Inside Bet: Vegas Top Guns, Book 2 (25 page)

She curled her hands back around his thighs. “Doesn’t matter. I’m not risking it.”

“Then why did you want to see it at all?”

“So I could picture you in it.” Her voice had dropped to a husky murmur. The look she slanted him was pure sex. “When I play with myself, alone in my bed.”

He dropped his forehead to her nape. Her soft hair brushed his cheek. The way she intentionally turned him inside out was nothing short of evil. “We’re getting out of here. Now.”

“Lead the way, flyboy.”

He wanted nothing more than to speed right out of there. But he had to grab a flight manual from the office he shared with Leah. He needed to brush up on two sections before morning. Check his stats against the original schematics. Bad data meant bad results, and he wasn’t going to be responsible for either.

He left Heather in the main entrance to the squadron’s headquarters building.

“I’ll be right back,” he said, brushing a kiss over her delicate temple.

“Don’t be too long.”

He wasn’t. In and out in a second, with the paper printout of the manual in one hand. Heather had already found the corkboard plastered over with regulations, safety office posters and a few PowerPoint printouts. The one she focused on was printed on lemon-yellow paper with tacky clip art on every corner.

“What’s this?” she asked.

Jon scratched the top of his head. His trim was getting fuzzy. He’d need to have it shaved soon. “The Nellis-Creech Air Force Ball. It’s an annual event.”

“Are you going?”

“Yeah. I have to make an appearance. One of the duties of being an officer: putting up with protocol.”

“You didn’t mention it.”

“I didn’t think you’d be interested. It’s a lot of speeches, overcooked chicken and a DJ who’s usually half in the bag by the time he starts the music. Last year we had a ventriloquist. Pure joy.”

She stepped near enough that the peach silk of her blouse brushed his olive drab flight suit—an arousing contrast. Looking up at him, she plumped her mouth into a pout. It was obviously feigned but no less effective.

“I’ve never been to a ball.”

“I didn’t know that.” Really, he was enjoying watching her squirm. It was petty as hell, and he particularly liked it after seeing her smile at Donaghue.

She trailed a finger down the front placket of his uniform. “Might be interesting. Just for a lark. Is that Captain Donaghue going to be there?”

Fucking hell, no. Just
no.

Blood froze in Jon’s veins. He locked down his expression. A sharp bite of anger clawed at his neck. The thought of Heather even talking to that asshole, much less dancing with him or sharing a drink, pissed him off beyond belief.

“Hey,” Heather said, her voice soft. She curled a hand around the nape of his neck, rubbing her thumb over the granite muscle in his jaw. “It was a joke. A bad one.”

He forced a smile. That she wrapped her arms around his middle slid tension out through his boots. “Donaghue and I have been having a problem lately. He’s…dangerous. In the sky, I mean.”

“Then I’m sorry I teased you about him.” Her lashes dropped, shielding her pale gaze. “I mean it.”

“It’s all right.” No one would miss the off-kilter tone of his voice. He took a breath as slowly as he could without making his anxiety ridiculously obvious. “Would you like to go with me? To the ball? It’s a formal event.”

“Does that mean I’d get to see you in your dress uniform?”

A laugh amped from his chest. He’d worn finely tailored suits almost every time he’d seen her, and she’d appreciated them. Avidly. But it was the prospect of his dress uniform that put a girly giggle in her voice.

“Of course.”

Stretching up on her toes, she brushed a kiss across his cheek. She slid her hand from his nape to his crown, her fingers spread wide. “Then I’d love to go.”

Chapter Twenty-Nine

“Heather, you have to let me see,” Jenn called through the dressing-room door. “I’m not here
just
to feed the kids mall food and watch them play hide-and-seek in the clothes racks.”

Lips tightly pressed, Heather forced herself to look in the mirror. Simply a woman struggling into a formal gown. Nothing wrong there.

Then why did it take such an effort?

Oh, but she knew the answer. Her shudder had nothing to do with the A/C blasting down from a ceiling vent. The last time she’d gone shopping for formalwear had been with her mom. They’d found just the right dress—sexy enough for Heather’s seventeen-year-old taste and classic enough for her mother. The perfect gown for the prom.

The prom she hadn’t attended.

Why had she niggled Jon about going to the ball? They could’ve booked a Bellagio suite without forcing the night to mean something. Of late,
everything
they did had taken on that added weight.

