure herself they were in perfect condition before she allowed them to be reinstalled on the jets.

If she’d known Ken Larson was going to come back down to check on her, she’d have left long ago. She hated to admit it, but the calibration lab made her nervous after hours. It was dark and isolated, and eerily quiet without the residual noise that came with running the engines.

She tore the sheet of paper from the readout machine and stared blindly at the numbers recorded there. A dark thought occurred to her. Did Ken make the offer out of sympathy because he didn’t think she could attract a guy on her own? She might not have a body like Petty Officer Heilmuller, but Angel hadn’t had any complaints.

Of course, Angel hadn’t sought her out since that first morning in the Coyote hangar, either. She didn’t think he was avoiding her, but she couldn’t help feeling a little bit hurt that he hadn’t made an effort to see her again. It didn’t help telling herself he was as busy as she was. In addition to conducting the flight tests, the pilots spent hours briefing the rear admiral and his staff on their findings at the end of each day. Combined with her own long days, she’d be lucky if they managed to connect even one more time during the course of their stay.

The thought was completely depressing.

What if it was true? What if the one night she’d had with Angel was all she was ever going to have? She’d thought it would be enough. Hell, less than a week ago she’d have given her left arm for just one night with him.

Crumpling the paper in her hands, she realized it wasn’t enough. She wanted more. Wanted to hear his seductive voice enticing her to do things she’d only ever dreamed about. She wanted to see his face tauten with desire, see the muscles tighten in his jaw, neck and shoulders as he fought to retain control.

She hadn’t stopped thinking about him since that night. She tried not to wonder why he hadn’t contacted her. Because she was weak, she avoided going back to her room, worried that she might throw open the connecting doors and fling herself at him. Only pride kept her from completely humiliating herself.

However, it hadn’t prevented her from pressing her ear to the door each night for some sign of activity. Some indication that he was there, yet apparently not interested enough to turn the knob and invite her in. In his defense, his room had been completely silent each night. It seemed no matter what time she returned, he returned later. It was clear that unless she took some drastic action, the likelihood of engaging Angel in another night of bliss was remote, at best.

Throwing the crumpled paper into the wastebasket, she leaned over the test console to shut the power down. She wasn’t going to accomplish much more tonight, anyway. Tomorrow, the technicians would reinstall the engines they’d tested today and roll the aircraft back onto the flight line. Then they would bring four more aircraft in, and the process would start all over again. She’d have at least a few hours in the morning to rerun the printouts. She didn’t need to stay in the calibration room any longer.

She drew the door closed behind her and locked it, before making her way down the stairwell. Outside, the night was dark and cool. A partial moon helped to illuminate the walkway that led toward the parking lot. The stars over the desert were breathtaking, and Sedona stood for a moment, admiring them.

She was turning toward the parking lot when she noticed a movement beneath one of the jets in the flight line. Was that an animal of some kind? She’d heard that wild coyotes sometimes wandered onto the base, and she sincerely hoped this wasn’t one of them. How far away was it? A hundred yards? If the animal decided it wanted to eat her, could she outrun it?

She was debating whether to slip back into the building or make a dash for her car, when the figure shifted. As she watched, it unfolded and stretched upright, and she sagged with relief when she realized it was a man.

Who was he, and why was he out on the flight line at this time of night? Even as it occurred to her that the man might not be authorized to be there, he turned and began walking toward her. A frisson of fear feathered its way along her neck. Just as she was debating whether or not to run, she recognized the man as Lieutenant Palmer, the maintenance officer in charge of the Coyotes.

“Miss Stewart?” There was no mistaking the surprise in his voice.

Sedona expelled a shaky laugh of relief. “Oh, my God, you scared me. I thought at first you were a coyote. You know, the four-legged kind.”

He stepped closer, and Sedona could see he was wearing civilian clothing. It was strange to see him out of uniform.

“I’m sorry.” He smiled. “I didn’t mean to make you nervous.” He gestured toward the aircraft. “I was, uh, just doing my final check of the jets before calling it a night.” He peered at her. “What are you still doing here?”

“Oh, I was in the calibration room going over some results on the last engine we tested.” She laughed. “I won’t do that again. This place totally creeps me out after dark.”

“Can I walk you to your car?”

“Thanks, no. I’m fine, now that I know you’re not some wild animal or escaped lunatic.” She didn’t miss how his eyebrows shot up. “That was a joke.”

“Well, good night, then.”

“Bye.” Sedona made her way to the parking lot. Halfway down the walkway, she couldn’t resist peeking back over her shoulder, mildly disconcerted to see the lieutenant standing where she’d left him, watching her.

She was still thinking about him as she slid into her rental car and began the drive back to the hotel. Was it normal for a maintenance officer to perform checks on the aircraft so late at night? And if he was on duty, why was he out of uniform? She made a mental note to mention the incident to Angel when she saw him.

If
she saw him.

Since that first night with Angel, she’d kept her own side of the connecting doors unlocked and open. She didn’t even want to think about why Angel had left his door firmly closed. She hadn’t had the nerve to try to open it, and the whole thing was beginning to make her crazy. She needed advice, and she needed it now.

As she drove, she rummaged through her backpack and dug out her cell phone, biting her lip as she punched in her sister’s cell-phone number. She didn’t know if Ana was working tonight or not, but knew her shift wouldn’t start until later. Ana’s workday kicked into full gear about the same time Sedona’s ended.

“Sedona? Hey, this is unbelievable! I was just thinking about you. Really!”

Sedona couldn’t help but smile as she heard Ana’s voice. Always cheerful, always upbeat, Ana was the epitome of the free spirit. Sometimes Sedona envied her ability to do as she pleased, without regard for what anyone else thought.

“Hey, sis. I was thinking about you, too.”

“So what’s up? You never call unless there’s a problem.”

Was that true? Surely she’d called Ana just to tell her she missed her, or to ask how her life was going. But, try as she might, she couldn’t recall the last time she’d done that.

“No, everything is good. I mean, Mom is fine and Allison is fine. I just, um, had something I needed to ask you. You know—” she cringed inwardly “—a girl thing.”

There was a momentary, stunned silence. “Oh, my freaking God. You’ve met someone.”

Sedona laughed. “Yeah, something like that.”

“You’ve met a guy? Oh, Sedona, that’s great!”

Sedona laughed again, this time at the unabashed relief and sincere joy in Ana’s voice. “Yeah, it is pretty great. He’s…” She paused. “He’s the most amazing guy I’ve ever met and…Ana?”

“Yes?”

“He’s incredible in bed.”

There was a shrill squeal of delight. “You slept with him! Oh, my God! This is so unbelievable! Tell me everything!”

Sedona did, leaving nothing out, not even the striptease she’d performed for Angel, or the adult movie they’d watched for all of eight minutes before he’d rolled her beneath him. She told Ana everything she knew about him, including the fact she’d had a serious crush on the guy for over a year.

The only thing she didn’t tell Ana was her discovery of the secret club that promoted men based on their sexual activities. Nor could she bring herself to talk about Ken Larson and his repugnant offer to get them both promoted by engaging in an affair.

“Anyway,” she said, sighing, “I haven’t seen Angel since Wednesday morning, and I’m trying not to freak out about it, but what if he’s not interested anymore? What if it really was just a one-nighter?”

“Okay, listen,” soothed Ana, “this is what you do. Trust me in this, sweetie. There isn’t a guy out there who won’t roll over and beg at the sight of a beautiful woman, naked and primed, in his bed.”

“I am
not
beautiful,” Sedona protested with a self-conscious laugh. “You got the looks and I got the brains, remember?”