With a huff she opened the dressing-room door. “I need help with the laces.”

Jenn sat on the waiting-room bench amid a stack of packages, bags and two kids’ backpacks. They’d picked Ethan and Polly up from preschool before heading out to the mall—the only way Jenn could swing a quick shopping trip. Heather didn’t care. She needed a second opinion. She no longer trusted her own.

“Well, I can already tell the color’s gorgeous.” Nimbly, Jenn stepped over the clutter and tied up the silken cords that cinched the bodice. “All set. Give me a spin.”

Heather stepped away and turned. She swung the full skirt into place.

“Oh, wow. Like, a damn sort of wow.”

“You don’t think it’s too poofy?”

Jenn shook her head. “Just the right amount of poof. He could feel you up at the table and no one would know.”

A blush singed Heather’s cheeks—not because she wouldn’t consider such a thing, but because it had been her first idea upon spotting the dress. “Be serious,” she managed.

“I am. You look fantastic.”

Heather found her reflection in the waiting-room mirror. The corseted bodice hugged her rib cage, and the heart-shaped neckline showed off just enough skin. Blood-red taffeta flared out from her waist, with a hint of crinoline underneath to give it shape. She looked like a grown-up vixen version of a fairy princess.

“I’m thinking finger waves,” she said.

“Oh, yeah. Very peekaboo glam.” Jenn had opened Ethan’s Clone Wars lunch bag and was munching leftover Goldfish, but her eyes remained on Heather. “I never knew you had a tattoo. It’s very cool.”

A jolt of panic was quickly followed by disappointment. The cut of the gown’s back revealed her tattoo, where that flowering vine peeked out from the taffeta and curled over her shoulder blade. Only about four inches showed, but it was four inches more than she ever displayed in public.

Damn. And the dress had been so
right
.

“Maybe I’ll try on another,” Heather said.

Jenn shoved the empty sandwich baggie into a jacket pocket. “Don’t you dare. A, that one’s perfect. B, the kids are about to strip a mannequin. Get dressed and I’ll treat you to the untold luxury of Chuck E. Cheese.”

“Jenn, I can’t—”

The confusion on Jenn’s face asked a plain question.
Why not?

“Forget it. I’ll go get changed.”

“Be quick.” Jenn’s head whipped toward the waiting-room’s doorway. “Ethan Douglas Kimble!”

Knees shaking, Heather left her friend to avert catastrophe and locked the dressing-room door. She eyed the tattoo one more time. She didn’t regret it—far from it. But she had always intended it to be private.

Jon would probably make it into a big deal, and why shouldn’t he? She had. She’d teased him with it and made the eventual reveal into a sexual game. The symbols and the sentiments she’d chosen for herself were altered now. Memories of his fingers and lips tracing that lone vine up her body would be with her as long as the tattoo.

He was changing her. Changing them.

She pulled the silk laces until Jenn’s bow unraveled. The bodice eased away from her torso. As she climbed back into her jeans and twin set, Heather made a decision. Jon could sexualize the hell out of her tattoo.
Go right ahead, flyboy.
It was far easier to deal with his desire than the way he’d been so possessive at the airbase.

“Heather, come on!”

She left the other dresses on a rack and hurried to make her purchase—before she changed her mind.

Jon called when he was five minutes from her house.

Almost unbearably nervous, Heather smoothed a hand down the waves in her hair.

Stop it.

She grabbed her beaded black silk clutch then wiggled her toes into patent high heels that barely poked out from beneath the full skirt. The throaty purr of Jon’s Aston sent a hot shiver down to her belly. The only sexier sound was when he whispered in French.

After locking the front door, she turned. And stopped.

Captain Jonathan Carlisle stood at near-attention beside his outrageous sports car. His gaze devoured her as Heather absorbed every detail of his formal uniform. A fitted blue jacket like that of a tuxedo layered over a white dress shirt, accented by a satin bow tie and cummerbund in matching Air Force blue. Everywhere gleamed silver accents: button, cufflinks, the epaulets perched on his shoulders, and the braid circling his sleeve cuffs.

Unfamiliar medals and ribbons adorned the left breast of his jacket, but the pilots’ wings were unmistakable.

Walking down the two porch steps required steady patience. Balance and grace had deserted her. His eyes still intense, his expression taut, he met her at the passenger door. He placed a lingering kiss on her bare shoulder. “
Tu es parfait
,” he whispered. “Perfection, Heather love.”

She sucked in a slow breath. The bodice hugged her breasts, her rib cage, her waist, denying the air she needed. “You’re not so bad yourself, Captain. Very snappy.”

Jon lifted his head. He’d been to the barber, his dark hair buzzed with expert precision. “My Uncle Sam told me what to wear. It’s mess dress, for black-tie functions.”

“What does this one mean?” she asked, touching one of the medals pinned to his jacket.

“Iraqi Campaign.”

“And this one?”

“Are you going to ask about all of them?”

She nodded, and he pointed to several in turn. “Afghanistan, Air Medal, Distinguished Flying Cross.”

Soft pride filled Heather’s chest, like trying to breathe past wads of warm cotton. More than that, the reality of his dangerous life squeezed down on her shoulders. Why was she getting into his car? Welcoming him into her body, time and again? He wasn’t calm or safe or stable. Nothing about Jon Carlisle was what she’d imagined for a partner.

But there they were, going to a ball.

“So you’re not just a pretty face, flyboy?”

“Pretty? I was hoping for dashing.” He arched a brow then gestured to her waiting chariot. “Shall we?”

Heather made the trip to the Bellagio in a daze. As he’d been in the habit of doing lately, Jon put on music—this time “Mr. Brightside” by The Killers. She thought he did it on purpose, to fill the air with sound. They never said much in the car. Nerves and sex and tension got the better of them.

After handing his black beast over to the valet, Jon extended his arm. All so formal. All so cleanly practiced. But underneath the uniform she knew his body, his passions. That intimacy left her dizzy and in need of solid footing.

“You won’t be looking so wonder-struck when speech number eight gets rolling,” he said.

“By then I’ll be playing with myself under the table.”

His startled intake of breath lit a fire at the apex of her thighs. “You’re kidding, right?”

“Kidding. Sure.”

With his hand locked around her wrist, Jon tugged her beyond the flow of foot traffic. “I’m not messing around here, Heather. This is my job.”

She shouldn’t have been surprised by his intensity. Likely she’d have had the same reaction if he proposed sex play among her colleagues. But something had switched over. This seriousness was not why she’d first climbed into his DBS. Deflecting blunt comments about her body was far easier than reconciling the startling, intense pride so plainly written on his youthful features.

She wanted the walls back. The competition.

“Make it worth my while,” she said. “I don’t know how long I’ll be able to hold out with you dressed this way.”

He held her arms out to each side, with the backs of her wrists flush with the wall. “What’s it going to take to keep your hands out from between those gorgeous thighs, Ms. Morris?”

“A promise for tonight. Anything I want. Sexually.”

“Again?”

“I’m a greedy girl.”

“No argument here.”

“Do we have a deal, flyboy?”

“You drive a hard bargain, Ms. Morris.”

“Not true. You just want to have it all—a perfectly respectable evening
and
a guaranteed good time.” She peeked up at him. “So, besides protecting your job, do you have any conditions?”

“You’ve already done your damnedest to unhinge me. It’s your turn to be undone, but you choose the method.”

“Hmmm. Agreed. Anything else?”

“Other than condoms and respecting the safe word? None.”

She’d said the same to him while standing at the roulette table, weeks ago. Smiling, she whispered, “Let me think about it.”

“Hey, Tin Tin. There you are.”

Jon surreptitiously released her hands. Smoothly he turned her away from the wall to greet a tall, handsome officer and his date. The man was G.I. Joe personified, all sturdy good looks, but he wore the mess uniform with surprising grace.

“Fang,” Jon said, “I’m gonna bitch-slap you for wearing that. I told you I had dibs.”

Blue-blood suave layered every move as he shook hands with the officer and kissed the woman on the cheek. Heather couldn’t help but be impressed by his slick recovery.

“Heather, this is my boss, Major Ryan Haverty. His lovely lady is Cass Whitman, who was just promoted at the Hungerford Art Gallery. How was Italy?”

“Gorgeous. Wonderful.” The woman was almost petite, with silky red hair and a cutely turned-up nose. She wore a form-fitting black crepe dress that flared playfully just above her ankles. “But you probably already knew that.”